One Book in the Grave (10 page)

Reluctantly he nodded once, acquiescing to stay behind.

Derek moved into the kitchen with purpose, followed by Gabriel. I rushed after them. “Are you really going out there?” I whispered, feeling my throat dry up.

“Yes,” Derek said. “If there’s the slightest chance someone followed us here, I want to make sure they don’t follow us home.”

“But there haven’t been any more gunshots,” I said a little desperately. “Maybe he’s already gone.”

“That’s what we’ll need to determine,” Gabriel said,
and pulled a powerful-looking handgun out from behind his back.

“Oh, my God, what’s that?” I asked stupidly. “That’s a gun. What are you doing with that?”

He grinned. “Relax, babe.”

I stared wildly at Derek. “He’s got a gun.”

“Yes, darling,” he said, and pulled his own weapon out of a holster under his arm.

I felt my eyes cross. “You—you’ve had that with you all this time?”

“Just since we got out of the car,” he said. “Don’t worry, love. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Don’t worry? Are you insane?”

He chuckled, leaned over, and kissed me. Then he looked at Max. “You’ll stay with her.”

“Of course. We’ll cook something.”

I laughed a little hysterically.
They have to be kidding,
I decided.

Max opened the back door and pointed out a few details. “The fig orchard should provide enough cover until you get to the barn. Don’t go inside unless you want to hear a deafening chorus of bleats from the goats.”

“No, thanks,” Derek muttered.

“It’s wide-open on this side—no cover except for the oak tree.” Max pointed the opposite way, then gazed up at the sky. “But it looks about to rain, so maybe he’s already gone.”

“We’ll soon find out,” Gabriel said, and zipped up his black leather jacket against the cold.

I watched them steal out of the house. Derek moved off toward the fig orchard while Gabriel hustled in the opposite direction, out into the open field.

Max shut the door. “Let’s you and me make some pasta sauce.”

“I thought you were kidding,” I said, gripping the kitchen counter nervously as I stared out the window over the sink. “I can’t cook while they’re out there.”

“You’re not cooking. I am,” he said. “You can talk to me. Tell me what the hell you’re all doing on my farm.”

“I thought it was Robson’s farm.” I sounded like a snotty little sister, which was probably how he’d always thought of me.

“Robson bought this place with my money,” he explained as he pulled a frying pan off the pot rack over the stove. “I signed power of attorney over to him a few weeks before I left and asked him to buy a few more houses, just in case.”

Just in case someone found you and you had to move quickly,
I thought, but didn’t say it. I slid onto one of the stools that was placed next to a beautifully finished, waist-high, dark-stained farmhouse table in the center of the kitchen. “So you had this all worked out before you died? I mean, before you left?”

“Yeah.” He took a chef’s apron off a hook near the door and wrapped it around himself. “I drew up a will making Robson the executor. I had him give some money to a few people and he kept the rest in trust.”

“What in the world happened to make you think you had to go through this charade?”

“It’s a long story, and I need to cook while I talk.” He pulled mushrooms out of the refrigerator and onions out of a bag in the pantry closet, grabbed a head of garlic from a basket on the counter, then cut bits of herbs from several pots perched along the kitchen windowsill. I recognized thyme, oregano, parsley, and basil.

“I never knew you were such a cook.”

“I never was until I moved here,” he said as he briskly chopped the garlic cloves into tiny pieces. “No choice, really. It was learn to cook or starve.”

He scraped all the garlic bits up with the knife and placed them in a small bowl. Then he handed me another knife and a small wood chopping board. “Can you mince the herbs together?”

“Sure.”

He patted my shoulder. “And while you’re at it, tell me why you came here.”

“Oh yeah. Okay.”
Although,
I reminded myself,
it’s
Max
who has the most explaining to do.

Walking back to the pantry, he pulled out two large jars of tomatoes and put them on the counter by the stove.

“Do you can those tomatoes yourself?”

“Yeah,” he said, picking up his knife again. “They taste better that way. Now talk.”

“Right.” I pushed the stool away and stood to work at the center table. Suddenly a great bundle of fur brushed against my ankles and I almost screamed.

“Meow.”

I looked down at the fat orange creature. “What’s this?”

“It’s a cat,” Max said. “That’s Clydesdale. Clyde, meet Brooklyn.”

