Authors: Ali Brandon

Double Booked for Death (33 page)

Used as she was to seeing her friend in her usual uniform of jeans, sweater, and boots, Darla had not been prepared for the sight of Jake in a clingy, off-the-shoulder leopard print dress that accentuated her lean body and stopped short of her knees by several inches.
Combined with the yellow Docs, the outfit screamed “bad-girl chic” and was drawing more than one admiring set of male eyes in the ex-cop’s direction.
She was also wearing lipstick, probably the clandestine purchase she had made at Great Scentsations, Darla realized.

Catching Darla staring at her a second time, Jake demanded, “What?”

“Nothing,” Darla exclaimed, sadly aware she’d never be able to pull off the same sexy, rough-and-tumble look.
“It’s just that you look really great tonight.”

“You think?
I had this in the back of my closet and just threw it on.”

She said it with a careless shrug, but Darla could tell she was pleased with the compliment.
“Of course, I could have really rocked that red satin number of Morris’s, but I figured he probably would have missed it if I’d swiped it.”
Then, returning the praise, she added, “You clean up pretty good yourself.
I didn’t think with your hair you could wear red, but it really works on you.”

Darla had made do with the same black wrap dress—minus the picture hat—that she’d worn for Valerie Baylor’s memorial service.
She had vamped it up, however, with a kitschy red velvet rose that she pinned to its neckline and then topped it with a matching red velvet stole, both items that she’d found in Mary Ann’s shop.
Darla hoped that all her recent purchases there had more than made up for the loan of the vintage cigarette lighter.
With her hair pulled back into a loose chignon, she felt like she’d stepped out of an old Katharine Hepburn film.

“Okay, enough with the mutual admiration society,” Jake decreed while Darla preened just a little.
“We need to get the lay of the land before we take our seats.
I’ll get the tickets and poke around a little bit.
You go find a potted plant or something to hide behind and keep an eye out for Hillary.
We need to know where she is sitting in the theater so we can follow her when she gets up to make the exchange.”

“How do you know it hasn’t happened already?”

“Trust me.”

With Darla looking over Jake’s shoulder, the older woman flipped through the program she’d picked up just inside the door.
She paused at the page headed “Meet the Production Staff” and ran a finger down the alphabetized names.
Near the bottom, along with the biographies and photos of the rest of the stage and behind-the-scenes crew, was a listing for one Mavis Vickson.

“Hair and makeup design,”
Jake read aloud.
“Mavis Vickson has been with the Club Theater since its opening three years ago.
She has a bachelor of fine arts degree in theater from Boston University
, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera.”

Tucking the program into her bag—like Darla, she had prudently opted for a small clutch with a long strap that she wore crosswise over her chest—Jake went on, “Mavis is probably in the dressing room right now finishing up the cast’s makeup.
She’ll be tied up until the curtain rises, but then should have some free time until the intermission.
If I had to guess, she’ll want to do this while everyone is onstage or else watching the action, so chances are Hillary will get up sometime during the first act to go meet her.”

“That makes sense,” Darla agreed.
“Do you think they’ll stay inside the building or run out to the alley?”

“Inside.
This is Mavis’s turf.
She’ll want to control the meeting and make sure there are no witnesses.
In a place like this, especially one that’s been remodeled a couple of times, you’ve always got a rabbit warren of hallways and back rooms.
That’s why it’s critical to spot Hillary before the lights go down, so we can tail her.”

“Got it.”

Leaving Jake to her own devices, Darla eased her way toward the bar.
It was situated near another alcove, above which a garish neon arrow flashed the word “Restrooms.”
Darla gave a satisfied nod.
Everyone hits the bar or the head eventually
, she told herself.
If she kept an eye on both, surely she’d spy Hillary among the other theater patrons.

The crush at the bar had eased for the moment, so she stepped up and ordered herself a club soda with a slice of lime; then, drink in hand, she took up position by one of the mirrored columns kitty-corner to both her targets.
She couldn’t help but be proud of her undercover skills.
Once she spotted the agent, she could turn her back and pretend to use the mirrored column to check her makeup, but she’d still have an eagle-eyed view of the woman’s every move.

