“If it’s not you, and it’s not me, who else might—” Penelope said.
“Sybil!” Arlena hissed. “She was there both times when news was leaked about the family.”
“But why would she do that?”
“To sabotage me!” Arlena said. “It’s not enough to marry into the family, now she wants to take it over.”
“Oh, I don’t think Sybil would do that,” Penelope said.
“Hmm,” Arlena said. “We’ll see.”
“What are you going to do?” Penelope asked.
“I’m going to bury the lead,” Arlena said. “Give her some false information on purpose and see if it shows up anywhere.” She pulled out her phone and began texting. “I’m going to get her down here and set the trap.”
“Okay,” Penelope said. “We’ve got a show to do here too, right? Maybe we should focus on that.”
“Pen,” Arlena said patiently. “I know you think I’m acting like a spoiled child…”
“I’m not saying…”
Arlena held up her hand. “I know what I sound like. It’s just that we can’t have someone in the family who is going to ruin our reputations on purpose.”
Penelope’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out. “Oh no. I got another one. Joey!” She began taking screenshots of her phone again before the picture could dissolve away. Abigail appeared to be asleep, her face bruised, her cheek black and blue.
Joey stepped down from the truck and looked at her phone. “Can you forward it?”
“I don’t think so,” Penelope said. “It disappears before you can do anything. There’s no instructions on how to pay either.”
“Is she okay?” Arlena asked, looking over their shoulders.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Joey said. “Someone needs to find this girl. Whoever has her doesn’t sound like they know what they’re doing. Or they’re unbalanced.”
Penelope stared at the picture as it melted from the screen, her eyes dancing around the photo. “There,” she said, pointing to a round disk on the dresser next to the bed. “I recognize that logo. I know where that’s from.”
After the photo faded away a message appeared: Pay or #3 Dies.
The three of them stared at the words for a second, then Penelope dialed the number for Detective Doyle.
“I’m heading to the Tavern now,” Doyle said. “You stay put.”
Chapter 59
“We can’t close down the Vitrine Theater based on a threat from some unknown person,” Armand said from behind his desk.
“You yourself have been attacked right here,” Penelope said. “You know this isn’t an idle threat. This person is killing people.”
“But why?” Armand said. “Who would have a problem with a Christmas show, a fun event for the whole family?”
Penelope put her hands on his desk and leaned forward. She’d come up after calling Doyle, who said he was on his way over after stopping by the Tavern.
“Think about it,” Penelope said. “Someone has a big problem with this place. What are they upset about?”
“I have no idea, I assure you,” Armand said. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. His words were confident, but his expression agitated and doubtful. “I can’t respond to these threats. What would you have me do? Shutter the doors and put all of these people out of work? The carpenters, the musicians, all of the girls?”
“To save a life, maybe go dark for a night or two until the police can find Abigail. Before she turns up dead like the others. Isn’t her life worth something to you?”
Armand stood up from his chair and straightened his jacket. “You put me in an impossible situation. I’m sorry, the answer is no. The show will go on as planned.”
Chapter 60
Penelope walked slowly down the stairs and through the dressing rooms, glancing at the girls as they passed her in the narrow hallway. The energy was always high among the dancers, like they lived on a different plane, one that was in constant motion.
On her way to the break room, she overheard snippets of conversations behind the curtains, and the odd note of music from someone’s phone as they got into costume for the matinee show.
“...took me out to dinner, but then he thought that meant...”
“...trying this new protein powder. I think it’s working…”
“...last time she was in Phoenix it snowed…”
Penelope stopped short outside one of the dressing rooms. “Excuse me?” she said, peeking in behind the curtain. Meredith, the current Snow Queen, was chatting on her phone. She held up a hand, her long red fingernails catching the lights from her makeup mirror. The soft glittery powder on her skin against her dark hair made her look like a real snow queen.
“Hang on a second, Mom,” Meredith said, placing the phone against her chest. “Can I help you, Penelope?” She smiled sweetly. “Oh, I have to tell you, I love the marinade you used for the chicken yesterday. So yummy.”
“Thanks,” Penelope said. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Meredith looked at her expectantly.
“Did you say something about snow in Phoenix?”
Meredith looked confused for a second, then seemed to remember. “Yes, I was telling my mom about all of the things…you know that are happening here.” Her brow crinkled with worry for a second, then smoothed back out. “And I was saying the last time I spoke with Elspeth, who wasn’t really Elspeth, I guess, she was talking about how snowy it gets in Phoenix.
“Well, my mom here,” she nodded at the phone she held against her chest, “says it snows there all the time. Because it’s in upstate New York. She’s originally from Rochester, and Phoenix is a small town nearby, right on Lake Ontario.”
Something clicked in Penelope’s brain. “Thank you, Meredith. And thank your mom!”
Chapter 61
Penelope stepped onto the kitchen truck and yanked the door closed behind her. The wind was biting that day, and the sky was dark. The smell of snow was in the air.
