by Nancy Warren
“I was a big fan of Branson’s,” Irving Schulz said, spreading his hands as though describing a fish he’d caught. “Big fan.”
Interestingly, he was the only person in the room who had admitted to being a fan of the thriller author’s.
We went over once more how the event would proceed, and then Giles Montague said, “I have a little gift for you. You mustn’t show anyone. This is completely top secret and under wraps until tomorrow.”
And like a magician, he pulled forth Bartholomew Branson’s brand-new book in hardcover. In spite of myself, I was thrilled. I must be one of the first people in the world to see the novel in print. I thanked him and promised that I would treasure it.
The cover showed a tough-looking guy with a gun in his hand and a military base behind him. “You see the way the title’s embossed.”
“Yes. It looks great.”
“And you’ve printed Barty’s name in nice, big letters. That was always so important to him,” Candace offered. “Number one New York Times Bestselling Author,” she read as though this might be news to any of us.
“Do you want me to autograph it for you, honey?” Candace asked.
“That’s okay.”
“I know you asked for two hundred copies,” Chloe said in her businesslike way. “But we made it three hundred to be safe.”
“I’d be thrilled to sell three hundred hardcovers,” I said. There’d be enough for everyone who came in person to pick up a book at the launch, and I’d also agreed to ship books out from The Blarney Tome to anyone who couldn’t make the event.
“Will you look at that?” Irving suddenly said, in a voice of amazement. “My Aunt Betty had a doll like that. I think she gave it to Goodwill.” We all watched as the appraiser talked about dolls from the 1930s. I excused myself, saying I had a lot to do before tomorrow, and left them all glued to the TV.
I headed straight home to find Cerridwen looking miffed and standing expectantly beside her empty bowl.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, immediately rushing to get her food. As much as I wanted to kick back and put my feet up because it was going to be a long day tomorrow, I couldn’t. I kept looking at that book sitting on my kitchen counter, and I knew that the person who would really be excited to see it was at the castle.
Poor Bartholomew, he’d had such a shock finding out that his ex-wife had pushed her way into the launch that I thought the least I could do was take him a copy of his brand-new book hot off the press.
Of course, this wasn’t my usual kind of a read. The front cover was a bit garish with lots of red and yellow. A Killer in His Sights was in black, in an aggressive font, and in slightly smaller black letters the tagline read, “A secret government agency taught him how to kill; now they want to kill him.”
I flipped the book over and read the short biography of Bartholomew on the back cover. I felt a little bit sad at the final line, which was that the famous author had disappeared off the coast of Ireland while on a cruise.
Well, I knew where the mysterious author was, and I knew how very pleased he’d be to see the first copy of his book. So, having assuaged Cerridwen’s hunger, I grabbed myself a quick dinner and headed off to the castle.
All was still hustle and bustle at Devil’s Keep. Bartholomew was determined that everything should be perfect. He’d clearly worn the other vampires and the staff at the castle to a frazzle with his demands. But he’d achieved what he’d wanted to. Huge posters of his book cover hung from the massive high ceilings, and he had pictures of all his book covers and various pictures of himself. Here he was shaking hands with a former president of the United States. Here he was with his arm around a hot, young actor who had starred in the film version of one of his books. Here he was looking off into the desert as though scanning for enemies. He’d become as much of a character as his fictitious heroes.
“Bartholomew, it looks amazing,” I told him.
He looked pleased to see me. “At least someone has an eye for promotion. Thank you, Quinn, for your good taste.”
“I have really good news. I brought you a present,” I said, hardly able to keep the excitement from my voice. I knew how much this book meant to him. From behind my back I pulled A Killer in His Sights and presented it to him. His face lit with excitement.
“Oh, they’ve done a very good job. I was worried, without me to oversee things. Publishers can be sloppy, you know.”
He looked over the front cover happily. “Embossed title. Nice. That costs a few bucks.” Turned it over to examine the back. He glanced up at me. “I always worry about the back-cover copy. I had final approval. I insisted on it as one of the terms of my contract. But with this book, I had no input at all. I hope they didn’t screw it up.”
He began to read, and then the most ludicrous change came over his face. From joy to—I couldn’t name the emotion that suffused his face. It was a combination of rage, grief, and disbelief, but mostly rage. Then he made a sound that was again difficult to describe. A howl mixed with a growl mixed with a scream would probably be closest to describe the unearthly sound that came out of him.
Everybody stopped what they were doing to stare. Oscar Wilde plucked the book from his nerveless fingers and, after perusing the back cover of the novel, began to chuckle. Oh, that couldn’t be good. The only thing that could make Oscar Wilde this happy would be to see the extremely successful and far less talented writer humiliated.
“What is it?” I cried, unable to bear the suspense.
Oscar Wilde said in his drawl, “This is quite a book you’ve written here. ‘A Killer in His Sights. A top-secret government agency taught him how to kill. Now they want to kiss him.’ I think you might have created a whole new genre, my friend. The military conspiracy romance.”