A few minutes passed, however, and Jake had not returned.
Nor had Hillary made an appearance.
Darla frowned and glanced at the rectangular aluminum clock posted prominently over the bar.
Quarter to eight.
The play would be starting soon, and even the drinkers were now abandoning the lobby for the theater.
Was it possible that Hillary had arrived there before them and was already in her seat?

Uneasy now, Darla left her post and hurried over to the growing crowd at the double doors.
When she reached the front of the line, a smiling young woman in a man’s tuxedo held out a gloved hand and said, “Ticket?”

Ticket?

Darla muttered a couple of bad words.
Jake had picked up both their admissions from the box office but had neglected to bring one of the tickets back to Darla before heading off who knew where.
Doubtless, Jake would show back up eventually, but in the meantime she needed that look around the theater in case Hillary was already sitting down.
Trying to spy the agent among the other patrons after the house lights went down would be difficult at best, and a fruitless exercise at worst.

“I’m sorry, my friend is holding my ticket for me,” she explained to the usher, trying for what she hoped was a guileless look.
“Maybe I can just step inside and see if I see her.”

“Sorry,” the usher echoed, still smiling.
“You have to have a ticket to get in.
Why don’t you wait for your friend in the lobby so you’re not blocking the way?”

“But if she’s already inside .
.
.”

Darla trailed off as the usher shook her head and made a polite little shooing motion with one gloved hand.
Grimacing, Darla stepped aside, even as she reminded herself that she’d gotten past Everest when she’d been denied entry to the church.
If she could manage to dodge a professional like him, she darn well could manage a perky little usherette!
All she needed was another shield like Morris had been.
She had just turned to scout out a potential unwitting cohort when she was all but knocked off her feet by a brunette wearing a pale pink satin pantsuit and matching pink-framed eyeglasses.

“’Scuse me,” the woman muttered, not bothering to look Darla’s way as she shoved on past her and handed over her ticket to the usher before vanishing into the theater.

Talk about pushy New Yorkers
, was Darla’s first indignant thought as she stared after the woman.
Then she gasped as recognition abruptly dawned, and she realized that the aggressive female had been none other than Hillary Gables.

Darla froze for a moment, unable to believe she’d avoided disaster in this encounter.
Now, she had to get into the theater to see where Hillary took a seat.

But barely had she tried to follow after the agent when a restraining hand clamped onto her arm.
Darla swung about, ready to loudly protest to the usherette, when she found herself face-to-face with Jake.

“You’re gonna need one of these,” Jake said with a wry look as she held out a ticket.
Then, apparently recognizing Darla’s dismay, she demanded, “What’s wrong?”

“Quick, Hillary just went inside!
Pink pantsuit, pink glasses.”

Jake didn’t ask any further questions.
Handing over the tickets, she snatched the stubs back from the usher and then hustled Darla into the theater.

Immediately before them was a freestanding wall that created a hallway effect and was designed to shield the actors onstage from the patrons’ comings and goings to and from the theater.
They could turn either right or left as they entered.
And so, with a gesture from Jake, the pair split up.

As she peeked around her side of the wall, Darla saw that the layout before her was similar to the older-style movie theaters: an orchestra section only, with the floor sloping toward the raised, curtained stage.
The slick black walls of the lobby remained here as well, and the disco balls that Jake jokingly had mentioned hung above them like a dozen mirrored clouds.
A broad center block of rows seated the majority of the playgoers, with the rest settled into two narrow sections separated from the main block by aisles.

The houselights began a slow dim as Darla frantically scanned the place.
How could Hillary have eluded them in such a relatively small venue?
Then a flash of pastel color caught her eye, and she gave a relieved sigh.
Joining Jake on her side of the wall, she whispered, “There, about halfway down the center, aisle seat on the left-hand side.”

Jake followed her pointing finger and nodded as she, too, gained their target.
Pretending to confer over their ticket stubs, they clandestinely watched as Hillary settled into her chair.
Once seated, the woman glanced about a couple of times, the glow from the remaining houselights glinting off her glasses.

“We’d better sit down, too, before she notices us,” Jake softly told her.
“Our seats are right here, best in the house.”

She indicated the aisle seat and one next to it in the final row, just a few feet from where they stood.
The show wasn’t quite sold out, and Darla saw that several choicer spots still remained open.

“Hope you got us a discount,” Darla muttered back as they took their places.
“I guess I should be glad we’re not stuck behind a column.”

