Lights Out Tonight (33 page)

“We’re going to wait until we’re good and sure that everyone is sound asleep for the night, and then we’re going to take a little ride.”

The phone rang in Annabelle’s room.

“Hello,” she answered groggily.

“It’s me. Caroline. I need your help.”

Annabelle sat up and turned on the light. “What’s wrong?”

“I think Victoria Sterling might have had something to do with Belinda’s disappearance. It’s too long to go into now, but can you please get over to Meg’s dorm and see if she’s there? Bang on the doors and wake the whole place up if you have to. I’m going back to the theater to see if I can find Meg there.”

Caroline shook the handles, desperate to get inside. The front doors of the theater were locked. She banged on the glass, but no one came.

She looked around for help. The grounds were completely deserted. Trying to think clearly, she decided to try the back doors. As she came around the corner, her worst fears were realized when she saw the two figures coming out of the rear of the building.

Meg felt the point of the scissors pressed against her back as she was escorted down the ramp that sloped from the rear of the theater to the entrance of the parking deck.

“Meg!”

She had never been happier to hear a voice in her whole life. Meg turned to see Caroline running toward her. Victoria turned to look as well.

In that instant, Meg broke away, running just three or four feet before Victoria realized what was happening. The older woman propelled herself forward and lunged at Meg, pinning her to the ground. Victoria poised the scissors at Meg’s neck, the sharp points pressed against her jugular. Victoria struggled to her feet, forcing Meg to stand up with her.

“Get over here,” Victoria called to Caroline, “or I’ll slice her throat right now. And don’t try anything funny, because you’ll be amazed how fast I can move.”

“Like you did with that poor librarian.” Caroline felt her pulse pounding.

“What happened to her was her fault. She should have minded her own business.”

“I guess those poor kids deserved what they got, too?” asked Caroline, stalling for time as she tried to figure out what to do.

“Again. Their fault, not mine. They shot themselves in the foot with technology, taking a picture that could have made me look bad,” said Victoria. “How would it look to the Pulitzer Prize committee? When you’re aiming at a world-class award, you don’t need any adverse publicity.”

Caroline was stunned at the lack of emotion in Victoria’s voice. It was as if she was attaching no value to her victims’ lives. “It must be nice when nothing is ever your fault,” she said. “When you’re able to justify anything you do, even murder. How does it feel, never having to worry about right and wrong?”

“Quit stalling and get over here,” commanded Victoria, pressing the scissors more tightly against Meg’s neck. “Don’t think I’m kidding.”

Seeing the stricken look on Meg’s face, and with no other choice, Caroline did as she was told.

Annabelle jogged from the dorm to the theater. She hoped that Caroline had found Meg, because the young woman wasn’t in her room.

As she ran up the path that led to the main entrance of the Playhouse, she noticed a Volvo pull out of the driveway from the parking deck.

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Inside the car trunk, Caroline and Meg were pressed together, barely able to move. Caroline could hear her stepdaughter whimpering in the darkness.

“Meg,” she whispered, “try to get ahold of yourself, honey, please. There must be a way we can get out of this.”

“How?” Meg cried. “When we get to wherever she’s taking us, she’s going to kill us. Maybe she’ll get a gun…. Maybe she’ll just leave us in here to suffocate.”

“Stop it, Meg,” hissed Caroline. “Stop it right now. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do to get away from her.”

The car took a curve in the road. Caroline and Meg were pushed closer together. It was then that Caroline spotted the thing that could lead them to safety.

First Caroline Enright, the girl’s stepmother; then Nick McGregor, the girl’s father; and now Annabelle Murphy, a producer for KEY News. That made three callers worried about Meg McGregor, a Warrenstown Summer Playhouse apprentice. Nick McGregor and the KEY News producer both claimed that Victoria Sterling might have something to do with the girl’s disappearance, as well as Belinda Winthrop’s. That was enough to convince the night officer to call Chief Stanley at home.

“When the car stops, we should be able to hear her walking around to the trunk. Just as she gets here, we’ll surprise her.”

“What if she doesn’t come back here?” whispered Meg. “What if she goes off to get something better than a pair of scissors to kill us with?”

“Sooner or later, she’ll come to us,” Caroline whispered with more conviction than she felt.

With one hand on the steering wheel, Victoria leaned over and unlocked the glove box, fumbling through its contents. Underneath
the driver’s manual she’d never bothered to read, she felt the cool metal handle of her gun.

When you had two troublemakers to deal with, a pair of scissors just wouldn’t do it.

They could hear the difference in sound as the car turned off the smooth macadam of the roadway onto the crushed stone.

“I think she’s taken us to Curtains Up. We’re on the driveway,” whispered Caroline. She told Meg her plan and then insisted, “Now, no matter what happens, Meg, I want you to stay here in the trunk.”

The Volvo pulled to a stop. The driver’s door opened and then closed.

Caroline’s hand gripped the fluorescent safety release handle on the inside of the trunk lid.