Millie arrived. Minutes later, I was strapped in and being glared at by an angry poodle because I’d gotten to ride shotgun. I didn’t care. Threats from a pampered pet weren’t on my current priority list.
Larry and Devlyn must have gotten the texts that I sent en route because they were waiting for me in the lobby when I stepped through the doors. Devlyn barely glanced at me as I crossed the tan tiled floor and announced, “We have to pull out of the competition. And we have to do it now.”
Chapter 16
Larry and Devlyn looked at me as if I’d sprouted feathers and was clucking like a chicken.
“Are you kid-d-d-ding?” Larry choked out. “We have parents arriving tonight. We can’t just leave. What would everyone think?”
“That we believe their children’s safety is more important than winning a show choir competition.” I looked from Larry to Devlyn. The anger I saw in his eyes took my breath away. Turning back to a sputtering Larry, I explained, “I just talked to a detective with the Nashville Police Department. She said LuAnn’s death was no longer being ruled an accident. They think she was targeted.”
Color drained from Larry’s face. “B-b-but that doesn’t m-m-mean she was attacked because of the comp-p-petition. Maybe someone wanted her jewelry.”
Mugging by vehicular homicide wasn’t exactly the easiest way to score glitters. Although, LuAnn’s missing purse made the theory sound less ridiculous than it otherwise might have. Still . . .
“Christine McCann is missing.”
Larry’s mouth dropped open, and the anger simmering in Devlyn’s eyes faded.
Well, that had gotten their attention. Since I had it, I hurried to explain. “After you both got on the bus, I talked to the staff of the competition. No one can find Christine. She isn’t answering her phone. No one wanted to say it, but I could tell they were worried something bad had happened.”
“Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. I don’t want to pull the kids out of the competition, not after all their hard work. But if there’s a chance they’re in danger . . .” Larry pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to call Christine. Maybe her staff forgot that she was getting a massage. It’s been a stressful week.”
And as far as I could tell, it wasn’t going to get any less stressful. Larry walked around the lobby, searching for a signal, and I looked at Devlyn. He had his arms crossed. His normally sexy mouth was pursed in a tight line. I waited for him to say something. Anything.
Finally, I couldn’t stand the tension and said, “I wanted to tell you about the audition. My manager called on Monday night. He set up the audition without my knowing it and—”
“She’s fine,” Larry yelled from the other side of the lobby. He hoisted the cell phone in the air as if it were a trophy and hurried across the tile toward us. “Christine had a meeting with the detective in charge of LuAnn’s case and thought she’d turned her cell to silent, but turned it off instead. She apologizes for the concern she caused. She also assured me that the she asked the detective whether there was any reason to be concerned about the safety of the students and adults involved in the contest. He said no.”
No reason? I pictured the shattered lights on the floor of the stage. Was he kidding?
“Did Christine tell him about the fallen light bar and the destroyed costumes?” As far as I was concerned, those incidents combined with the hit-and-run were enough to merit nagging doubt if not full-out worry.
“I asked. She said the police are reviewing everything. So far, they haven’t turned up any evidence that links the incidents. But Christine understands completely if we think the students are in danger and want to pull them from the show.”
My stomach unclenched at Larry’s words. “So now what?”
“Now I call Principal Logan and give him an update on what’s going on here in Nashville. He’ll be the one to decide whether we keep our students here or go home.”
“What’s your recommendation going to be?” I asked. Larry was invested in the students he taught. He was also the head of the music program and the top authority for our team here at this competition. Because of that, Principal Logan listened to and respected Larry’s opinion.
“Well . . .” Larry suddenly developed an avid fascination with his scuffed loafers. “It’s understandable that you’d be worried about what LuAnn’s death could mean. Especially after what you’ve been through this past year.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve seen a lot of death.” Larry looked over at Devlyn. “And Devlyn pointed out earlier that after your two recent brushes with murder cases, it’s only natural you’d jump to conclusions and see danger around every corner.”
I went still. “You think I’m making this up?”
“No.” Larry shook his head so hard, it looked as if it might fall off. “It’s just that your perspective is different. You’ve been shot and had to protect our students from a murderer in the past. If I were you, I’d be freaking out, too.”
Okay. Now I was starting to get angry.
Before I could defend myself to Larry, he said, “Let me call Principal Logan. If he thinks we need to leave, we’ll leave. I’ll let you know what he decides.”
Phone pressed to his ear, Larry went in search of a cellular hot spot. I, however, didn’t need to look for one. I was already feeling the heat, and the man next to me was the reason why.
“You told Larry that I’m crazy?”
Part of me thought Devlyn would feel upset or guilty at having the less than kind words he’d spoken come out into the open. Boy, was I wrong. “No, I told him you might have a skewed perspective. What I should have said is that you had a completely different agenda.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Devlyn scoffed. “I’m talking about you looking for any reason to ditch the contest and go back to Chicago for your big audition. You’ve been searching for a way out of this job since the first day you took it. Now you have one and you’re willing to sacrifice all the hard work these kids did in order to get what you want. Well, I hope that audition for the Lyric Opera on Friday is worth screwing over a bunch of performers who would do anything to make you proud. They won’t forgive you for letting them down. And neither will I.”
