A Chorus Lineup

by Joelle Charbonneau

  While I doubted that anything about this conversation was going to be easy, I couldn’t deny Christine’s point. “We can use my hotel room.” If nothing else, I’d have several hands to help stack instrument cases. Multitasking at its finest.

  “I have calls I need to make. Let’s meet in the lobby in ten minutes.”

  With those words I was dismissed. Christine put her phone up to her ear, and I headed for the exit farthest from Devlyn’s watchful eyes, hoping the hospitality area of the lobby still had coffee brewing. I needed caffeine, and I needed it now.

  The coffee urn was still full. The bad news was the coffee machine had been unplugged and the coffee was now cold. Bummer. I’d just have to make do with a soda from the vending machine.

  I was debating between a Diet Dr Pepper and a Diet Coke when a voice asked, “Is everything okay?”

  Devlyn.

  “Everything’s fine.” Or it would be once I chugged my drink. I unscrewed the top and took a hit before turning toward Devlyn. “There are a few details Christine needs to iron out, but our team will be able to compete fair and square tomorrow.”

  Devlyn gave me one of his slow, sexy smiles. “That’s good to hear. The kids owe a lot to you, even if they don’t always know it.” His smile faded. “They’re not the only ones who owe you something. I owe you an apology. I had a knee-jerk emotional reaction to the news about your audition. It was juvenile and unfair and I’m sorry.”

  As far as apologies went, Devlyn’s was pretty darn good. And he wasn’t done.

  “Your aunt spoke to me before rehearsal and told me that you scheduled your flights so that you could be here for our team’s performances.” He shoved his hands into his back pants pockets and sighed. “I should have known you’d never let this audition get in the way of showing your support for these kids. I should’ve asked you about it, instead of assuming you were abandoning everything we’ve created together. Can you forgive me?”

  Devlyn reached out his hand. Part of me wanted to meet him halfway. But instead, I looked at my watch and said, “Christine is waiting for me in the lobby. I have to go.”

  He stepped out of the doorway. As I walked by he said, “You’re still mad.”

  I stopped walking and turned to look at him. His face was just as handsome as the first day we met. I could still remember the way my heart jumped when he gave me a smile. My heart wasn’t jumping now.

  “I’m not mad.” Sad was more accurate. “There’s just a lot going on. We need to focus on getting the kids through the competition. Once we’re back in Chicago, we’ll have time to talk. Okay?”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I had a text message, but I wasn’t concerned about that. All I could think about was the hurt blooming in Devlyn’s eyes as the subtext of my words hit home. We could talk when we got back to Chicago, but an in-depth discussion wouldn’t change what I knew to be true. The boundaries of Devlyn’s life were set. He was looking for someone willing to live within those lines. With a little more time, I could probably fall in love with him. But this week had taught me something important. Devlyn wanted to be supportive of my performing career. He told the truth every time he said he believed in my talent. But I now knew that he also believed the job he was doing was more important than my dream of being onstage. If my career ever took off, I would be forced to choose between him and my dream. It was better to feel sad now than to have my heart broken later.

  “Sure.” Devlyn’s fingers brushed mine. “I’m going to go help Jim play lifeguard. If you need me for anything, just give me a call.”

  I watched him walk down the hall toward chlorine and chaos and then fished my cell phone out and looked at the screen. Alan had texted. He wanted to know whether I’d decided what I was singing on Friday. If not, I needed to figure it out soon. I tapped back that I would send him my choices tonight, hit “send,” and shoved the phone back into my purse. Alan was right. I needed to pick my audition pieces and make sure they were polished and ready to go. And I would. But first things first. I had to meet Christine and company. It was time to learn what Donna and Scott were really up to.

  The duo in question was pushing open the glass entryway doors when I arrived in the lobby. Christine was nowhere to be seen. Donna’s eyes turned to slits when she spotted me near the concierge desk.

  “I should have known you were behind this.”

  Despite anything negative anyone might say about Donna’s songs, which, if memory served, were heavy on heartbreak, the woman knew how to project.

  Donna’s white, high-heel boots clicked as she stormed across the tile floor. “Who do you think you are, accusing me of trying to ruin this show? Don’t you know who I am?”

  “We all know who you are, Donna.” Christine’s voice cracked like a whip from across the room. “And if you aren’t careful, everyone at this hotel will recognize you and wonder what you’re doing here.” Donna opened her mouth to speak, but a strangely subdued Scott squeezed her arm and she closed it with a frown.

  Christine nodded. “Now, I suggest we go to Paige’s room. She’s graciously agreed to let us use the space so we can talk without being overheard.”

  Taking my cue, I led the three to my door, slid the key card in the slot, and warned, “The room might be a little crowded. Between the broken loading dock door and the damaged belongings, our team has been using this as a staging room.”

  My team didn’t disappoint. Instrument cases were once again piled precariously around the room. With a wide smile, I said, “These all just need to be stacked over there.”

