“What in the world?” She looked behind her, knowing she hadn’t left any books on the floor, and was sure that none of the visitors had been so rude as to leave a random stack lying around. Where had they come from? Oh, what she was going to say to Joshua for messing with her things!

  She let out a long sigh as she pushed herself up to her knees, careful not to use any books on the shelves as her support lest she find herself back on the floor.

  As she was about to get to her feet and call out for Joshua, she saw something. Between the books and through the shelving units, Maggie looked into the darkness of the shop. With her mouth hanging open, she watched as a pitch-black shadow shifted in the far corner of the room.

  It was a trick of the light. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted properly. When she’d fallen, she’d just gotten a little more shaken up than she’d thought. But if that was the case, she couldn’t understand why her body just didn’t want to move. She strained her eyes, sure that she’d eventually see what was really moving back there. But as she looked even harder, she was sure she saw someone standing there.

  No, no one is in the store now. Joshua had the door locked. Nobody would be here. Maggie tried to calm herself, but her hands had become slick with sweat, and her heart was pounding.

  Before she could scream, she heard the purr of a cat. Poe.

  “Of course.” Maggie let out a deep breath and sank onto her haunches with relief. It was Poe she’d seen move. In the darkness, his shadow had looked bigger than it really was. That was all. It was just the silly cat.

  Maggie shook her head and began to stand up but stopped again as Poe slunk around her legs and took a seat on one of the open pages of the books there. When Maggie looked to the corner again, it looked different, as if something had moved from its hiding place. Something a lot bigger than the cat.

  Just then, she saw something else move out of the corner of her eye.

  When she turned, a huge shadow came lumbering toward her.

  Without thinking, Maggie scurried over the books on the floor and ran into the maze of shelves, hoping to hide herself in a shadow.

  “Joshua? Is that you?” she shouted, hoping maybe he’d think she was a burglar or trespasser or something. But there was no answer.

  Maggie hurried to the western section. It was set in a zigzag sort of pattern. If a person didn’t know, they’d collide with the shelves, giving themselves away. Carefully, she held onto the shelves on either side as if she might at any minute fall to the ground.

  Her senses were on hyperalert. Every creak or groan of the floor sounded like a shrill car alarm. Where was Joshua? Someone was upstairs; she had seen the light.

  As she inched her way through the western section of the shop to the almanacs and reference section, she was suddenly struck with a strange scent. It was so strong it left a soapy taste in her mouth. Before she could stop herself, a sneeze raced from her eyes down her nasal passages.

  “A-choo!” she gasped.

  She held her breath, stretched her eyes wide open, and listened. In front of her, a form appeared. Darker than even the darkest shadow, it stood taller than Maggie as it approached. Without hesitating, Maggie began to grab the books from the shelves and throw them at the thing as it slowly approached. She ran around the nearest bookcase, pulling down books behind her to trip up her attacker. It worked just enough for her to see the front door and safety outside in the rain and inside her locked car. But before she realized it, the phantom shape was no longer behind her but appeared in front of her.

  Maggie screamed. She swiftly turned and made a mad dash to the staircase to the upstairs apartment. She was going to kill Joshua if he’d been sleeping through all of this.

  But just before she made it to the steps there was a loud cry, the yowl of a cat, the cascade of at least a dozen books from the shelves, and finally, a loud thud. Maggie stood as if her feet had turned to stone. She waited but heard nothing. Without waiting for something else to come after her, she bolted up the stairs and burst into Joshua’s apartment.

  He was lying on the floor. His shoes were off, and he was in his stocking feet, wearing plaid pajama bottoms and no shirt.

  Maggie wasn’t sure what was more alarming—that he was lying there on the floor or that he was bare-chested. She swallowed hard, but there was practically no spit in her mouth. Within seconds, she was at his side, trying to shake him awake without touching his bare skin. But pushing his legs didn’t seem to be doing the trick.

