“Stop talking and climb. Now. I don’t like it in here, Daddy, and I want to go.” Her voice sounded very girlish, and that creeped out Vivien even more.
But she climbed. She was more than halfway to the top of the thirty-foot ladder.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, figuring the more she knew, the better she could plan. And why weren’t the stupid ghosts acting upnow—now that their murderer and his accomplice were here?
Wasn’t this what the unsettled spirits had been awaiting for twenty-five years? A chance to have revenge?
“You’re going to have a little fall,” said Melody. “A terrible accident. Everyone knows the catwalk up there nearly fell down the other day. Unfortunately, there’s another section that’s still a bit loose…and apparently you didn’t realize it before you stepped onto it. Oopsie.”
Clever. Vivien had to hand that to her. No one would ever think it was more than an unfortunate accident. And Melody would have the perfect alibi—she was with her father, returning him to his assisted living home at the time the murder happened.
“All right, then, up you go, Vivien LeighSavage,” spat Melody. “Stop dawdling. This place gives me the creeps.” The little-girl voice was gone, replaced by a hard-as-nails avenger. “Go.”
“Is that why you didn’t just come and take the costumes away?” Vivien asked, even as she began to climb. “Melody?”
“I couldn’t find them—Daddy couldn’t remember—and this place ishorrible. Horrible things happened here…lights, wind, noises… I…don’t like it here… So awful… I was going to burn the whole place down if you didn’t leave—but this will be better. Much better. Less risky. A terrible accident.”
Vivien felt the air stirring more now. It was getting cooler, and she could sense the spirits gathering their strength…and she felt Liv, right next to her, telling her to climb.
She got to the top just as all hell broke loose.
If she’d thought the scene Friday when Jake was here was crazy, what happened now was unfathomable—but at least she’d been expecting it.
A loud roaring filled the air, making her wrap her arm around one of the bars of the landing so she could cover both ears with her hands and remain safe.
The roaring swelled, expanding and echoing like a furious freight train, and Vivien heard Melody scream from somewhere below. But she couldn’t look, for the shaking had begun, so wildly, so violently, that she was afraid the whole structure was going to collapse.
Lights flashed everywhere, blinking like strobes, blinding her as she clung for her life to the metal rods that held up the ladder and its landing.
The shaking continued, the roaring, the lights, the screaming…and the sudden, frigid wind that made her fingers want to peel away from the burning cold metal she was holding on to.
And then suddenly, everything collapsed. She felt the floor beneath her feet give away, and her ears were filled with screams as she fell.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Liv was there.
Vivien saw her sister—her face as she would be now, at thirty-one, and recognized her.
You’re safe,said Liv.
And then Vivien felt the ground beneath her.
* * *
Vivien opened her eyes.She had no idea how long she’d been lying there—in the middle of the stage.
Everything was silent.
Melody Carlson was in a broken heap on stage left at the base of the shattered ladder, the gun still gripped in her fingers.
Mr. Carlson must have stood—or been dragged—from where he’d been sitting, for he was no longer in his chair, or anywhere near it.
Then she saw him—looking no more substantial than a rag doll thrown to the ground, lying on stage right.
She doubted he could have climbed onto the stage, or that he would have done anything but try to run out of the place if he were able.
He looked as if he might have been tossed there.
