by Clea Simon
What if she were able to get Roni to come out of her office? If she called Rogovoy and told him they were on their way, that surely would be a different matter entirely.
Not that she would be foolhardy. Dulcie held her phone in her hand, her thumb on the call button, as she reached for the theater door. It was locked. With a sigh of regret, she backed up from the university police number and went to incoming. She found Roni Squires’ number and hit ‘call’.
‘Dulcie, where are you?’ The office manager picked up on the first ring. ‘Are you coming?’
‘I’m right out front. The door’s locked.’ She paused. ‘Why don’t you come out to meet me, and we can go to the police.’
‘I … I can’t.’ Roni sounded breathless. ‘He’s here, in the theater. Can you come get me?’ Dulcie started to object. If Heath was on a rampage, she didn’t want to put herself at risk. ‘I promise, I’ll call nine one one if I hear anything,’ said Roni. ‘But maybe we can just sneak out.’
‘But I can’t come in, Roni.’ Dulcie was getting frustrated. ‘I called because the door is locked.’ Panic was making the office manager less rational than usual.
‘The side door – that’s our stage door.’ Dulcie remembered the unmarked entrance that Doug had used. ‘He must have come in that way. Please, Dulcie,’ she entreated, before Dulcie could object. ‘We’ll go out together. I’m just so scared.’
Grudgingly, Dulcie agreed. ‘Give me two minutes, Roni. I’m moving slowly here.’
As she made her way to the side of the building, Dulcie thought once again of calling Rogovoy. ‘Am I being stupid, Mr Grey? I should just call him, right?’
She didn’t really expect a response. She knew the answer, but she ducked down the side of the building anyway, hoping for privacy and some shelter from what had become a bitter wind. The side door, she could see, was slightly ajar, and she kept her eye on it as she once more reached for her phone.
‘Dulcie . . .’ It had to be the wind. She didn’t really expect an answer to her question, but as she maneuvered the phone, clumsy in her gloves, she heard it again. ‘Dulcie.’
Against her better judgment – knowing it would be futile – she looked up. There! A movement, over by the door. A shadow in the line of darkness growing, as the door opened ever so slightly. A paw appeared, reaching out as if batting at the frosty air.
Gus! That neat paw, cloaked in silver fur, couldn’t belong to anyone else. As Dulcie watched, the furry appendage reached around, claws outstretched in an attempt to gain traction on the painted surface. A dark leathery nose appeared, pushing through the crack. The Russian blue was slowly forcing the heavy door open.
Dulcie limped down to the door as quickly as she could, determined to stop the theater cat before he could slip out the side door. Hobbled as she was, she would be no match for a determined cat once he got out the door.
‘Gus! No!’ Green eyes gazed up at her, unblinking and inscrutable. The paw reached out again, and Dulcie ducked down, extending her own gloved hand. She meant to push the eager paw back inside, and then quickly close the door. But before she could, Gus had grabbed her, his claws hooking into the soft wool and pulling the glove half off her hand.
‘Kitty!’ The movement – or maybe it had been Dulcie’s startled cry – spooked the cat. He tugged at the glove, desperate to free it, and only tangled it more. The eyes that now looked up at Dulcie were wide with terror.
‘Hang on.’ Dulcie reached to unhook the claw, which was now extended far enough to show its fleshy base.
‘Naow!’ Gus pulled, frantic now.
There was nothing for it. With one hand immobilized by the panicking feline and her bag sliding down the other, she opened the door far enough to lean in. Stepping inside, she scooped the cat up. As the door shut behind her, Gus appeared to calm down, and without further ado, she freed him from his woolly shackle.
‘Mrrup?’ The feline asked in a conversational tone, sounding for all the world as if he hadn’t been desperate with fear only moments before.
‘You wanted to get me in here, didn’t you, Gus?’ Dulcie wasn’t serious, at least not totally. Surely the cat had been trying to get his claw free, rather than maneuver her into this back hallway. Still, it was nicer to be inside the warm building, with a cat in her arms. And she could still call Rogovoy, as soon as she put Gus down.