  “Joshua? Joshua! Wake up! Wake up!” she said, finally mustering up enough courage to tap his cheeks and push his hair back on his head. He was so handsome. And he smelled of a spicy, soft cologne that was nothing like the toxic fumes she’d inhaled downstairs. Where had she smelled that before? Maggie felt the answer on the tip of her tongue when Joshua groaned.

  “Oh, thank goodness. Joshua! Joshua! Someone is downstairs in the shop! Joshua! Oh, please wake up,” Maggie muttered as she leaned over him to look down on his face.

  Finally, his eyes popped open, and he blinked for a minute. She said nothing as he looked at her, and a smile crept over his lips. He reached up slowly and touched the side of her face, pushing her hair aside gently.

  “Margaret, you look so pretty,” he whispered.

  “What? Oh, uh, yeah, thanks,” she stuttered and smiled, wishing she could enjoy the moment and see where it might take her. But the thought of the shadow downstairs was like a bucket of ice water over everything. “You need to snap out of it. Joshua? Are you all right?”

  “Oh, my head,” he groaned.

  “What happened to you?” Maggie asked as she helped Joshua sit up.

  “I don’t know. I came out of the bathroom and was getting ready to go to bed, and the next thing I know, you’re here.” He reached up and touched the back of his head. “I think maybe there was some kind of gas leak, or maybe I had a reaction to some fumes from something. I remember smelling some weird lemony scent that was…wow…strong.”

  “I smelled that too. But it isn’t a gas leak. It’s cologne. Or perfume,” Maggie gasped.

  But before she could put the face to the scent, there was a creak on the stairs. Both of them looked to the darkness. Maggie moved first, prompted by fear, and tried to shut the door, only to see a black-gloved hand and arm thrust through the opening.

  She screamed and tried to run to Joshua and get him to his feet. The only light in the apartment was the rotating glow from the fireplace. It made Maggie feel as if she was in a carnival funhouse with a homicidal carny chasing her down.

  “What do you want?” Joshua shouted as the shape pushed the door open and grabbed Maggie before she could get away.

  “I want the book,” the man said, holding her tightly by the wrist.

  Maggie’s body went rigid as she felt a deep affection for each and every tome Mr. Whitfield had collected and shared with her. Of course, there was a shiny blade in the man’s other hand that also made her freeze.

  “Which one? Let her go, and you can take any book you want,” Joshua shouted.

  “I want the one Samantha Toonsley wanted,” the man said as he jerked Maggie in front of him and slipped his arm around her waist. He stuck his head over her shoulder, and she felt the scratchy texture of the black ski mask over his face. No wonder he had looked even darker than the shadows downstairs.

  “What the heck book is that?” Joshua barked.

  “Sierra Madre Heights, idiot!” the man shouted.

  Maggie felt a shiver run up her spine when he shouted and was almost ready to gag from the smell of his cologne. It was what had made her sneeze downstairs. And it was the same smell that had made her react the day she saw Joshua in the alley with Samantha Toonsley.

  “Heath?” Maggie managed to squeak out the name.

  “Shut up!” he shouted and jerked Maggie violently against him. “This isn’t a game!”

  “You can’t have it,” Joshua replied coldly.

  “I’m telling you right now, I want that book!” the man screamed.

  “Heath Toonsley?” Maggie queried.

  “Shut up!” he barked in her ear, making her shake and lift her hands up helplessly.

  “All right,” Joshua said as he put his hands up in the surrender pose. “But the book is downstairs, and you have to let her go before I’ll give it to you.”

  “Fat chance, pal! Now get the book, and she won’t get hurt,” the ski-masked intruder said.

  As Maggie thought back to the day she had seen Heath in the store, she didn’t recall anything exceptional about him. He had been rude, and she stuck by her initial thought that someone needed to teach him some manners.

  Maggie could tell by the look on Joshua’s face that he wasn’t planning on just going along with being ordered around by a masked marauder. Something was churning into a plan in his head.

