Shuddering, fighting the urge to puke, Vivien dragged herself to her feet and stood on trembling knees. Good God.
“That was a little too close for comfort,” she shouted in a shaky voice to the place at large.
The scaffolding clattered above her, the stage lights flashed on, and then off. Everything quieted.
She guessed—she hoped—that was the pair of unhappy ghosts, turning out the lights and going to their rest at last.
* * *
Jake came as soonas he got her text, and unfortunately, he had no choice but to bring Pop with him. He didn’t want to take the time to argue about it, and his dad wasn’t about to stay home.
“Vivien,” Jake said as he pulled her into his arms. He was never going to let her go.
Helga and Joe Cap had arrived only moments before him, and so Vivien had to extract herself from his embrace to finish telling her story.
She seemed relatively calm, all things considered.
Jake was also relieved that neither Joe Cap nor Helga seemed the least bit shocked or disbelieving about the story—which, if Jake hadn’t been a witness to the ghostly tantrums, he would never have believed…even coming from Vivien.
“I’m certain you’ll find that the man standing in the Nutcracker cast photo without a costume is Mr. Carlson, and that one of the little girls who were extras was Melody,” Vivien said. “She must have come up to the theater with her mother, and was there when Mr. Carlson murdered his wife and her lover.”
“And one would assume, since she was friends with your realtor, that Melody somehow got a copy of the key so she could come in and set up all of her theatrical warnings,” Jake said.
“Exactly. She would have known about the sale probably from the beginning, and would have had plenty of time to plan.”
“All right, then. So, uh,” said Joe Cap, scratching his head and looking up into the rafters. “You said you were up there when all this happened?”
“Yes, when the ghosts started getting wild and violent, I was standing at the top of the ladder on the landing.”
Jake looked at the jumble of metal that had been the ladder and landing—which had been thirty feet above the ground—and felt his insides squeeze. “But how… You couldn’t have fallen…? Did you?”
“Well, her sister probably helped her down, now, didn’t she?” said Pop, pushing his way into the conversation.
Jake stared at him. “What are you saying?”
Vivien put her arm around his dad and hugged him close, whispering something in his ear. Then she looked up and said to Jake, “Liv—I think—caught me. She stopped me from falling and helped me land on the ground.”
“And you bitch about your sisters all the time, Elwood,” lectured Pop. “Maybe you better be nicer to them—just in case they go first.”
“Sure,” said Jake, still feeling pretty discombobulated. “I’ll…uh…keep that in mind.”
“By the way, there’s an Elantra in the parking lot. Presumably Melody’s,” said Helga.
Vivien and Jake were there for another three hours, giving statements and waiting for everything to be cleared away.
“The place is a crime scene,” Vivien said sadly. “There’s no way we’ll be able to open the show on time. But I suppose that’s not such a tragedy, because now I have to find a new Elaine Harper. I just got a message—Penny Stern broke her leg and won’t be available for three months. Talk about bad juju.”
Helga folded her arms over her middle and lifted her brow. “You know you can find someoneveryeasily, Vivien. And what crime scene? I don’t see any crime scene. Two very unfortunate accidents happened—and everyone knew the catwalk was old and rickety. You tried to warn them, but they were determined to climb up there and look around. For old times’ sake.” She spread her hands and shrugged. “No crime scene here.”
Vivien smiled through a glint of tears. “That sounds about right. Thanks, Helga.”
“No reason to thank me. Joe Cap’s the one who did the assessment,” she said.
And with that last bit of worry cleared from her mind, Vivien smiled and looked around at her place. Her stage. Her theater.
Thanks, Liv.
* * *
