Stranded

by Lorena McCourtney

  I started to shove the book in a plastic bag to take with me, but then I hesitated. Kelli didn’t rummage in our things in the cabin, of course, but I didn’t want her to somehow accidentally stumble across this. The front of my mind told me this was because I wanted to protect her, perhaps break the news to her gently. The darker side of my mind suggested something different. What if she found the incriminating papers and decided to destroy them? She was, after all, in love with Chris. Maybe a desire to protect him would prove stronger than bringing Hiram’s killer to justice.

  Another point. Charlotte was going to fall apart when her beloved son was accused of embezzlement or murder, or both. If it happened immediately, tomorrow, or in the midst of the Revue, her collapse might take the Revue down too, because she’d never be able to manage her responsibilities with the costumes when this hit her. What then? Could Lucinda manage without her?

  Even after the practice of full-dress rehearsals, with Charlotte trying her best to get everyone organized, she was still the one who kept things running smoothly in the dressing rooms and made certain the costumes were ready for the right person at the right moment and accessories were all in place. Lucinda couldn’t be backstage doing that.

  Okay, maybe making a success of the Revue wasn’t a matter of world-crisis proportions. But, as Charlotte had said, Lucinda was already near “meltdown” because of problems on it. And I was already awash in guilt for how I’d unfairly, if only in my mind, labeled Lucinda a killer. I didn’t want further guilt by ruining her last Revue with this revelation.

  Quickly, instead of bagging the book to take with me, I tucked it and its incriminating contents in the bottom drawer of my desk and packed an assortment of software instructions, pamphlets, and computer printouts over it. Because so many of the Historical Society ladies were involved in the Revue, they’d decided the building would not be open on Friday and Saturday, as it usually was. So the book and its contents would be locked up and safe here until after the Revue was over.

  Which would be soon enough to bring Chris to justice and rip Charlotte and Kelli’s worlds apart.

  Mac came by to pick me up at closing time so I wouldn’t have to walk all the way to Kelli’s cabin. I watched Victoria, Charlotte, and Anne Perkins leave the building right behind me, Victoria locking the door and giving the handle an extra shake to be sure it was locked. Usually her fussiness irritated me, but now I was grateful for it.

  I couldn’t tell Mac what I’d just discovered while we were whizzing through town on the motorcycle, and by the time we got to Kelli’s I’d had second thoughts about telling him at all. Mac was a great guy, but the people involved weren’t as special to him as they were to me, and he’d probably want me to rush to the authorities immediately.

  “You seem quiet today,” Mac observed after we left the motorcycle at the back gate and I was unlocking the cabin door.

  I was thinking how to answer that, but I didn’t have to because he added, “But handling all the props for the Revue is pretty stressful, isn’t it? I’d never have guessed how much detail is involved. Look, why don’t we go over to my motor home, and I’ll do the cooking tonight so you can just relax?”

  Sounded good to me. I’d invited him this morning to have dinner here at the cabin with Abilene, Kelli, and me, but his offer relieved me. Getting away from the cabin would be good. I wasn’t sure I could face Kelli’s happy chatter about Chris, knowing what I did about him.

  Which perhaps meant I was wrong not telling her immediately what I knew. The truth wasn’t going to be any easier for her to take next week than right now. Maybe I was being unfair or foolish not letting her know.

  While I was contemplating that, the phone rang. It was Kelli asking if it would be okay if she brought Chris home for dinner. My heart did an imitation of Mac’s rope and tangled somewhere around my kneecaps. The very last person I wanted to see was Chris Sterling.

  Yet this was Kelli’s home, and I was the designated cook while we were enjoying her hospitality. I couldn’t just blurt out what I knew over the phone. “Sure,” I said brightly. “That’ll be great. There’s a chicken in the fridge. I’ll roast it. Mashed potatoes and gravy?”

  “Sounds great. Don’t bother with anything fancy for dessert. Chris doesn’t eat dessert, you know.”

  Right. Chris Sterling could commit murder and arson, but eating a piece of cheesecake or pecan pie was a moral no-no. But what I said was just, “Okay. See you later.”

