Peril in Paperback: A Bibliophile Mystery

to group, pointing toward the door. I hoped that meant she was giving directions to the dining room. “I guess I can wait a few minutes longer.”
    But after dinner, I was going to go straight to bed. I didn’t want to inflict my bad mood on any other unsuspecting innocents tonight. I was too tired to tamp down my irritation at finding a rare book being used to hold up a table. Fine, I was willing to accept that in a house with twelve gazillion books, a few would get lost here and there. But stuck under a table? That was a new low.
    I silently vowed to spend part of tomorrow morning searching the house for missing books, particularly that first volume of
Gulliver’s Travels
. I figured I could go through a few rooms every day this week, hunting down wayward books. That would keep me occupied when I wasn’t working in the library with Nathan. More than anything else, I wanted to keep busy this week. I didn’t want to think about Derek with that…person. I would work hard and stay active, and to do that I would need to keep up my strength by eating a lot. Starting as soon as possible.
    “There you are, Brooklyn,” Vinnie said as she came up behind me.
    Suzie was with her. “Time for dinner, kiddo. I’m starving.”
    “You and me both,” I said.
    Vinnie looked Nathan up and down. “Hello.”
    “Hello,” he said somberly.
    I quickly introduced my friends to Nathan and explained that he and I would be working together on book stuff this week. Vinnie continued to stare at him with such barely concealed curiosity that I had to wonder what she was thinking.
    I twitched a little. She couldn’t possibly think I was considering cheating on Derek with Nathan. Could she? Just because of a stupid phone call that I’d probably misinterpreted, anyway? Since the entire group was already walking toward the door to dinner, I would pull her aside later and explain that Nathan and I would be working together this week. And nothing more.
    As the four of us followed the rest of the guests down the grand stairway to the formal dining room, I took the opportunity to introduce myself to a few of the people around me. Grace’s ex-partner from her computer game company, Peter Brinker, a tall, gray-haired man with what my dad would call a million-dollar smile, was friendly and outgoing and talked about the fun of creating games for a living. I liked him immediately.
    “I’m his wife,” said the woman on Peter’s other side. She leaned forward and gave me one of those wiggly finger waves.
    Peter laughed. “Sybil sells herself short. She’s our CFO and we’d be lost without her.”
    Sybil shook her head. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
    I never would have guessed that this was a woman who held such an important position. She seemed nice enough, but a bit bland. But then maybe that was the perfect personality type for a CFO. She wore her hair in a short black bob, similar to Grace’s hairstyle. And her flowing fuchsia dress was identical to Grace’s. It made me wonder if the two women were such good friends that they shopped and had their hair done together.
    “Did you two meet on the job?” I asked.
    “Yes,” Peter said, taking Sybil’s hand. “Sybil came to work for us and I was hooked from day one.”
    “Oh, stop,” she said, brushing his arm.
    Peter asked what I did for a living and I gave him the short version.
    “That’s fascinating,” he said. “I love old books.” He asked a few more questions as we walked downstairs. He was attractive and inquisitive and laughed a lot, and was in the middle of a story when Sybil nudged him. He turned away to listen to whatever she was saying and I thought for a moment that she’d meant to include me in her conversation. But then she flashed me a glance through half-closed lids and lowered her voice enough that I couldn’t hear her. I took the hint and turned away.
    Next to me, Suzie was conversing with a tall, wiry man with spiky white-blond hair. “And this is my friend, Brooklyn,” Suzie said, and stuck her thumb toward me. “She’s a master at restoring books and she solves murders in her spare time.”
    Stunned, I frowned as Peter and Sybil and several others turned around and stared at me with blatant curiosity.
    “Excellent,” the spiky-haired guy said, and stretched his arm out to shake my hand. “You must be really smart. I’m Marko Huntley. This is Bella Santangelo.” He pointed toward the svelte, red-haired woman dressed entirely in black who