Serious Moonlight(92)

“Zero getting lucky. I was my mom’s date at a fancy charity thing for Disney Cruise employees a few months ago, so she got me a new suit.”

“Well,” I said, smiling, “you’re one step ahead of me, because I have no lucky dress in my wardrobe.” I’d have to figure something out; maybe Mona could help. “But we have to go to the opera, Daniel. Don’t you see? It’s fate.”

“Oh-ho-ho,” he said, merry. “So, now you believe in fate?”

“Don’t know about that, but you have the lucky suit, and this is the break we’ve been waiting for,” I argued, trying not to get too excited. “Ivanov and Darke in the same place again? And not behind closed doors. They’ll be relaxed, in Darke’s element. They may loosen their tongues. We could overhear a conversation that could change everything. It’s a detective’s dream—investigating right in front of everyone. We’ll be undercover—just a couple of young opera fans, there to see the show.”

“Okay, Nora. If it means that much to you, we’ll go. But if we end up in the slammer, my mom is going to be pissed.”

As he stuck the letter in his pocket, I wanted to return to the wall of windows and take a second look at Darke’s living room, to see if there was anything else there that could help us figure out what Darke could be doing in the hotel and perhaps study that framed sunset poster from another angle. But as I started to turn around, Daniel’s head snapped toward the side of the house. My gaze followed.

A pickup truck filled with lawn equipment was pulling into the driveway.

If they saw us up here . . .

Alarm fired through my limbs. Daniel grabbed my hand and took off, racing across the deck and down the stairs, onto the back lawn. “What about the cat cover story?” I asked.

“Fuck that! Run for it, Birdie!”

The lawn maintenance truck was blocking our way out. Panicked, I glanced around for a place to hide.

“There!” Daniel said, redirecting our run to the back corner of the yard, where a waist-high gate sat in the bushes. It was locked, but easy enough to jump over. At least, easy for Daniel. He had to drag me over the top when I got stuck.

Breathing heavy, we sped down a narrow service walkway between Darke’s house and the next row of Victorians farther down the hill. Once we were fairly certain we were clear, we found a sidewalk and headed as far away from the house as we could get.

“I think we’re safe now,” Daniel said, glancing down the street. “Whew. I nearly had a heart attack. Sleuthing is hard work.”

And frustrating. I never got a second look at that framed sunset print on Darke’s living room wall. Which shouldn’t have bothered me; after all, we had our next clue in the letter about the opera box, a much flashier, more interesting clue.

But even the most boring TV detective knew better than that.

The devil is always in the details.





“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

—Student speaking to Thursday Next, The Eyre Affair (2001)





28




* * *



“Hol’ ’till,” Aunt Mona complained, pins clamped between her lips, while she adjusted the hem of my dress.

I stood on an upside-down wooden crate in the living room area of Mona’s theater, wearing a simple white gown that once was part of Mona’s ice princess outfit. Yesterday she’d deconstructed it to remake it into something I could wear to the opera, and now threads hung loose around missing sleeves and the hem was several inches too long. But at least it didn’t have glittery snowflakes on the bodice anymore.

She removed the last pin from her mouth and stretched her neck while Zsa Zsa Gabor flipped over and rolled around on the dress’s discarded chiffon sleeves. “I think that’s straight. We’ve lost the daylight. Be sweet and go flip on the lamp, will you?”

I stepped off the wooden crate and shuffled over to a 1960s space-age floor lamp. Aunt Mona looked tired, or maybe that was because she was wearing no makeup or wig and was dressed in a pink satin robe, her natural short brown hair slicked back. Without all the glamour, she seemed smaller and a little vulnerable.

“You aren’t mad about having to do all this sewing work on a Saturday night, are you? Because we’ve still got next week. The opera isn’t until Friday night.”

“Are you kidding?” she said. “It’s one of my favorite things to do.”

“I thought maybe I was keeping you from a hot date with Leon Snodgrass.”

“You don’t have to say his name like that, you know,” she complained gruffly.

Yikes. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop doing that.” Clearly he was sticking around. I needed to be more supportive of her choices, even if I didn’t agree with them.

She shook her head and sighed. “No, darling. I’m sorry. I’ve got something on my mind, and it’s giving me a headache. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Just some stupid adulting details that I don’t want to think about right now. Tell me something happy. Where’s our Daniel tonight? Did he have to work?”

“Unfortunately so.”

And because I was a sucker, I briefly entertained the notion of taking a ferry into the city to meet him before his shift started, but then Mona asked me to come over.