Awaken the Devil

by A. J. Chase

  "Everyone who does not belong here needs to leave this instant. I mean now. Detectives Wallace and Pettigrew may stay. It has been numerous days since a crime has occurred on this premises, and I am sure two detectives are perfectly capable of handling it from here."

  He turned to address the conductor from the orchestra while hedging around the half a dozen people who had surrounded him clamoring for attention. The other cops in the room looked like they weren't sure what to do, and the profiler didn't move at all. He just sat in his chair, watching Chandler in action. The private detective that the Sanfords had hired fled almost immediately.

  The other cops, besides Wallace and Pettigrew, watched him leave then most of them followed a few moments later. Chandler turned his attention to Liz, and he looked so tired and beaten that Fielding had to restrain herself from getting closer to him and giving him a hug. Yeah, that would go over well.

  "Who do you think you are, trying to kick us out of here? We have every right to be here." Leslie's father strode right up to Chandler, although Fielding could tell he regretted the action when Chandler turned on him, his lip curled slightly in that autocratic disgust that Mr. Sanford would never be able to match. He backed away from Chandler just slightly.

  "I am the man who's in charge here, which is what gives me the right to do pretty much whatever the bloody hell I want to, and who are you to call me on it?"

  Brice Sanford sputtered uselessly for a moment then recovered himself. "I'm the father of the girl who was kidnapped right out from under your nose, and you ought to be glad that I'm not suing you for your failure to protect her."

  "My failure to protect her? Why should it be my job to protect her? I am not a police officer. I am not her father. Miss Sanford was a grown woman who ought to have been capable of protecting herself. I'm sorry that she didn't, but that does not mean that you can stay here."

  Brice opened his mouth, and then closed it. "You can't make me leave."

  Chandler had been about to walk away, but suddenly he turned back. "Don't make me prove you a liar."

  He had the look that even Fielding knew brooked no argument. Suddenly, the profiler stood up and led Brice off the stage by the crook of his arm. A surprisingly silent Donna Sanford followed them out the double doors of the stage. The leftover random cops brought up the rear, leaving only Pettigrew and Wallace.

  The hideous pallor that had hung over the theater suddenly seemed to lift. Chandler was back and in control. All normalcy could return. A scant fifteen minutes after his dramatic arrival, Lynette dismissed them for the day. He did not look at Fielding again, but she could sense he was aware of her. He waited until she had just left the stage, and she heard him tell Sara. "Excuse me would you, for just a moment?"

  He followed her off the stage, even though he took a different crack in the curtain probably to avoid the appearance of having followed her. He reached her side and pulled her into a heavy fold of the curtain, so they couldn't be seen no matter who came along. He curled his fingers into her hair and rested his hand along the base of her skull.

  He leaned his head down into the curve of her neck, but didn't touch her, merely inhaled the scent of her hair. The move was unexpected and painfully erotic. Her legs weakened slightly. "The Mandarin Oriental, the presidential suite. It's on the fifty-third floor. Eleven o'clock." He paused. "If you want."

  He didn't wait to see if she wanted. He slid out of the curtain and back out onto the stage. If she wanted? He had no idea how much she wanted. She wanted everything from him, but for now she would take the presidential suite at the Mandarin Oriental at eleven.

  Anne breaking her leg was not one of the high points of Chandler's life. At first when he had gotten the call, they still weren't even sure that she hadn't suffered internal injuries as well. He hated when she hurt herself. It scared and infuriated him. If he could have, he would have made her spend her life in a plastic bubble.

  As it was, she'd spent her life doing things he hated, and he had spent the last four days sitting at her bedside and running her errands while she complained loudly because she hated losing control as much as he did—however, she was usually a nicer person about showing it.

  If anyone had ever been more like her father…

  They had done nothing but rub each other the wrong way the entire four days. Neither was in any mood to humor the other, and finally she had demanded he go away and leave her foppish boyfriend, Sebastian, to care for her.

  Ironically, his absence had given him a certain clarity that he wasn't always capable of. If he had been here, he would have shoved Fielding away and never seen her alone again to avoid letting his emotions, and the killer that stalked him, destroy both her and himself. But not seeing her, even in the theater, for days had taken its toll on him. He had missed her like a limb or the ability to breathe.

  He didn't want this in his life, and he knew he would regret it in the end, but he loved her, and he wanted what he could have of her for as long as he could. She would be safe. He would make sure that she was, if it was the last thing he ever did.

  He spent the rest of his indeterminably long day correcting everything that had gone wrong in his absence—which seemed to be pretty much everything. He was absolutely exhausted by the time that he stepped out of the theater and into a cab at ten thirty that night. Thankfully, most everything was under control again, and he had paid for it by having the life sucked out of him. He almost fell asleep in the cab and had to drag himself into the elevator and up the fifty-three floors to his room. Until he saw Fielding standing near the door looking at him with those inviting green eyes under lowered lashes and instantly, he forgot how tired he was.

