Master of the Opera

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Oh, Daddy,” she took her cue, “that’s just mean. I prefer to say I’m eclectic in my pursuits.”

  He ruffled her hair affectionately, something he used to do a long, long time ago. Before they started fighting all the time. “That’s my girl.”

  “A girl needs a strong guiding hand,” Domingo inserted, glancing at Roman. “I’m as delighted as you are that these two kids have finally seen the light. Given Christy’s affection for the opera house, I imagine you’ll want to deed that to her—perhaps as an engagement gift.”

  She could see her father’s point. Sanclaro wasn’t even working for this one. Carlton Davis tossed back the rest of his champagne, knitting his brows, looking a bit befuddled. “That reminds me. I have an announcement to make.”

  Domingo and Roman exchanged satisfied glances, while her father made his way to the string quartet, tapping on his empty flute with the wire rims of his glasses. Roman moved to slide an arm around her waist.

  “What happened to the dress I sent for you?” he murmured in her ear.

  “Daddy bought me this one,” she answered, keeping an eye on her father. Not far away, Hally and Angie were deep in conversation. Good. Hally would handle the realities of that situation.

  Inside the opera house, the shadows grew deeper as the sun dropped, its rays stretching long and red, splashing the copper surfaces with crimson light. A flutter of movement caught her eye, the sweep of a cape, dark on black. Warmth stirred deep inside her.

  Soon this would be over and she and the Master would be together.

  “Don’t get used to it,” Roman was saying. “I won’t have my wife dressing like a slut.”

  The music stopped and Carlton Davis cleared his throat loudly into the mike, making everyone cringe and look his way. He grinned, loving every moment.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Let’s all make a toast, please.” Waiters passed through, pouring the excellent champagne liberally, and Roman smiled down at her, nearly giddy with his triumph. Carlton Davis held up his now-full flute. “To another fabulous Santa Fe sunset!”

  The crowd laughed, then everyone turned to toast the sky. Roman’s arm tightened on her waist and Domingo refused the toast. Bad luck, that.

  “Now that we’ve acknowledged nature’s contribution to this exciting evening,” Davis continued, “I also want to thank the many, many people who made this opera season happen. From the board,” he held up his glass to the cluster of elegantly dressed board members, who nodded solemnly, “to the talent,” the soprano, already in costume, fluttered her fan, “to the lowest apprentice.” With that last, he tipped his glass toward Christine with a long wink.

  “She happens to be my daughter,” he pretended to confess, gaining another laugh. “Today is a very special day for her—seeing the fruits of her labors in her very first job. I wish I could go back and enjoy that again. I’m proud of you, Christine.”

  People clapped politely, and she found herself unexpectedly weepy at the words.

  “He’s taking forever,” Roman complained.

  “Hush,” she replied without thinking, and his displeasure manifested in a sharp pinch at her waist. Learned that one from his mother.

  “I think we should all have a moment of silence, too, for the tragic events of this season. For the loss of a young woman on the verge of a new life, a new career, senselessly cut short. And for Carla Donovan, longtime loyal employee of this opera, who couldn’t be here tonight due to her injuries.” Charlie, in an older-style tuxedo that he probably pulled out every year, acknowledged the words, a deep frown knitting his brows.

  “I’ve come to a decision. Not because of the unfortunate mishaps of this season, but because the world turns and times change. I want you all to hear it first here.”

  Domingo Sanclaro rocked from heel to toe, beside himself with excited energy.

  “As many of you may or may not know, I came to own this opera house via a trust from my mother, Angelia Sanclaro.”

  Gasps of surprise ran through the crowd. Domingo frowned and Roman slid an uneasy glance at her. She tried to look confused.

  “Yes—though it’s never been common knowledge,” Davis said, acknowledging the shocked response of the gathering. “In fact, it’s been something of a deep, dark family secret. But it’s time for us to come out of the closet. Christine, honey, you need to know that Roman is your first cousin. While strictly legal in this state, I find such a marriage distasteful and cannot condone it.”

