Death hits the fan (2 page)

Ivan cleared his throat and introduced the authors briefly, telling us that each would do a short reading.

He nodded toward their table and Yvette popped up like a marionette.

"I'll go first," she said and launched into a long and loving biography of her sleuth, Lovell, and his assistant, Peggy. And an even longer synopsis of each of her seven published books.

S.X. "Shayla" Greenfree picked up the jewel-encrusted bracelet from the table and fingered it with a small smile on her face. Then Yvette picked up her most recent book and opened it.

"Chapter One," she began, her voice ringing through the small store. " 'A client for you, Lovell,' I insisted, peering into my boss's glaring face. 'A paying client...'"

Shayla opened the clasp on the bracelet and slid the jewels slowly onto her wrist.

"'And don't tell me we don't need the money,' I warned," Yvette read on. "'You haven't spun any gold since . . .'"

Shayla closed the bracelet around her wrist with a snap. Her face pinched for an instant. Was the bracelet too tight?

" 'No elves are getting you out of this one, Lovell,'" Yvette continued. "See, we did need the money. My boss had expensive tastes for a leprechaun—"

"Kate, I. .." Shayla interrupted.

Kate? I thought. She can't mean me. Was there another Kate in the audience? I looked more closely at Shayla for a breath, but I was sure I didn't recognize her. At least, pretty sure. The face of a far less elegant woman flashed before my mind's eye, but then it was gone. And Shayla wasn't smiling anymore.

"Cash or charge, hot sex, scree" PMP cut in.

Yvette glared at Shayla and PMP, and I looked quickly back at our reader. But I could see Shayla's face flush in Yvette's periphery. Shayla let out a small cough and her eyelids began to droop as Yvette went back to her reading. Was Shayla actually falling asleep?

" 'I hoped our client had money,'" Yvette continued. " 'It was hard to tell from the way she was dressed

Yeah, I answered myself, Shayla was falling asleep. And sure enough, S.X. Greenfree's whole upper body pitched forward onto the authors' table as Yvette read on.

The gray-bearded man in front of us jerked up in his seat, clearly startled by Shayla's sudden drop. But the younger, African-American man beside him put a hand on his shoulder.

"She's probably asleep," he whispered gently. "This happens sometimes when Yvette gets going."

Or feigning sleep, I thought. Damn, that was rude. Suddenly, I wasn't so fond of the great S.X. "Shayla" Greenfree. The most I could have said for her was that she had the grace not to snore.

After what had to be a good twenty minutes more of Yvette's reading, however, I was coming to understand Shayla's reaction. And suppressing a yawn myself.

"End of chapter Three," Yvette finally finished.

I roused myself to join in the small hand of applause, more out of relief than anything else.

Yvette turned to the fallen author next to her.

"It's your turn now, Shayla," she said, her ringing tones surprisingly good-natured. "But I'll try not to sleep through your reading."

That got a laugh, followed by an even bigger laugh when PMP added, "Stoo-pid bird, shut up, scree-scraw"

But Shayla, S.X. Greenfree, didn't move.

Yvette tapped her colleague's shoulder, a look of concern on her narrow face now.

The man with the gray beard got out of his chair hesitantly.

"Shayla?" he asked.

Then more urgently, "Shayla?"

As the man started for the authors' table, Ted Brown shook Shayla's shoulder, then pulled her by that shoulder straight up in her chair.

Shayla's face was tinted a delicate shade of blue. Perfectly matched to the flowing silk that draped her inert body.

Jhayla!"

Now the gray-bearded man screamed her name, the syllables pelting the silence inside as loudly as the rain was pelting the small bookstore outside.

"Shayla, oh Shayla!" he kept on as he rushed toward the authors' table.

My brain felt sodden. The elegant and prolific S.X. Greenfree was tinted blue and unblinking in her seat, Ted Brown's hand frozen on her shoulder. The whole store was stone-still. Only the gray-bearded man seemed to be in motion.

And then the black man leapt up to join him. And finally, Ted Brown stepped back to collapse into his chair as the other two men rushed around the table to pull S.X. Green-free away from her seat, away from the table with all of her books, and stretch her out in the small space left open on the floor. Kneeling, each man felt for her pulse, one at her neck and one at her wrist. The bearded man put his ear over

Shayla's mouth, then lifted his head to stare down at her. The younger man pushed past him and put his own mouth over Shayla's as he pinched her nostrils, breathing slowly into her mouth. But even I wondered if the effort was futile. Could someone that color be alive?

