Deborah Donnelly - Died to Match (Carnegie Kincaid, Book 2)

My thanks to the usual suspects, and also to some new ones: to Liz for wizardry, to Joanne for writerly camaraderie, and to Julie for her lively support. Thanks to Annie, who bakes a mean cake. Most of all, and always, my love and gratitude to Steve.

M ASKS ARE DANGEROUS . T HE MEREST SCRAP OF SILK OR SLIP of cardboard can eclipse ones civilized identity and set loose the dark side of the soul.

Trust me. You take a pair of perfectly well-behaved newspaper reporters, or software engineers or whatever, dress them up as Spider-Man and a naughty French maid and whammo! Its a whole new ball game.

Which is why this party was getting out of hand. Free drinks can make people crazy, but free costumes make them wild. Two hundred big black envelopes had gone out to Paul and Elizabeths friends and colleagues, inviting them to a Halloween engagement party in the Seattle Aquarium, down at Pier 59 on Elliott Bay. And tucked inside the envelope was a very special party favor: a coupon for the persona of ones choice at Characters, Inc., a theater-quality costume shop.

So tonight, more than a hundred and fifty reasonably civilized people were living out their fantasies among the fishes. And the fantasies were getting rowdy. It all started innocently enough: Madonna flirting with Mozart, Death with his scythe trading stock tips with Nero and his violin, Albert Einstein dirty dancing with Monica Lewinsky. And everyone toasting the engaged couple with affection and good cheer.

Paul Wheeler, the groom-to-be, was news editor at theSeattle Sentinel; he made a skinny, smiley swashbuckler sort of Indiana Jones Lite. His fiance, Elizabeth (not Liz) Lamott, was a tough-minded Microsoft millionaire who had retired at twenty-nine. Dressed as Xena the Warrior Princess, Elizabeth looked drop-dead sexy, and more than capable of beheading barbarian warlords. The Wheeler and Lamott families would all be at the wedding in two weeksan extravaganza at the Experience Music Projectbut tonights bash was more of a coed bachelor party.

And like so many bachelor parties, headed straight to hell. Luke Skywalker was juggling martini glasses, quite unsuccessfully, near Principles of Ocean Survival. A well-tailored Count Dracula had knocked over the sushi trays at Local Invertebrates. Various members of the Spice Girls and Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band were disappearing into the darkened grotto of Pacific Coral Reef and returning with their costumes askew. And at all the liquor stations, masked revelers had begun pushing past the bartenders to pour their own drinksa danger sign even when the crowd is in civvies.

I wasnt wearing a mask, and I certainly wasnt fantasizing, except about keeping my professional cool and getting our damage deposit back from the Aquarium. It was my hands the party was getting out of: Made in Heaven Wedding Design, Carnegie Kincaid, Proprietor. I usually stick to weddings, too, but business had been iffy ever since Id been a suspect in the abduction of one of my brides. Everybody reads the headlines, nobody reads the follow-up, and now my name, besides being weird in the first place, had a little shadow across it in the minds of some potential clients.

So an extra event with an extra commission had been hard to turn down. And the formidable Ms. Lamott had been impossible to turn down. When Elizabeth wanted something, she got it, whether she was launching products for Bill Gates or, more recently, harvesting charity donations from Seattles crop of wealthy thirtysomethings. Elizabeth asked me to manage her engagement party in person, I explained that I really dont do costumes, and suddenly, somehow, there I was in a long jaggedy-hemmed black gown and a crooked-peaked witchs hat, stationed by the champagne at Salmon & People, and reminding my waiters that cleaning broken glass off the floor comes first, no matter how many guests are demanding more booze.

Carnegie!

What? I snapped. Oh, sorry, Lily. Im losing my mind here.

Lily James, my date for the party, was a statuesque black-skinned Cleopatra, rubber snake and all, with her wide eyes and arching brows elaborately painted into an Egyptian mask of gold and indigo. By day, Lily staffed the reference desk at Seattle Public, but tonight she was every inch the voluptuous and commanding Queen of the Nile. Of course, Lily could be voluptuous and commanding in sweatpantsId seen her do it any number of times.

Why was my best friend also my date? Because Id had a spat with Aaron Gold, my who-knows-what. The spat was about Aarons smoking, which I found deplorable and he found to be none of my business. But it went deeper than that. We were teetering on the brink of being lovers, and life on the brink was uncomfortable. At least it was for me; I kept hesitating and analyzing and wondering if we were right for each other. Aarons view was that we could analyze just as easily lying down.

Aaron was at the party, of course. All of the Sentinels reporters were there, gleefully adding to the pandemonium. I could see a laughing, breathless bunch of them now, escorting Paul and Elizabeth up the tunnel from the Underwater Dome room, where the dancing was. As they headed for the martini bar, Aaron put his arm around Corinne Campbell, the papers society writer. A handsome couple: he was quite dashing in a Zorro mask and cape, and she made a blonde, bosomy Venus in a filmy white gown crisscrossed with silver cords.

I knew Corinne professionallyshe often wrote about my bridesand Id been seeing more of her now that she was one of Elizabeths bridesmaids. She wasnt the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she could be pleasant enough, in an overeager kind of way. Especially to men. I bet she found the scent of cigarettes manly and exciting.