Wicked Stage

by Michelle Dayton

  Jess approached Webb from behind and tapped on his shoulder. Adam took a long breath and released it. She was going to try for Webb’s keys today. It killed him to let her; this was something he could do in his sleep. But Jess insisted that it made more sense in the day’s schedule for her to be the one who briefly disappeared. Plus, she had more reason to be in Webb’s direct presence to take and return the keys. She was right, of course, but that didn’t make him any less nervous.

  But he had to give her this one. She was still kind of annoyed that she wouldn’t get to enter either of Webb’s properties on New Year’s Eve. Given the arrangements she’d made with Webb, she had to be at the theatre recording and live-streaming the performance. Which, he’d never admit, was the main reason he’d chosen that evening. There was no way he was letting her get picked up by Interpol if everything went to shit.

  The plan was getting clearer every day now. Tony and Frank were the Cotswolds team. Adam and Jonno would be the London town house team. Adam hated not being with Tony, but there was really no choice. Tony was the one who knew his way around the country property, and Adam needed to be at the theatre for the beginning of the play. He could only feasibly get to the Chelsea town house in the time allotted. Jess would be the dispatch, handling all communications between the two teams. She’d also be responsible for watching Webb to make sure he was fully distracted and didn’t receive any calls from the security company.

  Tyler and Olive came backstage for water while Webb spoke with Jess. Tyler looked close to tears. “There now,” Olive said. “We’ll figure something out.” She looked at Adam and gave him an “Eek” face.

  He clapped Tyler on the back. “Webb’s an asshole,” he said.

  Tyler shrugged. “But he’s not wrong. I’m not doing it well.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll hear his voice in my sleep tonight: ‘For the love of Christ! Stop looking at her like you’re a puppy!’”

  Adam and Olive looked at each other, astonished. Tyler’s imitation of Webb was pitch perfect.

  “My God,” Olive said, beaming. “You’re quite the imitator, aren’t you? Do someone else.”

  Tyler blushed, but obliged. He pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket and stared at it, shoulders slumped. “Can someone, like, get me a smoothie? Not the shite from next door. I want the blueberry one. From the good place. Like now, please?”

  Adam burst out laughing. It was Katrina, from head to toe. Wow. Maybe Tyler couldn’t interpret a character, but he sure could copy one. Hell, this was an easy fix.

  “Tyler,” he said carefully. “Have you ever watched the Hitchcock movie version of Dial M for Murder?”

  “No!” Tyler was emphatic. “My acting coach used to say that you shouldn’t watch other people’s performances or you might copy them unintentionally.”

  Olive patted his back. “Don’t take this the wrong way. You know I adore you, but in this particular case, copying might not be such a bad thing.”

  Adam handed over his phone, with the movie paused right at the beginning of the scene Tyler and Olive had just been rehearsing. “Look at this Wendice,” he said.

  While Tyler hunched over the phone, transfixed, Olive took a sip from her usual water bottle. It was a gift from her daughter and said “Diva” on the side, which always made Adam smile because Olive was the farthest thing from a diva.

  Katrina appeared briefly, glared at them all—especially Olive, and then vanished again. Adam remembered his conversation with Jonno. He’d seen for himself that Katrina had a ruthless streak. Maybe it’d be a good idea to warn their leading lady.

  He debated on approach but finally decided to be blunt. “Watch yourself around Katrina, Olive.”

  She swallowed her water and smiled over at him. “Tired of your new girlfriend already?”

  He rolled his eyes. “She’s a mercenary. She ambushed me in front of the cameras. Nothing happened.”

  She patted his shoulder. “I know, love. Just teasing.” She sighed. “And I know the type. I’ve been surrounded by them for decades.” She tapped the back of her head. “I’ve got eyes here now. I’ll be fine.”

  Tyler looked up from the screen, amazed. “I think I get it now.” He backed up the scene and watched it again.

