by Nancy Warren
What she didn’t know, of course, was that I saw Bartholomew every week. And lately much more frequently. He had never once mentioned a wife, and Bartholomew Branson was not a reticent man. He was only too happy to tell us all about the things he missed. All the trappings of celebrity. The five-star hotels, the eager fans who sent him glowing emails and gifts. The rich person’s lifestyle. In none of these sad stories that he related about the past was there ever a Mrs.
Not my business.
She said, “When Barty’s agent told me about this event, I thought it was just darling. And since my poor, sweet Barty passed away off the shores of Ireland, it seemed perfectly fitting to me that his book should be published and launched here. And I’m only too happy to be involved. After all, I’m all that’s left of poor Barty now.” She put a hand with sparkling, purple nails to her chest.
If only that were true.
But that was unkind. He might be really annoying, but it wasn’t his fault he’d been turned into a vampire in the middle of a celebrity cruise. That would bum anybody out.
“I was thinking, Barty always used to love book signings. And the poor fans who will show up for a hardcover copy fresh off the press should get something special. How would it be if I signed them?”
The force of her personality and the torrent of words coming at me made me take a step back until I was pressed against the wall of books. I knew one thing. If anybody was going to decide who was signing his books, it should be Bartholomew himself, and I wouldn’t be offering her anything until I talked to him. So I shrugged and said, “It’s really not my call. I guess the publishers will have to decide.”
For the first time, her bright friendliness dimmed a watt or two. “Well, his agent thought it was a great idea.”
“Sure. It is a great idea. It’s just not my call to make.”
She gazed at the big poster Bartholomew had hung behind my cash desk. “So tell me everything you’ve got organized. I used to host a lot of parties. And, of course, nobody knows better than I do what Barty would have liked.”
I had to argue with her there. I thought “Barty” had some very strong ideas about what he wanted. And I’d be taking his instructions before hers. Especially as Barty had done so much to make his event happen.
Still, she’d come a long way, so I indulged her. “We’ll have the books here to buy, then the event moves to Devil’s Keep. That’s the big castle at the edge of town. There will be drinks and snacks and some speeches.”
She nodded. “It won’t be the same without Barty there. I’m glad I followed my instinct and jumped on a plane to get right over here.” She glanced at the poster. “Too bad it’s too late to put my picture on the posters.”
“Yes. What a shame.”
“Never mind. I’ve got a couple of media interviews scheduled.”
“Really?” Bartholomew had been pretty clear about what he wanted. If his wife was so eager to be involved, why had he never mentioned her?
She said, “I have a big secret of my own. I can’t wait to tell everybody.” She wagged her finger at me like we were co-conspirators. “I’ll have a little announcement at the launch party.”
For a terrible moment, I wondered if she’d somehow caught a glimpse of Bartholomew, who did have a bad habit of wandering around when he really shouldn’t. Ballydehag was remote enough that after the publicity had died down from his recent drowning, there wasn’t too much chance that he’d be recognized on the street. But with the launch, his picture was everywhere again, and besides, who would know him better than his wife? But then I realized she wouldn’t be making a surprise announcement if she’d caught sight of her dead husband. She’d be getting hold of the police or a private investigator or a psychic. So my rapid heartbeat settled a bit.
We looked at each other, and she clearly expected me to say something. Out of politeness more than genuine interest, I said, “Do you have a place to stay tonight?”
She brightened up again. The friendly breeziness was back. “Oh, yes. The most darling little bed and breakfast. It’s just opened here in Ballydehag. All of us are staying there.”
For some reason, I felt a shiver of dread go down my spine. “You’re staying at the O’Donnell House?”
“That’s right. I just checked in before I came here. And as I said, it’s absolutely darling. Since I’m sort of the guest of honor, the nice lady who runs it gave me the best bedroom, the one at the front of the house.”
I felt my smile going rigid on my face as though someone had Botoxed it into place.
“The front bedroom.”
That was where Biddy seemed to spend a lot of her time. Like Candace “call-me-Candy” Branson, Biddy O’Donnell also liked to settle herself in the best room in the house. Karen’s only fear when she’d told me the publishing execs were staying in O’Donnell House was that the electrical problem still hadn’t been solved. “What’ll I do if these posh men from London find their televisions play nothing but the Antiques Roadshow?”
“I’m sure they’ll be too busy with the launch to watch TV,” I soothed her, hoping that was true.
I wondered how this was going to turn out, Biddy and Candy sharing a room. I was grateful for one thing. Bartholomew wasn’t working upstairs today. If he had been, he’d have no doubt been tempted to run down and see his wife. I had to go and warn him she was here. I hadn’t seen her name on the guest list. I suspected her presence was going to give him a shock.
And me another gray hair.
“Well, I’d better get going,” she said. Then she pulled out her mobile phone. “Just put your details into my phone, honey, would you? We should keep in touch.”
I didn’t know how to refuse.
After Candace left, I finished my preparations, but my mind was in turmoil. I had a strong intuition that I needed to tell Bartholomew that his widow was wandering around town. However, I couldn’t just close up at three o’clock in the afternoon because I felt like it. Still, if the wife was wandering around town, Bartholomew Branson had to be kept hidden away.
