Moonlight Masquerade (16 page)

Sophie put her hand on the knob. Maybe Reede had left her behind while he went for help. On the other hand, if he'd wanted to do that he could have left her upstairs. Her fear was that he was in trouble and needed help.

Slowly, with her heart pounding hard, she turned the knob.

When shouts came and the music abruptly stopped, Sophie was sure they'd seen the knob turn. She put her shoulders back in preparation for men-with-guns to burst in. But then she rethought the “shoulders back” idea. In that position too much of her popped up above the corset. To be caught while wearing such a ridiculous getup was going to be humiliating. She grabbed an old jacket off a hanger, pulled the mask from over her eyes, then stood up straight and waited.

But the door didn't open. Instead, she heard a man's angry voice. It wasn't the first two men but a different voice. Someone new had come into the house. Was this man the reason Reede had shut the door so abruptly? She put her ear against the door.

“We'll go when
I say we can,” the new voice said. “Here, put these on.”

Sophie heard something hit a wooden surface, as though boxes had fallen.

“What the hell are these?” the skinny man asked. By now Sophie knew the voices of the first two men.

“Can't you see that they're Halloween costumes?” the second man said.

“So now we're gonna go out and steal candy? From the kids? I like that idea.”

“Shut up!” the new man said. He sounded more intelligent than the other two. “We're going to a party.”

“What?” the two men said in unison.

“I understand your lack of social graces and that's why you'll have on full-head masks.”

“I don't want to go to no party. I want to get out of this two-bit backwater place.”

“You will do what I tell you to!” the new man said. “This town is
rich
! The women here have jewelry dating back hundreds of years. And for this Halloween
party they pull it all out of their safe-deposit boxes and put it on. It's the world's most snobbish party, as you have to be a blood relative to get in. They don't trust anybody else—and I know. I've lived here for years and I've never been invited to—” He broke off, sounding as though he couldn't go on with that line of thought. When he continued, his voice was calmer. “I've fixed it so there will be three empty places tonight and we're going to say we're cousins—there are hundreds of them. While we're there we're going to be quiet and talk little. We'll just wander around and eat, but talk to no one. Got it?”

Sophie thought the men probably nodded, but she could see nothing, and with the radio no longer covering every sound, she was afraid to move.

“At ten tonight there's going to be an emergency,” the new man said. “And I—”

“What kind of emergency?”

“A fire in town. I've set a device to go off. One of their precious old buildings is going to burst into flame, and the lot of them will run off to fight the fire, us included.”

“With the jewels?” one of the men asked.

“No, you moron! The
men
will go fight the fire. This town is like some storybook. The women will stay behind to start cooking to feed the men.”

There was silence in the room, as though the two men didn't understand what they were hearing.

“We'll double back and we'll get the jewels. We'll wave some guns around and we'll make the women take their sparklers off, dump them in a bag, then we'll leave. They'll have no idea who we are. On Monday I'll
go back to work and I'll be as horrified as everybody else at what happened.”

“What do we do then?”

“After the heist I'll give you a map of where someone is to meet you. He'll take care of everything. Any more questions?”

For a few moments there was silence, then the first two men began to speak at once and the man answered. One man said he didn't like his costume because the fur was itchy. “It'll cover your ugly mug.” The other man said he couldn't see out of his. “You don't need to see. Just point the gun straight ahead. That's all you'll have to do.”

Sophie turned her back to the door and leaned against it. This was
serious.
And this was horrible. A fire was to be started in beautiful downtown Edilean. A robbery of ancestral jewels. Guns waved about by men who couldn't even see what they were doing.

She
had
to get out,
had
to warn people. But how could she do that without being seen?

And even if she did get out, how could she identify the man who was the mastermind? She knew he lived in Edilean and he planned to go back to work and act as though nothing had happened. How did they find someone with just that description?

Sophie looked up at the top of the door. There was a transom with a foggy glass insert. It let in some light, but even if she piled up old clothes to make a ladder, she wouldn't be able to see anything.

When she heard footsteps coming toward her, she drew in her breath. Would one of the men open the door and see her?

But he stopped. “Get that table cleared off,” the new man said. “I have a floor plan of the Town Hall.”

“Why do we need that?”

“It's where the party is. One of you will go upstairs just before ten and wait for the explosion. I don't want any women or kids upstairs lurking about. You herd them down to me, get it?”

Sophie went down to her stomach to look through the crack under the door. She didn't think she'd be able to see much, but maybe there would be something useful.

All she could see were shoes. One of the two men who'd been there at first had on running shoes that looked the worse for wear. The second man had on scruffy old boots. The new man wore what looked to be very expensive loafers, and she noted that his feet were small.

She was still on her stomach when it suddenly sounded as though hail was coming down. She got to her feet, pulled the jacket close around her, and yet again waited to be discovered.

Instead, the three men began running across the room.

“What is it?” asked one of the first men.

Sophie put her ear back to the door and heard shuffling, as though some things were being moved around.

“Nuts!” the new man said. “Someone is throwing nuts down the chimney.”

“Who would do that?”

“Squirrels!” the new man said. “Or kids playing Halloween pranks. How did I get hooked up with
idiots like you two? Turn off the lights and follow me outside. I'll give them a thrill they won't soon forget.”