  My work here is done, Adam thought. He resisted the urge to peek around the curtain to see if Jess had disappeared yet. Hopefully her day was going just as well.

  * * *

  Adam worried too much, Jess decided. It had almost been too easy to make the copies of Webb’s keys. He’d been so angry with Tyler’s bad performance in the morning that he wouldn’t have felt an elephant groping him, let alone her quick fingers. She’d passed them to Jonno, who had duplicates made in less than hour.

  Returning them to Webb’s pockets had been even easier because he’d been speechless, eyes glued to the stage, watching Tyler’s later, much improved, performance. Jess was dying to know what had transpired backstage herself. Granted, Tyler was doing an almost exact copy of the movie version of Wendice, but it was so much better than what he’d been doing before that no one minded at all.

  The testimonials were a chore this afternoon. Everyone was itching to get to the Christmas break and it was getting harder to find new things to say at this point.

  When the last one was over, Jess bit her lip and picked up her phone. She’d been dreading this phone call all day. “Hey, Dad,” she said when he answered.

  “Jessica.” Why did he always sound immediately disapproving? “We haven’t heard from you since Thanksgiving.”

  Not exactly true. She’d sent over her bi-weekly checks, which helped pay for his mortgage and health insurance. But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. “I’m sorry,” she said, both meaning it and also somewhat exasperated that she apologized in every single conversation with him. “I’ve been very busy with work. I’m on a project in London right now.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Ah, I’m helping a security firm test their biometric protocols,” she said, hoping that would discourage further questions. Like Frank and Jonno, her father’s eyes tended to glaze over whenever she used too much technical jargon.

  “Hmmm,” he answered. Mission accomplished. “What time will you be coming over tomorrow for Christmas Eve?”

  She cringed. “That’s actually why I’m calling. I need to be back on the job on the 26th and I don’t think it’s worth it to fly home and back in such a short timeframe.” She paused. “I won’t be coming.”

  He didn’t speak for a full thirty seconds. Then he finally said, “That’s a first.”

  “I know.” She bit back another “I’m sorry.” She was a grown woman and there was no real reason for her to apologize for this. Besides, she wasn’t the one who’d turned her back on her family when things got tough. She wasn’t the one who—ugh.

  Well, that answered that. She was still angry and harboring major resentment about everything that happened last year. She hadn’t forgiven and forgotten at all.

  She wished she could though. It hurt to carry all that toxic emotion in her chest. She was never ultra-close with her dad or older brothers, but before last year they’d been a constant, steady presence in her life.

  Her dad brought out the big guns. “Andrew will certainly be disappointed.” A shot straight to her weak spot. Drew was completely different from her dad and the others. He never bothered with the tough-guy façade or repressing emotion. He was always openly affectionate and he’d never stopped believing in her.

  “I know,” she said again. There was really nothing else to say. “I’ll call on Christmas Day,” she whispered. “Bye, Dad.”

  * * *

  She beat Adam back to their hotel room that night. Physically tired from being on her feet all day and emotionally weary from the call with her dad, she pulled off her clothes, snuggled into her white bathr
obe and crawled into bed with her laptop. Time to do a little listening. She logged into one of her servers housed on the Dark Web. Every time the recording device attached to Webb’s panic-room-covering tapestry was voice activated, it created a new audio file. There were several new files from the last few days.

  The first couple of files were worthless. Katrina chattering on her cell phone in her bathroom. Someone whistling in the kitchen. But the third file was gold. Webb’s voice, clear and loud: “‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste death but once.’”

  She rolled her eyes. Of course Webb’s voiceprint would be as dramatic and pretentious as the rest of the man. She edited the file, taking out any ambient or background noise. Perfect. Now she could email it to Tony, Adam, Frank and Jonno. They could each keep it on their phones to use the night of New Year’s Eve.

  She was about to log off, but then decided to listen to the rest of the audio files. Due diligence and all that. Another of Katrina babbling, another of pots and pans in the kitchen. But then, Webb again: “‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

  “Again with the Shakespeare,” she muttered. She clicked on the last audio file.

