A Chorus Lineup

by Joelle Charbonneau

  Mike rang the door at seven fifteen on the dot. The appreciative look he gave me when I walked out wearing an electric blue dress with a cinched waist, cap sleeves, and a slightly flared skirt made my confidence level rise again. Classical singers often wore black or other subdued colors for auditions. I’d originally chosen a dress in a deep gray for that reason, but changed my mind at the last minute. Maybe all those sparkly show choir outfits had rubbed off on me. For years I’d gone to auditions looking like everyone else. This time, if I was going down in flames, I was doing it my way.

  Mike scored more points by having an extra-large vanilla latte and a cinnamon bagel waiting for me in the car. I tried to stay calm as his Mustang ate up the miles between Millie’s house and downtown Chicago. For a while it was working as Mike regaled me with funny details of the most recent case he’d closed. But that changed when the skyline rose into view. I clutched my black repertoire binder to my chest as the buildings grew larger with every passing mile. Mike kept talking. I made sounds like I was listening, but Mike could have been reciting the Gettysburg Address and I wouldn’t have known it. Yep. It was official. I was starting to panic.

  Strike that. I was way beyond panicked as Mike came to a stop in front of the Lyric’s main entrance. Near the door, tapping buttons in his phone, was my manager, Alan Held. This was it. I was going to be ill.

  “I’m going to find a place to park. Text me when you’re done and I’ll come back to get you. Okay?”

  I saw Alan squint at the car and smile as he spotted me inside. “What?” I asked, feeling my mind go in and out of focus. “Oh. Yeah. That sounds great.” Witty was my middle name.

  “Hey.” Mike flipped on his cop lights to stop the honking from the car behind us and turned toward me. “This guy you’re auditioning for is supposed to be good, right?”

  “The best.”

  Mike gave me a crooked smile and reached out to brush my cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Then you don’t have anything to worry about. He’s going to know how special you are the minute you sing the first note.” Leaning in, he brushed his lips against mine and said, “That was for luck. Not that you need any. Now go show the Lyric Opera what you’re made of.”

  He unlatched my seat belt, and I did the only thing I could. I got out, straightened my shoulders, and smiled up at my manager, who had walked to the curb to meet me.

  “You made it.” Alan leaned down, gave me a peck on the cheek, and watched Mike’s Mustang as it pulled away.

  I shivered in the cool spring breeze. “I’d have to be crazy to miss this opportunity.”

  “Yes, you would.” A lock of ash blond hair fell over Alan’s forehead as he put his hand on my back and ushered me toward the door. “Sir Andrew is waiting for us upstairs. He’d like you to run through the pieces you prepared. Once you’re finished, he’ll probably have you sing your selections again with different acting choices. Sir Andrew likes performers who are willing to take risks. Since you’re not afraid to take on a murderer or two, you should be exactly what he is looking for.”

  My heels clicked against the tile as Alan led me across the enormous lobby. The chandeliers overhead glistened. This building never failed to inspire amazement and hope. “Did you fly into Chicago just to tell me that?” If so, the man really went above and beyond the call of duty.

  “No. That’s just a bonus.” He stopped walking. “I want Sir Andrew to see me here with you. He’ll understand what that means.”

  “What does that mean?” That Alan didn’t trust me to meet Sir Andrew on my own?

  “That you aren’t just another client. You’re the real deal. I’m here to make sure he doesn’t assume any different. Got it?” His deep blue eyes twinkled, and my heart soared.

  “Got it.”

  “Good. Now get in there and show him that you’re the next Lyric star.”

  I sang. I strutted. I sneered. I sighed. Then Sir Andrew asked in his fabulous British accent for me to do it all over again.

  He was just as debonair and dashing up close as he appeared when he was at the conductor’s podium. I tried not to let my awe of his standing in the music community overwhelm me as I turned tragic songs into parodies and pretended to seduce my accompanist. When it was over, Sir Andrew complimented me on my singing, thanked me for my time, and escorted me to the door. That was that. An actress dreamed of the moment when a director would point to her during an audition and tell her the part was hers. Maybe that had happened in real life, but never to me. Today was the same. The proverbial “don’t call us; we’ll call you.”

