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“Are you sure that your abductor’s arms were hairy?” Bob asked.
“Give him a break,” Sandra said, her hackles raised. “He’s overwhelmed.”
Bob gave her a patronizing look. “I can see he’s upset, but this is a pressing matter.” He looked down at Peter and repeated the question.
Peter put his head in his hands and mumbled, “I don’t know. I thought so.” They all stayed quiet for nearly a minute, until Peter looked up and said, “Yes. I’m sure of it. They were so hairy. It grossed me out. I grabbed the hair and twisted, trying to hurt him.”
“And did it?” Bob asked.
“Did it what?”
“Did it hurt him?”
Peter looked contemplative. “I don’t know. I was doing a lot of things at the same time to try to hurt him.”
“And he didn’t make any sounds?”
Peter thought about that for a few seconds. “He didn’t say anything, but he did grunt a little. But it was quiet, like he had his hand over his mouth or something—”
“Like it was muffled?” Sandra said.
He looked at her. “Yeah, kinda.”
She looked at Bob. “Maybe he was wearing a mask!”
Bob nodded. “That would make sense. It’s cold out there. Maybe we need to look for a ski mask—”
“Not a ski mask! We’re in a theater! I mean a mask mask.”
Bob’s face was blank. He obviously was the sports angel, not the theater angel.
“Come on! I have an idea!” Sandra took off for the front stairs, assuming they’d follow. She was moving so fast that halfway down the stairs, her candle went out. This wasn’t exactly a surprise. It had already melted down to a nub. She stopped and waited for Peter and Bob to catch up. Once Peter’s light reached her feet, she got going again.
“Where are we going?” Bob asked, but she didn’t want to expend the energy it would take to explain.
She hurried down the hall and then paused in front of the costume room door. She looked both ways to make sure no one was watching. They were on the brink of solving this thing, and she didn’t want the killer to know. No one was watching, so she ripped open the door and ushered them inside before closing it behind them.
“That’s it!” Peter cried, too loudly.
“I thought it might be,” Sandra said, feeling quite proud of herself.
“What’s it?”
Peter shined his light around the room, breathing deeply through his nose. “What is that?”
“What are you talking about? What is what?” Bob was losing patience.
“The smell. It’s the same smell as Billy and Otis.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Sandra said to Peter. “It’s some kind of soap smell. Shine your light over here.” She headed for the far corner. “I have an idea.”
Peter followed her with his light.
“Come here.” She reached the pile of animal costumes and picked up the top one. Sure enough, it was damp. “It’s wet!” she exclaimed. She held it up so Peter could see it.
He reached out and touched it, and then yanked his hand away as if it had stung him. “Yeah, that’s it.”
Sandra dropped the furry monstrosity back onto the pile.
“Is that a bear costume?” Bob asked.
The costume had a small straw hat sewn onto the top. “Smokey the Bear costume, I think,” Sandra said. “And when I saw Billy come in from outside, he was wearing a giant red plaid coat. It was huge on him. I wonder if he took it from in here, because it was warmer than the coat he’d worn tonight.”
Bob, suddenly twenty feet away from them, held up a green box. “Or the man just uses Irish Spring soap.” Bob brought the box closer to Peter, who didn’t even need to lean in to smell it.
“Yeah, that’s definitely the smell.”
“You know what this means,” she said.
“That Peter’s kidnapper wants to prevent forest fires?”
She laughed. “Look at the angel being funny.”
Something like pride flickered across Bob’s face, but then vanished.
“It means that we still don’t know if it was Billy or Otis who grabbed me,” Peter said. “Either one of them could have put on that costume.”
“It means more than that,” Sandra said. “It means it could have been a woman.”
Peter groaned. “I am not going around smelling all the women.”
“You don’t have to, now that we know what the smell is. We can let Bob do it.”
“Me?” Bob looked incredulous.
“Yes, you. You’re the only one of us who’s invisible. Invisible sniffers are far less obvious, and far less rude.”
“Angels don’t have a very good sense of smell,” he tried.
“And angels aren’t supposed to lie, either.”
He closed his eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it. Let’s—”
A scream sounded through the walls, sending an icy shiver down Sandra’s spine.
Bob vanished.