Serious Moonlight(96)

“I’ll join you,” I said, smiling, cheeks warm. And we both counted our fingers—one, two, three, four, five.

“All there,” he reported as he touched my flower. “It’s not a lily.”

“It’s a gardenia from our greenhouse. A hybrid called Mystery.”

“For real?”

I nodded. It was the only bloom on the bush, and the white matched my dress, which felt a little like what Daniel would call fate. “It’s my lucky flower,” I told him. “To go with your lucky suit. We should play the lottery tonight. Our chances of winning are astronomical.”

“I think I already won,” he said, kissing my forehead.

I could have stood there with him forever. But we nearly got bowled over by a rude hipster on a bicycle, so we decided to get our lucky selves far away from the terminal. We piled into his car, and he turned on David Bowie. And then we headed out of downtown.

The Seattle Center was home to the World’s Fair in the 1960s. Now it was a sprawling complex that was half grassy pavilion, half tourist attraction—museums, live concerts, and, of course, the Space Needle. The Seattle Opera’s official home, McCaw Hall, was also here, and it looked beautiful at night, its modern glass exterior lit up in purples and blues. And when Daniel and I parked in a garage across the street and strolled over a connecting skybridge that overlooked throngs of people, I was just so happy to be doing something special, I forgot all about everything else.

So much so, in fact, that when we walked under scrims of glass and peered into the entrance—with its enormous modern sculptured chandeliers hanging above operagoers dressed to the nines—I was completely caught up in the fantasy that this was a date. A beautiful, happy date. Prince and princess, out doing glamorous things. It wasn’t until Daniel pointed to a VIP sign that it hit me like a ton of bricks we weren’t on a date at all: We were committing a crime.

Okay, maybe not robbing a bank. I wasn’t even sure if it was considered illegal or just in poor taste to take someone else’s free tickets. But we certainly didn’t belong there, and we were lying like cheap rugs to get inside.

The VIP entrance was segregated in its own little portion of an interior promenade; this was where the big-money patrons entered, the ones who donated large sums of cash to the opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet. They had their own ticket window, coat check, and ushers.

We did not belong here.

You’re undercover, I told myself. Stay calm.

Daniel blew out a long breath and headed straight to the woman running Will Call, confidently informing her that we were part of Bill Waddle’s party, and were we the first to arrive? While they talked, I stood frozen, half zoned out, telling myself that sometimes even the best detectives must bend a couple of small rules to ferret out clues, and this might be the last clue we got on Raymond Darke. So, we weren’t going to waste it, and it was fine. It was all fine. And WHAT WAS I THINKING, COMING OUT HERE? We were going to end up in jail, and who would bail me out? Mona? Cherry?

But I was freaking out for no reason: Daniel turned around with his hands full of tickets and printed opera programs . . . and a look of victory on his face. “I can’t believe they fell for it,” he whispered.

“Did you have to give our names?”

“I just made them up. We’re Nick and Nora Washington.”

“Washington?”

“I couldn’t remember their last name!”

“Charles. But I’m glad you didn’t remember. Might as well have signed in as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson!” I said, lightly slugging his arm.

“Ow!” he whispered, trying not to laugh. “Does it matter? She entered it in the computer and didn’t blink. Must have been the suit. Told you it was lucky.”

Indeed. All praise the suit. Maybe now I could relax and things would go smoothly.

We were the second to arrive in Darke’s party, Daniel confirmed with the ticket agent, and there was still plenty of time before the opera. After noticing some of the guests strolling through a preshow art exhibit that had been set up in the lobby, Daniel asked if I knew anything about the opera being performed. I opened the program and skimmed the introduction. Tonight’s show was a production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly—the story of an underaged Japanese geisha named Butterfly and a jerky US naval officer who gets her pregnant and runs off to marry an American woman. Devastated, the geisha kills herself.

“Jesus. This is . . . heavy,” Daniel said, reading over my shoulder.

“It’s pretty horrible,” I agreed. “Why would anyone want to see this?”

I didn’t want him watching a teen girl offing herself onstage. I didn’t even want him knowing about it, but it was obvious when he spotted it in the program, because his shoulders stiffened.

“We’re not here to see the opera. We don’t even really have seats,” I reminded him. “Let’s go try to find Darke.”

“Yeah,” he said coolly. “Let’s do that.”

We headed past concession stands selling wine and Madama Butterfly T-shirts. Daniel’s strides were purposeful and angry, and I struggled to keep up in heels that I wasn’t accustomed to wearing. Why couldn’t the production have been something nice and easy? What about Carmen? Doesn’t everyone love Carmen? Was all opera problematic? I wish I’d spent more time researching tonight’s performance than what clothes to wear to it.