Homicide in Hardcover

For the album, I had experimented with a flamed-heat iron to brand an embossed grapevine pattern into the thick leather cover. The stock was thick, acid-free paper, deckled and interleaved with delicate sheets of rice paper. I hoped it would become a family heirloom.

Mom cried like a baby when she saw it, so I know she liked it. Dad’s eyes swam with tears and he couldn’t speak for twenty minutes. It wasn’t as grand as the first-class tickets to Paris my brothers surprised them with, but I think they loved it just as much.

A month before, the night Sylvia Winslow was taken off to jail, Mom had sat me down and begged me to put the album together. She’d confessed that Abraham had been her original choice to do the project she wanted to keep a secret from our family.

“I don’t believe it!” I’d said when she’d explained what she wanted. “That’s why you were meeting him at the Covington that night? To sift through family photos?”

“It was his idea to meet there,” Mom explained. “He’d been so busy, but he knew that once the exhibit opened, he’d finally have a free minute or two to go over my plans.”

“That’s crazy.”

She frowned. “What’s crazy is me waiting in the wrong workroom for almost an hour.”

I shivered. “That mistake probably saved your life.”

“I never even heard the gunshot,” she wailed. “I was practicing for my cosmic bilocation class.”

“I would’ve done the same thing,” I’d assured her.

Now we raised our champagne glasses and toasted another round for my parents. They kissed and the crowd applauded.

“They’re the most wonderful people in the world,” someone said next to me.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said as I turned and did a double take. It was A

“Look who’s gone country,” I said.

“Thanks, I guess.” But she smiled as she said it.

“Did the move go okay?”

“Yes, thanks to your mom and dad,” she said. “I really like it here, you know?”

“I’m glad. I was sorry to hear about your mom.”

“Thanks. It wasn’t unexpected, but still.” She shook her head. A

After the paternity test results had come through, verifying that A

“Your mom’s been introducing me around,” A

I glanced over at Mom, who was currently doing the funky chicken with my four-year-old nephew. “Yeah, she is.”

“I guess I owe you,” A

I sipped my champagne. “Not every time.”

She gri

I looked around for Robin and saw her at one of the wine bars, talking to Austin. He beamed at her and she laughed. The sound was so sweet, I felt a big twinge of happiness for them.

Ian approached with a full bottle of Brut Rosé and topped my glass. Now that he was “out,” Ian was so much more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. I said hello to Jake, Ian’s boyfriend, whom I’d met at the official opening of the Winslow exhibition.

The opening had been a blockbuster event. News of the curse and the murders and the notorious Winslow women had hit the headlines and the crowds were intense.

I was thrilled that Ian had taken my advice and displayed the Faust on its own pedestal, encased in Plexiglas so that the cover, the text and the Armageddon painting could all be seen by the public.

Even Meredith Winslow, who’d attended the opening with her father as a show of public strength, agreed the Faust looked “okay, whatever.” And even though I’d never achieve my dream of seeing her behind bars wearing an orange jumpsuit, her words were music to my ears.

Ian and Jake moved on to talk to Austin. I sighed and took another sip of the Brut Rosé.

“Are your bags packed?”

I struggled to catch my breath, not because Derek Stone had snuck up on me but because that mellow British accent of his never failed to give me a start.

I would’ve loved to think he’d come all the way from London to Dharma because of me. But the truth was, he and Mom had forged a bond the night Mom flung her kung fu pizza box at Sylvia Winslow’s head.

Derek had surprised Mom when he showed up last night and she’d burst into tears of happiness. There was a lot of that going around lately.

“Packed and ready to go, bright and early tomorrow,” I said with a smile.

“You’re flying nonstop to Heathrow?”

“Yes, and I took your advice and sprang for first class.” And why that made me more nervous than the flight itself, I couldn’t say. Spending all that extra money on my own comfort was likely to give me hives. But hey, I needed something new to obsess over now that the murders of Abraham and Enrico had been solved.

“Why would anyone travel any other way?” he said.

Said the man who rented a Bentley wherever he went.

My suitcases were indeed packed for my trip to the Edinburgh Book Fair. I’d just received news the day before that one of my books was a finalist in the book fair competition. I was antsy to go but hated to leave.

And speaking of antsy, I’d been drinking champagne for the past two hours and needed to find a restroom. “Would you watch my glass for a minute?”

“Only for a minute,” Derek said with a grin, and took my glass.

I stepped inside Guru Bob’s house to find a restroom. As I passed the spacious living room, something caught my eye and I moved toward it.

“Oh my God.” It was a genuine Vermeer on the wall nearest the foyer. I walked across the soft pale carpet for a closer look and stared for a minute at the painting of the young woman writing at her desk. “Beautiful.”

“A superb study of light and shadow.”

I whipped around and saw Guru Bob watching me.

“I’m sorry, Robson,” I said awkwardly. “I was looking for the restroom, but I saw this and had see it up close.”

“Please do not ever apologize for enjoying beautiful things, gracious,” he said with a slight bow. “I enjoy having my home filled with friends and my art viewed by those who can appreciate it.”

“You have so many lovely pieces,” I said, glancing around the elegant room. My gaze settled on a startling Rembrandt portrait of a young boy.

“Holy cow,” I said under my breath, and approached the painting with reverence. “Unbelievable.”

“I am blessed.” He walked beside me as I looked.

“Thank you for letting me take a peek around.”

“You are always welcome, gracious.”

I passed a stately three-door glass display cabinet that had to be an original Louis the Something. It was so very French and heavily laden with gold ormolu and beautiful parquetry. Not my style, but it fit perfectly in this room that was both strongly male while being light and spacious.

I almost missed it.

Guru Bob stood nearby, his finger pressed to his lips as he watched me stop, then turn back. There in the display cabinet was the five-hundred-year-old edition of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives I’d taken from Enrico Baldacchio’s library. The book sat on a small easel on the center shelf. The unusual green morocco binding and distinctive gilding was unmistakable.

In utter shock, I whirled around. “How?”

His smile was sweet as he admired the book. “It is simply exquisite, is it not?”