The bearded man seemed to agree with my unspoken opinion. He watched for a few more moments, shaking his head, then rose unsteadily to his feet, shuffling backwards until he bumped into the end of a bookshelf.

"Dear God," he murmured. "Dear Lord." He didn't seem to know the rest of us were in the room. Maybe he didn't even know he was still in the room. He put his head into his hands for a moment, then pulled on a chain around his neck and freed the jade stone that had been hidden under his shirt. "What will I tell Scott?" he asked no one in particular as he held the green stone.

There was a clatter a seat down from Wayne as the moonfaced woman in the oversized glasses sprang into action. She jumped from her seat and ran to the bearded man, averting her eyes as she detoured around the authors' table, Shayla, and her would-be resuscitator. When she reached the bearded man, she grabbed his arm, turning him toward her with a yank.

"Dean!" she said loudly, looking him in the face.

Dean just stared through her, still holding the jade in his hand.

"Dean," she said more softly. "It's me, Zoe. Zoe Ingersoll, remember?"

Dean's eyes focused on hers slowly.

"Zoe?" he said, as if trying out the word on his tongue. Then he shook his head and tears appeared in his eyes.

"Zoe," he murmured thickly. "It's Shayla. She's dead."

"Are you sure?" Zoe asked, the blinking of her eyes speeding up under her glasses. Only then did she glance back where Shayla lay. And even at that, only for a moment.

She shivered and punched her fist into her hand before quickly turning her head back, twitching her eyes at Dean's again.

"Yes," Dean assured her. "Oh, Lord yes, I'm sure," and then he began to cry in earnest. Zoe put her arms around him, tentatively, not holding him close, but holding him all the same.

Who were these two? I eyed Dean. He had weathered skin under his gray beard, a straight nose and dark eyebrows. He was of medium height and build, not handsome nor unhandsome. Other than the relative darkness of his brows compared to his gray beard, he was unnoticeable. Except for his tears.

Zoe, on the other hand, was more striking, partly because of her rounded face atop her thin body. She might have been a "Miss Peach" cartoon character. And partly because of the exquisitely embroidered vest she wore over her sloppy jeans and turtleneck. But mostly because of her frenetic energy. She was still blinking rapidly behind her oversized glasses. Sadness, concern, confusion? I couldn't tell.

What was the relationship between Zoe and Dean? Were they—

"She's not dead!" shouted the statesmanlike man who had been in the front row from the beginning. He was standing now, waving his pinstriped arms. "It's the bracelet, can't you fools see? Take off her bracelet!"

"Vince, Mr. Quadrini," Ivan murmured, advancing on the pinstriped man. "It's okay. Everything will be okay."

"Okay!" Vince Quadrini whirled on Ivan. I updated my age calculation on Mr. Quadrini to late, not early, seventies as I looked into his face. It was a good-looking face, with a long, rounded nose and solid features under wavy gray hair, but still strained and showing its age as Mr. Quadrini turned on Ivan.

"Okay, okay?" he demanded. "The greatest writer since Kornbluth might be dying, and everything's okay?"

Mr. Quadrini was right. Everything was not okay. I could see it in the face of the man still working on Shayla. He was pressing on the author's chest with two hands now, hard and fast, his dark features desperate. Shayla, S.X. Greenfree, was dead. She had to be. And she had called me by name while she was falling asleep. Only, she hadn't been falling asleep. My heart lurched as if I were the one receiving CPR. Had Shayla been dying all that time? Dying and ignored as Yvette read on and on. I looked up at the ceiling, anywhere but at the woman on the floor. The white ceiling was luminous suddenly, shining—

I felt Wayne's hand on mine, and realized my hands were shaking. I drew my head back down slowly. Why had Shayla called my name? Had she known she was dying? Had she been crying out for help? But why me? Unless someone else was named Kate ...

I shivered and looked beyond Dean, where Marcia Arme-son stood as still as a photograph, holding her camera. Her delicate features looked tight and meager in their evident unhappiness, however fashionably framed in elaborately waved black hair. But then, Marcia always looked unhappy. She jerked her head to look at Shayla, then jerked it back toward Ivan, before whirling around to run down the center aisle toward the storeroom, her designer jeans nothing more than a flash as they disappeared.

