Peril in Paperback: A Bibliophile Mystery

notions of love and murder weren’t mutually exclusive, but it was still unacceptable to me.
    I felt my cheeks warm up as another thought struck. I wondered if Gabriel and Grace had ever been lovers. Would I ever get the nerve to ask him?
    Something else occurred to me and I stopped to consider the reasons why my mind was going down this particular path tonight. Maybe I missed Derek even more than I realized. But the fact was, there had been a moment earlier this week when I had seen Merrilee and Grace talking together. Merrilee’s devotion to her boss was so deep-seated and real; I suddenly had wondered if maybe they were involved in a romantic relationship.
    But that didn’t sit right with me and it hadn’t been long before I got to know Merrilee better and discounted that theory. She was a sweet, simple woman who treated everyone, including her employer, Grace, with loving-kindness. I didn’t think it went any further than that.
    So all of my errant thoughts along these lines were idle speculation. And lest I ever forgot, I really didn’t know what I was talking about. My gaydar has never been very sharp. In fact, it was nearly nonexistent. After all, I’d been engaged to my friend Ian for three months a few years ago, and had found out only recently that he was gay.
    I shouldn’t have been so surprised, though. He’d always had a highly developed feminine side and excellent taste in clothes.
    I picked up Grace’s book again and continued reading. Her heroine, Greta, had just filed papers to form her video game company. She and her best friend and business partner, Paul, were celebrating the milestone with a bottle of champagne. The next morning, Greta woke up in bed with Paul.
    Uh-oh.
    But I was smiling as I read how they both agreed thatit would never happen again. I was surprised to find out that, despite their strong attraction to each other, it never did happen again. But something else did. Seven weeks later, Greta discovered that she was pregnant.
    Unintended consequences struck again.
    I woke up with a start. I thought I’d heard crying. Or a baby wailing? I must have been dreaming.
    Blurry-eyed and sleepy, I glanced around. I thought for a second that it was morning, but then I realized I’d left the bedroom lights blazing. There was a heavy weight on top of my stomach and it took me a long moment to recall that I’d fallen asleep while reading a dramatic scene in Grace’s thick manuscript.
    In the book, Grace—or, rather, Greta—had just given birth to a baby girl. A beautiful little girl with a soft halo of pale blond hair, perfect tiny hands, dark blue eyes, flawless skin, and a sweet little pink mouth.
    Greta had bitten back tears as she handed the baby to the waiting nurse. She never saw her little girl again.
    Nowadays Greta would’ve kept the child and raised her alone, but thirty-some years ago, the stigma was too great. All the money in the world wouldn’t have insulated her baby from the name-calling. She would be deemed illegitimate and worse. Greta couldn’t live with that, didn’t feel as though she had a choice, so she had given the baby up for adoption.
    Soon after reading that part, I fell asleep.
    “So it must have been a dream,” I whispered to myself. But how much of that part of the book was true to life for Grace? She had referred to the book as a roman à clef of sorts. Was the baby real or fiction?
    I shook my head at my thoughts. The fact was, there were no babies in the house. I had dreamed of babies crying simply because I’d been reading about a baby.
    I checked my watch. It was 2:15 in the morning. Past time for me to sleep.
    I switched off the lights and slid back under the covers.I lay still for a long time, listening to myself breathe, trying to empty my thoughts, trying to talk myself into falling asleep. But it wasn’t working. I was wide awake now.
    A baby whimpered.
    “Oh, come on,” I protested aloud. I was beyond tired and now I was hallucinating. I rolled my eyes at my own lunacy, then pounded the pillowcase and adjusted my head and neck into a more comfortable position.
    “Now go to sleep.” I released a heavy sigh, then forced myself to repeat my mother’s chant as I tried to relax every bone and muscle in my body, starting with my feet and working my way up. It was working; I was dozing off.
    And suddenly a baby’s scream filled the air.
    “No way!” That was a real baby! I jumped out of bed. Dashing to the door, I flung it open and