Jo hurried out the door. “I really am sorry, Mina, but I’ve got to dash. I have a garroting victim with my name on it!”
I let Grimalkin out of the room. She shot me a filthy look before shooting upstairs, no doubt to eviscerate a mouse in revenge. Heathcliff went back to his book while I read biographies of Danny Sledge online. There were lots of wild stories about his gang days. He’d started writing his first novel in jail, after reading some crime fiction in the prison library and realizing how inaccurate it was. His first book went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Danny negotiated a reduced prison sentence for ratting out his partner in a drug ring, and as soon as he was out, he left crime behind him for good. It looked like he’d been living the high life ever since – Penny’s Instagram account was filled with images of the pair of them wearing designer clothes and jetting off to exotic locations. His life had certainly been interesting, but I couldn’t see any evidence of crazed stalker fans or criminals returning from his past for revenge—
Wait a second.
I pulled up an image of Danny on the stand at a trial of his partner-in-crime – Jim Mathis, the one Danny ratted out. Young Danny looked smart in his three-piece suit, his hair slicked back, his face as handsome and affable as I remembered from the other night. Behind him, I could make out the face of the accused, glaring at his former partner with dead, soulless eyes.
I’d seen those eyes before.
Jim Mathis was the purple-haired erotica writer. Danny’s ex-partner was out of jail and primed for revenge.
Chapter Thirteen
Iemailed the article and image over to Jo, and explained that I’d seen Jim at both the reading and the writers’ workshop. It was one thing to stumble upon the answer to a murder, but it was quite another to be involved with mean-looking criminal thugs. If Jim Mathiswasresponsible for Danny’s murder, I wanted the police to be the ones going after him.
Unfortunately, that left me without anything to do. I’d packaged up all the online orders, stacked some new books on the shelves, made three pots of tea,andturned the paperclips in Heathcliff’s desk drawer into a funky necklace. Even Quoth grew bored with the silent shop and went upstairs to paint. Heathcliff didn’t move from his spot under the window, but he did finish his book and start another. Not a single customer entered the shop.
Nerves raced along my spine. Another day without a single sale. If this went on for much longer, we wouldn't have any way of paying the mortgage. My fingers drummed against the desk. I couldn’t face the silence of the front room any longer. I shoved back my chair. “I’m going upstairs.”
“To do what?” Heathcliff asked without looking up.
“To inventory dust mites!” I shot back as I took the stairs two at a time. On the first floor, I paced the length of the Sociology shelves, but that made me think about Ashley’s murder.
Murder follows me everywhere.
I solve more crimes than the police, and yet I can’t even keep Nevermore Bookshop in the black, or figure out the mystery of my own father.
Wait… when was the last time I’d actually tried to find more clues about my father? Now that I knew he was HermanandMr. Simson, I should take another look at the books they both spent so much energy collecting.
When I first started working for Heathcliff, I’d stumbled upon the shop’s hidden Occult collection. Stored in a pentagonal room on this floor, it housed books Mr. Simson had acquired while trying to figure out the mysteries of the bookshop. At least one of them was written by Herman Strepel. Heathcliff always kept the room locked for the safety of everyone in the shop, but now I had his ring of keys in my pocket. I thrust my hand inside, feeling for the small key that would fit perfectly into the lock of the storage room. The metal seemed to hum between my fingers.
Yes, something to take my mind off Danny’s murder and all our money woes.
Now that we’d figured out Mr. Simson was my father, certain items in the occult books might make more sense. It was definitely worth a shot.
Before I could change my mind, I inserted the key into the door to the storage room and shoved it open. Grimalkin darted out from beneath a shelf and streaked inside. A cat couldn’t stay away from an unlocked door. It was a law of nature.
I followed Grimalkin into the dusty storage room and flicked on the light switch. Heathcliff had stacked several boxes of books in front of the Occult room door. I shoved them aside. As I fumbled through my keyring, looking for the correct key to fit the lock, the door creaked open.
My heart thudded in my chest.That’s right. It did that before, too.I hovered in the threshold, unsure if I should proceed.
Grimalkin made the decision for me. With a squeak of delight, she trotted into the room and jumped up on the pedestal in the center. I fumbled along the wall for a light switch and flicked it on. The windowless room looked exactly as I remembered it – every wall lined with bookshelves crammed with old leather-bound volumes. Grimalkin purred as she rolled around on top of the open book on the pedestal – the one where every page was mysteriously blank.
I pushed her gently aside and closed the book. My fingers traced the symbol on the cover of the volume – the same symbol I’d seen in other books from Herman Strepel. Now I knew it to be a symbol for my father.
But if this blank book belongs to my father, why did he leave it here?
I flicked absent-mindedly through the pages. Beside me, Grimalkin purred. I cried out in surprise as I glimpsed some words scribbled on a page.
Did I imagine it?
I must have imagined it.
Mustn’t I?
This book had been completely empty last time I’d looked at it, of that I was certain. I flipped back several pages, and there it was – the ink on the page faded and smudged in places, as if it had always been there. The writing was made of symbols – Cyrillic, maybe. Or Greek?
Grimalkin wound her way around my arm, purring like a buzz saw. I patted her on the head as I stared at the page.What does this mean? Why are these words here?