“Hello, Clyde,” I said.

He blinked at me, wound his way in and out of my legs, then curled into a ball under the table.

I had to concentrate on chopping herbs and not my fingers as I told him the story. “A few days ago, I got a call from Ian McCullough at the Covington Library. He had a book for me to restore for their new children’s wing. I drove over there Friday morning to pick up the book and was surprised to see it was a copy of
Beauty and the Beast
.”

He stopped chopping and I noticed his grip on the knife was so tight, his hand was shaking. “Was it…” He shook his head and rolled his shoulders as if he were in a boxing ring, gearing up for a fight.

“Yes, it was the book I gave you and Emily.”

“So. She sold it.” He clamped his jaw shut, pressed his lips together. After a moment, he let out the breath he was holding and slowly continued his chopping.

Men.
I rolled my eyes, then said, “No, Max, she didn’t sell the book.”

His chopping stopped again and he flashed a suspicious frown at me, but said nothing.

“It’s true,” I insisted. “Two weeks after you
died
, someone broke into Emily’s house and stole the book. It’s been missing for three years and it just resurfaced this
week.”
Kind of like you did,
I thought, but didn’t say it out loud.

“So…wait. I’m not following you. Explain how—”

“Just let me finish,” I said, knowing his mind would drift off to Emily if I didn’t get the story out fast. “I knew the book had been stolen from Emily years ago, so I had to break the news to Ian. He let me know who he bought it from, and I drove to that bookstore to talk to the owner, Joe Taylor. I wanted to find out who sold it to Joe—you know? Anyway, when I got there, I found Joe dead. His throat was cut.”

That shook Max up. “Jeez, Brooklyn. I’m sorry.”

I grimaced. “You will be when you hear what the murder weapon was.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone slit Joe’s throat open with a special kind of knife. It’s a papermaker’s knife. Four-inch, square-headed blade, common as anything. I think I have three or four of them. You probably do, too.”

His eyes narrowed. “Yeah. So?”

“So after I was questioned by the police, I went to my car and found my tire had been slashed.”

“Sounds like you were having a bad day.”

“You might say that. Anyway, whoever did it left the weapon stuck in my tire. It was a Japanese paper knife, an expensive one. It had the letters
M-A-X
carved on the handle.”

He frowned again and stared at the onions as though he might find enlightenment there. Then he looked up at me. “Say that again.”

“I think you heard me.”

“But how in the world…Wait.” His eyes widened and he pointed the chopping knife at me. “You can’t be thinking that I would ever…No. There’s no way. First of all, I don’t even know this bookseller guy. What’d you say his name was? Joe? And second, I haven’t left this godforsaken mountain in three years. I had nothing to do with this. I don’t know how—”

“I know you didn’t do it, Max,” I said as patiently as I
could. “But someone’s trying to make it look like you did. They had your tools. They had the book you gave Emily. They put the book out on the market to lure you out. They killed Joe to lure you out. And that means they must know you’re alive.”

“Ah, crap,” he muttered, then followed the word up with an expletive stream that threatened to turn the air blue. Finally out of words, he let his brute strength take over and he plunged his knife into the chopping block with all the force of a category-three hurricane. “Damn it, I know who—”

The kitchen door flew open and I screamed. Derek and Gabriel stomped into the house, looking wild, wet, windblown, and sexier than any two men had a right to be. Especially after scaring me half to death.

But seriously? If I took their picture right now, it would land on the cover of
People
magazine’s Two Sexiest Men in the World Edition. Just saying.

“Thank God,” I uttered, and wrapped my arms around Derek’s neck. I could feel the cold and wet seeping into me, but I didn’t care. I’d never been so happy to see him.

“Find anyone out there?” Max asked.

“No.”

I grabbed Gabriel and hugged him, too. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“No worries, babe.” He grinned as he took a dish towel off the counter and wiped some of the rain from his face and neck.

“Let me get some more towels,” Max muttered, and stalked out of the room.

“Did you tell him?” Derek asked quietly.

“Yes,” I said, staring at the door Max had disappeared through. “And I think he was about to tell me who’s responsible when you guys walked in.”

Max came back into the kitchen a moment later and handed towels to Derek and Gabriel. “I’ll make dinner for everyone; then you all need to leave. It’s too dangerous for you here.”

