Masquerade Read Free

fusillade ripped through the condo, smashing wood, glass, plaster. Then Gordon was beside her. He pulled a pistol from inside his shirt and another from beneath the sofa. He shoved one into her hand. It was huge. An automatic, she thought.
    How did she know it was an automatic
?
    â€œTake it!” he ordered.
    She stared. “I don’t know how to—”
    â€œYes, you do. Take it!”
    She grabbed the gun. It felt . . . familiar.
    Who was she
?

Chapter 2
    Suddenly there was silence. Plaster dust rained down from the ceiling. A shard of window glass shattered to the floor. Tension was electric.
    Then another fusillade blasted through the broken windows.
    Gordon’s voice was tight. “They’re shooting from across the street, keeping us down. They—”
    â€œWhy, Gordon? Who are they? Who are we? Who—”
    An explosion rocked the condominium.
    â€œLiz! Watch—”
    The front door blew across the room, splintering chairs and a table. Three men burst through the gaping door frame. Gordon rose to a crouch, firing. One man fell back through the doorway. The two others dove right and left into the room, returned fire with a burst of bullets that ripped the couch.
    â€œLiz!”
    She held the big automatic, watched as the man on the right crawled rapidly out of view. He was on his elbows, a stubby black weapon with a short barrel and a hand-hold sticking out its side cradled in the crook of his arm. She turned as he came around the couch. He looked straight into her eyes. His face was bland, expressionless, topped by slicked-back brown hair.
    He raised to his knees, the black weapon aimed directly at her heart. In seconds she’d be dead—
    She pulled her trigger.
    The gun bucked in her hands and she felt pain inside her. She was dead . . . she was . . . staring at the man on his knees as his chest turned red and his mouth poured red and he was thrown backward like a rag doll into the wall and—
    Other men swarmed into the room and knocked over the third gunman.
    â€œLook after Gordon!” someone shouted.
    Liz turned again. Gordon lay collapsed on the floor behind her. Blood covered him. Hands lifted her up, pulled her toward the doorway.
    â€œGordon!”
    â€œWe’ll take care of him. Come on. Quick! Now!”
    She was in the hall and being half-pulled, half-carried to the service stairs at the rear. She resisted, fought.
    â€œChrist, we’re friends, Sansborough!”
    â€œNo time to explain it. Just bring her!”
    Three of them wrestled her down the stairs and out to a waiting car. They shoved her in. Two new men pinned her there. The door closed, and the car screeched off in a stink of burning rubber. It turned up Micheltorena Street.
    Another car was slewed across the street as they passed. Bullet holes riddled it.
    Men ran to a third car as sirens blared. Police cars raced up Garden Street, heading toward her condo.
    The car in which she was a passenger dove into the maze of small streets on the Riviera, climbed steep hills, and plunged across a long ridge and then down into a valley. She had no idea where she was. She and Gordon had never come this way.
    Finally they stopped at a house hidden up a deserted canyon. The men hustled her inside to a room with a bed and desk. The door closed, and she heard it lock. There were bars on the windows.
    Shadows spread long and inky across the small room. She had been sitting there for what seemed hours, her stomach roiling. How badly was Gordon hurt?
    What about the bland-faced man with the slicked-back brownhair and the bloodied chest and mouth? Had she killed him?
    And who were they, these men who said they were friends?
    Did “friends” lock you in a room alone?
    They had saved her from the attackers in the condo, and they knew Gordon. Or at least his name. But—
    She heard the door being unlocked and a man came in. He was older, thin, with graying hair and a kindly face. He carried