One Book in the Grave (2 page)

I bypassed the main exhibit hall and headed straight for Ian’s office, down the wide corridor that led to the inner sanctum. I was eager to get hold of the book he was so excited about, and envisioned myself rushing home, tearing it apart, and putting it back together again. With utmost love and care, of course.

Yes, life was good indeed.

That thought was snuffed out as a sudden, cold sense of dread permeated the very air around me. I shuddered in dismay. In any perfect apple, a worm might be found.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

Shudders rippled through me at the shrill voice of Minka LaBoeuf, my archenemy.

My stomach bubbled and roiled in revulsion and I instantly regretted the Spanish omelet I’d eaten for breakfast. I turned to face her and was sorry I had. Chartreuse-and-fuchsia-striped leggings appeared to have been sprayed onto Minka’s ample lower body. As God was my witness, the leggings were topped by a matching tube top (a tube top!) and a pixie band (a pixie band!) in her hair. She looked like a demented barber pole.

I couldn’t make this stuff up.

“I was invited to come here today,” I said, shielding my eyes from the glare. “I know you can’t say the same, so you should leave. Be sure to let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

Baring her teeth, she snarled and said, “You’re such a bitch!”

I smiled with concern. “Really? Is that the best you’ve got? Pitiful.”

She moved in close—so close that I could smell her new perfume, Eau de Goat—and hissed at me. “If you don’t stop trying to take away my jobs, I’ll make sure you never work in this town again.”

Never work in this town again?
Had she really said that? Of course she had. Minka was the queen of the tattered cliché.

“Threats, Minka?” I backed away from her, knowing she had an unruly left hook. “Ian won’t like hearing that you threatened me.”

She sniffed imperiously. “Ian is a jerk.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him you said so.”

“You’re a jerk, too.”

Feeling disappointed, I shook my head. “Have you been sick or something? Your comebacks are so lame, it’s pathetic.” I didn’t stick around to hear her answer, but turned and hurried off. I didn’t look back, either—possibly a tactical error where Minka was concerned, since she was the master of the sneak attack. But honestly, I couldn’t take another violent shock to my nervous system.

“You’ll be sorry!” she shrieked.

I rubbed my arms against the chill but kept moving. Minka had the kind of aura that stirred up all the frigid, stagnant chi that existed in any space. Or maybe auras and chi had nothing to do with it. I just knew she scared the hell out of me. Once I turned the corner and was out of her sight, I breathed easier. It was warmer now. The spell was broken.

I knew that sounded a little wacky, but I’d been
stalked and harassed and, yes, punched in the face by Minka LaBoeuf. I wasn’t about to question the possibility that she could cast spells with those evil eyes of hers.

Strolling briskly down the wide hall, I entered the suite of business offices and greeted Wylie, Ian’s current assistant.

“He’s waiting for you, Ms. Wainwright. Go right in.”

“Thanks, Wylie.”

I knocked, then opened Ian’s door.

“Hey, you,” Ian said, jumping up from his chair and rushing to greet me with a hug. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been itching to get your opinion on what to do about this book.”

Shaking off the last of my Minka-induced negativity, I smiled and hugged him back. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“I’ll warn you beforehand that the outside of the book is less than impressive. Well, actually, it’s in horrible shape, but I know you can make it shine. The inside is exquisite.” He led the way across the room to his lovingly restored Chippendale conference table. We sat, and I watched him slowly unwrap several layers of white tissue paper to reveal a rather nondescript book.

The book was big, probably twelve inches tall by nine inches wide, but it was less than one inch thick. The leather cover was green, or it had been at one time; now it was faded to a dull gray. The front cover was badly frayed along the inner edges and outer hinge, where it would probably break apart at the least jarring movement.

And it was disturbingly familiar. I frowned and chewed my lip as I reached for it.

“I know it’s ugly,” Ian reiterated, misreading my reaction. “But the paper is still in excellent condition, and just wait until you see the illustrations.”

“Okay.” I picked it up cautiously, not only because it was old and falling apart, but because I was afraid of what I would find when I opened it. I stared at the spine.
Beauty and the Beast
, it read, though the letters had lost most of their gilding.

