Page 37 of Booked for Murder

“Since she turned eighteen, went to school, got her degrees, and worked in Washington as one for the Library of Congress. She maintains her certifications because she gets bored, so she’s qualified. The thought of my mother operating as a private investigator is terrifying.”

“The legal counsel position can be done anonymously as well.” Beatrice checked her phone. “There’s a form to have that position kept secret and a gag order the judges have to abide by should the attorney be used.”

I gave Bradley’s soup a stir, turned the heat down so it wouldn’t burn on me, and limped to the coffee table, holding out my hand and wiggling my fingers until Beatrice handed me her phone. I checked the roles for private investigator cells. Including Jezabella and Bradley’s mother, we’d need Mickey as our cell’s expert on all things magical, requiring a certification he could pass while asleep. The six of us would make the base team, and we could bring in others from the branch as needed—if needed. Did sponsors count as official parts of the team? If so, Bradley brought us up to seven.

Technically, there weren’t any limits to the number of people we could have in the cell as long as we didn’t exceed specific position maximums.

Given a week on the job, especially when we hid the nature of our work, we’d need the extra hands.

I still had my real job to do. “Okay. We can build a team with this. Mickey will like his job as our resident expert of all things magical, I’ll handle being the brute force, Beatrice covers our requirement to have someone with higher than 70.0% aptitude on the team, Meridian can cover the accounting, and we’ll use Jezabella as the cleaner if she’s game. Heaven help me. Ren, lure Bradley’s mother here along with Jezabella. Depending on how they react, we can have her as the ace up our sleeve, since this says the legal counsel can join the investigators on the streets. Anything else I should know?”

“Yeah. We need a mortician,” Beatrice announced.

Fuck. I checked Beatrice’s phone, and sure enough, we needed someone who had the same general qualifications as a mortician. Upon closer reading, I realized they meant a forensics mortician. “Where the fuck are we going to find one of those? It’s not like the local cops just let their corpse checkers operate in cells. These guys are few and far between.”

“This is where things will take a very sharp left turn,” Beatrice warned.

I returned the woman’s phone to her. “Okay. Talk. How is this going to take a left turn?”

“Before he became a librarian, your boss was one of the city’s top forensic morticians. He got tired of stuffing screws up the asses of dead people after he had to peel answers out of them. He maintains his certifications because he likes keeping his options open, but he’d rather not have to do a close examination of a corpse again, if you please. That’s part of why your branch is getting so much scrutiny right now. Between all the librarians, everybody has the skills needed to have made the kill.”

For fuck’s sake. I raised my hand and rubbed my temple. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I wish. We’ll bring him into it last. He’ll be the hardest to get onto the team, I think.”

I considered what I knew about my boss and shook my head. “No, he’ll be the easiest to get onto the team. There’s nothing that upsets him more than systemic injustice, and there’s nothing just about innocents going to jail for the crimes of another. He’ll do it because he might be able to make a difference. When you boil it down, that’s why we’ll all do it—because we want to make a difference. Isn’t that why we became librarians in the first place?”

“Yes,” Beatrice replied with a slight smile. “It is.”

“Ren, go get Bradley’s mother and Jezabella. Concoct something so we don’t notify the entire world I’m alive and kicking. It’s going to be a long day, and we have a lot of work to do.”

Ten

I warned you.

To my relief, Bradley ate two bowls of rice-filled soup without it rebelling on him, although he passed out on my couch. Ajani decided his lap would serve as her throne, and she opted to join him for a nap.

“For the record, I will kill him if my cat falls in love with him,” I announced, rather grateful Bradley’s bodyguard was off fetching people rather than listening to me contemplate murder.

Beatrice snickered. “Sure you will. Because you’ll forget how many years of bodyguard training just because your cat likes him?”

“You’re a bitch.”

“Ah, but I’m a lovable bitch.”

“You’re still a bitch.”

“Says you, bitch.”

I laughed, shook my head, and hobbled around my kitchen on my quest to restore everything to rights. Then, because I could, I dug my leftover orange chicken out of the fridge, took it to my couch, thumped down between Beatrice and the arm, and savored a bite.

My front door opened, and I raised a brow, as it hadn’t even taken Ren thirty minutes to accomplish his task. He led Bradley’s mother into my apartment with Jezabella hot on her heels. The pair locked onto me with twin expressions of utter disapproval.

His mother hadn’t changed much, although she had new gray in her hair and a few wrinkles I didn’t remember. Over the years, she must have taken to avoiding the sun along with her changed diet, as she’d gone from a somewhat pale woman to alarmingly close to porcelain.

Jezabella, on the other hand, wore a beige top with a pair of jeans, which worked wonders on her, giving her dark skin a much healthier tone compared to Bradley’s mother.

I chewed on my orange chicken, took turns looking into their eyes, and snagged another piece with my chopsticks, defiantly eating more of it.