A Dead and Stormy Night

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Mina was the real hero,” Morrie said. “She’s the one who figured out how Ashley was getting word about the drawings to her buyer, and that led us to Darren.”

  “It sounds like she’s just the girl to keep you on your toes, then.” Jo gave me a wave. “It looks like I’ll be working tonight if they remove more evidence from Darren’s room, but how about I call tomorrow and we can grab that coffee?”

  “It’s a date,” I beamed.

  Jo whistled a Clash song under her breath as she followed the officers out the door. As soon as it slammed shut, Morrie grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off the ground.

  “You’re free, Mina!” he beamed. “The English criminal justice system triumphs again!”

  “I can’t believe it!” I grinned back, the weight of the last few days lifting from my body.

  “It just goes to show,” he said, “as an old colleague of mine always said, ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ We none of us predicted the true motives of the killer, and yet, the clues were right there. The beer cans in the garden outside, the ring in her pocket, and the fact the killer left behind the images.”

  “It’s going to take a mighty scrubbing to get those bloodstains out of my desk,” Heathcliff growled.

  “Leave them,” Quoth suggested, transforming out of his bird form. “As a warning to anyone who dares cross you.”

  “This calls for celebration. I’ll get the wine,” Morrie bounded up the stairs, Quoth following close behind.

  Heathcliff rubbed at the bloodstain. An awkward silence descended.

  “Mina…” Heathcliff’s head whipped up, staring at a spot behind my shoulder. “About the other day—”

  “You mean when you kissed me? You can say it, you know. I’m not a prude.”

  “Yes, well,” he muttered. “I was wrong.”

  “The mighty Heathcliff admits he was wrong. Well, what were you wrong about?”

  “I was wrong to kiss an employee. Now, you answer me something. If I wasn’t your boss, what would it mean then?”

  If I wasn’t your boss…

  What is he saying?

  The air between us thinned. Heathcliff’s breath hitched. My body thrummed with energy. I stepped toward him, my body pulled by some invisible force.

  Heathcliff snarled and yanked himself away. “It is not something we should think of,” he said.

  “You seem as though you’re thinking of it right now.”

  “Infuriating woman.”

  “If you have a problem with me, then you should fire me.”

  “I should fire you,” he growled. “Come upstairs and have a glass of wine with us.”

  A wide grin stretched across my face. I held out my hand and Heathcliff took it, the heat of his fingers shooting through my body. “You’re on.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “I’m stoked you’re not the murderer.” Jo poured wine into two glasses and pushed one across to me. “Now I can hang out with you without worrying I’ll end up with a knife in the back.”

  We were sitting on either side of Heathcliff’s desk, holding the fort while Sir Grumpy went to yell at a poor defenseless bank teller over a check mix-up, as if it was her fault he couldn’t use the online banking app like the rest of the universe.

  I clinked my glass against Jo’s. “I’m glad, too. Although I’m not sure you’re the best influence on me. I’ve officially become a day drinker.”

  “You work in a bookshop in the age of digital media. I don’t think there’s anything to do but drink.”

  I laughed. “I’ve heard that joke before.”

  “I’m not sure it’s a joke so much as a universal truth.”

  It was two weeks since we caught Darren, and Jo and I had been hanging out every few days, mostly drinking wine over lunch. She loved to regale me with grisly tales of life in the lab, and I stored up all the stories of Heathcliff’s customer interactions for her. She was the complete opposite to Ashley in nearly every way, but I had a feeling I was making my next girl-friend.

  Jo left after we finished our glass. She had two autopsies to conduct in the afternoon. As I stared at the neatly stacked and dusted shelves (my handiwork) and tried not to think about Jo squishing around in someone’s organs, my fingers trailed along the edge of the Doomsday Book that sat on the desk.

  Heathcliff’s discovery came back to me, about how the building had been in the book trade for hundreds of years. I’d been thinking about the room upstairs, and how pristine it was, as if it had only been abandoned a few months. But the furniture was old – Victorian, or maybe late Georgian. It seemed impossible that it should remain in that state, undisturbed, for all these years.

