The Last Little Blue Envelope Read Online Free PDF

lot of money from the last sale. But what mattered to you more, doing the things in the letters, or getting money?”
    It was an odd question, but not one that Ginny minded answering.
    “Doing the things in the letters,” she replied. “The money was nice, but it didn’t matter.”
    “So the experience was the valuable part? If you had a choice between the experience and the money, you’d choose the experience?”
    Ginny nodded. Oliver’s gaze had drifted to a spot just over her shoulder. The questions felt a bit odd. The letters were so personal. Only a few people knew about them in detail. Here she was, talking about them with a total stranger—albeit a total stranger who had brought them back to her. It was fair enough. If she had found these letters, she would be curious too.
    “I guess? Yes. I . . . yeah. I would.”
    Oliver nodded and leaned in, putting his forearms on the table and getting closer to Ginny.
    “There’s something in the last letter—well, there are several things in the last letter—but the most important thing is that there’s another work of art. It’s in three pieces. They’re all in different locations out in the world, so that they can get exposed to different elements. It’s based on a piece done by Mari Adams. You know Mari Adams, right?”
    Ginny definitely knew Mari Adams. She was a famous artist, much loved by Aunt Peg. Aunt Peg had met and befriended her, and sent Ginny up to Edinburgh to meet her. Once you saw Mari, you never forgot her mane of orange-red hair or the tattoos on her feet that bore the names of her pet foxes, or her tattooed face.
    He reached into his pocket and set a card down on the table—a familiar dove gray card. It read: CECIL GAGE-RATHBONE, JERRLYN AND WISE, ART AUCTIONS. This was also a name Ginny knew well.
    “This is the man who handled the sale,” he said. It wasn’t a question. She couldn’t figure out why, but for some reason, this comment put her on edge.
    “Right,” she said slowly. “He did.”
    Oliver looked at her intently.
    “A finder’s fee doesn’t seem out of line,” he said. “I suggest that we split the proceeds from the final piece of art. I made us an appointment. We’re due in forty-five minutes.”
    Ginny simply didn’t know how to process this. She grabbed for her braids, but, of course, they were gone. So she laughed—a weird, gurgling laugh. “You’re kidding.”
    “We should go.” Oliver plucked up the card and put it back in his pocket.
    “You seriously can’t be . . . serious.”
    “I’m completely serious. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t know about this at all. In return, I will help you collect the art. Besides, you told me you don’t care about the money. So what’s the problem?”
    “What if I said no?” she asked.
    “Then I go home,” he said.
    “And the letter?”
    “Remains lost. Your choice.”
    “I need to think about this,” she said, hooking her ankles around the legs of the chair to support herself. “Can we talk about . . .”
    “Look,” he cut in, “by working together, we can both get what we want. But I assure you, I will leave in a minute, and you won’t see me again. You’ll never see the letter, and you’ll never know what was out there. This is your time to decide. Right now.”
    He pushed back his chair and stood, waiting. From her seated position, he looked ridiculously tall, and aside from a little twitch above his left eye, utterly composed and serious. Ginny looked around at the many people in the coffee shop, all busy with their shopping bags and their strollers and their phones and computers. She wanted to scream out, to tell them all what was going on, tell them the whole story. They would be outraged. They would cluster around him and shake him down for the letter. He would be thrown out into the street, probably without his coat, and forced to run, coffee mugs flying after him and shattering at his heels. But that is not the way the world works. She had