Lights Out Tonight (19 page)

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“No, Langley,” Keith yelled. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

Langley stood in the middle of the stage, biting her lowerlip.

“You’re supposed to be coming to the realization that the man you’ve loved, the man you’ve lived with and slept with for years, isn’t what you thought and hoped he was. He’s a monster, capable of doing anything, hurting anyone who gets in his way. Can you do that, Langley?”

“I’m trying, Keith.”

“Well, you’ve got to try harder, damn it. Now again, from the top of the scene.”

Three lines in, Keith stopped everything again. “No, no, no, no, no, Langley.” He threw his clipboard down. “Do it more like Belinda did it.”

“I’m not Belinda,” said Langley, fighting back tears.

“Don’t I know it!”

“Keith, please. No one else can be Belinda Winthrop, but I can be Valerie. I’ve worked hard to get to this point and will do anything to succeed at this. Just give me a chance.”

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After they’d eaten lunch, Caroline walked out onto the sidewalk in front of Oscar’s and looked up Main Street. She saw the Ambrose Gallery and remembered that the Remington Peters exhibition was opening today.

“Why don’t we go over to the gallery and see if we can get permission to shoot the new portrait of Belinda Winthrop?” she suggested.

Lamar agreed. “That would be a good element to have, no matter what our story on Belinda finally becomes.”

Caroline went into the gallery while Lamar and Boomer
shot video of the exterior. She immediately noted that the space left open for the portrait of Belinda as Valerie was still empty.

“Don’t ask,” Jean Ambrose said as she walked over and stood beside Caroline. “This is turning into such a disaster.”

Caroline looked at the gallery owner and waited for her to continue.

“I suppose you’ve heard that nobody can find Belinda,” Jean said.

Caroline nodded.

“So not only did Remington decide that his new portrait is not ready to be shown but now we have no guest of honor for our opening. I know that sounds selfish, thinking about the gallery at a time like this, but we have patrons coming from all over. They’ve been looking forward to this for months. So have we. Artistically and financially.”

“I’m sorry,” said Caroline. She looked around at the gallery walls. “But you have other Peters paintings to sell. And you told me that he wouldn’t allow his portraits of Belinda to be sold anyway.”

“True,” said Jean. “But our clients are expecting to see the new portrait. They are going to be very disappointed, and that won’t put them in any kind of mood to buy something else.”

“What’s wrong with the portrait, do you know?” asked Caroline.

Jean shook her head. “Zeke went over to pick it up yesterday, and Remington told him it wasn’t ready. Something about not getting her expression right. But, good Lord, nobody knows every inch of Belinda Winthrop’s face better than Remington Peters. I can’t imagine what the big problem is.”

“Would it be all right for my crew to come in and take some shots of the other paintings, specifically the other two portraits of Belinda you have?” Caroline asked.

Jean looked at the portraits of Belinda as Titania in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and Madison Whitehall in
Treasure Trove
that flanked the space left open for Belinda as Valerie. “All right,” she said. “And you might want to check back later. Zeke has gone over to Curtains Up to try again to convince Remington to give us the new portrait.”

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Seventeen portraits.

Seventeen paintings to be carefully wrapped and carried upstairs. Seventeen paintings to be driven back to that storage facility in Albany, hidden from the police or anyone else.

Remington lost track of time as he readied the paintings for transport. He came up with his plan as he worked. He would be able to bundle up the paintings down here during the day. But he would have to drive them to safety when it was dark. There was no way he’d be able to get them all in the station wagon at one time, but he should be able to complete the job in two trips.
With a little luck, he’d be able to be back at Curtains Up, his task completed, before sunrise.

A little luck never hurt.

Systematically, Remington wound batting around each portrait. Belinda as Katharina in
The Taming of the Shrew,
as Cecily Cardew in
The Importance of Being Earnest,
as Abigail Williams in
The Crucible,
and all the others through the years.

“Rest well, my love,” he said as he kissed each version of Belinda’s beautiful face.

Zeke Ambrose drove up the driveway at Curtains Up, prepared with what he was going to say to persuade Remington to let the new portrait of Belinda be exhibited. Zeke was determined to have the painting in the rear of his station wagon when he drove back down the driveway.

He stopped to talk to the police officer stationed in front of the farmhouse.

“Hiya, Mo.”

“Zeke.” The officer nodded. “How are ya today?”

“Hangin’ in there. Any word on Belinda?”

“So you know?”

“News travels fast, especially in
this
small town,” Zeke said.

“No, nothing so far.”

“Let’s hope this is all a misunderstanding,” said Zeke. “And that she turns up real soon. I saw her in the play last night, and
she was absolutely fabulous. I can’t allow myself to believe that something dreadful has happened to her.”

