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After waiting by the entrance for almost fifteen minutes, I gave up and went searching for Knight. Remembering his bleary-eyed state that first night at Moneta’s, I feared the worst. No doubt the free-flowing champagne had gotten the better of him.
Disappointment fumed just below the surface. Knight’s actions shouldn’t have surprised me. Even though he’d given me the impression these last few days of a man sobering up and moving on, no doubt it was because Redclaw had been keeping him on a short leash.
What did I expect? Since the end of the war, everyone in my set seemed to be of the opinion they should play hard and drink hard, for tomorrow we might die. Fast cars, hard drink, smoking like chimneys, and washing down fistfuls of “Mother’s Little Helpers” was how most of the people in my circle lived. I grew up seeing with my own eyes the lengths people would go to keep drinking, and the lies they would tell themselves and others. Namely, that they could quit anytime they liked. It had been foolish to think I could rely on Knight. I’d have to handle everything myself—as usual—and hope he didn’t screw things up with any drunken antics.
There was no sign of Knight on the dance floor or with the other diners. The billiard room, perhaps? Or out on the terrace? One of the private rooms? I’d have to go door-to-door to find him. “When I get my hands on him....” I muttered as I headed down the corridor.
Something of my anger must have shone in my eyes, as the staff member who stepped up to offer yet another glass of champagne wheeled and headed in the other direction. I gave a little snort of satisfaction as he skedaddled. The hallway contained more people than I expected. A couple of women fanned themselves, overcome with the heat in the ballroom. Two men in evening dress, their ties askew, weaved their way out onto the terrace. A woman, smiling as she smoked from an ebony cigarette holder, listened with rapt attention to a man as they stood to one side of a marble-topped table against the wall.
I almost passed them both, intent on heading to one of the private rooms off the hallway, when I realized the handsome man with the movie-star features was wearing bedroom slippers. He was also Knight. I’d forgotten about the disguise.
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Holding my clutch, I slipped my arm through his, and aimed a bright smile at the woman.
“Is it that time already?” Knight squinted first at me, and then his watch, which had the unfortunate effect of drawing all eyes toward his feet. “I’m sorry. I’ve got the most frightful headache.”
His pained expression, which I’d taken for drunkenness at first glance, sent a pang of guilt through me. He’d complained of a headache earlier, and his control over his image was obviously slipping. Who knew what the effect of prolonged use of the image-enhancer might be?
“I was just telling Peter here I wish I’d had the good sense to bring my own mules with me. My feet are killing me.” Knight’s new friend tipped one foot sideways, the better to display her trim ankles.
Knight had already forgotten his fake name.
“I see. Yes. We need to get Richard back to his room, don’t we, darling?” I placed additional emphasis on the name, and with my free hand, circled my temple with an index finger. I gave Pretty Ankles a meaningful glance.
“Pooh,” she said inelegantly, stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray. “All the nice ones are taken, pink, or nuts. Never mind, Peter, or Richard, or whatever your name is. I think you’re the only sensible person here.”
She patted Knight on the cheek with a smile, trailing her fingers across his skin as she withdrew. She went down the hallway back toward the ballroom, swinging her purse in a little circle by its strap.
“What was that all about?” Knight peered down the hall after her.
“Didn’t you notice?” I pointed to his feet.
He wiggled his toes within the slippers, moving the tips up and down. “Ah. Bedroom shoes. I was just thinking about how nice it would be to get comfortable, and there they were.”
“Are you all right?” I placed a hand on his arm, causing him to look up at my face again.
He rubbed his temple. “Not really. I wasn’t joking about the headache. Feels like someone’s stabbing an ice pick through my eye.”
I was about to suggest we should leave so he could drop his disguise when the doors to the terrace opened, sending a welcome current of cool air into the heated hallway. Over Knight’s shoulder, I saw two people come in from outdoors. I recognized the man right away. It took me a second longer to place the woman’s face, but when I did, the shock of it was like being plunged into an icy stream. A quick glance at Knight showed he was losing his ability to maintain any part of his disguise. Even as I blanked on what to say to him, his face slowly morphed back into his own.
