One Book in the Grave: A Bibliophile Mystery

found out that Joe Taylor did a lot of selling to the Covington.”
     
    Busy, busy,
I thought.
     
    He nodded. “That’s probably how it all went down.”
     
    “She planned this whole thing, Max.” I shook my head at the amazing intricacies of Angelica’s plot. “She warned you and warned you about Solomon, so when your car went over the cliff, she must have thought you took her advice and faked your own death.”
     
    He frowned. “But how did she know Solomon wasn’t actually responsible for that? How did she know I was still alive?”
     
    I threw my hands up in the air. “I don’t know. Maybe she was following you all that time, wanting to know if any of Solomon’s dirty tricks worked. Maybe she saw that you got your car fixed after the brake line was cut, so she knew you couldn’t have lost your brakes in Big Sur. Or maybe she just
hoped
you were still alive. Who knows for sure?”
     
    “Who knows for sure?” he muttered.
     
    “So when the retrospective became a reality, she must have decided it was time to resurrect you.” I paced the room as I went through the steps Angelica might have taken. “So she put the book out on the market through Joe, then fed him all the right suggestions. Then she went back and killed Joe so she couldn’t be tracked down.”
     
    “We don’t know that for sure,” Max said. “There’s another possibility. Maybe Solomon killed Joe as a warning to Angelica.”
     
    I considered this. “I don’t doubt that he is crazy enough to do it, but why would he? The letter indicates that Angie’s the one who set the whole thing into motion with
Beauty
.”
     
    He turned and faced me. “But what if Angie wrote this letter and put it in the book, and then Solomon took it before Angie could start the ball rolling? She says that he thought I wrote the dedication to Angelica.”
     
    “So he started the ball rolling to get the book to you, to kill you.”
     
    Max shook his head. “This is making me crazy.”
     
    “Right there with you,” I muttered. “My head’s exploding just trying to keep up with the two of them.”
     
    “So Solomon brings the book to Joe; then he has to go back and kill Joe and then, later, Angie.”
     
    “It’s all way too complicated,” I said, needing either aspirin or wine. I knew which one I preferred, but it was a little early in the day to start drinking.
     
    “No, it’s all speculative,” Max corrected.
     
    “But it’s all possible, too.”
     
    Max stared at the ceiling for a full minute, then shouted out an epithet. “I’m so pissed off. My life was turned upside down and backward for three long years because these two idiotic
children
decided to play some kind of sick game with me.”
     
    “You’re giving children a bad name,” I muttered in disgust. “Let’s call it what it was. They were control freaks. Psychopaths. That’s why they were so close. They each recognized that same twisted mentality in the other.”
     
    “And I played right into their hands,” he admitted quietly. “I was attracted to Angelica because she was a gorgeous, experienced woman, but she was never in love with me. She didn’t know the meaning of the word.” He scratched his head in frustration. “I’m an idiot.”
     
    “Yeah, you were.”
     
    “Thanks.” He shook his head in disgust. “Everything Angie ever did was calculated and manipulative.”
     
    “True.” I sighed. “Look, I’m going to give Derek a call. He needs to see this note.” I walked toward the hall.
     
    “Wait,” he said, following me. “Let me have the letter. I want to show it to Emily. She should know the truth about what happened.”
     
    “Okay, but be careful with it. We’ll need to show it to Inspector Lee. I’ll be in my room, on the phone with Derek.”
     
    “Where’d Emily go?” He looked around, confused. “She was sitting right there at the dining room table a few minutes ago.”
     
    I frowned. “I thought she was in your room with you.”
     
    “No.”
     
    “Maybe she’s in the bathroom.”
     
    “Yeah, maybe.” He headed down the hall, calling her name, but got no response. He came jogging back to the living room. “Is she in the kitchen?”
     
    “No.” We could both see the kitchen from the dining room. “Maybe she’s outside.”
     
    “Okay, you check the garage. I’ll check the yard.”
     
    I grabbed his arm. “Don’t worry. She knows better than to walk too far away.”
     
    Fear was alive and