Maybe it was the concussion, but I was totally confused. “What were you worried about?”
“Well, there’s a killer on the loose and you got hurt yesterday and I thought if I followed you . . .” Eric’s voice trailed off and his face got even redder.
“You came here to protect me?”
Chessie snickered and Eric developed a keen interest in the floorboards, telling me I’d gotten it right in one try. Eric had braved the snow and snuck into the theater tonight to act as my bodyguard. I was stunned, amused, and incredibly touched. The kid’s actions were misguided but very sweet.
Trying not to stomp on his sense of chivalry, I said, “I appreciate your concern, but it’s the police department’s job to catch the killer. Not yours.”
It wasn’t my job, either. But my life was at stake. I figured that gave me some wiggle room.
Speaking of cops . . .
I pulled the phone out of my pocket. “Hey, false alarm,” I told Mike. “A couple of my students decided to play Perry Mason and scared the hell out of me.”
The silence on the other end made me think the call had been dropped. Finally, Mike asked, “Are you sure?”
“I have Eric and Chessie standing right in front of me. Do you want me to have them say hello?” I smiled. Chessie scowled, which made me add, “Also, if you could pretend this call never happened, I’d appreciate it. I have a feeling their folks wouldn’t approve of their extracurricular behavior.”
Chessie let out a sigh of relief as I hung up the phone. “Thanks. My parents think I’m staying over at Kristen’s house tonight. They’d panic if they knew I was driving around while it was snowing.”
Something told me they’d do more than panic if they knew their kid had stalked a teacher and broken into the theater. Sweet or not, this wasn’t the kind of behavior that got a kid into college, although Eric was planning on going into the criminal justice field. Who knows? Maybe they’d be impressed by his initiative.
Wait a minute . . .
I looked back at Eric. “What color is your car?”
He swallowed hard. “Silver.”
Bingo. “Did you also follow me Wednesday night?”
Chessie took a step forward and jutted out her chin. “Eric was studying with me on Wednesday night. I had a trig test. So he couldn’t have followed you Wednesday. Right, Eric?”
Eric winced. It was a good thing Eric was going into law enforcement, because he’d suck as a criminal.
The kid jammed his hands in his coat pockets and said, “I was at Chessie’s house helping her study for trig. I left around nine. That’s when I heard the news on the radio. They were talking about the two murders. They said how a member of the Messiah cast had found the second body, but that the cops were withholding the name of that person for safety reasons. With everything that happened earlier in the school year, I figured you must have been looking into the murder and stumbled across the other body. I was worried. If I could figure that out, then the killer could, too.”
“So you came to the theater and followed me to the sports bar.”
Eric nodded.
“And almost ran me off the road.”
A much smaller nod. “I didn’t mean to. The road was slick, and I fishtailed into your lane. I was scared you were hurt so I drove around the block and came back to see if your car had moved. I would have called for help, but I saw you drive into your garage and knew you were okay.”
Eric’s face was devoid of color. His feet shuffled back and forth as he waited for whatever I would say next. The kid looked like he was waiting for the executioner. And I couldn’t blame him. If I reported his behavior, Eric would probably get suspended, end up with a traffic violation, and piss off his parents when their insurance rates skyrocketed. And since Chessie’s attempt to look innocent told me she knew all about Eric’s adventures, she’d most likely get punished for being an accessory after the fact.
For the second time this semester, I had Chessie’s future squarely in my hands. The glint of worry in her eyes said she was well aware of it and at this moment was remembering the veiled threats she’d made earlier in the week.
If it was only Chessie in this predicament, I might have made a report just to teach her the lesson she should have learned months ago. But I understood and appreciated Eric’s good intentions if not his methods. While I wanted him to think about his actions, I wasn’t about to let him blow his future over his concern for me.
“All right.” I blew a strand of hair off my forehead. “I don’t like what you’ve done, but I’m not going to report either of you to the principal, the police, or your parents.” Chessie let out the breath she was holding and gave me a wide smile. “But I’m also not going to let you completely off the hook. Tomorrow morning, the two of you are going to report to my house at 7 A.M. to shovel my aunt’s driveway.”
The weather forecast was calling for at least five inches of snow between now and morning. Aunt Millie’s driveway was wide and really long. It would take these two a lot of work to get the driveway cleared. While the punishment would be brief, I had no doubt it would make an impression.
Chessie’s smile was less enthusiastic when she said, “We’ll be there, Ms. Marshall, and we appreciate you not telling anyone about tonight. Neither of us meant any harm. Right, Eric?”
Eric looked ill. Chessie elbowed him. When he finally spoke it wasn’t to agree. “The thing is . . .”
Oh no. “What else did you do, Eric?”
“You know how you were followed by someone in the hallway last night?”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples with my thumb and middle finger. “Yes?”
“I saw Detective Kaiser in the audience and figured you invited him to the concert because you were worried the killer might show up. So, when I saw you go out the side door of the theater alone, I got concerned.” Now that Eric had started his confession, the guilt-laced words tumbled out in a rush.
