Peril in Paperback (28 page)

Happily, though, suspicion didn’t slow my appetite down any. As I finished the last bit of my tiramisu and drained my coffee cup, Grace took pity on all of us and stood, signaling the end of the dinner hour.

“I’ll be in the card room doing tarot card readings,” she announced, clutching the back of her chair. “And Harrison has promised a rousing game of backgammon with anyone willing to take a trouncing. We’re also showing the new Scorsese film in the media room at the far end of the third-floor hall. Oh, and the music room is open, as well.”

“Finally,” Peter muttered, and shoved back his chair.

I turned. “You’re happy the music room is open?”

“Very funny,” he said, standing. “No, just happy this meal is over.”

I pushed back my chair. “At least the food is always phenomenal.”

“Sometimes that’s just not enough.”

I recoiled. “What planet are you from?”

He finally cracked a smile and I felt like I’d achieved something monumental.

The others seemed to feel the same way Peter did as we all rushed to leave.

I hurried to catch up with Vinnie and we walked down the hall together. “What a vibe, huh?”

“What a lovely dinner,” she said simultaneously.

“What?” I said.

“I’m sorry, Brooklyn,” she said at the same time.

We were both amused at how we kept talking over each other. “You go first,” she said.

“The vibe at dinner,” I explained in a low voice. “You could slash it with a butter knife.”

“I don’t understand. We had a lovely dinner.”

“Well, sure, the food was great, but what about…?” Then it dawned on me why she was so happy. “You had Lily with you.”

“Yes.” Her smile was rapturous. “She is such an angel. Suzie has gone to the kitchen to get her a bottle. She’ll be right back.”

“I’m glad.” I leaned against her in weary camaraderie. “My end of the table was dismal. Everyone’s uptight or morose or just plain bitchy.”

“I’m so sorry, Brooklyn,” she said, patting my arm. “Come sit with us next time.”

“I will.”

“Grace only stuck you at that end of the table to pair you up with Nathan.”

“I suppose so.” I smiled. “You’ll be glad to know it doesn’t seem to be working out.”

She laughed. “Thank goodness.”

“And despite all the angst, my appetite is as healthy as ever.”

“That’s my Brooklyn.”

We made it to the card room in time to see Fowler arguing with Gabriel. “I may be stuck in this godforsaken house, but that doesn’t mean I have to socialize with you heathens any more than necessary.”

“You’re right,” Gabriel said. “It’s time for you to leave.”

“Fine.” Fowler sniffed. “Good night.”

Gabriel grabbed his arm and squeezed. “I suggest you go straight to your room and lock your door.”

Fowler’s eyes grew wide and his lips trembled. Was he only now remembering how dangerous it was to be left alone on the third floor? He bolted from the dining room as if he were shot from a cannon.

I watched him leave, then gave Gabriel a nod. “Well done.”

Gabriel smiled artfully at me, then shifted his glance to Vinnie. “Everything okay with the baby?” he asked her.

“Everything is wonderful.” Her hands were pressed together in a little prayer of thanks. “Bless you both for your part in bringing us all together.”

Gabriel lifted his shoulder in a casual gesture. “I was just holding the kid.”

“An experience Lily will treasure forever,” Vinnie assured him with a smile.

I laughed and gave her a quick hug. “I’m thrilled for you and Suzie. And I’m right down the hall, don’t forget. If you ever need a babysitter…”

“Thank you, Brooklyn,” she said. “We are so grateful to you. You are the very best neighbor in the world.”

Since the rest of the guests were filtering into the card room, I figured all of us had concluded, at least subconsciously, that there was safety in numbers.

Peter, Marko, Harrison, and Nathan gathered around the bar with after-dinner drinks. The four men had developed a loose-knit friendship, but now I watched Marko and wondered. Here he was, stuck in this house with the person who had murdered his longtime friend and possible lover, Bella. Was he mourning her loss? Was he bent on revenge?

In the beginning, I had considered Marko a grown-up kid, a consummate slacker. He seemed like the kind of guy who could stretch out on any couch in the world and
fall asleep in an instant. But now, without Bella around, he seemed antsy. Like he wouldn’t know how to sit quietly if someone paid him to do it. My original impression still stood: he was an annoying twelve-year-old kid in a fifty-year-old body.