“Were you at the party she had here afterward, Zeke?”

“Yes. Jean and I came. Belinda has been including us for years.”

“See anything you thought was strange?”

“Nothing I can think of off the top of my head, Mo, but if I remember anything, I’ll be sure to let you know. Actually, I’m here to talk to Remington Peters.”

The police sergeant nodded toward the carriage house. “He’s a weird one, isn’t he?”

“Remington is an artist, Mo. He’s allowed to be a little strange.”

The officer waved Zeke on.

Parking at the front of the carriage house, Zeke got out, went to the front door, and knocked. He waited, then knocked again. When there was still no answer, Zeke walked around the building, cupped his hands against the glass of the giant window and looked inside. This time there was no cover draping the large canvas that sat on the easel.

Belinda stood, regally, in her sweeping green gown. She held her head high, her expression haughty, defiance in her eyes.

Zeke squinted to get a better view. He saw the pistol in Belinda’s hand just as Remington came to the window and glared out at him.

Zeke hurried back around to the front door, anxious to explain what he’d been doing peeking through the window. “I’m sorry, Remington, if I frightened you,” he said. “When there was no answer, I walked around to see if you were there but just didn’t hear me. I wasn’t trying to be nosy.”

“You saw the portrait, then?” Remington glowered. Assessing the expression on the artist’s face, Zeke decided not to acknowledge what he’d seen. If there was any hope of getting Remington to release the portrait to the gallery, Zeke didn’t want to ruin it by angering or offending the artist.

“No, actually, I couldn’t see it. There was too much glare.”

Remington fixed his eyes on Zeke’s face and studied it. “Good,” he said. “You know how I feel about people looking at my Belindas before I’m finished with them.”

“Absolutely,” said Zeke, relieved that Remington seemed satisfied. “How’s it coming anyway?”

“It’s not ready. And with all this worry about Belinda, I’m not in any frame of mind to be working on it.”

Remington’s tone was such that Zeke knew better than to push any further. And after having seen the painter’s interpretation of Belinda as Valerie, the gallery owner was so troubled that he was anxious to get away.

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As she came out of the Ambrose Gallery, Caroline bumped into Meg and Nick.

“We just had lunch at the Thai place,” said Nick. “I didn’t think you’d be able to join us.”

“No need to explain. It’s nice for you two to have some time together,” said Caroline, but she felt a twinge of hurt just the same.

“I have to get going, Dad,” said Meg. “I really have to get stuff organized back at the theater, and I have a rehearsal this afternoon for the cabaret tonight.”

“All right, honey.” Nick kissed his daughter on the forehead. “I guess I won’t see you until the cabaret then. Break a leg.”

“Thanks, Dad. See ya, Caroline.”

Watching her stepdaughter walk off, Caroline was well aware of how quickly Meg wanted to get away from her. She kept trying to put herself in Meg’s shoes and think how hard it would have been if someone had taken her own mother’s place. Selfishly, she’d been relieved that her father hadn’t found someone else. But then again, he hadn’t had much time to do so before he died as well.

Caroline felt Nick’s eyes on her. “Don’t let it bother you,” he said, reading her mind. “Eventually, Meg’s got to get used to us.”

Caroline tried to smile. “I hope so,” she said, wishing she didn’t suspect that one of the reasons Meg felt the need to smoke pot was to numb herself to the pain of her father’s remarriage.

Meg went back to her room and changed into the black slacks and top she was required to wear as a member of the play’s crew. She gave her hair a good brushing and gathered it back with a covered elastic. She was about to leave for the theater when she remembered the envelope the actress had handed her at the party the night before. With Belinda missing, Meg wasn’t sure if she should bring it or not. Impulsively, she picked it up from the desk and opened the thin metal clasp, taking out the copy of the
Devil in the Details
script. It looked as though it had been read many times. Some green paint was smudged on the cover. Meg thought she should keep the script with her until she could give it to Belinda personally.

When she got to the theater, Meg stopped at the apprentices’ bulletin board. There was a notice of a guest speaker coming next week that Meg wanted to make sure to hear. Another sheet announced a screening of a movie that one of the Equity actors had appeared in; the actor would take questions from the
audience afterward. But it was the next notice Meg read that interested her the most.

New York Theatrical Agent Will Be Holding Interviews This Weekend. If Interested, Please Print Your Name, Telephone Number, E-mail, and Where You Are Staying on Campus.

Meg eagerly filled in all the information that was requested.

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“What do you have to do now?” asked Nick.

“Let me check with the crew, but I don’t think there’s much else we
can
do at this point,” said Caroline.

After she conferred with Lamar and Boomer, they decided that they’d all keep their cell phones on in case something came up. In the meantime, the guys volunteered to ride back to the police station and see if there were any new developments there.