Sarah shook her head. “He could keep a woman if that’s what he wanted. I’m sure his father would provide for him if he knew the alternative was to have him consorting with the trash he’d consider these girls to be.”

“Maybe this is his way of rebelling. Maybe he hopes you’ll go back and tell everyone you saw him here. Maybe he wants to embarrass his family.”

Sarah didn’t know what Dirk’s motives were, and she really didn’t care, but she did know she could learn a lot from him. But not when Malloy was around. She’d have to seek him out when she got back to the city.

“Well, Malloy, since you cost me a chance to find out something from Dirk, you have to take me on the Shoot-the-Chutes.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Or are you going to make me go alone?”

“What would you want to go on that thing for?” He stared at the contraption in horror as yet another boat came splashing down into the artificial lagoon.

“I want to find out everything I can about Gerda Reinhard’s last days, and on the last Sunday of her life, she rode on that ride. Now, are you coming or do I have to find another escort?”

He opened his mouth, ready with another argument, but Sarah beat him to it.

“You’re not afraid, are you?” she challenged.

Of course he was, but he’d die before he admitted it. Sarah knew that, and she managed not to grin with triumph when he grabbed her elbow and determinedly steered her toward the line of people waiting to board the boats.

He was muttering something under his breath, and Sarah chose not to hear. It was easier than getting into ah argument. She could sympathize with his fear of mechanical contraptions. She wasn’t overly fond of them herself, but she was terribly curious to learn what Dirk had meant about the thrills on the first part of the ride.

They waited the better part of half an hour before they were handed into a boat. Malloy nearly upset the thing when he climbed in beside her, but the water was so shallow that truly upsetting was actually impossible.

“Easy there, sir,” the young boy assisting them cautioned, helping Malloy sit down on the seat beside her. They were crowded in with their knees pressing against the people on the seat in front of them and the knees of those behind them pressing against their backs.

Malloy shot her a reproachful look, but she simply smiled serenely.

When everyone was seated, the boat started with a jerk, and Sarah realized it was being propelled by some sort of motorized pulley device. They glided down the chute, and the next thing they knew, their boat was swallowed up by a tunnel.

“So this is what he meant!” Sarah whispered to Malloy as the darkness enveloped them.

In the sudden silence of the tunnel, where they were shielded from the raucous noises of the rest of the park, they could hear the sounds of rustling clothing and provocative giggling and even the smack of lips as the other couples in the boat took advantage of the momentary privacy for some hasty petting.

“If that’s all you wanted to know, I could’ve told you,” Malloy said, the disgust evident in his voice. “We didn’t have to get on this cursed thing.”

“At least try to enjoy yourself, Malloy,” she chided.

Just then the couple in front of them nearly toppled into their laps, and by the time they were all untangled, amid much giggling and cursing, the boat was emerging into the daylight again.

The couples discreetly stopped kissing, but they kept their arms around each other as the boat began to travel upward at an increasingly steep angle.

“Oh, my,” Sarah said as the ground fell away and the boat seemed to be going almost straight up into the air.

“I tried to warn you,” Malloy reminded her as she instinctively clutched at his arm for support, but by then she was too distracted to take offense.

What had she been thinking? This was insane! She could be killed! She most certainly would be killed! This flimsy boat would never withstand the impact she knew it would take when it went plummeting down the chute to splash into the water below. Malloy was right, but she would never have the opportunity to tell him so because suddenly the whole world was tipping over, and they were going down and down and down, faster and faster, until a scream was literally ripped from her throat, and she thought her very heart must be torn out with it. And just when she thought she couldn’t bear it another second, the boat hit the water with an impact that sent them slamming into their seats. The spray of water showered them, and then it was over, and they were gliding safely, surely to the shore, where men with grappling hooks were waiting to pull the boat in so they could disembark.

Only then did Sarah realize that in her terror she had thrown her arms around Malloy and that she was still clinging to him desperately.

“Oh!” she cried, mortified, and released him at once, except she couldn’t exactly release him because he was clinging to her, too, in equal desperation.

But his reaction was only an instant later than hers, and they sprang guiltily apart, or at least as far apart as they could get in the crowded boat. For a moment their gazes locked and they shared their mutual embarrassment, but a moment was all they could stand. They looked away, up or down or anywhere but at each other.

Good heavens, what had come over her? Sarah wasn’t clingy or helpless or at all the kind of woman to clutch at a man for anything. Or at least she wasn’t in the normal course of her life. The normal course of her life had not, until now, involved a terrifying plummet down a water-filled chute to what felt like certain and imminent death, however. That, apparently, changed her into a quivering mass of feminine weakness.

And it had turned Malloy into a quivering mass of male weakness, too, it seemed. He was the first one out of the boat when the attendant had secured it to the wooden wharf, and he let the attendant help her out, too. Which suited Sarah fine. She didn’t feel quite ready to have Malloy’s hands on her again.

She immediately changed her mind, however, when she discovered that her knees were trembling as she made her way toward the exit. She could have used a steady arm to support her, but one look at Malloy’s expression told her not even to consider it.

“That was certainly an experience, wasn’t it?” she managed, hoping her voice didn’t sound as breathless as she was afraid it did.

Malloy didn’t bother to respond.

Luckily, there was a vacant bench nearby, and Sarah and Malloy both plopped down on it. For a few moments they just sat there, staring at the people walking by. Sarah was waiting for her heart rate to return to normal, and she supposed Malloy was doing the same.

Finally, he said, “I hope you know who the killer is now, because I don’t think I can survive any more of this investigation.”

Sarah looked at him in amazement, but then she saw the glint of amusement in his dark eyes and realized he was teasing her. Malloy was teasing her! She knew it wasn’t funny, but she had an irresistible urge to laugh, and before she could stop herself she was laughing, and then Malloy was laughing, too. Or chuckling at least. And shaking his head and chuckling some more. She had never seen him laugh. It was so amazing, she laughed even harder, until she had to wipe the tears from her eyes and take some deep breaths to compose herself.

“Oh, Malloy, I’m sorry I put you through that,” she said when she could speak again. “I had no idea it would be so frightening. Everybody looked like they were having such a good time!”

“You thought they were screaming because it was so much fun?” he asked skeptically.

He had a point, but she didn’t give it to him. “And I’m sorry I behaved so… so foolishly. Clinging to you the way I did,” she added with chagrin when his look grew puzzled.