Free Something Wicked by Carolyn G. Hart

a most unlikely recruit.
    With a shade of impatience, the writer said, “You know, the books with Roosevelt as the detective:
The Big Stick
and
Speak Softly
by Lawrence Alexander.”
    In her relief, Annie nodded excitedly. “Oh, sure. Certainly. Yes.
Those
books. Yes, I will. As soon as possible.”
    She was aware, as she backed away, smiling and waving, that Emma was studying her with renewed interest. She wondered if she would appear in Emma’s next book as a young entrepreneur suffering a nervous breakdown.
    She struggled back toward the French windows. Max, if he ever returned with libations, would surely seek her in that area. She found the statue of Pan and leaned against it, lost in thought.
    If the objective was to ruin the season, why was play number two apparently immune?
    Were she and Max off on the wrong foot entirely? Was disruption of the summer season not the point of the sabotage? Was the animus directed simply and solely toward the cast and crew, or perhaps the director, of
Arsenic?
But the sabotage hadn’t stopped rehearsals. The major result had been a lack of cohesion, a sense of unease among the cast and crew members, like corralled horses who have heard the unmistakable
thu-rumm
of a rattler and know he’s out theresomewhere. Could that generally nervous atmosphere be the point of all the petty tricks? It scarcely seemed worth the effort. Of course, the most recent irritant, the inclusion of the
Macbeth
quote, had certainly affected Sam. But why would anyone want to devil the high-strung, emotional director? Maybe the same kind of person who liked to pull the wings off butterflies.
    Then a passing figure caught her eye. She strained to see better. What the hell was Henny Brawley up to now?
    No one else appeared to be paying the slightest attention to Henny, and that demonstrated just how much everybody, except Annie, had had to drink, because Henny was strikingly noticeable. She now appeared to have a quantity of mousey brown hair tinged with gray that was drawn back in a bun, the whole, including an Alexandra fringe of bangs, quite firmly controlled by a net. She wore a substantial hat with a mass of ribbons at the back and a clump of forget-me-nots and pansies on the left side. A pale complexion. Only the fox-sharp nose couldn’t be tamed. But there was no mistaking, Annie felt sure, the smooth, controlled passage of Miss Maud Silver.
    And she might as well have stalked across the floor with a magnifying glass held high, she was so obviously in pursuit of someone.
    Annie stood on tiptoe. Across the room, Max stood in a four-deep line at the bar. She whirled just in time to see Henny slip through the French windows and out onto the terrace.
    Of course, she wouldn’t be drawn. It was just Henny playing sleuth.
    But why had she gone out on the terrace?
    Annie took a few steps toward the French windows. After all, it wouldn’t hurt a thing just to take a peek. And the blare of the trumpets and the thick haze of tobacco smoke
were
wearing. Really, it was awfully hot. She slipped out onto the terrace, welcoming the cool, fresh air tinged with unmistakable dampness from the nearby lagoon. Lights in the southern red cedars danced on the dark water. Where had Henny gone? Annie started down wooden steps. The cattails along the lagoon wavered in the night breeze, and the willows rustled.She had almost reached the base of the steps when she realized there was an embracing couple in the gazebo at the foot of the slope. Tactfully, she turned and began to climb. Midway, a dark shape brushed past her. Was that Henny? She stopped. No, there was a darker shade near a tall planter’s vase at the edge of the terrace, and she saw a flicker of moonlight on straw. Henny’s hat. So who was she watching? Then the figure that had passed Annie reached the wash of light from the windows. Janet Horton stopped on the terrace and pressed her hands against her eyes. Even in the diffused light, Annie could see the trembling