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Vinnie continued to stare at him with such barely concealed curiosity that I had to wonder what she was thinking.
    I twitched a little. She couldn’t possibly think I was considering cheating on Derek with Nathan. Could she? Just because of a stupid phone call that I’d probably misinterpreted, anyway? Since the entire group was already walking toward the door to dinner, I would pull her aside later and explain that Nathan and I would be working together this week. And nothing more.
    As the four of us followed the rest of the guests down the grand stairway to the formal dining room, I took the opportunity to introduce myself to a few of the people around me. Grace’s ex-partner from her computer game company, Peter Brinker, a tall, gray-haired man with what my dad would call a million-dollar smile, was friendly and outgoing and talked about the fun of creating games for a living. I liked him immediately.
    “I’m his wife,” said the woman on Peter’s other side. She leaned forward and gave me one of those wiggly finger waves.
    Peter laughed. “Sybil sells herself short. She’s our CFO and we’d be lost without her.”
    Sybil shook her head. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
    I never would have guessed that this was a woman who held such an important position. She seemed nice enough, but a bit bland. But then maybe that was the perfect personality type for a CFO. She wore her hair in a short black bob, similar to Grace’s hairstyle. And her flowing fuchsia dress was identical to Grace’s. It made me wonder if the two women were such good friends that they shopped and had their hair done together.
    “Did you two meet on the job?” I asked.
    “Yes,” Peter said, taking Sybil’s hand. “Sybil came to work for us and I was hooked from day one.”
    “Oh, stop,” she said, brushing his arm.
    Peter asked what I did for a living and I gave him the short version.
    “That’s fascinating,” he said. “I love old books.” He asked a few more questions as we walked downstairs. He was attractive and inquisitive and laughed a lot, and was in the middle of a story when Sybil nudged him. He turned away to listen to whatever she was saying and I thought for a moment that she’d meant to include me in her conversation. But then she flashed me a glance through half-closed lids and lowered her voice enough that I couldn’t hear her. I took the hint and turned away.
    Next to me, Suzie was conversing with a tall, wiry man with spiky white-blond hair. “And this is my friend, Brooklyn,” Suzie said, and stuck her thumb toward me. “She’s a master at restoring books and she solves murders in her spare time.”
    Stunned, I frowned as Peter and Sybil and several others turned around and stared at me with blatant curiosity.
    “Excellent,” the spiky-haired guy said, and stretched his arm out to shake my hand. “You must be really smart. I’m Marko Huntley. This is Bella Santangelo.” He pointed toward the svelte, red-haired woman dressed entirely in black who followed behind him.
    “Hi,” I said cheerfully, trying to shake off Suzie’s odd comment about me and murder.
    “So you’re, like, a true-crime nut?” Marko asked.
    “What? No.”
    “Because I’m looking for beta testers to work on my zombie cops-and-robbers game. The working title is
Slaughter Beyond the Grave
. It’s like,
CSI
meets
Body Snatchers
.”
    “Catchy, but I—”
    “Hello,” Bella said, her voice sultry and dramatic.
    I turned to see that she had shifted positions and was now walking next to me. She carried an oversized martini glass and must have gotten a refill before she leftthe party, because it was filled to the brim with pink liquid.
    “I was talking to her, Bella,” Marko said, his tone a little whiny.
    She reached across me and squeezed his hand. “I know, love, but I’m rescuing her. Some of us just don’t go in for zombies.”
    His lower lip stuck out. “Zombies need love, too.”
    “Go,” she said, laughing.
    He toddled