Deadly Valentine

by Carolyn G. Hart

  Annie rejected the Bonnie and Clyde masks. There were, she felt, definite limits to her enthusiasm for crime. Actually, she didn’t care at all for true crime and Bonnie and Clyde had been distinctly unattractive. Just about as charming as Billy the Kid, despite the varied literary efforts to make that teenage killer seem appealing. Apologists might see him as the avenger of his patron’s murder. Annie saw young Billy as a cold-blooded murderer, who had as much empathy for his victims as a stalking gray fox for marsh rabbits.

  As the masks were snatched up and passed around, matching pairs were quickly separated. Annie ended up with Marie Antoinette and Max with Lord Byron. Not, Annie decided, the most propitious possibilities.

  That’s when the evening began to get complicated.

  A trumpet tattoo erupted from the bandstand. Sydney Cahill hurried up the steps as a spotlight centered on her. She turned to look down at the guests, and the trumpet sounded again. Most women would look wan, their color leached out by the sharp brightness of the spotlight. Not Sydney. The diamond-white light merely enhanced her vibrant dark beauty. A faint flush of excitement stained her cheeks becomingly.

  “Everyone, it’s time for adventure.” Her voice, deep and soft and eager, held the promise of torrid nights and languid mornings. “So often we don’t know where we can find love. Just for tonight, let’s search for the heartbeat of love. We are all so afraid to be open, to reveal ourselves, so let’s see what chance can do and what we may discover behind the masks.” She leaned forward and the necklace of rubies and diamonds and emeralds glittered against her softly rounded breasts. “Here’s what we are going to do. I want all the ladies to gather in a circle.” She gestured encouragingly and the matching bracelet on her arm flashed like city lights sliding beneath a midnight flight. “Gentlemen, form a circle around the ladies.” The drummer tapped lightly but steadily. “And now,” Sydney called out, “ladies, send your masks three to the right. Gentlemen, send your masks three to the left, then”—she paused for dramatic emphasis, her voice dropping lower—“then seek out the proper match and discover the partner fate has chosen for you tonight!” The band broke into “Some Enchanted Evening.”

  Amid a great deal of laughter and false starts, the newly remasked guests milled about, merrily seeking their partners.

  Annie was next to the bandstand, adjusting her new mask as Queen Victoria, when Sydney started down the steps. The tousle-haired young man, a pettish look on his face, stepped forward, his hand outstretched, offering a mask to Sydney.

  After an instant’s hesitation, surprise evident in her arching brows, Sydney reached eagerly for the mask with its ice blond hair piled high in a careful coiffure, then looked hopefully at the giver. “Carleton?” she asked tentatively. Annie saw uncertainty in her soulful green eyes. And a hunger for kindness.

  “Madame de Pompadour,” the tousle-haired young man enunciated carefully. Too carefully. He held an empty drink glass in one hand. Annie felt sure it wasn’t the first.

  Sydney looked from his face to the mask and back again.

  “Slut,” he said distinctly. “Perfect for you.”

  Sydney’s emerald eyes filled with tears. Her lovely mouth trembled. She said pleadingly, “Carleton, please. Please don’t.”

  “One slut deserves another, right?”

  “Carleton.” Her voice shook. “I’ll tell Howard.”

  “‘Carleton, I’ll tell Howard,’” he mimicked in a high, drunken voice. “You just go right ahead and do that. Tell the old man. See if I care.” And he turned and stumbled away.

  The anguish on Sydney’s face drained away all the anger and disdain Annie had previously harbored against her beautiful hostess. Because there was pain here. Too much pain. To her own amazement, Annie suddenly felt extremely sorry for Sydney Cahill.

  “Syd—” she began, when a firm hand grasped her arm and she was whirled onto the dance floor, her Queen Victoria mask slipping sideways. “Queen, my Queen, my place is forever at your side. Hey, you’re cute.”

  Albert turned out to be a visiting tennis star, Manfred Schutz. Manfred danced like a dream, if a bit too closely, and he misinterpreted her twisting to look about the floor in search of Sydney. When an elbow in his ribs didn’t persuade him to back off just a bit, Annie said crisply, “I’d like you to meet my husband. He’s that big guy right over there.” The distance between them increased perceptibly. With a clear understanding of Manfred’s intentions, she found an unmarried friend, also a tennis player, and left them together. Manfred bent close and expertly began to maneuver his new quarry toward a curtained alcove.

