Sucker Punch (24 page)

When the saw fell silent, I heard the low hum of conversation coming from the rehearsal hall. The level of activity tonight was a far cry from the deserted theater I’d stepped into on Monday night.

I checked Vonetta’s office first, but the door was wide open, and I could tell at a glance that she wasn’t inside. To my surprise, I felt a niggling worry spring to life. After all, last time I’d gone looking for her, I found her onstage with a dead man. Logic told me that history wouldn’t repeat itself, but that didn’t stop the feeling of dread from rising up in my throat.

“Here we go again, boy,” I muttered to Max as I led him toward the drone of voices in the rehearsal hall.

He seemed to understand—at least I told myself he did. Sometimes you have to create your own support system.

Vonetta wasn’t there, either, but at least this time the rehearsal hall wasn’t empty. The two women who’d been so enraptured by Laurence the night of the mandatory meeting were sitting at a prop table, running lines. Alexander sat a few feet away, pretending to work on a stack of papers in a file folder and watching the women from the corner of his eye.

One was young and thin, no more than twenty-five I guessed, with long, dark hair and wide, expressive eyes. The other looked a bit older, in her early thirties maybe. Her shoulder-length blond hair had been seriously overprocessed, and boredom was written all over her face.

I couldn’t tell if Alexander was paying attention to their acting techniques, or if he was interested in them for some other reason. Everyone said that Laurence had played the field extensively, but no one had mentioned Alexander as his rival when it came to women. Now I wondered if the two men had ever been interested in the same women, even fought over one or two . . .

The dark-haired actress flubbed a line and dissolved into laughter. The blond waited with exaggerated patience for her to regain control. A smile, more fatherly than lecherous, curved Alexander’s lips. But when he glanced away from the women and noticed me, the smile disappeared. A bland expression replaced it faster than I could blink, which made me rethink the whole fatherly thing.

“Abby,” he said, his voice as bland as his face. “What can I do for you?”

I could have given him a long list of things, but I didn’t think he’d be willing to comply. I wasn’t even sure why I’d come to the theater, except I was pretty sure this was where the answers to my questions were. “I’m looking for Vonetta,” I said, grabbing the first thing that popped into my head. “Have you seen her?”

“She’s not here. I believe she went to dinner.”

The brunette nodded. “Yeah, she did. She left a while ago, so she should be back soon.”

Great.
Now what excuse could I give for hanging around?

The brunette at the table took care of that for me. “Hey, aren’t you in the cast?”

I tried not to look overly grateful. “That’s right. I’ll be playing Isabel.”

She lunged out of her chair and pumped my hand. “That’s cool. I’m Jody.” She nodded toward her companion. “That’s Hannah. We’re voices.”

They were also the two people who’d been standing closest to Laurence when he’d discovered that his music was missing. I had no idea if they’d seen or heard anything important, or even if the missing music was connected to Laurence’s death, but talking to them suddenly seemed like a good idea. “So you’ll be in the sound booth on stage, speaking for the rest of us, right? Are either of you Isabel’s voice?”

Hannah slid a disinterested glance at me through a veil of strawlike bangs. “I’m Edith’s voice. She’s doing Kate.” The look she gave Max was a little less bored. “I’m not sure you can have your dog in here.”

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “He’s been here before. He goes everywhere with me.” I found an empty chair and dragged it toward the table.

Hannah looked away, a slight curl on her lip.
Darn.
There went my dreams of becoming Best Friends Forever.

I spotted a short stack of scripts on the windowsill, so I grabbed one and plunked myself into the chair. “What scene are you working on? Do you mind if I join you?”

“Of course not,” Jody assured me.

Hannah lifted one shoulder in a slow-motion shrug. “Knock yourself out.”

She was going to be a barrel of laughs over the next few weeks. I could tell already. “Is this your first production at the Playhouse?”

Jody shook her head. “I’ve been in five before this one, usually in the chorus. This is the biggest part I’ve had. Hannah’s been in a few plays, too, haven’t you?”

“A few.” Those eyes climbed slowly to my face and stopped there. “You?” I wondered if she was always this friendly, or if she had something against me.

“This is my second, and my first was . . . a while ago. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised that we’re still going into rehearsal. I thought for sure Laurence’s death would derail the play.”

Alexander spoke for the first time in several minutes. “An obvious newcomer to the theater,” he said with a cool smile. “Everyone knows the show must go on.”

I refused to let him discourage me. I turned my script to the page with my entrance on it and smiled up at him. “That’s what Vonetta said, too.”

Jody agreed. “The accident was freaky, but . . . well, you know. Accidents happen. I’m sure Laurence would have wanted us to go on with the show.”

“Yeah. Probably. Didn’t I see the two of you talking to Laurence the night of the meeting?”

Jody blushed. “Yeah. We were so excited to work with him. It’s still hard to believe that he’s gone.”

“Did you know him well?”

“No.” That gem came from Hannah. She didn’t elaborate.

Jody looked embarrassed by her friend’s response. “Not really. We just met him, like, that day.”

“Creepy,” Hannah said without looking up. I wondered whether she meant Laurence or the falling spotlight.

“Let’s not get sidetracked, ladies,” Alexander said. “Talking about Laurence’s tragic accident isn’t helping anyone.”

Color flooded Jody’s cheeks. She ducked her head and mumbled, “Sorry.”

Hannah didn’t even blink. “Whatever.”

It might not be helping him, but he wasn’t my concern. “I wonder what happened to that music,” I said. “Laurence must have been beside himself.”