I had no time to think it through. I just acted, grabbing Knight by the back of his neck and pulling him into a kiss, all the while fumbling behind me, clutch in hand, for the handle to the room beside us.
It wasn’t a chaste peck on the cheek. It couldn’t be, not for my purposes. I angled Knight so anyone approaching him from behind would just see his back, the passion with which we were kissing, and our desperate need to find a room where we could be alone.
His eyes flew open at the onslaught of my lips on his, and he stiffened at the contact. Nevertheless, I persisted. I pulled him in, thrusting up against him as I dragged him with me, silently begging him to pick up on my signals. After that initial moment of surprise, he closed his eyes and opened his mouth.
I’d thought I was in control of the situation but in a flash, the tables turned. No longer was I kissing him. Instead, he kissed me. And he was very thorough about it. My back thumped up against the door as he pressed in, and for an instant, I completely lost track of my intention to get us out of the hallway as fast as possible. I gave a sharp inhalation, and he took that as an invitation to plunge into my mouth as his hand slid down my back and his fingers tightened on my derriere. Acting on instinct now, I lifted one leg to hook my calf behind his, practically purring as I moved against him. It was perhaps just as well my dress limited movement to a degree, or else I might have seriously embarrassed myself right there in the hallway. I pushed my fingers into his hair, delighted Knight didn’t rely on heavy pomades to tame it.
Until that instant, I don’t think I’d ever been well and truly kissed. Don’t get me wrong. I’d dated in college. But I’d never understood the emphasis most people put on kissing. It seemed a bit like holding hands. Nice, but nothing terribly exciting.
Obviously, I’d been doing it wrong. Or with the wrong person.
Knight didn’t just kiss me. He inhaled me. He opened up and demanded I open in return. He was that forbidden bottle of whiskey I’d refused to drink but every cell had been craving. His kiss struck me with the same hot, smoky intensity of a straight shot of Glenlivet. Wasn’t that a kicker? Warning bells should have gone off in my mind, but instead I gave a little whimper of relief when I grasped the door handle and felt it turn behind me. As the door opened, I dragged him into the dimly lit room without breaking contact. He kicked the door shut behind us with a slippered foot.
Only then did I have the sense to push him back. He stared in open-mouthed disbelief. A momentary pulse of perverse pride shot through me when I realized he was just as wrecked by the kiss as I was. The unexpectedness of it must have blown his concentration, for he stood before me wearing what must be his real clothes: a rumpled cotton shirt in pale blue and slacks that had seen better days. His actual shoes, it relieved me to see, were a pair of battered loafers.
“What the hell was that?” He passed a hand over his mouth and jaw, his pupils wide and dark in the low lighting.
“A kiss. If you’re not sure, it’s been too long since you’ve experienced one.” Too late, I remembered the last person he’d kissed with that kind of passion had likely been Margo. Add breathlessness to that gaffe, and I’m sure my nonchalance wasn’t convincing. There was no time to dwell on the matter, though. I ducked around him and cracked open the door.
As though she could sense my eyes upon her, the woman about to enter the ballroom looked back over her shoulder. I flinched away from the opening, resisting the instinct to slam the door shut. With luck, she hadn’t seen me.
When I turned away from the door, I ran slap into Knight. He steadied me by grabbing my arms, a move that made me gasp due to the tenderness of my healing wound. Knight didn’t notice. His nostrils flared as he growled. “You know what I mean.”
I gave him a little push. My hands met the immobility of his chest—more muscular than I would have given him credit for—so I pushed again, harder. “Look, I understand you’re mad, but I don’t have time to be gentle with your feelings right now. The couple who just passed us in the hall—”
“What couple? I didn’t see anyone.”
“They came in from the terrace. Hence the kiss. You never saw their faces. More to the point, I didn’t want them to see our faces.”
