Kate Carlisle - One Book In The Grave

But that’s not the worst of it. I was so beaten down that in a moment of weakness, I revealed to Solomon that you were probably still alive.

I’m so sorry, Max!!

Solomon’s jealousy has boiled over into madness. You know he’s part of that crazy church group, but lately he’s become more involved with their more fringe survivalist members, who collect guns and practice shooting all day. I’m worried that he’s become even more dangerous and unbalanced than he was three years ago when he harassed you so badly that you had to fake your own death to escape him.

Now I wonder if I will have to do the same.

I’ve decided that the only way to warn you is to put this book back on the market in just the right way that it will get to the right person. I’ve done my homework, but the rest is up to the fates.

The book will end up at Covington Library. When the curator sees the damage I’ve deliberately done to the book, I am confident that he will call in a book restoration expert. My research points to your old friend Brooklyn as the most likely person to restore the book. I’m counting on her being as single-minded and obstinate as she was years ago. She will find this letter and track you down. Fitting, isn’t it? Since she was the one who gave you the book in the first place. I love a circle!

So, if you are reading this letter, it means you’re still alive-thank God! Please, Max, be careful. Solomon wants you dead. For real this time. Don’t underestimate his reach. He will find you and kill you.

I’m frantic with worry. Things have spiraled out of control. You might still blame me for ruining your life, but I am innocent. Solomon ruined both our lives, Max. We have that much in common, at least.

If the world is fair, if the universe sees fit to reunite true lovers, you and I will be together someday. But if it isn’t meant to be, my one last wish for you, Max, is to be happy.

I love you. I love you. I love you!!

Your Angelica

“The woman thought of everything,” I muttered, kicking the bricks that lined the hearth. “Right down to the tattered, overly glued turn-ins.”

“Incredible,” he muttered.

“And you know she’s lying about finding the book in a used bookstore. She was the one who broke into Emily’s house and stole the book. She was a liar then and she still was when she wrote this letter.”

“She wants me to be happy? After everything she pulled?” Max crumpled up the note and threw it against the wall. “What a lying load of crap.” He spat out the words.

“She did her homework about me,” I said, feeling a little sick that I had played such a key role in her maneuverings. I picked up the letter he’d tossed, knowing the police would want it as evidence in Angelica’s death. Carrying it into the kitchen, I grabbed a Ziploc bag from the drawer and tucked the pages inside. “In order for you to get the letter, she had to have worked backward, starting with me.”

“Right,” he said. “If she could get the book to you, then you would be able to track me down.”

“But how did she know I gave you the book in the first place?”

“Damn it.” He slapped his forehead. “I made it easy for her.”

“How’d you do that?”

He leaned back against the sliding-glass door and closed his eyes. “Angelica kept calling me, even after Emily and I were engaged.”

“But why? You mentioned that before, but you said she’d gone back to Solomon. So what was her deal?”

“It was all a game,” he said, pacing again. “Always a game with her. I’m sure she kept calling me just to make Solomon jealous.”

“That’s the way she operated.”

“Yeah. She called after my engagement party to rant about Emily, saying Emily wasn’t good enough for me.” He shook his head. “If only she knew how wrong she was.”

“Of course she was wrong, Max.”

He went on. “I argued with Angelica, then mentioned that you’d given me that book as a gift because the story symbolized Emily’s and my deep love for each other.”

“Oh, nice going.”

“I know, I know. I was feeding the flames,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “But I was so damn grateful to be out of Angie’s sick web, I wanted to rub her nose in it. You know?”

“Well, that backfired,” I said, stating the obvious. “Anyway, she knew I gave you the book, so she had that to work with. Evidently, she did some digging and found out I was friends with Ian and that he hired me for a lot of restoration projects. She also must’ve found out that Joe Taylor did a lot of selling to the Covington.”

Busy, busy, I thought.

He nodded. “That’s probably how it all went down.”

“She planned this whole thing, Max.” I shook my head at the amazing intricacies of Angelica’s plot. “She warned you and warned you about Solomon, so when your car went over the cliff, she must have thought you took her advice and faked your own death.”

He frowned. “But how did she know Solomon wasn’t actually responsible for that? How did she know I was still alive?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “I don’t know. Maybe she was following you all that time, wanting to know if any of Solomon’s dirty tricks worked. Maybe she saw that you got your car fixed after the brake line was cut, so she knew you couldn’t have lost your brakes in Big Sur. Or maybe she just hoped you were still alive. Who knows for sure?”

“Who knows for sure?” he muttered.

“So when the retrospective became a reality, she must have decided it was time to resurrect you.” I paced the room as I went through the steps Angelica might have taken. “So she put the book out on the market through Joe, then fed him all the right suggestions. Then she went back and killed Joe so she couldn’t be tracked down.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Max said. “There’s another possibility. Maybe Solomon killed Joe as a warning to Angelica.”

I considered this. “I don’t doubt that he is crazy enough to do it, but why would he? The letter indicates that Angie’s the one who set the whole thing into motion with Beauty .”

He turned and faced me. “But what if Angie wrote this letter and put it in the book, and then Solomon took it before Angie could start the ball rolling? She says that he thought I wrote the dedication to Angelica.”

“So he started the ball rolling to get the book to you, to kill you.”

Max shook his head. “This is making me crazy.”

“Right there with you,” I muttered. “My head’s exploding just trying to keep up with the two of them.”

“So Solomon brings the book to Joe; then he has to go back and kill Joe and then, later, Angie.”

“It’s all way too complicated,” I said, needing either aspirin or wine. I knew which one I preferred, but it was a little early in the day to start drinking.

“No, it’s all speculative,” Max corrected.

“But it’s all possible, too.”

Max stared at the ceiling for a full minute, then shouted out an epithet. “I’m so pissed off. My life was turned upside down and backward for three long years because these two idiotic children decided to play some kind of sick game with me.”

“You’re giving children a bad name,” I muttered in disgust. “Let’s call it what it was. They were control freaks. Psychopaths. That’s why they were so close. They each recognized that same twisted mentality in the other.”

“And I played right into their hands,” he admitted quietly. “I was attracted to Angelica because she was a gorgeous, experienced woman, but she was never in love with me. She didn’t know the meaning of the word.” He scratched his head in frustration. “I’m an idiot.”