The bartender wasn’t there; two barmaids were handling everything.
The singing was coming from the area of the back booth, where most of the people in costume had gathered, taking over several tables and chairs, as well. They seemed to have reached the end of a refrain, and now most of them burst out laughing.
Reggie walked directly over, expecting to see Laura seated in the booth.
But, again, she wasn’t.
The director was there, chatting drunkenly with the prop mistress and three witches. Macbeth and a couple of other Scottish warlords, minus swords and armor, were there as well, doing their best to impress some local women who had been lured in by the festivities.
The director finally looked up at Reggie.
“Where is she?” asked Reggie.
“Who?” said the director, in mock confusion. “Or which? A witch?”
The director’s companions broke up in laughter.
Reggie put his hands on the table and leaned in.
“My wife.”
The director managed to focus semisoberly for a moment, and then he shook his head and shrugged.
“Is Mrs. Hatfield here?”
The director considered that, rolled his eyes, and shrugged again.
Reggie pushed the man’s beer away.
“Give me an actual answer. Now. Did Laura leave the theater with you?”
The director improved his focus enough now to actually speak.
“No. They were both still at the theater when the rest of us left.”
Reggie stepped back from the table, looked about him once more for anyone who might possibly have any information, and then exited the pub.
He ran down the street to the theater. Now there were no lights on at all, no cars parked, no people. The banner was there, flapping in the breeze at one corner where it had come loose. He heard the sound of that, and of his own footsteps on the pavement, and nothing else.
He went to the entrance. The heavy wooden door was still closed, but when he tried the latch, it turned.
He pushed the door open.
It was completely dark inside. He groped on the wall until he found the switch.
The lamps from the side walls came on, but nothing overhead. It would have been enough for parishioners or theatergoers to find their way through the pews, but it was not enough to tell at a glance whether anyone else was there.
The converted stage at the far end was still in shadows. Reggie walked quickly toward it, down the center aisle.
“Laura?” he called out as he walked, but he was nearly certain already that no one was there. He glanced at the pew rows a couple of times as he walked past them. It occurred to him that perhaps this was all just some sort of joke that the theater group was playing on the nontheaterish outsider. They were, after all, in his experience (with the exception of Laura, of course), rather strange people.
But no. He reached the stage, and no one had jumped out from the pews to yell “Surprise.”
He was growing just a little annoyed. He didn’t bother to go around to the steps on either side; he just jumped up directly onto the middle of the stage.
The sound of that echoed, but nothing else made a peep. He looked behind one of the side curtains, fumbled around again, and finally flipped the stage switch.
Bright lights came on, blinding at first, and when he stopped blinking, he saw that the stage set was more or less complete. If he had taken another step in before getting the lights on, he would have tripped over a plastic prop that was undoubtedly meant to represent a chamber pot.
He hoped none of the cast members had gotten overenthusiastic about the Method acting approach.
In the center of the stage was a king-size—well, yes, of course it was—bed. The set was obviously the royal bedchamber.
No, Lady Macbeth was not in the bed.
Pity. If that had been the joke, and Laura the one playing it on him, he would have forgiven the sense of anxiety he was beginning to feel. No harm in getting the adrenaline up, after all, if for a good purpose.
But no. Laura was not here. Reggie took out his mobile, saw that he had some minimal reception, and tried again to ring her, but he received no answer.
Reggie searched urgently through his phone list to see if Laura had given him Mrs. Hatfield’s number. She had; there it was. His phone still showed one bar. He rang her, waited—and waited—and then, mercifully, the call went through and she picked up.
“This is Reggie Heath, Mrs. Hatfield. I’m looking for Laura.”
A surprised silence, then: “And so … why are you calling me, dear?”
“You and she were the last ones at rehearsal.”
“Yes, I think that’s true, but she left before I did. Have you tried the pub?”
“Of course. Everyone else is there, but Laura is not.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Hatfield. “Well, if she isn’t with you, and not with the cast, and not at the house, I suppose that is a little odd.”
“Yes,” said Reggie.
“But I’m sure it must just be some sort of misunderstanding, is all. Now, I don’t want to pry, but—I don’t suppose the two of you … you didn’t have a little quarrel of some kind, did you?”
“Of course not,” said Reggie. “Well, I mean, nothing that would—look, I just know that is not it.”
“Of course, if you say so.”
“I do. And … Mrs. Hatfield, is there a reason why you yourself are not at the pub with the cast?”
“Well, yes, dear, as a matter of fact. After talking with you earlier today, I began to … wonder about some things. I rang my old colleague from the school, Mr. Turner, who’s been so encouraging about the play and raising the funds and so on. I was going to meet up with him in a few minutes, but—honestly, dear, if you are worried about Laura, then I am, too, and that takes priority. Where are you now?”
“At the theater. On the stage, to be precise.”
“Really? How did you get in?”
