Key Trilogy Read Free Page B

cheek when she smiled.
    “I’m Dana. Dana Steele.”
    “Malory Price. Nice to meet you. Great jacket.”
    “Thanks. I was pretty relieved when I saw you drive up. It’s a hell of a place, but I was getting a little spooked rattling around by myself. It’s nearly quarter after.” She tapped the face of her watch. “You’d think some of the other guests would be here by now.”
    “Where’s the woman who met me at the door? Rowena?”
    Dana pursed her lips as she glanced back toward the archway. “She glides in and out, looking gorgeous and mysterious. I’m told our host will be joining us shortly.”
    “Who is our host?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine. Haven’t I seen you?” Dana added. “In the Valley?”
    “Possibly. I manage The Gallery.” For the time being, she thought.
    “That’s it. I’ve come to a couple of showings there. And sometimes I just wander in and look around avariciously. I’m at the library. A reference librarian.”
    They both turned as Rowena walked in. Though glided in, Malory thought, was a better description.
    “I see you’ve introduced yourselves. Lovely. What can I get you to drink, Miss Price?”
    “I’ll have what she’s having.”
    “Perfect.” Even as she spoke, a uniformed maid camein bearing two flutes on a silver tray. “Please help yourselves to the canapés and make yourselves at home.”
    “I hope the weather isn’t keeping your other guests away,” Dana put in.
    Rowena merely smiled. “I’m sure everyone who’s expected will be here shortly. If you’ll excuse me just another moment.”
    “Okay, this is just weird.” Dana picked a canapé at random, discovered it was a lobster puff. “Delicious, but weird.”
    “Fascinating.” Malory sipped her champagne and trailed her fingers over a bronze sculpture of a reclining faerie.
    “I’m still trying to figure out why I got an invitation.” Since they were there, and so was she, Dana sampled another canapé. “No one else at the library got one. No one else I know got one, for that matter. I’m starting to wish I’d talked my brother into coming with me after all. He’s got a good bullshit barometer.”
    Malory found herself grinning. “You don’t sound like any librarian I’ve ever known. You don’t look like one either.”
    “I burned all my Laura Ashley ten years ago.” Dana gave a little shrug. Restless, moving toward irritated, she tapped her fingers on the crystal flute. “I’m going to give this about ten more minutes, then I’m booking.”
    “If you go, I go. I’d feel better heading back into that storm if I drove to the Valley behind someone else.”
    “Same goes.” Dana frowned toward the window, watched the rain beat on the other side of the glass. “Crappy night. And it was an extremely crappy day. Driving all the way here and back in this mess for a couple of glasses of wine and some canapés just about caps it.”
    “You too?” Malory wandered toward a wonderful painting of a masked ball. It made her think of Paris, though she’d never been there except in her dreams. “I only came tonight in hopes of making some contacts forThe Gallery. Job insurance,” she added, lifting her glass in a mock toast. “As my job is currently in a very precarious state.”
    “Mine too. Between budget cuts and nepotism, my position was ‘adjusted,’ my hours trimmed back to twenty-five a week. How the hell am I supposed to live on that? And my landlord just announced that my rent’s going up first of next month.”
    “There’s a rattle in my car—and I spent my auto-maintenance budget on these shoes.”
    Dana looked down, pursed her lips. “Terrific shoes. My computer crashed this morning.”
    Enjoying herself, Malory turned away from the painting and raised a brow at Dana. “I called my boss’s new wife a bimbo and then spilled latte on her designer suit.”
    “Okay, you win.” In the spirit of good fellowship, Dana stepped over and clinked her glass against