  Donna’s face turned red, but the speed with which Scott picked up several cases and moved them to the other bed ruined whatever angst she was going to unleash. Perhaps it was small and petty of me, but seeing one of country music’s darlings be a roadie for my team made me all warm and fuzzy inside. For once, karma had smacked the right person in the ass. And if I was right about Donna’s involvement in yesterday’s destruction, karma had a whole lot more butt-kicking to do.

  When all the instruments were stacked, Donna and Scott took a seat on my bed. I couldn’t help noticing the way their legs and arms touched or the tender look in Scott’s eyes when he looked at Donna. No wonder Donna was upset when she thought I had a personal interest in Scott. The two of them were definitely a couple and for some reason were keeping that information a secret. Boy, did that sound familiar. I had to wonder whether anyone in this business was capable of a normal relationship. If not, I was doomed to remain single for the rest of my life. Millie would just have to marry Aldo in order to plan the wedding of her dreams.

  Christine took a seat on the other bed. “Donna, can you explain what you were doing in the performing arts center yesterday? And before you claim that you were out of town, you should know you were not only seen but photographed.”

  “That little—”

  “Be careful what you say about one of my students, Donna.” My voice was quiet, but I could tell by Donna’s pursed lips that she’d heard the threat behind the calm. Chessie might be headstrong, exasperating, and a pain in the neck, but she was mine. No one was going to call her names around me. Especially not someone who had done a great deal worse.

  Donna took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I was hoping the young lady in question would keep silent about what she’d seen, that the competition would go on as planned, and that all of this would just go away.”

  “All of what?” I asked.

  Donna looked at Scott. He took her hand in his and answered, “LuAnn Freeman called me three weeks ago. Somehow she had gotten her hands on the list of judges for the competition and had discovered that I had connections to two of them.”

  Christine sent Scott a sharp look. I wasn’t surprised. All coaches were required to sign a waiver that affirmed we had no knowledge of any of the judges in the competition. The judges themselves were given a
list of the choirs and asked whether they had personal ties to any of the participants. Since show choir was a tight-knit community, knowledge of or having been introduced to any of the judges was permitted. But a deeper relationship was considered taboo. If a judge did know a coach on the final roster, he or she was supposed to contact Christine immediately so that Christine could secure a more impartial judge. Coaches who learned the identities of any of the judges were also supposed to contact the organization. The system wasn’t perfect and relied a lot on the honor system. It was obvious that Scott wasn’t all that honorable.

  But now wasn’t the time to point out the obvious. Christine held off on the much-deserved tongue-lashing and let Scott continue talking.

  “LuAnn said if I didn’t use my influence with the judges to help her daughter’s team get into the finals, she’d report my relationship with them to you and get my team disqualified from the contest.” Scott straightened his shoulders. “I told LuAnn that the judges weren’t going to cheat for me and that I wasn’t about to ask them to do it for her.”

  And dogs and cats were going to declare a worldwide truce.

  “Both judges have since pulled out of working on the contest for personal reasons.” Scott looked at Christine in a way that said he believed that should make everything better.

  Christine propped her hands on her hips. “How does this explain Donna’s actions from yesterday?”

  “LuAnn also discovered that Donna and I were seeing each other. She threatened to leak the information to the press.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Neither of you are married.” Or professed to be gay. “What’s the big deal?”

  Donna let out a dramatic sigh. “The big deal is that I just landed my own reality dating show. The concept is that as a celebrity it’s hard to find true love. The host of the show is the head of a matchmaking website who promises she has what it takes to bring me the man of my dreams. The whole show is going to end with a marriage proposal followed by a blowout wedding to the man of my dreams.”

  Huh . . . that seemed like a lot for one show to promise. Especially since love had a way of being unpredictable and the people on those shows less than honest about their feelings. Donna was either incredibly brave to promise she’d marry the winning guy or she had stacked the deck in her favor.

  “Is Scott going to be on this show, too?”

  Scott gave me a sheepish grin. “I planned on putting in my notice to my principal after the competition. Donna and I are already planning to get married. We’ve been keeping our relationship a secret so that it wouldn’t distract our students. When this offer came up, Donna thought it would be a great way of going public and skyrocketing both of our careers.”

  Donna smiled up at him. “We’re going to record an album of duets and release it on our wedding day. Scott has a fantastic tenor voice. Wait until you hear it.”

  I wondered whether he’d get the chance to record that album or whether the next time he’d use that tenor would be singing gospel songs from jail. The two seemed completely oblivious to the fact that they’d done anything wrong.

  “I’m confused,” I said. “How does ruining other teams fit into all of this?”

  Scott ran a hand through his hair. “LuAnn showed up on Monday with a press release she’d created about our relationship. It alleged the two of us were colluding with judges to make sure our teams were at the top of the podium as well as a bunch of other fairy tales. Donna’s seen firsthand that tabloids don’t care whether the stories they print are true. If anyone ran with LuAnn’s information, Donna would lose the reality show and I wouldn’t need to tender my resignation. I’d probably be fired. So when LuAnn asked us to help her damage the competition’s costumes, we had no choice. We had to say yes.”

  “But we tried to find a way to give LuAnn what she wanted without ruining everything for the kids.” Donna laced her fingers through Scott’s. “It would have worked, too, had it not been for LuAnn’s insistence that she help.”

