“Carmen—wake up!” A light slap greeted my return to consciousness. All around me, voices were crying out, gasping in fear or surprise; I couldn’t tell for certain which. But their anxiety was audible.

I opened my eyes and saw a fuzzy version of the Baroness, my favorite partner in crime, hovering over me.

When she raised her hand to strike my cheek again, I caught it midswing. “I’m awake.”

“Talk to me! Who are you?” Lady Sophie Rutherford—or the Baroness, as I called her—knelt down, the hem of her aquamarine ball gown spreading out around her like a silky pool of water, and grabbed hold of my shoulders, shaking me as hard as her social status allowed.

“Carmen De Luca, art sleuth,” I mumbled as I ran my fingers over my temple, wincing when I hit broken skin. “Why is there a baseball growing out of my forehead?”

“It looks like you got hit by a whole lot of books. Those covers aren’t soft at all. Or maybe the bookshelf nicked you.”

“The bookcase!” My last memory before I lost consciousness was of a mass of books racing towards me. I sat up far too quickly, jarring my bruised skull. Several hardcovers slid off of my chest, adding tiny bruises to my list of injuries. I squeezed my eyes shut and lay back down.

“I guess it did hit me. How’s Harold?”

The Baroness’s eyes widened slightly, enough to tell me something was very wrong. “He took the brunt of it.”

My brain screamed for me to remain still, but I had to see what had happened to my target. I pushed myself up onto my elbows and followed my partner’s gaze over to the ceiling-high bookcase that had been filled with hundreds of rare first editions when I had entered. It was now lying across the room, its valuable contents strewn over the floor and furniture.

The legs of the chair that had been closest to the bookcase had been crushed by the heavy planks, as if they were toothpicks. Sticking out from under the shelving were a pair of burgundy pants and alligator-skin boots—the same ensemble our party’s flamboyant host, Harold Moreau, had been wearing this evening.

Neither the legs nor boots were moving. Billy, a curator at a literature museum on the East Coast, and two of the collectors invited to the private viewing were busy clearing the many books covering Harold’s body, chucking the pricey volumes behind them in their rush to reach his face.

Several almost nicked Harold’s wife, Tammy, who was pacing the floor, seemingly unaware of the heavy books being thrown in her direction.

“I told Harold that bookshelf was top-heavy, but he wouldn’t listen. Instead, he kept buying more and more. It wasn’t a hobby anymore, it was an illness. No wonder it toppled over!”

“That’s not right. I saw a pair of arms pushing the bookcase, just before everything went black,” I muttered, too softly for the anxious wife to hear.

The Baroness leaned in close to my ear. “Are you sure? That would mean…”

“That someone intentionally pushed it onto Harold. He was sitting in that chair when it fell.” I groaned when a horrible thought struck. “He wouldn’t have been able to react and perhaps save himself, either, thanks to the chloroform I’d administered. But why would someone want to harm him?”