  The intruder must have sensed it too, because he yanked her aside for Joshua to go down the stairs first. The blade he held flashed in the golden light of the fireplace.

  Chapter 20

  As they made their way downstairs, Maggie wished someone would say something. Instead, it was a twisted procession to the main floor. Every creak of the floor, the sound of the wind picking up and throwing the rain into the windows, and Maggie’s own heartbeat thundered in her ears.

  “Get the book,” the man ordered.

  “What book is it again?” Joshua asked weakly.

  “Sierra Madre Heights!” the man shouted, making Maggie jump.

  Joshua’s shoulders slumped with defeat as he walked helplessly toward the back of the store.

  Maggie knew exactly where Sierra Madre Heights was located. It was a thick book in hardback. The color had faded from a rich pine to cooler green, with the design and lettering on the cover and spine in a chipped and fading navy blue. The pages had yellowed beautifully, and there wasn’t a single pencil mark or bent corner on any of them. It was in what a collector would call excellent condition and would fetch a very pretty penny. Maggie was sure it was worth at least fifteen thousand dollars to any serious collector. Why Heath—or whoever this was—wanted this book and was willing to kill for it Maggie had no idea.

  Joshua held up the book in one strong hand then pointed at Maggie with the other.

  “Let her go, and you can have your book,” he said. Even though it was nearly pitch black in the store Maggie was sure Joshua’s teeth were clenched in anger. Lightning flashed outside. The rain was still steadily coming down.

  “Put the book on the counter,” he ordered and squeezed Maggie again around the waist as if to remind both of them it wouldn’t take much for him to hurt her if he had to.

  Joshua did as he was told. Just then Poe, not knowing this was no time for a kitty to make himself known, hopped silently up onto the flat surface and scared Maggie’s captor.

  “What the…!” he shouted.

  His grip loosened just enough for Maggie to slip to the ground. Without hesitating, she crawled like a crab into the shadows of the bookcase. But instead of trying to hide, she pushed as many books as she could off the shelves and onto their intruder. A few yelps of shock and pain assured her she’d hit her target.

  Within seconds of chaos breaking out in the store, Maggie saw through the empty shelves that Joshua was also throwing books at the man. But it was of no use. He wouldn’t drop his knife. He scooped the book up in one arm and, while brandishing the weapon in the other, stumbled and staggered across the store, trying not to trip over all the books on the floor and fall on his own blade.

  Maggie was furious. He was getting closer and closer to the door! In just a few more seconds, a few more steps, he’d be out of the shop with Mr. Whitfield’s book. It was a first edition. They’d read that book together.

  “Stop him!” Maggie shouted.

  Joshua was too far behind, having stood still for fear that the man might hurt Maggie in the process of trying to escape.

  As the masked man heard Maggie shout, he moved faster, slipping on the uneven piles of books she’d pushed on top of him. Like a drunken sailor trying to stay on his feet as his ship tossed and turned on the ocean, the intruder lost his balance and slammed into the door with a loud grunt. Before Maggie could think of anything else, he’d yanked the door open and dashed out into the night.

  “He’ll never get top dollar now if the book gets wet,” Maggie huffed.

  “Are you all right?” Joshua asked.

  “Yeah. But your dad’s book. It was a…” Maggie looked up at Joshua. In the faint light from the streetlamp. “Your head. You got clunked on the noggin. We better call an ambulance along with the cops.”

  “I’m all right. Are you?” Joshua asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Maggie huffed. “Just had a knife pointed to my gut for the past five minutes, but other than that, yeah, I’m just ducky.”

  “What are you doing here?” Joshua said before he snapped the lights on.

  “What am I doing here?” Maggie stopped for a minute. With all the excitement, she’d forgotten why she had even come back to the bookstore.

  “You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?” Joshua asked and stared at her for a moment, blinking as the thought that she might have had something to do with the robbery floated past his eyes.

  “Are you serious?” she snapped.

  “I don’t know. It just seems like a very strange coincidence that you arrived right after I was hit on the head,” Joshua stated.

