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Sloan didn’t bother speaking. He slugged Mike with the hardest right to a jaw he’d ever wielded in his life. Mike was silent. Lights out.
“Damn you!” Heidi shouted. She began firing. She was going to hit one of them if he didn’t draw his own gun. He returned fire.
Heidi screamed and ducked behind a wall. Cy Tyburn sprinted across the room, taking cover by the wall. He fired into the mannequins.
Sloan fell to one side, trying to use a Victorian lady to shield him. Then the door burst open and he heard someone shouting.
“What the hell is going on down here?”
It was Henri Coque.
* * *
Jane had to force herself to keep silent. At first, she was afraid they had Sloan, that they’d kill him or torture him if she didn’t move.
But then Sloan had gotten into the mannequin room, as well.
And she’d had to keep silent—because she couldn’t defend herself.
She scrambled in the darkness, trying not to show herself, desperate to find her gun in the commotion. Then she heard Henri Coque.
“Henri! Get down here, too. You know, Henri, you’re really good at keeping this place afloat—and the shows are terrific!” Heidi said. “But we need you now. Come out, Sheriff. Come out, come out wherever you are, or I will kill this innocent man. And you’ll have to go your whole life knowing he died because you were a coward. Hmm. Maybe we’ll have to run and I can leave Henri alive. I wouldn’t mind doing that. He’s not a bad guy. ”
Jane heard movement near her. Sloan.
“I’ll kill him, Sloan. It’ll all be on you!” Heidi said.
She was still behind the wall. Sloan had been returning fire; she had to know approximately where he was. Heidi wasn’t taking any chances. She had Henri in the center of the room. She fired—and Henri screamed.
Just then, Jane felt movement among the mannequins again—but not from Sloan’s direction. She turned. For a moment, she thought she was looking at another mannequin.
Then she realized she was seeing Sage McCormick.
And Sage was desperately trying to push something at her.
Jane frowned. Whatever it was glittered in the dim light. She reached for it, but Sage shoved something else at her.
Her Glock.
Jane nodded her thanks and grabbed the gun.
She had one chance.
She shoved all the mannequins toward the wall where Heidi was taking cover; Henri had been knocked over and Heidi raised her gun to shoot.
Jane fired, and Heidi went down. She heard Cy Tyburn curse.
And then saw that he’d taken aim at her.
But he never fired.
Sloan stepped from the mannequins and fired first.
Cy went down like a log.
Henri sat on the floor, sobbing. “My foot! She shot my foot!”
The door burst open and Logan shouted, “You’re surrounded in here! Nobody move!”
Jane saw Sloan’s shoulders sag slightly. “I think they’re all dead, Logan. ”
“Get some light!” Jane shouted. “Get light, quickly. Kelsey is in this mess. ”
She heard Logan swearing and Henri crying. In the darkness, she made her way to Sloan as he made his way to her. He took her in his arms and held her, and they were both shaking.
She wasn’t sure what happened next; suddenly there were officers everywhere. An ambulance came for Henri, who was completely dazed.
“We’ll have to close the show tonight. I’ve never closed a show. Oh, my God, I’ve never closed a show. My theater. . . . ”
Kelsey refused to go to the hospital. She let the ambulance driver tend to the knot on her forehead. She was humiliated that they’d managed to surprise her right after she’d called the ambulance and come back in to tend to Brian Highsmith.
The rest of the night involved a great deal of paperwork. And because they were law officers who’d exchanged fire and killed, they had to go through additional hours of questioning. Even though there was no doubt they’d been justified, it was protocol.
Not until late afternoon of the next day did they return to the Gilded Lily.
Jane and Sloan didn’t talk about the case after that. They took a long shower together, one filled with tender kisses and whispered words of gratitude that they were together and unharmed. Afterward they made love with an energy and passion neither had thought they could muster.
Then they slept.
Then they made love again.
And at last, when Logan called for a team briefing, they showered once more and dressed and came downstairs.
The Gilded Lily, according to the county, could open the next day.
For that night, Logan had ordered food from across the street. They got drinks from behind the bar and sat and ate in the empty room. They talked and tried to make sense of it all, even though they’d talked about it for so long already.
“The killing spree is what gets me,” Sloan said. “Somehow, Caleb Hough found some of the gold. ”
“Where?” Logan asked.