“Because...?” His anger dissipated, leaving him standing too close to me as his gaze briefly dropped to my lips. When his eyes met mine, he lifted his eyebrows and gave me one of his crooked smiles.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
There was no way to do this kindly. “Because it was my old boyfriend, Tommy Stanford, with his new girlfriend.” I raised a hand when Knight would have interrupted. “Your not-dead wife, Margo.”
He stood in stunned silence for several seconds as the impact of what I’d said struck him. Then his eyes went flat and cold. He stepped back as though I were radioactive, and yet there was no safe distance from me. “Impossible.”
Never had a single word sounded so clipped and deadly.
“Look, I’ve spent a lot of time staring at pictures of her lately. I know what I saw.”
“You’re delusional!” A pause while he breathed hard. “Or you’re part of the coverup.”
His words were like a slap to the face. Had I thought Knight angry before? Standing with clenched fists, he tucked his chin as his chest heaved with the force of his breathing. He reminded me of a bull behind the gate at a rodeo, just waiting for the buzzer to explode out of the holding pen. I believe if I’d been a man, he’d have punched me.
I held my ground.
“It was Margo. Her hair was different, but it was her, I’m telling you. I’m good with faces. I ran into you just once back in March and remembered you—and where I’d seen you—when I got handed your file.” I gave my head a little shake. “That’s not important. What matters is that Margo must have faked her death. Why would she do that, and why is she here now?”
I hadn’t paid attention to the room when we’d entered. The lighting was subdued, coming from a couple of lamps positioned on tables beside several wingbacked chairs. A comfortable-looking sofa faced a small fireplace, now unlit and swept clean of ashes. Most likely a reading room, a place where people could go to get away from the other club members for a quiet conversation, or to pour themselves a drink stronger than you could get in the ballroom.
Knight spied a decanter on a side table. To my dismay, he sloshed whiskey into a tumbler and knocked it back in a single swallow. I moved to stop him, but dropped my hand to my side as he thumped the empty glass back down on the table.
“She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. I was there. She lay crumpled like a broken doll. There was blood everywhere. I can see it pooling around her, even now.” He spoke without looking in my direction, gripping the sides of the table as he shook his head like a prizefighter who’d taken one too many blows but couldn’t admit the fight was over.
“You were across the street when she got hit, and you weren’t looking in her direction. You turned when you heard the squeal of brakes. That’s what your statement to the police said. She was flung to one side, and the car sped off. Think about it. It would have been easy to throw herself against the car in passing, particularly if she knew the driver.” Most likely she’d had a pouch of calf’s blood, designed to rupture when she fell. Which meant she had to have accomplices when they took her away....
“Stop it.” He clutched his head in both hands.
But I couldn’t. “An ambulance arrives out of nowhere, but you don’t know who called for it. She’s taken to the nearest hospital, where she’s pronounced dead. But you know as well as I do, you can’t always trust your eyes.” I waved a hand up and down the length of his body. “If she had similar technology, she could have faked her death.”
“I buried her.”
The raw sorrow in his voice gaped like a non-healing wound, and I was the one who’d ripped the bandage off. I had no choice. Now I was about to pour alcohol on his injury.
“You thought you buried her. It was a closed casket funeral.” I put my hand on his arm.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Shut up!” He wheeled around and took me by the shoulders. Startled, I let the force of his momentum carry us both to the door, which slammed shut as my back hit it. He gave me a little shake. “You saw a woman coming toward you from down the hall. In the span of what—two seconds?—you decide she’s Margo and drag me in here. And yet you’re so bloody sure you know what you saw. Because Rhett Bishop never makes a mistake, does she?”
I lifted my chin to meet his furious gaze. “Prove me wrong.” Shoving him off me, I opened the door. “Let’s go find her and Tommy and see what they’re up to.”
He would have blown past me, but I caught him by the arm. “Disguise.”
His response was unprintable. I’m not even sure what some of the curses meant. Still, his clothing shimmered back into evening dress. His face lacked the detail of before, instead taking on the unformed look of a store manikin, but it would do. His own mother wouldn’t have recognized him.
