The Red Slippers (8 page)

“Do you want to be a professional dancer?” Jamison asked. “You do, don't you?”

Maggie nodded nervously.

“When you're a professional, do you know what your job is?”

Maggie nodded.

“Your job is to dance . . . PERFECTLY!” he bellowed. “It doesn't matter what's going on in your personal life. Your job is to dance the way every audience member in the theater—who have paid money to see you—wants to see you.”

“Yes, sir,” Maggie said, but Jamison had just gotten started.

“It doesn't matter if your boyfriend broke up with you thirty minutes before curtain time. It doesn't matter if your grandmother is lying in a hospital bed. It doesn't matter if someone is threatening you or harassing you.”

George and I exchanged a look. That was a weird thing to mention. Did Jamison know something about what was happening to Maggie?

“You want to be like Veronica, right? If I recall correctly, she's your idol.”

Maggie nodded.

“Well, Veronica would be the first to tell you that being a professional dancer is no picnic. It's hard work, and you can never make excuses. Isn't that right, Sebastian?” he said.

Sebastian looked up from the piano and glared at Jamison. He didn't say anything.

“Isn't that right, Sebastian?” Jamison repeated. “Tell her how hard it is to be a professional dancer.”

“It's really hard,” he said quietly, never taking his eyes off Jamison. He looked furious.

“Sebastian's reacting really strongly,” I observed to George.

“Maybe Bess is right. Maybe he's in love with Maggie,” George said.

“And do professionals tolerate people making excuses?” Jamison continued to interrogate Sebastian.

The pianist shook his head.

“I can't hear you!” he yelled.

“No,” Sebastian hissed.

“Thank you,” Jamison said before turning back to Maggie. “I don't care what's going on with you. Suck it up and dance this part like I know you are capable of.”

Maggie nodded. But instead of looking completely humiliated and downtrodden, she looked determined . . . and even inspired.

Something occurred to me, and I turned to George. “Do you think Jamison is the one harassing Maggie, as some sort of tough-love, inspirational thing?” I asked.

“I don't know,” George answered. “Would he risk that when this performance means as much to him as it does to Maggie?”

I shrugged. It did seem like an odd choice, but Jamison was nothing if not eccentric. I gazed at the stage. “Look, though,” I said. “Maggie is dancing better.”

Bess came up behind us. “Guys,” she whispered urgently, “I found something.”

“What?” I asked.

She held out her phone and showed a picture of Colin drinking water in the lobby.

“How is this a clue?” I asked.

Bess took back the phone and zoomed in. “Look at his arms,” she insisted.

I took the phone back and saw that Colin's arms were covered in cuts. There were bandages over some of them.

“I didn't notice any cuts on his arms when we saw him fighting with his dad yesterday, did you?” Bess asked.

I shook my head.

“Those definitely look like they could have come from a broken mirror,” George said. “Like the one in Maggie's dressing room.”

“They do,” I agreed. “But what would Colin have against Maggie? Why wouldn't he want her to dance?”

“Maybe if he can't, she can't?” George suggested.

“But he's here,” I pointed out. “He's dancing.”

“That doesn't matter. He definitely stays on the suspect list,” Bess said.

“So does Fiona,” I said. I showed them the receipt. “And I heard Nicole and Evelyn talking about wanting to take Maggie down a notch.”

“Plus, now you have this Jamison theory,” George said. Bess looked at us, confused, and we quickly explained.

“Well, if it's him, then we know it's for Maggie's own good and we don't have to worry about her,” George said.

“But if it's not him . . . ,” Bess began.

I looked at the time on Bess's phone and sighed. “We have only six hours until curtain and I'm still adding suspects. I need to be eliminating them,” I lamented.

“How can we do that?” George asked.

I thought for a moment. Ordinarily, I would follow each clue and see where it led, methodically crossing out suspects, but I didn't have time for that.

“We need to set a trap,” I announced.

DURING THE NEXT BREAK, GEORGE,
Bess, and I cornered Maggie and filled her in on our plan.

“Are you sure about this?” Maggie asked nervously.

I nodded. “Everyone in the company knows that nerves are your greatest weakness. The culprit is probably preying on that,” I said.

Maggie swallowed hard and averted her eyes.

I realized I had said the wrong thing. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to be rude.”

“It's okay,” Maggie said. “You're not saying anything I don't know. Nerves have been my Achilles' heel since the first time I strapped on a pair of shoes. Once the lights go down, the curtain goes up, and I set foot on that stage, I'm fine. All the butterflies in my stomach, the nausea, the racing heart, go away in an instant. But right before I go onstage, it's a different story. It would be okay, except to get hired as a professional, they want to know that you're going to be able to dance. If you seem nervous, they don't want to hire you.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “There are some cases that I'm not a hundred percent sure I can solve, but I have to act like I am. Otherwise my client won't trust me.”

“Exactly,” Maggie agreed.

“Do you have a lucky charm or anything?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said. “When I got into the academy, my mom gave me a pair of Moira Devereux's shoes—the ones she wore when she debuted on the Covent Garden stage in London. She's one of the best ballet dancers in the world. I keep them with me at all times to remind me what I want to achieve.”

“Do the other dancers here know about them?” I asked.

“Yeah, I take them out of their case and rub them for good luck before every performance. Everyone's seen me do it.”

I took a deep breath. “I need to use them as bait,” I said.