With no other options, I phoned Lochlan Balfour. Even though he ran a super successful company, whenever I phoned him, he picked up right away. “Quinn. How’s the planning going?”
It seemed to be the question we all had for each other these days. I said, “Something interesting happened. Bartholomew Branson’s wife showed up.”
There was a tiny beat of silence. “His wife. That seems surprising.”
“I thought so too. He never talks about her. Do you think you should warn him?”
“I think you should come over here and tell him yourself. He may want to know how she looked, what conversation passed between you. Things I can’t tell him.”
“I can’t. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. I don’t close the shop until five.”
“Can’t you hire some extra staff? Especially now, we need you here.”
As flattered as I was that they wanted my help and expertise at the castle, I had a shop to run. Which I explained to him. “And I can’t afford to pay staff. The bookstore can barely support me as it is.”
“Give me a minute. I’ll wake up Lady Cork and send her along to help.”
Was he having me on? “Lady Cork dresses like she’s still in the 1800s. And she’s a kleptomaniac,” I reminded him.
“All right. It will have to be Dierdre then. Though she’s been very helpful hanging posters and keeping Branson and Wilde apart.”
I had another, even stronger objection. “Are you sure I can trust a vampire to run a shop catering to humans?”
“I’ll make sure she’s fed before she comes,” he said, as though that were the only problem.
“But won’t the townspeople wonder about the strange and rather pale woman who’s suddenly selling them books?”
“First, it’s Ireland. Everyone’s pale. And second, she’s not unknown. Unlike Bartholomew Branson, Dierdre’s able to mix with the villagers.”
“I don’t know.” I was
worried that this would all go wrong.
“And you wouldn’t have to pay her.”
Well, that clinched it. “Okay. Put Lady Cork between the warring authors and send Dierdre to me.” Dierdre wasn’t the most exciting person, dead or alive, but she dressed in timeless Chanel-style suits rather than hoop skirts and could be counted on not to steal things.
I tidied up the shop, and when my new undead assistant arrived, I quickly explained to her how the cash register worked and left her to it. Cerridwen stared down at the vampire from the top of a bookshelf and then jumped down and took herself upstairs, no doubt for a well-earned nap.
I took my bike and cycled to the castle. It didn’t take me very long. I always loved coming here. It was like getting to go inside a major tourist attraction with no other tourists. It made me feel special. Connected.
I walked in and found a hub of activity.
Sean O’Grady was setting up food stations and preparing the bar. Thomas Blood and a vampire I didn’t know were hanging posters from the old stone walls. Apart from the promotional ones, Bartholomew had commissioned some that had quotes from his books. Since Oscar Wilde was currently reading one while holding a handkerchief to his mouth as though holding back vomit, I wasn’t sure he’d done himself any favors.
Bartholomew was looking over the guest list. He had a smile on his face, so it must be good news. When he saw me, his smile widened. “Quinn. Excellent work. Nearly everyone of any importance has said yes to your invitation.”
Since we both knew the invitations had come from him and just had my name on them, I could honestly say, “But that’s all because of you. These are your colleagues and fans. Congratulations.”
I’d said exactly what he’d wanted me to, of course, and he beamed with pleasure.
“And what can I do for you today, Quinn? I can’t wait until the first books arrive. You’ll have one of the only print copies ever actually signed by the author himself.”
Oh, that was a perfect segue into what I had to tell him. I thanked him profusely for the honor, even though it meant I’d have to hide that book away forever. “I had a surprise visitor today.”
“Oh, yes? One of my rabid fans, no doubt?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me. My New York publisher decided to come after all?”
“No. It was your wife.”
His face went from pleased to the opposite so fast, it was ludicrous.
“What wife?” he demanded in a tone that did not suggest all was sunshine and roses with him and Candace “call-me-Candy.”
“She introduced herself as Candace Branson. Candy.”
He banged the guest list down on a handy table that would hold appetizers tomorrow night. “Oh, that scheming, lying, conniving—”
“Do we assume you and your wife aren’t on the best of terms?” Lochlan Balfour interrupted him smoothly.
“On the best of terms? That woman’s a monster. She divorced me and took me for everything I had.”
“Not everything, I’m guessing,” I said, having heard about his luxurious lifestyle.
He turned to me and scowled. “Millions, Quinn. That woman cost me millions.”
“She made it sound like you were happily married.”
“Maybe for the first year or two. And then my success came so quickly, and suddenly there was all this money and…”
He got a slightly guilty look on his face, and I had a feeling I knew where this was going. “And you cheated on her.”
His scowl deepened. “She cheated on me first.”
“So, not the loving couple she described then.”
“I haven’t spoken to that honey badger in three years. She hired shark lawyer after shark lawyer to make sure she got bigger and bigger alimony payments. She was ravenous for cash. Insatiable.”
“Well, she’s also here. And she had this great idea that she should sign your books on your behalf.”
“Over my dead body!” he bellowed.
There was a terrible silence.
He let out a pent-up breath of frustration. “I keep forgetting.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked everyone in the room, since they’d all abandoned whatever they’d been doing and had come closer to listen.