Or wife, either, I hoped.
I had to almost trot to keep up with him as he stormed down the hallway like General Eisenhower about to order the invasion of Normandy. We stood at the entrance of the ballroom, scanning the crowd, but our quarry had vanished. Spying Em dancing with Eddie, I motioned for Knight to wait as I threaded my way through the dancers toward them.
“Darling, have you seen Tommy?”
Em frowned, pulling Eddie to a halt. “He just came through with Eve. I think they were on their way out.”
Oh, is that what Margo was calling herself these days? How appropriate. If Knight and I hurried, we might be able to catch them in the parking lot. I started to turn away, but Em caught me by the wrist.
“What do you want with Tommy? I thought you were done with him.”
“I am. The best part of being done is saying so. I want to say my bit, that’s all.”
“That’s not like you.” Em glowered at me with unaccustomed speculation in her eyes. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing for you to worry about. See you back at the house?” I gave her hand a little squeeze and pulled away. Catching Knight’s eye across the room, I signaled for him to meet me at the door.
“Well?” His face reminded me of a plastic doll, minus the fixed smile which was still unnerving.
“They just left. If we hurry, we can catch them—”
“They’re long gone by now.” He was as immobile as a statue when I tugged on his arm. “We should be looking for the artifacts, not haring off on your snipe hunt.”
“I think this is about the artifacts.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Oh, go on. Do tell. This will be a good one.”
“Why else would Margo be here? You’ve always believed some secret organization killed your wife when you refused to work for them. Now that we know she’s not dead, it makes sense she was working for them all along—and still works for them today. There wasn’t time to tell you before, but I spoke with Rian Stirling. He admitted an auction is taking place this weekend, and he’s not the only party interested. It beggars belief to think it’s a coincidence Margo would show up here the same weekend there’s a bidding war for stolen technology. She must be involved.”
“You’re going to take the word of some rich guy you just met? Why would he share this with you, anyway?” Knight’s tone could have stripped paint.
I hesitated for a fraction of a second. “I’m pretty sure he’s Ryker’s brother.”
“I see. Well, that explains a lot.” His nostrils flared wide as he inhaled sharply. He blew his breath out in several short bursts, obviously struggling to hang on to his temper. “It’s Redclaw you trust over everyone else.”
“And you,” I snapped. “You convinced me to come here looking for artifacts. Now I have a lead and you don’t want to follow it. Fine.” I held out my hand. “Give me your keys. I’ll go after them myself.”
“I’m just—”
“Wasting my time. If you don’t want to know the truth—”
“That has nothing to do with it. I just don’t see any point in trying to track someone who’s already gone.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” I nudged Knight. “That’s Tommy by the bar. Getting a refill on his flask, no doubt.”
As we watched, Tommy brushed back a heavy curl of brown hair that had escaped his thick pomade and handed the bartender some cash. In return, he accepted a bottle of gin with a foolish grin. I pushed Knight toward the door as Tommy headed out. “Come on. We don’t want to lose him.”
Outside, Knight led the way to his car. The night air felt pleasantly cool after the overheated rooms of the club. The moon cast a silver light over parked cars, distorting their paint into shades of purple and gray. Ahead of us, Tommy’s white dinner jacket stood out as though cut from marble. He went to the passenger side of a huge black Daimler and leaned in the open window. When he straightened, his hands were empty. I heard the clear tones of a cheerful whistle as he rounded the back of the car and got in behind the steering wheel.
I said nothing as Knight stalked to his car, but followed in his wake and slipped into the passenger side as he took his own seat. The engine started with a cough and a bang, causing the headlights to dim briefly before the motor caught.
“I don’t suppose you brought anything from Redclaw in your bag of tricks that will help if this car breaks down?”
“Sorry, I left the flying saucer in my other pants.”
Knight’s cutting manner prevented me from responding with a witty comeback. “And your disguise, as well, it would seem.”
