Barnes gestured for us to move ahead of them.
As we walked, I wrapped my arm around Dee’s shoulder and leaned down, whispering. “Capelle doesn’t like me.”
“Is that hurting your feelers?” she responded in a low voice.
“No. But Jack said Greta probably had a source close to the investigation. Capelle was at the crime scene. What if he’s the source?”
Dee’s voice dropped even lower. “You think he killed Greta?”
“If she was blackmailing him, he has motive.”
“But that doesn’t mean he killed Blaine.”
“True. Maybe we’re looking at two different crimes.”
“So maybe allowing these two to escort us into a dark, creepy parking garage isn’t the best idea,” said Dee.
“I could text Matt. See if he really sent the Wonder Twins.”
“And waste precious seconds of our potentially short lives?” She nodded to the right, and I followed her gaze. We were coming up on the entrance to the Black Dragon Theatre Royale. The front doors were open. A yellow sign parked nearby proclaimed the place was closed for cleaning. After what had happened, I didn’t blame Edison for wanting the place spic and span before shuttering its doors.
“What’s your vote for running away?” whispered Dee.
“Hell, yes.” I would contact Matt later and tell him why we ditched his protective detail. I’d rather be accused of rampant paranoia than blindly trust the angry-eyed cop.
The opened theatre gave us the perfect opportunity to escape. If we could outrun the cops, we could probably get out the back entrance before Barnes and Capelle figured out what we were doing.
I let go of her and put a little distance between us. As we passed by the opened doors to the theatre, we turned and bolted.
13
Barnes and Capelle were too surprised to move right away, so we gained a few seconds as Dee and I shot down the middle aisle.
Then we heard their cop shoes pounding on the carpet. One of them yelled, “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”
Dee and I veered left and hurried up the stairs to the stage. We burst through the curtains. The door that led to the outer rooms was shut. I grabbed for the handle, but the damned thing was locked.
“Shit!” I yelled.
We heard footfalls echoing across the stage’s floor. Dee grabbed my shirt and shoved me toward the other end of the backstage. “The prop room,” she said, huffing.
We got there about two seconds before Capelle and Barnes appeared. Unfortunately, they saw us scramble inside the prop room. We slammed the door and locked it, and then we shoved an empty table against it.
Knock, knock, knock. “Are you okay?” asked a male voice. Probably Barnes. I didn’t think Capelle cared about our wellbeing.
Dee put a finger to her lips and motioned me to follow her. She led me past toppled tables and scattered props and through the aisle of costumes. Apparently, the cleaning crew hadn’t gotten here yet. Or maybe this was just the way it always looked.
“Is there a way out?” I asked.
“No, but I know where the trapdoor is. We can hide until they go away.”
“Or call Matt and tattle on us.”
“Or kill us,” said Dee.
“We really do need to cut back on watching the Investigation Discovery Channel,” I said.
“Fine. We’ll marathon Monsters Inside Me.”
It sounded like a porno where Bigfoot and the Swamp Creature got laid, but no, this was a show about bugs and bacteria making people sick—or dead. Let me tell you something, people: If you gotta romp through the woods or some Godforsaken jungle, DEET will save your life. Bathe in that shit.
At the back of the clothes rack, we saw the entrance to the so-called forgotten space because the door hadn’t been re-latched. A ladder dropped into the shadowy space below.
Dee wasted no time scurrying down into the unknown dark. I was more reluctant, but I wasn’t going to be out-couraged by my little sister.
Dee turned on the flashlight feature on her phone and aimed it at the ladder as I made my way down.
“You gotta push the door up,” said Dee.
I did as commanded, trying to be quiet as I closed it. Also, I didn’t fall on my ass and break my neck, so yay me. A metallic click assured me the trapdoor lock had engaged.
Dee moved the light around and revealed an empty room. Concrete walls. Concrete floor. About the size of a prison cell. Oh, irony.
“Well, it’s either die here or call Matt to rescue us,” I said, taking my phone out of my purse. “Crap.”
