One Book In The Grave

for one little change.”

I jumped forward in my chair. “What?”

“Did you find a gun?” Max asked.

“No,” he said. “I found every piece of clothing from her closet tossed on the bed.”

“So she probably wasn’t there to meet a guy,” I said.

Derek’s eyebrow jutted up. “Bit difficult to carry on an affair when you can’t find the bed.”

“Were the clothes tossed neatly?” I asked.

“No,” Gabriel said. “It was a mess. Jumbled.”

“Like she was packing in a hurry?” I suggested.

Gabriel paused, then said, “Maybe. At first I was thinking she might’ve stopped by to pick up something different to wear. Except-”

“Except it’s a mess,” I cut in. “So why would she leave everything out in a pile on the bed? Especially when the rest of the place is so tidy?”

“Good question,” Gabriel said.

“You’ll watch for her next move,” Derek said.

Gabriel made a sound of disgust. “I would if I could find her. She’s disappeared.”

“Maybe she did pack for a trip,” I said.

“Maybe,” Gabriel said, but he sounded unconvinced. Changing the subject, he said, “I tracked down Bennie and Stefan. Or maybe I should call them Beavis and Butt-head. Whoever said they weren’t exactly geniuses was right on. Personally, I think they would sell their souls for a box of candy bars.”

“So they should be easy to manipulate,” Derek said.

I had already told them about the conversation with Bennie at the Art Institute store the other day, so now I agreed. “Bennie would be very easy to manipulate. Stefan seemed to be a little more on the ball. Still, Solomon is a master manipulator. He would have no problem with either of them.”

“That was my impression, too,” Gabriel said. “And I took your advice and snuck into one of his classes. Interesting guy.”

“For a psychopath,” Max muttered.

“Exactly,” Gabriel said.

“What else?” Derek asked.

Gabriel paused, then said, “Well, now that I’ve been out to the Hollow a few times, I’ll admit I misjudged the place. Maybe it was because of that name, the Hollow, but I assumed the houses would be shacks and hovels. They’re not. A bunch of them are really nice and some of them are huge.”

“The Ogunites believe in having lots of babies,” I explained.

“That must be why,” Gabriel said. “Anyway, back to Bennie and Stefan. Solomon might be getting those two knuckleheads to do some of his dirty work, but my professional opinion? Neither of them is clever or vicious enough to have killed Joe Taylor.”

Derek leaned one elbow on the table. “So that brings us back to Angelica or Solomon.”

“Right.”

“I’m betting on Solomon,” I said, and felt a chill as I recalled his piercing look that day I walked into his lecture hall. There was little doubt a man like that could manipulate a weaker person into committing murder.

Chapter 19

Tuesday morning, Derek left for his office as the sun was rising. I was awake, anyway, so I decided to get an early start on my work. I was popping chocolate kisses and measuring out boards to cut for the new cover of Beauty and the Beast when Ian called.

“I’m checking up on you and the book,” he said. “How’s my Beauty doing?”

“I’m putting a whole new cover on your Beauty,” I said with a smile as I reached for another chocolate kiss. “It’s going to look fantastic.”

“So you’re going ahead with the restoration? That’s great news.”

Yikes. I probably shouldn’t have told him I was restoring the book. If he asked if I’d gotten permission from Emily, I would have to lie. I couldn’t tell him about Max. Not yet, anyway. I hung my head in dismay at my big mouth. “Um, yeah. I decided it needed an overhaul, so I’ve made an executive decision to take care of it while I wait to hear from Emily.”

“So you haven’t talked to her yet?”

“Not yet.” I scrambled for an excuse. “I left a message. She’s, um, out of town right now, but I expect to hear from her soon.”

“You’re still going to ask her to donate it to the Covington?”

“Absolutely.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him I would ask Max about it. I was a terrible liar and almost as bad at withholding information. Of course, Ian was so focused on work at the Covington, I wondered if he’d even heard about Joe Taylor’s murder yet. Oh, he had to have heard by now. The book world was so small and garrulous, the news would have spread like crazy. But I wasn’t about to bring up the topic, and I certainly wasn’t going to admit that I was the one who found Joe’s body.

“Look,” he said, “shouldn’t there be a statute of limitations or something? You know, if you haven’t heard from her in thirty days, the book is mine?”

I smiled. “I’ll look into that.”

“I’m just encouraged that you’re restoring it. Maybe I’ll drop by to see it.”

I almost choked on my Hershey’s Kiss. “Um, I’m not sure I’ll be home, so you’d better call first.”

“I’ll take my chances. See you later, Brooklyn.”

The following day, Ian made good on his warning.

On a whim that morning, I’d made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and put the first two dozen cookies in the oven to bake.

While I waited for the cookies, I mixed up some polyvinyl acetate, or PVA, the archival glue I used for bookbinding and book repair. It had a low moisture content, dried quickly, and remained flexible.

I had my largest cutting board out on the worktable, ready to go. But first I began drawing a template. The vermilion morocco was too precious to cut without measuring it precisely first. After I made the final cut, I would be ready to glue it to the boards and the spine.

I was getting ahead of myself. I still needed to resew the signatures and clean the book thoroughly. But I couldn’t wait. The leather cover made me giddy with excitement. And didn’t I sound like the biggest book geek ever?

The timer went off and I ran back to the kitchen to remove the two cookie sheets from the oven. The cookies were baked to perfection, golden brown with perfectly melted bits of chocolate and still soft to the touch. While transferring them to a rack to cool off, I almost stuffed one into my mouth, but I resisted, barely.

As I slid two more sheets into the oven, my telephone rang. It was two quick rings, then nothing, which meant that someone was at the front door of my building, buzzing to be let inside.

“Max,” I called, but he didn’t respond, so I knew he wasn’t in the apartment. He had to be up on the roof.

I was expecting my new bookshelves to be delivered today or tomorrow, but just in case it wasn’t the delivery man, I needed Max to stay hidden. Feeling a hint of desperation, I grabbed the phone to see who was downstairs.

“Hey, Brooklyn, it’s me,” Ian said.

“Ian, what do you want?” How rude was that? He was going to think I was off my rocker. “I’m sorry, Ian. I’m just a little stressed. What’s going on?”

“I’m right outside,” he said. “Let me in. I want to say hi and see the book.”

“Um, sure. Great. Here you go.” I pressed the code numbers to release the door lock, then raced upstairs to the roof.

“Max,” I yelled, since the wind made it hard to hear. “Someone’s coming to see me, so stay up here, okay? Don’t come downstairs.”