  Webb recited, “‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’”

  She heard the key in the door, and Adam peeked his head through the door. When he saw her lying on the bed, he glanced back into the hallway for a second and then came fully into the room. “You’re back earlier than I expected.”

  Ignoring his comment, she gestured wildly at her laptop. “I can’t tell how the voiceprint works!” She played the first file, the quote about dying many times. “He did this one three days ago.”

  “Of course he’s quoting Julius Caesar to his bloody safe,” Adam said. “He’s such a dick.”

  “But that’s not the only thing he says.” Jess played the next two files. “I can’t tell if he’s got a stable of acceptable phrases or if he’s changing the voiceprint everyday or if—”

  “Jess,” Adam interrupted gently, and she realized that her voice had climbed two octaves since she started speaking and she sounded rather hysterical. “It’s OK. We have time to figure everything out.”

  He sat down on the bed next to her, removed her laptop and took her hand. “What’s wrong?”

  The lump in her throat grew and she blinked back tears. Why did that always happen? You could hold it together forever, but if someone asked “What’s wrong?” in a soft and gentle voice, the waterworks burst. Ugh. She never cried.

  “I talked to my dad about missing Christmas,” she admitted with a sniffle and shrug.

  Adam was silent. She hoped he wasn’t freaked out by her little tantrum. She’d certainly been more emotional than usual lately. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “For what?” His words sounded harsh and she blinked. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Jess. I’m the reason you’re away from your family on Christmas. I’m the reason you’re working fourteen-hour days around awful people. I’m sorry.”

  Amused in spite of herself, she cocked her head. “That’s revisionist history. I seem to remember you trying to keep me out of this whole thing—multiple times—and me butting my way in, as usual.”

  He shook his head. “Still, if it wasn’t for this job—”

  No. She put a finger on his lips. She couldn’t let him think there was anywhere else in the world she’d rather be. “If it wasn’t for this job, I’d be sitting at my dad’s house tomorrow, feeling lonely in a group of people.”

  She took a shaky breath. She wasn’t a mushy kind of girl, but there were moments you had to leave it all out there. “I’d be looking at the Christmas tree, wondering what you were doing. My hands would feel empty because you wouldn’t be there to hold them. I’d feel lonely and miserable. The call with my dad upset me because he knows how to push my buttons, but not for one second did I wish I was there instead of being here with you.”

  His eyes were huge and he was unusually still. He looked so young and uncertain; she was getting a glimpse of what he must have looked like as a little boy. She leaned forward and kissed him. “I want to be with you,” she finished, suppressing the “always” that wanted to finish the sentence.

  Adam didn’t respond, except to stare at her face and squeeze her hand. She tried not to squirm. “What are you thinking?”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it. Swallowed.

  When he did speak, the light tone of his voice didn’t match his intense eyes. “I’m thinking that I’m glad I got you a surprise.”

  * * *

  Adam pushed off the bed and went to the door, trying to compose himself. The woman completely undid him. He was such a chicken shit. Her voice echoed in his brain: “What are you thinking?”

  He opened the door to the hallway. The small Christmas tree was right where he left it, leaning against the wall looking both jaunty and a little pathetic. He grabbed it with both hands and dragged it into the room.

  Jess’s mouth dropped open and then she beamed. “Oh my God.”

  She was so beautiful when she smiled. He loved the crinkles at her eyes.

  “I got lights,” he said, awkwardly. “I thought we could wander around a bit tomorrow, pick out some ornaments together.”

  “I love it,” she whispered. “Thank you.” There were tears in her eyes again.

  He propped the tree against the wall and went to the bed to pull her into his arms.

  He wished he’d answered her question. “What are you thinking?”

  Forever. He was thinking forever.

