Page 3 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)

Chapter Two

S he’d known the benefit dinner would be awful.

Earlier, while dressing for the evening, Leo nearly sent word to Connor that she was bowing out.

The anticipation of mingling with dozens of people whom she did not know, and who would eye her with disapproval and curiosity should they learn that she worked in a morgue, had given her indigestion for days in advance.

But Connor had insisted his grandfather’s generosity always abounded at the Orphanage Fund’s benefit dinner and that they should put it to good use.

There would be no better time, he’d claimed, to convince the chief coroner that Leo was a credit to the smooth operation of the Spring Street Morgue.

But now, as the report of the gun blasted through Leo’s ears, she lamented letting Connor have his way.

She screamed, clapping her hand over her ear as something warm and wet misted the right side of her face.

Shock blinded her for a moment, and when her vision cleared, she stared with abject horror at the woman who’d been seated next to her.

Mrs. Seabright, according to her name placard, was face down on the table.

She’d been thrown forward, her body now limp, her skull a ruined mess.

And the blood…it pooled swiftly onto the white linen tablecloth.

Loud, frantic screams—no longer Leo’s own—chorused along the table, causing the sharp ringing in her right ear to throb even more painfully.

“Silence! Do as I say and stay in your seats, or another one of you will die!” the tall man shouted to be heard above the chaos.

The smell of gunpowder, the metallic tang of blood, and the rosewater scent the dead woman had been wearing, mixed in Leo’s nose until she thought she would be sick.

A heavy hand came down on her right shoulder and tugged her back in her chair. The black-gloved fingertips of the murderer’s hand entered her peripheral vision, and she went rigid.

“Shut your mouths, all of you!”

It wasn’t the masked man who’d ordered this. It was Jasper. Stunned, Leo’s unblinking eyes collided with his. His hands were locked into fists on the table, and when he shifted his ferocious glare to the man holding her shoulder, never had she seen such wrath. Or such fear.

Leo suddenly had the asinine desire to crawl across the table to him. Earlier, when she’d seen Jasper in the parlor, brooding into his glass of whisky, her heart and stomach had all but plummeted to her kneecaps.

She’d been avoiding him for weeks, for precisely the reason that ensued when he’d come to stand with her and Connor in uncomfortable silence.

She didn’t know what to say to him. Didn’t know what was supposed to happened now that they had kissed.

Leo hadn’t expected it, and she certainly hadn’t expected him to confess afterward that he cared for her.

She’d hadn’t known what to say or how to feel beyond tingly and unsteady on her feet.

Weeks had passed, and she was still caught between knowing that she cared for Jasper in return and yet hesitant to tell him. Because then…what next?

She supposed, right now, none of that mattered.

Her attention strayed to the dead woman, Mrs. Seabright, whose arms were winged out on the table. She had done nothing. Nothing at all, and yet this man had killed her in cold blood. Consequences , he had warned, for not staying seated.

The older man next to Jasper, who’d risen in complaint, had already collapsed back into his seat, his face taking on a greenish cast.

Jasper’s bellowed command worked. The room fell silent.

“I hope you take me seriously now,” the man said. “Jewels. All of them, on the table. Quickly.”

Whimpers and stifled sobs accompanied the women as they removed rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and brooches. The valuables were scooped up into a cloth sack by another one of the intruders as quickly as the women dropped them onto the table.

“You as well,” the man said, shoving Leo’s shoulder.

Her hands trembling, and with a heavy lump of frustration in the pit of her stomach, she unhooked the string of pearls the Inspector had left her in his will.

They, and the pearl earrings she had removed previously, disappeared as soon as she placed the matching set on the table.

Her heart dropped, though the loss of the jewelry seemed a small price to pay so long as no one else died.

“You are in a room full of police officers, you fool,” a man in his crisp, dark blue police uniform said. “You cannot imagine you will get away with this.”

The locked door to the kitchen corridor rattled, the knob twisting unsuccessfully. The gunshot and screams had surely been heard in the kitchen.

“I do not have to imagine it. I know it,” the masked man said calmly. He was well-spoken, his enunciation crisp. Almost aristocratic.