“I walked in. The door was unlocked.”
“Oh goodness. Not hanging wide open, I hope, was it?”
“No. But unlocked.”
“Well. That was silly of me. I was the last to leave. I should have been more careful. Well. Did I remember to turn the lights out at least?”
“I presume so. Nothing was on when I came in.”
“And no one else there at all?”
“No.”
“Did you check backstage? The dressing area?”
“Why would anyone be backstage with all the lights off?”
“Yes, yes, good point. Well then. I’ll meet you straightaway at your house. Not at the theater—it’s such an uncomfortable place. The house would be better, don’t you think?”
“All right,” said Reggie. “How long will you be?”
“I have my car; I can be there in ten minutes. That will give you time to walk back, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. I’m sure everything is fine. In fact, I’ll bet Laura will be there by the time you get back. Not to worry. Now, do me a favor, dear, and lock up as you leave, won’t you?”
Reggie agreed to do that.
But first he stepped behind the curtains and went backstage. He found the light switch for the one room that served for props, makeup, and everything else. He turned the lights on, and found nothing. So far as he could tell, it was all normal.
He went to Laura’s makeup station and saw his own worried expression in the mirror. He knew next to nothing about theater makeup, but he could see that she had used the makeup remover—and then had not put it back or even closed the makeup case.
He left the room and went back into the main part of the theater, accidentally kicking a sword as he walked across the stage. He locked up, left the theater, and walked back into the street, now headed home, his hard shoes echoing on the wet cobblestones. He mulled over what Mrs. Hatfield had said. There were any number of explanations for Laura’s absence. True, he was not fon
d of any that he’d been able to imagine, but that didn’t mean that there was not a perfectly benign explanation. He, in his bullheaded emotional state, had just not been able to think of one.
And of course he couldn’t call in the district constabulary for a grown woman who had been missing for all of two hours. After all, it wasn’t as though she was out in the wilderness and in danger of dying of exposure.
Was it? There was that wide field beyond the garden behind the house.…
Reggie was in front of the house now. The kitchen light was still off, which he regarded as a pretty certain indicator that Laura had not returned. The front porch lamp was on, but he had left it that way.
There was just enough light from it that now it occurred to him that he had not done the most obvious thing. Quite naturally, of course, because when he had left the house, he wasn’t thinking of Laura as being missing.
But now he was. And he saw that the ground both in front and all around the house was soft, except for that one portion of incomplete walkway—and there was just enough light to look.
He stopped in his tracks, and began to look for Laura’s.
He was standing just at the edge of the muddy patch that a person had to walk through to get from the end of the cobblestone walkway to the paved street.
He could still see his own tracks in that mud from earlier, and traces of the mud where he had tracked it into the street and it had not yet been drizzled away.
He did not see Laura’s. And although she was much better at not stepping in things unintentionally than he was, he could see no way in which she could have gotten onto the street without walking in the mud. Even Laura could not have done that.
So Reggie began to check for tracks around the entire house. He started where the cobblestone walkway crossed the garden border and proceeded to his right.
He reached the side yard, having seen no signs of anyone’s being there before him. He looked back at where he had just stepped and saw that indeed he was leaving clear prints—surely Laura would have, too.
He fished into his coat pocket for his key chain, onto which he had attached a tiny LED torch, something he did whenever he traveled. There had been times when he wanted one on his journeys with Laura.
He continued down along the side yard toward the back of the house.
There was a momentary break in the clouds as he neared the end of the side yard. Some sixty or seventy yards distant he could just make out the dark profile of the hedgerow that separated the backyard of the house from the meadow and farming fields beyond.
Still no footprints or anything else. He turned the corner to continue around the back just as the clouds closed ranks again, and even the slightest moonlight was gone.
Reggie pushed the button on the LED torch and pointed it directly at the muddy path in front of him, bending slightly for a better look. He could see little else, and he paid attention to nothing around him but the damp cold that had begun to creep in underneath his collar and through his shoes.
There were no footprints. He still saw nothing.
Just then, for a moment, he thought heard something. It sounded mechanical, and so far distant that he couldn’t really be sure. It seemed to be coming from somewhere out beyond the fields and stand of trees.
The coughing of fuel igniting, a backfire, sputtering—slowly and then more rapidly and surely—and then the sound of an engine fully alive.
Not a car, thought Reggie. Not a motorcycle.
A plane. A small plane.
He looked in that direction—he was almost sure the sound was coming from where he and Laura had flown in—but of course he could see nothing from where he was.
He wanted to run in the direction of that sound, to make sure it was not what first came into his mind, but it would be much too far on foot.
Then some instinct made him look down again, and a few meters in front of him, he saw something.
Not a footprint, but something of a bright color, a glimpse of cloth—of familiar clothing, dear God—and Reggie redirected the circumference of the torch light a bit to one side—and then he froze.