“Hey, kid, we’re not actually here for the show,” Jake reminded her as the last of the houselights flickered out.

The green velvet curtains parted to a polite rumble of applause, revealing a stark stage setting of scaffolding and gilded columns meant to represent a Renaissance Venice canal front.
Roderigo and Iago took the stage, and the action commenced.

Darla was oblivious to what happened next onstage, her attention held by the solitary figure seated twelve rows down from them.
Whether she liked the woman or not, Darla knew they couldn’t let Hillary come to any harm this night.
She only wished she could ask Jake what, if anything, she had learned as she prowled about the theater before the show had started.
Unfortunately, sound carried readily there, so she didn’t even dare strike up a whispered conversation.

She did, however, turn her attention to the stage at the second scene of Act I long enough to discover the reason why Mrs.
Gleason enjoyed her Tuesday night cop show so much.
DeWayne Jones, the actor portraying Othello, had been costumed to show off his muscular chest and arms to advantage.
Darla hadn’t paid enough attention to judge how good an actor the man was, but she could honestly report back that he looked damn good on stage.

Act I became Act II, and Hillary still remained in her seat.
Darla shifted impatiently in her own chair and gave Jake an anxious look.

What’s taking so long?
she mouthed, getting a headshake back in return.
By now, Iago had begun his soliloquy that would conclude the first scene of the second act.
Despite herself, Darla kept one ear cocked toward the spoken lines, for she knew this portion of the play.
Here, Iago revealed his perfidy, though his motives were still hazy, even in his own mind.

‘Tis here, but yet confused: Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used.

She wondered if that was how it was with Morris, and if that meant that she and Jake still might be able to stop whatever plan would be carried out this night.

As she pondered this, Iago’s final words died away, replaced by the sound of polite applause as he exited the stage .
.
.
which was when Hillary Gables abruptly rose from her seat and started toward the back of the theater.

TWENTY-SEVEN

JAKE’S TOUCH ON DARLA’S ARM MEANT THAT SHE HAD also noticed Hillary get to her feet as the scene ended.
“That must have been her cue,” the ex-cop murmured.
“Sit tight a little longer, let her get out the door, and then we’ll follow.”

Darla nodded, trying to keep an eye on the agent while not appearing to do so.
Though the woman had been seated several rows down and house left of them, she would be passing just a few feet from Jake and Darla as she exited the double doors to the lobby.
And while the houselights were still down, enough illumination came from the stage that, should she glance their way, Hillary might well recognize them.

On the other hand, she had smacked right into Darla there in the lobby and never made the connection.

A faint squeak of hinges behind them told them that Hillary had left the theater.
“Let me take a look first,” Jake softly cautioned as they reached the double doors.
Inching one of them open, she gestured Darla to join her.
Through that gap, she could see that Hillary was headed for the alcove near the empty ticket booth.

“Morris must have told her which way to go,” Darla whispered back.
“Did you get to see what’s in there?”

“Besides a couple of offices, there’s a stairway that heads down to the basement.
That’s probably how the cast and crew get to the dressing rooms and backstage without going through the theater.
I didn’t get very far, though.
A couple of stagehands caught me, and I had to pretend I was looking for the ladies’.”

She waited until Hillary’s pink pantsuit had vanished around the corner of the alcove, and then whispered, “C’mon!”

Glancing over at the bar to make sure they were not being observed—the crew that earlier had been pouring drinks was apparently on break until intermission, leaving only a doorman gazing forlornly out into the street—they made their swift way to the alcove.
Just as Jake had said, two doors marked “Private” were visible from the lobby.
It was only after they’d ducked inside that arched recess that Darla saw the dimly lit entry to her left opening onto a narrow wooden staircase.

Hillary’s pink pantsuit flashed like a reluctant beacon at the bottom of the stairs.

Jake started down the steps after her, moving with pantherlike silence despite her boots.
Darla tried to emulate her, but her pumps were not designed for stealth.
After her first couple of steps, which resulted in hammerlike blows against the wooden treads, Jake swung about and wildly gestured for her to stop.

“Lose the shoes,” she hissed.

Darla swiftly pulled off her heels.
Clutching them in one hand and the handrail in the other, she negotiated the remaining steps silently—and, of necessity, slowly.
While several bare bulbs were strung from the electrical wiring above her, only one was lit, and most of its yellow light was absorbed by the rust-colored brick walls.

