One Book in the Grave: A Bibliophile Mystery

show you that side of her. But I caught the vibe right away.” I popped a warm chunk of bread into my mouth and savored the flavor. “You know I always looked up to you, Max. We were friends. I hate to say it, but Angie seemed jealous of our history together.”
     
    Gabriel leaned forward. “Did you spend much time with her?”
     
    “God, no,” I said quickly. “Whenever I came around,she would make up an excuse to leave, always dragging Max off with her. The few times I spoke with her alone, she mostly issued veiled threats.”
     
    “I’m sorry to say, I can believe that,” Max said.
     
    “She threatened you?” Derek looked aghast. “You can’t be serious.”
     
    “It was usually vague,” I said, “but basically she warned me not to hang around Max and their friends, or she’d make me sorry I was ever born.” I took a sip of wine. “Now that we’re talking about it, I remember being scared to death of her. I was afraid she would slip something into my drink someday, so I stopped going to the department parties.”
     
    “I’m sorry,” Max said, then slid into a thoughtful silence.
     
    “It’s not your fault,” I said after a minute.
     
    “Yeah, it is.”
     
    We all ate quietly for a while, each of us absorbed in our own little worlds.
     
    “This pasta is incredible,” I said, trying to coax Max back to the conversation.
     
    “Thanks,” he said, tearing off a slice of toast. “It’s funny now to hear your side of things, Brooklyn. You’re right: Angie was too possessive. I knew it all along. But she was gorgeous, wildly talented, and larger-than-life, so I put up with it. I thought she made me look good. And, I’ll admit, I enjoyed the wild side of her.”
     
    “Men,” I muttered, not for the first time.
     
    “A man will put up with a lot of grief for a beautiful woman,” Gabriel murmured, swirling his wine.
     
    “She was a gorgeous disaster,” Max admitted. “And it didn’t hurt that Solomon was jealous of my relationship with her.”
     
    “No, that wouldn’t hurt,” Derek said, flashing me a quick grin. “Men can be ridiculous sometimes.”
     
    “I can see now that I was a complete idiot,” Max said cheerfully. “As Brooklyn would probably concur.”
     
    “Well, I would now,” I said, and everyone laughed. “But back then, Max was like a celebrity. He had a huge following in the book arts world. His techniques formaking paper were considered revolutionary and groundbreaking.”
     
    “Okay, now you’re getting carried away,” Max drawled.
     
    “No, really,” I said, looking at Derek and Gabriel. “He had groupies.”
     
    “They were my students,” Max protested.
     
    I laughed. “No, they were your fans. Solomon absolutely should have been jealous of you. You were years younger, taller, and better-looking than him. He was your boss, so I guess he could have fired you, but he couldn’t afford to lose you. I’m sure a decent percentage of people enrolled in classes at the institute because of you.”
     
    “Thank you for the positive PR, Brooklyn, but Solomon was mainly jealous of my relationship with Angelica, not my work. After we’d been together awhile, Angie confessed that she and Solomon had dated briefly in the past, before I came to work there. She often mentioned that he wanted her back. But for some reason, she was in love with me.”
     
    “Do you think she was seeing Solomon on the side?” I asked.
     
    “Ah, a love triangle,” Derek mused. “Murder would be a natural outcome.”
     
    I couldn’t help but smile when he talked like that. Clyde the cat wound his fuzzy body around my ankles, then planted his entire body on my feet.
     
    “We were hardly in a love triangle,” Max demurred. “Angie told me about her earlier fling with Solomon only to keep me on my toes. She insisted she didn’t like him anymore, but tolerated him to keep the peace. At the time I thought she was sincere, but now who knows what the truth was?”
     
    “The institute sounds like a hotbed of thrills and intrigue,” Derek said dryly.
     
    “Apparently, it was rife with drugs and promiscuity,” I said, then laughed ruefully. “And I was completely in the dark.”
     
    Gabriel wound a small amount of pasta around his fork,then looked at Max. “So why do you think the shooter might be Angelica, if she professed to love you so much?”
     
    We gobbled up pasta as Max collected his thoughts.
     
    “I’d been thinking of quitting my job