Bartholomew glanced around. “We’ll have to get rid of her.”
Chapter 5
I left the castle feeling even more perturbed about the upcoming literary event than I had before discovering Bartholomew’s ex-wife was on the scene and Bartholomew was far from pleased about it. I was pedaling back to the shop when my phone rang. I pulled over and answered it, not wanting to topple off my bike in the middle of a phone conversation, and discovered it was Candace Branson, of all people. She was as friendly as before.
“Quinn, I was talking to Giles Montague, that’s Barty’s editor, and their darling PR girl, Chloe, and his agent is here too. Philip. We thought it would be a good idea for us to have a meeting tonight to make sure we’re all on the same page.” She let out a long sigh. “I only wish that Barty could be here.”
And Barty only wished Candace was thousands of miles away. Still, there wasn’t much I could do. If Bartholomew’s agent and editor were happy to accept her involvement in the book launch, I was in no position to turn her down. I agreed to meet them at the bed and breakfast at seven that evening.
When I got to O’Donnell House, I thought the meeting had already started. I heard voices coming from Karen Tate’s front room. Karen let me in, looking both thrilled and harassed. “I can’t believe it. Practically my first guests. These are really important people, Quinn. And they chose my bed and breakfast.”
I was as encouraging as I knew how to be. It was a gorgeous spot, and I knew she would be an excellent host. So long as Biddy stayed in check, she’d be fine.
She shook her head. “If I could just work out whatever’s wrong with the televisions.”
My jaw clenched like one of Bartholomew’s heroes fighting the forces of evil. I was going to have to do something about Biddy.
I explained that I was here to meet with the publishing people, and she told me to go right in. I walked into the living room and found five people sitting around watching the TV. Naturally, Antiques Roadshow was playing.
A thin man in a three-piece suit who I was positive must be Giles Montague said, “My parents used to have a sideboard like that. Old rubbish, I thought it was. And look at that. I could have got seven hundred quid at auction, according to them.”
I cleared my throat, and everyone turned to me. Candace rushed up and gave me a hug, which seemed a bit over the top, seeing as we’d only just met. Then she turned, her arm still around me as though we were the best of friends. “This is Quinn Callahan, everybody. She runs that darling little shop called The Blarney Tome. I giggled my head off when I first saw the name of your bookshop. That’s so quaint. So Irish.”
I smiled in a feeble way, and Candace enthusiastically—because she did everything enthusiastically—introduced me to the other people in the room. I had been correct that the man in the three-piece suit was Giles Montague, Bartholomew’s London editor. He rose and came forward. He was much taller than me and quite slender. His silver hair was perfectly coiffed, and he wore glasses with gold frames.
He reached for my hand. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that Bartholomew Branson would have been so pleased to have known that a small shopkeeper in the wilds of County Cork had such a passion for his work that she could make an event like this happen.”
If only he knew. I tried to look like someone who was passionate about Bartholomew Branson’s work, which wasn’t easy. Fortunately, he didn’t expect me to gush over the late writer’s works. He in turn introduced me to Chloe Lynch. She was probably in her late twenties, sleek and elegant with long, red hair and cool green eyes. She had a tablet computer in her hands. “We’re very excited. The books have arrived by truck. They’ll be delivered first thing tomorrow. This shou
ld get excellent press. Which will boost book sales.”
“Not that that will do Bartholomew Branson much good,” I reminded them all.
They all glanced at his ex-wife. “No.”
What did that weird glance mean? Was the ex-wife Branson’s beneficiary? How curious, since they’d been divorced when he died, and from what he’d said, she wasn’t someone he loved giving his money to. I supposed he’d been so in the fullness of life that it hadn’t occurred to him to change his will. But if he was as angry at his ex-wife as he seemed to be, it was odd that he hadn’t. Well, again, none of my business.
“And this is Philip Hazeltine. Barty’s London agent. Even though Barty was an American, it was Philip who first took him on as a client and then sold his first book to Giles, so they have history,” Candy explained.
“How do you do?” Philip asked in an accent that was excessively proper and British. He sounded like one of the royal family. He was dark-haired, a little overweight, but smooth and urbane. He also shook my hand.
“I’m very well, thank you,” I replied, equally polite.
“Quinn Callahan. What a pleasure to meet a bookseller. One so rarely has a chance to venture out into the farther reaches of literary fandom.”
Was this guy for real? “I’m so glad you could make it,” I said.
The final person in the room was a flashy-looking, chubby, balding man who Candace introduced as, “My friend Irving Schulz. Irving came with me to support me on the journey. It’s such an emotional thing, coming here to where my Barty was last seen alive.” She reached for that pack of tissues I had seen earlier and dabbed once more at her eyes. “It’s been so wonderful to have someone I could lean on.”
“Happy to be of service,” he said, looking fondly on Candace. “That’s what friends are for.”
Philip Hazeltine was looking at them with a skeptical eye. “How exactly do you two know each other?” he asked.
Candace shut her handbag with a snap. “We’ve known each other for years. I hardly remember how we met. In literary circles, you meet a lot of people.”