Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

A line of incandescent light fixtures—Great-Aunt Dee had not approved of fluorescent bulbs—abruptly sprang to life above her. Darla squinted against the onslaught of brilliance and scanned the store. Everything appeared in place, and as far as she could see, no one was lurking in the stacks. A glance at the cash register showed it was turned off and closed, just as she’d left it. Jake took a quick look at the register herself before making a swift tour of the back room and then the restroom. Darla made her own brief rounds, peering into those odd corners behind various shelves where she’d known the occasional child customer to conceal himself while his distracted parent was shopping.

“No one here,” Jake confirmed as she rejoined Darla a moment later. “I’ll try upstairs. Stay by the phone, just in case. If I yell 9-1-1, start dialing.”

“Gotcha.”

Darla gave a firm nod and hurried over to the register, where the phone was. On the off chance that someone was in the store, it had to be one of the fan girls who would doubtless find the formidable Jake more terrifying than any Haunted High phantom and give herself up without a fight. She couldn’t image a run-of-the-mill burglar breaking in; a bookstore was hardly the place anyone would expect to find significant cash. Even the rare books weren’t something one could run down to the pawnshop with and expect to get more than a few dollars for in return. Still, she couldn’t help a tremor of nervousness as she watched Jake make her awkward yet resolute way up the steps.

This staircase ran along the wall shared with Darla’s hallway and paralleled the one there, save that it went only one floor up. Once, there had been access from the second-floor rooms onto the adjoining landing on Darla’s personal stairway. That doorway had been plastered over to separate the four stories into two separate apartments long before Great-Aunt Dee had converted the lower half into her bookstore. This meant that anyone hiding on the second floor would be trapped there, unless she—or he—had squeezed out one of the windows overlooking the street and climbed down the fire escape.

Darla heard the muffled sound of Jake’s uneven gait above her, mentally followed the progress of her Docs as they made a zigzag sweep of both rooms above. A few moments later, Jake appeared at the head of the stairs.

“All clear up here,” she declared, tucking the flashlight into the back waistband of her jeans and making her careful way down the stairs again. As she reached the bottom step, Darla noticed that Jake clutched a length of dark fabric in one hand.

“The only explanation I can think of is that maybe Hamlet found his way into the shop from your apartment and somehow managed to bump a light switch while playing around on the displays,” Jake said. “The alarm was still set when I unlocked the door, and nothing appeared out of place. Well, except this.”

She held up the fabric, which turned out to be a hooded black cape similar to the one that the girl on the street had been wearing, and which echoed the one Valerie Baylor wore in her author photo. Except that this cape sported a large “Made in China” tag along one inner seam, and was made of lightweight velour.

“I found this at the top of the stairs,” she went on, tossing the cloak to Darla. “Any chance it belongs to you?”

Darla nodded. “Yes, actually. Valerie Baylor’s publisher sent us all manner of Haunted High promotional items so we employees could join in the dress-up fun during Valerie’s appearance.”

Darla had managed to lay hands on three of these capes, which had arrived via courier only that morning. Though somehow, she just could not picture the natty James wearing a cheap knockoff cloak over his usual cable-knit vest, handmade Oxford shirt, and sharp-creased wool trousers. She added, “There should be two more of them hanging up in the storeroom, which is where this one should have been. I don’t know how it ended up on the stairs.”

“I’m putting in another vote for Hamlet,” Jake promptly replied. “He probably saw it hanging off the peg and managed to drag it down. In fact”—she paused and grinned a little—“I bet that’s what I saw moving around the store. He must have gotten wrapped in the cloth and then went racing up and down the stairs trying to untangle himself. The top step is where the cape must finally have fallen off.”

“That makes sense . . . at least, more sense than my great-aunt haunting the place,” Darla said, shaking out the cape and studying it for signs of damage. The cloth appeared to have escaped unharmed. Folding it over her arm, she went on, “But how did he get into the store? He was upstairs with me the whole time.”

Or had he been? Come to think of it, had she seen him since she’d gone into the kitchen for her soda an hour earlier?

Jake shrugged. “A place this old and remodeled a time or two always has a few cat-sized ins and outs. He probably has his own private tunnels all through the building. You think he’s snug on his cushion, and he’s really out on the town . . . or, rather, out on the town house,” she finished with another grin.

Darla grinned back, feeling uncommonly relieved that it was neither ghost nor fan girl who’d been prowling about the place. Still, if Hamlet managed to start setting off the alarm during one of his forays, it could become a problem.

Setting down the cape on the register counter, she said, “Sorry to waste your time, but thanks for coming to the rescue.”

“Hey, kid, coming to the rescue is why I pay half the going rate for rent around here,” the older woman replied. “But I’ve got a glass of a nice red waiting on me downstairs, so why don’t we lock up the place so I can get out of here?”

“Sounds good. I’ll lock up after you and reset the alarm from my hall. Then I’m going to head back upstairs and finish reading my book.” Darla paused and gave a sheepish grin. “I can’t believe it, but I think I’ve turned into a Valerie Baylor fan myself.”

THREE

“JAMES, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS.”

Darla rose from her spot behind the cash register and handed her store manager a single-spaced, typewritten page, its demure, oyster-colored stock matching its accompanying envelope. The letter had been part of the stack she’d collected the night before but was only now getting to this morning. While the return address had been an unfamiliar one, the Dallas postmark had prompted her to open that correspondence first .

Someone writing from home , had been her first pleased thought.

And so it had been, though the letter’s contents had been anything but homey.

James took the proffered page and adjusted his gold-rimmed reading glasses, and then began to read aloud.

Dear Darla: You do not know me, but I am a neighbor of your sister, Linda. She has told me much about you, and the fact that you left your husband and now own a bookstore in New York City, of all places. While I do not APPROVE of such a lifestyle, I myself am also a SINNER and so do not stoop to casting stones. But I cannot remain silent now that I have heard your young nephews telling my children that you have actually invited the author VALERIE BAYLOR to your store to sign her books.

James paused in his narrative to shoot Darla a wry look and then continued reading.

As a Christian, it is my DUTY to warn you that you are about to bring EVIL into your life by allowing THAT WOMAN into your store. Her books are of SATAN! She corrupts YOUNG MINDS with her stories of supernatural beings. If you allow this, then you are as GUILTY as she is in spreading THE DEVIL’S WORD! I have been praying daily that you will see GOD’S LIGHT and cancel this sinful affair. And I must warn you that, if you don’t, members of The Lord’s Blessing Church will be there to protest MOST VOCIFEROUSLY against you and that woman. Take care for your own soul! Yours in the LORD, Mrs. Bobby Jennings (Marnie).