Peril in Paperback (5 page)

Nathan stopped a passing waiter and grabbed two fresh glasses of champagne from the tray. “Here. You might need this.”

“You’re right.” I tucked the books under my arm and took the flute gratefully.

“Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass to mine. “Here’s to finding books where you least expect them.”

“I’ll drink to that.” I took a sip of the expensive champagne, but I could barely taste it. And that was just sad. I’d lost the urge to indulge. I blamed it on the trauma of finding that poor book holding up the table.

“So what are these books?” Nathan asked, his tone tentative. He was probably scared to death of setting me off on another rant. And who could blame him?

“Oh, sorry.” I hadn’t even given him a chance to look
at the books, so I handed him
Pilgrim’s Progress
. I set down my champagne glass and looked at the other book more closely. Its cover was tan speckled calfskin and the title and author’s name were gilded onto the black morocco spine.
Gulliver’s Travels
. I opened it up and found the date on the title page was 1726.

Holy Mother.

I closed the book quickly. My head was in danger of exploding and I didn’t want to damage the precious vellum.

“This dent in the front cover is unacceptable,” Nathan said, scowling as he handed
Pilgrim’s Progress
back to me. “But it’s a stunning book. Do you want me to take it to the library with me?”

“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind. But you ain’t seen nothing yet,” I muttered, opening
Gulliver’s
to show him the print date.

“Whoa. Are you kidding?” he said, then quickly lowered his voice as he took the book and examined it. “What was it doing behind the couch?”

“That was my question.”

“Wait,” he said, squinting at the book’s spine. “This says it’s volume two.”

“Let me see.” I took it back and stared at the spine. It wasn’t gilded so I’d missed it the first time. But now I saw the faint indentation in the pale leather.
VOL. II
.

“So there’s at least one more volume around here somewhere.” I clenched my teeth together to keep from squealing again. “This one book has got to be worth thousands, so if there are two volumes, they belong in a museum.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

My exhaustion was growing, not only from the adrenaline rush of annoyance at finding the books, but also from my numerous attempts to keep from reacting to that silly phone call. My stomach hurt, too. “I’m hungry.”

Nathan laughed. “Now, there’s a non sequitur.”

I shot him a quick look. “Did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. Grace likes to eat early, so dinner should be announced any minute now.”

“Good. I skipped lunch.” And that was a sentence I’d rarely uttered in my whole life. How had that happened? I never missed meals. But now I remembered I’d been running around the house, packing and getting ready to leave for a week. I must have forgotten to eat.

“I could sneak you into the kitchen,” he said with a grin. “I’ve gotten to know the chef pretty well.”

I glanced around the room and saw Grace going from group to group, pointing toward the door. I hoped that meant she was giving directions to the dining room. “I guess I can wait a few minutes longer.”

But after dinner, I was going to go straight to bed. I didn’t want to inflict my bad mood on any other unsuspecting innocents tonight. I was too tired to tamp down my irritation at finding a rare book being used to hold up a table. Fine, I was willing to accept that in a house with twelve gazillion books, a few would get lost here and there. But stuck under a table? That was a new low.

I silently vowed to spend part of tomorrow morning searching the house for missing books, particularly that first volume of
Gulliver’s Travels
. I figured I could go through a few rooms every day this week, hunting down wayward books. That would keep me occupied when I wasn’t working in the library with Nathan. More than anything else, I wanted to keep busy this week. I didn’t want to think about Derek with that…person. I would work hard and stay active, and to do that I would need to keep up my strength by eating a lot. Starting as soon as possible.

“There you are, Brooklyn,” Vinnie said as she came up behind me.

Suzie was with her. “Time for dinner, kiddo. I’m starving.”

“You and me both,” I said.

Vinnie looked Nathan up and down. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he said somberly.

I quickly introduced my friends to Nathan and explained that he and I would be working together on book stuff this week. Vinnie continued to stare at him with such barely concealed curiosity that I had to wonder what she was thinking.

I twitched a little. She couldn’t possibly think I was considering cheating on Derek with Nathan. Could she? Just because of a stupid phone call that I’d probably misinterpreted, anyway? Since the entire group was already walking toward the door to dinner, I would pull her aside later and explain that Nathan and I would be working together this week. And nothing more.