  Aha. “That’s why some of the costumes were ripped in places where they could be easily repaired.”

  Scott nodded. “All the teams that Donna and I targeted had problems that could be fixed without much effort. Having two teams that hadn’t loaded in yet made it easier for us to keep LuAnn out of most of the staging rooms. LuAnn was pissed about Donna’s team not loading in. She liked the idea of Donna or me having to destroy the costumes we’d created.” Scott looked over at me. “She was pretty angry that your team didn’t have costumes and instruments in their staging room, Paige. If she could have blamed me for the broken loading dock door on stage left she would have. I swear the woman looked for reasons to confront people. She was never happier than when she was in the middle of a fight.”

  It sounded like LuAnn should have gone into law instead of social work. All that aggression would have had a constructive outlet.

  “We were just lucky that LuAnn was so happy about the mess she saw in my team’s staging room that she never noticed those costumes and most of the others were ripped at the seams. She only noticed the spare ones that I brought, which were already shredded. And she got so freaked by the falling lights and so angry that Paige wasn’t booted on her accusation that she never noticed the people I’d hired to fix the costumes hanging around before the theater was closed.”

  Huh.

  Donna sniffled. “We felt really bad about the two teams that LuAnn handled. Their costumes really were trashed, but a costume designer I know in the area has gotten them brand-new outfits, which, according to the directors, were better than the ones they had before. They’re practicing with them tonight to make sure the costumes don’t hamper the routines.”

  Okay, the sabotage thing sucked, but I was reluctantly impressed that Scott and Donna had opted to fix what they’d broken. Too bad they’d freaked out a whole lot of kids in the process. Had they been smarter, they would have gone to Christine and had her work on the problem. Of course, now that I thought about it, Christine didn’t have the best track record when it came to dealing with LuAnn. As far as I could tell, all three of these people were lucky the cops hadn’t dragged them into the station for questioning in LuAnn’s death. They all had a motive—or twelve.

  “So what happens now?” Scott asked. “Are you going public with what we did?”

  “You can’t.” Donna stood. “All the teams are fine now. LuAnn is gone. Christine, we’ve done everything possible to make this right. We even found the competition a new sponsor so you wouldn’t have to worry about the old ones bailing. There’s no reason why anyone needs to know about what we did or why we did it.”

  “I’m afraid the cops are going to want to talk about it at length,” Christine said. “I was late coming to meet you because I had a call from the Nashville police. First thing tomorrow morning they will be at the performing arts center to interview anyone who had contact with LuAnn on the day she died. That means all three of you.”

  Chapter 19

  For a moment, no one said a word as the implications of Christine’s declaration sunk in. A thought hit me in the silence. I was standing in a room with three potential murders.

  Help.

  I took a step toward the door and scanned the room for something I could bash someone over the head with just in case of emergency. But if anyone in the trio was having violent thoughts, I probably didn’t need to worry about them being directed at me. For the moment, their focus was squarely on one another.

  “This won’t affect the competition, will it?”

  Wow. That was Scott’s first question? Mine would have been “Do they have a suspect or a motive or do they think the killer will strike again?” Call me crazy, but when someone mentioned murder, I tended to think more in terms of life and death than sequins and scores.

  Christine shook her head. “The police see no reason to stop the competition, although they will be conduc
ting interviews throughout the day. I’ve asked that those interviews take place in one of the theater’s back rooms and the lead detective agreed. As much as I hate to risk the public learning about the interviews, it’s the best way to aid the investigation while allowing the show to go on. Kelly and I will be calling the coaches and asking them to prep their students for what will be happening throughout the day. You’ll need to discuss the matter with your students as well.”

  Donna looked at Scott and then back to Christine. “Do you plan on telling everyone about our part in yesterday’s . . . problem? I understand telling the police, but I’d hate for LuAnn’s daughter to hear that her mother forced Scott and me to hurt the competition. She’s got enough to deal with. Don’t you think?”

  Oy.

  “Yes.” Christine’s voice was soft, but sharp as a dagger. “I do think LuAnn’s daughter has enough to deal with. Which is why I’ll be keeping your part in this matter to myself. For now. I also plan on announcing that the Memphis Central High School team will be competing in the finals no matter what their score is tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll support my decision.”

  When Scott and Donna nodded, Christine smiled. “Good. Now, unless the two of you have more to confess, I suggest you get back to your teams and let them know what tomorrow will hold.”

  Christine didn’t have to tell them twice. Scott grabbed Donna’s hand, and the two raced by me toward the door. With a hurried “See you tomorrow,” they disappeared out into the hall, leaving Christine and me alone.

  “You’re really not going to tell the other participants what Donna and Scott said?” I asked. Maybe I was old-fashioned, but I wasn’t wild about the idea of them getting away with such a dirty trick. Even if it was prompted by more than a need to see their own teams win.

  “I would if I thought it would do any good.” Christine rubbed her temples and sat down on the edge of the bed in the spot Scott had just vacated. “Unfortunately, this news would only tarnish the competition’s reputation and turn Donna and Scott into the bad guys.”