“Phoenix, New York,” Penelope said to Joey. He was slicing tomatoes on the cutting board, much slower than a trained chef typically would, but his knife work was uniform and precise.
“Where?” Joey asked.
“Upstate New York,” Penelope said. “I’m going back upstairs to look at those boxes again. I remember seeing one of the Snow Queens from back then was Miss New York, from somewhere upstate. Cassie Chadwick went to school in Phoenix.” She pulled out her phone and googled the town. “Maybe that’s the connection to the theater.”
“Maybe,” Joey said. He pulled another tomato from the bin and went to work on slicing it. “Hey, Clarissa got back to me on the money thing. Elspeth hasn’t opened a new account in the last year, she only has her bank account her parents opened for her when she was underage.”
“That’s weird, right?” Penelope said. “She’s a grown woman on her own and she still has an account overseen by her parents?”
“Looks that way,” Joey said.
“But, how do you rent a car, or put a deposit down for anything without a credit card in your own name?” Penelope asked.
“It’s a possibility that if this girl wanted to disappear she could’ve purchased a new identity somehow. It’s not as hard to do as you might think.”
“She doesn’t have much of a virtual footprint,” Penelope said. “No social media to speak of, nothing to trace her by.”
“If something was happening back in Seattle, and she wanted to get away for good, it’s possible she did just that.”
“And swapped identities with Cassie Chadwick, aka Elspeth?” Penelope asked.
“Yeah,” Joey said. “No one comes looking as long as things are going well, and after enough time, you can be gone. Really gone.”
Penelope went into the suite, past the crew working in the main ro
om and into the bedroom.
“Oh, hi guys,” Penelope said. Jackson and Dakota were propped on the bed playing with their iPads. “Where’s your mom?”
“Powdering her nose,” Dakota said with a smile, then went back to focusing on her screen.
Penelope pulled out the box labeled 1975 and opened it.
“Hmm,” Penelope said. “That’s weird.”
“What?” Jackson said distractedly. He tapped on his device with his finger.
“It’s almost empty,” Penelope said. “All of the other boxes have lots of photos. This one…” She reached in and pulled out a photo book and opened it. A yellowed newspaper article fell out, the headline reading Snow Queen Severely Injured in Fall.
A group shot of all of the dancers from that year was on the first page, and Penelope scanned through the names. Seeing no familiar ones, she looked at the faces one by one.
The Snow Queen smiled back at her from the photo taken over forty years earlier. She was just as pretty as all of the other years. Her hair was a soft wave of gold over her forehead with the Christmas tree head ornament perched on top. The name printed beneath the photo caused Penelope to suck in a breath: C. Connor.
“She looks just like Elspeth,” Penelope muttered. “This must be her grandmother,” Penelope said.
“Penelope,” Sybil said from the doorway, causing her to jump. “We’re not in your way here, are we?”
Penelope closed the photo album and shook her head. “No, of course not.”
“What are you doing?” Sybil said, looking at the book in her hands.
“Just some research. We’ll have lunch ready to go in a little bit. You should bring the kids down.”
“That’s a good idea,” Sybil said. “We came in today to get some shopping done, right guys?”
“Yes, Mother,” Jackson sighed.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Sybil said, pulling Penelope aside for a moment.
“What’s up?” Penelope asked.
“Do you think I should convince Randall to postpone our wedding until next year?”
“Oh, I’m not...why are you asking me?” Penelope stammered.
“Well, you know, you and Arlena are close. I was thinking you’d know if she’d be, how do I put it…happier if we weren’t in competition for her big day.”
Penelope thought for a moment before responding. “I think Arlena is happy for you both, and you should do what you want. It’s nice of you to consider her feelings, but you deserve to be happy too.”
Sybil put a hand on Penelope’s shoulder. “Thank you, Penelope. You’ve always got such sensible advice.”
Penelope heard a swooshing sound from Jackson’s iPad.
“I’ve got to run now,” Penelope said. “See you downstairs.”
Chapter 62
Penelope walked through Central Park, the first flakes of snow falling from the sky and landing softly on her knit hat and the shoulders of her coat. They were predicting a half a foot of snow, and she wondered how that might affect that evening’s theater goers. New Yorkers were a tough crowd and didn’t let a little snow derail their plans, but she knew the show attracted many tourists who might not want to make the trek.
Penelope entered the Tavern and headed straight for the main bar, barely acknowledging the hostess as she passed through the door. As she rounded the corner, she saw the bartender on duty was a tall blonde woman with a deeply tanned face, despite the season.
“What can I get for you, ma’am?” she asked cordially.
“Cup of coffee, please,” Penelope said.
“Coming right up.”
“Is the other bartender, Derek, here?”
“No, he called out and I’m covering for him.”
“Oh,” Penelope said, picking up a nearby cardboard coaster. “Does he do that a lot? Call off work, I mean?”
She shrugged. “He had the flu last winter and I picked up a few of his shifts. Once he begged me to cover so he could make an audition for a TV show. He didn’t get the part. Otherwise he’s pretty reliable.”