  I turned over the edge of a page. I thought back to the occult room, and the old, dusty bindings on some of those books. I wonder if anything in there was from when the shop was first established.

  I opened the top drawer of Heathcliff’s desk. There, nestled under a package of squashed Wagon Wheels biscuits, was an old-fashioned ring of keys. I shoved the keyring into my pocket.

  “Watch the desk for me,” I called up to Quoth. “I just need to check something on the first floor.”

  Quoth nodded from his perch on the armadillo. I bounded up the stairs and slipped into the storage room. Heathcliff had pasted a large DO NOT ENTER sign on the door and it was locked tight. I tried the keys until one turned. The door clicked open, and I entered.

  This time, I ignored the book on the plinth and headed for the shelves, pulling books out at random and checking their inside flaps. Many of them weren’t in English, and it wasn’t as though copyright had been invented when they were written, but after a few volumes I found one that was dated to the fourteenth century. Of course, it was in Latin.

  Why didn’t fashion school have a Medieval Latin class? Bloody hell.

  “Morrie!” I grabbed the volume and brought it upstairs.

  “Yes, gorgeous?” Morrie poked his head around his alcove, his face lit by the glow of his screens.

  I thrust the book under his nose. “What does this say here, on the first page?”

  Morrie peered at the volume. “This is the title of the work, which is a fascinating book on demonology, and here’s the name of the bookseller where it was copied – Herman Strepel.”

  I knew it. “This is the same guy who used to have a shop right here. Is there any way to find out more about this Strepel? Ideally, a list of texts he had for sale.”

  “Antique books aren’t really my thing, unless we’re talking about stealing them. But I’ll talk to some people.” Morrie grinned at me.

  “This could be big. It could be a major clue as to why the shop does what it does. But Morrie, if I’m to have any hope of figuring this out, I need to know what the deal is with the master bedroom.”

  “You have to ask Heathcliff—”

  “I’m asking you.” I gave him my sternest expression.

  Morrie sighed. “Mr. Simson told Heathcliff never to enter that room. He obeyed, but I didn’t. The first night I was here I stole the key from his desk and opened the door. Inside I found a forest.”

  “A…”

  “Forest. Trees, weird palm-frond things. Dirt. It completely ruined my first pair of brogues.” He wrinkled his face at the memory.

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “Not necessarily. I’ve run some calculations and I believe the room functions as a kind of wormhole through space-time. In this case, time. I believe it shows past and perhaps even future permutations of the bookshop. What was and was will be on this very site. After I escaped the forest, I told Heathcliff what I saw. After yelling at me for a solid three hours, he and I looked in the room again, and this time it was a dusty, empty room. No furniture at all. The only thing inside was a large, empty leather book with a gold symbol on the cover. That same book sits in the occult room downstairs.”

  “I saw it.”

  “Yes, and
you saw a Victorian master bedroom, after the door opened to you of its own accord. The occult room opened for you, as well. I don’t know what it means, but I do know that the bookshop wants you to discover its secrets.” Morrie grinned, and pinched my bum. “That’s good. Secrets are fun. I’m enjoying discovering your secrets, Mina Wilde.”

  I grinned back. Maybe we still had no idea why the guys were here or what kind of magic the bookshop possessed, and maybe Quoth was sort of trapped here, and maybe I was kind of sort of infatuated with all of them, but for the first time in a long time, I felt okay about the future. I felt settled. I felt like I might have the strength to deal with my eventual blindness.

  In Nevermore Bookshop, I felt as though I’d come home.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  Need to uncover more secrets of Nevermore Bookshop? Grab book 2, Of Mice and Murder.

  (Turn the page for a sizzling excerpt).

  Can’t get enough of Mina and her boys? Read a free alternative scene from Quoth’s point-of-view when you sign up for the Steffanie Holmes VIP list.

  From the Author

  Don’t worry! I promise there’s an excerpt of book 2 in a couple of pages. I’ve just got to do some thank you and say some bollocks first.