I opened the book, bypassed the flyleaf, and turned to the front illustration across from the title page. It was colorful and sweet and classically Victorian. A tea party for two. Beauty wore a regal red cape and her golden blond hair flowed in waves down her back. She sat at a table, pouring tea for the Beast, who was depicted as a huge brown bear. His appearance was hairy and scary, yet he seemed dignified and well mannered. The tea set was blue. I could’ve described it blindfolded.

I paged back to the inside flyleaf and stared at the inscription written there. My throat tightened and the pressure building in my chest began to ache.

“It’s very rare,” Ian said in a rush. “First edition. Look at the interior pages. They’re fantastic. I just need you to fashion a new cover and do some cleanup, and we’ll have a masterpiece to display in the children’s gallery.”

I ran my fingers over the dried ink and reread the sentimental inscription. The scrawled penmanship had a beauty all its own.

“Earth to Brooklyn,” he snapped. “What’s going on? Can you do the work or not?”

I shook myself out of my melancholy and glanced up at Ian. “I’m not sure I can.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure? You could do this restoration in your sleep.”

“Oh, yeah, I can do the work.” I turned the book over to see if the damage extended to the back joint, but it was still smooth and unfrayed. “But…I don’t think I can do the work.”

He scowled, shoved his chair back from the table, and stood over me. “You’re speaking in riddles. What’s wrong with the damn book?”

“Nothing’s wrong with the book,” I said, and met his gaze directly. “Except that it was stolen.”

“No, it wasn’t.” He stared at my expression, then shook his head vigorously. “No way. What the hell are you talking about? I bought it from Joseph Taylor, the most reputable bookseller in the city. It was a clean deal.”

“I believe you.” Joe Taylor was an old acquaintance of mine. My mentor, Abraham, had known him forever, and over the years we’d done a lot of bookbinding work for him.

I touched the crisp, deckled edges of the paper and fought to stay calm. “But I’d like to find out who sold it to Joe, because I know they weren’t the rightful owner.”

Frustrated, Ian scratched his head, causing his hair to spike wildly. “What aren’t you telling me, Brooklyn? How do you know this book was stolen? Who did it belong to?”

Awash in memories, I didn’t realize until too late that I had tears in my eyes. I brushed them away with a fierce swipe of my hand and faced him. “Me, Ian. Once upon a time, this book belonged to me.”

“You?” Ian shook his head in confusion. “So what happened? You sold it to someone?”

“No.” Reluctantly, I pushed the book away and stood. “No, I gave it away.”

“Well, then there’s no problem.”

I laughed, but the sound was empty. “Believe me—there’s a problem.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” he muttered, and began to pace back and forth between the conference table and his massive antique mahogany desk.

Confused and unsure what to do, I leaned my hip against the table and glanced around the office, trying to distract myself by admiring Ian’s latest artwork. He still had the Diebenkorn painting of a woman drinking coffee prominently displayed behind his desk, but there were three miniature Rembrandt engravings on the wall closest to the door that I didn’t remember seeing before.

As always when I visited Ian, I thought how nice it would be to borrow from the vast Covington collection to furnish one’s office. And if the artwork didn’t impress a visitor, one could always enjoy the incomparable view of the Golden Gate Bridge seen through the big picture window by the conference table. I turned and stared out at the wide expanse of the bay and tried to appreciate the amazing vista.

“You want to tell me what happened?” Ian asked from close behind me.

I sighed and slowly turned around. “It’s a long story. Are you ready to hear it?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I suppose I’ll have to.”

I smiled. “Did Austin ever introduce you to Max Adams?”

“Max? Sure. Didn’t he die a few years ago?”

“It was almost three years ago,” I said. But thanks to the reappearance of
Beauty and the Beast
, I was reliving the day as if it were yesterday.

I’d had a crush on Max Adams from the first day I’d laid eyes on him when I was ten years old. Max’s family had followed Avatar Robson Benedict—otherwise known as Guru Bob—to the Sonoma commune he’d established, just as my family had a few years earlier. So we all grew up together in Dharma. Max was my oldest brother Austin’s best friend until they each went away to different colleges.