  “Huh! If I hadn’t arrived, you’d be lying upstairs on the floor, and that guy would have probably left with half the store.” Maggie frowned. “Of course, he wouldn’t have gotten much for the new stuff you bought.” She waved her arm at the shelves with copies of Manhattan Solstice on them.

  “Hey, you saw how many people bought that stuff this evening. I wasn’t wrong to invest in that,” Joshua snapped.

  “No, and I’m sure that Samantha Toonsley will be begging to know what the next book you recommend will be,” Maggie said then instantly bit her lip. She was glad they were still in the dark, because she would have been mortified if he saw her cheeks flaming red with embarrassment at giving herself away.

  “I wonder why that jerk wanted the same book she did,” Joshua mused.

  “That was her son,” Maggie replied as she hurried to what had been Mr. Whitfield’s cubby and picked up the phone.

  “What? What are you doing?” Joshua put his hands on his hips. With the phone to her ear, Maggie shrugged at him. It was almost impossible for her not to notice his near nakedness, but she managed to keep her eyes locked with his and not on his pectorals.

  “I’m calling the police,” Maggie said.

  “This is my store. I should be the one calling the police,” he snapped.

  “Fine, call the police,” she replied with an eye roll.

  “Fine, give me the phone.”

  “It’s right here,” Maggie huffed and set the receiver on the desk before walking away with her arms folded over her chest. She listened as Joshua told the 9-1-1 operator what had happened. As soon as he hung up, she walked over to the piles of books that she’d pushed off the shelves and started to pick them up.

  “What are you doing?” Joshua asked as he took a seat on the stool that was hers when she sat behind the counter.

  “Cleaning up. What does it look like?”

  “Maybe we should leave everything for the police to see,” he said.

  “But we made this mess. It isn’t like the perp would have left his fingerprints on it,” Maggie replied.

  “We? I think you made that mess,” Joshua teased.

  Maggie hated when he acted cute like this. It was almost impossible for her not to smile. She bit the inside of her lip and continued picking up the books.

  “If I hadn’t made this mess, heaven knows what that little twerp would have done.”

  “So are you saying you saved the day?”

  “If the shoe fits,” Maggie huffed. But just as she was about to turn around and give Joshua a real piece of her mind, she stopped and stared at the carpet.

  “What’s the matter?” Joshua asked. “Maggie? Are you okay?”

  “He’s been stabbed,” Maggie replied.

  When she stood up, her whole face had gone white. Joshua watched as her eyes rolled upward. Before she could fall and possibly hit her head, Joshua was off the stool and had her in his arms.

  This had to be what all those people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens meant when they spoke of lost time. Maggie saw nothing but black and a tiny pinpoint of light way off in the distance.

  “Maggie? Maggie, wake up. Say something.”

  She heard the voice but couldn’t place who it was. As she focused on the little point of light, she felt like she was swimming, paddling madly for it. Slowly, it began to get bigger and brighter until she could see it was Joshua calling her name, and she was in the bookstore, looking up at the ceiling. Why was she looking up at the ceiling? What was she even doing there? Had she collapsed at the café opening? Oh, the rumors and the humiliation! Everyone would think she was drunk and…

  “Maggie? Are you all right?”

  “What happened?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

  “You saw blood and fainted,” Joshua said.

  “I didn’t get drunk at the café opening?” She twisted her mouth to the side.

  “No.” Joshua chuckled.

  “Oh, my gosh. This is embarrassing.” Maggie tried to push herself up.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry. I’ve got you,” Joshua said.

  “I’m okay,” Maggie lied. She would have lain in Joshua’s arms until the Rapture if she thought she could, but the last thing she wanted him to think was that she had some kind of schoolgirl crush on him. Especially when half the female population seemed to be interested in the old bookseller’s son.

  “The police are on their way. An ambulance will be with them. We’ll have you checked out,” Joshua said. He tried to get Maggie to remain still to no avail.