At that moment, nobody was paying much attention to him, so he was cantankerous and loud and getting worse by the minute. But I watched him study the others out of the corner of his eye and I saw him change tactics. He grew more somber and solicitous. One of the men said something to him, then the others joined in. And just like that, he was acceptable again.

So maybe Marko wasn’t as drunk as they thought he was.

I couldn’t figure him out. The slacker routine was real, but he could also be devious. He hadn’t laughed as much since Bella died, but every so often, his irritating giggle filled the room. And he did snicker and snort once in a while when he and the other men gathered at the bar.

I hated to say it, but watching Marko made me recall an article I’d read recently that talked about sociopaths and how they were much more prevalent in our society than people thought. The article had a checklist of personality traits that seemed to coincide with some of Marko’s. The fact that I couldn’t pin him down on any particular topic, couldn’t decipher any true emotions emanating from him, made me wonder if he had some of those sociopathic tendencies. For one thing, I didn’t think he was mourning Bella at all. Had they truly been a couple? Or had Bella simply been an easy port in a storm, so to speak?

And the way he had maneuvered the conversation to include him again a minute ago was suspiciously manipulative.

And yet, I wondered if maybe I wasn’t being fair to him. Maybe in the quiet of his lonely room, Marko suffered greatly from the loss of Bella. But out here with his
three amigos at the bar, he had to put on a show, get all tanked up and party hearty. Show that he was ready to do whatever it took to be part of the gang.

The four men scoffed and guffawed as they tested each other’s knowledge of trivial football statistics—Nathan excelled at the statistics game—and compared their favorite rock-concert performances. And now they were moving on to the subject of single-malt scotches.

I had brothers; I knew where this was going. Sure enough, the bartender brought out more glasses and lined them up on the bar. A single-malt taste test was about to be conducted, sure to be accompanied by plenty of laughing and drunken back slaps.

Nathan’s gloomy mood seemed to have evaporated. So maybe it was just me, after all. It didn’t matter. For the time being, I’d lost interest in trying to figure any of these people out.

At the other side of the room, Gabriel huddled with Grace at the tarot table. They were deep in conversation and she wasn’t dealing the cards, so I wondered if he was regaling her with the story of our adventure through the trapdoor earlier.

“Oh, there’s the baby,” Merrilee cooed, drawn to Vinnie and Suzie, who sat with Lily in a quiet corner.

I pulled a side chair over and joined them.

“Wanna hold the kidlet, Brooklyn?” Suzie asked.

“Absolutely,” I said, and took the little darling into my arms. I inhaled the sweet scent of baby powder and wondered if anything could be softer than her pale pink cheeks and tiny baby fingers. After a few minutes of hugging and rocking the baby, I looked at my friends. “This could get addictive.”

They both smiled in agreement. Even though Suzie and Vinnie had suffered through grief and tears and sadness and doubt that day, their faces now showed nothing but joy. They were clearly enchanted by the baby.

Everyone was happy about Lily. Over the next hour, most of us, the women as well as the men, found ourselves
taking turns paying visits to the baby and her new moms. There were comments and questions about everything from her tiny toes to her pretty face, her appetite and her attitude, her diaper preferences and her college prospects.

Some of us already had nicknames for her. She was barely six weeks old and already a beauty. I found it sweet and so amazing that my friends had fallen so deeply and eternally in love with the little bean.

“Grace took us up to the attic, where we found the most fabulous crib and bassinet,” Vinnie said. “It’s vintage, more than a hundred years old, but it’s perfect for Lily.”

“I’m having it sanded and refinished,” Grace said. “It’ll go in the new nursery.” She went on to describe the construction plans for a full nursery in one of the third-floor suites. She reminded Merrilee that they had to schedule their contractor to come out next week. Then the two of them discussed the best ways to childproof the house. Grace couldn’t wait for Lily’s visits and suggested a two-weeks-a-month schedule from now on.