  He forgot pretty much everything. Even that they were essentially in public. He crossed over to her and let his bag, which he had brought straight from the airport to the theater, slip off his shoulder and onto the floor. He captured her mouth under his with the desperation he felt whenever they touched. Thank heavens she was here. She made everything better, and that was the scariest thing of all.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next two weeks passed in a haze of dancing and sex. Fielding and Chandler spent every day in rehearsal treating each other with cold civility and removed respect, while they spent every night in his amazingly opulent suite overlooking Central Park and the lights of the city, and made love with the desperation of two people who knew that the future was by no means assured. She was cautious to ensure that she never mentioned the word love, and he never broached the subject of emotion at all.

  Chandler was at the theater until nearly midnight every night of the week. They were into full dress rehearsals accompanied by a large sweeping orchestra now, and all members of the cast were rehearsing together. There was no more leaving the theater by lunchtime. She was lucky if she was able to leave in time for dinner.

  Mac's condition was worsening, and he had become very infrequently lucid, instead spending their visits rambling about babies, and lying, and death. She visited him more than she had before, despite the futility of it. He was near the end, and she knew it.

  On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Chandler hopped on a private chartered jet and flew home to be with his daughter. Fielding spent it in the hospice with Mac. On Christmas Day, she spent part of it at the hospice, playing hostess to his multitude of guests. She spent the second half with Josh and Janine. When it was obvious that the two wanted to be alone again, she went back to the hospice and spent the night in a chair.

  Chandler called her on her cell phone at around ten at night. She had already been asleep. It was around three in the morning in England, and she had no idea why he had waited so late, but she was still absurdly glad to hear his voice. Especially sitting in that uncomfortable chair watching the only parent she had ever really known lose his battle with death.

  Their conversation wasn't long, but it touched her that he had called. She harbored no illusions about what kind of person he was, and she could guess what it had cost him to ca
re enough about her to call her on the phone when they couldn't be together on a holiday. She hung up the phone and held Mac's hand in the dark. Like so many times in the past month, she went against a lifetime of stoic behavior and cried herself to sleep.

  The day after Christmas was a Tuesday, and Chandler had given them the day off, despite not wanting to. She went home to sleep in her bed for a few hours but ended back at the hospice. Mac had another heart attack and slipped into a coma. The doctors at the hospice were not harboring much hope that he would ever emerge from it.

  Josh arrived, sans Janine, about an hour after Fielding. She hadn't called him but knew better than to bother asking how he knew. Josh knew all. He held her in his arms, and they talked about the past and about Mac, and that night she didn't have to cry alone.

  They went back to rehearsals on the twenty-seventh and practiced even on Saturday. Sara might have succeeded in getting Chandler to release them for holidays, but she failed when it came to weekends. New Year's Eve passed like any other day. Chandler made them all show up at rehearsal with the threat of being fired if they failed to do so. No one did. Fielding didn't blame him. It was getting perilously close to opening night, and she was getting scared that they wouldn't be ready.

  On the day before opening night, the very fragile world that she had created for herself collapsed. She had known it would come, eventually. It had to. Eventually Chandler was going to discover that she was investigating him. She just hadn't wanted it to be the way it turned out.

  It was still very early on Thursday morning when Fielding got to the theater. It was bitterly cold outside, and she was wrapped in several layers including three scarves, every one that she owned. She had her coat zipped up over most of her face and was still freezing. A trail of frigid air followed her into the theater as she slammed the door and stomped her booted feet against the floor to dislodge the snow.

  She had another strange sensation of being watched, but when she looked there was no one with her back stage. She could hear a few other members of the cast in the green room drinking gourmet coffee, the smell of which strangely made her want to be sick, and complaining about how hard they were being made to work.

  Kyle was their ringleader, but she knew he was just as scared as the rest of them that they were about to make fools of themselves. Yes, they all knew that it was an old theater superstition that the worse dress rehearsals went, the better the real thing would be. If that was the truth, they were in for a success.

  She shook off the creepy feeling and headed into the dressing room. She was just about to turn on the light when she was paralyzed by the same feeling of irrational fear that she had felt before finding Charlotte. She paused, her finger on the switch, for just a fraction of a moment, but it was enough. There was an almost intangible movement of air, and she felt a clawlike grip against her shoulder.

  She turned back toward the door as the front of her jacket tore in two pieces, right along the neck. She flung her arm out behind her and made contact with solid flesh. It wasn't enough to do any serious damage, but it was a distraction. She finished turning and slipped on her wet boots. She screamed in surprise and fear when she went down, half in the room, half in the hallway. Her head slammed against the floor and everything momentarily went black.

  Zave Wallace was at her side almost instantaneously. She was otherwise alone. She instinctively knew that she had only been unconscious for less than minute. She would have guessed seconds, and yet he was already here. He no doubt had heard her scream. He helped her off the ground with an arm at her back. He was staring at her jacket. She tried to see it, but couldn't, so instead she touched her throat. Her thick down filled jacket was shredded along with every scarf underneath. She touched her skin and her fingers came away bloody.

  She tore off her coat and scarves and almost passed out again, this time with relief when she realized it was merely a thin beaded scratch along her throat. She had almost ended up just like Charlotte. Had she not been so cold this winter, she would probably have been nearly decapitated by the brutality of the unexpected attack. She pressed her hand to her mouth and barely made it to the bathroom in time. What was the matter with her? She was falling apart, crying and throwing up like a chronically depressed bulimic at the slightest provocation.