  Alan wasn’t concerned by the lack of conversation after the audition. He gave me the typical lines. Sir Andrew had a flight to catch. He’d heard everything he needed to. I had performed flawlessly, and no matter what came of this audition, he was certain Sir Andrew would keep me on the radar for future roles.

  I smiled like a pro, sent a text to Mike that I was ready to leave, and assured Alan I wasn’t disappointed by the lack of star treatment. After all, I wasn’t a star. I was Paige Marshall, show choir director. Still, as much as I had grown calluses over the rejections that had piled up over the years, I felt the ache that came with wondering whether I was good enough for Sir Andrew. Self-doubt was just as much a part of the business as the applause. Sometimes more.

  “My ride’s here,” I said as Mike’s Mustang roared to the curb.

  Alan nodded. “Have a safe trip. I’m going to go back inside and see if Sir Andrew is willing to share his limo to the airport. That’ll give me a chance to talk to him about the roles you’re appropriate for not only now but in future productions.” He kissed my cheek again as Mike got out of the car and waved. “I’ll call you later to give you the news and find out how your choir performed in the finals.”

  This time my smile was real. “How do you know my team made the finals?”

  “A good manager knows all.” With that he disappeared behind the large gold and glass Lyric Opera House doors. Taking a deep breath, I walked to Mike’s car and climbed in.

  To his credit, Mike didn’t ask any questions. He just drove. Which was good because I wasn’t sure what to tell him. If Devlyn had been sitting beside me, the two of us could have talked about the agony that came with waiting for news after an audition. We could grab a drink and compare war stories and I’d know I was talking to someone who understood exactly how I felt.

  I wasn’t sure how to explain the emotions that I felt after an audition. Pride. Despair. Hope. Angst. Just because the audition went well didn’t mean I’d get a contract. It was impossible to know what a director was looking for when casting a part. Once a decision was made, Alan would be able to get some feedback about why I was or wasn’t chosen. Until then, I would do my best to forget that I’d even had an audition or that I’d wanted this opportunity more than anything I’d wanted before in my life.

  We were halfway to O’Hare when I finally said, “Thanks for giving me time to decompress.”

  Mike glanced at me. “I figured you needed to go over the audition piece by piece in your mind. That’s what I do after I visit a crime scene. I sit and mentally walk through everything I saw and every word I heard spoken, making sure I covered all the angles. No matter how hard I try to be perfect, I always wonder if I used the right tone to make a witness feel comfortable or nervous enough to share what they know or if I could have looked harder to find more evidence.”

  Weird. I’d never thought of Mike as the questioning-himself-or-his-abilities type. “The only difference about the self-doubt is that your job deals with life and death. In the grand scheme of things, singing and dancing are trivial.”

  Mike shook his head. “It’s your work. There’s nothing trivial about that. And I’m betting everyone in the audience of The Messiah still remembers how you made them feel. You provide inspiration and an escape from everyday worries. If that isn’t important, I don’t know w
hat is.”

  If Mike was looking to score points, he did. Big-time. My heart turned over as he took one hand off the wheel and held it out for mine.

  How strange, I thought, looking at the way our hands fit together. Devlyn seemed so perfect for me on paper.

  Theater background. Check.

  Love of music and dance. Check.

  Attractive and intelligent. Check. Check.

  Yet, here I was with Mike, contemplating the possibility of a real future together. It just went to show that you never knew how life was going to turn out. That shouldn’t have surprised me. Nothing about this week had gone as I’d suspected. I mean, who would have thought there would be a potential alcohol-smuggling ring and murder at the performing arts center?

  Since I wasn’t interested in regaling Mike with more of my audition neurosis, I opted to use the last leg of our journey to the airport to tell him about the past couple of days. Mike rolled his eyes when I told him about Millie bringing Killer to the hotel. He frowned when I talked about the damaged costumes and fallen light bar, and almost growled when I described my attempt and failure to save LuAnn’s life.

