Peril in Paperback: A Bibliophile Mystery

jealousy slither into my heart. But, unfortunately, this incident had reminded me once again that Derek and I lived in different worlds.
    It also reminded me that my feelings for Derek were completely different from anything I’d ever felt for another man before. And that scared me. I had always been the strong one in the relationship. I never got whiny; I got mad. I didn’t agonize; I walked out. I took action. But now I felt frozen; I didn’t know what to do. It was Derek’s fault. No, it was my fault. I cared too much.
    I paced over to the window and stared at the lake. I was back to fretting again. Had I never cared deeply enough about my former boyfriends? Had I been so shallow, so unfeeling, so hard-hearted that I couldn’t be hurt by them? Maybe. Did that mean that this phone call had been some kind of karmic vengeance?
    Okay, that was stupid. This wasn’t about me. This was about some mean-spirited woman who’d decided to screw around with Derek and me.
    Maybe I should have resisted calling him while he was on assignment. He hadn’t told me not to call him, but I had never done it before.
    And now I could feel the guilt seeping in. I shouldn’t have called. It was all my fault. That’s what I got for poking my nose in Derek’s business.
    But no. That wasn’t right. I shouldn’t feel guilty. This was Derek’s fault. No, wait. It was
her
fault.
Who the hell is she?
I hated her.
    Oh, God, here came the jealousy.
    I almost laughed at myself. Why was I jealous? This wasn’t about Derek and me. It was about that woman and her malicious attempt to make me feel bad. And how stupid was I that I’d almost bought into it? She had tried to make me believe that Derek was cheating on me.
    But Derek wouldn’t do that. Would he?
    “Oh, hell.” I pounded the wall. My thoughts were dark and spiraling and weaving themselves into sick,twisted desires that included smacking that skinny French—Belgian?—bitch in the face. And maybe giving Derek a light kick in the shins while I was at it. He shouldn’t be leaving his cell phone around for some anorexic Euro twit to use for taunting his real girlfriend.
    Okay, that made me feel better.
    I sank into the comfy chair by the window and decided it was time to—
    A piercing scream interrupted my thoughts.
    “Thank God!” I jumped up and ran across the room, threw open the door, and looked both ways down the long hall. Fifty feet away at the far end, a thin woman stood silhouetted by a paned floor-to-ceiling window. She turned and I could see that her eyes were squeezed shut. She was holding her hands over her ears as though she was trying to block out some horrible noise.
    “Are you all right?” I shouted as I ran toward her.
    “No!” she cried irately. “I’m going freaking crazy in this place!”
    As I came near, she glared at me, almost as if it were my fault that she was in a panic. I slowed down and took closer notice of her appearance.
    Her eyes were wild and out of control. Her pupils moved every which way, first staring at me, then glancing at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. She must have been yanking at her short reddish hair because it spiked out in odd patterns all over her head. I appreciated the spiked look as well as anyone, but this woman was at least fifty years old and wore a vintage Chanel suit with demure heels. Spiky was not working for her.
    Up close, her face was that of a woman much younger than fifty. Maybe thirty-five? It was the Chanel suit that threw me off. How old was she, anyway?
    “Are you in trouble?” I asked gently. “Are you lost?”
    “Of course I’m freaking lost!” she ranted as she swung her skinny arms around madly. “That’s what she does! As soon as you figure out where you are in this monstrosity,she changes everything around. It’s enough to drive you freaking nuts.”
    I took a step back, away from the visceral rage she emitted. “Okay,” I said slowly, nodding, assuming she was talking about Grace. “I can walk you back to the front door and the grand stairway is right there. Maybe you can find your way from there.”
    “Oh, shut up,” she snarled. “Stop patronizing me.”
    Damn.
I tried not to stare, but I could see the skin pulled tightly away from her eyes. Her eyebrows were unnaturally arched and her upper lip line was flawless. Not a wrinkle to be seen. I revised my estimate of her age back to fifty-plus. She appeared young until you got up close enough to see that she’d recently had a