One Book in the Grave: A Bibliophile Mystery

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.”
     

Chapter 2
     
    “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