Curtains for Romeo

by Jessa Archer

  “Katanas and broadswords,” I said softly, remembering Ben’s comment. “The stage-combat gear he shipped to Italy. That’s why they never found a weapon.”

  “Yes. Martin was packing up his gear when Jerry came barging in screaming that this was all his fault. That Marty had said he’d be able to persuade me to sell.”

  “Had he actually agreed to do that?”

  “Well, he said he’d try after Jerry showed him the videos. He was trying to avoid me being pulled into a scandal. And Martin is the one who knew the photos of storm damage were from years ago, before I bought the place, when the Playhouse actually did flood. Martin said Jerry went out the night of the storm and did some superficial damage to make the claim look credible. They never submitted anything, just got some insurance agent he knew to forge a few documents, and that’s what Marty sent to me along with the pictures from the previous claim. He had tried his best to convince me, pissed me off in the process, and now Jerry was there at the theater, in his face, threatening to email the video of us to the media in New Jersey. Marty just…lost it.”

  “He hit him with the broadsword?”

  She nodded. “Marty said he didn’t intend to kill him. And maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. But when Jerry fell, his head connected with a table and…” A tear ran down her cheek. “He panicked. Sealed Jerry up in the trap room. The next morning he logged into Jerry’s work computer…I don’t know how he knew his password.”

  “Jerry probably had it written down,” I said. “That’s how I got into the thumb drive.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, he emailed a resignation letter to the dean. Shipped the broadsword off to Italy with the other gear. And then he sent me an email, as Jerry, begging forgiveness. Swearing that he’d send me the video and destroy all copies. That he couldn’t believe he’d betrayed me and Marty like that. I remember telling Phil that Jerry actually seemed sincere for once. Remorseful. I should have known then that something was up.”

  “You’re a lot more forgiving than I would have been,” I told her.

  Melinda grimaced. “I was still debating whether to tell Dean Prendergast about everything when I went back after the holiday. I’d already told her I thought Jerry was sleeping with Bethany Tartt before I headed back to New Jersey at the end of the season.”

  “Ah ha,” Caroline said from the window seat.

  I turned and gave her a warning look.

  “Is something wrong?” Melinda asked.

  “No. Just saw something out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I’d swear this place is haunted. I hope all of this isn’t going to keep you away from the Playhouse,” I said as a way of shifting the subject. “It’s my first year with the Coastal Players and I could really use someone with institutional memory. I’ve only been here a week and I’m now the only theater professor at SCU, which is truly terrifying.”

  “I’ll definitely be here for the summer season,” she said. “But Jerry was right about one thing: More of the parts need to go to students and locals. I’ve been a little selfish in that regard. I’m happy just taking part in the music review afterward. Maybe we can team up again for ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’?”

  That made me smile. “I’d like that. And thank you for the flowers. They’re lovely.”

  “You’re very welcome, Tig,” Melinda said, as she opened the door. “And have fun tonight. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  I went to the kitchen to put the flowers in a vase, and discovered the cabinets were completely vase-free. They hadn’t been one of the priority items I’d squeezed into the U-Haul, so I emptied out the last of the iced tea and filled the plastic container with water.

  “What are they doing with Martin’s class?” Caroline asked from her spot at the window. “Did they cancel the trip?”

  “Nope.” I placed the roses in the makeshift vase and fanned them out. “Tandy Mercer is going with them. Said she’d always wanted to visit Italy.”

  “Oh, my. What is Marjorie going to do without her for the next few months? And those poor, poor students. They are going to have the most miserable semester abroad.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “I just hope the university they’re working with isn’t going to expect Tandy to teach stage-combat in Martin’s place. That would be—”

  Someone was coming down the stairs. Paige entered the kitchen, accompanied by a familiar, slightly tinny voice. “Oooh. You didn’t tell me he sent flowers?”

  I looked into the phone Paige was pointing toward me. “Hi, Delaney. The flowers are from a friend, not from Travis. How are things in New York?”

  “They’re fine, Ms. Alden.” Delaney cocked her head to one side. “I like the dress. Casual enough that you don’t look too eager, but still…alluring. That’s the best word. But have you thought about putting your hair up? It would look perfect with the neckline on that dress. And Paige has that butterfly pendant—”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, laughing. “I’m not getting trapped in some teen version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

  Paige snorted. “That’s perfect. We could start a vlog called Teen Tricks for Old Chicks.”

  Delaney rolled her eyes. “You two are hopeless. I’m being serious here.”

  “How about a compromise?” I suggested. “It’s too late to change my hair, and Travis likes it better down anyway…or at least he did. But the butterfly pendant… Maybe?”

  “I’ll go get it. Assuming I can find it,” Paige said.

  “And that rose-gold lip shimmer…” Delaney’s voice faded away as Paige scurried back up the stairs, phone in hand.

  I turned back to the window seat, where my mom was shaking her head in amusement.

  “How nice that they’ve found a way to bridge the miles like that. It’s so easy to drift apart.”

