One Book In The Grave

the fore-edge paintings. A tear or a replaced page would present a real challenge, so I was happy not to have to face that possibility.

After three days of working on the Wilkie Collins collection, I’d finished only two books and I needed a break.

It seemed that all of us were stalled in finding further information about Angelica and Solomon. Derek’s office was in turmoil, so his time spent investigating weapons sales to the survivalists had taken a backseat.

I was happy I had my own work to do, because I would have gone stir crazy otherwise. Max seemed a little closer to the brink, although he managed to keep busy, as well.

Despite Derek’s distractions, he’d taken the time to arrange for one of his assistants to pick up my car from the police, run it through the car wash, and fill it with gas, then deliver it to my home. I was thrilled to have my car back, even though I wasn’t about to leave the house while there was a killer on the loose.

Monday morning, after Derek left for a meeting with clients, I took a break from the Wilkie Collins books and turned my attention to Beauty and the Beast. I’d received permission from Max to restore the book, even though he and Emily had originally insisted they wanted it left in its shabby condition. I gave him all sorts of reasons why it should be cleaned and rebound, but the reason that swayed him most was that the book had spent three years in the hands of someone who had shown ill will toward Max and Emily. Those bad vibes needed to be exorcised, and I was just the bookbinder to wipe them clean.

I didn’t bring up the fact that the book had once belonged to me and part of me felt that it was back where it belonged. I certainly planned to turn it over to Emily and Max if they got back together again, but if the book really was mine, I would want to give it a shiny new cover. So that’s what I was going to do.

That had been Ian’s wish, too. Even if Emily and Max did reunite, I was hoping I could convince them to donate the book to the Covington after all.

In one of my map drawers where I kept sheets of leather, I found a beautiful piece of soft morocco in a spectacular shade of vermilion. I’d been saving it for the perfect project, and this was it. The color reminded me of the crimson paper Max had created from the juice and pulp of his homegrown beets.

I shuffled through the bags from Max’s house and found the red paper among the many sheets I’d collected from his basement.

When I held up the paper next to the piece of leather to compare the colors, I was thrilled. The two shades complemented each other perfectly. I decided at that moment that I would build a storage box for Beauty and use Max’s thick crimson sheets of paper for the lining.

The style of box I had in mind was commonly known as a clamshell because of its construction. A hinge on one side allowed it to spread open completely and reveal its contents, somewhat like the action of a clamshell. Most jewelry boxes opened this way, and many rare books were housed in similar style.

Max, meanwhile, had discovered that one of the doors in my living room led upstairs to my small, private rooftop patio, and he had taken over the space. Moving the patio table and chairs around, he set up a makeshift papermaking studio in the southeast corner, where the walls blocked the worst of San Francisco’s winds.

He laid out his tools and supplies, then went around my house, pruning the plants and small trees I had in pots inside and out on the patio. He gathered quite a selection of twigs and leaves and petals that he would use to work into the sheets of paper he would make. I loaned him a week’s worth of newspapers for turning into pulp, as well as my hair dryer, to speed up the drying process, and he was good to go.

I spent the afternoon in my workroom, studying the endpapers of Beauty and the Beast. They were worth saving. There was a fanciful rendering of a magical forest in shades of green and brown and gold that would work beautifully against the vermilion leather. The details of the forest were charming. Cheerful flowers lined a winding path that led deeper into the woods. Small forest creatures flitted among the trees. The picture was faded but still engaging, so I was extra careful to make a clean, razor-sharp cut along the inner hinge. I would splice the two sides together later and the little work of art would look as good as new.

It always took me a while to get started when I was taking apart a faded, broken book. The first cut was the most difficult. I know it sounds silly, but I felt as though I was cutting open an old friend, and I wanted to make sure that initial slice of the knife was exact and effective. I was always relieved to get past that moment.

I picked up my scalpel and used it to pick at the blobs of glue along the front inside cover. It was a mess and so thick that I wondered if some child had poured glue over the edges and their parent had tried to wipe it up to little avail. Stranger things had happened to books.

My mind wandered to thoughts of Max working upstairs. I hoped he was as blissful at pulping and mashing newspapers up there as I was with ripping apart an old book down here. I pictured the two of us, happy as dancing toadstools, working away in our own private worlds all day long.

Toadstools? I shook my head in bemusement. I’d been staring at that magic forest way too long. I blinked to clear my vision and glanced over at the clock on my desk. It was almost five o’clock. I’d been working for four hours straight.

“And didn’t make it past the endpapers.” Oh, well. I covered my tools and the book with a soft white cloth, slid down off my high stool, and stretched for a minute. Then I flicked off the bright ceiling light over my worktable and headed for the kitchen.

Max came walking out of his bedroom minutes later.

I stared, stunned by the change in him. “You shaved your beard off.”

“I did. I felt like I was shedding an old skin.”

“I love it,” I said, smiling up at him. “You look years younger and very handsome.”

“Shucks. I bet you say that to all the guys.”

I laughed. “Are you ready for a glass of wine?”

“Sure. I’ll open the bottle.”

I pulled three wineglasses down from the shelf just as the phone rang. I answered it, listened and talked for a moment, then hung up. “Derek will be home in fifteen minutes.”

While we waited for Derek to show up, we sipped our wine, a rich, dry Rhone that I’d found on sale at the market and bought a case of last month. And I took the opportunity to beg Max to help me hone my cooking skills.

“I only know a few dishes,” he said.

“But you cook effortlessly. There’s no anxiety or kerfuffles in your kitchen. That’s the part I’d like to learn.”

“Kerfuffles? I’ve never baked those before.”

“Ha-ha. Are you going to give me some pointers or not?”

He grudgingly agreed. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“You really are a beast,” I said, teasing him.

“About time you recognized my true nature,” he said, and opened up my refrigerator to stare at the contents.

“I recognized it years ago, Beast.”

“Yeah, I guess you did,” he said, and tweaked my cheek. “Let’s see what you’ve got in the cupboard.”

We made a quickie version of what he called his world-famous chicken Parmigiana recipe from the six ingredients I actually had on hand: frozen chicken breasts, a jar of pasta sauce, bread crumbs, one egg, Parmesan cheese, and linguini. It would’ve helped if I had mozzarella cheese, too, but we worked around that. Because, really, who kept mozzarella on hand, just in case?

Max pointed out that normally, he would have made the sauce from scratch with fresh tomatoes, onions, and garlic grown in his garden. He would have added heavy cream, too, because that’s how he rolled. The consensus was that our quick-and-dirty version might not have been world famous, but it was pretty darn delicious.

The effortless part of cooking was something I still needed to work on. But watching Max, I could see his cooking techniques and his movements around the kitchen had everything to do with enjoying the journey and little to do with the results. He didn’t get hung up if every tiny detail wasn’t perfection. He just had a good time. To my surprise, I realized that this was the same philosophy I used with my bookbinding, and vowed that tomorrow night I would prepare dinner effortlessly.

Later that night, Gabriel called and I put him on speakerphone. Clyde sat on my lap during the conversation.

“I swung by Angelica’s place again,” Gabriel said. “Everything was neat and clean, same as last time, except