No bars. I dialed anyway, but nope. Diddly squat.
“Can you get a signal, Dee?”
My sister tried Matt’s number and got the same result.
“Okay then,” I said. “Dying here for the win.”
“You can die in this shoebox if you want to,” said Dee. “But I’m going to wait until the coast is clear and leave.”
“You’ve always been an overachiever.”
“I’m awesome like that.”
“Wait. Were the bodyguards knocked out?” I asked.
“No,” said Dee. “Conscious and pissed off.”
“Why didn’t they just leave?
Silence descended as we both considered the answer to that question.
“Fuck,” muttered Dee. She ascended the ladder, and aimed the light at the trap door’s seam. She searched for a latch or a button, but apparently didn’t find one. She pressed her palm against the worn wood and heaved upward.
“Shitshitshit!” She scurried down. “We’re not getting out of here on our own.”
“We need Annette.” My unreliable GI. “She knows all about this place.” I rubbed my hands together. “I gotta get my ghost whispering on.” More to the point, I had to do a call-back, Jack’s word for drawing out a specific spirit. Okay. You can do this, Vie. I blew out a breath, closed my eyes, and tried to focus on the assistant’s ghostly visage. “Annette,” I said. “I call you forth.”
I cracked open one eye. No Annette. I exhaled and said in a louder voice, “Annette! I call you forth!”
Dee snickered. “You sound like Greta the Great.”
“Shut up.” I opened my eyes and took a gander around the room. Nope. No ghost. “Damn it.”
Dee cocked her head. “Did you hear that?”
Silence descended as we both listened for noise. I heard a shuffling sound, but it wasn’t coming from above us. Dee and I went from corner to corner trying to find the persistent sh-sh-sh-sh.
“Here,” said Dee. I joined her at the wall farthest away from the ladder. We listened—and yep, the sound was definitely coming from this location.
Dee started flashing her phone light around the wall. “Look.”
The white beam highlighted an indentation. I poked a finger into the circular spot. “I think it’s a button.” I pushed it, and we heard a click. A door popped open.
“We’re officially in a Scooby-Doo cartoon,” said Dee.
“All we need to do is set up an elaborate trap to catch the masked criminal and then endure a chase montage set to a song by The Monkees.”
“I’d like to skip those parts. But The Monkees song would be okay if it was I’m a Believer.”
“Right?” We fist-bumped. What? The Monkees were awesome, even though their songs had been foisted upon us by our mother. Because of her, Dee and I were young old people.
Dee slipped through the door. I followed. A wide tunnel stretched before us. It wasn’t completely dark. Weak sunlight emitted from the far end. It smelled like gasoline and burnt motor oil. “I’m guessing this was a loading area at some point.”
“Good guess.” Dee looked down at her phone. “No bars.”
We both saw the van at the same time. It was halfway between our location and the exit. We jogged forward. I tried the back door, but it was locked. And the van didn’t have windows in the back or sides.
“Bummer,” I said.
“Don
’t give up so easy,” said Dee. We moved toward the front of the van, but then we heard the back doors to the vehicle squeal open. We both turned. Someone jumped out and made grunting noises as they started dragging something out of the back.
Dee and I looked at each other. The smart thing would be to run away—out of the tunnel and into the sunlight. You know, where there was cell reception and safety.
Instead we crept around the van and went to confront the probably super nice person with no evil intentions whatsoever.
“Hey,” said Dee.
The redheaded woman in a CSI coverall stopped moving. Whatever she was trying to pull out of the van was wrapped in a white tarp. It was body-shaped, though, so … I was guessing … we were interrupting something bad.
Very bad.
I knew before she turned around that it was Sara. On the down side, we were no doubt in the presence of a killer. On the up side, she was not dead.
She moved away from the body, her expression pure panic. “Go away,” she hissed. “Or you’ll be dead, too.”
14
“Two against one,” said Dee, brandishing her phone as though it were a weapon.