  Chapter Ten

  Yawning, Jess shuffled into the theatre, a coffee cup in one hand and her camera bag over her shoulder. She felt...happy. Just happy. She and Adam had spent every minute of the past two days together, and there was no talk of the Bulgarian Blue, Dial M for Murder or any other aspect of their “professional” lives.

  On Christmas Eve they’d wandered all over London, picking up a few ornaments for their Christmas tree. Their Christmas tree. On Christmas Day, she and Adam invaded Tony’s apartment after doing a massive shop. Over their grumbled protests, she’d assigned each of the men part of the meal. Yes, Frank’s mashed potatoes turned out a little lumpy and Jonno’s green beans were literally swimming in butter. The apartment’s tiny oven struggled with the turkey. Adam’s pie did not turn out at all, and he ended up running out to buy individual crème brûlées for everyone.

  But in the end, it was an absolutely perfect dinner. For the rest of her life, she’d remember them gathered knee to knee around the table with their heads bowed and eyes closed while she said grace. When she opened her eyes, Adam had been staring at her with such intensity that she actually shivered.

  After dinner they’d attempted Trivial Pursuit while National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation played in the background. She hadn’t laughed that much in years. She hadn’t wanted the evening to end—although, walking back to the hotel with Adam’s arm around her shoulders had been pretty nice too. When they got back to their room, he’d taken her straight to bed without even turning on the lights. She’d been naked and underneath him in approximately thirty seconds. That had been...more than nice.

  But now, back to work. She took a deep breath and entered the auditorium from the lobby. This would be a sprint of a few days. Supposedly Tech Week, the week or so prior to Opening Night, was always kind of hellish. For the first time, the actors would be rehearsing with all the other essential elements—costumes, lights, sound, set and makeup. The dress rehearsal would be on December 30th and then the full performance would be on New Year’s Eve.

  The rehearsal for the theft of the Bulgarian Blue was also taking place this week. She still needed to figure out how W
ebb’s voiceprint was working. Tony and Frank needed to figure out the best transportation to and from the Cotswolds. Frank was leaning toward driving the entire way from London and back, but Tony thought they should take the train from London and “borrow” a car from the long term car park at the Cotswolds station to get to and from the Webb estate. (Jess suspected he didn’t much care for Frank’s driving ability, particularly on the left side of the road.)

  On the night of the play’s dress rehearsal, they were going to do a full rehearsal of their own. Tony and Frank would go up to the Cotswolds and Adam would leave the theatre after the first act to meet Jonno at Webb’s Chelsea home. The plan was to test the keys and twelve-digit code at both locations, enter the property and get as far as the panic room before calling it quits.

  “If we get as far as the panic room, shouldn’t we just go for it all that night?” Frank had asked.

  “No,” Adam insisted. “Our goals for the dress rehearsal are to establish timing and to make sure we don’t have any problems with exterior entry. What if the code or keys don’t work? We need to know ASAP. What if there’s a silent alarm that’s activated? One person should stand guard while the other continues to the panic room.” He looked at Tony. “We don’t even know where the panic room is in the Cotswolds estate yet. You need to use the dress rehearsal to find it.

  “Besides,” he continued. “Jess and I still need to be at the theatre for Opening Night. We couldn’t just take the Blue during the rehearsal and then disappear. We’d immediately be suspects. And if we didn’t disappear, we’d be around for the initial investigation. I don’t want us anywhere near that.”

  “Got it, boss,” Frank said, appropriately chastised.

  Now, Jess walked down the aisle of theatre and gaped. The set was being built onstage. Fascinated, she pulled out her video camera and started recording. All of the action of the play took place in the living room of the Wendices’ London flat. Onstage, the structure of that flat was being created in detail. There were French windows with heavy full-length curtains, a fireplace and built-in shelves. In front of the French windows was the desk with the all-important telephone. Next to the fireplace, a plush pink sofa was surrounded by small end tables, with a long coffee table directly in front of it. A crew member stood on a ladder, hanging a chandelier over the center of the set.