While at Stanford, Austin met Ian and brought him home for Thanksgiving dinner. That was how Ian and I met, way back when. I was long over Max by then and started dating Ian, who made me laugh and shared my love of books and art and Monty Python movies. Our relationship got serious for a minute or so when Ian proposed marriage, but it didn’t take long for us to realize we weren’t meant for each other. Happily, we’d remained close friends and book-world colleagues.

Ian had recently proven correct my decision to end our engagement by coming out of the closet. But that was a whole other story.

I walked around the table and over to the window. “You know about Guru Bob and how he first got Abraham to hire me as an apprentice, right?”

“Of course. You were just a kid, right?” Ian said.

“Right. So back then, it was—”

“Wait a minute,” Ian interjected. “Do I need to hear
the entire history of the world or can you skip to the good parts?”

“I promise I’ll keep it as short as I can. So, anyway, Guru Bob did the same thing for Max, asking Abraham to mentor him.”

“I thought Max worked with paper.”

“He did.” I gave Ian the abbreviated history. Max had been helping out Abraham Karastovsky at the same time I was working as his official apprentice. My little heart would go pitter-patter whenever Max came into the studio. I would dream of him and me bookbinding our way to our very own happily-ever-after.

Sadly, though, Max didn’t care much for bookbinding; he was always more interested in the paper itself than in the binding procedures. So instead of helping with binding books, he began to experiment with all sorts of different papermaking techniques.

“It was all good, because Max’s talent with paper fit right in with Guru Bob’s master plan for Dharma,” I said. “Guru Bob wanted to revive as many of the ancient guild crafts as possible, thinking that our finely crafted products would provide income for the fellowship to stay afloat into the future.”

Ian laughed. “And planting a few thousand grapevines didn’t hurt, either.”

“No kidding.” Guru Bob had hedged his bets early on by suggesting that his followers plant grapes across the commune property, adding more acreage over the years. Our vineyards and renowned winery had made the members wealthy beyond even Guru Bob’s expectations. But it was still nice to walk into the boutique shops along Dharma’s Shakespeare Lane and see our members’ artwork and beautifully handmade crafts on display.

“Meanwhile, Guru Bob had seen the level of artistry in Max’s work and suggested that he go to art school.”

So he did. And in the small world of papermaking, Max became a rock star, complete with groupies and an entourage. It didn’t hurt that he was tall and dark and
ruggedly built, or that he brought his own brash, avant-garde style to the quiet art of making paper, thus catching the attention of everyone in the book arts universe. Some compared him to his hero, Dard Hunter, the legendary papermaker and printer, though Max insisted he could never be that good.

Max ended up teaching at the prestigious Sonoma Institute of the Arts, just a few miles south of Dharma. His acolytes enrolled by the dozens to study at the feet of the master. He gave lectures all over the country and hordes of groupies followed him from city to city, from lecture to art exhibit to papermaking demonstration.

“It was unbelievable,” I said, still a bit awestruck after all these years. “I went to some of his lectures and saw the fanatical adoration for myself. The truly amazing part was that Max seemed unfazed by the attention.”

“That’s all really fascinating, Brooklyn,” Ian said dryly, “but where does this copy of
Beauty and the Beast
come in?”

“I’m getting there,” I groused, even though I could’ve regaled him with another hour’s worth of ancient history. “So the year before he died, Max met and fell in love with a woman, a young schoolteacher, Emily Branigan.”

“Ah, a woman,” Ian said, nodding astutely. “That always spells trouble.”

“Very funny,” I said, backhanding him in the arm.

He chuckled. “Knew you’d like that one. So, what happened?”

“Max had recently broken up with this really bizarre woman who also taught at the institute.” I had to think for a few seconds, then frowned. “Angelica—that was her name.” I’d heard Max call her Angel once, but she was the furthest thing from an angel I’d ever met.

“Max’s friends couldn’t stand Angelica, so when he finally broke up with her, then met and fell in love with Emily, we were all overjoyed. They threw a party in Dharma to announce their engagement, and I needed to bring a gift. I’d had this copy of
Beauty and the Beast
for years, and I thought it would make a perfect gift.”