  The Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries are some of the most personal books I’ve written, for a number of reasons. I’ve poured my love of books into these characters, and tried to convey the power of stories to transform our lives – both the stories we read and the ones we tell ourselves.

  For Mina, books saved her when she was lonely and vulnerable, and now, when she returns to Argleton, books – and their hot fictional men – are going to get her through her latest challenge.

  You might not know this, but I’m legally blind. Unlike Mina, my eyesight didn’t fade over time. I was born with the genetic condition achromatopsia, which means my eyes lack the millions of cone cells required to recognise colours and perceive depth. I’m completely colour blind, light sensitive with poor depth perception, I squint and blink all the time, and struggle to make eye contact. I’m so short-sighted I’m considered legally blind.

  As a kid, I was bullied relentlessly because I was different. I had wonky eyes and an overactive imagination and I sucked at sport. Other kids taunted me because I couldn’t do the things they did. I thought I was a freak, destined never to have any friends. I expected to be alone forever.

  I found solace in books, and in music. I lost myself in worlds that took me far away from my small town and people who hated me. In those worlds, it was okay to be different, and unlikely heroines got to have all sorts of adventures.

  As I grew older, I experienced discrimination in a similar way Mina did. I felt both the pull of outrage and the push of inevitability. If someone says I can’t do a job, are they right? Our world goes out of its way to tell us that people who are different should be pushed aside.

  Fuck that.

  Sometimes life shuts you out of opportunities, of things you deserve. Sometimes working hard isn’t enough. It sucks and it hurts, but there’s only two ways to proceed – you can curl up and wither away, or you can make your own opportunities.

  Four years ago when I published my first Steffanie Holmes book, I had no idea where it would lead. Now I got to write this book and tell Mina’s story, and part of my own story, too.

  There are so many people who’ve supported me and believed in me, even when I struggled to believe in myself. My parents, Mother and Father Metal, and my sis, Belinda, for their unfaltering support.

  The writers with whom I’ve celebrated and commiserated – the peeps on Dirty Discourse, the fab ladies of Romance Writers of New Zealand, my reverse harem babes. Thank you for teaching me that when one of us succeeds, it lifts everyone up.

  To my friends, the bogans, my extended family, my brothers and sisters of metal. I apologise for the volume of our shenanigans that end up in my books.

  Always, to my cantankerous drummer husband, who is everything. Every hero I write is a piece of you and what you mean to me.

  And lastly, to you, my readers, for going on this journey with me. I love you more than words can say.

  Mina’s got a hell of a journey ahead of her. She came to Nevermore Bookshop broken and defeated, but she’s stronger than even she knows. And she’s got Heathcliff, Morrie, Quoth, and Jo by her side. With a gang like that, she’s invincible.

  Xxx

  Steffanie

  Excerpt

  Of Mice and Murder

  “How does it look?” Morrie yelled from his precarious position atop the wooden ladder, as he held the painting of a rampaging Godzilla cat terrorising a town filled with fleeing mice against the dark panelled wall above the staircase.

  “Like the entrails of one of Grimalkin’s eviscerated mice,” Heathcliff growled.

  “Meow,” Grimalkin echoed from her perch on Heathcliff’s shoulder.

  “Hey,” Quoth pouted. He sat on the bottom step, his black hair hung over his face, draping him in shadows. “I worked hard on that painting.”

  “Ignore Heathcliff, he’s no bloody help.” Morrie steadied himself against the wall as the ladder wobbled. “Mina, your thoughts?”

  “I think that ladder doesn’t look structurally sound.”

  Morrie gritted his teeth as his arm muscles strained from holding out the canvas. “I’d like to remind you that I’m risking my beautiful neck up here for your genius plan. We don’t have to hang Quoth’s paintings all over the shop—”

  “Fine, fine. Move it over two inches so it's centered on the panel.” Morrie leaned out, his arms stretching the last inch. I nodded and he reached for his hammer and—

  Something warm streaked across my boots. A tiny white shape darted up the staircase and along the frame of the ladder. A twitching nose sniffed the air as the mouse surveyed its next move.