Hannah’s gaze dropped to the script in front of her. “He wasn’t happy, that’s for sure.”

“Did he have any idea who took it?”

“I thought Serena did,” Jody said, her brow creased with confusion.

“She said she didn’t,” I reminded her. “I just wondered if he suspected anyone else.”

Hannah’s unblinking stare stayed glued to my face. “How would either of us know that?”

“Well, the two of you
were
right there by the piano, and you could hear everything that was going on.”

Jody’s frown deepened. “Are you accusing one of us of taking it?”

“Not at all,” I said, quickly. “I’m just wondering if either of you saw or heard anything unusual that night.”

Jody shook her head. “I didn’t really notice anything besides that Richie guy throwing himself at Laurence. It was embarrassing, if you ask me.”

I’m not sure how it was even possible, but Hannah’s expression grew even less animated. “You’re just saying that because of all the talk. He didn’t do anything different than anyone else that night.”

Maybe we
could
be Best Friends Forever after all.

Alexander spoke up again. “I really must insist, ladies. No more talk about the accident
or
about the missing music.”

I wondered why he was so anxious to keep us from talking. Was he only concerned about the production, or did he have something to hide?

Jody dropped her gaze back to her script, but she looked at Hannah from beneath furrowed brows and whispered, “You have to admit, everybody knows that gay guys are, like, major drama queens. He probably wigged out when Laurence turned him down.”

Jody, on the other hand, was off my BFF list permanently.

“That’s nothing but an old, tired stereotype,” I whispered back. “And for the record, Richie was not interested in Laurence in that way.”

Hannah looked more interested than she had since I walked through the door. “Are you a friend of his or something?”

“A very good friend. There’s no way he cut the safety cable on that spotlight. But someone did, and I’m trying to find out who.”

Hannah slid a glance at Alexander and dropped her voice a notch. “If you ask me, it was probably Serena.”

She sounded so definite, my pulse stuttered. “Why do you say that?”

“Because she hated him. I mean, she
seriously
hated him.”

Jody’s mouth formed a little
O
of surprise. “How do you know
that
?”

“I overheard them talking.”

“When?” The word snapped out of my mouth with more force than I’d intended, so I tried softening it with a BFFTYPE smile. “I mean, before or after the meeting?”

“The day after. I was in the ladies room. They were in the women’s dressing room.” Hannah leaned in even closer and dropped her voice another notch. “I think Laurence kind of chased her in there, and she was furious. She told him to get the hell away from her.”

Doubt clouded Jody’s expression. “Are you sure?” Because as we all knew, no woman in the history of the world had ever been able to resist Laurence Nichols.

Hannah slid a quelling look at her. At least it would have quelled me. “He said they needed to talk, and she said ‘Over your dead body’.”

I wanted to make sure I’d heard right. “Over
your
dead body?”

“Exactly. And a few hours later, he was dead.”

Alexander shot out of his seat and came to stand at the head of our small table. “I’m not going to say this again. I
won’t
have all this pointless speculation about Laurence’s unfortunate death. Do you understand?”

Jody squirmed in her seat, obviously distraught at having angered him. Hannah rolled an unimpressed glance in his direction. “It’s a free country, Alexander. We can talk about it if we want to.”

“Not while you’re in my production.” Anger turned his face a mottled red. “Either let it go, or you’re out of here. All three of you.”

That sent Jody over the edge. “Shut
up
, Hannah. Please. I’ve worked too hard to get here. Don’t screw it up for me.”

Hannah might have argued with Alexander, but Jody’s distress got to her. She sank down in her chair and the expression of boredom slid back over her face. “Fine. Have it your way.”

I still had a dozen questions to ask, but the conversation was over . . . for now, anyway. I bit back my disappointment and tried to concentrate on the script in front of me. For the first time in days, I felt as if I’d made a little headway. Obviously Serena had lied to me about not seeing Laurence again, and that made me wonder what else she’d lied about.

I was determined to find out.

I woke up early on Sunday morning, threw on a clean pair of jeans and my favorite sweater, and gulped coffee as Max and I drove toward the Silver River Inn. Last night’s snowstorm had blown out of the valley just before sunrise, and a foot of fresh, sparkling powder covered everything in all directions. That made the drive slow going, but the steady scrape of snow shovels mixed with the drone of snowblower engines and the rumble of snowplows resounded as Paradise dug out from the storm.

A storm of a different sort was brewing inside me. The longer I thought about Richie hiding something from me, the angrier I got. I’d been busting my hump all week, trying to clear him of suspicion, and the whole time he’d been conveniently leaving out important details, like the fact that he’d threatened to rip Laurence’s heart out a few hours before Laurence died. Call me crazy, but that seemed like an important detail to omit.

I’m firm believer in energy, the kind every person gives off. The kind that warns people in advance when you’re in a foul mood so they can steer clear. My energy this morning must have been off the charts because I found a parking space right in front of the inn. Even cars must have been able to feel my irritation, and that realization made me feel powerful.

Of course, there was an alternative explanation as well. There always is. But I didn’t want to believe that Dylan and Richie had lost so much business there were places to park in front of the inn on a busy snow day in the middle of ski season.

I picked up on a few other subtle clues as Max and I negotiated the stairs that led to the inn’s main entrance. Like the fact that the reporters were still hanging around, but they were all inside their SUVs with their heaters running, which meant they weren’t expecting to get an interview any second. And the fact that several inches of fresh powder lay undisturbed on the stairs. And the fact that the inn’s front door wouldn’t open when I tried it. I couldn’t remember the last time the door had been locked when I’d come to see Dylan and Richie.