  She pulled her toothbrush from her bag and brutally scrubbed her mouth before rejoining Wallace in the hallway. Pettigrew was now with him as well, and they were having a harsh argument.

  "Well, I'm the senior partner, and I say that it's way past time to arrest the man. He just tried to kill another girl. Are you just gonna sit on your thumbs and let him do that?"

  "There's no evidence to suggest that it was him who attacked Fielding."

  "You mean Chandler." Her voice was so small they took a moment to register that she had spoken and turn to face her.

  "The man tried to kill you," Pettigrew spat, as if he was disgusted that she had allowed someone to try and kill her.

  She shook her head. "It wasn't Chandler."

  Pettigrew rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and did you see this person? Is that how you know who it was or wasn't?"

  "No. But it wasn't Chandler. I would have known. I can tell when he comes into a room. Always. And he didn't smell like Chandler either. He doesn't drink coffee. This person smelled like the strong coffee in the green room. It was someone else." Her stubborn insistence seemed to irritate Pettigrew further.

  "Sorry, but I trust the facts more than I trust your sense of smell."

  There would be no point in telling him that her sense of smell was very good, and seemed to be getting better every day. The person who had attacked her smelled just like strong coffee. Chandler never drank coffee. He had a cup of tea at teatime, as he had no doubt done almost every day of his entire life, but he would have started himself on fire before he deigned to drink a cup of coffee. "It wasn't Chandler," she reiterated.

  He stared at her and then turned to Wallace. "I'm taking him in."

  "Wait." Both she and Wallace spoke at once. Wallace waited for her. "Do you believe in the FBI profiler? Do you believe what he said about the kind of man the killer is?"

  Pettigrew opened his mouth and then shut it again. "I guess so," he said at last.

  Fielding took a deep breath knowing that she was destroying the realest thing she had ever known. And telling a whopper of a lie. "Then Chandler can't be the Chorus Girl Killer, because I'm not really a dancer, and he knew it."

  "Ha." Wallace stabbed a finger in Pettigrew's chest. "I told you she wasn't a dancer."

  "Then what are you?" Pettigrew growled.

  She took a deep breath and ruined her life. "I'm an investigative journalist."

  By the time she finished telling her convoluted story, Wallace and Pettigrew were both furious. Both at her and with each other. They were in the middle of a knockdown fight about what they had done wrong thus far and what had to happen next, and she slipped away without them even noticing.

  She figured she had maybe five minutes before they stopped trying to kill each other and came after her and then Chandler. That meant she had five minutes, give or take, to make sure that Chandler knew the truth soon enough to keep him out of prison.

  She found him just where she expected, in his office sitting behind his desk. He looked up, saw the superficial wound on her neck and was on his feet like a shot. He crossed the room and touched her softly, careful not to touch the actual scratch. All the color drained from his face. "What happened?"

  She backed away from him. "Please don't touch me, Chandler. Please. It will just make what I have to do harder."

  He stopped, suddenly so still it was like he had stopped breathing. He couldn't have any idea what she was going to say, but he seemed to have instinctive knowledge that it wasn't going to be good. "I love you Chandler. I really do. I didn't mean to, but I do."

  He opened his mouth to object, and she waved him off.

  "I know, you don't want to hear it. But I just wanted you to kn
ow that I didn't come here to hurt you. And the time I got to spend with you has been the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. I just wish…" She shook her head. "There's no time for wishing. Pettigrew and Wallace are coming. You have to listen to me, and you have to listen carefully. I won't have time to tell you again."

  He crossed his arms over his chest and struck that faux relaxed position he got when he was really tense. He inclined his head at her. "My uncle Mac is dying. I mean, really dying. He probably won't last out the week. A couple months ago, he called me home from a musical I was doing in London, and he asked me to do him a death bed favor."

  She had to struggle through the next words. "Mac is a newspaper man. It was what he lived for. My parents were reporters, my grandparents were reporters and for the last two months…"

  He shot off the desk. "It was you." He was aghast, and she could tell that he was hurt, and that expression tore through her like the killer's knife had her coat and scarves. "You were the girl on the phone at the hotel. The one who wanted to meet me."

  "I'm sorry, Chandler. It was never about you. It was for Mac." She tried to touch him, but he backed around the desk and away from her. "I didn't even know you, Chandler, please try to understand. I owed him everything, and he felt he owed you justice. I was only trying to help. I don't even know why he cared, but he wanted me to prove you innocent. Desperately. Please tell me you understand trying to help someone you love."

  He shook his head. "Good Lord, why didn't I see it before? Your uncle Mac who's in publishing. I know who he is. I know what you are." He backed even farther from her.

  "You do know each other."

  His laugh was all bitterness. "Oh, I know him all right. That bastard you call your uncle tried to destroy my life. He was the worst. The worst of all of them because he preyed on Anne. He followed her from place to place taking her picture. He used some sort of strange ability to charm children to get her to talk to him, and then he threw her words of pain and fright and humiliation on paper for everyone to see."