“She knows karate,” I added. “So don’t mess with us.”
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” asked Sara. “I mean it. Get out of here!”
It was a good offer, especially since Sara seemed unconcerned that we were witnesses. Alas, my sister was in full warrior mode. She wasn’t going to leave a murderer to clean up evidence or get rid of a body.
Damn you, Investigation Discovery. Damn you!
“What’s up?” asked a familiar voice next to me.
I turned and looked at Annette. “I called you ten minutes ago.”
“I heard you. I was busy.”
“Doing what?” I asked. “You’re dead.”
“Yeah. And that means I can watch any show on the Strip for free.”
“Oh. Well, that’s pretty rad.”
“I thought so.” Her gaze strayed to the redhead standing next to the wrapped body hanging halfway out of the van. “Sara?”
Sara was staring at me with an open mouth. She looked scared. Shit. The ghost thing, Right. Well, she already thought I was nutso. “You know her?” I asked Annette.
Annette floated next to the girl, her expression soft with concern. “She’s my sister. She’s supposed to be at Cal Tech finishing her degree. Why is she here?”
“Um … body?” I nodded toward the back of the van.
The magician’s assistant gaze zeroed in on the tarp. “No way. Sara is a bleeding heart. She won’t even kill bugs. She’ll study them, but she won’t squish them.”
“Well, I think,” I said, offering Sara a bright don’t-kill-me smile, “she might’ve killed David Criss. Maybe even Blaine Angel.”
“What?” Sara and Annette said at the same time.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” insisted Sara. “I’m trying to prove David murdered my sister. And I think Blaine was in on it.”
Annette frowned. “Why would they kill me?”
“Who’s in the tarp?” asked Dee.
“That would be Adam LaFarge. Most think of him as wax figure, but … and here’s the trick, it actually is Adam.” I recognize the male voice coming from right behind me, but it was the gun pressed to my temple that really got my attention.
“Don’t hurt her,” said Dee. Her eyes were as wide as saucers.
“I can’t make any promises.”
David pushed me forward. “Sara, put him back into the van. You—annoying woman who likes to hit—help her.”
“You motherfucker!” yelled Annette. Her anger whooshed around her like dark wind. “Ask him why he killed me.”
Her rage was palpable. “Why did you kill Annette?”
David sighed. “Because she was nosy, and she liked to eavesdrop.”
Annette’s spirit took on a blood red tinge. “I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”
“Um … you and Blaine, huh?” I said. “Conspirators to the end.”
“He was an asshole. He fucking had everything. Everything. How could he begrudge me one little trick from LaFarge’s arsenal?”
My gorge rose. “You killed him and made him into a puppet?”
David chuckled, clearly enjoying that imagery. “I thought it only fitting he get the same treatment we gave to Adam. I’ll say one thing for the old fart—he was a genius. When he took us through his new show, we were blown away. But why waste such good stuff on an old has-been? Blaine and I knew we could take those illusions and make them so much better.” Wow. You gotta appreciate the consistency of narcissists. They loooooved to talk about themselves.
“Yeah,” said Annette, still seething and now pulsating. Now, she was as red as a freshly cooked lobster. “They’re so goddamned awesome they had to steal their material.”
“Calm down,” I mouthed.
For a minute, I thought she’d ignore me, but then she crossed her arms and rose about three feet in the air. If looks could kill, David would be a pile of ash.
Dee and Sara had finished replacing poor dead and plastinated Adam into the back of the van.
“Shut the doors,” demanded David.
I shared a look with Dee. She leaned against the inside of the van, preventing Sara from closing either door. “So that human puppet thing—that was going to be your new signature trick? Man, that’s so awesome.”
David preened. “It would have been. Until Blaine found out and fucking ruined it. He had the nerve to tell me I couldn’t use the illusion. It was ‘too LaFarge.’ Blaine was trying to steal the limelight from me. Again. So I made him part of the show.”
Dee nodded. “Pretty brilliant. I mean, that’s great publicity.”