  People in the crowd glanced in her direction and away, shaking their heads. She bit her lip for them to see her public consternation.

  “As penance for keeping this secret, I have investigated the trust and discovered a way to break the terms. As of today, I’ve sold the opera house.”

  “What is he talking about?” Roman demanded in her ear.

  She put a hand to her temple, acting out traumatized grief and shock.

  “I can give you all the details later, but as of,” he glanced at his watch, “three-thirty this afternoon, Davis Corporation no longer owns the Santa Fe Opera. An exciting, new company, Star Entertainment Enterprises, will be taking over. I think you’ll be in very good hands.”

  Roman swore, letting her go hard enough that she stumbled.

  “What’s the meaning of this, Davis?” Domingo Sanclaro shouted far too loudly. The whites of his eyes seemed to bulge with unbalanced rage. “That trust is ironclad. The land belongs to the Sanclaros. Always has and always will. Besides, you can’t make this kind of move without the board and the shareholders.”

  Carlton Davis put on his glasses. “Are you referring to your shares, Sanclaro? The ones I bought out from under you?”

  Like a lash, Domingo’s gaze cut to his son, who shrank back, shaking his head in denial.

  “You haven’t been watching your financial house, my old friend. And the board convened an emergency meeting today. Upon seeing evidence of the federal investigations underway into Sanclaro Corp., the good people unanimously decided to divorce themselves from your influence.”

  Several of the board members nodded in agreement, sending black looks in Sanclaro’s direction.

  “In fact,” her father looked pleased with himself, “I believe there are some folks from the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs here right now, eager to discuss some of the information I sent their way.”

  Domingo looked as if he wanted to run, torn between keeping his public face and escaping the agents moving in his direction.

  A bell chimed and Davis nodded. “And now it’s time for the real show to begin—everyone to their seats!”

  He held out a hand toward Christine and she went to him, leaving Roman and Domingo conferring furiously in whispers. “That was brilliant,” she told her father, who folded her hand over his arm, patting it. “Though I’m sorry to see the opera house pass to someone else.”

  “You love it, don’t you?” Her father gave her a keen look. “I could hear it in your voice from the day you arrived.”

  She looked up at the soaring roofline, still shining with glints of light against the deepening sky. Like the visible temple on the hill, gateway to the Underworld. “I do, yes.”

  “Good. Don’t tell anyone yet, but Star Enterprises is yours. I set it up for you. The trust really is ironclad. I just transferred it to you early.”

  She gaped at him, at a total loss for words.

  “Maybe now that you don’t live with your allergic old man, you can get a real cat and throw away that scrappy piece of fur you’ve dragged around since you were four. Don’t think I don’t know you brought it here with you.”

  “I’m never getting rid of Star. You gave her to me.”

  “Only because your mother insisted. She always knew better than I did how to make you happy.”

  Christine leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’ve done a damn fine job of it today.”

  “Well,” he cleared his throat with a loud cough, “let’s go watch this show then.”
r />   6

  “Christy!”

  She turned as Matt came running up to her. “Christy, the fucking magic flute is missing again! Hi, Mr. Davis, nice to meet you, sorry for cursing, but we need to find it right now. Curtain goes up in fifteen.”

  “I thought we had it on the set.”

  Matt set his jaw and bugged out his eyes at her. “We did. And now it’s not.”

  “Shit!” Christine ran a hand through her hair, only to snag on the spikes Hally had gelled into it, insisting they made her look “extra-specially hot.”

  “You go ahead and take care of it,” her dad said. “I’ll be fine. Don’t mind this old man.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and took off after Matt, struggling to keep up on the high heels. Following him down the concrete side stairs, she dashed onto the set that would soon rise one story to the theater level. Everything was set and in its place—including the flute.

  “Matt! What the—”

  A hand clapped over her mouth and a muscled arm clamped over her chest, painfully crushing her breasts and lifting her off the floor. She struggled, flailing behind her with her fists, and her captor swung her around to show her Hally, gagged and round-eyed at the knife pressed against her throat. Matt, his hand wrapped in Hally’s hair, pulled her head back and pushed the blade against her fair skin with a hand that visibly shook. “Shut up, Christy, okay?”