  “Whatever possessed you to go to a meeting at night with a person whose identity you didn’t know?”

  Out of everything, that was what he’d chosen to focus on? “I wasn’t—”

  “And why were you examining the loading dock and questioning a potential witness when the police were already investigating the crime?” Mike’s cheeks turned red and shiny. It had been months since I’d last seen the expression on his face, but I recognized it immediately. Mike was ready to blow.

  Well, he wasn’t the only one. Part of me had forgotten the reason why Mike and I clashed so frequently during our encounters. I remembered now. Pulling my hand away, I said, “I’ll have you know that if I hadn’t, the witness would never have known to talk to the police or told me about the boxes.”

  “The boxes you think were filled with an unknown type of illegal alcohol that the victim was selling to some guy who might or might not have been a college kid.”

  When he put it that way, my deductive reasoning didn’t sound so fabulous.

  “Tell me this, Ms. Marple.” Mike’s sarcasm made me ball my hands into fists. “How would your Memphis stage mom have the kind of connections to run an illegal liquor ring? From what it sounds like, she was the white-picket-fence and bake-sale type. Most people like that don’t run around with criminals, and it isn’t like they’re posting for black market partners on craigslist.”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. But when Mike gave me a smug grin, I came up with something. “The victim used to be a social worker for the city of Memphis. Most likely, she met a number of people who were used to breaking the law. It doesn’t take a huge leap of logic to believe she was enlisted by one of them to help with their enterprise.”

  “It’s a good thing you aren’t a cop.” Mike rolled his eyes. “Your would’ves and could-bes would make the courts toss you on your ass. Cops need pesky things like evidence and facts and the chance to investigate without well-meaning but misguided women with an unhealthy curiosity level poking their attractive but unnecessary noses in their cases.”

  “I wasn’t—” The sound of my phone made me stop talking. Thank God, I thought, fishing my cell out of my purse. This argument was good for taking my mind off waiting for my manager to contact me, but it was making me seriously rethink the possibility of a future with Mike. I looked down at the screen. Aunt Millie was calling to get an update on my audition.

  “Hi, Aunt Millie.” I glared at Mike. “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. The audition went well and—”

  “Scusa, Paige.”

  I blinked at the Italian voice. “Aldo? Sorry; I thought you were my aunt. Are my students okay?”

  “Si. The students are fine. Your aunt is why I am calling. She asked me to drive with her and Killer to the theater building so she could talk to the lady who is the head of the competition.”

  Oh no. I’d told her not to talk to Christine. “What happened?” I braced for the worst.

  “Well, your aunt and Killer went inside the building. When they no come out after thirty minutes I go in. Killer was in the lobby with the woman your aunt went to meet.”

  “Where was Millie?”

  “Well, that is the problem. You see, no one has seen your aunt.” Aldo’s breath caught. “She is a-missing.”

  Chapter 24

  Something had happened to Aunt Millie.

  Fear punched into my heart, stealing my breath. “Are you sure?” I whispered.

  Mike took his eyes off the road and gave me a hard look.

  “The lady in charge had the entire building searched. I even took Killer to see if he could find her. But she is nowhere.”

  In the background I heard Killer let out a howl that turned into a heartbreaking whimper. It was that sound that made this real. My hands shook. My throat tightened, and tears built behind my eyes. When the first one fell, Mike pulled to the side of the road and took the phone out of my hands.

  “Aldo?” he asked, putting the car in park. “It’s Mike Kaiser. What’s going on?”

  Mike asked dozens of questions. When he finally hung up, he took my cold hand in his, promised me that everything would be okay, and punched the button that made the cop lights flare to life. Up until that moment, I’d thought the scariest driver on the planet was my aunt. Mike proved me wrong. The car zipped forward and around traffic as Mike pulled his own cell out of his pocket and started dialing. Mike looked and sounded calm and cool as he drove his car into short-term parking while at the same time ordering someone on the other end of the line to call the Nashville PD.

