Moonlight Masquerade (17 page)

As Mike opened the door wider to let her in, he tossed his car keys to Reede. Sophie started to go into the house, but Reede held her hand and pulled her back. “You'll be careful tonight, won't you?” he said.

“You saw that I'm a scaredy-cat.”

“I saw that someone only has to tell you that you can't do something and you tighten up that pretty little mouth of yours and
do
it. Just don't do that tonight, okay? Stay with me, and as soon as you identify this guy, you're out of there. All right?”

“Yes,” she said softly, looking up at him. The rain had stopped but the sun wasn't out. It was gray and hazy. Reede gave her cheek a quick kiss, held her hand for a moment, then he was gone.

Sophie was doing
her best to pretend to be calm, but she wasn't succeeding. Sara Newland was being very nice to her, as was everyone else she was introduced to, but she was still frightened. There seemed to be a
dozen young women from Edilean, all of them about her age, going in and out of the room where Sara was adjusting Sophie's costume. She couldn't keep the names straight: Tess, Jocelyn, Gemma, Ariel. Faces and names seemed to run together.

It had been hours since Reede had left, and since then she'd told her story many times. A handsome FBI agent by the name of Jefferson Ames spent thirty minutes going over her story. “We think these guys pulled a bank job in Baltimore about three years ago. They've laid low since then, and not put any of the money in circulation. We figured the leader was hiding nearby, and Edilean is close,” Agent Ames said. “Tell me again what his shoes looked like.”

Sophie was so busy answering the same questions over and over that it was a while before she paid attention to the dress Sara had her put on. It was green silk, with a low, square-cut neckline. A narrow drape of a dark plum color went over her left shoulder. The dress was high waisted, with an ornate sash that tied under her breasts. Sophie quit answering questions when Sara clasped a necklace around her throat. It was heavy and big.

Sophie put her hand on it, then excused herself to the agent and went to a mirror. “Is this . . . ? Are these . . . ?”

“Rubies set in gold,” Sara said. “They're from an ancestor of mine, the original Edilean. We found them in a secret room in this house.”

Sophie put her hand on the jewelry. It had a timeless beauty about it that was stunning. She looked at Agent Ames. “These are what they're after?”

“What they want to steal, yes,” he said. “The pieces are so unique that it would be hard to sell them, so it's my guess that they'd be melted down. The jewels are superior quality even if they do need to be recut.”

The artist in Sophie was sickened at the thought of something so old, so beautiful, being melted down and sold in pieces. Being able to stop something like that gave her courage. “Tell me what I need to do to help you,” she said.

Reede didn't return until almost seven, and by then Sophie was so glad to see him that she had to work not to fling her arms around him. She saw him from the back. This time he had on a suit, but in the style that Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy would wear. It clung to his body, showing off his muscular legs and his trim waist.

She stood still, staring at the back of him, and he turned to her. As before, he wore a half mask that covered his eyes and nose, but left his beautiful lips exposed.

He didn't say a word, just strode across the big room, took her hand, and led her into a bedroom. When they were alone, they stared at each other, their eyes questioning, then Reede opened his arms and she went to them. He held her tightly.

“Tell me what's on your mind,” he whispered.

“They don't know what a coward I am. They keep telling me I'm very brave but I'm not. I want to hide under the bed and not come out until it's all over.”

“Me too,” he said.

“You? But—” She pulled away to look up at him. His eyes were shining so brightly that she couldn't resist elbowing him. “You
love
this! It gets you out of
that apartment you hate, and you don't have to stay in an office, and you—”

He kissed her. It was a quick kiss and a familiar one, then he left her sitting on the bed. He picked up a plate that contained a turkey sandwich. “This yours?”

“Yes.” She'd been too nervous to eat.

Reede took a big bite of the sandwich. “How much have they told you?”

“Not much,” Sophie said as she sat down beside him. “I answer their questions but no one answers mine.”

“Someday you and Mike will have to talk about the FBI. I think you two will agree.”

As Reede ate he told her what they'd been doing and how the enemy had been set up. With the FBI training ground so near they'd had a lot of volunteers to attend the party and put on the costumes Reede's relatives had planned to wear. “And to put on the all-important jewels,” Sophie added. “What do you want to drink?” “Beer,” he answered. It took her only seconds to go to the kitchen and get a bottle and open it. She was aware that everyone, agents as well as Reede's relatives, stopped talking and watched her. “I'm the freak of the day,” she said when she got back into the room and handed Reede the beer.

“I think it's more likely that they're wondering when you're going to murder me.”

“For what? Making me cross that narrow beam? Or for taking me to an abandoned house full of thieves with guns?”

Reede took a deep drink of the beer and didn't answer.

“There's something that worries me,” Sophie said. “If this man has lived in Edilean for years, won't he know a lot of the guests at the party? Won't he be suspicious when different people show up?”

“That's why most of the people coming to the party have no idea what's going on.”

“But isn't that—?” She broke off, not wanting to say the obvious.

“Dangerous?” Reede asked. “Yes, but it's worse for you. If these men had any idea that you could identify them . . . Sophie, I don't want to think about that.”