‘Dulcie?’ She started at the sound of her name – but the voice belonged to a woman, and she looked up to see Avila, in a black leotard, poking her head around the corner. ‘What brings you here?’
‘This little guy.’ Awash in relief, Dulcie hefted the cat up. Clearly, Roni wasn’t alone in the theater, and she was glad she had another excuse for what could be interpreted as sneaking in through the stage door. ‘I saw this guy trying to push his way out. I guess the door wasn’t latched.’
‘Gus, you silly boy.’ Avila backed up as Dulcie stepped forward, and Dulcie remembered her aversion to the silver feline. ‘How did you get that door open?’
‘I don’t think he …’ Dulcie paused. Could Avila dislike the Russian blue enough to have wanted him to run away? She looked down at the cat in her arms. ‘You didn’t open that door, did you, Gus?’
‘Oh, Heath probably left it unlatched.’ Avila waved off her earlier question as she turned to walk back into the main theater. ‘You coming?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Dulcie began to limp after her, curious. ‘So Heath is here?’ At this point, she didn’t trust Roni’s perception.
‘Showed up just as the matinee was letting out. Of course.’ The actress turned and fixed Dulcie with her dark eyes. ‘And I swear, his hair is a few shades lighter than it was last night.’
She turned and kept walking, which freed Dulcie from having to answer. But as Dulcie followed the petite actress through the back hallway, she found herself breathing more easily. Clearly, Avila didn’t consider Heath to be a threat. If anything, she seemed to be losing interest in him. Which only made Dulcie wonder at Roni’s fear.
‘Avila?’ Dulcie called. She had fallen behind, due to her limp, and reached the open theater area just as the actress was about to exit via the door to the lobby. ‘May I ask you something?’
‘Try me.’ The actress turned, the leotard’s low-cut back revealing the muscles in her shoulder.
If she was going to ask, it had to be now – before she was near to where Roni might overhear. ‘Do you think that Roni might be a little …?’ Dulcie hesitated. She didn’t want to be rude. ‘A little biased about Heath, sometimes?’
Avila smiled, her dark eyes straying to the disco ball suspended overhead. ‘Yeah, well …’ A pause. ‘That’s what happens when you take guys like that seriously.’
‘You think he was joking?’ Dulcie toyed with the idea as she absently stroked Gus. Could the super-serious bookkeeper have misunderstood something she had heard?
‘Not joking, per se.’ Avila shrugged. ‘She’s not a theater person. I think it must be hard, sometimes, to understand how we are. I mean, I didn’t think she’d stick it out. I thought, for sure, with her background, she’d get another real gig.’
‘Oh, no. She hated her old job.’ Dulcie shook her head. To an actress, all corporate work probably sounded the same. ‘She told me that the only useful thing she got out of marketing was knowing how to work up a spreadsheet.’
‘Whatever.’ Avila leaned on the auditorium door, about to push it open. ‘I’m just glad she got our computer systems up and running.’
‘You might need a real IT person, I’m afraid.’ Dulcie wasn’t going to spill the beans about the virus, but surely people inside the company must know. ‘Someone else with some serious programming skills.’
Avila turned. ‘But that’s what Roni did.’ The door creaked open behind her. ‘Programming.’
Dulcie must have frozen. Must have clutched the cat in her arms in shock. There was no other explanation. Because just at that moment, Gus yowled and, with a powerful kick, leaped from Dulcie’s h
ands. Dulcie turned to see the cat, fur on end as he flew across the room, disappearing under a cocktail table. Behind her, Avila gave a startled cry. And just at that moment, the room went dark.
FIFTY-SIX
‘Avila!’ Dulcie called out. ‘Where are you?’ That last cry – half gasp, half strangled scream – had been unnerving, but Dulcie was going to remain calm. ‘Did a fuse blow?’
She was greeted by silence. Even the cat seemed to have disappeared, and so, with her hands out before her, Dulcie took a halting step into the theater, toward where she had last seen Avila.
