Read It and Weep (A Library Lover's Mystery) (19 page)

The applause dwindled, and the stage manager gave the signal. The curtain drew back and the actors in Scene I, Theseus, Hippolyta and Philostrate, walked onto the stage with the extras who played their attendants. The play had begun.

Nancy rejoined them during Scene I and while they could only see bits of the stage through the curtains that had been drawn back, they could hear the actors delivering their lines. So far, so good.

Scene II introduced Mary’s husband, Ian, playing Nick Bottom. Lindsey could tell Mary was nervous: she sat on a stool with her right fist pressed to her lips as if to keep from cheering out loud or calling out instructions. It was hard to say which.

Nancy fussed with the costumes, while Lindsey paced in a small circle with her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. How did people do this for a living? Gah, she was so nervous!

Finally, they heard Ian’s character say, “‘Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.’”

The curtain closed. It was the end of Act I. Ian came rushing backstage and grabbed Mary close. He planted a kiss on her before disappearing out the door that led to the green room.

Mary turned to Nancy and Lindsey and grinned.

“He was fantastic!”

“Yes, he was,” they agreed wholeheartedly.

Intermission wasn’t until after Act II, so the stage manager was quickly issuing instructions to the set crew, who were doing a mad scramble to change the set. Lindsey saw Sully pull the ropes that dropped a background of green, woodsy trees over the outline of the previous scene’s city of Athens while the other crew members turned the interior of the house into the woods. They had only seconds to get it switched. Sully gave a thumbs-up to the stage manager.

“Places, everyone. Curtain in twenty seconds,” the stage manager whispered.

In the dim lighting, Lindsey saw Dylan pacing back and forth. He looked pale and nervous and she couldn’t blame him. She’d rather have fiery torches held to her feet than go out on stage.

Beth appeared. She looked ethereal and lovely in her faerie costume. She gave Dylan’s arm a quick squeeze and he gave her a distracted smile in return.

Beth hurried across the stage, as she would enter from the other side at the same time as Dylan when the stage manager gave the signal.

Lindsey heard the stage manager begin the countdown, signaling one of the stagehands to grab the ropes to open the curtain. Dylan stepped back from his position behind the curtain. He removed his tunic and took the wreath of ivy off of his head.

“Dylan,” Nancy cried. “What are you doing?”

The stage manager looked at him in shock. Dylan’s scene was about to start; he couldn’t walk off the stage now. They didn’t have anyone else to play Puck.

Lindsey stepped forward; if it was a case of nerves, maybe she could help him. But he hurried around her over to the door that led to the emergency exit. He yanked it open and said, “Now!”

Out of the secret-keeping shadows stepped Robbie Vine.

L
indsey heard the collective gasp sound all around her even as her knees buckled and she staggered, but she managed to catch herself on the clothing rack.

“Robbie?” She called his name with the last bit of breath she had in her lungs.

“Lindsey!” His face lit up at the sight of her, and his grin felt as if it was just for her. He made to stride toward her but Dylan grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“There’s no time,” Dylan said. He shoved the tunic and wreath at Robbie, who quickly pulled them on.

The stage manager was fiercely whispering into his headset as he stared, wide-eyed at Robbie. Then he gave a nod and cued the curtain to rise.

Dylan pulled Robbie into position. Behind the curtain, waiting for it to finish rising, Robbie glanced over his shoulder at Lindsey and whispered, “We’ll talk later.”

Then he narrowed his gaze at her. She must have looked a fright, because he muttered a curse and strode forward, shaking off Dylan and the stage manager and ignoring the curtain that was almost all the way up.

Robbie reached out and grabbed her shoulders. His gaze met hers with an intensity that made her heart pound. He hugged her close.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His voice was a low, gruff growl in her ear.

Lindsey could tell from the emotion in his voice that he meant it and she nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He released her and pushed her hair back from her face.

“I promise I can explain,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” she whispered. “I know. It’s Joanie, isn’t it? She’s your ‘killer’ and she’s been making Dylan ill, hasn’t she?”

Robbie nodded.

“And she’s the one who pushed me over the balcony because I figured out that Dylan is your son,” Lindsey said.

His eyes widened in surprise. Then he smiled and shook his head. “I might have known
you’d
figure it out.”

“Robbie, come on,” the stage manager demanded.

Robbie gave him a curt wave and then turned back to Lindsey. He planted a swift kiss on her lips. It was electric, shocking her all the way down to her toes. Lindsey didn’t know what to say or think or believe but the relief that he was here standing in front of her, alive, made her jump forward and throw her arms around him in a tight hug. Just as quickly, she released him.

“Go!” she said.

Her throat was tight and it was hard to swallow around the lump in it. Robbie grinned at her and turned back around. The stage manager was waving frantically for him to go, so Robbie gave him a mischievous grin and strode out onto the stage.

“‘How now, spirit! Whither wander you,’” Robbie greeted Beth as she came across the stage to meet him.

