Mrs. Myers—Mitzi—blinked at her. “The truth,” she said.
“All right. The veil you wore led to an unhappy marriage, and you’ve been a widow for a very long time.” She looked up at the woman, her eyes full of apology. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Myers, I’m just telling you what I see. It doesn’t seem that your husband was a nice man.”
When the woman said nothing, just kept staring at Sara, she almost chickened out. She tapped a card. “But you’ve had love in your life with another man. He was young and very handsome.” Sara smiled as sweetly as she could. “Was your description of moonlight rides from your own past?”
The woman said nothing.
Sara looked back at the cards. “But something happened to your young man. His future is cloudy.”
The woman leaned forward a bit, as though she were intrigued.
“But wait. There’s another love in your life. There’s a child. A boy? A girl?” She looked to the woman for an answer.
Mitzi leaned back against the chair and Sara was afraid she was losing interest. “You’re the fortune-teller, dear, not me.”
Sara looked back down. “This child is very desirable to the opposite sex and you’re glad of that, but it also causes you many problems.”
Again, the woman was silent.
“Ah. Here. This card.” She touched one. “It seems that you have a goal in life. You want something because it will give you …” She frowned a bit, as though concentrating. “Peace. Freedom. Yes, whatever it is that you want, if you find it, you will be given the peace you so greatly desire.”
“You are such a clever young woman,” Mrs. Myers said, then began to cough. “Excuse me.” She coughe
d some more. “The hazards of getting older. I hate to trouble you, dear, but could you possibly run next door and get me some water?”
She wants to steal a deck of cards, Sara thought as she stood up, her eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to think of what to do. “Find Mike” was the first thought in her mind, but how did she do that without leaving this woman? What if she slipped a deck or two into her purse then ran out? Maybe she’d never be found again—and it would be Sara’s fault that she was lost.
“Certainly,” Sara said as she went through the curtain at the back of the tent. She stuck her head outside. “Mr. Lang!” she hissed. “I need you.” The man didn’t appear. Sara stepped inside and looked through the curtain to see Mrs. Myers just sitting there, giving Sara time to leave.
She looked up at the seam where the fabric walls joined the tent. There was a line of braid along the ridge, and she figured that the camera lenses were hidden in it. She raised her fist and turned around, then made another swirl and used both arms to gesture that someone was to come and help her.
She glanced back into the main part of the tent and Mrs. Myers was still sitting there, her glasses on the end of her nose. She’d picked up the deck that Sara had been using and was going over them. Sara drew in her breath. In the next second she was going to see Greg’s face and she was going to know what was going on.
“Where’s Mike?”
Startled, Sara turned around to see Ariel standing in the back opening of the tent.
“Mike?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, the guy you hang on to like he’s about to drown. He’s disappeared. I saw him walking around with some stranger, a really gorgeous guy. The way that man moved made me … But anyway, now we can’t find Mike, and the next battles are about to start. Think he’s afraid of a rematch with my brothers?”
Sara peeped through the curtain again, and Mrs. Myers was dropping three decks of cards into her bag. Since it looked like no one was going to show up to save her, Sara knew she had to act instantly or Mitzi Vandlo was going to get away. If she escaped, everything that had been set up to catch the woman would come to nothing.
Ariel was in the costume of a rich medieval woman. A piece of white silk was attached to her little velvet cap and extended down across her neck.
Reaching out, Sara gave a strong yank and pulled it off.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m catching a criminal,” Sara said and looked through the curtain. Mrs. Myers was getting up. In another minute she’d be outside. Sara threw back the curtain, made a running leap, and landed on the woman, knocking her to the ground.
“Have you lost your mind?” Ariel asked from behind her.
Sara was lying full on top of the woman and she was working hard to shove the cloth from Ariel’s headdress into Mitzi’s mouth before she could cry out. “She’s a thief and probably a murderer,” Sara said as she wrestled with her. “And if Mike is missing, then she’s—Ow!” The woman had tried to bite her. Sara straddled her, holding her down. “If Mike isn’t here, his disappearance has to do with her son.”
Ariel was watching Sara sitting on top of what seemed to be an old woman, but from the strength of the struggle, she wasn’t that old. “Is Anders her son?” Ariel asked, her eyes wide in shock.
“Yes! The man that you knew was bed hopping with half the town, but you didn’t even warn me about, is her son. And they’re both wanted by everyone, police, FBI, Secret Service. They are major criminals.”