Read It and Weep (A Library Lover's Mystery)

by Jenn McKinlay

  “Nope,” he said. “Why would I be mad?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Lindsey said. “But you sure seem cranky.”

  “Well, maybe it’s because every time I see you, you’ve got Robbie Vine twisted around you.”

  His voice rose in volume and Lindsey blinked. Sully never raised his voice. He was the calmest person she had ever known. Frankly, it was nice to see a display of emotion even though his ire made her defensive and she found herself snapping back.

  “I don’t see why you care, since you dumped me!”

  “I didn’t dump you,” he argued. He turned so he was facing her. “I wanted to give you time.”

  “Time I didn’t ask for,” she said. “Which, for your information, makes it a dumping.”

  “You were supposed to be figuring out how you felt about your ex,” he said.

  “I didn’t need to figure anything out about him,” she said. She threw her hands up in the air, mostly to keep from wrapping them around his neck. “I knew how I felt. I was perfectly clear about how I felt.”

  Sully leaned in close so that his face was just inches from hers. “Yeah, I saw how you felt when you thought he was dead.”

  He opened his mouth as if to say more but then he stepped back and shook his head. “You’re right. It’s none of my business. Do whatever makes you happy. Have a great time with your little actor buddy.”

  He turned and strode down the hallway, anger thumping in his every step.

  “Argh!” Lindsey growled and turned and smacked the concrete wall with her hand. Ouch! Okay, that was dumb.

  She was shaking out her hand when the door opened and Nancy’s and Mary’s heads popped out.

  “Was that . . . um . . . Sully we heard?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes,” Lindsey said. She glanced at Mary to see how she was handling the thought of Lindsey and her brother mixing it up in the hallway.

  “Good,” Mary said. She did not seem fazed in the least. “About time he got off his duff.”

  She stepped back into the room and motioned for Lindsey to enter. The three of them sat down at a small table in the center of the room. Nancy had brought a pitcher of lemonade and there was a plate loaded with oatmeal raisin cookies. Lindsey sat down and Nancy poured her a glass while Lindsey helped herself to three cookies.

  “So, did you two clear the air?” Nancy asked.

  “No, I think we just fogged it up even more.” Lindsey shrugged. “That man is hard to read.”

  “That’s because he keeps it all bottled up,” Mary said. “He always has, ever since we were kids.”

  “That can’t be good for the digestion,” Nancy observed. “No wonder he’s feeling ornery. I should make him some pumpkin cookies.”

  Mary and Lindsey both smiled at Nancy’s home remedy, and the tension was broken.

  “I don’t know about his digestion, but he certainly seems to have a strong opinion about Robbie Vine,” Lindsey said.

  “That’s because he’s jealous,” Mary said.

  “Of what?” Lindsey scoffed. “The man is married.”

  “Sort of,” Nancy qualified.

  “That’s like being sort of pregnant,” Lindsey said. “Married is married, whether they live together or not, and I am not dating a married man.”

  “Good for you,” Nancy said. “It’s much less complicated that way.”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said. “The way that Robbie has been looking at you, you might be the motivation he needs to cut loose the old ball and chain.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Lindsey said. “Robbie is . . . mesmerizing. Of that, there is no question, but if I interest him at all it’s just as a curiosity. I don’t imagine a life in the theater gives an actor much exposure to librarians, and as everyone knows, we are a fascinating bunch.”

  “No doubt,” Nancy agreed, ignoring Lindsey’s teasing tone. “But don’t sell yourself short.”

  “Yeah,” Mary agreed. “Not only do you have Robbie interested, you’re the only woman I’ve ever known to make Sully pine.”

  Lindsey raised an eyebrow and studied her ex-boyfriend’s sister. “Pine?”

  “He has been as mopey as a lovesick puppy all summer long,” Mary confirmed. “Ask Ian if you don’t believe me.”

  “Then why—?” Lindsey was about to ask Mary why Sully had dumped her, but she stopped herself. Sully was the one who needed to tell her whatever was going on in that male brain of his. “So, are we really having a meeting or was this just an excuse to gorge ourselves on cookies and lemonade?”

  “Excuse to gorge,” Nancy admitted. “But since we’re here, I suppose we should review where we are with each of the costumes.”

  She retrieved a three-inch red binder from a tote bag by her feet. The binder had tabs separating each character and their costume requirements.

  She started with the main characters, and they reviewed what needed to be done for each one, working their way through the book. There were only a few characters left when the lights went out.

  The darkness was so complete that Lindsey couldn’t even see Nancy and Mary, although they were seated just a few feet away. A small emergency exit light was the only thing visible in the room, but while it illuminated the door it did nothing to cut through the gloom.

  “Do you think it’s the whole building?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t see any light coming from the hallway, so I think so,” Nancy said.

  “I’m going to see if anyone knows what happened,” Lindsey said.

  She stood up and felt for the wall. She bumped her leg into another table and stumbled, but her fingers found the concrete wall and she followed it toward the door.

  She traced the outside of the door frame until she felt the doorknob. She pulled the door open and noted that the hallway was just as dark as the room behind her.

  “Do you see any light?” Nancy asked from the table.

