Derek nodded. “Very entertaining.”
“I thought so. And Gerald did a good job.” I glanced around to see if Gerald was still in sight. “And why not, since he . . . oh, crap.”
“What is it?” He turned and saw what I was seeing. “Oh no. That’s hard to watch.”
And yet, we couldn’t stop.
Minka had made her way through the crowd to shake Edward’s hand. For some unfathomable reason, Edward seemed taken by her, and instead of shaking her hand, he kissed it. The crowd thinned out, but the two of them remained together. It seemed that they had eyes only for each other.
Edward was inches away from her now, speaking intimately into her ear and studying her expression as he continued to hold her hand. Minka was giggling. That couldn’t be easy on poor Edward’s ears. She sounded like a hyena.
Edward didn’t seem to mind. Maybe when one reached his age, a hyena was better than nothing.
That was rude and I was sorry I’d let myself think it. I liked Edward and I didn’t want to judge his behavior, but . . . Minka? Really? Why?
“I have to walk away,” I muttered. Derek grabbed my hand and we escaped back to the dressing room. It was a long while before we were able to speak again. We were too traumatized by what we’d just witnessed.
? ? ?
When I returned to the stage to tape my next segment, I heard through the grapevine, otherwise known as Angie, that Edward had taken Minka out to dinner. They’d been seen running out of the studio, giggling and holding hands like two kids being let out of school for the summer.
My stomach did a little dip at the thought of the two of them together. I hoped I wouldn’t have to witness their lovey-dovey act again, but when it came to Minka, my wishes were rarely granted.
Angie shouted something and it reminded me that I needed to talk to her right away. I was worried there might be a little misunderstanding.
Now that I knew her true feelings for Randy, and apparently his for her, I wanted to know why he had allowed me to suspect Angie of being a potential stalker. Why hadn’t he explained that they were dating?
Maybe they had promised to keep their relationship a secret, but that was no excuse for him to put up with my accusations.
And besides that, Angie had been hired in San Francisco only a few weeks earlier than me. There was no way she could’ve put dead animals on his front porch six months before she ever met him. That had only occurred to me recently.
I would’ve liked to have discussed everything with Randy first, but he wasn’t around. So I decided to talk to Angie right after my segment was finished.
? ? ?
“Thank you so much,” Betsy said when Angie had given us the all-clear sign. “My husband is going to be so thrilled when I tell him what that book is worth.”
“It’s a wonderful book,” I said, gazing at her first-edition collection of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales.
“But eleven thousand dollars for an old book of fairy tales? He’s going to plotz!”
I chuckled. “The fairy tales are wonderful, but it’s the bindings and paper and engravings that brought the price up. I hope you continue to keep it in great condition. You might try rubbing a little tea-tree oil into your bookshelves. That should help keep the silverfish away. Don’t get the oil near the book; just rub it along the edges of the shelves.”
“Thank you, Brooklyn,” she said. “You’re so much nicer than I thought you would be.”
My smile faded. “That’s good, I guess.”
“And you appraised the book for a lot more than I was told it was worth.”
Now that my last nerve was hanging by a thread, I had to hear the rest. “Whom did you talk to about the appraisal?”
“Oh, that first girl I talked to in the hall.” She leaned closer and whispered loudly, “She said it wasn’t worth much because it was so old.”
Oh, for God’s sake. My head was spinning. “Betsy, you do realize that around here, an old book is usually a good thing, right?”
“Yeah,” Betsy said, chuckling uncomfortably. “It didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but she was so sincere and really seemed to know what she was talking about.”
“She doesn’t,” I muttered.
“I almost took her up on her offer, but now I’m glad I didn’t because you appraised it for so much more than she was going to give me.”
I almost swallowed my tongue but I tried to appear calm. “She offered to buy it from you? What was she going to offer?”
She quoted me Minka’s amount, almost five thousand dollars less than what the beautiful book was worth. Why was Minka offering anything? She didn’t have the money to buy these books outright. I knew she wasn’t working at the Covington, so who was backing her offers? Not that the Covington would ever consign Minka to buy books for them, but I was at a loss as to whom she was in business with these days.