Crowned and Moldering

Dain’s excuse for killing Cliff was that he was being blackmailed by him. Apparently Cliff had been hedging his bets, thinking that either Dain or Mr. Jones had to have killed Lily. Cliff had seen both men out at the lighthouse mansion, when he himself was secretly following Lily.

Cliff Hogarth was a horrible person, but I didn’t suppose that was reason enough for him to die such an awful death. I did have to admit secretly, though, that I was perfectly happy to have him gone. He had made my life miserable, too.

The town thrived on all the grisly gossip, of course. And Whitney swore to anyone who would listen that she had never trusted Cliff Hogarth, after all.

*   *   *

One su

“You must’ve been scared to death,” she said, and gave me a warm hug. “But I love that you showered him in red paint.”

“Yeah, that was a nice touch.”

We both were able to laugh about it, although Dain’s confession was a bittersweet victory.

“I mean, yes, he was a cold-blooded killer,” Denise said, “but above and beyond that, Dismal Dain was the worst student counselor who ever lived.”

“I know!” I said, shaking my head. “Me, a hairdresser. What an idiot.”

“I wish you were,” she said, grabbing a clump of her hair. “I could use some help here.”

We laughed some more and chatted as I shopped for herbs for my kitchen garden.

“Despite everything that happened, I’m so happy that we’ve become friends,” Denise said.

“I completely agree.” I flashed her a smile as I grabbed a pretty little pot of lemon thyme.

She hesitated, then said, “Since we’re friends and all, do you mind if I share some good news with you?”

“Please do,” I said. I placed the thyme plant in my basket and held up a basil plant to study the leaves. “I’m desperate for some good news.”

“Well, then.” Her smile was radiant. “Brad and I are going to have a baby. Two, actually. Twins.”

The basil plant slipped from my hands and she caught it, laughing. Then I burst into happy tears. Wrapping her in another hug, I whispered, “That might be the best news I’ve heard in fifteen years.”

Read on for an excerpt from Kate Carlisle’s new Bibliophile mystery,

BOOKS OF A FEATHER

Coming in hardcover in June 2016 from Obsidian.

Chapter 1

As soon as I closed and locked my front door, I sagged in relief. I usually worked at home, so being gone all day was unusual for me. But after a moment, I perked up, knowing Derek was already here; I’d seen his car parked in the space next to mine.

Derek Stone was my fiancé and . . .

Fiancé. It was still odd to say the word out loud, let alone think it, but it was true. It was real. We were getting married, and how crazy was that? The two of us had almost nothing in common. I’d been raised in a peace-love-and-happiness artistic commune in the wine country and I wore Birkenstocks to work. Derek had been a highly trained operative with England’s MI6, and he carried a gun. Think James Bond but more dangerous, more handsome, more everything. I was crazy in love with him. I figured that the old adage that opposites attract had to be true because he loved me right back.

He had proposed two months ago, the night my friend Robin married my brother Austin. Of course I said yes. Duh! Since then, we’d barely had a chance to talk about a wedding or anything else related to getting married. We’d been living temporarily in Sonoma, and Derek had been commuting back and forth to the city while our apartment in town was being remodeled. And that was happening because months ago, Derek had purchased the smaller apartment next door to mine and we’d decided to join the two places together.

We had only been back in town a week. Our place was still in a state of flux, to put it mildly. We’d been rearranging furniture and picking out new stuff and doing all those things you did when you suddenly had two extra bedrooms and a much bigger living room. It was fun and time-consuming and a little bit mind-boggling. I occasionally had to stop and pinch myself.

So no, there hadn’t been much time to discuss wedding plans. We’d get around to it one of these days.

With a happy sigh, I slid the case that held my bookbinding tools under my worktable and set my satchel on the counter.

“Derek, I’m home,” I called, even though he probably knew it already. He was preternaturally aware of everything that went on around us. Besides, our freight elevator tended to shake the entire building when it rose up from the basement parking garage, thus acting as an early-warning signal. I liked to think it made things more difficult for bad guys to sneak up on us, an excellent selling feature, given the number of times my place had been broken in to by bad guys.

“Hello, darling,” he called from somewhere in the house.

“Wait’ll you see all the amazing books I got from Genevieve,” I shouted as I hung up my peacoat in the small closet by the door. “They’re so valuable. I can’t believe Joe lost track of them. One of them is probably worth at least forty-five thou—”

“Brooklyn,” Derek interrupted loudly, his tone a bit more urgent than usual. “We have company.”

I grimaced. In other words, Shut up, Brooklyn. I could tell from Derek’s voice that our company was a person or people I didn’t know. Our friends and family were all completely trustworthy. They knew I worked with rare and often priceless books. But even though I trusted our friends, I was still awfully paranoid about showing off the books I worked on. You just never knew.

I’d even taken precautions before leaving Genevieve’s shop, tucking the books away in a zippered compartment inside my satchel, which I’d worn strapped across my torso and had clutched all the way to my car. I never took chances with books. And yet here I was, blurting out all my secrets to anyone within earshot.

To be fair though, I was inside my own house. I should’ve been able to shout out whatever I wanted to, once I’d locked the door behind me. But no.

“Okay,” I called out, trying to sound nonchalant. “Be right there.” But first, I needed a minute to collect my wits, if I still had any left to collect. I turned in a circle, sca

I grabbed my satchel and pulled out the eight books—the eight rare, extremely valuable books that I’d just blabbed about loudly—and carefully slipped them into the bottom drawer of my desk and locked it. I would’ve preferred to stash them inside the steel-lined safe in the hall near our bedroom, but this would have to do for now.

I felt almost silly for taking such precautions. Was I being overly suspicious? As quickly as the thought emerged, I brushed it away. There were plenty of people in the world who were willing to lie, cheat, steal, or kill for a book. Better safe than sorry, I thought, and rushed down the hall to the living room to greet Derek and our company.