He set aside his empty plate and bottle, put his feet up and leaned against the headboard. When he put out his arm, it seemed natural that Sophie should sit beside him, her head on his shoulder.

“Your job will be to talk to every male there,” he said. “Only you can identify the voice.”

“But you heard the other two. You even saw them.”

“Jeff Ames said they'll nab the two we saw in the house right away. We know they'll be in costumes that cover them.”

“With itchy fur.”

“Right,” Reede said. “Agents will put on the costumes so the leader doesn't know they're missing. Jeff said I was to leave you and go identify them, but I told him what he could do with that plan.”

Turning, he looked at her and put his hand to the side of her face. “It still startles me how beautiful you are. If we ever get out of here . . . ”

He bent as though to kiss her, but Sophie pulled
back. “I think it's time you removed your mask,” she whispered as she put her arms up to untie it.

Reede reacted quickly. One moment he was on the bed next to Sophie, the next he was standing and looming over her. “I better go . . . uh, check on everything.” He left the bedroom.

Sophie sat there, blinking at the closed door. She was almost beginning to think there was something
wrong
with his face. Maybe in one of his heroic rescues he'd been wounded, scarred even. Maybe that's why he didn't like being in Edilean, because people stared at him. Maybe he preferred being in Third World countries because he fit in there. His scars or disfigurement weren't as noticeable.

Or maybe he just liked running around in a mask once a year. Sophie stood up, smoothed down the beautiful silk dress Sara had made for her, and went out to the living room. It was showtime.

Three hours! Sophie
thought. She and Reede had been dancing and talking to the other people at the party for three whole hours—and it seemed like twenty.

Reede was better at socializing than Sophie was. While holding her hand, he went to every male at the party and said he was trying to guess which cousin was under the disguise. With this game he got each person to talk. Of course they ran into several people who were young FBI agents, and Sophie soon realized
that was part of their verification of her as a witness. If she said one of them was the man she'd heard, she would have been discredited. But no one sounded like the man.

At nine-thirty a helmeted man wearing a gladiator costume—which meant he had on very little clothing—took her away from Reede for a slow dance.

“How are you holding up?”

She couldn't see his face, but she'd recognize his raspy voice anywhere. Mike. “You look . . . ” He had an incredibly beautiful body!

“Don't say it. This getup is Sara's idea of a joke. Have you heard any voices you recognize?”

“None. Have you found the bomb?”

“Yes,” he said.

Sophie gave him a smile of joy. “I've been worried.”

“All of us have been, but we brought in some dogs and found it.”

“Which building was it in?”

“Welsch House. It's one of the oldest in town. Sara got so mad when she heard where it was I had to send her home.” Mike whirled Sophie about to the music, then drew her closer. “So how are you and the doc getting along?”

Sophie glanced at Reede standing by the far wall and talking to a man dressed like Daniel Boone. Nearby was a woman in a Martha Washington costume. “Good,” she said.

“That's all?”

Sophie smiled. “Maybe better than that. We get on well and he makes me feel that I can do things.”

“Not like home, huh?”

Startled, she looked at him.

“I see things about people,” he said. “I saw you on the day you arrived in town and now you look different. Your eyes have changed.”

“A lot has happened in these few days,” she said.

“And it's my guess that even more happened before you got here, didn't it?”

Sophie's face drained of color. Mike was a retired detective who had connections with the FBI. Had he been told of Sophie's thievery? When this was over, would he arrest her?

Mike was watching her intently. “I was talking about the beer incident,” he said softly.

“Beer?” She had to think to know what he meant. “Oh, right. That.” She was so relieved that he wasn't referring to a much more serious matter that she relaxed.

“Sophie, if you need any help on anything—legal, criminal, whatever—let me know. Nothing will shock me.”

“Shock you about what?” Reede asked as he cut in between them.

“Sophie had some problems just before she arrived in Edilean. Maybe you heard about her nearly being run over and pouring beer over the driver's head.”

“I heard about it,” Reede mumbled.

“Have you seen Russell?” Sophie asked. “He was there that night so he knows who the man is. I thought I'd ask him.”

“And he couldn't lie,” Mike said, with barely concealed merriment. “I haven't seen the preacher, but Roan saw it all, and he's over there. He's the Viking.
Sara had to order the horns for his helmet from Texas. I'm sure Roan would
love
to tell you about the man who almost committed a hit-and-run. And, Sophie, if you find the man and want to press charges, let me know. I can arrange it for you. Reede, you don't look so good. Maybe you better lay off the booze tonight. Ames is calling me, I gotta go.”

Sophie smiled at Mike's back as he walked away. “He's a nice man.”

“He has a mean streak in him wider than the Shenandoahs,” Reede said as he took her hand to lead her to the dance floor.

“Why would you say that?” Sophie asked. “He seems—”

“Let's go talk to that man in the Hobbit costume.”

“I'd rather talk to Rowan.”

“Roan,” Reede said as he led her to the other side of the room. “Roan is a bore and he'll make a pass at you.”