  Annie again began looking for Sydney. She would have, she knew, no difficulty identifying Sydney’s spectacular dress and cleavage. But when she finally spotted her, ten minutes later, Annie’s new-found compassion received a jolt. It was disconcerting to find the object of her good intentions in the arms of the Cowardly Lion (aka Max Darling). Of course, she knew the man was Max. She would know that body anywhere. What she could see of it. Sydney was plastered against him closer than Bertha Cool to a dollar.

  Annie took off her mask, the better to see. Her eyes narrowed.

  Well, she would give Max a little credit. He was backpedaling, and that wasn’t his normal mode of dancing. It was that morning all over again, a voracious, full-bodied woman doing everything but say, “Take me, I’m yours.” And for all Annie knew those very words, or a slightly more subtle equivalent, might be issuing from Sydney’s delectable lips right this moment. Compassion disappeared faster than a mint Christie at a classic mystery sale.

  Madame Bovary thrust a drink into Annie’s hands. “Want me to see if Miss Melville is available?” The protagonist of Miss Melville Regrets is one of the world’s most unusual assassins.

  “Not funny, Henny.” She took a deep gulp and realized Henny had given her a gin and tonic, which she loathed.

  “Actually, I’d say Sydney is getting nowhere fast,” Henny judged.

  Annie was too cool to be outwardly proud of her husband, but inside she felt a warm glow. Max was, literally, unhanding himself, removing Sydney’s beringed fingers from his shoulders and stepping pointedly away from an inviting alcove.

  Henry VIII tapped on Sydney’s shoulder. She turned eagerly. Annie wondered if beneath the mask of Marlene Dietrich, Sydney’s lips were curved again into a hopeful, vulnerable smile. Sydney stepped coquettishly into the man’s arms and tilted her head to one side inquiringly. Obviously, she didn’t recognize her partner. They danced a few feet, then Sydney reached up to lift her partner’s mask.

  Annie saw the face, too, and was perhaps more surprised than the hostess, who must have known that all of the Graham family was invited. Joel Graham, the dentist’s son, winked sensuously at Sydney. It might have looked absurd, a horny kid mimicking a Hollywood come-on. But the lusty twist to his full lips and the hot light in his heavy-lidded eyes exuded confidence and experience. Joel might be just a senior in high school, but he was eighteen going on twenty-eight. He bent closer to Sydney, who had gone rigid in his arms, and whispered something. She pulled away, stumbling in her high heels as she did so. Annie would have bet that Joel said something no nice young man said to a nice woman.

  She hoped it got him in some hot water at home. Lisa Graham stood near the bandstand, a Bess Truman mask in her hand. Her expression, as she watched Sydney hurry away from Joel, was enigmatic. Annie wondered what she was thinking.

  It was from that point in the evening that Sydney’s almost frantic progress from man to man became painfully apparent to anyone who watched.

  That decided Annie. Sydney, no matter how her lower lip might tremble at times, was clearly up to no good. Annie no longer felt any urge to run up to Sydney and commiserate because somebody, obviously with very good reason, had called her a slut. As for Laurel’s pursuit of Howard, Sydney was too immersed in her own pursuits to notice even if Laurel slung Howard over her shoulder and disappeared into the swamp. Annie decided to cool it. She put her mask on and sto
od invitingly by the dance floor. When the Scarlet Pimpernel bowed and asked her to dance, Annie happily acquiesced and spent a good five minutes trying to guess her companion’s identity. He knew her at once, which added a little pressure. His resonant tenor voice was familiar. He was taller than average and a graceful dancer. But she couldn’t give her whole mind to the exercise. Despite her good intentions, she was only too aware of Sydney Cahill and her prowling progress from man to man and the almost equally blatant attraction between her mother-in-law and their host.

  Then she realized her partner was waiting for an answer, and she hadn’t heard the question. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was looking at Sydney. Her dress is so lovely.”

  Their hostess stood across the ballroom near an alcove, deep in conversation with a stocky Rudolph Valentino. She leaned languorously close. The man’s right hand, huge and thick-fingered, slowly slipped from Sydney’s shoulder to her breast and lingered for a long moment before sliding to her waist. A fiery red ruby ring glittered on his third finger. Sydney pressed against him.