As the four of us followed the rest of the guests down the grand stairway to the formal dining room, I took the opportunity to introduce myself to a few of the people around me. Grace’s ex-partner from her computer game company, Peter Brinker, a tall, gray-haired man with what my dad would call a million-dollar smile, was friendly and outgoing and talked about the fun of creating games for a living. I liked him immediately.

“I’m his wife,” said the woman on Peter’s other side. She leaned forward and gave me one of those wiggly finger waves.

Peter laughed. “Sybil sells herself short. She’s our CFO and we’d be lost without her.”

Sybil shook her head. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

I never would have guessed that this was a woman who held such an important position. She seemed nice enough, but a bit bland. But then maybe that was the perfect personality type for a CFO. She wore her hair in a short black bob, similar to Grace’s hairstyle. And her flowing fuchsia dress was identical to Grace’s. It made me wonder if the two women were such good friends that they shopped and had their hair done together.

“Did you two meet on the job?” I asked.

“Yes,” Peter said, taking Sybil’s hand. “Sybil came to work for us and I was hooked from day one.”

“Oh, stop,” she said, brushing his arm.

Peter asked what I did for a living and I gave him the short version.

“That’s fascinating,” he said. “I love old books.” He asked a few more questions as we walked downstairs. He was attractive and inquisitive and laughed a lot, and was in the middle of a story when Sybil nudged him. He turned away to listen to whatever she was saying and I thought for a moment that she’d meant to include me in her conversation. But then she flashed me a glance through half-closed lids and lowered her voice enough that I couldn’t hear her. I took the hint and turned away.

Next to me, Suzie was conversing with a tall, wiry man with spiky white-blond hair. “And this is my friend, Brooklyn,” Suzie said, and stuck her thumb toward me. “She’s a master at restoring books and she solves murders in her spare time.”

Stunned, I frowned as Peter and Sybil and several others turned around and stared at me with blatant curiosity.

“Excellent,” the spiky-haired guy said, and stretched his arm out to shake my hand. “You must be really smart. I’m Marko Huntley. This is Bella Santangelo.” He pointed toward the svelte, red-haired woman dressed entirely in black who followed behind him.

“Hi,” I said cheerfully, trying to shake off Suzie’s odd comment about me and murder.

“So you’re, like, a true-crime nut?” Marko asked.

“What? No.”

“Because I’m looking for beta testers to work on my zombie cops-and-robbers game. The working title is
Slaughter Beyond the Grave
. It’s like,
CSI
meets
Body Snatchers
.”

“Catchy, but I—”

“Hello,” Bella said, her voice sultry and dramatic.

I turned to see that she had shifted positions and was now walking next to me. She carried an oversized martini glass and must have gotten a refill before she left
the party, because it was filled to the brim with pink liquid.

“I was talking to her, Bella,” Marko said, his tone a little whiny.

She reached across me and squeezed his hand. “I know, love, but I’m rescuing her. Some of us just don’t go in for zombies.”

His lower lip stuck out. “Zombies need love, too.”

“Go,” she said, laughing.

He toddled off like a scolded puppy and I watched him strike up a conversation with Sybil.
Good luck with that one,
I thought.

Bella was watching him, too. “Don’t mind Marko. He’s like a twelve-year-old boy when it comes to zombies.” She laughed. “And when it comes to everything else, too, now that I think about it.”

“I don’t mind him.” I tried not to stare at her, but seeing her this close up made me realize how gorgeous she was. Her startling green eyes were fringed with long, thick black eyelashes. Her complexion was flawless and her lips were full and red. I was almost certain that was without any help from lipstick or makeup.

“Did I hear Suzie right?” Bella said softly. “Did she say you solved murders?”

I almost moaned. “She was joking,” I said, brushing it off with a weak laugh.

“Really? Why would she joke about that?”

“Well, not joking, really. I guess it’s true that I’ve been involved in a few cases, but—”

“That’s perfect. I’ve been looking for an expert.”

