Trouble With Harry Read Online Free PDF Page A

your neighbors think?”
    “Harry, this is the new millennium. No one cares what the neighbors think. Half the time, you don’t even know who your neighbors are.” Although her landlady, the busybody and direct link to Edie’s father, would probably have a cow if she found out Edie was shacking up with a man. Maybe she could sneak him in. “Come on, it’s getting dark.” What would the night guard do if he found Harry in here with her? Shoot him? She didn’t want to wait around to find out. They might accuse him of stealing. “Oh, shoot! The stone!” She ducked around him and rushed into the storage room. When she grabbed the apron, she could tell it was empty. “Crap, I could’ve sworn I left it wrapped in the apron.”
    “I have it,” Harry said from behind her.
    She walked out of the room and held out her hand. “Let me have the stone. We can’t take items that belong to the museum.”
    “Look, Edie.” He patted the bulge in his pocket. “It’s not safe to leave it here. I’m not sure what effect it’ll have on anyone else who touches it. Look what happened to me.”
    “Then put it back in the sarcophagus.” Her hands twisted together as she glared at Harry. He didn’t look like he was going to let go of the stone. She’d never forgive herself if she gave this man refuge only for him to steal something from her place of employment. “I can’t take items home that belong to the museum.”
    “We can’t leave it here.” Harry stepped closer, his bare chest only inches from Edie’s nose. “What if someone finds it? They could turn to smoke too. I know it has something to do with why I’m here. The stone could also be the key to finding my assistant Will. We have to keep it with us.”
    Years of being responsible and ethical warred with her common sense. His argument was extremely persuasive. But Edie didn’t like removing artifacts from the museum. “It doesn’t feel right.”
    “Do you think I feel right smoking in and out of a bottle?” He grabbed her hands. “This stone holds the key to what happened to me and to Will. If someone else gets hold of it, I’ll never find my friend or figure a way out of this strange state.”
    His warmth chased away the chill in Edie’s fingers, spreading fire up her arms and down to her belly. With that one touch, Edie, the repressed museum worker who’d been living in her imagination, fought and won the internal war about breaking the rules. With a deep breath, she stuffed all her upbringing and all her father’s lectures about playing it safe into the back of her mind. But she couldn’t completely shake the icky feeling filling her stomach like a heavy wad of guilt. “Very well. Until we figure out what’s going on. But don’t try anything funny. I’m keeping an eye on you…and the stone.”
    “Fair enough. I’m completely at your mercy. Let’s go.” He limped a couple steps and grimaced. “These boots are about two sizes too small.”
    Edie grabbed the blue-green bottle from the shelf, and pulled her purse from a nearby locker, stuffing the bottle into its voluminous depths. “Maybe I’d better hold on to this. You seem to have some connection to it.” And, if she was going to walk out of the museum with one pilfered item, she might as well take two. The numbers wouldn’t get her fired, the act of stealing would.
    As they neared the exit, she realized something else. “You know a lot has changed in eighty years. You’re in for some major surprises.”
    “Honey, I don’t think I could be any more shocked than I was as a Lilliputian at the bottom of that bottle.”
    She snorted softly. “You haven’t been on the New York subway.”
    “As a matter of fact, I have.”
    “Not this one.” She smiled. “It’s changed since 1924.”
    Thirty minutes later, outside Edie’s apartment in Brooklyn, Harry shoved a shaky hand through his already mussed hair. “You don’t do that trip everyday, do you?” With eyes still wide and kind