sound of it. Powerful. Female.
And when she stepped through the first arch to the right, the thrilled gasp escaped before she could block it.
She’d never seen its like, in or out of a museum. Antiques so lovingly tended their surfaces gleamed like mirrors, the rich, deep colors that demonstrated an artist’s flare, rugs, pillows, draperies were as much art-forms as the paintings and statuary. On the far wall was a fireplace she could have stood in with her arms stretched out to her sides. Framed in malachite it held enormous logs that snapped with tongues of red and gold fire.
If the woman had looked like a creature from a fairy tale, this was the perfect setting for one.
She wanted to spend hours there, to wallow in all that marvelous color and light. The uneasy woman who’d huddled in her car in the rain was long forgotten.
“It took five minutes for my eyes to stop bugging out of my head after I walked in.”
Malory jolted around, stared at the woman who stood framed in the side window.
This one was a brunette, with dense brown hair skimming between her jawline and shoulders in a stylish swing. She was perhaps six full inches taller than Malory’s compact five-four, and had the lush curves to match the height. Both were set off with trim black pants and a knee-length jacket worn over a snug white top.
She held a champagne flute in one hand and extended the other as she walked across the room. Malory saw her eyes were deep, dark-brown and direct. Her nose was narrow and straight, her mouth wide and unpainted. The faintest hint of dimples fluttered in her cheek when she smiled.
“I’m Dana. Dana Steele.”
“Malory Price. Nice to meet you. Great jacket.”
“Thanks. I was pretty relieved when I saw you drive up. It’s a hell of a place, but I was getting a little spooked rattling around by myself. It’s nearly quarter after.” She tapped the face of her watch. “You’d think some of the other guests would be here by now.”
“Where’s the woman who met me at the door? Rowena?”
Dana pursed her lips as she glanced back toward the archway. “She glides in and out, looking gorgeous and mysterious. I’m told our host will be joining us shortly.”
“Who is our host?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Haven’t I seen you?” Dana added. “In the Valley?”
“Possibly. I manage The Gallery.” For the time being, she thought.
“That’s it. I’ve come to a couple of showings there. And sometimes I just wander in and look around avariciously. I’m at the library. A research specialist.”
They both turned as Rowena walked in. Though glided in, Malory thought, was a better description.
“I see you’ve introduced yourselves. Lovely. What can I get you to drink, Miss Price?”
“I’ll have what she’s having.”
“Perfect.” Even as she spoke a uniformed maid came in bearing two flutes on a silver tray. “Please help yourselves to the canapés, and make yourselves at home.”
“I hope the weather isn’t keeping your other guests away,” Dana put in.
Rowena merely smiled. “I’m sure everyone who’s expected will be here shortly. If you’ll excuse me just another moment.”
“Okay, this is just weird.” Dana picked a canapé at random, discovered it was a lobster puff. “Delicious, but weird.”
“Fascinating.” Malory sipped her champagne, and trailed her fingers over a bronze sculpture of a reclining fairy.
“I’m still trying to figure out why I got an invitation.” Since they were there, and so was she, Dana sampled another canapé. “No one else at the library got one. No one else I know got one, for that matter. I’m starting to wish I’d talked my brother into coming with me after all. He’s got a good bullshit barometer.”
Malory found herself grinning. “You don’t sound like any librarian I’ve ever known. You don’t look like one either.”
“I burned all my Laura Ashley ten years ago.” Dana gave a little shrug. Restless, moving toward irritated, she tapped her fingers on the crystal flute. “I’m going to give this about ten more minutes, then I’m booking.”
“If you go, I go. I’d feel better heading back into that storm if I drove behind someone else heading back to the Valley.”
“Same goes.” Dana frowned toward the window, watched the rain beat on the other side of the glass. “Crappy night. And it was an extremely crappy day. Driving all the way here and back in this mess, for a couple of glasses of wine and some canapés just about caps it.”
“You, too?” Malory wandered toward a wonderful painting of a masked ball. It made her think of Paris, though she’d never been there except in her dreams. “I only came tonight hoping I could make some contacts for The Gallery. Job insurance,” she added lifting her glass in a mock toast. “As my job is currently in a very precarious state.”
“Mine, too. Between budget cuts and nepotism, my position was adjusted, my hours trimmed back to twenty-five a week. How the hell am I supposed to live on that? And my landlord just announced my rent’s going up first of next month.”
“There’s a rattle in my car and I spent my auto maintenance on these shoes.”
Dana looked down, pursed her lips. “Terrific shoes. My computer crashed this morning.”
Enjoying herself Malory turned away from the painting, cocked her brow at Dana. “I called my boss’s new wife a bimbo, then spilled her cappuccino on her designer suit.”
“Okay, you win.” In the spirit of good-fellowship, Dana stepped over and clinked her glass to Malory’s. “What do you say we hunt up the Welsh goddess and find out what’s going on around here?”
“Is that what the accent is? Welsh?”
“Gorgeous, isn’t it? But be that as it may, I think . . .”
She trailed off as they heard that distinctive click of high heels on tile.
