My mind was spinning and I realized I was seriously exhausted. I would need a good night’s sleep before I could begin to figure out what the words meant.

I stopped, leaned against the wall of the overly bright hallway, closed my eyes and faced the truth. Omitting Abraham’s last words to the inspector had nothing to do with the real reason why I felt truly sick with guilt.

No, the real sin of omission occurred when I’d neglected to tell the police that I had seen and spoken to the one person who had the means and opportunity to actually murder Abraham Karastovsky.

My mother.

Chapter 4

Standing by myself in the long hall, I was abruptly aware of a disturbance in the Force. Chilled, I scanned the hallway in both directions. I’d felt this way before and knew that Minka LaBoeuf was somewhere in the vicinity. I couldn’t see her but it didn’t matter. She was close. Too close. I could smell the sulfur.

Then she walked out of the workroom two doors down from Abraham’s and spied me through the crowd of police officers milling around. Adrenaline spiked. The exhaustion I’d felt seconds ago was history as an overwhelming urge to attack her, to punch her in the stomach and run, took over. It totally irked me that the woman could fuel my rage faster than anyone I’d ever known, just by walking into the room.

As she walked toward me, Minka twirled a strand of hair around her middle finger, something she’d always done when she was nervous. Good to know she wasn’t as confident as she tried to appear to be. And how had I missed the fact that under her short black leather jacket she wore a skintight black catsuit tucked into thigh-high black boots?

Was the world ready for Minka the Dominatrix?

Her lips were slathered in coral lipstick and she’d ringed her eyes with black kohl. As she came closer, I could see the body suit straining at the seams near her stomach. Was it wrong to be gleeful over the fact that she’d put on weight?

“Well, if it isn’t Ms. High-and-Mighty herself,” she said in that distinctively whiny voice that never failed to boil my blood. “Karma’s a real bitch, isn’t it?”

“You ought to know,” I said. As comebacks went, that one sucked, but I was off my game.

She giggled and I shuddered. Her smile had always caused me more apprehension than her animosity did. It wasn’t her fault, but the left side of her upper lip naturally curled up so that when she smiled, she looked like a snarling dingo.

Fear was a perfectly reasonable reaction, but I tried not to show it.

She studied me. “I probably shouldn’t be seen chatting with you, now that you’re a murder suspect. It could ruin my reputation.”

“We’re not chatting, and your reputation was ruined a long time ago.” I sighed. Seriously, if I was going to trade barbs with Minka LaBoeuf, I needed to regroup.

“What are you doing down here, Minka?” I asked wearily.

“I work here,” she said with a sneer. “That’s more than I can say for you. I belong here. You don’t. So you’re not the one calling the shots this time. This time it’s your ass on the hot seat. How does that make you feel, Brooks?”

“Don’t call me Brooks,” I snapped. Brooks was the nickname my family and close friends used. Like my old college boyfriend. The same boyfriend Minka had been so obsessed with that she’d picked up a wide-blade X-Acto knife and stabbed me in the hand.

“Whatever,” she said.

I noticed some of her coral lipstick had migrated to her tooth and it gave me the strength to lob another round of insults her way.

“I know reality isn’t your forte,” I said. “But let me remind you that Abraham Karastovsky fired you from the Winslow job and I know that pissed you off.”

“And your point, as if I care?”

“Now you’re stuck in archives and we all know that’s the bottom of the barrel.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Right. But see, here on earth we call that motive and I’m sure the police would love to hear all about it.”

Her upper lip twitched and curled as her self-assurance slipped. She moved even closer and snapped her fingers back and forth in front of my face like some jive diva. “And I am so sure they would love to know who Abraham was hooking up with in his workshop earlier tonight.”

Every nerve ending in my body jumped into high alert. Had she seen my mother down here? But Mom had insisted that Abraham didn’t show up, so what was Minka talking about?

I grabbed her arm and whispered through clenched teeth, “Be careful, Minka.”

She pulled away from me. “Or what? You’ll kill me, too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” But I could see how someone could be pushed to the brink with her.

“Really? We both know you’d like nothing better than to-”

“Brooklyn?”

We both jumped back as Ian approached from down the hall. “Just the person I was looking for. Oh, hi, Minka.”

Minka made a sound of disgust, then took off in the opposite direction, her shoulders rigid, the heels of her hooker boots pounding the hardwood surface as she fled.

“Where’s she going?” Ian asked, frowning as he watched her stalk away.

“Straight to hell, I hope.”

We both watched as a uniformed officer stopped Minka from going any farther. After a few tense words back and forth, he escorted her into a workroom, for questioning, I assumed. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or worried, but decided to go with worried.

I turned to Ian. “What a horrible night, huh?”

“Huh?” He looked at me in complete surprise as though he hadn’t realized I was standing there. This was the charmingly befuddled Ian I knew and loved.

We’d been engaged several years ago for almost six months until I took pity on him and broke it off. Thankfully, we were still good friends and if he was being honest, he’d concede he’d never been in love with me.

He’d professed his so-called love shortly after watching me produce an exact copy of a Dubuisson binding, right down to the gilded imprinting of one of Dubuisson’s “one o’clock birds.” Ian was easily impressed, though I must admit I was damn good.

See, Pierre-Paul Dubuisson was an eighteenth-century bookbinder, the royal binder to Louis XV of France. And one of his most celebrated signature designs was that of a bird with wings extended, facing one o’clock. The “one o’clock birds.”

Only a fellow book geek would get excited about something like that, and Ian was geekier than most. I could picture our kids, scary little Poindexter types with leather-stained hands and annoying tics and constant questions. No, I’d done us all a favor by breaking up with him.

“Brooklyn?”

“Huh?” I blinked up at him. “Sorry, I zoned out.” Did I tell you we were a pair? “What’s up?”

“It’s about the Faust.”

I shivered. “What about it?”

“I need you to take over the restoration. Can you start tomorrow?”

“But…” What could I say? Images of Abraham passed like a slide show in my head. The party atmosphere earlier. The hugs. The shared laughter. Doris Bondurant playfully slugging him. Then the fear. Finding him dying. The whispered phrase. The book slipping out of his jacket. Then death. And blood. So much blood.

The curse.

“Ian, you know I would help if I could, but…”

His expression was sorrowful. “I know, I know. I hate to even ask.”

He slung his arm around my shoulder and led me down the hall, away from the curious glances of the police. “The Winslows are threatening to pull the book from the exhibit if it’s not ready by next week’s official opening. I really need to know if you can do it.”

“Of course I can do it,” I said quickly. “That’s not the issue. There’s, you know, Abraham to consider.”

It seemed to me, stepping in to take the place of a murdered friend carried a fairly high creep factor with it.

“I know, babe,” he said, running both hands through his hair in frustration. “But there’s no one else I can count on.”