Moonlight Masquerade Read Online Free PDF Page A

mother, she’d only scoffed. “You’re a dreamer, Sophie. I mean, look at the facts. You go to college but what do you study? Art! What use is that? Why didn’t you learn something that could get you a job? Be a doctor or a lawyer, or at least work for one.” Again, Sophie had no reply to give her.
    Her mother died two days before Sophie graduated from college, and she ran home for the funeral. When she got there, she saw her stepfather leering at her pretty little sister. Sophie decided to stay for the summer, but she never left. Until now.
    She walked to the other side of the car and openedthe door, but paused before even touching the big envelope. Did she really have it in her possession? The book? The one the whole Treeborne empire was based on? Were there police after her? She had her laptop with her, but she hadn’t checked the Internet. Her cheap phone had no Web connection, so she didn’t know what was going on. Would federal agents be brought in? If so, how far back would they look to find out where Sophie was? There’d been no contact between her and Kim since college graduation, so they wouldn’t find calls to Edilean.
    Sophie shut the car door and told herself that she had to return the book. She’d go to Edilean and send the package back to Carter. Maybe if they got the book back he’d drop the pursuit. If there was one.
    She got into the driver’s side and turned the key, but nothing happened. Dead. “Like my life,” Sophie muttered. Whereas before she’d thought the surrounding countryside was lovely, now it looked scary. She was down a gravel road that stopped just a few feet ahead, blocked from view of the main highway. It would soon be dark, and if she stayed in the car she’d never be found.
    She looked at her cell phone. No signal. She went outside, walked around, holding her phone aloft, but there wasn’t even a hint of a signal.
    There was only one thing to do: walk. She opened the trunk and rummaged through bags and boxes until she found her running shoes. Not that she ever ran. She was not very athletic. In the last few years, the most she did was walk from her desk to the water-cooler.
    She removed her pretty gold sandals, put on some ankle socks, and tied on her big shoes. She pulled out a pink cardigan to wear over her summer dress. It was going to get cool before she reached Edilean. She went to the front, got her handbag, and at last picked up the big envelope. She’d left her tote bag hanging on a kitchen chair, so she didn’t have anything to carry it in.
    She tried starting the car again, but nothing happened, so she locked it and walked back on the gravel road to the highway. The shade of the trees had become deeper so that it was almost dark. A burst of wind rustled the leaves, and Sophie pulled her sweater closer. When she heard a car coming down the road, she instinctively stepped back into the shadows and waited for it to pass. Every horror story of hitchhikers and the mass murderers who picked them up went through her head.
    After the car passed, she started walking again and telling herself she was being ridiculous. According to Kim, Edilean was the safest place on earth. Nothing bad ever happened there. Well, except for some major robberies in the last few years that Sophie had read about online, but it was better not to think about those.
    Two more cars went by, and each time Sophie stayed under the trees and waited. “At this rate I’ll never get there,” she said aloud and shuddered as she had a vision of walking along the road at midnight. Every few minutes she stepped onto the pavement and checked her phone, but there was still no signal. But then, she hadn’t gone even a mile from her car.
    She was so absorbed in maneuvering her phonearound that she didn’t hear the approaching car. It had come around a curve, headlights glaring, and for a second Sophie felt like a deer mesmerized by the