I shot Vinnie a look, thinking this wouldn’t sit well with her, but she smiled serenely. The fact was, she couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Her entire attitude toward Grace seemed to have changed over the past day or so. Was it all because of Lily? I wondered, but then realized Vinnie had begun to warm up to Grace when the older woman had confessed her true reason for inviting Fowler to the party.

The mellow sounds of jazz filtered through the room. Kiki begged for a tarot card reading. Peter played backgammon with Harrison. Madge flipped through a magazine and Sybil drank too much.

“Hey, pretty lady,” Nathan said, and sat down next to me.

I laughed at that ridiculous line, but still flirted a bit with him. He was suddenly attentive to me again, probably due to the abundant shots of Scotch he’d just tossed
down his throat. He was a nice guy, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I stood and said good night to everyone and headed off to my room. But once I got into bed, sleep was out of the question. I picked up Grace’s manuscript and continued reading where I’d left off the night before.

For three fascinating chapters, Greta was entangled in a scandalous industrial-theft problem. No one knew who was selling the company’s top-secret ideas to the highest bidders, but suspicion was growing throughout the company and nobody trusted anyone.

Greta hired lawyers to file restraining orders against her rival companies, but there were ways around the orders.

She brought in a team of undercover detectives who set up a sting and several employees were caught in the web. She fired them all, including two of her favorite game designers, people she’d worked with for years.

After the firings, things calmed down for a while. Greta and her board of directors breathed easier. Then weeks before Greta was to bring out their biggest game ever, a multimillion-dollar 3-D video reenactment of Battle of the Alien Worlds, their biggest competitor announced their newest game coming on the market one week before Greta’s.

It was the exact same product! Only the name had been changed slightly to War of the Galaxy Invaders. It was a blatant rip-off and Grace—er,
Greta
, was furious. The thief was still working for her!

Greta had always prided herself on her people skills. She was a genius with games, but she was also a decent person. Her employees had always loved her because she respected them and rewarded their efforts. But now she was stymied and hurt. Who among her workers had betrayed her?

The thief was never caught. There was never another incident of industrial espionage, but the damage had
been done. Greta was never quite the same effervescent charmer after that.

I closed the book, shaken by the depth of emotions the story touched in me. I hated that Greta’s experience had extinguished some of the lightness within her.

Troubled, I stared at the pages. Had an ongoing proximity to murder done that to me? Had it made me more harsh? More judgmental? More suspicious of human nature? I hadn’t thought so before, but now I was afraid I might be wrong.

Hell, just that evening at dinner, I had looked around the table and mentally accused a good number of Grace’s guests of murder. What did that say about me? Okay, yes, there actually
was
a murderer among us, but did that excuse my readiness to mentally accuse everyone in the room?

I put the manuscript on the nightstand and turned off the light. While wrestling with the pillow to find the perfect spot for my head, I questioned whether the part of the book I’d read tonight was factual or not. Earlier in the week, Grace had told us that the company had recently suffered a loss of some money. Someone had been skimming funds. But she didn’t seem too concerned about it.

In her book, though, the crime had been industrial theft. Someone had stolen her idea. Her creation. For Grace, that would be like stealing her soul. That loss would plague her much more than the loss of money would.

But was it true? Had
Grace
been plagued by an industrial thief as
Greta
had been? Or were those chapters pure fiction? Before I dozed off to sleep, I made a mental note to ask Suzie about it in the morning.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I was awakened by another strange noise. Unlike the last time I heard noises in the night, I was certain there was someone inside my room. Was it Bella’s murderer?

The moon was obscured by heavy clouds so my room was cloaked in darkness. The floor creaked with every other step the prowler took toward my bed. I was frozen in fear, but knew I had to do something to save myself, knew I had to make a move.

Did he have a gun? Maybe he was planning to slip a dose of poison into my glass of water. Either way, I couldn’t stay in bed, waiting for something to happen.

Just as I was about to spring into action, a noisy “Meow!” erupted from one of the ceiling panels. Then Leroy pounced down and attacked.

A loud gasp erupted, followed by a grunt. My intruder raced to the door and escaped.

“Damn.” I jumped out of bed and ran after him, but by the time I reached the hall, the person was gone.