Page 81 of Daring in a Blue Dress
“Get an effing grip on yourself,” I hissed, spinning around to fire a really first-class glare at her. “Go sleep it off if you have to, but stop making a scene. Oh, great, now Alden’s in the ring and I didn’t have time to give him a good-luck kiss, even. Thanks a lot, Lisa.”
“But the men are in the cave!” screeched Lisa, her voice carrying across the sound of the armor clanking, and the crowd chatting and getting ready to cheer their favorites on.
At that moment, something odd happened.
The men in the list had been arranged loosely in groups of five, and were just taking up their positions. Vandal had created a group with himself, Alden, and a couple of his other top students, while some of the other students formed up their own group. The rest of the groups consisted of the combatants who had come just for the event, leaving about ten distinct clusters of men dotted around the list.
Suddenly, the group of five that consisted of Barry and his buddies took off at a run. A slow run, a shambling run, one that kind of reminded me of zombies lumbering after fresh meat, but still, a run.
Away from the melee.
“Well, that’s odd,” I said to Lisa, but she was gone.
A whistle blew, and some of the men in the list shouted at the group that had run off. I hustled around to where Fenice was standing, shading her eyes with her good hand as she stared after Barry’s group.
“What’s going on?” I asked, coming to a stop next to her. “Why are they leaving? That’s not part of the combat, is it?”
“No, and I don’t know what they’re up to. Looks like Patrick is talking to one of the judges about it.”
Alden had been standing with Vandal as the latter spoke to the three judges that monitored the fighting, but after a minute’s conversation, he suddenly pulled off his helm, and ran after Barry’s group.
“Now Alden’s left!” Fenice said, swearing under her breath. “What is going on out there? Patrick!”
“The cave,” I said, thinking over what Lisa had said.
“What?” Fenice didn’t even look at me. She was waving her good arm, trying to catch Patrick’s attention.
“Lisa was bent out of shape about the investigators going into the cave. She was... it was like she was warning me.”
“Why would she do that?” Fenice froze as the words left her lips.
“But she wasn’t warningme,” I said, sorting through pieces that were slowly sliding into place. “She was warning someone else.”
“Bloody hell.” Fenice jumped over one of the bales of hay, and ran out to where Patrick was still talking to the judges.
I stood watching the scene for a few seconds; then Iwas running, racing through the crowd, dodging people and chairs and bales of hay as I gained speed, breaking free of the garden and hitting the gravel drive. Alden was about a hundred yards ahead of me, and beyond him, I could see the five figures who were heading straight for the wooden staircase that descended to the beach.
“She wasn’t warning me,” I yelled to Alden as I caught up to him. “She was warning Barry. Her husband! Barry is her husband!”
“They’re in it together,” Alden said, puffing, his face red with exertion. “You were right all along—they were manufacturing drugs in the passages.”
“Or in the cave. You want me to help you take off some of that armor?”
“No,” he puffed, charging forward. We could see the wooden structure that was the top of the zigzagging stairs that led down to the beach proper. “Need it for fight.”
“What fight? You’re not going to fight Barry, are you? Alden, you are not a medieval knight! There are cops here!”
“Just in case,” he said, gasping as we reached the top of the stairs.
The cliff was such that the stairs had four flights to get down to the beach, and since I wasn’t carrying around one hundred extra pounds of metal strapped to my body, I dashed ahead of Alden, leaping down the steps with the speed—although not the grace—of a gazelle in full flight.
Down the beach thirty or so yards, Barry disappeared into the cave, his men at his heels.
“If the cops are already there, they’ll arrest Barry,” I yelled back over my shoulder at Alden.
“Possibly. But they might not be there yet,” he answered.
“Lisa seemed to think they were,” I said, jumping the last five feet to the rocky beach, and immediately turning my ankle. “Oh, bloody effing hell, this is the last thing I need.”