  “Sydney. Ah, Sydney.” The voice behind the Scarlet Pimpernel mask was amused. In a snide fashion.

  She knew him then. Their dentist neighbor, George Graham. His voice had held that same sardonic tone—a patronizing little-woman inflection—the last time she and Max played mixed doubles with the Grahams at the country club and Lisa double-faulted.

  Annie wondered if George, too, had seen that lingering, public caress.

  “Our hostess gives her all, doesn’t she?” Graham asked lightly. A pause, then the smooth addition. “To be sure her guests have fun.”

  Graham hadn’t missed it.

  “Apparently so,” Annie agreed dryly. She immediately felt like a mean cat. But, dammit, Sydney asked for it, didn’t she?

  Yes, but Annie didn’t enjoy the feeling that she was sharing an unkind critique of her hostess with George Graham. Enough was enough. “Are you and Lisa playing much tennis now, George?”

  They were, of course. Annie heard more than she wanted to know about their reaching the quarterfinals of the New Year’s Day mixed doubles tournament.

  She went then from partner to partner. The party had a fervid atmosphere, a combination of sensuous latin music, loud, excited talk, and the telltale billowing of the red velvet curtains as couples slipped in and out of alcoves. Annie wondered if the dimness and the masks had weakened accustomed reserve, setting free an eroticism foreign to the staidness of Broward’s Rock. (She had to make it very clear to one unknown partner, Samson, that she wasn’t up for grabs, of any kind.) Masks were traded several times more. She ended up once with Max (he was too tall to be George Burns!) and that was the most fun of the evening.

  “I’d rather dance with you forever,” he murmured, his breath tickling her ear.

  Sweet.

  “Damn good thing,” she said briskly.

  He chuckled. “Where’s your sense of romance?”

  “Don’t believe in it.”

  “Are you the Grinch of Valentine’s Day?” he demanded.

  “Nope. I don’t believe in romance. But,” and her arms tightened around his neck, “I do believe in love.”

  “Have to cut in here. No fun when the married folks stick together.” A robust laugh. “They can do that in private. Come on, little lady, let’s have at it.”

  Not even a Lancelot mask could add polish to Buck Burger. His voice rumbled from a massive chest. His huge hands fastened on her clumsily, one engulfing her right hand, the other a bit too low on her hip for her liking. As she clapped her hand firmly over his, she saw the winking red ruby ring on his middle finger. A well-traveled hand, she realized. She briskly resettled it, and he laughed good-humoredly.

  Buck’s idea of dancing was a jerky stop-and-start progress a half beat behind the rhythm and a running commentary on the party scene.

  “Have to hand it to old Sydney. Woman’s a fool but she can come up with the goods sometimes.” A lustful laugh. “In addition to the original package. But this blowout’s the first time I’ve enjoyed a party since I left Texas. People finally letting their hair down. About—”

  Annie had no desire to pursue their common ties to the Lone Star state.

  “—time. Course old Sydney was born with her hair down. Look at her now, cuddlin’ up to some guy like it was twenty below and a blizzard outside. One hot lady.” There was no rancor in Burger’s voice. Apparently he didn’t mind sharing.

  Annie twisted her neck to see. One man in a tuxedo, when masked, looked like almost any other man. But it wasn’t Max. Then she spotted Laurel dancing with Howard. Neither wore a mask and Annie wished fervently they hadn’t put them aside. They danced superbly together and that was enough to attract attention, their bodies in perfect tandem. But their faces, absorbed and intent, trumpeted an attraction far out of the ordinary. Annie’s heart sank.

  “Hey, get a load of Howard. Shit, who’s—”

  Annie broke in before it was too late. “That’s Max’s mother.”

  It gave Buck pause, as she had hoped it would.

  “She’s visiting us,” Annie added noncommittally.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll have to have you folks over. I’ll have Billye give you a holler.”

  Thankfully, the number ended and Buck lurched to a stop.

  “Such fun,” Annie said insincerely. Masks did have some advantages. She didn’t have to create an insincere smile, too. “Believe I’ll slip away for a moment now.”