  “Yeooow!” Heathcliff moaned as Grimalkin’s claws dug into his shoulder. She launched herself across the room, flying up the staircase and landing on the bottom rung of the ladder just as the mouse darted up Morrie’s trouser leg.

  “Help, it’s in my trousers!” Morrie lurched forward, hopping from foot to foot as he swung the painting at his leg. The ladder wobbled across the step and lurched toward the edge of the staircase.

  “Morrie, watch out!” I yelled. Morrie leapt off the top of the ladder just as the leg went over the edge of the step and the whole thing crashed down the stairs. The painting flew from his hand and sailed through the air.

  Feathers flew in all directions as Quoth transformed into his raven. He darted out of the way just as the ladder slid over the bottom step. I sucked in my breath.

  Quoth soared overhead and captured the frame between his teeth just before it hit the ground. He flapped his wings and set it down against the wall.

  The mouse streaked past him. Grimalkin bounced back down the stairs and bounded after it. Quoth stuck out a talon to capture the critter, but the mouse slipped through his grip and disappeared under a shelf.

  Grimalkin’s front paws slid on the floorboards, and she howled as she skidded into Quoth, sending the pair of them tumbling across the room in a furious ball of fur and feathers.

  I raced up the staircase, my heart pounding as I wrapped my arms around Morrie, who was still frantically beating at his trouser leg.

  “Get it out, get it out, get it out!” he howled.

  “It’s gone.” I grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to his feet, surprised to feel wet patches under his arms. Is James Moriarty, criminal mastermind and eminent mathematics professor, afraid of a tiny mouse?

  It appeared so. Morrie buried his face in my neck. “It had little scratchy legs,” he whispered into my hair.

  “Don’t be so dramatic. Where’d it go?” Heathcliff wrenched Grimalkin and Quoth apart.

  “Into the stacks. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a wee mouse.” I wiped a strand of hair out of Morrie’s face. His lower lip quivered, and it was totally adorable. “Judgin
g by the row of tiny trophies along the perch over the door, Quoth and Grimalkin will make short work of it sooner or later.”

  “That was no mere mouse,” Heathcliff growled. “He is the Grey Fury, the Mouse of the Baskervilles, the Demon Mouse of Butcher Street.”

  “Now who’s being dramatic?”

  “Didn’t you read the paper?” Morrie slumped onto the front step, folding his hands over his long legs. “This little fellow has been doing the rounds of all the shops in town, chewing his way through power cords and ductwork, terrifying customers, creating health code violations. It looks like the blighter has decided to take up residence in our shop. I don’t like this. I don’t deal well with vermin.”

  “A mouse made headlines in the Argleton Gazette?” Four years in New York City had made me forget the insanity that was village life.

  “Not just the headlines. Front page.” Morrie winced as he pulled himself to his feet and dusted off his trousers. “These trousers are contaminated now. I’ll have to throw them away and they cost £400.”

  “You have £400 to spend on trousers?” I don’t think I’d ever seen £400 in my life.

  “Forget his bloody trousers. Look what you’ve done to my shop!” Heathcliff folded his arms and glared at the ladder, which had smashed a wooden panel and left a long scratch along the balustrade.

  “It wasn’t me,” Morrie protested. “It was the mouse!”

  “Meeeoooow!” howled Grimalkin.

  My temples throbbed. Just another day in Nevermore Bookshop.

  The shop bell tinkled. Heathcliff frowned as the sound of clomping orthopedic shoes signalled the arrival of an elderly customer. These were his least favourite types of customers, after children and Millenials and everyone else.

  Heathcliff was the only shop owner I knew who wished customers would just leave him alone. We’d been getting a steady stream through the doors ever since I started working at Nevermore Bookshop, but I blame that on the recent murder in the Sociology section. Even though the police solved that crime over a month ago (with a little help from Heathcliff, Morrie, Quoth, and me), the villagers still made a beeline for the upstairs room where it had taken place.