  “Change of plans?” Mac asked when I hung up the phone. I explained why. With Koop in his lap, he said, “I get the impression you’re not overly fond of this Chris guy.”

  I was so startled I stumbled over my own feet going to the fridge. Was I that transparent? If I was, would Chris realize the minute he walked in that I knew what he’d done? I opened my mouth, on the verge of telling Mac everything. But I closed it. If Mac knew, that would just make one more of us with the secret to keep.

  Because I was not going to run the risk of ruining the Revue for Lucinda and a lot of other people who’d put so much hard work into it.

  Yet at the same time I found myself muddling around in another dilemma. Didn’t my not telling Mac say something not good about our relationship? In a loving relationship, wouldn’t people share something as important as this?

  Okay, Mac would be the very first person I’d confide in, I promised myself. Just as soon as the Revue was over.

  But first I had to get through this evening.

  Not going to be easy, I realized as soon as Kelli and Chris arrived while I was putting mushroom dressing in the oven to go with the already nicely browned chicken. Abilene had come home a half hour earlier and was making salad. She’d reported the sick horse was doing fine now.

  Chris gave me a solid hug, as if we were old friends. “Ivy! Good to see you again. This is really great, your fixing dinner for us on such short notice. Kelli tells me you’re a wonderful cook.”

  My nerves tightened, and my stomach felt as if I might be coming down with an oversized case of horse-sized colic myself. It took all my self-control not to jerk away from him. No doubt God can love even an arsonist/murderer, but it was taking all my willpower just to be civil to him. I was so nervous I forgot to introduce Mac, and Kelli had to do it.

  “Mac is doing the Will Rogers monologue for the Revue,” she added to Chris. “Ben Simpson had to back out because of his back problems.”

  “I guess we’d better go, then, hadn’t we?” Chris said. He sounded put-upon.

  I was surprised. “You weren’t planning to go to the Revue?”

  Kelli rolled her eyes. “Of course we’re going. Everybody goes. My fiancé, the big kidder.” She slugged him lightly on the shoulder. “We don’t go, and your mother will boycott our wedding. She’s worked her fingers to the bone with those costumes.”

  Chris grinned. “Yeah, you’re right. I just like to tease both of you. It’s like lighting a match to a puddle of gasoline.”

  My own grim thought was, I wouldn’t count on there being any wedding. Then I quickly turned back to the stove, afraid my thoughts might be spraying out like some messy sneeze.

  The thought that had been hiding in the back of my mind ever since I found those incriminating letters now shot to the surface. If Chris knew I had them, my life wouldn’t be worth any more than the mushrooms I’d tossed in the dressing. If he was capable of killing Hiram and trying to burn the house down, getting rid of one LOL wouldn’t be any big deal for him.

  That thought made me so jittery I found myself mashing potatoes as if they were some mortal enemy.

  I calmed myself with another thought. Chris couldn’t possibly do me in right here at dinner in front of three people. He surely couldn’t choke, shoot, or clobber me with some heavy object with everyone looking on. There was no high place from which he might push me off, nothing flammable nearby to set fire to.

  But maybe he could come up with something creative. A little poison in my coffee cup? A foot artfully po
sitioned so I’d stumble over it and crash into the open oven?

  No, of course not. He couldn’t, I reminded myself, even have any idea I’d found those incriminating papers. So this entire panic trip was unnecessary.

  Eat, drink, and be merry, I told myself firmly. Which didn’t mean I didn’t keep a wary eye on him all through dinner.

  Actually, Chris was at his best tonight. Quite scintillating, in fact, with stories about judges and odd clients. Everyone was laughing and having fun, but my laugh was hollow. It made my heart ache to see how much in love with him Kelli was. She’d held back until she was sure, and now … Oh, Kelli, what’s it going to do to you when you find out what he is and what he did to Hiram?

  I was relieved when the evening finally ended. Relieved that I could finally unwind the smile on my face. Relieved that Chris hadn’t figured out some sly way to do me in. Relieved that he surely didn’t even suspect what I knew.

  26

  Showtime.