“I’m hardly an—”

“I’m working on an update to our company’s
House Party Mystery
game. It’s more on the traditional mystery side, unlike Marko’s brain-sucking crime version. Maybe I can interview you later? I would love an insider’s view of what it’s like to be a witness to murder up close.”

I could feel my heart pounding harder, and not only
because these game people were so pushy. “Uh, sure, but I really don’t think I’m very—”

“How’d you meet Grace?” she said, ignoring my stammering as she took a careful sip from her drink.

I was relieved to change the subject and launched into the story of how Grace and I met through Suzie. I mentioned my work with Grace’s extensive book collection and remarked on the amount of bookshelves throughout the house.

“Books. I could work that into the game,” Bella mused. “I’ll bet you could kill someone with a heavy book.”

I gulped at the thought, then noticed that Marko had given up on Sybil and was back to listening in on our conversation. “I suppose you could, but I hate to think of books being used to kill people.”

She waved away my concern. “We’ll talk. I’ll track you down tomorrow.”

“You’ll probably find me in the library.”

Marko smirked. “And you can find Bella in the bar.”

“You should talk, Marko,” Bella said, then paused to sip her drink. “Mm, but Grace’s bartender does pour the best cosmo I’ve ever had.”

“Better suck it up,” Marko murmured. “Dinner’s about to be served.”

She pouted. “And Grace always serves the best wine.” She held up her glass. “Ah, cosmo, my love, I must bid you adieu.” Then she drained the entire drink down her throat.

“Such a lush,” Marko said with a snicker before turning to say something to Suzie.

As we reached the ground floor and walked down the wide front hall toward the dining room, Bella continued chatting with me. “We all used to work for Grace until she retired. Now Marko and I are the chief designers. Peter’s still our boss.”

“What types of games do you design?” I asked.

“Well, I did the original design for House Party Mystery,
and I’m always updating it. And Girl Power was my design. But I’m most psyched about my latest creation. It’s a post–World War Three, dystopian jungle-warrior tar-pit game. We’re still working on a title, but it’s totally sick. You’d love it.”

“I’m sure I would,” I said, even though I had no clue what she’d just described.

“Grace has the prototype up in the game room,” Bella said, then snapped her fingers in time to her words. “Check. It. Out.”

“I will.”

“Coolio.” Without another word, she set her empty glass on a small console table in the hall, then slunk around me until she once again walked close to Marko. The man didn’t acknowledge her outwardly since he was deep in conversation with Suzie, but I saw him stealthily reach back and grab Bella’s thigh. She slapped his hand away, but she was smiling. And his action signified his complete awareness of her nearness.

Body language didn’t lie. There was more between those two than a mere office friendship. And even though I couldn’t imagine what Bella saw in Marko, I was perfectly happy with yet another distraction this week.
Are they in love?
I wondered, though I doubted it.

In both appearance and attitude, they weren’t exactly a match made in heaven. Both were tall. Marko looked to be in his early fifties, with pale skin and half-spiky, half-balding silver-blond hair. I estimated that Bella was in her late thirties.

Maybe it was uncharitable of me to think it, but she was simply too beautiful for Marko. Not that he was ugly, exactly; he was handsome enough in a quirky sort of way. I’d only just met him, but I’d already been treated to his devious smile and his proclivity for waggling his eyebrows suggestively. And his snickering. I suppose there were plenty of women who were attracted to the type of man who would never grow up. Bella had said it best: Marko was twelve years old in almost every way.

He continued to bounce around among the different groups, giggling for a few seconds and then turning to someone else. He appeared to have the attention span of a squirrel that had just spied a nut falling from a tree and was gone in a flash.

Was Bella really involved with Marko? My first impression of her was of someone who sauntered into a room like an exquisite gazelle and expected to be adored by all of humanity. But early in our conversation, I picked up on her quick intelligence and droll sense of humor, along with an underlying nervous energy that would probably be useful in the frenetic, competitive world of computer games and videos.

How Marko survived in that same world, I had no idea. Maybe he had hidden depths. Or maybe his twelve-year-old mentality was perfect for that world. Whatever his secret was, it worked for him.