In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(151)

Liv sat in a corner, nursing Caroline. Sean sat behind her, his cheek resting on her shoulder. Davy and Margot were in a clinch on the dance floor. Lily’s head was on Bruno’s shoulder—Marco was in the stroller next to Zia, blocking the Petries’ escape route. Edie and Kev danced, Kev’s hand splayed over her butt. Even Mama and Papa danced, though Mama glanced up, eyes narrowing when she saw Misha, who had not slunk into the shadows fast enough.

“Shit,” Misha muttered. “Now she will come check on us. She hates me. She thinks I am a psycho killer.”

“She does not,” Rachel soothed. “She’s just nervous.”

“We should go, before she comes. I found a way to the tower on the fourth floor. Want to see?”

“The guy said it was off-limits, for insurance reasons! Locked off!”

“Locked?” Misha gave her a crooked smile. “With whom do you think you are speaking?”

She grinned, delighted. “You mean, you picked the lock?”

“Shhh, do not spoil it. Do you want to see? Or not?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then come.”

She followed as he padded down the staircase and skirted the ballroom, wending between tables and strollers. Liv smiled at them as she laid Caroline down. Liv and Sean rejoined the dancers as the ballad pulsed on. Zia Rosa hailed them as they slipped by. They pretended not to hear and darted into the corridor that led toward the kitchen.

Children spilled out of a bathroom. Kevvie was scolding. “. . . going to clobber us all! God, Tonio! Do you have rocks in your heads?”

“We just thought those pink roses would look cool in Lena’s hair, because her dress is the same pink! I didn’t know they were made of sugar, and I didn’t mean to knock off the top tier! It just happened!”

Lena slunk out the bathroom door, her shiny black ringlets still gummed with flakes of pink sugar. Jamie followed, his freckled face dripping, frosting traces lingering under his square chin.

Kevvie caught sight of her. “Are they after us? Have they heard?”

“Nope,” Rachel assured him. “You’re good. They’re all out on the dance floor, hypnotized by sappy old-time music.”

“Good,” Jeannie said, relieved. “We’ll be okay until the caterers rat us out, and they’re too busy rebuilding the cake, so scatter, everyone! Try not to look guilty! Hey, where are you guys going?”

“Tell you after!” Rachel called. Misha pulled her around the corner. He pulled a couple of metal tools from his pocket and jiggled them in the lock, an abstracted look in his eyes. The lock clicked open.

They slipped inside just as someone rounded the corner.

“. . . a discount for the cake, since it’s a tier short now, but the boss is gonna shit bricks. Who let those kids in there, anyhow?”

“The bride and groom aren’t gonna notice,” another voice said. “They can’t detach their mouths from each other.”

“Maybe not, but that old Italian lady is gonna be all over our asses. She’ll come down like a ton of broken rock. . . .”

Rachel and Misha fought to muffle their snorts of laughter.

The locked-off stairway smelled different from the lived-in part of the house, older, dustier, colder. The lightbulbs were a lower wattage, the wallpaper darkened with age, and abandoned furniture covered with drop cloths loomed eerily in the corridor. This section of the building was not renovated. It was dusty and forgotten.

Misha led her through it as if he’d lived there all his life. They climbed stairs, higher and higher until they got to a twisting spiral ladder in a wooden tower. Rachel followed Misha up, feeling her way. He pushed a trapdoor in the ceiling upward. Moonlight spilled down onto them.

They crawled out, onto the floor of a gothic tower. Eight arches, open to the night. They saw everything: the grounds where the party had begun that afternoon, the rose garden, the fountain.

In the other direction, the tower looked out over the massive Columbia River Gorge. Moonlight had washed out the stars and lit the river into a pale, snaking ribbon that disappeared into the mountains.

They stood side by side, staring at the sky. The old mansion hummed beneath them, full of music, talk, light, and life. Above, the wind sighed and rustled, tossing the limbs of big, ancient trees. Whispering something she could almost understand, but only with a part of her heart that struggled under some heavy weight.

She stared up at the moon and felt that weight lessen.

“I feel like we could just take off from here, like birds,” she said. “Fly out over the canyon. Follow the river all the way to the ocean.”

“You are crying,” he said, alarmed. “Is it because Sveti is leaving?”

“No.” She flapped that wrong assessment away with her hand. “Well, maybe. A little. It’s just that I think . . . I think I get it now.”

“Get what?”

Rachel struggled to put it into words. “The point of Soul Rescue. It started with us. Sveti and I would have died if they hadn’t rescued us.”

“And me,” Misha said, his voice flat.

“You too,” she agreed. “Everybody’s been rescued, one way or another. We have a safe, strong place now. To take off from, to come back to. She just wants that, for everyone. It’s a good thing to want.”