  I peeked out from behind the gold curtain. Tomorrow night was supposed to be the big night for the Revue, but the seats were already filling for this Friday night performance. I spotted Kelli and Chris in a center row. I looked away. I didn’t want to think about Chris tonight. And there was no need for my sudden shivers. He couldn’t, I reminded myself, do anything to me with Kelli right beside him. And there were Abilene and Dr. Sugarman on their very first real date together! Was she calling him Mike yet? I hoped so. A strip of yellow plastic cordoned off the front row of seats, reserving them for the chorus ladies and other cast members to sit when they weren’t onstage. A yellow strip that looked exactly like crime scene tape, almost like a warning that something bad was going to happen …

  No, no! This wasn’t yellow tape. I blinked and refocused. It was yellow, but it was ribbon. Ribbon tied into a nice big bow. Get thee behind me, paranoia.

  I went backstage to check props again. I had everything divided into sections. Each skit had its own space, all organized. The lightweight fire hydrant had fallen over, and I stood it upright. Paul Newman was standing under a light, studying his master-of-ceremonies script, busily penning in last-minute changes. The ladies were getting ready in the dressing rooms amid giggles and heady drifts of perfume and flying feather boas. DaisyBelle was safely at home, probably sitting in her favorite chair and watching Animal Planet.

  I was checking the duct-taped lamp shade to be sure it was holding together when Mac came up beside me and leaned his rope against the wall.

  “Nervous?” he asked.

  Well, yeah. I was still thinking crime-scene tape and wondering if Chris was making murderous plans for me for later. I pushed that aside. “Not as much as I would be if I had to go onstage. Though I keep thinking maybe I’ll hand someone the wrong prop, and maybe the policeman will be out there in the street skit with this lamp shade instead of a nightstick. How about you?”

  “A little nervous,” he admitted.

  He didn’t look it. He looked cowboy rumpled in his old clothes and scruffy cowboy hat, as if he’d just ridden in off a hard day on the range. Although a rather foxy rumpled old cowboy, I decided. I stretched up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’ll do great.”

  “You got a minute?” he asked.

  I looked at my watch. “Sure.”

  He led me to an empty corner beyond the dressing rooms.

  “I was planning to wait until after the last performance tomorrow night to give you this. But maybe now would be a good time. Close your eyes.”

  I did. He took my hand. I could feel him fumble in his shirt pocket for something. Then he pressed whatever it was into my hand and closed my fingers around it.

  “There. You can open your eyes now.”

  I kept my eyes squeezed shut, feeling oddly wary. I fingered the object. Small, metallic, round. With a hole in the center.

  A ring.

  My heart jumped with an adolescent twang of surprise and joy. A ring! Mac had finally gotten around to making that commitment he’d always avoided.

  Just as quickly I felt a surge of dismay and a shiver of panic, as if I were about to be swept over Niagara Falls. A ring. Wanting commitment from me.

  Hold on now, Ivy, I chastised myself. You can’t feel both ways.

  But I could. One part of me wanted to yell, Yes, Mac, yes I’ll marry you! But another part was muttering, No, I can’t do this. You’re a wonderful man, Mac. I enjoy you when we’re together. I miss you when we’re apart. Sometimes I think I love you. But lifetime commitment? No, no, no, not now, not yet!

  But wait. My brow wrinkled over my closed eyes, and I explored the object further with my fingertips. Yes, the object was round and metallic and had a hole in the center. But there was a chain attached …

  My eyes flew open, and I lifted my hand.

  “I saw you admiring it when we were in one of those antique and gift shops. So I went back and bought it for you.”

  I angled the circle toward the dim backstage light. Yes, I had admired the necklace in a glass case in one of the shops. It was a circular pendant of southwest Native American design, beautiful, delicate yet bold and striking. A circle of sterling silver inset with alternating bands of turquoise, polished coral, mother-of-pearl, and black onyx.

  Beautiful. Very beautiful. But not a ring. Actually, now that I saw it, I didn’t know how I could have mistaken it for a ring. The center hole was too large, the silver circle too flat. And there was the attached chain, of course.

  Maybe I’d made the mistake because I’d wanted it to be a ring?

