One Book in the Grave: A Bibliophile Mystery

building,” Emily explained, clutching her hands together nervously. “I hope that’s okay.”
    “That’s…wonderful.” Taking Emily’s arm, I led her into the apartment. “Come in, please. Wow. How are you? It’s been a long time.”
     
    “Yeah, I know,” she said, hesitating just inside the doorway. “Sorry to just drop in.”
     
    “It’s no problem.”
     
    She took a moment to gaze around my workroom, and I could see her eyes focusing on the many shelves and rows and rows of threads and tools and papers and map drawers. “Nice space.”
     
    “Thanks. Oh, Emily.” I grabbed her in a hug. “I’m so glad to see you.”
     
    Glad she was alive. Glad she hadn’t been hurt, and just glad in general. Of course, this opened a whole new world of
uh-oh
s, too. Max was here. In the house. Emily thought he was dead. And I wouldn’t have the chance to warn either one of them before they saw each other, so…uh-oh.
     
    “Yeah, me, too,” she said, hugging me tightly. “It’s been too long.” After a moment, she stepped back and ran a nervous hand through her long brown hair. She hadn’t changed much, except that she’d grown her hairlonger and had gotten even prettier than she’d been three years ago. More elegant somehow, and calmer.
     
    “Look,” she said, folding her hands as she spoke, “I’m sorry I didn’t return your phone calls. I wanted to, but I was visiting my parents, who are staying in Cleveland for a few months. My dad’s sick. He’s at the Cleveland Clinic and…well, you don’t need to know the details. Anyway, I just flew into SFO and didn’t feel like driving straight home. So I thought that as long as I was in town, I’d take a chance and stop by. I hope you don’t mind, but I Googled you and got your business address. Anyway, here I am—and, God, I’m talking too much.”
     
    “No, you’re not,” I said, laughing. “I’m sorry to hear about your dad. But I’m so happy to see you. I’m blown away that you came by.”
     
    I glanced over at Derek and saw the
What do we do about this?
look on his face, and I answered with a shrug. One glance at Gabriel’s smile told me he was enjoying the drama of the situation. I was willing to bet that Max wouldn’t.
     
    “What’s going on, Brooklyn?” she asked. “Your messages made it sound urgent.”
     
    “Yeah, it is. But first, I hope everything’s okay with your dad.” I knew the Cleveland Clinic’s reputation for working medical miracles—sometimes.
     
    “Thanks,” she said. “I do, too. I’m going back there next week, but I had to take care of some things at home.”
     
    “Well, we can go into the living room, I guess.” No way to avoid the death cooties from Angelica’s body now, and I couldn’t keep Emily standing in the workroom. Now it was my turn to be nervous.
     
    “Okay.” But she stopped and smiled at Gabriel and Derek. “Hello.”
     
    “Hi there,” Gabriel said with a grin.
     
    Derek nodded. “Hello.”
     
    “Sorry. My manners went missing,” I said. “These are friends of mine. This is Derek Stone and that’s Gabriel.”
     
    “Hi,” she said again, and went back to clutching her hands together. “Well. You look really good, Brooklyn.”
     
    “Oh, thanks. So do you.” This was ridiculous. I had to give her some kind of hint about why I’d been calling. It wasn’t fair to just spring Max on her. She was young, but a shock like that could bring on a sudden heart attack. God, why hadn’t she called me first? “Look, Emily, I don’t how to—”
     
    “Found more chips,” Max said as he walked back into the room, shaking the bag. He stopped abruptly and stared, gaping at the woman. “Emily?”
     
    I heard a long gasp, then a moan. I was just in time to catch her on her way to the floor.
     
    “Emily!” Max cried out, and ran over. I moved out of the way as he took her from me. He knelt down and laid her out on the floor, slipping his hand under her head and pressing his other hand to her cheek. “Oh, my God, Emily. Emily.”
     
    Shoot! This was awful! I should have found a way to warn her. But was there really any way to prepare her for seeing her dead boyfriend all hale and hearty? Watching the expression on Max’s face, hearing the desperation in his voice, I had to blink to clear my tear-filled eyes. I’d been doing that a lot lately.
     
    Derek closed the front door and, to be safe, knelt down to check her wrist for a pulse. “She’s fine.