The Book Stops Here (7 page)

Benny approached slowly behind the man.
Too
slowly for my taste. “Uh, everything okay here, Ms. Wainwright?”

“No, Benny,” I said immediately. “I think you’d better call the police.”

The brute moved closer and glowered at me. “If I don’t get what’s mine, I’ll open up a whole can of
rude
on you.”

“You’ll have to leave, sir,” Benny said nervously. I couldn’t blame him for being afraid. The guy towered over both of us.

“I’m not leaving until I get what I came for.”

“What is it you want, sir?” Benny asked cautiously.

He ignored Benny and stuck his huge sweaty face inches away from mine. “I want that book. Hand it over now or I’ll kill you.”

Chapter Four

Uttering a tiny shriek, I inched backward. “Get away from me.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Benny said with all the authority he could muster, and grabbed the man’s arm.

The big guy yanked himself free. “Not until I get my property.”

“Call the police, Benny,” I said urgently.

“Good idea, miss.” He spun around and jogged away, leaving me alone to face the guy. It wasn’t exactly my plan to be left alone with the guy, but I couldn’t blame old Benny. He’d probably never experienced one minute of real danger in all the years he’d worked here. But couldn’t he carry a cell phone, at least?

The stranger watched Benny run back to his booth and I managed to slide past him and make it to the heavy stage door that led into the studio. I grabbed the door handle but it wouldn’t budge. At that very instant, an earsplitting siren blasted once.

“Damn it,” I muttered. The siren went silent, but the bright red light over the door began to twirl, signifying that they had started taping another segment of the show.

Which meant that they wouldn’t unlock the door until they
were finished. So I was stuck out here for at least five minutes, maybe longer.

“Looks like you and me have time for a little talk,” my attacker said.

“The police are on their way.” I set my heavy computer case down and folded my arms tightly. I was two steps up from him and could look him in the eyes. “You’re trespassing and threatening me and I don’t even know who you are. But I do know that the book doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t belong to me, either. And even if it did, do you really think I’d hand it over to you?”

“That woman, that bitch, I saw her on the show. She stole that book from me.”

“She didn’t steal it. She bought it at a garage sale.”

For a brief moment, he looked puzzled and uncomfortable; then he sputtered, “She stole it!”

The light dawned. “You’re the one who sold it to her.”

He looked befuddled again. Then his face turned even redder. “I didn’t sell it to her!”

He didn’t seem too smart but he was definitely mean.
You’re an idiot,
I thought, but wisely kept my mouth shut. His face was a blend of humiliation and a growing temper made up of fury and frustration.

“That bitch is gonna be sorry she ever went on that show.”

“You’ve already threatened me,” I said, leaning backward to put more space between us. “Don’t think I won’t tell the police.”

“Hey, I’m happy to talk to the police.” He was obviously bluffing, but he blustered along. “They’ll know who’s in the right. They’ll get the book back for me, along with the money. That belongs to me, too.”

I frowned as something occurred to me. “They never said what the book was worth on the news segment. How do you know it’s worth anything?”

“I’m not stupid,” he snarled. “The guy on TV said it was worth enough money to feed a family of four for at least two years.”

I shook my head. “He was exaggerating.”

He ignored me. “I did the Google. A family of four eats about a thousand dollars’ worth of food every month. That’s twelve thousand a year, twenty-four thousand for two years. Twenty-four thousand dollars? That money is mine!”

You did the Google?

“You sold the book for three dollars.” I was pressed against the stage door and couldn’t back away from him any farther, so I started to edge sideways. “It doesn’t belong to you anymore.”

He took a step toward me and I stuck my hand out like a traffic cop’s. “Get back. Get away from me. Right now.”

Instead, he grabbed my wrist and twisted it, squeezing hard.

“Let go of me!” I slapped at his beefy hand to no avail. I’d never been attacked so publicly and viciously before. I’d taken self-defense classes, but anything I’d ever learned was useless because my mind went blank.

A police siren wailed in the distance.

That was enough to snap me out of my stupor. I kicked him and my pointed toe smacked his shinbone hard enough to make him howl like a wild dog. He let me go and started hopping around while clutching one leg, swearing the whole time.