“So Derek’s an actor?”
The bartender scoffed. “He’s a bartender who takes acting classes.”
“Did a detective stop by earlier?” Penelope asked as casually as possible.
“Not at the bar. Maybe one of the managers would know.”
Penelope eyed the coaster, and pictured Abigail, tied up in the chair with the very same one next to her on the table.
“Why are you asking about Derek?” She placed a cup of coffee on the bar in front of Penelope and carefully placed a stirring spoon on the saucer. Even her hands were tan, her fingernails gelled hot pink.
“I’m checking a reference,” Penelope lied.
“Really?” She brushed a strand of her blonde bang from her eyelashes. “Derek’s looking to move jobs?”
“No, it’s for an acquaintance of his,” Penelope said evasively.
“Who, his girlfriend?” she asked.
“Yes. Have you met her?”
“I think she’s an ex now,” she admitted. “She came in one day, yelling at him back here. The manager told him if she came back in he would have to find another place to work.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“Same old,” the bartender said knowingly. “She caught him with another woman. A friend of hers, from what I could make out. He got caught red handed, in bed with her.”
“Really?” Penelope asked. Her heart was beating faster but she kept her expression calm.
“Yeah, I didn’t see the argument. But word gets around this place pretty quick. Derek’s good looking but he’s a bit on the creepy side, if you ask me. I caught him taking pictures of young girls in the park out back once. Like, who does that except a straight up creeper?” She glanced down at her blouse. “He’s always accidently brushing up again the women here. You know, the usual. Customers too. When I heard he had a girlfriend, I thought, well, maybe he’s not all the way bad, and then she comes in and confirms I was right all along.”
“Derek lives in the city, right?” Penelope asked.
“In a dive in Hell’s Kitchen, with a bunch of other guys,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He invited me to a party there one time. I said I was busy.”
“You know the address?” Penelope asked.
The bartender eyed her for a minute. “You really know his girlfriend or are you some kind of bill collector?”
Penelope laughed and relaxed her shoulders. She picked up her spoon and swirled it through her coffee. “Actually, I’m a chef, and he asked me for a background check reference. I’m just making sure I’m not sticking my neck out too far. It’s a favor to his girlfriend, an old employee of mine.”
“So Abigail used to cook for you.”
Penelope dropped her spoon onto the saucer with a clatter. “Who?”
“Abigail, his girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend now, since she caught him cheating with her friend.”
Chapter 63
“He’s in Hell’s Kitchen, and I think he has Abigail,” Penelope said into the phone as she rushed back down Broadway from the park.
“How do you know?” Detective Doyle said. The street noise drowned out some of what he said.
“Abigail was his girlfriend. Remember she said she’d broken up with her boyfriend when she got to the city? I assumed she meant back at home. I didn’t think they were both already here.” She rattled off the address she’d gotten from the bartender at the tavern.
“Okay, it’s worth a look. I’ll send a squad car.”
“One other thing,” Penelope said. “His coworker said Abigail broke up with him because she caught him cheating with her friend.”
“Okay…” Doyle said.
“What if it was with Elspeth?”
Penelope thought back to her f
irst visit to the Tavern, tried to picture Derek’s reaction to the news of Elspeth’s death. He seemed surprised, at least to her. But he was an acting student, too.
Penelope’s heart pumped along with her legs as she turned every few feet to look for a taxi. The snow was coming down harder and the avenue was jammed with cars, busses and cabs, all of which had their lights off.
She decided just to walk the final ten blocks. Her hair was damp from the snow, but she was warm all over from the exertion and the knowledge that she might have finally found Abigail.
* * *
When she arrived at the Vitrine, the line of theater patrons was as robust as always. Many of the theater goers held up umbrellas against the snow. Rounding the corner, she saw Joey shoveling a path from the kitchen truck to the back door of the theater.
“There she is,” Joey said, pausing his shoveling to take in Penelope. “You’re soaked.”
She hugged him tight, their coats putting a thick boundary between them. “I think I might have found Abigail.”
“Wow,” Joey said. “Where?”
“If I’m right, she’s in an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Doyle is sending a car over there now.”
“I won’t ask how you figured it out,” Joey said. “And I’ll assume you’re still being careful.”
The back door of the theater opened and Meredith stuck her head out.
“Excuse me,” she said. “But you haven’t seen my tiara, have you?”
“Your Christmas headdress?” Penelope said.
“Wardrobe has misplaced it, I guess,” Meredith said. “I thought since you’re all around the theater all the time you might have come across it.”
“I haven’t seen it, sorry,” Penelope said.
Meredith, who was wearing her shimmery white dress, stepped outside. “I don’t think I can go on without it. I don’t want to be the first Snow Queen without a crown.”
Penelope’s phone pinged, and she pulled it from her coat pocket. “I’ll tell the guys to keep an eye out for it.”
MURDER WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS Page 20