  “You women,” he said with heavy jocularity. “Go to the john on the way to heaven.”

  Annie didn’t even try to answer that one. As the music started again, she headed for the perimeter of the dance floor, looking eagerly about for Max.

  It took only another moment’s survey to realize that not only was Max absent, so was Sydney.

  Okay, José, there were limits. Annie had reached hers. She plunged through the ballroom’s huge archway and headed for the stairs. By the time she reached the bottom floor, she was in control. Honestly, there was no telling what she might have said or done had she discovered her husband—that delectable blond aka old white meat—in a tête-à-tête with Sydney in a quiet corridor on another floor.

  By the time she reached the gardens, she decided she was overreacting, but she was in no mood to hurry back upstairs. The gardens were delightful—cool and quiet. Annie breathed deeply, enjoying the scent of moist greenery. Her steps crunched on the oyster-shell path as she passed the shadowy gazebo. The air was much cooler now, but far from cold. She strolled out onto the pier and leaned against the railing. The water was still as dark as pitch, the low-watt yellow bulb at the end of the pier futile against the dark night.

  The hoarse, venomous whisper came without warning.

  “Bitch.”

  Annie stiffened.

  It came again, harsher now, clearer.

  “Bitch!”

  An oar slapped against water.

  Annie looked down.

  The woman hunched over the oars steered the boat past the pier. The boat gently rocked to a stop, the paddles splashing deep in the water. The rower, a shadowy figure with stringy hair and a bony face, looked up.

  Slowly the hatred seeped from Dorcas Atwater’s face to be replaced by indifference.

  “You aren’t Sydney.”

  “No,” Annie said gently. “I’m Annie Darling.”

  “I know.” Her tone said it didn’t matter, nothing mattered.

  “Dorcas, shouldn’t you go home? It’s late.”

  “Home?”

  Annie’s hands tightened on the railing at the sudden gurgling sound. It was a terrible moment before she realized it was laughter, a horrible kind of laughter.

  “Home. Oh, that’s funny, that is. Shouldn’t I go home?”

  The oars splashed violently, the boat jerked around, and the hideous laughter echoed across the water.

  Annie turned and ran for shore.

  On the ground-floor marbled foyer, she paused to catch her
breath, then started rapidly up the steps.

  She heard the click of high heels as she neared the second floor and Max, his voice admiring, say, “I’d love to see your collection.”

  She sped to the landing, every nerve alert. What did Sydney collect? Men’s Jockey underwear?

  Her relief when she recognized Max’s companion made her effusive in her welcome. “Billye! How wonderful to see you! You’re looking lovely. As always. Younger every year.”

  Buck Burger’s wife welcomed Annie with the stylized embrace common to her circle, a glancing hug and one cheek pressed for an instant against Annie’s. The unmistakable scent of Diva wafted over Annie.

  Billye’s lips curved in a perfect smile, which suited her porcelain-smooth face. Her white-gold hair was perfectly waved and looked about as real as the papier-mâche mask she held in one heavily ringed hand.

  “Annie, honey, you’re the sweetest little thing this side of the Red River.” She took Annie’s arm in a feather-light grasp, and they started up the stairs to the ballroom.

  Max followed, grinning at the exchange of feminine nonsense. “Hey, Annie, Billye and I’ve been looking at Howard’s collection of pointillist paintings. She’s invited us over next week to see her collection.”

  “Why, I’d just love to show you all my paintin’s,” Billye said happily. “Buck doesn’t pay them any mind, and it would be so lovely to show them to people who really care.”

  Annie smiled warmly at Billye.

  “And I just know it’s goin’ to be so wonderful to have you young people as neighbors. You’ll add so much to the Scarlet King compound.”

  They paused in the great archway. Billye gave them a friendly farewell smile. “I’d better round up Poppa and get us started home.”

  Annie was all for that. “Max, let’s see if we can find Laurel. It’s almost midnight and—”

  She broke off, eyes widening. Had the general lost his mind?

  General Houghton stalked toward a curtained alcove not far from the bar, his harsh face intent, eyes steely, lips grimly compressed. One gnarled hand held his ebony cane high in the air. He didn’t hesitate when he reached the alcove. The cane sliced viciously through the air, and the curtain and its heavy bronze rod clattered to the hardwood floor.