In an instant, he was on his hands and knees over the prostrate female form. He didn’t remember to breathe as he reached for her.
Then a shiver of intense pain went up the back of his head, and everything went black.
14
TWO HOURS EARLIER
Final dress rehearsal was done, and Laura was at the backstage mirror, finally able to take her makeup off.
The rehearsal had gone well enough. There were dropped lines and mishandled cues and stumbles and early exits by a few of the players, but it was community theater, after all, and it was for a good cause. Laura had no complaints.
Mrs. Hatfield, who had watched from the front row, had seemed a bit distracted while giving her stage notes after—but perhaps that was just Laura’s imagination. After all, she felt a bit distracted herself.
She wished she had not kept the letter from Reggie, but aside from that, now that she had heard his take on it, the letter itself worried her.
Scarecrow indeed. If Mrs. Hatfield had not written it, then who had?
Everyone else had already gone off to the pub. The last to leave—except for Laura—had been Mrs. Hatfield, who had not seemed her usual exuberant self. When Laura had asked, her friend had replied that she just felt like she might be coming down with something. Laura had reminded her about taking vitamins, and then Mrs. Hatfield had left.
Laura wiped off the last of her makeup now. That was a relief. Two more nights, and then she and Reggie would have their honeymoon back again.
Now Laura thought she heard footsteps from the stage. She called out.
“Mrs. Hatfield? Are you back?”
No answer.
Now another couple of echoing footsteps, very clear this time.
Laura called out again. No answer.
She took out her mobile phone and tried to get a connection. Nothing, not a single bar, no roaming, no wireless, nothing at all.
She stood. She knew there was no back exit from the makeup room. The only exits were at the front entrance, one on either side of the main auditorium, and then one just off the stage, behind the curtain, which led to the parking area and to the storage area for prop construction.
She couldn’t reach any of them without walking either into the auditorium or onto the stage—and that’s where the footsteps had come from.
Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps Mrs. Hatfield or one of the cast members had returned and simply hadn’t heard her call out. There were any number of possibilities.
But it wouldn’t do just to sit and wait to find out.
She picked up the genuinely rusty steel prop sword with both hands, and she lugged it with her out onto the stage.
In front of her were the rows of audience seating, all of them in the dark.
“Hello, Mrs. Hatfield! Are you still here?”
Still no answer.
Laura began walking down the middle aisle, past the darkened rows, toward the front exit. It seemed like the best choice. The side exits both opened onto narrow, unlit areas. She was going to go right out the front, or she was going to swing the damn sword.
“Hello, everyone! Don’t all answer at once!”
She had passed one dark audience row after another, and now she was more than halfway to the exit doors. And now she heard something very clearly from the rows behind her.
Applause. She turned.
In the center of one of the middle rows she had just passed, two faces were just barely visible, both of the applauders having stood. They moved into the aisle now, and Laura recognized them.
“Wonderful, dear, just wonderful! You have such a lovely speaking voice, we think you should be a professional!”
It was a nice middle-aged couple she had seen at the bar. The gentleman smiled at his wife’s enthusiasm, and they both came down the aisle toward Laura.
“We hope we didn’t startle you,” said
the man.
“We were both just so thrilled to get invited to the dress rehearsal!” said the woman.
“But … the dress rehearsal is over now, you know,” said Laura.
“Oh,” said the woman. “I’m just so clueless about these theatrical conventions. Even about the curse.”
“The curse?” said Laura.
“You know, that thing where if you say the wrong word, like—”
“Shh!” said the woman’s portly husband, and he quickly put his hand over her mouth for good measure.
“Excuse me,” she said after she cleared her throat and he took his hand away.
Laura regarded them both curiously for a brief moment—and then there was another sound she knew well from the stage.
A board was being trodden. And at that instant, the full stage lights came on—blindingly.
She blinked, trying to focus on the figure at the middle of them.
“Welcome, Laura Penobscott!” said a male voice.
It sounded familiar. She puzzled over that, and then over a more disturbing thought: How does this person know my name?
“Yes, I know you,” said the man, as if in response. “And you know me.”
He stepped forward, front stage and center, and now Laura could see him clearly. He looked like the educated-sounding local from the bar, but she didn’t know him.
“I do?” she said.
“You should. It is so sad when young people don’t recognize their teachers. I taught you everything you know, I suspect, about world civilization.”
Laura stared, and now she realized that she had been fooled by the outlandish gray hair, which had been an unruly brown back in the day. It was her social sciences teacher and dance chaperone. From twenty years ago.
“Mr. Turner!”
“Of course. I must say, you’ve grown up just wonderfully.”
“I … What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for rehearsal, of course. As you are.”
“Rehearsal is over.”
“Oh, for the play, yes, of course. But there is still another performance scheduled for the weekend that needs work tonight.”
“Mr. Turner, you aren’t in the play. You don’t have a role, do you?”
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