  “Nothing yet,” Lindsey said. “Wait here, maybe I can rustle up a flashlight.”

  She stepped out into the hallway. She could hear the excited murmur of voices coming from the stage area. She felt her way along the wall, trying to remember where the door into the auditorium was.

  Her fingers closed on a door handle and she pulled it open.

  She stepped into the room just as a scuffle and a shout sounded from the stage.

  “Get off!” a voice that was unmistakably Robbie’s shouted. “Hey! Ah!”

  There was the sound of a thud as if a body had just collapsed against the stage.

  “Robbie? Was that you?”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Ouch!”

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “Could somebody please hit the breaker?”

  There were too many voices to pick out any one voice. Lindsey hurried forward, but it was still pitch-black and she slammed into a row of seats, almost knocking herself down. She began to feel her way along the seat backs, trying to get to the stage.

  “Quiet!” Violet’s voice commanded. “Everyone be still. If you move in the dark, you could hurt yourself.”

  The loud voices and shouts quieted to a low murmur. Lindsey took the opportunity to step into the aisle, which had small yellow floor lights that would lead her down to the stage. She was getting close when a beam of light snapped on near the stage.

  It swept the stage, catching everyone in the position they had been in presumably when the lights went out. Then it swung back and lowered. Lying on the stage was Robbie; a dark stain marred his white shirt, and it took Lindsey just a moment to realize that it was blood pooling from a gash in his arm.

  As Robbie was illuminated by the light, a scream sounded and the entire room erupted into chaos. Lindsey rushed forward and clambered up onto the stage, reaching Robbie first. Violet knelt beside her.

 
“Robbie, are you all right?” Lindsey asked. Her hands were shaking and she blinked. “Ugh, sorry. Clearly, you’re not.”

  He glanced up at her from where he lay. “No, no, it’s just a flesh wound in my arm, but I was afraid to move lest I meet my adversary’s knife point again.”

  “What are you saying?” Violet asked.

  “Someone stabbed me, love,” he said. His voice was low so that only the two of them and the person next to Violet with the flashlight could hear him. “Shortly after the lights went out the knife went in.”

  11

  “Shine the light here, please,” Lindsey said.

  The person holding the flashlight knelt down, and she saw that it was Sully. He shined the light onto the gash on Robbie’s arm. It looked like a messy stabbing. Robbie’s shirtsleeve was ripped and soaked in blood. When Lindsey pulled back the edge of the fabric, she could see that the cut was a deep slice made by a very sharp knife.

  She glanced up and met Sully’s gaze in the glow of the light. Her own concern was mirrored in his eyes.

  “It’s still bleeding,” she said. “I need something to tie it off.”

  “There’s a first aid kit out on the loading dock,” Sully said. “I’ll go get it.”

  He handed the flashlight to Violet and disappeared.

  “Moves like a shadow, he does,” Robbie said as they watched Sully leave. “Impressive for such a big man.”

  Lindsey frowned at him. Surely he was not implying that Sully had been the one with the knife?

  “I think your shirt is beyond repair,” she said. “Do you mind if I use it to stop the blood flow?”

  “Be my guest,” he said.

  Lindsey tore the sleeve off where the fabric had been slashed by the knife. She folded it into a pad and pressed it onto the cut. She hoped the pressure would slow the bleeding.

  “I don’t understand,” Violet said. “How could this happen?”

  “Really, Violet?” Robbie asked. “I know you don’t cook, but surely the purpose of a knife hasn’t escaped you.”

  “You know what I mean—” Violet began but she was cut off as a body came tripping toward them out of the dark.

  “Robbie!” Lola crouched down on his other side and hugged him close. “Are you all right? What happened? Did you fall?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. He spoke through gritted teeth, and Lindsey realized the jostling Lola was giving him was causing him severe pain.

  “How about the lights?” Violet turned and yelled up toward the balcony. “Ian, any luck?”

  Another beam of light shone down from the balcony for a second before it vanished again.

  “I’m working on it,” Ian yelled. There was the sound of banging and some cursing.

  “Here, let me help you up,” Lola said. Her long, brown hair was tied back and she wore a low-cut blouse, which gave Lindsey an eyeful of cleavage when she bent over to lift Robbie up by the underarms.

  Robbie let out a hiss when Lola tried to drag him to his feet. Lindsey moved with them to keep the pressure on his arm. She looked at the wadded-up shirtsleeve and noted it was saturated in blood.

  “Lola, get off of him,” Violet snapped. “In fact, back up and move away. Everyone else sit ti—”

  In a flash, light filled the theater again. Lindsey blinked and glanced around the stage. She caught a glimpse of Milton and Ms. Cole holding hands just before Ms. Cole snatched her hand away. Beth was huddled in a corner with Dylan, Perry and Heather, while several crew members were stranded on the piece of set they’d been painting at the back.

  “Robbie, your arm. Oh, my god, you’ve been cut!” Lola said. She looked closely at the blood-soaked rag and then slumped on top of him in a dead faint.

  “Oh, good grief,” Violet said. “Someone check her, please.”

  Sully wound his way back to Lindsey and handed her the first aid kit. Without a word, he rolled Lola off of Robbie’s chest. Her face was pale, but she was breathing.