  She stopped fighting. “Good girl,” Carla crooned in her ear. “Now you’re going to give me the Angel’s Hand or your friend here will be the phantom’s next victim. Understand?”

  Unable to do anything else, she nodded. She’d always known Carla was a big woman, but her strength was astonishing. She wasn’t supposed to be here or Christine would have made sure to tell someone about the notes. Matt glanced away when she looked accusingly at him. He must have called Carla and told her about the Hand. He’d been her spy all along.

  “Mattie, bring the little witch—after all, we can’t interfere with the opening, right? Charlie, let the stagehands in as soon as we’re gone.”

  Charlie, his frown deeper than ever, moved into view.

  “Just be—”

  “Shut up, Charlie.” Carla’s voice sounded weary. “I’ve done the brunt of sacrificing for this. You can at least get out of my way. March, Christy.”

  Setting her down, Carla pressed a knife against the small of Christine’s back. “Take me to it. If you fuck around, you lose a kidney.”

  They went out and down, Christine and Hally walking ahead of Carla and Matt. Was the Master watching? Surely he’d help her.

  “You can’t possibly think this will work,” Christine said. “It’s a full house out there. People inside and out. You’ll be caught. It’s all over.”

  “It’s not over.” Carla cuffed the back of her head and she staggered. “You brought us to this, you stupid cunt. Where are we going?”

  “To where I hid the Hand.”

  “You’d better be telling the truth or I’ll show you where Tara died—and demonstrate the technique on you.”

  The truth sighed through her, the puzzle piece fitting. Carla, not the Sanclaros, had killed Tara.

  “I am.” Christine unlocked the door to the ballet studio, now quiet with all the dancers off because tonight’s opera had no dancing. The roomful of mirrors reflected the four of them over and over, with the bruised Carla looking like the crazed monster in a funhouse. Christine unlocked the door to her old office—the first little closet Charlie had stuck her in.

  “I thought the police sealed this room.” Matt sounded confused. A little scared, too. This kind of thing couldn’t possibly have been his idea.

  “They did, but only from the hallway. Now let Hally go.”

  “No way,” Carla sneered, blocking the doorway. “Not until I have the Angel’s Hand.”

  “How do I know you won’t hurt us?”

  “We will.” Carla nodded at Matt.

  He looked a little green.

  “Do it, you little shit, or you’ll pay,” Carla growled.

  He took a deep breath and stabbed the knife into Hally’s arm. A shallow, glancing slice, but she shrieked and clobbered him. He dropped the knife and they fought over it, Hally scratching and pummeling him furiously. Finally he solved his problem by sitting on her and holding the knife point down between her breasts.

  “This was a brand-new dress,” Hally hissed at him. “The nicest one I’ve ever owned and you got blood all over it. Karma will get you for this.”

  “Enough already!” Carla snapped, pointing her own knife at Christine. “Where’s the Angel’s Hand?”

  Christine.

  Matt looked worried. “Did you hear something?”

  “The show has started,” Christine told him. Then she opened the closet, reached under a pile of old posters, and brought out the box.

  Carla took it from her and examined it. Then looked up at the security camera near the ceiling and nodded.

  Shit. A few minutes later, Roman appeared in the doorway to the ballet studio, followed by his father. Domingo strolled up to Carla, took the box from her, and handed it to Roman. Then he smiled, cupped the back of her neck, and kissed her, a savage, sexual kiss. She submitted to it, though it was clear the pressure pained her battered face.

  Christine and Hally exchanged revolted looks.

  “Well done,” Domingo told Carla. “Though you should never have stolen it from me.”

  “I just wanted to be with you.” Carla wrapped her hands in his lapels, crushing the expensive cut. To Christine’s shock, the tall blonde wept. “I carry the blood, too. I can be the Sanclaro hand. Please, Dom! Haven’t I shown my loyalty?”