Chapter 6
“Oh, no,” I cried, as we all stood there in shock. “Are you sure?”
“See for yourself.” Oscar handed me the book, and quickly, I read the line. Even worse than the horrible typo was that they’d bolded that line to bring attention to it. “It says kiss instead of kill,” I said as though everyone present hadn’t figured that out by now.
I looked to Lochlan Balfour, who was the kind of man who could always solve problems. Even big ones. But he stood taking in the scene, shaking his head.
Bartholomew was rousing himself from his shock. “I’m going to kiss them. I’m going to go down there and kiss them all, vampire-style. How could they do this to me?” he yelled.
I’d never seen him like this. He looked like a dangerous, undead, blood-sucking vampire. His teeth gnashed. “I’ll look like a buffoon.”
“You’d think he’d be accustomed by this point,” Oscar said, but softly so only I could hear him. Even he must realize that Bartholomew Branson was extremely dangerous in his current state.
“Is there anything you can do?” I asked the furious author. “Maybe they could reprint the book.”
“Not in time for the launch.” He was pacing and pulling at his hair. “It’s tomorrow. This is a disaster.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” How I wished now that I hadn’t brought the book with me. All his pleasure in the event was destroyed.
“My career is ruined. Ruined!”
“Calm down,” I said. “It’s not the whole book, it’s only the dust jacket. I’m going to phone the editor right away.” I didn’t tell him the man was already in Ballydehag in case I incited murder. “Or should I call your agent?”
“Both of them,” he yelled. He stomped right up to me. His breathing was really heavy for a vampire. “Tell them the book covers have to be reprinted. Immediately.”
I doubted the publisher could reprint the dust jacket that fast. Surreptitiously, I slipped the jacket off the book to see if we could give people the denuded book, but without its bright cover, A Killer in His Sights looked awfully dull.
Behind Bartholomew, Lochlan Balfour made a gesture that I was fairly certain meant make the phone call somewhere else. Great idea. If I
called from here, Bartholomew might grab the phone away from me and yell at them himself. That was the mood he was in. So I waved my phone around theatrically and said, “The cell phone reception here is terrible. I’ll go outside and make the call.”
“You come right back in, Quinn, the second you’re done. And don’t you let them talk you out of getting satisfaction. I will not allow that launch to go ahead with a spelling mistake like that.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I left the castle, and Lochlan followed. “What a complete disaster,” I said as soon as we were outside. “I never would have brought that book over if I’d known.”
“He had to find out sometime. At least this way, maybe there’s something we can do.”
“But what? There’s no way they can reprint thousands of covers before tomorrow.”
“I have an idea.”
“You do?” Lochlan had been alive so long, he must have faced his share of business setbacks. He seemed like a very resourceful guy.
“You’re right, of course. They’ll have to reprint all the dust jackets, but for tomorrow, we only need a few hundred.”
“Right.” Which might as well have been a few million, the way I looked at it.
He stopped me before I could make the phone call. “Let me call a printer friend I know. I have an idea that we could do a small print run of a few hundred collector copies for tomorrow. Give the initial readers the special treatment since they won’t have the book signed by the author.”
“But your friend would have to work all night,” I reminded him.
He gave me a funny look. “I don’t think that would be a problem. He usually works at night.”
Right. His undead printer.
There was something very exciting about a book launch. Maybe because I was a real newbie in the bookselling business, it seemed so thrilling. I’d come to love my little shop and the thousands of stories within it. I could guess a lot about people’s personalities from the kind of books they were drawn to, and I’d discovered the job suited me.
But this? Offering a brand-new book to the world was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. First of all, my little shop had never been so packed with customers. I’d worried that being so far from a major city, we wouldn’t get many people. Especially since they couldn’t meet the author. But Bartholomew Branson had some really loyal fans, and they’d driven a long way to be the first ones to receive the first edition of his last book.
Thanks to the overnight rush print job and some creative thinking, even if they weren’t getting a signed first edition, these loyal fans were getting something really special. A collector dust jacket. Lochlan had not only had new jackets printed, but there was some extra wording indicating that the book had been purchased at The Blarney Tome and the books had been numbered, a bit like a limited-edition print.
I’d put the exciting news on my website late the night before, and Lochlan had been quick to get the message spread on social media. I’d come in this morning to requests from Branson fans all over the world for one of the collector copies.
Customers who bought the books in person were excited to find out whether they would get copy number 101 or 307. After frantic calls between me, Philip, Giles, and Chloe, we’d agreed to a limited-edition collector’s run of five hundred copies. I’d be getting another shipment of books.
Everybody involved was relieved to solve the disaster of the spelling mistake and actually turn it into something positive, no one more so than the poor author.
Since he obviously wasn’t able to come to the launch, I hoped he was managing to while away the time at the castle until the event moved over there.
Candace had pouted at first at not being allowed to sign her ex-husband’s books, but she seemed to have recovered enough to go around talking to people and very much acting as though she helped write the novel. I walked past her telling some poor soul, “I was his muse, you see.” I tried not to roll my eyes.