‘Are you there?’ Dulcie called out into the silent theater. The actress was afraid of cats, she reminded herself. Plus, she had been leaning back against the auditorium door. She must have been startled when Gus had jumped. It must have opened behind her. Dulcie took another step. She must have fallen backward, into the hall from the lobby. Maybe she had hit the light switch. Maybe even hit her head.
‘Avila?’
Nothing. Dulcie had never realized before how dark a windowless room could be. Avila must have hit her head. Maybe even now she was lying in the hallway, unconscious. Bleeding.
What was that? The question blasted through Dulcie’s mind even before she could figure out why. Then she heard it – again – the barely there footfall of someone who was being careful not to be heard.
‘Gus?’ The word slipped out, more a wish than an actual question. And although she knew with the calm part of her mind that she was speaking at barely above a whisper, that one syllable sounded as loud as a shot. Dropping her voice further, a breath more than a whisper, she tried once more. ‘Mr Grey?’
Another step. Closer. Another, and her hope died. That sound was not, Dulcie realized with a shudder, the quiet footfall of a cat.
She couldn’t breathe. Didn’t dare. There – behind her!
‘Who’s there?’ She spun around, only to land hard on her bad ankle. ‘Oh!’ The pain shot up her leg as she collapsed, falling sideways and knocking into something hard – a chair – the metal legs tripping her up as she fell to the floor.
Whoever was there must know where she was. Must know, she realized as her heart pounded, that she was lying there. Unable to flee. She willed herself to be still, to be silent.
She could hear breathing now. She closed her eyes.
‘Yaoow!’ The cat’s cry sounded unearthly in the dark, and Dulcie sat up, staring.
‘Oh! Ow!’ A woman – close by – and then another yowl and a hiss. The clatter as another chair went down.
‘What the …?’ The lights came on, so bright that Dulcie started back, covering her face with her forearm. ‘Avila, is that you?’
She looked up to see Heath, standing by the auditorium’s main door. His hand was on the light switch, and he was staring at her, his handsome face unreadable.
‘Dulcie! Oh, thank god.’ Roni suddenly was by her side, holding her and at the same time cowering behind her. ‘Heath was after me. But you’re here. You made it.’
‘Dulcie?’ Heath looked dumbfounded. ‘Wait – Roni?’
‘I said I would.’ Dulcie let the office manager help her to her feet. ‘It went dark …’
‘Come on.’ Roni was pulling at her arm. Pulling her toward the back of the stage. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. It’s Heath. He’s here. He knows we know. He’ll kill us both.’
‘Dulcie, no!’ The actor started toward them, staring at Dulcie as Roni pulled at her arm.
‘Come on!’
‘Wait.’ Dulcie pulled away, balancing carefully to protect her sore ankle. Things were coming together. Only why would …?
‘Harvey Brenkham!’ It was Avila, standing in the entrance to the auditorium. Eyes blazing, her muscular arms outstretched as she bore down. ‘What the hell are you playing at with those lights?’
‘Watch out, Dulcie!’ Heath yelled. ‘She’s got a knife!’
FIFTY-SEVEN
What happened next, happened in a blur. Despite the house lights, Dulcie found herself reacting by instinct – moving before she could see, acting on what she knew to be true.
Avila was strong and she was fast. But Dulcie was faster. Willing herself to ignore the pain, she swung herself around, flinging her bag. With her laptop for ballast, it connected – hard – and she went over after it. Avila landed on top of her, forcing the breath out of her, and for a moment, Dulcie saw stars.
Then the clatter of metal on the hard floor, chairs and tables thrown to the side, and Heath was there, pulling Dulcie to her feet. She turned, looking for her bag and saw it – several feet away – lying beside a sharpened letter opener.
Avila was standing, legs apart and ready to attack. But as Dulcie watched her, she relaxed, the fierce expression fading from her face.
Roni wasn’t getting up. She wasn’t a threat any longer. Dulcie’s bag had knocked the office manager for a loop, and now she lay blinking up at the three of them, finally at a loss for words.
‘Roni Squires,’ said Dulcie. ‘You’ve hurt your last innocent victim.’ And with that, she fished her phone out of her pocket one more time and called the cops.