The first thing Malory noticed was the hair. It was black and short, with thick bangs cut so blunt they might have required a ruler. Beneath them, the tawny eyes were large and long, making her think of Waterhouse again, and his faeries. She had a triangular face, glowing now with what might have been excitement, nerves or excellent cosmetics.
The way her fingers kneaded at her little black bag, Malory went with the nerves.
She wore red, stoplight red, in an abbreviated dress that clung to her curvy body and showed off terrific legs. The heels that had clicked along the tile were a good four inches high, and sharp as stilletos.
“Hi.” Her voice was breathy, and her gaze was already flicking around the room. “Um. She said I should come right in.”
“Join the party. Such as it is. Dana Steele, and my equally baffled companion this evening, Malory Price.”
“I’m Zoe. McCourt.” She took another cautious step into the room, as if she was waiting for someone to tell her there’d been a mistake and boot her out again. “Holy cow. This place, it’s like a movie. It’s, um, beautiful and all, but I keep expecting that scary guy in the smoking jacket to come in.”
“Vincent Price? No relation,” Malory said with a grin. “I take it you don’t know any more about what’s going on than we do.”
“No. I think I got invited by mistake, but—” She broke off, goggling a bit when a servant entered with another flute on a tray. “Ah . . . thanks.” She took the crystal gingerly, then just smiled down at the bubbling wine. “Champagne. It has to be a mistake. But I couldn’t pass up the chance to come. Where is everybody else?”
“Good question.” Dana angled her head, charmed and amused as Zoe took a small, testing sip of champagne.
“Are you from the Valley?”
“Yes. Well, for the last couple years.”
“Three for three,” Malory murmured. “Do you know anyone else who got an invitation for tonight?”
“No. In fact, I asked around, which is probably why I got fired today. Is that food just to take?”
“You got fired?” Malory exchanged a look with Dana. “Three for th
ree.”
“Carly—she owns the salon where I work. Worked,” Zoe corrected and walked toward a tray of canapés. “She heard me talking about it with one of my customers, got bent out of shape. Boy, these are terrific.”
Her voice had lost its breathiness now, and as Zoe appeared to relax, Malory detected the faintest hint of twang.
“Anyway, Carly’s been gunning for me for months. I guess the invite, seeing as she didn’t get one, put her nose out of joint. Next thing I know she’s saying there’s twenty missing from the till. I never stole anything in my life. Bitch.”
She took another, more enthusiastic gulp of champagne. “Next thing I know, I’m out on my ear. Doesn’t matter. It’s not going to matter. I’ll get another job. I hated working there anyway. God.”
It mattered, Malory thought. The sparkle in Zoe’s eyes that had as much fear to it as anger said it mattered a great deal. “You’re a hairdresser.”
“Yeah. Hair and skin consultant if you want to get snooty. I’m not the type who gets invited to fancy parties at fancy places, so I guess it’s a mistake.”
Considering, Malory shook her head. “I don’t think someone like Rowena makes mistakes. Ever.”
“Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t going to come, then I thought it would cheer me up. Then my car wouldn’t start, again. I had to borrow the baby-sitter’s.”
“You have a baby?” Dana asked.
“He’s not a baby anymore. Simon’s nine. He’s great. I wouldn’t worry about the job, but I’ve got a kid to support. And I didn’t steal any goddamn twenty dollars or twenty cents for that matter. I’m not a thief.”
She caught herself, flushed scarlet. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Bubbles loosening my tongue, I guess.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Dana rubbed a hand up and down Zoe’s arm. “You want to hear something strange? My job, and my paycheck, just got cut down to the bone. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. And Malory thinks she’s about to get the axe.”
“Really?” Zoe looked from one face to the other.
“That’s just weird.”
“And nobody we know was invited here tonight.” With a wary glance toward the doorway, Malory lowered her voice. “From the looks of it, we’re it.”
“I’m a librarian, you’re a hairdresser, she runs an art gallery. What do we have in common?”
“We’re all out of work.” Malory frowned. “Or the next thing to it. That alone is strange when you consider the Valley’s got a population of about five thousand. What are the odds of three women hitting a professional wall the same day in the same little town? Next, we’re all from the Valley. We’re all female, about the same age? Twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-seven,” Dana said.
“Twenty-six—twenty-seven in December.” Zoe shivered. “This is just too strange.” Her eyes widened as she looked at her half-empty glass, and she set it hastily aside. “You don’t think there’s anything in there that shouldn’t be, do you?”
“I don’t think we’re going to be drugged and sold into white slavery.” Dana’s tone was dry, but she set her glass down as well. “People know we’re here, right? My brother knows where I am, and people at work.”
“My boss, his wife. Your ex-boss,” Malory said to Zoe.
“Your baby-sitter. Anyway, this is Pennsylvania, for God’s sake, not, I don’t know, Zimbabwe.”
“I say we go find the mysterious Rowena, and get some answers. We stick together, right?” Dana nodded at Malory, then Zoe.
Zoe swallowed. “Honey, I’m your new best friend.” To seal it, she took Dana’s hand, then Malory’s.
“How lovely to see you.”
Their hands were still joined as they turned and looked at the man who stood in the archway.
He smiled, stepped inside. “Welcome to Warrior’s Peak.”
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