I dodged away, out of his range, but he recovered quickly and came after me, grabbing my hair with one hand and my arm with the other. He yanked me back against him and I arched forward to keep from touching him. I was screaming as I tried to reach around and kick him again.

Benny came running back. “Hey! Take your hands off her!” He tried to pry the bigger man away from me, but the oaf wasn’t cowed. Instead, he elbowed Benny out of the way, whirled me around, and grabbed hold of my chin, angling it so that I was forced to stare at his red, sweating face.

I tried to twist away, tried to plant my nails in his fleshy skin, but he barely reacted to anything I did. I scratched and slapped him, but he just eyed me menacingly.

“Nobody screws with me,” he said in a harsh whisper. He squeezed my upper arm until I cried out. “I’ll track down that bitch and get that book. Then I’ll come after you. I’m gonna kill you both.”

I’d been in a lot of scary situations and faced down sociopaths and murderers, but I’d never been confronted with such visceral evil before. I could see it in his cold, dead eyes. I had no doubt that if there had been no witnesses, if he thought he could get away with it, he would have tried to kill me right then and there. As it was, he was ready to snap my arm right out of its socket. I was bent over backward, trying to keep that from happening.

He was right on top of me. His skin was clammy and his hatred was terrifying and real. I could sense it eating away at him.

“I said get your hands off of her!” Benny shouted, bravely pushing and pounding on my assailant’s back. “The police are on their way to arrest you.” He tried to pry the guy’s hand away from my arm, but it was like a minnow trying to prod a shark.

The brute had had enough of Benny. He shoved me aside and turned and smacked Benny across the face, sending him spiraling backward until he lost his balance and fell.

As Benny lay groaning on the blacktop, the police siren sounded again.

The man bared his teeth at me one last time. “I’ll be back.” Then he took off running across the parking lot and through the gate and disappeared into the neighborhood.

I’ll be back?
Who did he think he was? The Terminator?

I wished I was in the mood to laugh at that, but I could feel a bruise forming on my sore jaw. I brushed aside the pain and rushed over to kneel down next to poor Benny. “Are you all right?”

“Uhhhhn,” he groaned. I helped him up to a sitting position and he shook his head, still disoriented. “Who was that guy?”

“I have no idea.” But I did. He had to be the garage-sale loser who’d sold
The Secret Garden
to Vera for three measly dollars. I knew he was a vicious, scary psychopath who had brutalized Benny. He had threatened and assaulted and frightened the hell out of me. He could’ve killed me. But I still had no clue who he actually was. I didn’t know his name or where he lived.

But Vera would know.

A cop car pulled into the lot twenty seconds later, siren screaming, but it was too little, too late. The vicious creep was gone.

•   •   •

“I
love a challenge,” Chuck the makeup man said, as he dabbed a thick liquid foundation onto my chin and along my jaw. With a clean white sponge, he began to blend the liquid into my skin, hoping to cover up the darkening bruise that the attacker had given me.

“I’m glad I could make your day,” I mumbled.

“Don’t sweat it; you’ll look gorgeous on camera. I just hope you’ll be able to talk with the swelling.”

Oh, great. Now I had something brand-new to worry about. “Thanks a lot, Chuck.” My jaw was really starting to hurt and talking didn’t help. But I wasn’t about to complain or say anything that would get me sent home, so I relaxed in the chair and let him work his magic.

After I’d given the two policemen a description of my assailant, I’d written down the address of Vera’s flower shop and told them that she would be able to give them the bad guy’s address. With any luck, he would be in jail for assault and battery by the end of the day.

Poor Benny had refused to go to the hospital, insisting he was fine. He’d just been a little shaken up. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to brush off the incident. He might be worried about losing his job as a studio security guard if his employers didn’t think he could handle an altercation like the one we’d just been through.

I wanted to call Vera and warn her that the police would be coming by, but I was running out of time. I needed to study up on my next book. And I had to telephone Derek before he showed up and saw my bruises.

But as I’d passed the makeup room, I’d run into Chuck. He’d taken one look at my darkening jaw and insisted on doing something about it.