“No one can see us now, and I need a break. My head’s killing me.”
His anger had settled into a cold fury. I could work with it.
“Don’t lose them,” I cautioned when Tommy’s car left the parking lot with a spin of gravel.
“I won’t.” Knight followed Tommy out of the parking lot at a sedate pace, not reacting when the Daimler roared up the road. “The young fool will end up in a ditch the way he’s driving. What exactly is your plan when we catch up with them?”
“I’ll let you know when we do.” My voice was as sharp as his and my anger at his refusal to believe me nearly as deep. His fury was fine with me. It would stop me from thinking about that kiss. In the last twenty minutes, Knight had gone from being a grieving widower to being a married man. In my book that made him off-limits. Somehow, we’d have to get those artifacts, and I needed his help. I hadn’t the faintest idea what his reaction would be if he came face-to-face with Margo, but I hope I’d given him enough warning for him to be on guard. I know what my reaction would be to such an ugly betrayal of trust.
The Daimler’s taillights were far ahead, occasionally disappearing as the road dipped and turned. When there’d been no visible sign of the other car for at least ten seconds, Knight anticipated my protest and floored the gas. The clunker leapt forward with a rattle. I didn’t relax until I spotted the small red lights winking in and out of sight like a drunken firefly farther down the road. When the Daimler turned off the main strip, I knew its destination.
“Tommy’s going to his family’s estate. See there—that turning up ahead. Go past those gates and then bring the car around. We’ll sneak in and see what he’s up to.” I twisted in my seat to look back over my shoulder as we passed the entrance to the Stanford property. Beyond the gates, I saw the flash of red taillights as the car hugged the curve of the drive.
Knight turned the car around at the next estate and we drove back along the road. As we came abreast of the entranceway, he pulled off the asphalt and parked the car. “We can hardly drive straight in.”
“Good point. We’ll cut across the drive and—”
Knight’s icy drawl cut me off. “You realize in all probability he’s come here with a little lovemaking in mind? Are you sure you’re not the one who hasn’t gotten over an old flame?”
“Oh, please.” I drew back. “Tommy asked me to marry him and I refused. As if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a drunken lout.” I could have bitten my tongue as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “Not that you’re a lout. I mean—”
“I understand your meaning perfectly.” His tone was so chilly I developed frostbite. “Relax. I’m not offering my hand in marriage.”
I was glad the darkness of the car masked how red my face must have been. Tempted as I was to point out that would make him a bigamist, I kept my mouth shut. That easy camaraderie between us had disappeared, as was the back-and-forth volley of wits that had marked our relationship thus far.
It surprised me how much that loss hurt.
When he spoke again, his words came hard and flat. “I’m here to prove you wrong. Once I do, once you realize Margo is dead and you were grossly mistaken, I’m done.”
“Done?” Even though I wasn’t sure what he meant, the word plummeted like a stone in my belly, leaving me a touch queasy.
“Yes. Done. I go back to my life—such as it was—and you and Redclaw leave me alone. For good.”
“Peter—”
He got out of the car without another word and yanked on the door, stopping in mid-slam when I hissed a warning at him. Fine. We’d table this for now.
He followed me as we slipped through the gates and cut across the drive to kneel behind a row of bushes. The driveway in front of the house was empty.
“He must have taken the car around back to the garage,” I whispered. “Come on.”
Knight reserved his complaints until we’d situated ourselves outside the large building that housed the Stanford cars. “Now do you have a plan?”
I was about to inform him that his snarky attitude wasn’t helping when a light clicked on in the garage, creating a rectangular patch of illumination through the window near our position. I grabbed Knight by his sleeve and pulled him back into the shadows.
I needn’t have worried. The door to the garage opened, and the lights inside went off, leaving Knight and me safely hidden in the building’s shadow. A flashlight illuminated the gravel path in front of the two people walking along it, the faint crunch of shoes drifting back to our ears. Knight would have moved to follow, but I stopped him with a grip on his forearm. I held him there until the light bobbled out of sight.
