Books of a Feather (21 page)

I glanced around, wondering where that voice came from, and felt silly. Because it had come from within me, of course. My smile grew slowly as I realized how much that voice sounded like my father, the original laid-back dude.

“Thanks, Dad,” I whispered, and went upstairs to find Alex.

“Knock, knock,” I called through the narrow open door. “Are you alone?” I wasn't about to walk into Alex's apartment uninvited. I'd learned my lesson the first time I walked inside and found a naked man sitting on her couch, his hands cuffed behind his back and a piece of tape over his mouth. Luckily, when I asked him if he needed me to call the police, he wiggled his eyebrows and made it clear that he was doing just fine and I shouldn't worry. So yeah, I didn't need to see that again. Especially if the naked guy happened to be Gabriel this time.

Oh dear.

“Hi,” Alex called from somewhere behind me. I whipped around and watched her approach from down the hall.

“You startled me,” I said, patting my heart. “I wasn't expecting you to come from that direction.” It didn't help that I had been in the middle of visualizing a naked Gabriel at the very moment she called out. No wonder I was jumpy.

“Sorry if I startled you. I just ran down to pick up the mail and left the door open.”

“I'm so glad you're home,” I said. “I thought I'd take a chance and stop by to say hello.”

“I'm happy you did. Come on in.”

She pushed the door open and led the way inside. The first thing that hit me was the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked cupcakes.

“I had a frustrating meeting with a client this morning,” she explained as she reached down to remove her four-inch heels. “So I came home early and started baking.”

“Can I have this client's name so I can call and thank him?”

She laughed, then sobered as she studied my demeanor. “What's wrong?”

I blinked. “Nothing. What do you mean?”

“Come on, let's sit at the kitchen counter.” She pushed a tall stool toward me and I sat and watched her putter around the kitchen, fixing two cups of coffee and arranging two small plates with forks and napkins on the counter. “Do you want red velvet or mint chocolate?”

I moaned. “I just had a big lunch and dessert.”

“Are you serious? You're not going to have a cupcake?”

“Give me ten minutes to digest the meal. Then I think I'll go for the chocolate mint.”

“That's more like it.” She grinned as she added cream to the coffee. “So, what's up? Don't pretend there's not something wrong. I know you.”

“There's nothing really wrong. Well, except for the usual.”

“The usual? You mean, dead bodies, suspect lists, police investigations? Is that what you're talking about?”

“Yeah.” I grimaced. “Unfortunately, all of that really is becoming ‘the usual.'”

“I'm sorry, Brooks.” She patted my shoulder before sitting down with her coffee cup and a delicately frosted red velvet cupcake.

“Derek's spending the night in Los Angeles,” I said, and immediately wondered why I'd said it.

“Are you lonely?”

“No. Well, not really. Oh brother.” I pushed hair back from my face and tried to relax. “Okay, yes, I miss him, but am I lonely? I've never been lonely before, so why would I be lonely now?”

“Because you've gotten used to having him around.”

“Yeah. I had a long talk with myself on the way home just now, about whether I've turned into a complete wimp and given up all my girlfriends now that I'm living with a guy.”

“It's the age-old dilemma,” she said. “Lots of women lose touch with their girlfriends because our identities become tied to the men in our lives.”

I smiled. “My mom used to talk about her women's studies classes in college where they actually tried to teach female empowerment. This was in the sixties when it was still a man's world. That's when things started changing for a lot of women. More of us went to college and joined the workforce. We had more choices, more control.”

“True.”

I frowned. “Now it feels like some of that forward movement is regressing, you know?”

“I sure do.” She took a sip of coffee. “I had to deal with this client today who has a really low opinion of women. He excused his attitude by calling himself ‘old-school.' Like that suddenly gave him carte blanche to slap my secretary's rear end and later try to corner her outside the ladies' room.”

“You're joking.”

“I'm not. The guy is thirty-two years old. He's not ‘old-school.' He's just an entitled jerk.”

“What did you do?”

“I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him into a wall.” She sighed. “It was wrong, but it felt so right.”