“That’s what I thought!” David seemed pleased by Dee’s compliments.
“How’d you get Adam and Blaine made into statuary?”
David smiled, happy to share his brilliance with us. “This is Vegas. Money talks. Give the right amount to the right person, and you can do anything you want.”
“Sure. But then Greta tried blackmailing you, right?” I asked. It was easy to put that together when you added the fact they’d worked at the same place, and Greta had a rep for extortion.
“Dumb old hag. You wouldn’t believe the bullshit I had to put up with when I worked at West of the Wild. She was the worst. Getting rid of her did the world a favor.”
I noticed Sara edging away. If she made a run for it, David might well kill her. I shook my head slightly, but she didn’t stop. I saw the resolve in her expression … and then she took off. She ran in a zig-zag toward the exit.
David shoved me forward and aimed the gun in Sara’s direction.
“No!” I yelled. He fired three shots in quick succession.
She staggered forward and dropped to the ground, collapsing onto her side.
“You bastard,” screamed Annette.
I grabbed David’s arm and twisted his wrist, forcing him to release the gun. It fell to the ground, and Dee kicked it far away. She ran to Sara and kneeled down. I heard her yell, “She’s alive!”
Annette grabbed my shoulder, and I felt the heat of her fury burn right through me.
David went pale, his expression one of terror. “Annette?” he breathed.
“You’re goddamn right, you prick. How dare you kill me! And you shot at my sister, you miserable bastard.” Annette reached out, her hand full of flames. She pressed it against his chest.
David screamed as smoke rose from his flesh. I heard sizzling noises—like grease popping. Ew.
“Don’t kill him,” I said.
“Why not? He killed me first.”
“Because you’re dead, and I’m here, so they’ll think I murdered him.”
Annette got right into his face. “Fine. I won’t end you,” she said. “But I will never, ever leave you alone. I will haunt you to the end of your days, and when you finally pass over … I will take you to hell myself.”
David’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted. I let him drop hard to the ground because fuck that guy.
The red faded from Annette, and she moved away from me. I looked down at my shirt to see if I had a handprint, too. Nope. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“How did you do that?” I asked. “I know I’m the exception, but you shouldn’t be able to touch the living.”
“You’re a conduit. But you knew that, right?”
No. No, I did not. I needed more of Jack’s ghost school. “Hey, is there really a hell?”
Annette shrugged. “I have no idea.”
I joined Dee, Annette following. Sara was sitting up. Her shoulder was bloodied, and she looked dazed. Otherwise, she was hole-free.
“Tell her I love her. And I’m proud of her. And I want her to get her ass back to college.” Annette leaned down and kissed Sara’s head. “Good-bye, baby sister.”
Annette waved at me and faded from sight.
“Uh…” I touched Sara’s knee and repeated what Annette said.
“You were talking to her the entire time? She was there … when David …” She gulped.
“Yeah. Let’s keep the whole I can talk to spirits on the down-low, okay?”
Sara nodded. “So, she’s okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “She really is.”
The young woman burst into tears. Oh, crap. I looked at Dee, panicked. My sister wrapped her arms around Sara and let the girl sob into her shirt. She was so much better at that than I was.
“Hey!”
I looked up and saw Capelle and Barnes jogging toward us.
“Where the hell have you guys been?” I asked.
“Where have we—“ Capelle narrowed his gaze. “You ran away from us.”
“It was more of a workout,” said Dee. “We like to keep fit.”
“It’s called Surprise Cardio. You should try it some time.” I grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “By the way, if you want to arrest the guy who murdered three … wait, no, four people, he’s by the van.”
“The guy on the ground?” Barnes looked at me. “Is he alive?”
“Mostly.”
Barnes pushed his shoulder mike and start shouting into it as he headed toward David Criss. One of the things he yelled was “get an ambulance,” so Sara would be in more capable hands soon.
Getting in the Spirit (Violetta Graves Mysteries) Page 8
