“You don’t get it,” Jennifer said. “They’re serving pink champagne. Excuse me, rosé champagne. That always means someone important is about to show up. It means they’re starting the party.”
“What party?” Sam asked.
“1740 is gathering,” Jennifer said.
Sam gripped the windowsill and peered inside to look at Kate again. She nearly shouted—Kate was sitting on a small sofa next to the young woman Sam had seen in the Range Rover earlier that afternoon, outside Enchanted Petals. Maeve was bent down in front of Kate, holding a painting.
It wasFoggy Night, the wedding present that Kate had bought for Conor. It seemed cruel to show Kate the ruined artwork that had been meant to commemorate her marriage to Conor—was Maeve just rubbing it in her face? Sam wanted to storm into the building to save Kate, but she knew she had to hold herself back.
She and Jennifer hopped down from the planter and began to make their way around the house. It was surrounded by a border of rosebushes. Thorns snagged Sam’s legs, but she kept going. The smell of the roses was strong in the heat of early evening, and along with worry for Kate, it made her feel sick.
“We don’t have a plan,” she said to Jennifer. “We need a way to call for help.”
“That’s not happening,” Jennifer said. “There’s no phone, Sam. We have to get inside and do this ourselves.”
“You just said 1740 is gathering,” Sam said. “How can we go up against all of them?”
Jennifer kept walking, as if she hadn’t heard. The driveway curved behind the house, and Sam saw ten cars parked there. Did they allbelong to staff, or had party guests already arrived? She spotted Crispin’s Range Rover hidden behind a shed; Maeve’s BMW was there too.
Both Sam and Jennifer ducked behind the hedge of roses when a large black Mercedes pulled into the lot. Sam heard one car door open and slam shut; she craned her neck to see who had gotten out, but her view was blocked by foliage. The person must have walked to the front door, because she heard muffled voices as people greeted each other.
Once the voices stopped, Jennifer ran to the back of the house. An air-conditioning unit hummed, masking the sound of hinges creaking as Jennifer pulled open a door that led into a flower room. It was like the one at Cloudlands, a room that existed solely for arranging bouquets of flowers picked from the grounds. Mounds of cut roses lay on the counter; discarded stems and fallen petals littered the floor.
The kitchen was next. Sam smelled something baking and saw trays of small tarts straight out of the oven. There were a tray of glasses and two bottles of champagne—freshly chilled and damp with dew—waiting to be served.
So far, the coast was clear. Sam’s heart was pounding, because she knew that 1740 had convened somewhere in this building, and she had no idea how many there were. Kate was in that room she’d seen from outside, but Sam was convinced that she and Jennifer could get her out of there.
Jennifer walked over to the counter next to the large Viking gas stove and opened a drawer. She pulled out a knife and held it up. Was Jennifer equipping herself, as she had the dolls, to protect herself and Sam?
“I’m not going to stab anyone,” Jennifer said. “But it will keep them back if they try to grab us.”
Sam nodded. She followed Jennifer through a pantry and into a dimly lit hallway. It seemed as if it might have been the servants’ passage, back when the house was built a century or more ago. They passed an open door that led into an empty dining room. As they crept along,the sound of voices grew louder. She heard both men and women, and she recognized Leo’s laugh.
“They’re in the classroom,” Jennifer whispered.
“The one we saw Kate in?” Sam asked.
Jennifer nodded, and Sam closed her eyes for a moment, envisioning the room’s layout. She pictured the door, the windows, the blackboard, the sofa where Kate was sitting with Caroline, and the spot where Maeve had rested the painting.
“I’ll go in first,” Jennifer whispered. “I’ll distract them—tell them that I saw you on the grounds, near the cemetery. They’ll follow me out the front door, and you can help Kate get away.”
“But what if they know you’re lying? They’ll take you ...”
“Don’t worry, Sam,” Jennifer said. “They’ll never hurt me. I promise you that.”
She gave Sam a quick hug and walked into the classroom. Sam held her breath, listening to Jennifer do exactly what she said she was going to do: tell everyone that she had spotted Samantha Lathrop and they could find her in the cemetery. Sam heard a flurry of voices and footsteps, and then it was silent.
She waited thirty seconds, then walked through the doorway of the classroom. Kate was sitting exactly where she had been before, and at the sight of her, Sam let out a cry and held out her arms to her.
Kate shouted, “Run, Sam!”
Sam lurched toward Kate but was stopped when someone grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back. She looked into Leo’s face. His fingers squeezed her shoulder and made her wince. Behind him, she saw Darla, Suzanne, Maeve, Crispin, Lincoln, and another man. Jennifer was with them, and so was Nola Aldrich.
“Sorry, Sam,” Jennifer said, smiling. “I had to bring you here. It was a fun little game, wasn’t it?”
Sam shook herself away from Leo’s grasp. She felt sick and couldn’t bring herself to look at Jennifer. She thought of how she had said to Conor that Kate was too smart and careful to be taken, and look how ithad just happened to both of them—Kate and Sam. Tricked by people they trusted.
“I loved that part at Enchanted Petals, when you looked at the photos on the wall. You were so upset, seeing the Old Detectives,” Jennifer said. “And then I told you my psychologist was one of the people in the picture.”