“I love you so much,” I said, laughing. “Did he fire you?”

“No. His smarter, more enlightened partner dragged him out of there and called me later to apologize.”

“Good,” I said, righteously indignant on her behalf. “He's got to realize you could slap a harassment lawsuit on his partner that would make his head spin.”

“Oh, he does. I told him I wouldn't be working with his partner again and he understood.” She got up and poured herself another half cup of coffee and poured one for me, too. When she returned to sit down, she gazed at me. “So, aren't you dying to ask about me and Gabriel?”

I gulped. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You're funny,” she said, laughing.

I hesitated for another half second and then blurted, “All right, fine. What the heck is going on? You told me you prefer submissive men, and Gabriel is about as submissive as a barracuda. In a good way, I mean. The only man more alpha than Gabriel is Derek. So what gives?”

She smiled and gave a soft shrug. “I guess he wore me down. He kept insisting that we were right for each other and I fought him for weeks and weeks. But then . . . what can I say? He's incredible. Intuitive. Gentle. Sexy. And yet completely in charge when he wants to be. He just doesn't care about power trips and egos. He's so different. And it's amazing how much we have in common. Sometimes we spend half the night just talking.”

She could've been describing Derek, I thought. And halfway through her description I realized there was something else going on here. “You're in love with him.”

Her eyes widened and she waved her hands in protest. “No, no, no. Let's not jump right to the
L
word. I'm still working my way through all this unfamiliar territory.”

“Okay.” I jumped up and gave her a fierce hug. “But something tells me you're already there.”

•   •   •

Back home an hour later, the phone buzzed several times, meaning there was someone at the door downstairs. Wary, I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, it's me, Janice, um, Inspector Lee. Can I come up?”

“Absolutely,” I said, and buzzed her into the lobby. Her visit was completely unexpected, even though I had left a message for her the day before, letting her know that her mother's book was ready.

I heard the freight elevator groaning its way to the top floor, and a few minutes later, Inspector Lee—Janice—knocked on the door.

“Hi,” I said, ushering her into the house. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

“No, I've still got to drive home.”

I walked into the kitchen. “How about a cupcake?”

She stopped in her tracks. “You have cupcakes?”

I pushed the platter toward her. “Alex baked them. She is the cupcake goddess. You need to try one.”

“You're right. I do.” She stared at the platter Alex had lent me to hold the six beautiful cupcakes she had insisted I take home.

“There's red velvet and chocolate mint. Here's a plate and a fork. Sit down while I get your book.”

“These are gorgeous,” she said, following my orders to sit and eat.

A minute later, I returned with the book to find her mouth full of chocolate. “Good, huh?”

She had to wait to finish the bite. “Holy sugar rush. Those are amazing.”

I sat across from her and took a sip of my wine. “She is the best neighbor ever.”

Lee laughed. After she had polished off the cupcake, I took her fork and plate and set them in the sink.

“You don't have to wait on me, Brooklyn.”

I looked at her for a long moment. “Can I call you Janice?”

She almost flinched, she was so surprised by the question. “Of course. Don't you call me that anyway?”

“I don't think I've ever called you by your first name. Maybe once, but it didn't stick.”

“Yeah, well, we do tend to meet under unusual circumstances.”

I nodded. “Crime scenes, you mean.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Not real conducive to developing friendships.”

“Well, next time we have a party, you're invited. So that means we're friends.”

She gave me a lopsided grin. “Okay, it's a deal.”

I slid the package across the counter. “Here's the book. If you want me to change anything, just say so.”

“Cool.” She unwrapped the thick white paper I'd used to protect it and pulled out the book box. “Wow, that's beautiful.”

“I told you about the papers Derek brought back from Hong
Kong. I wanted something with an Asian feel to it. Because of the nature of the book. I hope you like it.”

“I'm blown away,” she said, studying the box from every angle. “It's really gorgeous. This plaque looks perfect.”

“I thought so, too. Well, open it.”