The words punched into my gut, taking my breath away. I’d seen Devlyn’s disappointed anger directed at students during rehearsal. It never failed to motivate them to learn the lines or blocking they hadn’t spent enough time working on. But this was different. Devlyn wasn’t using his anger as a tool to get me to study a script. He was using it to wound. And, wow, he had hit his mark.
Yes, I had an audition to attend.
Yes, I’d bought a plane ticket that would get me back to Chicago.
But never once had I taken my audition into account when considering whether my students should stay at this contest. They’d worked too hard for that.
My hands shook as I pressed them to my stomach, trying to still the flutter of nerves and nausea. “I would never hurt these kids.”
“What do you think leaving in the middle of this competition will do?” Devlyn yelled. Several of the hotel staff behind the counter glanced our way, but Devlyn didn’t appear to notice. “You made them rely on you. You made them care. Now, just like that, you’re planning to up and bail. Well, two can play that game.”
Without another glance, Devlyn turned and stalked away. I started to follow but then stopped myself. Devlyn wasn’t in the mood to talk rationally about this. And neither was I.
Tears burned behind my eyes. One streaked a path down my cheek. I brushed it away and looked over to where Larry was giving me a happy smile and a thumbs-up. He then hurried out of the lobby with a spring in his step. Principal Logan must have said it was okay for the team to stay and compete.
Part of me was worried. The other part wondered whet
her Devlyn and Larry weren’t on some level correct about my past experiences clouding my ability to see LuAnn’s death clearly. If so, I was glad the team would be staying. Of course, they would still take the stage with the threat of being lowballed if I wasn’t able to give Christine the name she was looking for. The only way I’d be able to fix that problem was if I put aside the hurt and disappointment swirling inside me and focused on finding the answer. Too bad that was easier said than done.
“Ms. Marshall?”
Chessie. Oh, great. This was the last thing I needed.
Taking a deep breath, I plastered a smile on my face and turned. “Is there something I can do for you, Chessie?”
Chessie was wearing an oversized Prospect Glen T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The wet condition of her hair told me where she had just come from. The pool. I waited for her to say that Megan’s voice had gotten worse or to report some sort of injury that had occurred poolside.
“He was wrong.”
Her words were so quiet, I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Who was wrong?”
Chessie’s face turned bright red. She shuffled her flip-flop-clad feet and looked around us at the empty lobby. “I didn’t mean to overhear, but Mr. O’Shea was wrong to say what he did.”
Oh, crap. Chessie knew about the audition. That meant soon the entire choir would know.
“I was coming to get change for the vending machine and heard you, Mr. DeWeese, and Mr. O’Shea talking about the competition. So I stayed in the hallway over there and listened.”
She pointed to a spot twenty feet away, and I sighed. From that location she would have heard every word. I was ready to tell her that she didn’t have to worry, that the team would be competing tomorrow as planned, when she asked, “Do you really have an audition at the Lyric Opera?”
I waited to see the same anger Devlyn felt reflected in her eyes. But there was excitement. Choosing my words with care, I said, “My manager called Monday night to tell me he’d arranged an audition with the artistic director of the Lyric for Friday morning. I asked if we could reschedule, but the director is leaving town. I know the team will be disappointed if I’m not here, so—”
“Mr. O’Shea is wrong.” Chessie frowned. “The team won’t fall apart if you’re not here, standing in the wings. We’ll miss you, but we’ll be fine. The only way we wouldn’t be is if you missed this audition because of us.”
For a minute I was speechless. It was hard to believe this was the same girl who tried to get me booted on my first week or tried to strong-arm me into giving her a second solo during the winter concert. “Are you sure?”
Chessie smiled. “My parents hate that I’m going to major in musical theater. Megan’s and Jacob’s parents feel the same way. They think we’re setting ourselves up for a life of rejection and failure.” She tossed her wet hair and shrugged. “Maybe we are. But we have to try. Right? And maybe if you end up with a really great role at the Lyric, our parents will stop freaking out and see that sometimes dreams really can come true.”
Wow. My heart swelled with pride. Chessie had grown and changed a lot this year. It was amazing to see the difference and know that I might have had a small part in helping her mature.
“And if you end up as a big star, I’ll be able to ask you to help me get an agent and land important auditions. It’s all about who you know in this business, right?”
Okay, maybe Chessie hadn’t changed as much as I was giving her credit for. In a way, I was glad. It was her fierce determination to do whatever it took to succeed that would help her in this business. Networking and taking advantage of connections had always been something I was bad at, much to my various managers’ dismay. Having a personal connection to someone—the director, music director, choreographer, or other member of the production staff—was sometimes the only way to get your foot in the door. Granted, that only got you in the door. After that, how you performed was what got you cast.
“You’re right.” I smiled as part of the weight I’d felt since Devlyn had stormed off lifted. “A lot of this business is who and what you know. It’s also about taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.”