The event was going so well, I thought that the disastrous mistake on the dust jacket had turned out to be a blessing in disguise, one of those things that seemed like a disaster and then we were able to turn it to our good, mostly because of Lochlan Balfour and his printer friend. Now, instead of just getting a brand-new book, the people that had bothered to come all the way to The Blarney Tome were getting a genuine collector’s edition. Bartholomew was delighted, and frankly, so was I. Since Lochlan had made sure that The Blarney Tome got a mention, I suspected that good things might come to me because of this. Maybe I’d forever be known as the Bartholomew Branson store. I suppose there were worse things that could happen to a person.
I’d hired Katie O’Leary, a local teacher and one of my best bookstore customers, to run the cash register so I was free to wander around my fairly small quarters and chat to people. A lot of locals, my regular customers, were in here, and I didn’t want them to feel slighted as I fussed over people who’d come from far away and were very unlikely to buy another book here. A lot of them had also been invited to Lochlan’s castle afterwards for the celebration, which I thought was a nice touch. Father O’Flanagan, the vicar, made an appearance and looked thrilled with the special copy. “Look, Quinn, they’ve even mentioned your bookshop. Well done.”
Dr. Milsom came in and nodded to me before getting in line to get his own copy. The doctor normally only read fishing books, so I appreciated that he was supporting a local event.
I was really pleased I’d had the foresight to order in extra copies of all Bartholomew’s releases from the last five years and even a few copies of the older ones. I had them stacked on a couple of long tables, and there was a steady stream of customers depleting my Branson stock, which warmed my shopkeeper’s heart.
I kept glancing at a young man who was standing at the table perusing Branson’s older titles. He looked unkempt and needed both a shave and a haircut. He had a backpack hanging from his shoulders that looked like it had seen better days. It also looked like it would hold quite a few books if he chose to sneak them in there when no one was looking. That was why I had my eye on him. As far as security went in this shop? I was it.
So far, all he’d done was stand there, reading one of the books while actual customers had to go around him. He could have been in his own home for all the notice he paid. I suspected he was a poor student. He had that kind of focus about him. But why would a student be here? I didn’t recognize him, so he probably wasn’t local. One of the cornerstones of security is making sure that anybody dodgy knows you have your eye on them. Besides, my curiosity was growing by the minute, so I went up to him.
“You sure seem to be a Branson fan,” I said.
He glanced up, startled as though I had interrupted him in a very private activity. He wore glasses that he pushed back on his nose with one finger and regarded me with cool, gray eyes.
“I guess you could say that,” he said in an accent just like mine. I was so used to hearing Irish that having both Candace and this new guy in town with their very fresh American accents felt like old home week.
I said, as expats do everywhere when they meet someone from their own country, “Where are you from?”
“Cleveland.” I thought he wanted to go back to his book but, overcome by politeness, he asked, “And you?”
“Seattle.”
Well, that was the end of that conversation. I nodded to the book in his hands. “I ship internationally if you’re interested.” Hint, hint, maybe you’d like to buy it before you get your dirty fingerprints all over the whole book.
He laughed. It was a strange sound, not amused at all. “I probably know this book better than you know Seattle.” Such a curious statement.
Okay, now he was intriguing me. “You figure?”
He handed me the book. “Open it to any page. Read a sentence, and I can tell you what’s going on.”
I glanced around the shop. Nobody seemed to need me, and now my interest was caught. I took the book from his hands. There was di
rt under his nails. For someone who loved Bartholomew Branson so much, he hadn’t exactly treated this gala with a lot of respect. No matter how poor he was, he could have washed his hands.
I glanced at the title. Behind the Target. I knew from the Branson catalog that this was a recent title, though not the most recent.
I flipped to a point about halfway through the book and read aloud, “Blake shoved the Russian agent with his hip. He toppled over the stairway. Seven stories was a long way to fall.”
Before I could read the next line, the young man recited it. “There was a sound like an egg cracking when the agent hit the marble floor.”
I stared.
My new friend said, “That’s the spot where John Blake barely gets out of Russia with his life.” He put his head back and forth as though he were considering. “That happens to him a lot. Try again.”
I’d been skimming ahead, and sure enough, he was right.
I flipped ahead another fifty pages or so. I read, “The meeting was supposed to be a debriefing, but it told him that someone high up in government was scared. Very scared.”
“Now he’s back in Washington. He’s had a private meeting with the president’s top security advisor, and now he has to steal a brand-new, previously unheard-of weapon right out from under the arms dealer’s nose.”
“Wow, you really do know these books. Have you always been a fan?” I was going to have to tell Bartholomew about this unlikely fan. In fact, I was going to invite this kid to the gala. The author should at least get a glimpse of such a passionate fan.
However, to my surprise, the young guy laughed bitterly. “About eight months.”
“Really? I’m like that with some authors. I discover them and then I have to read everything they’ve ever written.”
He gave me a tight smile. “Something like that.”
“Listen, after this, there’s a launch party at Devil’s Keep.”
He looked startled. “Where?”