“Why didn’t you just let me know you were there? I wouldn’t have thought you were doing anything wrong.”
Eric gnawed on his bottom lip. “I’ve been reading a lot of books on law enforcement and private investigations that talked about the proper techniques for shadowing a subject. The methods didn’t sound hard, so I decided to try them out.”
Okay, I had to ask. “Why did you chase after me when I realized you were there?”
“I panicked.” Another blush. “I guess law enforcement might not be the best field for me.”
No offense to Eric, but his career-path dilemma wasn’t my concern at the moment; the fact that he’d been following me was. Not because I was angry, but because I’d been wrong. The silver car used to tail me didn’t belong to Mark Krauss. More important, there weren’t two people lurking in the halls of Prospect Glen High School last night, waiting to do me harm. The killer wasn’t acting in tandem. The killer was acting alone, and that changed everything.
Was Mark guilty of something? His wife and Ruth were worried about his behavior, but I had trouble believing he was the one who butchered Barbie and sent her to my house. The act felt feminine. As did David’s murder. Poison could be used by a man, but everything I’d read told me it was most often used by women. And LaVon said it was a woman who bought her photograph.
My mind rapidly eliminated Mark and Jonathan from the suspect list and scrolled through the rest.
Based on my gut reaction, I didn’t believe Ruth Jordan was the murderer. Her confusion today felt real.
Magdalena might be capable of killing someone, but I highly doubted she’d use a poison that might give her an allergic reaction and land her in the clink. And while David’s decision not to record her music had to be a huge blow, there were lots of tenors out there. Lots of people who could record her songs. The list in her room suggested she’d already moved on to finding one. And face it: If I were Magdalena, I?
??d be looking forward to the day when David realized that the musical piece he’d dissed had racked up glowing reviews and a Grammy nomination. A dead David couldn’t have his nose shoved in his stupidity or have his shortsightedness revealed to the media. In short, a dead David was zero fun for a person bent on humiliation and revenge.
That left Vanessa. I was petty enough to want it to be her. Her snotty treatment from day one rankled. But as much as I tried to imagine it, I just couldn’t see her killing David Richard. She hated her love for him, but from what I could see she hated her lack of fame more. This production wasn’t just my big break. The Messiah, headlined by David Richard, had the potential to launch her into the limelight, too. When David died, there’d been no guarantee the show would continue. Killing David in hopes the producers could find another big name to headline the production was a huge risk. Vanessa’s tactics to get to the top weren’t the ones I employed, but they were tried and true. Murder—not so much.
I’d eliminated every single suspect on my list. Which meant there was someone I’d missed. Someone with a grudge against David Richard. Someone who was close enough to the show’s stage manager to have drinks with him before stringing him up in his kitchen in hopes Bill would take the fall for poisoning David.
As my mind struggled to put the pieces together, I realized the theater was quiet. Chessie and Eric were standing silently next to the curtain leg. Without their chatter, the lack of sound was deafening. Which made no sense. The call-board showed more than a dozen singers had signed in. While the greenroom was on the level below, the doors to the greenroom had been removed long ago to ensure no one could close them during a performance. A performer running from one side of the stage to the other might not make her entrance if she had to struggle to open the door. And since this wasn’t a show that required the ensemble to change into costume, there was no reason for the dressing room doors to be closed. With that many people downstairs, I should hear voices.
I looked back at the stage door. No one had come in since Chessie and Eric’s less-than-sneaky entrance. No singers. No orchestra members. None of Evanston’s finest looking to keep us safe. Something was very, very wrong.
Fear must have flickered across my face, because Eric’s contrite demeanor disappeared. He glanced around the wings of the theater and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“We have to get up early on Saturday,” Chessie hissed. “That’s what’s wrong.”
I pulled out my phone as I walked to the stage door. Locked.
Ignoring Chessie’s irritated glare and Eric’s worried expression, I punched in Mike’s number and waited for him to answer.
“What now?”
“Someone locked the stage door from the outside.”
“Maybe it’s frozen shut. The storm’s getting pretty bad out here.”
“I don’t think so.” I turned away from Chessie and Eric and lowered my voice. “The call-board says other cast members signed in, but no one is here and it’s past our call time. I think we might be in trouble.”
“I’m on my way. Have you seen anyone else in the building?”
I was going to say no, but then I remembered. “Someone was in the light booth when I first arrived. The booth lights were dim compared to the theater and stage, so I couldn’t see who was inside.”
But I knew.
There was only person who could have set this trap. The person who had sent the text with the new call time, knowing no cast member would ever question a message from a stage manager.
Jenny Grothe.
“Are the kids still with you?” Mike’s voice was controlled, but I could hear the shimmer of concern.
“Eric and Chessie are right here.”
“Good. Try to find another exit. Stay together. I’m going to call Detective Frewen now. He can probably get there faster than I can. I’ll call you back as soon as I’m done. Got it?”
I swallowed a knot of fear and nodded. “Got it.”