Maggie looked at me like I was crazy. “No,” she said firmly. “I can't risk it. Too much has gone wrong already.”

“I'll make sure they're safe. I won't let them out of my sight, but a trap is the only way to catch this culprit before the performance.”

“I don't know . . . ,” Maggie said.

“I wouldn't ask if there was another option,” I said. “We're running out of time. If we don't force the culprit's hand, I might not be able to find out who it is before the show.”

“She'll be careful,” Bess assured her.

“Nancy's set traps before. She knows what she's doing,” George added.

Maggie looked at all three of us. “You have to promise to treat them like they are made of pure gold. That's how valuable they are to me.”

“I promise,” I said.

Maggie went off to fetch the shoes.

“No pressure,” I joked to Bess and George.

“It's worth the risk,” Bess said.

“I know,” I said. “I just wish it hadn't gotten to this point. I really thought this case would be easier.”

“They're never easy,” George pointed out.

“I think that's how you know what your ‘thing' is,” Bess said. “You keep doing it even when it's hard and frustrating.”

“I can see that,” I said. “No one likes every aspect of anything, so you have to find what you truly love despite the difficult parts.”

“Yeah,” George said. “Staring at a computer screen isn't the fun part about writing code, but I still like it ten times more than I'd like the best part of, say, dancing.” She waved her arm around.

“Right,” Bess said. “We've seen how difficult it is to dance at Maggie's level, but she didn't even consider not performing tonight.”

George and I nodded.

A few seconds later, Maggie returned with the shoes.

“Here they are,” she said, holding out a pair of old red ballet shoes. “I know they don't look like much,” she added, “but these shoes have danced some of the hardest roles on the world's best stages. I like to think of each crease as a badge of honor.” She handed them to me. “Please, just be careful.”

“Actually,” I said, “I'm not going to set the trap. You are.”

Maggie's eyes widened in surprise. “What do I have to do?”

I leaned over and whispered the plan into her ear.

A few minutes later, I was sitting in the back row of the theater, slouched down so that I remained out of view. I spied Fiona sitting in the front row, looking at her phone. Colin was in the aisle, stretching, and Jamison was, predictably, yelling at a group of dancers on the stage.

Maggie was in the corner, holding her shoes and tapping her foot anxiously. She looked over at me, and I nodded.

Slowly she made her way across the theater toward Sebastian, who was sitting at the piano.

Sebastian looked up at her. “Hey,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

Maggie cleared her throat. “I'm okay,” she said. Then she looked around the room before taking a deep breath. “I have a favor to ask you,” she said loudly. “You know the shoes my mother gave me? The ones that used to belong to Moira Devereux that I use for good luck?”

She was practically shouting, and her delivery seemed stiff and awkward. I grimaced. Acting natural when undercover was always harder than people thought.

“Uh, yeah?” Sebastian said, confused.

Jamison shot Maggie an irritated glance, so at least I knew he was paying attention.

“With everything that's happened,” she continued loudly, “I don't feel safe leaving them unattended.” She paused and looked around the room, then raised her voice even more. “You know that I can't dance if I don't touch them before the performance. If anything happened to them, I would be absolutely devastated.” She was speaking so loudly by this point that the whole room was staring at her.

“Have you lost your mind?” Jamison snapped. “No one cares about your silly shoes. There's no such thing as a good-luck charm. You'd be better off without them.”

“We'll see about that,” I murmured under my breath.

Maggie ignored Jamieson. “Can I put my shoes in your piano bench?” she asked Sebastian, still loudly. “I'd just feel safer if I knew someone was keeping an eye on them.”

“Sure,” Sebastian said, still looking confused. He stood up and Maggie opened the bench, carefully placing the shoes inside.

“Thanks,” Maggie said. “I really appreciate it. I know they'll be safe here,” she added, pointedly looking around the room.

She headed back toward the stage and I checked out my suspects. Colin was staring at Maggie. Fiona was fixated on the bench. At first I thought Jamison didn't care at all, but I caught him giving the piano a furtive glance. They were all still contenders.

I pulled out my phone.
NOW
, I texted George.

A second later a fire alarm blared through the entire theater. Lights flashed over the theater exits. The dancers stopped in their tracks and covered their ears.

“You have GOT to be kidding me,” Jamison screamed over the ringing. “We DO NOT have time for this.” He threw down the papers he was holding. His face was bright red and a vein in his forehead pulsed in anger. I thought I had seen him mad before, but that seemed downright calm compared to the level of fury now emanating off him.

The dancers began exiting the building. “Where do you think you're going?” Jamison yelled.

“It's a fire alarm . . . ,” Nicole began.

“Do you smell smoke? Do you see flames? Does it feel hot in here to you?” Jamison asked.

“No,” Nicole said hesitantly.

“Then there's no fire! This is a false alarm. You will stay and you will prepare. We open in four hours.”

My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe Jamison wouldn't allow his dancers to evacuate during a fire alarm. That had to be illegal. Not to mention my trap wasn't going to work if the theater stayed full. We needed to do something.

I scurried over to Bess. “Tell him he has to evacuate.”

“What?” she said. I couldn't tell whether she couldn't hear me over the blaring alarm or she couldn't believe what I was asking.

“You have to tell him to evacuate!” I repeated, louder this time.

“Why me?”

“Because you look like you're part of the theater staff,” I said. “He won't listen to me dressed like this.” I indicated my leotard and tutu.

“He'll bite my head off,” she said.