  By the time he’d parked the car, I had a newfound respect for NASCAR drivers and their ability to deal with high speeds. I also had a new appreciation for Mike’s ability to drop any signs of frustration from our earlier conversation and focus on the problem at hand. And part of the problem was me, because I was having a hard time pulling it together. Millie and Aldo needed me to be strong, smart, and resourceful. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the tears to stop falling. Aunt Millie was my support system. She believed in me like no one else. I wasn’t sure what I would do if it turned out she wasn’t found. Or worse, if she was found . . .

  “Hey.” Mike put down his phone and wiped a tear from my cheek. “Your aunt is going to be okay. I just talked to the Nashville Police Department. The head detective on the hit-and-run case is going to give me a call and let me know what’s going on. He was already on scene when your aunt vanished. Technically, the police can’t officially rule that she’s a missing person until twenty-four hours have passed, but with everything else going on, they’re treating her as a person of interest and using that technicality to start a search. In the meantime, the two of us are going to go over every detail you can remember from this week. If the cops haven’t found Millie by the time we land, we’ll have come up with a few thoughts about where else to look.”

  “We?” I asked as he grabbed my bag out of the trunk.

  For the first time since Mike had talked to Aldo, he smiled. “Yeah. We. Because there’s no way in hell I’d ever let you go through this alone. Come on.”

  Somehow Mike not only managed to get me moved to an earlier flight; he also got himself the seat right next to me. Flashing a badge had its advantages. Forty-five minutes after entering the airport, we were taxiing on the runway and headed for Nashville. En route, Mike kept me calm by writing down a step-by-step account of the week’s events. I relived everything from the drive on the bus, the request to teach a master class, to the conversation I’d had with Millie last night. When I was done with the timeline, I let out a sigh of relief. But Mike wasn’t finished. The questions he asked were baffling. Frustrating, even. What did it matter what LuAnn was wearing when she accused me of destroying the costumes
? But I answered every question because Mike was the expert and Millie’s life could be on the line. Nothing was more important than that.

  The pilot announced our descent, and Mike stopped asking questions. He just studied the list. Occasionally, he made a note to himself. Every time he frowned, I stiffened as I waited for him to make some amazing revelation or reveal something terrible. By the fifth time, I turned and stared out the window at the ground far below. Millie was down there somewhere. I wanted to believe that Mike could help find her, but I couldn’t see how. Yes, he was a cop, but he wasn’t from Nashville. He didn’t know the parties involved in this case. All he knew was that LuAnn was wearing a pink shirt when she accused me of the mad-seamstress routine and a red one that matched her boots when she was killed later that night.

  I blinked. LuAnn had changed her shirt. Now that I thought about it, LuAnn wasn’t only wearing a different shirt. Her makeup had been different, and she’d changed her pants. She’d been wearing slacks instead of blue jeans. From what I remembered, the look wasn’t sexy. It was professional. Well, as much as a person could look professional after being run over by a car. None of the parents who came on trips with Music in Motion bothered to spruce up after the day of rehearsals was over. They were too tired after refereeing teenagers to care what they were wearing. I know that was how I always felt.

  But after a day of volunteering at registration, playing with scissors, helping with rehearsal, and almost being beaned with a light bar, LuAnn had altered her look and come back to the theater. The lack of a plunging neckline and sexy heels made me believe it wasn’t a man she was meeting. At least not one she was interested in. LuAnn was at the theater to conduct business, and the wardrobe was chosen to make sure she was taken seriously.

  Who had she been meeting? Obviously not the guy coming to get the boxes. A college-age kid in a hoodie sweatshirt wasn’t someone LuAnn would bother to dress up for. Me? Yeah, right. Even if she was my mystery caller, intent on threatening or harassing me, I doubted LuAnn was impressed with me enough to undergo a transformation. No, the person she was looking to impress had to be the one behind the wheel of the car.