“I think he did find it in the mine, though, at this point, we’ll never know for sure. Then he must have realized that it had to be hidden somewhere in plain sight—but I think he felt he couldn’t get to it himself. Seems he engaged Betty first, and then Heidi—and then Mike and Cy. But one of them did something that made him distrust them. Maybe it was when Brian foolishly put that skull on the wig stand. They all thought they were betraying one another. Caleb led them to the old mine because he wanted to make sure he could trust his partners after that. He seemed to think they were after him. Brian had no idea he’d started the whole rash of mistrust with that skull on the wig stand,” Sloan said. “I heard people creeping around my property because Mike Addison was involved—and he owns the land next to mine. He was probably supposed to be keeping an eye on me, as well. ”
“How is Brian?” Kelsey asked.
“They shot him and Betty left him for dead. But he caught up with her and gave her a good knock on the head. She really was injured when I found her. And luckily, she was a lousy actress, so she was so busy playing possum she wasn’t aware I took her bullets,” Sloan said.
“Who killed Caleb—and tried to kill Jimmy and Zoe?” Jane asked.
“I believe it was Heidi. Heidi had been here all her life, and all her life, she’d watched Caleb act like a rich man while she took out hayrides and shoveled manure. So far, according to Newsome, all Mike Addison is doing now is swearing that he didn’t kill anyone and didn’t mean to be involved with killing anyone. ”
“Could have fooled me!” Jane muttered.
“Anyway, I’m convinced it was Heidi and Cy who went to the Hough house. Heidi seemed to have the upper hand in everything. Betty was at the station—keeping an eye on me, trying to find out everything I might know,” Sloan said.
“I guess I was semiconscious when Heidi claimed you knew where the gold was, Jane. Do you?” Kelsey asked her.
“I didn’t know. Not until last night,” Jane said.
They all stared at her.
“Sage showed me. She wasn’t trying to show me. I’m not actually sure whether she knew. I’d lost my gun and she helped me find it. But when she got it to me. . . ” She let her voice trail off.
“Where is it?” the other three demanded in unison.
“Well, the stagecoach was never found because it was broken up—and used to make mannequins. The gold was stuffed into the ones that were made out of wood that was part of the stagecoach. I only saw a glint of metal in the leg of one that had fallen. The leg broke on it, and you could see the gold. I’m willing to bet that if they’re all dismantled, the gold will be recovered. ”
They all just stared at her.
Sloan reached over and took her hand. “Secretive, aren’t we, Agent Everett? You knew that last night, and you didn’t say a word.
”
“Last night, our lives mattered. I hadn’t even thought about it again—didn’t want to. ” She paused. “What will happen to it now?”
“I assume most of it will go to the state,” Logan said.
“But what’s left would go to keep the theater open, right?”
“Yes. Brian will have to do some jail time, but that won’t kill the theater,” Logan said.
“And,” Sloan added, “Valerie was innocent of everything that went on, as was Alice. Henri had no clue. He called us in because he was really indignant about the skull. But. . . he will need to rethink the show. ”
“So why was Valerie sneaking around the hospital?” Kelsey asked.
“She wanted to talk to Jennie. She was afraid the theater was haunted or that someone really was after the people here,” Sloan said.
Logan cleared his throat. “Actually, Henri is in trouble. Valerie’s heading back to L. A. She says that as far as she knows, no one ever killed anyone over a toilet paper commercial. Alice says she’ll come back—but she wants a two-week paid vacation. Cy is dead and Brian. . . Brian won’t be working for a while. ”
“Henri will be all right,” Jane said confidently. “Directors have done new shows or recast old ones since the day theater began. ”
“He gets to reopen tomorrow,” Sloan murmured. “I wonder what he plans to do. ”
* * *
The next night, Sloan couldn’t believe he was standing onstage. Or rather, lying on the stage. He and Jane were now staying together at his place, and she’d talked him into doing this.
Jane was a natural. She was playing the vamp who sang most of the songs and had the most lines. She was carrying him through the song they did as the vamp and the hero—just as Logan and Kelsey covered him at other points.
They’d done a reversal in the show; Kelsey got to save him from the train. That way, he had fewer lines.
Henri had talked Jane into persuading the rest of them. But Henri was halfway in love with Jane himself. The others had thought it would be fun; they’d give Henri three days to find a new cast. They’d warned him they couldn’t possibly learn the lines, but he’d told them it didn’t matter. Ad-libbing was better than no show at all.
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