“You know who’s doing this, Max,” I said, grabbing hold of his arms. “Tell us who it is. We can help you.”

He pushed my hands away. “You don’t want to know. You’ve never dealt with anyone like them. They’re relentless. If you leave tonight after dark, you might be able to slip out of town and go back to your lives. Just leave me alone. I can deal with it.”

Gabriel chuckled as he walked out of the room.

Derek leaned his hip against the butcher-block island in the middle of the kitchen. “I can assure you, we’re not leaving without you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m afraid you are,” Derek said. “We’ll get you back to Dharma and keep a security detail with you until the person you’re hiding from is found and arrested. Otherwise, you’ll have the police climbing all over this place within hours.”

“You would turn me in?”

Derek shrugged.

Max considered this as he turned on the heat under the frying pan, poured in olive oil, then tossed in the minced garlic. Immediately it began to sizzle. Thirty seconds later, he added the piles of chopped onion and stirred, coating everything with oil. Finally, he looked up and said, “I can’t go back.”

“Someone’s setting you up,” Derek said brusquely. “Either you go back with us and try to clear your name or you’ll be arrested for murder.” Derek pulled out his phone and swiped the screen until he found a picture and showed it to Max. I figured it was the photo he took on Friday of the knife in my tire.

Reluctantly, Max stared at the phone screen for a minute, then handed it back. “It looks like one of the knives I owned, but I didn’t slash your tire, Brooklyn. I left everything behind in my studio when I left. All my tools, my journals—everything.”

“I know you didn’t do it, Max.”

“Yes, we know it wasn’t you,” Derek said. He sounded tired. Then in a heartbeat he sprang forward, gripping
Max’s arm and swinging him around to look him straight in the eyes. “But I won’t allow Brooklyn to be terrorized by whoever’s behind this. If you’re not willing to tell us who you think killed Joe and planted this knife in Brooklyn’s tire, I won’t think twice about calling the police and telling them exactly where you are.”

They stared at each other for another moment; then Max nodded. “Understood.”

Derek stepped back, satisfied with Max’s response.

Max straightened his apron, glanced around, then said, “There’s a loaf of French bread in the pantry. Can someone butter it for garlic toast?”

“I’m on it,” Derek said, as if nothing monumental had just transpired between them. But as he walked to the pantry closet, he passed behind me and suddenly I was in his arms. He held on to me tightly for almost a minute and kissed my neck, then let me go and continued on to the pantry.

“All rightie, then,” I muttered, dazed but pleased.

Gabriel walked back into the kitchen. “Smells great in here.”

I stopped chopping to stare at him. His dark hair was slicked back and still wet from the rain. He’d taken off his jacket, and the black T-shirt he wore defined every muscle in his chest, arms, and shoulders. Even his cheekbones were more defined. His eyes glittered more brightly as he looked at me and winked. How could he look even better than he did a few minutes ago? It was, like, otherworldly.

Is it rude to stare?
I didn’t care; I couldn’t help myself. Just because I was madly in love with Derek didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate some other guy’s awesomeness.

And there is the answer,
I realized with a start. The secret to Derek’s appeal versus Gabriel’s. Obviously this was a subject to which I’d dedicated long hours of thought, but hadn’t reached an acceptable conclusion—until now.

No doubt about it, Derek defined the word
hunk
. He was solid. Tall, dark, handsome, protective, dangerous.
Great body—did I mention that? But Derek’s feet were planted firmly on the ground, and when he found something he wanted, he took hold of it with both hands and wouldn’t let go. Apparently he wanted me, and I was thrilled to let him have his way.

Gabriel’s appeal, on the other hand, was more ethereal, his energy more vibrant, his lean looks more elegant. He was dangerous, too, and there was no doubt in my mind that he’d killed before. But his danger to women? That classic bad-boy attitude. A love affair with Gabriel would be high drama, wild sex, and fast burnout.

Hmm.

Speaking of drama, it occurred to me that ever since I’d met Derek, we’d been overwhelmed by high drama. Namely, murder. Victims. Suspects. I’d been involved in so many criminal investigations, I’d lost count. The fact was, I had never even seen a dead body until I met Derek. Had he brought the murder magnet Karma into my world? Or had he simply entered my world right when I needed him most?