Damsels In Distress by Joan Hess

Author:Joan Hess
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Lanya buried her face in her hands. Anderson stared at her, then went around the table and pulled Julius aside. The fairies and pirates melted away into the audience, leaving Edward alone in the staging area. His face gnarled with anguish, he crumpled to the ground and hugged his knees. Fiona looked as if she might do the same, but she grabbed the back of a chair and managed to stay on her feet.

“Dead?” Benny said to me, his voice so low I could barely hear him. “What happened to him?”

“How would I know?”

“You think he’s really dead? Is this supposed to be a joke?”

Glynnis glared at him. “If it is, it’s in very bad taste.”

“Oh, yes,” William added, nodding emphatically. “Very bad taste.”

The three of them seemed to expect me to explain the situation. I shrugged, then got up and joined Anderson and Julius. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Julius said. He looked away and gulped several times as if trying to hold back a gush of acid. Each time his eyes bulged like those of a bullfrog. I inched backward and prayed I would be out of range. He finally rallied enough control to continue. “I was behind the tent, talking to the caterer. One of the students—I don’t know his name—came up and told me that he’d gone down past the archery range to…ah, relieve himself, because the toilets here have been used all day. I couldn’t argue with that since I"—he stopped himself-”anyway, he saw a body on the ground.”

“Is the student sure it was Salvador—and that he was dead?” asked Anderson.

“The kid swears it was.” Julius gulped again, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “There was a lot of blood, he said, and no doubt that Salvador was dead.”

I frowned. “Some kind of accident?”

It took Julius several seconds to answer. “It wasn’t an accident, unless Salvador found a way to smash the back of his own head with an ax.”

“Oh, God,” Anderson said, shuddering. “You have a cell phone?”

“Not on me, but I told the caterer to call 911. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to throw up.”

Julius went back around the edge of the tent. Anderson and I looked at each other, then he said, “I’d better go find the caterer and call the police myself. They may need directions.” He stopped as Lanya began to wail once again. “I don’t know what to do. I guess I ought to say something so we won’t have a stampede. How could this happen? I feeling like a blithering idiot. What should I say?”

I squeezed his arm. “Announce that there’s been an accident, and everybody needs to stay here until the police arrive. Have the servers refill the pitchers. And please see if you can calm down Lanya. I’ll make the call.”

Benny and the Threets were already hovering over her. Anderson pushed them aside and knelt next to her. Fiona had disappeared, although I doubted she was holding Julius’s head over a bucket.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.