“What are you waiting for? We’ll lose them.”
He was so close, the heat from his body was a welcome respite from air that had grown chilly. Goosebumps prickled along my bare arms as the wind fluttered the fresh young leaves of the trees.
“If we follow them now, we’ll be exposed as we cross the lawn. If they look back, there’s nowhere for us to hide.” I nodded at the retreating figures. The moonlight was so bright they didn’t need the flashlight. “I suspect they’re headed to a small pavilion near the headland. There’s an inlet that comes in from the sea, and a river deep enough for a motorboat. If they head out from the pavilion by boat, we won’t be able to keep up with them, anyway. But since that’s the most likely place they’ll go, if we hang back for a moment, we can sneak up on them without risk of being spotted.”
“And you know they’re headed there because?”
An hour ago, his tone would have been arch and amused. Now it could have cut glass.
“It’s not just a pavilion. There’s an underground system of tunnels. Smugglers used the caves during the Revolutionary War, and then during Prohibition, bootleggers enlarged the hold, put in electricity, and shored up the walls. Giordano’s is less than ten miles from here. They ran a speakeasy during the Twenties. It’s a respectable restaurant now. Good food, too.”
“So. Your ex-boyfriend’s father was a bootlegger? Small wonder he can afford such a fancy spread.”
“No. Tommy’s father inherited money, as will Tommy, when his turn comes. My father was the bootlegger. Mr. Stanford pretended to turn a blind eye to the deliveries and took a cut. Come on. The coast should be clear now.”
I started down the path, but Knight caught me by the arm. “Wait. Your father was a whiskey peddler? But I thought he—”
“Gambled away the family fortune? He did. At least, he lost all the money he’d made as a gin runner. As much of my mother’s money he could get his hands on as well. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop there. He also lost money that belonged to some pretty dangerous people. Hence the suicide.” I was grateful the moon, for the moment, had ducked its face behind clouds, leaving mine in shadow. “We ended up liquidating everything we owned to pay off the mob. My mother moved back to Wyoming. It’s debatable which she finds the most unforgivable: the shame of his suicide or the fact we’re broke. As soon as she could, she married another rich man. So you see....” I gently removed my arm from his grip. “I understand betrayal by someone you love.”
Knight was silent for several thunderous beats of my heart.
“And how do you know about Stanford’s special place?” His breath brushed the top of my forehead and ruffled my hair.
“Tommy brings every girl he dates there at least once. It’s about as special as Grand Central.”
Knight offered a subdued snort, but I felt oddly triumphant for having triggered it. His next words dashed any lingering hope we’d mended our fences when he went on in a clear, cool voice. “You’re thinking they’ve hidden the artifacts there. But if Tommy’s love nest is so well-frequented, it would hardly make an ideal hiding place for a cache of—unusual—technology.”
We needed to get moving. If Tommy and Margo were up to something in the pavilion, we might miss them if we didn’t hurry. For some reason, my feet remained frozen in place. “Not a love nest.” I murmured somewhere near Knight’s shoulder. “Just a place Tommy prided himself on knowing about where he could sneak a kiss or two and pretend he was a part of it. Given the pavilion is on private property, it’s probably safe enough.”
My body swayed a little toward Knight, reminding me of the marked differences between the kisses I’d received from Tommy and the one from him this evening. The first had been an amusing, sandy, and somehow disappointing experience. The other made me want to repeat it right there against the side of the garage, complete with ripping clothes off and everything that went with that. Heat bloomed in places that should have been keeping their collective minds on the job at hand.
“Shall we go check out this special place, then?” Knight sounded like a college professor demanding I show proof of my math. It was like a dash of cold water, which I very much needed.
“This way. If you must speak, keep your voice down. Sound carries down here by the water.”