Major OSHA violation
, she told herself, wondering how many actors and stagehands had taken a header down those poorly lit steps before.

Fortunately, she managed to avoid such a fate.
Reaching the bottom unscathed, Darla took a moment to glance about her, squinting a little in the dimness as she tried to form a mental floor plan of where they were beneath the theater.

Jake was waiting for her in what appeared, at first glance, to be a corridor.
A second look showed it to be nothing more than a narrow stretch of open basement between the outermost wall and the first in a series of rows of brick support columns that ran parallel to it.
The electrical wire continued on its path like a sagging tightrope above them, its few lit bulbs reminding her of fallen high-wire walkers clinging to it for dear life.
The remainder of the basement was thrown into the sort of shadow that would have required Jake’s official police flashlight to pierce.
Someone had taken a roll of black and yellow floor-striping tape and made the open passage a formal walkway with the built-in caution not to step outside its bounds—not that anyone would want to deviate off that path on purpose.

For what surrounded them was the original nineteenth-century brick building, untouched by any trendy attempts at renovation or camouflage.
A mazelike collection of rusty iron girders intersected the thick brick columns and formed a secondary skeleton that supported the four stories above.
The mortar that once had held the outer walls together with crisp precision was crumbling in some places and missing altogether in others, while the years had rounded the bricks’ sharp edges so that they more closely resembled oversized cobblestones.
The ceiling here was so low that, had Jake’s boots been a bit taller, the top of her frizzy head would have brushed the subflooring over them.

To her left, Darla could hear the periodic clang and hiss of steam over the distant sounds of speech and applause from the theater above.
This section of the basement was strictly functional, serving as combination boiler room and storage space.
Beyond the boiler, she could see barrels and crates piled high, along with what appeared to be fixtures from the old club, and random machinery likely left over from the days when the place had been some sort of factory.
For all she could tell, Jimmy Hoffa might have been stuffed in some far corner, too.

The floor was cold beneath her stockinged feet, but she didn’t dare pull on her pumps again lest the echo of her footfalls against the rough stone signal their presence.
Feeling the nylon beneath one foot snag on an uneven spot in the flooring, she accepted the fact that her twenty-dollar pair of pantyhose was not going to survive the night.

Of course, all that mattered was that Hillary did.

Jake, meanwhile, put a finger to her lips and pointed up toward the stage above them.
Perhaps thirty feet directly ahead was a second entryway, its interior faintly glowing against the shadows that crept from beyond the boiler and other forgotten equipment.

“She went in there.
C’mon.”

Darla barely could hear Jake’s low whisper, but the swift jabbing of her finger in that direction got the point across.
She fell into quiet step behind her friend, grateful for Jake’s unflappable presence and feeling unwilling admiration for Hillary, who had traversed the basement alone.
An uneasy air clung to the place; the brick columns that revealed the building’s mechanical underbelly also served to conceal.
Perhaps that black and yellow caution tape on the floor was there for reasons other than mere workplace safety.
Maybe the theater workers knew that something worse than an OSHA breach lurked beyond the stripes.

Darla felt her scalp tingle as she pictured some unknown being lurking in the shadows ready to pounce from behind a column as they passed.
She wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that the theater’s actors had encountered unexplained activity late at night when they ventured down there alone.
Neither could she shake the odd feeling that she’d been in this particular basement before.

Then it abruptly occurred to her that, in a manner of speaking, she had.

She realized she was walking her way through virtually the same basement that was found on the other side of the Janitor’s closet in the
Haunted High
books.

Scenes from the most recent novel flashed through her mind.
In one, Lani discovered phosphorescent footprints that hinted the Janitor had survived his exorcism in the second book.
In another, a squad of ghouls dressed as cheerleaders captured one of Lani’s living friends and held her hostage, threatening to devour the terrified girl if Lani did not surrender to them.
And, in still another, Lani learned that the new vice principal had a taste for both handing out detentions and sipping fresh blood.

These and several other of the book’s more chilling incidents had all taken place in a fearsome subterranean level that lay somewhere beneath the fictional Lani’s high school.
Some of the book’s characters believed the spot to be a portal to hell; others claimed it was simply a way station for the dead.
Accessed by way of the Janitor’s closet, that supernatural basement had become Book Three’s battleground where Lani and the Janitor squared off as each sought to gain control of the school’s various paranormal entities.
Nothing good happened there, and the physical description of the place—at once terrifyingly otherworldly and laughably mundane—described this theater’s basement as well.

