THE MORETTI OBSESSION

Chapter 1:The Girl Who Read Lies

Old books lied more elegantly than people.

They did not raise their voices or look away when questioned. They simply waited beneath dust and cracked leather, trusting that age would make them believable.

Sofia Rossi had learned not to trust them.

She stood behind the long walnut counter of Rossi Antiquarian Books, holding a manuscript that claimed to have survived six centuries. Its brown leather cover was scarred and uneven. The corners had softened with use, and several pages carried pale stains shaped like fingerprints.

To anyone else, it looked ancient.

To Sofia, it looked nervous.

"It belonged to a monastery outside Siena," said the man waiting across from her. "Fifteenth century. Possibly earlier."

He wore a tailored navy coat and a silver watch that probably cost more than the entire shop earned in six months. His grey hair was combed carefully away from his face, and his hand remained possessively close to the manuscript.

Sofia turned another page without answering.

The shop was quiet except for the ticking clock above the door and the soft scrape of paper beneath her fingers. Outside, rain darkened the narrow Florentine street and turned the passing umbrellas into drifting shadows behind the front window.

The man cleared his throat.

"Your grandfather knows I have other buyers."

"My grandfather knows many things."

"I came to speak with him."

"He asked me to examine it."

His eyes moved over her face, lingering long enough to make his doubt obvious. Sofia was accustomed to that look. At twenty, she did not resemble the experts collectors expected to meet in an antiquarian bookstore. She wore no severe black suit, no white gloves, and no spectacles balanced on the end of her nose.

Her dark hair was twisted carelessly behind her head, held by a pencil she had forgotten was there. A faint line of blue ink crossed the side of her hand. Her cream sweater had a small repaired tear near the wrist.

The man looked toward the back of the store.

"Perhaps I should return when Signor Rossi is feeling better."

Sofia lifted the manuscript toward the window.

"You said this was made before 1500?"

"That is what I was told."

"And you believed it?"

His expression hardened.

She angled the page so that the weak afternoon light passed through it.

The paper appeared thick and uneven, precisely as old handmade paper should. Thin lines ran across its surface where the mould had pressed into the pulp. Near the bottom corner, a faint symbol emerged.

Sofia studied it.

A crown above a letter M.

She had already seen it ten minutes ago. Now she wanted him to see it too.

"This paper was made in northern Italy," she said. "But not during the fifteenth century."

The collector gave a short, impatient laugh.

"You can determine that from a watermark?"

"Not from the watermark alone."

She laid the book carefully on a square of dark cloth.