  That was true, and I wondered for a moment whether it would have made a difference with Travis if we’d been able to see each other, even if it was only virtual. Probably not in the long run. Being there physically was a lot more important in a romantic relationship.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said in a low voice.

  When Caroline nodded, I opened my mouth with every intention of asking why she hadn’t mentioned that Travis was Nathan’s father. But to my surprise, a very different question—the one that I guess I really needed to know—came out instead.

  “Why are you here? Don’t…don’t take that the wrong way, okay? I’m not at all unhappy that you’re here. I love you and I don’t want you to leave. But…why? Why are you here, and not…in the Good Place? Justin said I should ask what it is you need, so…I’m asking.”

  Caroline shrugged sadly. “I don’t have an answer, Tig. This is where I am. This is how I am, what I am. If there’s a reason, it wasn’t revealed to me. Maybe I’m just too stubborn to go. Maybe I’m waiting for Attila to come with me. I don’t know.”

  “Okay. But if you figure it out, if there’s something you need from me in order to move on, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “You’ll be the first to know.” And then Caroline’s smile—along with the rest of her—gradually faded away.

  By the time Travis’s truck pulled into the driveway, my mini-makeover was complete—the necklace did work well with the dress, and I was glad I’d relented and allowed Paige to apply a tiny bit of the lip shimmer. Delaney still seemed a little disappointed that her updo advice went unheeded, but she gave me two thumbs up as she and Paige retreated back upstairs.

  It was taking longer than it should have for Travis to get from the driveway to the doorbell. I was about to head to the door anyway when Attila shot across the room and began hissing from his perch on top of the sofa. Which could really only mean one thing. Ugh.

  Sure enough, his hisses were met by a volley of yaps, and then, finally, the doorbell.

  “Hurry,” I said as I opened the door.

  But my warning was a second too late. Attila was ready, and before I could shut the door behind Travis, sixtee
n pounds of fur and fury sailed through the opening and into the yard.

  “Attila!” I yelled, snatching the throw blanket from the couch. “Come back here!”

  Mrs. Whitley joined the chorus, crying out for her precious little Leo, who was darting around trying to avoid her as Attila approached. The cat’s hiss morphed in a yowl, and I could tell he was only a second away from storming into battle.

  I tossed the blanket over Attila’s head and Travis reached forward to scoop him up, tucking the blanket under his paws. The cat twisted and writhed for a few seconds, but was beginning to calm by the time we got him back into the house and I opened the door to the downstairs bath.

  “Just put him in here,” I told Travis, and then turned to Paige, who was now on the stairs. “Can you give it a couple of minutes and then let him out once we’re gone?”

  “Sure. Can Nathan come over?”

  “No, he cannot,” Travis answered. “Attila may be fierce, but he’s not a suitable chaperone.”

  Paige waved the phone. “Delaney was going to hang with us.”

  “She still can,” I said with a grin. “Call Nathan and the three of you can do a group chat.”

  Paige responded with an eloquent eye roll. “Have her home by midnight.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Travis said.

  Mrs. Whitley came outside with Leo squished against her chest. She stood on the sidewalk, glowering, as Travis opened the door for me.

  “I know you,” she said. “You’re the chief of police, aren’t you? Thomas Lamm?”

  “Yes, ma’am. First name is Travis, but close enough, I guess.”

  “Well, that cat is a public menace and she let him out on purpose. He attacks poor Leo every chance he gets. This is third time in the past year. He scratched Leo’s eye this time, and I want to press charges.”

  “I understand completely, ma’am,” Travis said, lowering his voice to a confidential tone that I could still clearly hear. “I’m taking Ms. Alden in for questioning about the situation right now. To be honest, though, I’m not sure what we can do. When Leo is on Attila’s property, I think North Carolina’s stand-your-ground laws apply. I will have a talk with our attorney just to double check, but for the time being, you might want to keep that little guy in your own yard. Keep a closer eye on him. Just to be on the safe side.”

  Mrs. Whitley narrowed her eyes and clutched the dog tighter, clearly not buying Travis’s story about taking me in for questioning. Leo wriggled, trying to escape, and I almost felt sorry for the little devil.

  “I always keep a close eye on Leo.”

  “I’m sure you do, ma’am. Y’all have a good evening, okay?”

  I had a hard time fighting back the laughter as Travis climbed into the truck. “Stand-your-ground laws? Do those really apply to cats and dogs?”

  “Well, if they don’t, they should. Pets are people, too, you know.”

  “My resident furry person is going to be very unhappy at being caged up.”

  Travis shrugged. “Most people are.”

  Of course, that made me think about Martin Peele. Travis must have caught my expression from the corner of his eye, because once we were on the street he reached over and squeezed my hand.

  “You did the right thing, Tig. We’d have caught him eventually anyway. Sam Davies left a message after the service yesterday to say that the initial head wound could have come from a stage weapon. Once we started looking for those, Peele would have been on our radar since he’s one of the few people likely to have been around the theater. You just saved us some time.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “And he did kill a man. Plus, he tried to cover it up. But…prosecutors know it will go to a jury, and they’re smart enough to realize that once the evidence is out there about the victim being a blackmailing, philandering lowlife, there will be a few sympathetic jurors. They’ll probably go easy on him. He’s got one of the best attorneys in the state thanks to Melinda Barry and her husband.”