  “Fainted,” Sully said. “Luckily, Vine broke her fall.”

  “Can you take her to get some air?” Violet asked. “In fact, everyone go out front for a few minutes and get some fresh air. We’ll call you when we’re ready to rehearse again.”

  The voices of the cast and crew rose and fell as they scattered from the stage. Lindsey watched as Sully lifted Lola up into his arms as if she weighed no more than a child and carried her out front with the others. She felt a twinge of what she suspected was jealousy but she refused to acknowledge it. Sully was just helping the woman; besides, whatever Sully did was no business of hers.

  She turned back to Robbie. “Can you sit up?”

  “Sure,” he said. She and Violet spotted him while he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Gently, they shifted him so that he was leaning against a piece of the set designed to look like a cave.

  “I’m going to get some rags for that blood,” Violet said. “Be right back.”

  “Hold this,” Lindsey said to Robbie. He put his hand over the shirtsleeve still pressed to his cut.

  Lindsey popped open the metal first aid kit. It had disinfectant wipes, rolls of gauze and assorted bandages. It would do until Robbie got the wound dressed by a professional.

  She glanced at his arm. What remained of his sleeve needed to be rolled up, so she tentatively began to fold back the shirt.

  The bottom of a tattoo appeared, and curious, Lindsey pushed the fabric up a bit more so she could see it. It was a stylized sun done in reds and yellows with a blue outline. In the center of the sun was a date: 10-23-95.

  “Nice tattoo,” she said.

  “It marks the most significant day of my life,” he said, “although I didn’t know it at the time.”

  Lindsey remembered Nancy’s lighthouse tattoo and she felt her throat get tight. What was it Charlie had said? A person’s tattoos could give insight into the most important events of his life?

  “Sometimes dates are like that,” she said. “You don’t know it’s important until later.”

  “Indeed,” Robbie agreed. “Sort of like September fourteenth of this year.”

  Lindsey looked at him. “What happened on that day?”

  “I met you.”

  His gaze met and held hers, and Lindsey felt her pulse pound in her ears. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t feel that way about someone yet. And he was so far out of her league. Her thoughts chased each other around in her head until she couldn’t think.

  She glanced down at his cut, breaking the moment.

  “Let me know if I hurt you,” she said.

  He didn’t answer, and she glanced up to make certain he heard her. Their faces were just inches apart.

  “You won’t,” he said.

  Lindsey blew out a breath and took the wadded-up fabric off of his cut. She then reached into the kit and took out the alcohol wipes.

  “This is probably going to sting,” she said.

  The cut was a clean slice and probably it was going to require stitches, but the worst of the bleeding seemed to be over.

  Lindsey shook out one of the wipes and gently dabbed at the cut. Robbie sucked in a breath through his teeth and she cringed, knowing it was going to get worse before it got better.

  She held his arm still with one hand and ran the cloth over the cut with the other. She felt his muscles bunch beneath her fingers, and he let loose a string of mild curses while he kicked at the floor with one of his feet.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Lindsey said. “I know it hurts. Just one more pass and it’ll be good, I think.”

  She swabbed the cut one last time and Robbie let out a shout.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “One thing,” he said through gritted teeth. And before Lindsey realized his intent, Robbie cupped the back of her head an
d kissed her.

  Lindsey was too surprised to move and the kiss was over before she could even register what had happened. In fact, the only thing that convinced her of what had actually just happened was the fact that her lips were still tingling. Well, that and the fact that Sully had returned to the stage and was glaring at them.

  “Okay, then, let’s get that bandaged up, shall we?” she asked.

  Robbie grinned at her. It was a wicked grin, the sort that bespoke all sorts of trouble for the person on the receiving end of it. Lindsey found herself grinning back, although she knew if she’d had any sense of self-preservation she wouldn’t have.

  While she wrapped Robbie’s arm, she was increasingly aware of Sully, who had been joined by Ian and Violet. The three of them were having a low, murmured conversation, but she couldn’t make out what was being said.

  “You seem to be having a lot of bad luck on the stage lately,” she said to Robbie.

  “Agreed.” He sighed. “I’m getting the feeling that someone is not interested in seeing me play Puck.”

  “Well, you are—” Lindsey stopped before she finished her sentence.

  “I am what?” he asked.

  Lindsey paused while wrapping the gauze around his arm and met his gaze.

  “You are a bit of a polarizing personality,” she said.

  “Me?” he asked. He looked so surprised at this that Lindsey had to laugh.

  “Surely you’ve noticed,” she said. “You seem to bring out either the absolute best in people or the worst.”

  Robbie watched her while she fastened a strip of adhesive tape around his arm to keep the gauze in place.

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he said. “I guess my only question now is—”

  “Who do you bring out the worst in and why would they want to harm you?” she asked.

  “No, actually,” he said. Lindsey glanced at him in surprise and again she was overly aware of their close proximity. Up close, the green in his eyes was as vibrant as a new leaf, and she noted that his eyelashes were blond on the tips.

  His voice was lower when he continued, “My question is what do I bring out in you, Lindsey? The best or the worst?”