Beth’s jaw dropped and she blinked at him as if seeing a ghost. She wasn’t the only one to catch the change in the casting. A low murmur started in the audience and rumbled to a grumbling pitch as Violet’s voice came over the intercom to announce, “In tonight’s performance, the role of Puck will be played by Robbie Vine.”

The crowd noise was deafening. Lindsey looked across the stage at Beth. She seemed frozen, transfixed on Robbie as if uncertain of what to do or say.

Robbie stepped toward Beth and looped his arm through hers as if they were old friends strolling together. He lowered his head and whispered in her ear, and Lindsey saw Beth visibly relax and give him the slightest nod.

“‘Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier,’” Beth began quietly at first, but her voice took on the cadence of the bard’s words, growing stronger with each syllable.

“‘Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere—’”

A screech sounded from the front of the theater, and Lindsey looked out to see Dylan’s mother striding down the aisle. A man followed—Joanie’s husband, Lindsey assumed—and grabbed her hand trying to stop her, but she smacked him hard, forcing him to let her go. In three large strides, she launched herself onto the stage.

Robbie turned and gave Beth a hearty shove back into the wings, where Sully caught her. Then Robbie turned and caught Joanie by the forearms, stopping her from clawing out his eyes.

“I killed you!” she screeched. She was fighting Robbie’s hold with everything she had. “You are supposed to be dead.”

“Well, faeries are immortal, you know,” Robbie said. His humor sent her into a frenzy, and she began to kick while trying to yank her arms out of his grip.

“He’s
my
son!” Joanie screamed. “
Mine.
You can’t have him!”

Robbie opened his mouth to say something but Emma and her officers leapt onto the stage. In seconds, they pulled Joanie off of Robbie. She was bucking and kicking, spitting and cursing. Finally, they had no choice but to pin her to the stage floor while they cuffed her.

Lindsey listened in shock as Emma hauled Joanie out of the theater, reciting her Miranda rights as they went. Judging by the silence, the audience was just as stunned.

It had all happened so fast. Robbie was alone on the stage. He took a deep breath and then said, “Faerie, dost thou hide from the creatures of the night?”

Lindsey knew this wasn’t in the play. She glanced across the stage where Beth still stood beside Sully. This was her do or die moment. Lindsey saw Beth shudder from her head to her feet. Then she skipped, yes skipped, back out onto the stage. She looked at Robbie and said her next line perfectly. And the play continued straight through until the end of Act II.

Intermission, however, was utter chaos. The noise in the green room was deafening. Lola and Kitty had pounced on Robbie as soon as he entered the room.

“I might have known,” Kitty said with a smile while Lola wept all over Robbie’s shirtfront.

Violet clapped her hands and the noise dimmed to a low rumble. “As you all can see, the reports of Robbie’s death were a bit inaccurate,” she said. “I imagine many of you are angry with me for not telling you the truth. I apologize, but the police felt this would be our best way to flush out the person who was in fact trying to kill Robbie.”

Lindsey glanced around the room. Several people did look angry. She wondered if she’d be one of them if she weren’t so relieved that Robbie was alive. She searched the crowd for him. He had shaken off Lola and Kitty and was standing in the corner of the room with his arm around Dylan’s shoulders.

Seeing them next to each other, Lindsey couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized sooner that they were related. And she really didn’t care what the birth certificate said: there was no question that Dylan was Robbie’s son.

“But why?” Lola asked. “Why did that crazy woman want to kill him?”

Violet looked at Robbie. He gave her a small nod.

“We don’t know for sure, but judging by what she said on the stage tonight, she was feeling very threatened by Robbie because—” Violet paused.

“Because Robbie Vine is my biological father,” Dylan said. “And she was afraid he would take me away from her.”

Lindsey saw Dylan’s friends Heather and Perry staring at him with their mouths hanging open. He gave them a sheepish smile, and Lindsey realized that Dylan must have known before tonight that Robbie was his father.

“Now, we have five minutes until curtain, and I believe that the show must go on,” Violet said. “Are you all with me?”

The cast and crew glanced at one another and then Ian, with his usual overabundance of enthusiasm, jumped to his feet and raised a fist in the air.

“I’m in!” he shouted. The others joined him, and soon it was a cacophony of shouts and cheers as they all scrambled to take their places for Act III.

“Wait!” Robbie cried out and everyone froze.

Lindsey wondered if he and Dylan had to go to the police station. Maybe the show couldn’t go on after all.

Robbie took the ivy wreath off of his head and put it on Dylan’s. “I think this Puck should finish the show.”

Dylan’s eyes went wide. He swallowed hard and said, “But I . . . won’t the crowd want to see you?”

“Are you kidding?” Robbie asked. “They’re getting to see the debut performance of my son.”

Dylan beamed at him. Violet glanced between them and said, “Dylan, are you sure you’re up to it? I mean, with your mother being—”

“Crazy?” Dylan asked. “Actually, I’ve known for a long time.”

Lindsey saw a flash of pain cross over his face, and Robbie put his hand on Dylan’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Well, if you want the role, it’s yours,” Violet said. “You’ve earned it.”

