Kate Carlisle - If Books Could Kill

A few seconds later, he glided out, hopped up and brushed a few flecks of grit off his perfectly pressed black trousers. “Brake line’s been cut clean through.”

“What the hell?” Dad said.

“Does that happen through normal wear and tear on the car?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

The tall cop looked at me warily. “No, ma’am. That happens through mischief.”

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Derek said, glaring at me through narrowed eyes, as though it were my fault my family and friends were almost killed. Hell, maybe it was.

“Yeah, I get that,” I muttered as I paced the floor of the hotel conference room the police once again had taken over as their temporary headquarters.

It was two hours later, after the Edinburgh CID had shown up to take over the investigation and the farmer had generously ferried us back to the hotel in his vintage Land Rover.

“And you’re sure nobody saw anyone at the parking garage?” I asked for the third time. The hotel valets had parked Robin’s rental van in the parking garage a block away from the hotel when she’d arrived two days ago.

The brakes could’ve been tampered with anytime in the last forty-eight hours, but the police were fairly certain someone had done it that morning. Otherwise, the brake fluid would’ve run out completely and the car wouldn’t have made it all the way to Rosslyn Chapel.

Now I remembered Robin pumping the brakes when we first arrived there.

MacLeod sighed. “The garage is a four-story cavernous place with only one security man who doubles as the parking attendant. All the hotels in this part of the Royal Mile share the space. It’s not well guarded, sad to say.”

“No security cameras?”

“None.” Frustrated, Angus raked his fingers through his unruly mop of hair.

Derek stood with his arms folded across his chest, watching the goings-on. He was dressed in an elegant black pin-striped business suit and deep blue silk tie that brought out the blue in his eyes. He looked almost criminally hot. The whole ensemble probably cost five thousand dollars, and I was reminded again how well the security business paid. Along that same line, I had to wonder just why he’d been here in Edinburgh this week. What was he doing? Besides looking criminally hot, of course?

“Is it our Miss Sherlock Holmes that’s causing you to pull your hair out, Angus?” Derek asked, coming over and putting his arm around me. I leaned against him. He even smelled expensive.

The detective glanced at me, then Derek. “No, ’tis this case that’s driving me to drink,” he admitted.

“Not much of a drive there,” Derek said with a wry grin.

“You’ve got the right of that, mate,” he said with a rueful chuckle.

Derek tightened his grip on me as the two men talked and more was revealed about our close call with the haystack.

My life had been threatened, my family had almost been killed, and yet I couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of it.

All I could process was the weight of Derek’s arm around my shoulder and the warmth of his solid body against mine. For one insane second or two, I breathed him in, absorbing that all-male, autumn-and-leather scent and reveling in the warm security of his powerful muscles.

Oh, dear God.

Appalled by my pathetically needy reaction, I was nevertheless incapable of moving away from the heat of his touch. In a day or so, they would find my body completely melted in a pool of lust on the floor of this conference room. I hoped they would give me as nice a service as Kyle had received. With better music, please.

“You’d be right about that,” Derek said, his head cocked as he gazed at me with curiosity.

I blinked. “What?”

“Where did you go, love?” he whispered.

I tried to speak, but my throat had dried up.

“Angus was saying you’ve made a formidable enemy,” he said. The breath from his words tickled my ear.

I smiled up at him as I gently pulled away. My heart could no longer handle the spike in blood pressure, and my self-esteem wasn’t doing much better. Sheesh, way to lose my cool in front of the head cop on the case.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, pacing a few steps away until I could finally breathe again.

Derek was watching me with suspicion, and I could feel my cheeks heat up. It just wasn’t fair. I was in a weakened state or I would’ve stared him down.

“ Brooklyn, Angus said you’re no longer a suspect,” Derek said.

I felt my mouth open, then close. Finally, I said, “Oh, is that what you were talking about? Sorry, my brain’s going off in ten different directions.”

“That’s understandable,” Angus said.

I could breathe again-in more ways than one. I was off the hook as a suspect in Kyle’s murder, because after all, why would I cut the brake line in the car I was driving in with my family and friends?

“Did your men interview Perry McDougall about the brake line?” Derek asked.

Angus looked at me briefly before deciding it was all right to discuss the case in front of me. “He left his booth at the fair this morning and hasn’t returned.”

“Really?” I said. “That’s suspicious, isn’t it?”

“Aye, but witnesses say he was on his way to present a three-hour seminar on…” Angus checked his notes. “Appraising rare British ephemera.” He gave me a puzzled look.

“Ephemera are printed items that weren’t supposed to be worth anything but now they are,” I explained. “Like a ticket to a Beatles concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964, for instance.” I mentioned that because my mother still had hers in a scrapbook. The ticket price was five dollars, but she’d paid twelve dollars to a scalper. Those were the days.

“Rare British ephemera usually has to do with the monarchy,” I continued. “Or the Beatles, as I said, or World War Two posters and brochures, baseball cards, that sort of thing.”

“Ah,” Angus said. “Well, he never showed up for the seminar.”

“Any word on his whereabouts?” Derek asked.

“Nothing yet.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If Perry had cut our brake line, then skipped town, he could be anywhere. Or he could be hiding somewhere in the hotel, waiting to attack again.

The chills were back. I rubbed my arms briskly, but it didn’t help.

I suddenly realized it was getting late. “I’ve got to run. I’m supposed to do a three-o’clock workshop.”

“Where?”

I had to think. “It’s on the D level. I don’t know the room number.”

“I’ll drop by,” Derek said.

“Yes, I may do the same,” Angus chimed in.

I would’ve felt warm and fuzzy with all the attention from the cute guys, but I figured their consideration had more to do with my possibly getting another unwelcome visitor than with their wanting to be near me. “Thanks.”

They walked with me down the hall to the elevator.

“Will you be stirring up the crowd again?” Derek asked, his lips pursed in a smirk. I wished I didn’t find that look so damned attractive.

“No, this is a book arts class.”

“Sounds interesting,” Angus said, clearly lying.

“It’s arts and crafts,” I explained. “Everyone gets to make a small, accordion-style album.”

“Are there weapons involved?” Derek asked.

I thought about it. “If you consider X-Acto knives and bone folders weapons, then yes. Oh, and glue sticks.”

“Ah, then I’ll be there,” he said.

I laughed. “Oh, good times for you.”

“Be careful, Brooklyn,” Angus said as the elevator door opened. “You’ve an enemy here who’s growing more reckless by the hour.”

With that happy thought, Derek and I stepped into the elevator and rode it up to my floor.