  Oh, Ivy, get your act together. What do you want?

  “Want to put it on?”

  That much I knew I did want. “Oh yes!”

  I turned around and leaned my head forward. He draped the chain around my neck and fastened the latch. I adjusted the circular pendant at my throat. I was wearing a black sweater and pants, good, inconspicuous backstage wear, but perfect for showing off the striking colors of the necklace.

  “Thank you, Mac. It’s a wonderful gift.”

  I was also thankful I hadn’t made an idiot of myself by throwing myself in his arms and yelling that ridiculous, “Yes, Mac, yes, I’ll marry you!”

  Okay, down to the nitty-gritty here: was I disappointed? Another of those seesaw emotions. Yes, one part of me was a little disappointed. Sometimes Mac’s ambivalence, his three steps forward and two steps backward in our relationship, was frustrating, and a ring would mean all those steps were forward now. But another part of me felt almost giddy with relief that he hadn’t offered a commitment I couldn’t accept.

  They balanced out, I realized. Disappointment. Relief. Which left us both free to explore where, if anywhere, we wanted to go from here.

  I stood on tiptoe and gave him another kiss. “Thank you, Mac.” With thanks for more than he probably realized.

  The music signaling the show was about to begin started, and we edged over to the side of the stage where we could see onstage. The curtain was still closed, but the chorus line stood poised and ready to go, draped arms uniting them. Magnolia looked glorious, hair piled high, a white magnolia perched on top making her look like a centerpiece in a flower arrangement. Paul Newman stood right behind where the curtain would split when it opened. His face looked as grim as if he were about to face an IRS audit, but his black suit looked sharp and sophisticated.

  I could hear Lucinda’s voice from in front of the curtain. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she had a special gown for the occasion, a slinky satin ’20s thing decorated with seed pearls. She welcomed everyone to the Revue, thanked all those who had worked hard to make it a success, and remembered Lulu and Ben as casualties along the way.

  “So, without further ado, to get our show under way, here is our master of ceremonies, our very own Paul Newman!”

  Paul swaggered through the curtain, and we could no longer see him, but I could tell from his voice that his onstage personality transformation had kicked in again. He gave a brief, lively history of
the Revue, tossing in jokes here and there, finally saying, “But that’s enough from me, because I know what you all really want to see are the lovely ladies in our Hello chorus line. And here they are!”

  The big moment. Except that nothing happened. The curtain didn’t sweep open. It just hung there like a dishrag.

  More loudly, as if he thought the person operating the curtain perhaps hadn’t heard, Paul repeated his dramatic words. “And here they are!”

  The music for the first chorus-line number began, but no curtain flew open. On the far side of the stage I could see the woman who was supposed to operate the curtain struggling with a tangle of ropes. Mac leaped away from me and raced across the stage. The chorus line shifted like a breaking wave as everyone tried to see what was going on.

  Mac might have trouble with a cowboy rope, but he worked a miracle with the ropes on the stage curtain. It flew open, catching the surprised-looking chorus ladies standing there as disorganized as a flock of Norman’s chickens. Magnolia took charge. “C’mon, ladies,” she boomed. “Let’s go!”

  The chorus ladies whipped into a ruler-straight line, and they were off, kicking and sidestepping and whirling.

  And from that point on, everything went like clockwork. With Mac’s help, I got the props on and offstage in record time for each skit. His monologue and bumbling with the rope brought whoops of approval and applause.

  I did have to make two quick runs up to the third floor to get a dog collar that had somehow disappeared, and a replacement for a dish that had been stepped on. They were awkward trips because I had to sneak along an outside aisle beside the audience to get to the stairs in the lobby, but no one seemed to pay much attention. Charlotte was up there once, frantically looking for a boa to replace one that had unexpectedly started to shed feathers.

  “I know we had a couple extras. I ordered them because I knew some dumb thing would happen. It always does,” Charlotte moaned as she tossed costumes like confetti. “But where are they?”

  I finally found one of them for her. Someone had draped it around the stuffed skunk. “Bless you, Ivy,” she said and raced for the stairs.