Free A Masquerade of Muertos (Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries Book 5) by Patrice Greenwood Page A

pergola draped in wisteria. I drew a deep breath scented with rain and green and let it out in a contented sigh.
    From the corner of my eye another glimpse of light snagged my attention. It was gone by the time I turned my head to look. The way it appeared and disappeared was familiar.
    Frowning, I walked slowly to the center of the garden, again looking for anything metal or glass that could have produced such a light. There were no fireflies in New Mexico, except in very rare places up in the mountains, and in any case the light didn’t look like a firefly. It looked like sunlight, reflected from...what? 
    I had seen it before, I knew. But not here. The memory teased at the edge of my awareness, just out of reach.
    I stood at the crossing of two paths and turned in a slow circle, surrounded by rosebushes and peonies, with a riot of thyme, mustard, and sage at their feet. The nearest shiny surface was a one of the patio tables, at least five yards away. It wasn’t reflecting anything.
    There wasn’t much to reflect.
    Looking up, I saw the sky was quickly filling. The puffy white clouds I’d seen minutes before had gone gray and ominous. A distant rumble growled among the peaks, warning of the storm to come. Time to go home and curl up with a cup of tea.
    One final look around, turning in a circle again, this time focusing on the building. What had been the Hidalgo hacienda now housed more than a dozen shops. The garden was lush and romantic, and seemed almost to be trying to climb to the sky. Vines of honeysuckle twined around the pillars of the interior portals , and big baskets of flowers hung from the second story addition.
    It was wrong for the period, that change, but it had been done so long ago that it was now a part of the place. Like so much of Santa Fe, Hidalgo Plaza had been reinvented, probably more than once. The upper floor fit, even though it was odd. A lot of it was private, but on the west side it housed shops, with stairs accessing it at either end made of big, heavy beams of wood, stained the ubiquitous dark brown of all the exposed wooden pillars and beams.
    The light gleamed from the upper story, right between two pillars.
    With a little gasp of frustration I glanced at the sky. The sun was hidden. The light must have come from another source.
    There was nothing across from there to cast a light. The second story on the east side was featureless except for a few small windows.
    A car headlight, maybe?
    It was a long shot, but the only other thing I could think of was someone standing on one of the rooftops with a flashlight—an even longer shot. I turned to gaze again at the space where I had seen the light gleam. Maybe someone upstairs had lit a cigarette.
    Wrong kind of light, I thought as I climbed the stairs. I walked to where the light had appeared, hoping to find a shop window, maybe with one of those intense halogen accent lights inside. Instead, there was a blank wall between the two pillars. To one side was a shoe shop, to the other a soap place that smelled so strongly of lavender I didn’t have the fortitude to go in.
    Frustrated, I looked out over the plaza, stepping to the wooden railing, which was far too low for current safety rules. I felt a moment’s vertigo and took a step back.
    Maybe it was all the dark wood, coupled with the storm clouds. Maybe it was remembering Maria’s sad story—she had never married, and I suspected it was because she had been forbidden by her family to marry her true love, Captain Dusenberry—that made me shiver with a wave of sorrow.
    Home. I wanted to be home, with a fire and a pot of tea and a book that would take me away from the real world and promise me a happy ending.
    Hurrying down the stairs, I didn’t slow until I reached the ground. A more overt crack of thunder quickened my pace again as I turned west, and by the time I stepped out from beneath the portal it had begun to rain.
    I tugged on my hat and deployed my umbrella, hastening past