“I'm almost afraid,” she muttered, but unlatched the hook and lifted the top. “Oh wow.” She carefully brought the book out and set it on the table. After a moment, she opened the cover and glanced through the pages. “You're right. The crayon mess doesn't look half as bad as I remember. And I can't tell which pages I tore out.”

“Good. Hopefully, your mother won't be able to tell, either.”

“Man, I knew you were good at this stuff, but this is really exceptional.” She lifted the book and placed it gently back inside the box. “I appreciate this, Brooklyn. I think my mom is going to love it.”

“That's all that matters.” I couldn't help beaming as I took the box and wrapped it up again in the white paper. Inspector Lee—
Janice
—had no clue how much her words meant to me and how happy I was that we were finally friends.

•   •   •

The next morning I woke up bright and early. I glanced around, slightly disoriented, and then realized why. Derek wasn't home and I'd slept straight through the night anyway.

Charlie leaned against me and purred, so I stroked her soft fur. “Good morning, Charlie.”

After a few minutes with Charlie, I climbed out of bed, giving myself a mental “Attaboy.” So much for all my worries and whining that I'd be so lonely without Derek that I wouldn't be able to sleep.
Of course, I woke up on Derek's side of the bed as if I were draped across his gorgeous chest . . . but that didn't mean anything.

“Crazy girl,” I muttered on my way to turning on the coffeepot. I glanced with fondness at the tray of the four beautiful cupcakes that were left after Janice—it felt so weird to call her that—and I had one each last night. It was great to have good neighbors, especially ones who baked.

I was glad to be getting an early start on my work today. My main goal was to finish
Songbirds in Trees
and move on to the next project. If my plan was successful, I would be able to clean up the book and make any other small repairs necessary. By the end of the day, I wanted to be able to drive over to the Bird-watchers Society and return their missing treasure to them. I had a feeling they would be happy to see the beautiful book back where it belonged, in its display case. Even if they had no idea what had happened to the poor book in the first place.

I had to admit, though, that the thought of facing the unpleasant Marva Pesca was not a cheery one.

Nevertheless, after coffee and a breakfast of granola, bananas, strawberries, and a cupcake, followed by a quick phone call from Derek, I cleaned up the kitchen and headed out to my workshop to get the ball rolling.

I approached my book press with some trepidation. I was pretty sure I'd gotten all the dampness out of the book, and the card stock would help absorb the rest of it. But what if the pages were still wrinkled? What if they were now stuck to the card stock? What if the press had screwed up somehow? It happened once in a while; the press would tug at one end and the book would end up bent or catawampus. Or one page would get tweaked and end up torn or otherwise damaged.

I'd given the book two days to straighten itself up. All I could do now was examine it and hope that my idea had worked out. I slowly unscrewed the wheel and pulled the book out from under the heavy wooden press. I'd also used two thin five-pound brass-plated book weights to ensure that even pressure was applied to the entire book.

I unwrapped the book and stared at it. And let go of the breath I didn't realize I was holding. I turned the book over a few times and held it up to study the spine. It looked good. Straight and even. I carefully opened the book and skipped through the pages, removing the sheets of card stock as I went. Nothing was stuck, everything was flat. It was beautiful. I was overjoyed.

“This one's for you, Jared,” I said aloud. “You oddball bird-watcher, you.”

With a quiet laugh, I thought of Socrates McCall and Marva Pesca and the others I'd met last week at Jared's memorial celebration. There was an entire roomful of oddball bird-watchers, come to think of it. I hoped they would all be very happy with their pretty new book.

But could one of those strange
birdfellows
be a cold-blooded killer? I set that thought aside for now, with a mental note to remind Derek that we needed to revisit that group.

With the pages repaired, I took the time to examine the book more closely. I remembered thinking it was a sweet little book the night Jared gave it to me at the Covington, although looking at it now, I saw it was slightly bigger than I'd originally estimated. Just to be certain, and to be completely obsessive about it, I pulled out my measuring tape to double-check. It was just over eight inches tall, five inches wide, and an inch and a quarter thick. Still sweet, but not quite as little as I'd originally thought.