Dylan grinned at Violet and it was so like his father that Lindsey felt herself smile, too. Charm. The Vine men had it by the bucketful.

“Well, don’t just stand here people, let’s go!” the stage manager yelled.

The cast and crew filed out of the green room. Violet hooked her arm through Dylan’s and was giving him a pep talk while pulling him out of the room. Nancy trailed behind, fussing over the tunic Robbie had just handed over.

When the room was empty, Lindsey found herself alone with Robbie. He lowered his head and looked at her from beneath his long lashes.

“On a scale of one to ten, how mad at me are you?” he asked.

Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest and tried to scowl. She could tell it wasn’t her best effort.

“I have some questions,” she said. “And then we’ll see.”

“All right,” he agreed. He looked nervous.

“How long have you and Dylan known you were father and son?”

He blew out a breath. “About a year.”

Lindsey felt her eyes go wide.

“Dylan got in touch with me through my agent,” he said. “I’d been trying to find him for years. One look at the picture he sent and I knew he was for real.”

“Why didn’t you go public?”

“It was too risky,” Robbie said. “You see, when Dylan got in touch with me and begged me to keep it quiet and not let his mother know that we’d found each other, I knew that something wasn’t right in his house. I quickly discovered she kept a tight hold on him and if he even hinted that he wanted to find his birth parents or, hell, even go away to college, she would have a hissy fit and then he’d be mysteriously ill. Soon I suspected what you did—that she was making him ill—and I was afraid if I showed up claiming to be his father that she’d do something drastic.”

“Oh, my god,” Lindsey gasped. She uncrossed her arms and Robbie stepped over to her and put his arm around her shoulders. He pulled her close and rested his cheek against her hair.

“Yeah, it’s pretty horrible,” he said. “She’s a sick woman. I got in touch with Violet, and we rigged the whole thing. I suspect Joanie knew I was Dylan’s father. I believe the adoption papers she told Emma about with an American listed as the father are a forgery. I hoped that if I showed up in town, I’d draw Joanie’s attention away from Dylan. I was right.”

“How did you know to fake your death by poisoning?” Lindsey asked.

“Dylan suspected his mother was poisoning him, and he started sending me samples of his food and drink to be tested,” Robbie explained. “At first there was nothing, but then, we found trace amounts of anti-freeze.”

“Oh, my god, she could have killed him.”

“Apparently, she had it down to a science, just enough to make him sick and keep him dependent upon her. I took up drinking coconut water, because I knew it would make it easy for her to go for me as the coconut would disguise the sweet taste,” he said. “On the night I performed my Oscarworthy death scene, I noticed that the cap on my bottle had been tampered with and one taste, which I spit out, and I knew it was showtime.”

Lindsey closed her eyes. She would never forget that horrible night.

“So Dylan knew all along?” she asked.

“Yes, Dylan, me, Violet, Charlene and Emma,” he said. “That was it. Oh, and the EMTs who carted me off were actually actors. They didn’t know the whole story but they knew enough to give the performance of their lives.”

“Wait. Charlene knew?” Lindsey asked.

“Yes, I was hiding out with her on her isl—” Robbie cut off his words and gave her a sheepish grin.

If there was a flashpoint for mortification, Lindsey was pretty sure she would have combusted right on the spot. If he had been on the island, then he had heard her talking to Charlene about her feelings for him.

“You—You—!” Lindsey was so mad she couldn’t even think of anything bad enough to say. There was no help for it, she was going to have to turn to the bard for assistance, “‘You peasant swain! You whoreson malt-horse drudge!’”

“Oh!
The Taming of the Shrew
,” Robbie said. “Well done.”

“Argh!” Lindsey growled.

“Now in all fairness,” Robbie said, “there was no way I could have known you’d come out to Charlene’s island. And I was so happy to see you that I couldn’t tear myself away from the window.”

“The
open
window, which means you heard everything!” Lindsey shouted.

“Yes,” he said. Then he gave her his most brilliant smile. “And just so you know, I feel the exact same way about you, which is why I called you the night you were almost killed. I just had to hear your voice and know you were okay.”

“That was you?” Lindsey asked. “I thought you were a reporter.”

“No, it was just me. I hated that I wasn’t there to protect you,” Robbie said.

He went to pull her into his arms, but Lindsey was having none of it. She shrugged him off and stepped back. She leveled her best glare at him.

“You would do well to remember that when I said those things to Charlene, I thought you were dead!”

She turned on her heel and stomped toward the door.

“Lindsey!” Robbie called after her.

The door swung open and Sully had time enough to step back before Lindsey smacked right into him.

He glanced between the two of them, looked irritated, and then looked more closely at Lindsey. “Problem here?” he asked.

Lindsey glared back at him. “Don’t you start.”

“What?” He raised his hands. “Nancy sent me to find you. Are you all right?”

“I’m—” She paused, turned back to Robbie and snapped, “I’m fine!”

She pushed past Sully and stomped down the hall to the door that led to the stage. Men! Stupid, stupid men! She was so over them! All of them!