“Reede!” Sophie whispered as she heard the men running, then the door slammed shut. Instantly, she left the closet. The house was pitch-dark, and she had to rely on memory to find the door. It took only a few more seconds to get outside, and she was glad that the rain had stopped.

As she ran toward the shed, she didn't look back to see where the men were or if they saw her. When she reached the back of the little building, the mare looked up placidly, unperturbed. Better yet, undiscovered.

The first thing Sophie saw was the saddle on the fence. Great, she thought. Bareback.

Her childhood hadn't included riding lessons with a saddle, much less trying to outride criminals while hanging on to a horse's mane.

“Good girl,” she said softly as she walked toward the animal. “We're going to go get Reede and get out of here. Please don't do any of that rearing that you do with him. Pretty please?”

The mare was docile as Sophie climbed up the railing and managed to throw her leg over. But when she got on, she realized that the reins were hanging to the ground. As she slid off, the big jacket she'd thrown over her top got caught on the wood. She flung it off, picked up the reins, took a breath to get her courage up, then remounted the horse.

Her experience in riding was what she'd seen on TV, so she clicked and used her heels to urge the horse
forward. Maddeningly slowly, it left the comfort of the stall to step into the cool night air.

There wasn't much light but Sophie could tell where the men were by their cursing. They were to her left, so she went right, urging the horse around the far end of the house. For all she knew there were trees and shrubs blocking the away.

“I'm going to kill those things!” she heard one of the men shout. They were so focused on the roof that they didn't hear or see the horse slowly walking through the mud.

But Reede did. By the time Sophie got to the far end of the house, Reede was crouched down on the edge of the roof and waiting for her.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

“They asked me to tea,” she shot back.

In the next minute he leaped. Her eyes widened as he jumped from the low edge of the roof and landed behind her on the horse. She managed to hold the animal steady until Reede was situated.

When she heard him grunt in pain, she turned to look at him. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, although I don't think I'll ever be able to father any children.”

“Maybe you'll just have to work harder at it,” Sophie said.

Reede grunted a laugh, reached around her to take the reins, then urged the horse forward. They rode slowly and in silence for a while until they reached deep woods.

“I couldn't get back,” Reede said, his voice serious, apologetic. “I never would have—”

“I heard them say that they're planning to rob the McTern party,” Sophie said. Against her back, she felt Reede's body tighten.

“Tell me everything they said.”

She did. As quickly as she could get the words out, she told Reede all that she'd heard.

“And you didn't see this man?”

“Only his shoes,” Sophie said and told how she'd stretched out on the floor and looked under the door.

Reede kissed her neck. “Smart as well as beautiful. I'm going to take you to Sara's house. Her husband, Mike, is a former detective and I want you to tell him everything you can remember. I'm going to go get Colin, the sheriff.”

“Do you think you'll be able to find the bomb in time?”

“We'll have a lot of people searching.”

The idea of people looking for a bomb scared her. “When it gets close to the time, the people have to get out. They
have
to! They'll understand that, won't they?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at her. “We'll make sure everyone is safe. It's my guess that Mike will bring in some undercover people for tonight. As for you, I want you to stay home. You're not to go to the party. I want you to—”

“I know his voice,” she said softly. “I didn't see the man's face, but I saw his shoes, and I heard his voice. I'm the only one who can identify him.”

“But—” Reede began. “You can't—” He didn't seem to know what else to say as he urged the horse forward. When they reached the road, they broke into
a gallop, and they thundered across the asphalt, then turned into a lane and finally reached what looked to be a very old house. It had been renovated, but the air of age still clung to it.

Reede didn't immediately get down, but held her for a moment, his front to her back. “You look good without the mask,” he said. “You're even prettier without it—and I didn't think that was possible.”

“What do you look like under the mask?”

“If I take it off my whole body splits in half. Sophie . . . ”

“Yes?”

“You did well tonight. I've never seen anyone more courageous than you were. Walking across that tight-rope of a beam, then leaping onto the ladder was wonderful. And I'm sorry I left you alone in that closet. I couldn't figure out a way to get back to you that wouldn't endanger you. I—”

“It's all right,” she said, taking pity on him. “If I hadn't been in there I wouldn't have heard their plan.”

“That's true,” he said. “On the other hand you wouldn't now be facing a bunch of lunatics with guns. I wish I'd shown myself and scared them off.”

Turning, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “You did what was right,” she said. “If you'd jumped out at those men, they would have shot you.”

“But then the whole town wouldn't be in jeopardy.”

So this is how a true hero thinks, Sophie thought. He puts other people before himself.

They locked eyes for a moment and they would have kissed except that the door to the house opened
and out stepped a man. He was slim but he had a way of moving that made a person notice him. “You two gonna stay out here all night?” the man asked in a raspy voice. Reede got off the horse and held up his arms to Sophie, and she easily slipped into them. “This is Mike. Sophie.” They nodded at each other. “Can I borrow your car? I need to go see Colin and arrange a search party.”

Immediately, Mike became alert. “Who's missing?”

“No one, but a bomb has been placed. Sophie knows everything and she'll tell you.”