  Domingo eyed Christine, then backhanded Carla with enough force that she flew off him, despite her apparent death grip. “Yes. I will be forever grateful that you eliminated that foolish girl and brought the prize I’d only dreamed of within my reach. However, because of you and your games, the fucking Feds are breathing down my neck. We need to act fast. They may dare to arrest me if we don’t take steps. Roman, bring her. Meet me in the sacred chapel. I’ll prepare the wedding ceremony.”

  “You can’t force me to marry him!” Christine shouted the words, feeling the wild sense of things spinning out of her control.

  Domingo smiled at her condescendingly. “With the Angel’s Hand restored to me and yours at my disposal—dead or alive, I might add,” he waggled the mummified hand at her mockingly, “I am priest and king. I will marry you to my son, under the eyes of the only god that truly matters, and we will both watch you consummate that marriage.”

  Roman leered at her, and she imagined herself beneath him as he raped her on the chapel floor, his father watching. “It won’t be legal,” she protested.

  “Once we have control of our pet god again,” Domingo intoned, his face suffused with an insane light, “I will be above the law. You have no idea the miracles I can work. If you obey and are pleasing, we might let you live. At least until you bear a daughter or two.”

  He snapped his fingers at Roman, who reached out to grab her arm. She punched him in the nose and he tried to backhand her, but she ducked.

  Just then Matt gave out a strangled wail and fell over, clutching his balls. Hally scrambled up, pushing him over, and sat on him, raspberry nails pointed at his eyes. “I’ll do it. Don’t push me, karma boy!”

  Domingo snarled, pushing the box to Roman. “I’ll take care of them. Get going.”

  Seeing her chance and following Hally’s lead, Christine drove the sharp point of her Jimmy Choo heel into Roman’s shin, grabbed the Angel’s Hand, and ran. On sheer instinct, she ran toward the one person she trusted to save her.

  The Master.

  Christine.

  If running on the polished concrete floor of the long, curving hallway wasn’t easy in the high heels, plunging down the spiraling metal stairs was infinitely worse. One of the soaring arias followed her, the song pitching higher and higher as she descended. She held onto t
he rail with one hand, going as fast as she dared, holding onto the box with the other.

  Heavy feet hit the grid of stairs over her head: Roman coming after her.

  Impossible, but she went faster. Her body knew the rhythm of these steps, she’d been up and down them so many times. Round and round she rattled down, going deeper into the darker, unlit levels, careful not to let the spikes of her heels fall through the openings in the grate. Roman had slowed, not as confident as she, but still gained on her. Wishing she’d had time to take off the damn shoes, she imagined she felt his harsh breath and the brush of his fingers, grasping for her hair.

  She went faster. Stilettos clanging against metal.

  And then it happened.

  Like the dream. Her heel caught on the edge of the step.

  For an endless moment, she hung there, overbalanced.

  And fell.

  Plummeting over the edge and down. Roman yelled out in fear and panic. Surely not for her.

  Time slowed. Her lungs clenched in the vacuum of panic. She fell endlessly, down and down, through the infinite shadows, reaching for a name.

  “Master!” she cried.

  Strong arms caught her.

  “Right here.”

  She buried herself into his muscular chest, sobs wrenching out of her. He held her close, murmuring comfort in her ear while his warm lips brushed her cheek.

  “Watch out!” she warned him, recalling the urgency. “He’s chasing me!”

  He turned so she could see. Light filtered through the grated steps in lines and squares. No one pounded after her. Only the galloping chorus of the end of Act I followed her, faint strains of the world above that could no longer reach her.

  “It’s only you and I, my love.”

  “As it should be.”

  “As was always meant.”

  “I want to free you. Free the shadow people so you can’t ever be used again. I want to make it right again.”

  The breath sighed out of him, holding centuries of waiting. “Yes.” He strode down the hallway, carrying her along, and the solid door dissolved into smoke before them. So that was how he did it.

  “Isn’t it real?” she wondered.