“That’s it, just relax.” Chuck grinned as he worked. The man looked like a tall, skinny elf with his twinkling eyes, curly gray mustache, and meticulously trimmed goatee. His strokes were so light, it was like getting a mini massage. My eyelids fluttered closed and I was pretty sure I could’ve dozed off in this chair with no difficulty at all.

“What the hell happened to you?”

I flinched and my eyes flew open. Randolph Rayburn was staring intently at me, as if I were a strange-looking bug on a slide. I really must have fallen asleep because I hadn’t heard him come into the makeup room.

“Did somebody hurt you?” he persisted.

“Sort of,” I said slowly.

His eyes widened. “Who was it? Did he smack you? Should I call the police?”

“They were already here.”

“They were?” He shot Chuck a questioning look. “Why didn’t I hear them?”

“It happened outside in the parking lot.”

“Who was it? Did the police arrest him?”

“No, he got away.”

“Damn it. So, what happened?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was hard to concentrate. I needed to pop some ibuprofen or I’d be a mess by the time I got on camera. And even scarier, it was getting harder to talk without my jaw aching.

“Maybe you should go home,” Randolph said, watching me struggle.

“No. I’m just a little dazed, that’s all.” There was no way I was going home. “Anyway, some guy came by claiming to be the rightful owner of the book I appraised yesterday. He grabbed me in the parking lot and threatened me.”

“Was it someone you know?”

I didn’t feel like explaining the entire situation to Randolph. “No.”

“So you’ve never seen him before today?”

“No.”

Chuck snickered behind me. “Hey, Randy, maybe your imaginary stalker finally showed up for real.”

“He
is
real,” Randolph muttered, frowning.

“Sure he is,” Chuck mocked. “Is he also the type to attack a woman?”

Randolph ignored Chuck and carried on with his questioning. “So, this guy actually attacked you?”

I wasn’t about to let him change the subject. “Do you have a stalker, Randolph?”

Chuck snorted. “He’d like us all to believe he does.”

I watched Randolph’s expression turn cloudy.
Tell them someone’s trying to kill me.
The words I’d overheard him say yesterday came rushing back.

If Randolph thought someone was stalking him, he seemed to be having a hard time getting anyone else to believe him. So why was I inclined to believe him without question? Maybe because I’d seen more malevolence in the last year than an average person saw in a lifetime.

My gaze met Randolph’s in the mirror. “Are you being stalked?”

Chuck shook his head. “Oh, please. Don’t encourage him.”

Randolph scowled but said nothing more. A minute later, Angie arrived to take him out to the stage.

Chuck used a soft brush to give my cheeks the slightest touch of color. Then he patted my shoulder. “I think I’ve done all I can do for you, Brooks.”

I smiled, amused that Chuck had called me Brooks from the first time we were introduced yesterday. Some people were the type to be familiar from the start.

I gazed at my face in the mirror and was pleasantly surprised. After turning my head to catch a few different angles of myself, I said, “Wow, you can’t see a thing. And you made me look good besides. Thanks, Chuck.”

“You look good without my help, doll,” he said. “I just enhanced what was already there. Along with a little creative covering up.”

“I really appreciate it.” I stood and moved closer to the mirror to get a better look. “I owe you.”

“I’ll send you the bill.”

I tried to smile, but it made my jaw hurt. Glancing around the room, I saw a stack of white facecloths. “Can I borrow one of your little towels?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll bring it back later.”

“No problem, kiddo.”

I walked out to the studio and found the catering table. At one end, tubs of crushed ice held cans of soft drinks and bottles of water. Grabbing a handful of ice, I wrapped it up in the towel and hurried back to my dressing room. I would need to ice my jaw for the next hour while I researched the book for my upcoming segment. I just hoped the ice wouldn’t ruin my makeup.

“And right there, that makes you an idiot,” I muttered. The fact that I was more worried about my makeup than my swollen, bruised jaw? Yup, that was crazy.

But I refused to be too hard on myself. It was only my second day in show business. I wasn’t about to quit now. Once in my dressing room, I dumped my computer bag onto the desk, then
rifled through my purse to find some ibuprofen. I took three pills with a big gulp of water and sat on the couch, pressing the makeshift ice bag to my jaw. The initial chill was a shock but it wore off quickly and the ice began to numb my jaw, easing the pain.