So who would they encounter tonight, she wondered with a shiver: Morris, the kindly old Janitor, or Morris the sharp-toothed demon?

They halted at the entry, and Jake peered cautiously around the splintered jamb.
The dialogue from the stage above was more distinct here, and Darla could follow the actors’ progress by the sound of their footsteps atop the boards.
She waited until Jake gave an all-clear signal, and then joined her to take a look.

The area was larger than she expected.
As best she could judge, it ran the width of the entire basement and encompassed not only the basement space under the stage but also that beneath the entire backstage area.
Practical rather than architecturally stylish, this section had been walled off from the remaining basement by means of a sturdy wooden framework covered in bare sheetrock.
The lighting here was only marginally better, but sufficient to make out the storage room’s layout.

Plywood had been laid over the stone floor to provide a more stable surface for a series of vertical racks, and had also been used to create shelves and pallets.
These storage systems, which took up large segments of the available floor space, held all manner of old backdrops and stage props, from furniture to statuary to artificial trees.
Under other circumstance, Darla would have enjoyed the chance to poke around there, but the seriousness of their mission did not allow for exploring this veritable graveyard of plays past.

Had they kept walking straight ahead, they would have found themselves on a ramp that rose to stage level and likely led right past the main stage to the backstage area.
Dressing rooms and costume storage would be up there, along with areas for the props and set decorations used for the current run of plays.
Would they find Hillary and Morris there, or were the two of them together somewhere here in this netherworld of theatrical discards?

“Damn it, Morris, where are you?”

The sound of Hillary’s peevish voice answered the question as to her location.
The voice came from somewhere beyond the large vertical rack just inside the doorway where Darla and Jake had swiftly concealed themselves.
They could hear the sound of her impatient heels tapping as she paced the plywood floor.
Darla peered through one of the gaps between the canvas and wood-framed backdrops standing on end like books on a shelf.
She could see a flash of pink as Hillary walked past.
Yes, where
is
Morris?
Darla wondered, aware that her palms had begun to sweat a little in nervous anticipation.
She shifted her shoes from one hand to the other and blotted her free palm on her skirt.

“Damn it, Morris!”
Hillary called again, “I’m not going to play games with you.
Let’s finish this.”

“Let’s not.”

The sound of a second voice made Darla jump, even though she had been expecting it.
The speaker was Morris.
His words came from what seemed to be a spot well beyond where Hillary waited.
Darla could hear a man’s faint yet solid footsteps crossing the plywood floor, though she could not spy him from her vantage point.

She exchanged a look with Jake, who signaled her to hold tight.
She nodded and peered again through the slatlike gaps in the backdrops.
Now, she could hear Hillary moving in the direction of where Morris seemed to be, her staccato steps revealing her agitation.

“Where are you?
What do you mean, ‘let’s not’?”
she demanded.
“We had a deal.”

“I’ve reconsidered.”

Morris’s voice seemed a bit more distant, as if he were leading her deeper into the basement.
Looking grim, Jake gestured Darla to follow behind her.
They moved softly in the same direction as Hillary’s footsteps, using the props and backdrops as cover.
The sounds from the actors above masked any noise the two of them made, though Darla suspected that Hillary’s only focus was Morris.

“Damn it, Morris,” she repeated, “quit running away from me.
I want that money, or I’m going to reveal everything.”

The woman’s footsteps stopped abruptly.
Jake and Darla halted, too, crouching behind a small grove of fake bushes that served as a handy screen for them.
The light here was dimmer and seemed to flicker.
Peering between the leaves, Darla frowned a little in surprise.

Other books

Escort (The Callie Leveaux Series) by Kate Benson

Sullivan's Law by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

Guns n' Boys: Homicidal Instinct (Book 2) (gay dark mafia erotic romance) by K.A. Merikan

djinn wars 04 - broken by pope, christine

Young Miles by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Forever Marriage by Ann Bauer

Fire Wind by Guy S. Stanton III

The Blood Legacy (The Divine Elements Book 1) by Daman

Forged with Flames by Ann Fogarty, Anne Crawford

Don't Say A Word by Barbara Freethy