And then she saw the glint of metal in Melody Carlson’s hand.
It was a gun.
And it was pointed at Vivien.
Chapter Twenty-One
“If you had only takenmy warnings seriously and given up the idea of reopening this place,” Melody said, moving the muzzle of the gun closer to Vivien. It was only six inches away, and Vivien’s knees were trembling so much that she thought they might give out—which would be a sudden movement and not a good idea, all things considered.
“Go or die. I was very clear. But you didn’t listen, and so now it’s going to get a little messy,” said Melody. “Now, up onto the stage, if you please. Daddy, stay there and watch just like I did. You won’t tell anyone either, will you, Daddy? We’ll have another secret to share.”
Vivien caught the strange glint in Melody’s eyes and decided, for the moment, at least, to comply (if her knees held her upright)…and to try to keep her talking.
Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when confronted by a homicidal maniac? Because clearly she was homicidal—Vivien was guessing it ran in the family—and the creepy look in Melody’s blue eyes was definitely maniacal.
“What do you mean, watch like you did?” she asked as she climbed up the five steps onto the stage.
“He didn’t know I was here,” Melody said. She was talking as if in a dream as she prodded Vivien toward the catwalk ladder. “Up we go, bitch. I never did like you, from the very beginning. The way you came in to school and lorded your celebrity over everyone. Thought you were better than the rest of us just because you’d been on Broadway.
“I was going to be on Broadway too. Daddy promised me. I’d been working hard for so long to be ready…for years and years. It even broke up my marriage—not that I cared when I had Daddy to take care of me. And then he got sick—far too young—and had to go into the home, and I had to take care of him. And he couldn’t help me anymore.”
Vivien took her time grasping the sides of the ladder and taking the first step up as she tried to follow Melody’s convoluted, trancelike speech.
Why was Melody making her climb up? Vivien was afraid she knew, and she didn’t like it.
“Your mother—she was the Sugarplum Fairy, wasn’t she? InThe Nutcrackerproduction, the last one here,” Vivien said as she stepped up another rung.
If Melody was following her up, she’d have to manage the gun and the climbing. That might give Vivien an opportunity to escape.
“Daddy, don’t get upset, all right?” Melody called over to him. “She’s not going to tell anyone. I’ll make sure of it. Just like I always promised I wouldn’t tell either. Up you go, bitch.” She jabbed the gun into Vivien’s arm, and Vivien climbed.
“What did you see? You had to have been very young,” Vivien said, trying to climb as slow as possible without upsetting the crazy lady below her.
“He hit them, and then he—he s-stabbed them. The Nutcracker and the Sugarplum Fairy. And then my beautiful, dancing momma went away and I never saw her again. But then it was just Daddy and me, and so then we had a special secret. Didn’t we, Daddy?”
Vivien chanced a look out into the audience. Mr. Carlson sat in the front row. Their eyes met, and for a moment, she saw clarity, lucidity, and malevolence in his gaze. The anger and evil there was so shocking and clear and unexpected that she missed a rung and nearly fell.
“She was sleeping with him,” came the low, grating voice from the front row. It was surprisingly strong and precise. “The bitch. They were going to run off together. I couldn’t have that.”
Even Melody seemed surprised by the speech, for she stilled on the ladder below Vivien.“Daddy.”
“And then you hid their costumes—why? Why bother?” Vivien asked.
Mr. Carlson shifted in his seat, seeming to grow into his lucidity, to straighten and expand and mature into a stronger, more upright figure as he spoke.
“If they were found here, or if their costumes were found, who would they look at? Me. Had to move them far away, made it look like they were killed way after they left here. I took them to Indiana—made it look like a carjacking.” He smiled, and it was a cold, thin, evil smile in his age-spotted face. “She wanted to run away from me…so that’s what happened. That’s what everyone thought happened, anyway.” He laughed, ugly and low.
It was then that Vivien felt (finally!) the air begin to stir. “So you killed your wife and her lover and hid their costumes so no one would connect you—or the theater—to their deaths.”
“That’s right. Melody and I left for the holidays in Florida. Everyone assumed my wife came with us. It was only later that I told people she’d run off.” He laughed again, that horrible, grating laugh, and Vivien felt the air moving a little more sharply. “The police suspected me, of course. When they found her in Indiana with herlover. They watched me—oh, they watched me. But they couldn’t pin it on me.”
“But why did you leave the costumes here, all these years? Knowing they could be found?” Vivien asked.
“Couldn’t come back and get them—they were watching me, suspected me from the beginning. Damned mask was too big to carry around—someone might see me. And besides…who would find them, hidden away in this old, abandoned place?”
She looked up, wondering what would happen if she climbed up really fast and took off through the catwalk and left Melody behind. She might be able to get away by climbing along the light cans before Melody got down. It would certainly be harder for her captor to get off a good shot if Vivien was moving among the warren of catwalks and Melody was either below or trying to follow her along the rickety walkway. They always taught in self-defense classes to run if possible for that reason.
But before she had the chance to put her plan into action, Melody jammed the muzzle of the gun into the back of Vivien’s calf hard enough to bruise.