FIFTY-EIGHT
It took several hours for everything to be sorted out, and by the time Roni had been taken away in handcuffs, Dulcie was exhausted. The state cop who had been the first to question Dulcie had done his best to be polite – at least she believed he had. But she couldn’t avoid the feeling that he viewed her as a nuisance. A dabbler even.
‘I didn’t know they were looking into everyone’s background,’ Dulcie complained softly to Avila and Heath. ‘Or that they’d put together the identity theft with Roni’s old job and were watching her.’
The three were seated in the auditorium, drinking the coffee that one of the cops had sent out for. Gus was grooming at their feet. ‘What got me was that Roni was talking about the hacking – about the worm – as if I’d warned her,’ Dulcie said. ‘But I never did get a chance to tell her more than that I thought the company was accidentally spamming people. And then, she said she’d been in marketing, when Avila said she did IT, and that she was new to the company. Those seemed like minor fibs, at first, but it all started to add up.’
‘I’d heard her say that, too,’ said Avila. ‘About being new here. I figured she just didn’t want you to know that she knew Harv— Heath, here.’
‘It’s okay, Avila.’ Heath should have looked relieved. After all, he’d been the one who was being blackmailed. Instead, he looked deflated. ‘You can call me Harvey. By curtain time, everyone is going to know anyway.’
‘Sorry, hon.’ Avila put a hand on his arm. A friendly touch, Dulcie figured. Nothing more. After all, not only was the newly blond actor the laughing stock of the theater world, but he had also been complicit in the cover-up of a murder. Dulcie didn’t know if he’d face charges. She did know that Avila was too smart and too talented to be dragged down with him.
‘But can I ask you something?’ Avila asked. ‘Why did you run? Why change your name?’
The actor looked up, his eyes sad. ‘After the whole thing in New York. You know, Hamlet? I felt cursed. I really felt that line about, you know, “the blasted Heath”.’
‘That’s Macbeth.’ Avila’s voice was gentle, but the actor’s head dropped even lower. ‘It’s okay, honey,’ she said. ‘We know what you mean.’
‘Miss Circule?’ One of the uniformed police had come over. ‘May we ask you a few more questions?’
‘Sure.’ Avila got up to follow the young cop and Gus followed behind. As Dulcie watched, the silver cat rubbed against her ankles and, almost without thinking, Avila reached to pick him up, pulling him into her lap as she sat to give her statement. They made quite a couple, Dulcie thought: both lithe, both more muscular than they first appeared. Was that why Gus had wanted to protect Avila, chasing her out of Roni’s office that time? Had the theater cat tried to do the same with Amy? They had clearly found each other now, Avila’s former aversion seemingly forgotten as she cra
dled the Russian blue in her arms.
‘It’s the circus training,’ Heath said softly. ‘She’s light on her feet.’
‘You knew what I was thinking?’ Dulcie turned back to him, grateful that he hadn’t been able to read the other question going through her mind.
‘It’s part of the training, you know.’ The ghost of a smile played on his lips. ‘Knowing what different emotions look like, how thoughts play out on our faces.’
‘Is that how you found out about Roni?’ Dulcie had to ask.
He shook his head. ‘No, I was too stupid. Too full of myself. It was Amy.’ He paused, swallowed. ‘Amy saw how hurt Roni was, when she found out she and I were involved. Amy went to talk to her – and saw something on her computer. None of the rest of us would have known what it meant. It was just Amy’s bad luck.’
‘But you knew.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘I mean, you know what happened after.’
Heath nodded. ‘I suspected. Amy tried to explain it all to me, about how people’s information was being copied or whatever. But I didn’t want to hear it. I was a star again,’ he said, choking up. He paused and cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t want to rock the boat. And, well, then Amy told me that Roni wanted to talk with her, and Amy was good with that. Said it was all going to be straightened out. I think she thought Roni was going to confess, was going to go to the cops with her after the show.’ He paused again, the weight of all that had happened bearing down. ‘And then, well …’ His voice was almost gone. ‘It was too late, wasn’t it?’
They sat quietly for a moment. Heath looked smaller, somehow. Even with his newly dyed hair, the golden luster was gone.