High Rhymes and Misdemeanors Read Online Free PDF Page B

one with the Queen Mother mask and the gun, came around the hood of the car. He said, his voice muffled through the mask, “Where is he?”
    “Who?” Grace gasped.
    “The fox.”
    “The w-what?”
    The Queen Mother turned to the hound dog. “This is the right bird? You’re sure?”
    “It’s her all right.”
    The Queen Mother slapped Grace hard, open palmed. Grace’s head rocked back. She saw stars.
    “Don’t mess me about,” he snarled.
    “I’m n-not!” Tears of fright and fury sprang to Grace’s eyes. Her teeth felt loose. She put her hand up to her jaw. One thing burned in her brain, she was not going to cry in front of these animals.
    “Where’s Fox?” the other man chimed in. “We know you’re in it together.”
    “What are you talking about?” Grace cried. But her mind began to turn over. Not the fox, as in a four-footed woodland creature, but Fox, as in Peter. As in the man who didn’t want police involved even after an attempt on his life. A man who disappeared in the middle of the night—apparently with good reason.
    The guy in the dog mask began to rummage through Grace’s purse in the front seat. The other man waved the gun before her nose. Behind the mask his pale eyes were cold and menacing.
    Grace chattered out, “I don’t know him. Last night was the first time I ever laid eyes on him. I don’t know where he’s gone. I don’t know anything about him.”
    The man in her car turned his head, his mask askew and said, “I saw you kissing the life back into him last night.”
    “That was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! I never saw him before,” Grace insisted. “I’d have done the same for anyone.”
    “Why did you follow him out there if you didn’t know him?”
    “I didn’t! I was out for a walk. I just found him in the stream.”
    The Queen Mother said slyly, “Teach you to mind your own business then, won’t it?”
    “She knows him all right,” the dog mask interrupted triumphantly, holding aloft Grace’s copy of Walker’s Britain . “His address is scribbled here.” He indicated the flyleaf where Grace had jotted down Peter Fox’s address.
    Both masks turned accusingly to Grace. She said helplessly, “I don’t know him.”
    The Queen Mother uttered an ugly chuckle. “That’s your story, you stick to it. I suppose you don’t know anything about gewgaws either?”
    This can’t be happening, Grace thought dizzily. I’m dreaming . The rain pattering on her face, bouncing off the cars, soaking the ground where they stood told her she wasn’t.
    “Nothing in here,” the man in the car continued, rifling the contents of Grace’s shoulder bag. He pulled out her passport. “Grace Hollister, thirty-three. She’s American.” He made a sound of contempt.
    “Save the inventory,” barked the Queen Mother. “Fox won’t have left the stuff with her.” He jerked his head toward the van. “Come ahead, we can’t stand about all day. Someone’s liable to come by.” He reached out a massive, gloved fist, and Grace shrank back.
    Grabbing Grace’s braid, he hauled her face up to his plastic one. The Queen Mother’s face smiled benignly, at odds with the threats issuing through the molded lips. “Listen up, ducks, you do what I tell you and maybe you won’t get hurt.”
    “What do you need her for?” objected the hound dog.
    Blue eyes shifted briefly from Grace’s. “Use your loaf,” he snarled. “We’ll trade her for the gewgaws.”
    “Fox won’t go for that.”
    “He’d better.” The mask turned back to Grace. “For your sake.”
    “You’re making a mistake,” Grace got out desperately.
    Neither man listened. The Queen Mother shoved Grace forward toward the van.
    In less than a minute Grace found herself facedown on the grease-stained carpet in the back of the van. She could hear the mini’s engine gunning as the van doors slammed shut. Rain rattled on the metal roof.
    “Keep your head down,” the Queen Mother ordered, settling in behind the