Switching the phone to vibrate, I turned back to Eric and Chessie. “The Evanston Police Department and Detective Kaiser are on their way. Detective Kaiser thinks the stage door is frozen shut. He wants us to check the other exits and see if we can’t get out that way.”
“You don’t think the door is frozen shut, do you?” Eric stepped forward.
I debated how to answer the question. According to the handbook Larry had given me at the beginning of the year, my job as a teacher was to help provide a safe environment for students. Telling Eric and Chessie that a killer had lured me to an empty theater wasn’t exactly following that edict. But I didn’t see any other choice.
“I think there’s a good chance the person who killed David Richard and Bill Walters is here in the theater with us.”
Chessie’s eyes widened, and she clamped her hand over her mouth. Eric swallowed hard, laced his fingers through Chessie’s free hand, and said, “Tell us what you want us to do.”
His calm demeanor was impressive. Maybe law enforcement was the right choice for Eric after all.
“There’s an exit on the other side of the stage,” I explained while I tried to remember the exact layout of the theater. “We’re going to cross behind the risers and check that door. If it’s locked, we’ll go down the escape stairs to the doors in the lobby. As long as we stay together, we’ll be just fine.”
I hoped.
I walked behind one of the black velvet curtain legs designed to obstruct the audience’s view off stage and peered out into the theater. No one was seated in the house. The lighting booth looked empty. I fingered the gun in my pocket and looked back at the faces of the two kids trusting me to get them to safety. Taking several deep breaths, I stepped onto the stage.
The lights were bright as we hurried across to the stage left wings. No Jenny. I let out the breath I was holding and pushed the bar on the exit door.
It didn’t budge. Crap. Could one door get frozen shut? Sure. But two? No way in hell.
“We’re going to the lobby,” I whispered as I stepped back onto the stage. Still no one in the theater. Taking that as a good sign, I started to lead Eric and Chessie toward the escape stairs.
We got halfway there and the lights in the theater went black.
Chapter 23
Chessie screamed. I froze.
Someone had turned off the lights.
With no windows to the outside, the theater was pitch-black. Somewhere in front of me was the orchestra pit and the edge of the stage. Behind us were the risers and chairs. Moving forward, we’d risk falling either the four feet off the front of the stage or the ten feet into the fully lowered orchestra pit. Backing into the risers or a folding chair could injure us or, worse, make noise. Any sound would give away our position. And even if we could make it to the wings, there was no place for us to run. The doors were locked. In short, we were screwed.
Chessie’s screams turned to whimpers. I could hear Eric whispering that everything would be fine even though I seriously doubted he believed that.
Adrenaline pumping, I gulped for air and willed myself to stay calm. I was the adult—the teacher. Chessie and Eric needed me to get them through this.
Wrapping my fingers around Millie’s gun, I whispered, “Keep quiet and get down on the floor. You’ll be safer there.”
If not from Jenny, then from me. I didn’t want them in the line of fire if I was forced to start shooting.
I heard scuffling to my right as Eric and Chessie followed instructions. Taking slow, deep breaths, I pictured my exact location on the stage before the lights had been turned out. If I remembered correctly, the escape stairs were ten feet in front of my position. The pit was a couple of feet downstage and to the left.
Hoping my memory was intact, I took several steps to my left to put some distance between me and my students. Then, lifting my chin, I yelled into the darkness, “Jenny, I know you’r
e there. You might as well give up. Everyone is going to be here soon for tonight’s rehearsal. They’re going to wonder why they can’t get into the building and call the police.”
No point in telling her the police had already been called. I hoped she’d find that out soon enough.
A loud click echoed through the empty theater. A moment later, a pool of white light appeared center stage. Someone had turned on the follow spot. I shoved my gun back into my pocket in an attempt to keep the element of surprise and watched the small pool of light shift to the left. When it reached the wings, it panned to the right, finally coming to a stop—right on me.
Squinting into the balcony, I could make out the outline of Jenny’s small frame. I glanced down to my right, where Eric and Chessie were huddled on the floor. The blurred edge of the light was too close to them for my comfort. If by some miracle Jenny didn’t know they were here with me, I wanted to keep it that way.
I took several more steps to my right. The tightly focused, four-foot patch of light followed me. The orchestra pit with its chairs, music stands, and timpani was three feet in front of my position.
“That’s your mark,” Jenny yelled. “If you move off your mark, you’ll be sorry.”
Sorry? I was already sorry.
“No one else is coming here tonight.” Jenny’s voice echoed in the theater. “As soon as you got here, I sent out a message canceling rehearsal because of the storm. You know, you should have stayed away tonight, Paige. I gave you a chance. I tried to warn you. If you’d stayed away, I was going to let you go. But you just couldn’t resist the chance to be a star, could you?”
Jenny’s voice sounded closer. I squinted into the light, trying to see whether she was still behind the follow spot. “What do you mean, you tried to warn me? I didn’t get anything warning me not to come tonight.”
“I sent you a Christmas gift warning you that you’d be next.”
Jenny wasn’t behind the spotlight. She must have locked the fixture in place before moving. Her voice was coming from somewhere farther to the right.