But the QB—he’d sketched her, more than anyone, and the pictures radiated a cold hatred that made me hesitate to touch the page. And they made her look startlingly ugly and repulsive. The more startling because they didn’t seem distorted. More like photo-realism, and yet through some subtle alchemy, he’d made the seemingly straightforward lines and curves reveal not only the outer shell but the cruel soul inside. I found myself staring into the eyes of one sketch and thinking that Medusa must have looked just like this, to turn her viewers into stone. I certainly stood staring down at the page for far too long.
A monkey chattered overhead, and I snapped out of it.
“I need to get out of here,” I muttered.
But which way? Back the way I’d come, or out the other side of the dealers’ room?
I should have paid more attention to which way Salome was going. Or, for that matter, where Steele went when he left the dealers’ room a few minutes before Francis turned Salome loose.
“Lady killer or tiger?” I muttered, looking back and forth between the two escape routes. Though for all I knew, if I chose the wrong path, they’d both be lying in wait.
Maybe I could sneak out the back way while they were fighting over who got to finish me off.
“Chill,” I told myself. Odds were Steele was outside, with the rest, waiting to hear that Salome had been recaptured. The last time we’d talked, I’d been busy explaining why I suspected Nate. He had no way of knowing that his producer friend had just handed me the clue that gave him away.
“Just move,” I muttered. I decided that if I were Salome, I’d steer for the lobby, so I headed toward the opposite side of the dealers’ room, where the back exit would take me near the ballroom and the green room. It would have taken Salome longer to reach those.
Though between the time I’d spent cowering in the men’s room and the time it had taken me to search the booth, she could have strolled halfway downtown.
I walked as quickly and quietly as possible to the other end of the room and peered out the open door. Quiet out there.
Possibly too quiet? Would the parrots and monkeys shut up if they knew Salome was nearby?
No way to tell. I peered around the doorway, carefully. Nothing. I slipped out and headed toward the ballroom door. My plan, to the extent I had a plan, was to slip into the ballroom and then out again through the back door Michael and I had used the night before. Odds were few people at the convention knew that route, and Salome would have trouble with the door handles.
Halfway down the hall, I heard a noise. From the ballroom.
Or was it my imagination?
I crept into the ballroom. Definitely a real noise, and coming from a utility closet. Which was locked, from the outside. Perhaps someone had taken refuge in the closet, as I had in the bathroom, and been locked in.
I opened the door and found the bound, gagged figure of the man from the health department.
“Ah, so that’s where you went,” I said.
He wriggled frantically, and made a lot of loud umphing noises that didn’t really need translation.
“Yes, I can untie you if you like,” I said, “but it really might be better to wait until they catch the tiger, and besides—”
Just then, I felt the point of a sword at my back.
Chapter 41
I react quickly in moments of crisis. Not always usefully, but quickly. This time, I managed to whirl and meet Steele’s sword with mine, slamming the closet door along the way.
Which would have made me feel better if the smile on Steele’s face didn’t suggest that he wanted me to fight back, and if I hadn’t realized, a second too late, that slamming the door might be a bad idea. Now Steele didn’t have to worry about a possible eyewitness if he slit my throat.
“I’d like my sketchpad back,” he said, with a token thrust of his sword by way of emphasis.
I shook my head. I tried to think of something suitably cutting to say, but the brain wasn’t cooperating, so I settled for parrying and returning to my best on-guard pose.
“Yeah, you’re one tough dame,” he said, with a sneer. “But I never bothered with that pretty, choreographed stage combat you and Chris like. I learned to use this thing as a weapon.”
“I should have known the name was too good to be true,” I said. “A blacksmith named Steele.”
“Well, I got to choose,” he said.
“I think Ichabod Dilley suits you better, though,” I said. “Mind if I call you Ichabod?”
“Yes, I mind,” he said, taking a step forward—not quite a lunge, but enough to make me scramble back a few steps as I parried. “Alaric Steele is my legal name now. Ichabod Dilley is that little twerp in the cheap suit.”
“Your call,” I said.
“Give me the damned sketchbook,” he said.
“Just for the sake of argument, what if I do give you the sketchbook?” I asked. “You’re going to say, ‘Gee, thanks,’ sheathe the sword, and go away quietly?”
“No, but I’ll make it quick and painless,” he said.
“Like I’ve been meaning to tell you all weekend, you’re a lousy salesman,” I said.
“But a damn fine swordsman,” he said, lunging forward, and for a few terrifying moments, I parried frantically and backed up as fast as I could, Steele following, until we reached the open area in front of the stage. Then Steele’s attack eased off and we went back to circling each other warily.
The blacksmith part of my brain noted with disapproval that both our blades had gotten rather nicked in that last flurry of thrusts and parries. Another part, probably inherited from Dad, observed that it was certainly a lot harder to avoid being hit when you’re fighting someone who really wants to kill you, wasn’t it? And didn’t the snick of the blades sound just like in the movies? I’d have told both parts to shut up, except that they seemed to be drowning out, for now, the part that kept yelling at me to drop the sword and curl up in a little ball. Not a good plan.
Do something to distract him, I thought.
“So,” I said, backing away a little more. “While you’re trying to kill me—I say trying, because of course I plan to stop you if I can—satisfy my curiosity, will you?”
“You want to know if I killed her?” he said, stepping forward and gently brushing his blade against mine. “Well…if you really want to know…
As he shouted, he lunged, aiming for my throat. I parried easily and backed away again.
“Lucky you,” he sneered.
Lucky, my eye. Powerful lunge, well executed…but telegraphed. I’d known the answer to his question, of course, and I’d suspected he would lunge when he said it.
I managed to back up the stairs onto the stage, which was damned hard in long skirts. I resented the fact that Steele got to see where he was going when he bounded up the stairs after me.
Of course, if I’d known I’d be dueling a crazed killer, I’d have worn something more suitable than a low cut, full-skirted wench costume.
“Of course you killed her,” I said. “You must have gotten a good laugh, sitting there listening to me telling you all the reasons why Nate had to be the killer. But I was wondering why.”
“Why?” he snapped. “Isn’t it obvious?”
And again, he’d lunge on the words he wanted to emphasize. I was starting to like his fighting style. Predictable. Although I wished the monkeys overhead would stop chattering. They distracted me, and he didn’t even seem to notice.
“I mean, was it really just about the show and a bunch of comic books?”
“A bunch of comic books? Are you trying to tick me off?”
Actually I was. Make someone lose his temper and you have an advantage over him, my martial arts teacher always used to say. Of course, he wasn’t necessarily thinking of people waving yard-long sharpened broadswords.