"Hey, you!" Yvette called out. "Where the fu-hell are you going?"

It was a good question. A very loud, good question. But there was no answer from the back. Yvette looked past Shayla's empty seat at Ted Brown.

"Shouldn't we stop her or something?" she demanded.

Ted just shrugged his shoulders, keeping his eyes straight ahead, his morose face pale and immobile.

"But what if she's, like . .." Yvette waved her small hands in the air. Leprechaun hands, I thought irrelevantly. No bigger than a child's. "Holy shi-shick, what if she's destroying evidence or something?"

Ted made no response. Yvette looked down at the man still trying to resuscitate Shayla. Evidence? What did she mean by "evidence"?

A gust of wind shook the glass doors at the front of the store. Then rain splattered their surface as if in answer.

"Lou?" Yvette whispered urgently, looking down now in Shayla's direction, but the man who must have been Lou just kept pressing on Shayla's chest. Hard.

Ivan put his hand on Mr. Quadrini's shoulder. And I disengaged my cold hand from Wayne's warmer one and got up slowly, very slowly, too dizzy to do otherwise, before bending over the folding chairs to question Ivan.

"Ivan?" I hissed.

The owner of Fictional Pleasures jumped in place, startled by my sudden whisper, then looked back at me.

"Is she . .." Somehow, I couldn't say "dead."

"I don't know, I don't know," Ivan groaned miserably. Why had I thought he'd know, anyway? Why couldn't my mind seem to function? "Maybe Lou can revive her—"

"Take off the bracelet!" Mr. Quadrini yelled again.

Ivan began to turn back to the pinstriped man.

"Who's Lou?" I asked quickly before Ivan could complete the turn.

"Lou Cassell, Yvette's husband," Ivan told me, putting his hand at the side of his mouth as if to shield his words from the others. "Lou comes to all her signings. A very supportive spouse. Very caring."

I looked past Ivan at the man trying to save Shayla's life. He couldn't have been over thirty. He had to be at least fifteen years younger than Yvette. And he was gorgeous, with a body like Adonis and skin the rich brown of shiitake mush-

rooms. This was Yvette Cassell's husband? A man with large golden-brown, tiger-shaped eyes and high cheekbones above a mustached, sensual mouth—

He rose slowly as I was cataloging his physical attributes. But his sensual mouth wasn't smiling. He closed his golden-brown eyes for a moment, then shook his head.

"No!" Mr. Quadrini objected. But his voice was quavering now.

And then that gorgeous younger man turned to Yvette.

"She's gone," he said, his tone clear and high, astonished. He shook his head again, harder, took a breath, and reached out for Yvette's hand. Yvette grabbed his large dark hand with her small light one, eyebrows raised over the rims of her tinted glasses. Lou stood still for a moment, head bowed. Then he looked up again.

"Someone needs to call the paramedics," he said.

Til call," Wayne offered quietly. He stood up and patted my back gently, as if for permission.

I nodded and he made his way down the row of chairs and turned toward the phone.

"And the police," Lou added, his tone deepening. His gorgeous features looked angry now. Fierce.

'The police?" Ivan said, looking as dazed as the rest of us. "The police?"

Wayne picked up the phone by the cash register. I could hear the low rumble of his voice against the rhythmically pounding rain and Dean's quiet weeping. Mr. Quadrini let out a sob as the heater kicked in with a roar of hot air.

I wanted to do something suddenly. Shayla had called out my name. And she was dead. But what could I do?

"I don't know, I don't understand," Dean mumbled through his tears. He cradled the jade stone in his hand. "What will I tell Scott?"

"Oh, jeez, Scott," Zoe muttered, pulling back abruptly from Dean. "Scott."

I wondered who Scott was. And who was Dean to Shayla? And Zoe ...

"Who's the man with the gray beard?" I whispered to Ivan.

"Dean Frazier, a friend of Shayla's, I think. And the woman was her friend too, Zoe something," Ivan told me, his voice a whisper.

His thug's face looked a little more relaxed now. Ivan liked to gossip. Maybe that was how I could help, engaging Ivan in his favorite pastime. Well, second favorite, next to reading. He had to be shaken, an author dying in his bookstore. An author who had called out my name. An author who— I wouldn't think about that, I told myself.

"And what about Mr. Qua—" I began.

But the voluptuous woman in the Mao pajamas rose from her chair, pushing it back emphatically and loudly, before I could finish my question.