“Which is why you have to go to Chicago and take that audition.”
I nodded. “But I plan on being here when you walk on the stage. I’m taking the last flight out tomorrow, and my plane back should land hours before the final round.”
“Did you tell Mr. O’Shea that?”
“He didn’t give me the chance.”
“Boys.” Chessie rolled her eyes. “Sometimes they just don’t understand.”
“What’s Eric not understanding these days?” I asked. “I noticed that the two of you have been keeping your distance since yesterday afternoon.” Not long after the discovery of the ruined costumes. I’d noticed the gleam in Chessie’s eye yesterday while Larry and I were talking to the team about the incident. I’d even planned on speaking with her just in case she’d had something to do with the destroyed costumes. But between the falling lights and the hit-and-run, I’d forgotten about that moment. Until now.
“Oh, you know Eric.” She shrugged.
I did. The all-American boy was completely devoted to Chessie. The only thing he was more devoted to was his passion for the law. Ever since he’d been questioned as a potential murder suspect, Eric had ditched his desire to go into music education and replaced it with a passion for righting wrongs. If Eric was upset with Chessie now, my guess was it had something to do with her doing something he felt was legally questionable. And I had a sinking suspicion I knew what that something was.
“Chessie, what do you know about the ruined costumes?”
“Nothing.”
The flushed cheeks and clenched hands were a dead giveaway. The girl was lying.
“Chessie.” I put my hands on my hips and gave her the Aunt Millie look I had practiced for months in my mirror.
“I don’t know anything.” Her eyes flashed with a combination of fear and defiance. “Honest.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for several beats, trying hard to mimic the way my aunt made her eyebrow twitch upward. I waited for Chessie to cave, but she just stood there, looking at me. My Millie look needed more practice.
“Chessie,” I sighed. “Don’t make me find Eric and ask him what he knows. It’d be better if I heard whatever this is directly from you.”
Eric still believed he owed me for helping keep him out of jail. Between that and his respect for authority, Chessie’s secret would be out in the open in no time.
Chessie must have come to the same conclusion because she dropped the defiant pose and said, “I didn’t have anything to do with ripping up the costumes.”
“But you saw who did.”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“And Eric knows you saw them. Does he know who it is?”
Chessie shook her head. “Eric wanted me to tell him so he could report it to you or Mr. DeWeese.”
“Which is why the two of you aren’t speaking.”
“Eric doesn’t understand that a performer has to take advantage of every professional opportunity.”
Okay, now I was confused. What kind of opportunity could witnessing a fabric-shredding session yield? Wait . . . The only way Chessie could turn witnessing the costume cutting into a professional opportunity was if the person doing the shredding was in some way connected to the performance world. And there was only one person at this competition I could think of who fit that description.
Nashville’s own country music sensation—Donna Hilty.
Chapter 17
“You saw Donna Hilty defacing the other teams’ property?”
Chessie let out a dramatic sigh. “Yes. I mean, I didn’t realize it was her at first. I got bored at the dance master class and asked if I could go to the bathroom.”
Oy.
The bathroom break trick was the oldest excuse in the book. Hell, I’d used it more than once in my time to get out of class. The beauty of the excuse was that even if the teacher believed the student was faking the need to pee, the request couldn’t be turned down. Not without a really good reason. What teacher wanted to be responsible for a bulging bladder? And even more problematic was that there was no way to set a time requirement on a bathroom break. Some things just couldn’t be rushed.
“I take it you didn’t go to the bathroom?”
“Well . . .” Chessie hesitated for a moment, clearly remembering the times she claimed she had to pee during Music in Motion rehearsals. “Not exactly. I mean, I was going to use the bathroom in the hallway by our staging room. The ones in the lobby can get really crowded.”
And hell was the perfect place to build a ski resort. However, as much as I wanted to call Chessie on her creative storytelling, there were bigger issues at work here.
When Chessie realized I wasn’t going to question her miraculous control over her kidneys, she gave a bright smile. “Anyway, I went through the doors into the hallway and was going to stop in our staging room really quick when I heard a noise from the room next to ours.”
“What kind of noise?”
“It sounded like fabric ripping, kind of like when I got my heel caught in my rehearsal skirt doing that backwards hitch kick during the run of the musical last week.”
I remembered. The sound of Chessie’s dress ripping echoed through the theater loud and clear. So did the sound of Chessie’s backside hitting the wooden floor.
“Anyway, I decided to find out what made the sound. The door to the room next to ours was closed, but I could hear more ripping coming from there. I thought about opening the door, but I figured whoever was inside had the door closed for a reason. So I went back to our staging room and waited for them to come out. When I heard the door open, I waited a minute and then peeked around the corner and saw the back of a woman walking in the other direction. There was something familiar about her so I snapped a picture with my cell as she went into the room two doors down. That’s when I decided to take a look in the room next to ours. I mean, it seemed pretty obvious that she was up to something. And that’s when I found the ruined costumes. I took a picture of those, too. Just in case.”