That confusing thought dissolved as the still-hot metal of the revolver’s muzzle touched the side of Leo’s head above her ear. It warmed her scalp through her hair, and a bubble of air escaped her mouth as a gasp. The quiver of panic in her chest threatened to choke her.

“You’ve gotten what you came for,” Jasper said, his voice rough and raspy. “Leave her be and lower your weapon.”

The muzzle pressed harder against her skull. “Follow us from this house, and she dies.”

Leo’s eyes skipped to the poor lady next to her, the pool of blood on the tablecloth having expanded to soak the linen under Leo’s wine glass. This man was not to be trifled with. The dead woman was evidence of that.

“Stand,” he ordered Leo.

For a moment, she wasn’t certain she could trust her legs to obey.

But Leo refused to appear frightened—it would only embolden Jasper to do something impulsive.

She stood from her chair, forcing her legs to hold her.

Connor Quinn had frozen in his seat, just as everyone else had.

Worry and disbelief turned his brown eyes glassy as he watched her rise.

The four other masked men rushed for the door through which they’d streamed no more than a few minutes previously.

The man holding her shoulder shifted his bruising grip to her elbow and yanked.

Her feet tripped over themselves, but he didn’t slow.

Though she couldn’t see Jasper, Leo heard him utter a hoarse expletive as the man dragged her from the dining room, into the front hall of the chief coroner’s home, and toward the open front entrance.

There, a servant lay upon the polished floor, unconscious.

“No one will follow you,” Leo promised. Jasper would thrash anyone who attempted it. “You don’t have to take me.”

They rushed outside into the rain. The storm that had been brewing all afternoon had finally unleashed its whipping winds.

The grip on her arm did not ease. At the end of the short walk leading to the road, a black coach waited.

The windows were draped, and a driver sat ready at the reins.

His beaver hat was pulled low, and he wore an unseasonable plaid scarf, wound around his jaw up to his nose to obscure his face.

Still, Leo tried to focus, tried to see as much as she could.

Her memory was such that later, she would be able to recall everything in minute detail.

If she could resist panicking, she might be able to help Jasper and the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard track down these criminals and arrest them.

That was, so long as the masked men allowed her to live.

The door to the coach was already open, and Leo was ushered onto the step and shoved inside.

A musty odor assaulted her nostrils. She was flung to the bench, and a cloud of dust erupted from the lumpy cushions.

As the other men piled inside, the coachman called to the horses to be away.

The wheels were moving even before the fifth and final thief had closed the door behind him.

As this last man threw himself onto the opposite bench, he reached for his head covering and began to pull it up.

“Keep that on, you imbecile,” the leader snapped.

The man quickly released the black draped mask, but the cloth had caught on his long beard.

Leo frowned. The beard appeared to have shifted to the side.

Was it false? Peering at the others, visible by a single lantern that swung from a bracket on the wall, she noticed that all the beards had a uniformly artificial appearance.

“What was that back there?” the man with the crooked beard asked. He was breathing heavily, and his hand clenched the bag of stolen jewels tightly. “You never said anything about kill?—”

“Shut your mouth,” their leader said harshly. “We don’t want our guest to hear too much, do we?”

The order gave Leo a glimmer of hope: Should any of them reveal their face or address someone in their party by name, they would have no choice but to be rid of her. But if they did not, did that mean he planned to let her go?

Though involuntary shivers tracked through her body, she paid attention to her surroundings: The coach was shabby, the green velvet cushions faded and threadbare.

The black drapes were bordered by gold piping and tassels, and a small brass plate was affixed to the wall behind the bench opposite hers.

The swinging lantern light revealed the word Best still visible on the engraved plate, but the black paint filling the rest of the words had been chipped, rendering it illegible.

The man holding the bag of jewels had a long scar on the back of his left hand, she noted.

The marking curved from the knuckle of his ring finger to the flesh between his thumb and forefinger.

Except for the leader, none of them had worn gloves, and none of them uttered a word.

However, they were not covert in the uneasy glances they exchanged.

It was clear something unplanned had taken place.

Leo had a good idea what that thing was.