Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

The Lizzie in question was Lizzie Cavanaugh, an earnest middle-aged woman whom Great-Aunt Dee had hired the previous year to help part-time. Divorced and an empty nester—her only son had recently left home to attend college in Boston—Lizzie had elected to return to school to finish an English literature degree program. According to Lizzie, it was the same degree she had abandoned when she met her future ex-husband, an up-and-coming real estate magnate who turned out to have a wandering eye. Lizzie’s alimony settlement now allowed her to be a full-time student, working just a few hours a week for the employee discount to feed her book habit.

“Lizzie started classes again, so she can only manage a couple of days a week anymore,” Darla explained as she slid the drawer shut and zipped the cash bag closed. “And I gave James the afternoon off, since he has to stay late Sunday night to work the Valerie Baylor autographing. You should know how he is about working events like that.”

For Professor James T. James was, to put it mildly, terminally stuffy. A retired English professor (emphasis on nineteenth-century American literature) who also was an expert in rare volumes, he had worked at Pettistone’s Fine Books for more than a decade after finally deciding he’d had enough of the academic world. Upon their first meeting, he had made certain that Darla was aware of his scholastic pedigree: an undergraduate degree from a well-known eastern college, and multiple postgraduate degrees earned at an even more prestigious Ivy League university. He’d also taken pains to make certain that she addressed him in the proper manner, given his repetitious first and last names.

“You may call me Professor James,” he had instructed. “Or, as you are my employer, you may address me by my Christian name, James. You may not, however, ever call me by my surname sans any honorific. And trust me,” he’d added with the practiced stern mien of college professors everywhere, “I will know the difference.”

“Fair enough,” she’d coolly replied, “just so long as you promise never to call me ‘Red.’”

Darla’s retort had brought one of the few smiles she had yet seen from him, and if they hadn’t exactly bonded at that moment, the ice between them had definitely broken. Now, while Darla gave her head a rueful shake at that memory, Jake allowed herself a grin.

“Not exactly Mr. Gala Night, is he?” she agreed. “But I have to admit that until I talked to my niece the other night, I had no idea how big a score it was, snagging Valerie Baylor. I swear, the kid about peed her pants when I told her I was handling security for the author of the Haunted High series! Apparently, she’s even hotter with the teenage girls than the woman who writes those sparkly vampire books.”

As if Darla didn’t know. “I can’t take the credit for getting her,” she said as she finished powering down the register. “The publisher and Great-Aunt Dee set things up before she died last January. And apparently, Valerie still lives out in the Hamptons on her parents’ estate, so it’s not like they have to fly her in or anything.”

Jake held up a hand. “Wait. You mean, the woman was already filthy rich before her books made her filthy richer?”

“Pretty much,” Darla confirmed with a wry smile. “Not exactly the starving-writer-in-the-garret backstory for her.”

As Jake listened with obvious interest, she went on, “I don’t think any of her official bios even mention her family. All they talk about is how some assistant agent found her manuscript in a slush pile and somehow managed to get a huge bidding war going for an author who’d only ever published a few category romances years ago. It was the whole J. K. Rowling-scribbling-her-books-in-the-coffee-shop scenario. Then some tabloid got wind that she was from money, and the cat was out of the bag after that. But in a way, I guess she did suffer a bit for her art. Apparently, the rest of the rich folk thought being a writer—especially of genre fiction—was considered a bit . . . common for someone of her background.”

“Meh, I could suffer that way,” Jake retorted with a snort.

Darla winced a little. Though the bookstore business was making merely a modest profit so far, thanks to her inheritance from Great-Aunt Dee, Darla’s actual net worth now was rather substantial . . . a far cry from knocking on bankruptcy’s door, as she had been only a few months earlier. Of course, most of said worth was tied up in the brownstone—house poor, her father always called it—meaning she still shopped at the discount stores.

Sidestepping that subject, she went on, “Anyhow, my only role is to play fawning bookstore owner and make sure the whole thing goes off without a hitch . . . with your help, of course.”

“No hitches, I promise. So, you think she looks that good in person?”

Jake gestured at the advertising poster propped on an easel and surrounded by a veritable turret of the latest Haunted High novel artistically stacked in display. The poster was a blowup of the book’s cover, a variation on the same stylized image of a translucent teenage girl against a night sky that appeared on all the books in the series. A big “Meet Author Valerie Baylor!” with the day and time was splashed in gothic lettering across the notice, along with a photo of Valerie herself.

Both Darla and Jake surveyed the photo with varying degrees of appreciation. The author’s portrait had been carefully staged to capture the same ghostly feel as the novels. It was a starkly lit three-quarters shot that featured a pale woman in her late thirties with cameo features and a broad forehead. Her wavy black hair fell well past her shoulders and partially obscured her face, while the rest of her was wrapped in a black velvet cape. The scarlet fountain pen she held in one white hand and the slash of crimson lipstick she wore provided the only splashes of color in the photo.

Feeling mousy by comparison in her mint green oxford shirt and khaki slacks, her only makeup a hasty swipe of mascara and bit of pink lip gloss, Darla shook her head.

“Guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” she answered, though the snarky part of her hoped that there’d been at least a little airbrushing involved in creating such a perfect photo.

Gathering her jacket, keys, and purse, she added, “How about you bodyguard me down to the bank night drop? After that, we can grab a bite. What sounds good?”

Jake had picked up one of the local free papers that Darla kept stacked near the register and was flipping through it. She paused at one ad and replied, “Looks like they’ve still got that special going at that Thai place you like. Why don’t we go there, and we can talk about all the last-minute arrangements for the autograph party?”

Darla finished the closing process: window shades down, bathroom checked a final time, all lights off. Finally, she set the alarm, then rushed Jake to the door while the system did its beeping countdown. They had barely stepped out into the cool night air and started down the half dozen balustraded concrete steps leading to the sidewalk, however, when Darla frowned and halted.

“What in the heck is that?”

At first glance, it appeared that the Valerie Baylor photo had come to life right there on Crawford Avenue. Across the street from the bookstore stood a young woman, perhaps twenty years old. Her dyed black hair rippled over her shoulders, while her bloodred smear of lipstick emphasized full lips and contrasted garishly with her deliberately pale features. Little more of her was discernable, since she wore a black cape that covered her from neck to pointed black boots. Instead of the scarlet pen that the author had brandished in her photo, however, this young woman clutched a hand-painted sign.