One Book in the Grave: A Bibliophile Mystery

damn it. Not because of her, certainly, but because the murderer had obviously targeted me. And Max. They’d shot a gun at us both, and at Derek and Gabriel, as well. So we were all victims of a sort. Even Emily, wherever she was.
     
    So I wasn’t about to stop searching for reasons and clues and answers to my questions. And justice. I wanted justice. I wanted Max to have his life back. I wanted that damn box out of my living room. And along the way to finding answers, if I happened to find justice for Angelica also? Well, then, no harm, no foul.
     
    But first I needed to swallow my annoyance and face Inspector Lee.
     
    “‘Now you’re having bodies delivered,’” I mimicked, shaking my head. Okay, now that the initial piss-off had passed, even I could admit that it was a little funny. Still mean and rude, but funny. And too damn true.
     
    “‘Bodies delivered,’” I grumbled.
     
    I punched my pillow one last time. “Okay, fine. It was funny.” But you’d never catch me admitting it to her.
     
    I was chuckling reluctantly by the time I left my bedroom. I mean, really, that damn woman’s body had been delivered straight to my house. It was like the plot of a bad horror movie. Creepy. Diabolical. Stupid. Who had that kind of mind?
     
    “‘Delivery for you, Ms. Wainwright,’” I muttered, shaking my head. “Bodies ’R’ Us.” It really was too silly, if I looked at it objectively. A body delivered to my house.
Ridiculous!
     
    And all of a sudden, my eyes flew open. “Delivered. To my house. Oh, God.”
     
    I ran down the hall shouting, “Derek.”
     
    “Right here, darling,” he called from the kitchen, where I found him drinking a beer. Inspector Jaglom sat on one of the bar stools, holding a Starbucks cup.
     
    I averted my eyes from the scene in the corner of my living room, where the medical examiner and his assistants were hauling Angelica’s body out of the box. I hoped they were taking the box with them.
     
    “What is it, love?”
     
    “The deliveryman!” I said gleefully. “He’ll have information on whoever sent that thing.”
     
    “Brilliant, darling.” Derek lifted his beer bottle in a toast to my genius. “Do you have the delivery slip, by chance? Inspector Jaglom can get started straight away with tracking him down.”
     
    My shoulders fell. “You already thought of that, didn’t you?”
     
    He gazed at me with fondness. “I believe you and Imight’ve thought of it at precisely the same moment. Great minds and all that, you know.”
     
    “Right.” I shot him a skeptical look. He smiled back at me and mouthed the words,
I love you
.
     
    And just like that, I was smiling again.
     
    Inspector Lee caught me coming out of the kitchen. “Listen, Wainwright. I mean, Brooklyn. You know I was just teasing you earlier, right?”
    “Yeah, I know.”
     
    “Good.” Inspector Lee grinned. “Because believe it or not, I actually like you a lot.”
     
    “You like me?”
     
    “Hey, if I didn’t like you, I’d kick you to the curb.”
     
    “Gee, thanks,” I said. “I’m feeling the love.”
     
    “That’s as warm and fuzzy as I get, Wainwright.”
     
    “But you mean it? You really, really like me?” I said, sniffling as I dramatically clutched my hands to my heart.
     
    She held up both hands. “Okay, don’t get carried away.”
     
    “Trust me, I’m not,” I said sardonically.
     
    She laughed and we walked out of the living room into my workroom. I needed a break from the crime scene and she seemed willing to hang out with me.
     
    “You and me,” she said, leaning one hip against my desk. “We’re sort of in the same boat.”
     
    I jumped up and sat in one of my work chairs. “How do you figure?”
     
    She shrugged. “Well, first and most obviously, we’re both foxy.”
     
    “Foxy?” I laughed and she grinned. Guess she was going for a laugh, so I played along. “That’s so true. We do have that much in common.”
     
    “Yeah,” she said, “and we both seem to find ourselves around dead bodies a lot.”
     
    “Also true.” I observed her for a moment and realized she looked a little uncomfortable.
Interesting.
So I said, “You know, we have so much in common, we should probably try to get along. You know. Be friends, maybe.”
     
    She shrugged. “Only seems right.”
     
    “Okay.” I held out my hand and she reached over and shook it. Her hand was cool and calloused. Friendly.
     
    “Friends,” she said with a