  “That’s good. And I’ll admit it will be nice not to have the local paper trying to make me out to be a killer. Did you find out what the deal is with that restaurant Alicia owns?”

  “We’re looking into it. But give Alicia time. She’ll find some other trash to throw at you. That’s just her nature, and she has an audience now. This place may be crowded in the summer, but it’s really just a small town. People are always looking for some gossip to alleviate the boredom.”

  “And you’re still willing to paint a target on your own back by going out with me, when you know it will piss her off?”

  A grin spread slowly across Travis’s face. “Back in high school, I knew this girl who had all kinds of trouble from Alicia Brown. And every time Alicia started something, she had this song she’d sing.” He reached down to the console and pushed the button on his phone.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I said, laughing, as Bonnie Raitt’s voice filled the cabin of the truck with “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About.” It wasn’t my favorite song, or Travis’s, but it had definitely been our mantra for dealing with small town gossip.

  After the song ended, Travis adroitly changed the subject, pointing out things along the drive that had changed since I left. Things that had changed while he was gone, too. We talked about music and movies and funny things our kids did—everything except the murder.

  About twenty minutes later he parked outside the restaurant, where the sun was setting over the sound. It was beautiful, just as Melinda Barry had predicted. Travis switched off the ignition and came around to open my door. My hand had reached for the handle automatically, but I held off. This was Travis. He’d be sad if I didn’t let him play the gentleman.

  The truck sat high enough up that when he opened the door, we were almost face-to-face. And instead of stepping back to help me out, he took a step closer. “Antigone Alden, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It would be so easy for us to slip back into old patterns. To go with the flow and just pick up where we left off. But…I don’t think that’s a good idea after twenty years, especially when those patterns didn’t hold us together the first time. So, for the most part, I’d like to treat this as a first date.”

  I smiled, glad that we were on the same wavelength. “That seems like a very good idea.”

  “Hold on. I said for the most part. Could we make one exception and skip the whole will-they-or-won’t-they drama when I drop you off tonight? Because I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I saw you sitting on that bench Monday afternoon.”

  “I think we could make one exception.”

  He pressed his lips to mine. I had just time enough to think that the rose-gold lip shimmer wasn’t going to last, and then I wasn’t thinking about anything other than Travis.

  It wasn’t quite like a first kiss.

  There was definitely some history there, some hint of our past. But there was also a newness, a difference to his touch that reminded me that this was not the same man I’d known before.

  Travis had grown and changed, just as I had. He was someone I’d need to get to know all over again.

  And that was entirely okay with me.

  I never could resist a good mystery.

  NEXT UP: A sneak peek at ARSENIC AND OLÉ (Coastal Playhouse Mysteries #2)

  Sneak Peek: Arsenic and Olé (Coastal Playhouse Mysteries #2)

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Did you know there’s a police car at your neighbor’s house?” Delaney Foster tilted her blonde head to the side and peered out the bay window in the dining room as I measured out the last scoop of coffee and started the pot.

  “I did not,” I told her. “But it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

  “Ohhh,” Delaney said with dawning comprehension. “Is that where Mrs. Whitley lives?” She’d heard plenty of stories about Mrs. Whitley from my daughter, Paige, who was currently upstairs showering.

  “Yep. And since she hasn’t actually complained to me about anything this week, I
guess someone else is on the hotseat. I’m beginning to think it’s her life’s ambition to alienate everyone in the neighborhood.”

  Seaside Estates, the neighborhood in which I lived, was a double misnomer. The vast majority of houses weren’t anything close to estates, and all of them were at least half a mile from the seaside. My mother bought this house about three decades back, when Caratoke was still under development and Southern Coastal University had just opened. Rebecca Whitley is a much more recent arrival. She moved in a few years ago when her youngest son, Andrew, began classes at SCU, and had been a major thorn in my mother’s backside from the moment the moving van pulled in.

  Paige and I had inherited my mother’s obnoxious neighbor along with the house, after my mom died in an accident the previous year. That was really the only thing I disliked about the neighborhood. Whitley’s little dog, which she kept shaved to look like a miniature lion, tormented Attila, our large gray cat, on a daily basis by casually strolling over to our lawn to do his business. Leo also had the odd habit of chewing on the plants in my front yard. I’d thought it was rabbits until I spotted the little mutt out there, casually munching the plants that line the driveway as if they were his own personal salad bar.

  “Travis says they’re considering hiring an extra deputy whose only assignment will be to field calls from Mrs. Whitley,” I told Delaney, who was still peering out the window.

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Well, Travis did actually say that, but as a taxpayer, I really hope he was kidding. Mrs. Whitley does call them an awful lot, though. I think she has both the police and the head of our homeowners’ association on speed dial. Dean Prendergast, too. Whitley seems determined to micromanage her son’s college career.”