We skirted the walkway until the graveled path curved into a wooded area and gave way to sandy dirt and pine needles. Tall oak trees closed in around us, limbs with newly unfurled leaves swaying in the freshening breeze. Clouds scudded overhead, dappling our progress with rapidly shifting shadows. The moon, when visible, bathed everything in a clear, bright light, throwing the path and the trees into sharp-edged relief that warped and bent with the moving cloud cover. As we went deeper into the wood, there was no sign of anyone ahead. The restless rustle of the branches sounded similar to the distant wash of waves rolling in and out again.
I’d played croquet on Tommy’s lawn and dined alfresco at the pavilion at midnight. I’d dug for clams on the beach below, gotten sunburned, made sandcastles, and drunk bootleg gin straight from the bottle around a bonfire. I’d sailed along this shore in brilliant weather and walked alone in blustery winds as a hurricane rolled in.
It had been one of my favorite places to visit growing up. Had I married Tommy, I could have called it my own. Even so, the price on it came too high.
“We must be careful. The moonlight will work against us as much as it helps. This way.”
“Still waiting to hear what your plan is.”
The air of cool detachment might have suggested to someone else he’d gotten over his anger, but I knew better. There was an acidity to his tone that belied any levity.
“We’ll take a peek in the hold below the pavilion and see if the artifacts are there. If so, I’ll contact Ryker.” My fingers brushed the ladybug pin, assuring me it was still in place. Provided Knight didn’t walk away on the spot, I’d get him to take me back to the club so I could call Ryker, but it was nice to have a backup plan if I needed it. The ray gun’s presence within my clutch provided an additional measure of comfort.
I half-expected Knight to comment on the apparent inadequacies of my plan, but the silence surrounding him was like one of those force fields from War of the Worlds. There was no penetrating it. Despite a moment of softening when he’d learned about my father, it was clear he was still furious with me over suggesting Margo was still alive. When I proved Margo the villainess of the piece, would he blame me as the bearer of bad news?
After the open expanse of lawn, the air in the woods was close, almost as if the trees themselves were holding their breath. They clawed the sky with a slight shift of wind from the sea, like old witches casting spells of doom. Even so, this part of the property still saw a landscaper’s touch. The path continued through the copse of trees in a rich man’s imitation of a forest.
“Where exactly is this pavilion? Who puts a building in the middle of the woods?” Knight encompassed the surrounding stand of trees with an expansive wave of his hand.
I pointed some distance ahead, where the trees opened up to reveal a flat promontory. Moonlight gleamed off white columns that marked the corners of a large roofed structure.
“Somehow, when you said pavilion, I thought you meant something about the size of a gazebo. You could host Glen Miller and his orchestra there.”
His somewhat peeved reaction was both predictable and, in an odd way, soothing.
“I’m sure one time they did.”
“I’m not surprised. It seems like the sort of—” Whatever else he might have said evaporated when all of the sudden he whipped his head around.
I peered into the woods behind us, but saw nothing. “What is it?”
The hair on back of my neck rose when he fished something out of his pocket. As he grabbed my wrist with his left hand, the moon came out from behind the clouds, illuminating the grim, determined look on his face. With a flicking motion of his right hand, he unfolded a knife. Moonlight glinted off the silver blade.
“Don’t move.” His voice was deep with urgency, and I gasped as he shoved a foot in between mine and kicked my feet into a wider stance. The knife flashed as he drove it down between my thighs into the taut material of my dress. Cloth split with a ragged, tearing sound as he hacked his way down to the bottom edge. When he sawed through the hem, the pieces of my dress fluttered in the breeze and my legs were free to move. It was an oddly liberating sensation.
Knife still in hand, he tugged me along in his wake. “Don’t look back. Run.”
As warnings go, that proved as impossible as the stricture to Lot’s wife. I cast a hasty glance over my shoulder. Light poured down from above like molten silver, delineating the shadows sprinting toward us from behind. Any other time, I would have admired their beauty, the almost mechanical perfection of form, the way their legs moved like pistons as they closed the distance between us. The thudding of paws on the hard-packed soil as they ran through the forest rumbled over the low murmur of the sea.
Wolves.