Who's Kitten Who? (31 page)

I was sure my pursuer realized that too.

The doorknob began to rattle. Loudly. Angrily. The person on the other side of the door was clearly growing increasingly frustrated over being locked out.

By that point, so much adrenaline was shooting through my veins that I felt nauseous. The lock on the door hadn’t struck me as particularly strong. And the two glass panels were thick, but not exactly impenetrable.

I needed a way out—fast. Preferably one that didn’t involve flinging open the door and confronting my stalker face-to-face.

Chapter 17

“When the old dog barks it is time to watch.”

—Latin Proverb

S
lowly I raised my head above the edge of the desk. I could still see the wavy silhouette of whoever had followed me into the library’s archives. He or she was out there, waiting—no doubt thinking that sooner or later I’d have to come out.

You’ve got to stop spending so much time in deserted basements, I told myself.

But this wasn’t exactly the best time for contemplating lifestyle changes. Frantically, I scanned the desktop, hoping I’d find some way of escaping—safely. But all I saw were the usual office items: a neat stack of file folders, a pencil mug, a telephone…

All of sudden, a burst of optimism exploded inside me like a firecracker. The solution was right in front of me.

It came in the form of a small white sticker that was affixed to the phone. It read,
For Campus Security, Dial 4-3232.

I made a point of speaking loudly as I told the dispatcher that I was in the basement of Quattrock Library and that I wanted a security guard to walk me to my car. Just as I expected, the silhouette disappeared almost as soon as I got the words out.

The moment I heard footsteps heading away briskly, I dashed over to the door and opened it, just a crack. But from that vantage point, I couldn’t see anybody.

Still, the fact that he or she was now running away from me, instead of toward me, gave me confidence. I was suddenly angry that this mysterious person had been causing so much trouble in my life lately.

If I could only get a good look, I thought, even if it’s just from the back…

Treading as softly as Cat, I took a few steps into the big room, then immediately cozied up to a tall shelf that I knew would keep me hidden. Even in the dim light, I could see that I was having a close encounter with the complete history of
Rules for Dormitory Living at Brookside University
. Cautiously, I peered around the side.

I caught sight of my stalker, all right—at least, his or her left foot, clad in a white sneaker, right before it disappeared behind the door to the stairwell along with the rest of the body attached to it.

My thoughts raced as the sound of footsteps hurrying up the steps grew fainter and fainter.

To chase or not to chase? I thought.

Before I’d even made a conscious decision, I found myself heading toward the door and racing up the same stairs. When I reached the top, I threw open the door.

And found at least twenty people coming into the library, leaving the library, or holding casual conversations in the entryway.

At least half of them wore white sneakers—and not one of them looked familiar.

I dashed to the front entrance and out into the night. But none of the few souls I saw wandering around campus had on white sneakers.

I decided to wait for the security guard I knew was on his way. Calling the campus security office and requesting an escort had just been a ploy designed to scare away my stalker. But having a little company on this dark, unfamiliar campus suddenly seemed like a good idea.

“I should never have asked you to get involved, Jessica,” Betty said with a sigh as the two of us crossed the Theater One parking lot the following evening. “Too many frightening things have happened. First I got that strange threatening phone call from that actress. Then you were lured to the theater under false pretenses and trapped in the basement. And now you’re telling me that last night someone at the Brookside University campus was following you.”

“But, Betty, how can we be sure any of those events were related to Simon Wainwright’s murder?” I asked. Not that I believed for a moment that they weren’t. Still, I was looking for a way to soothe Betty’s anxieties. Now that I’d come clean about the mysterious goings-on of the last two days, she blamed herself.

I regretted having told her anything at all. Ordinarily, I would have done my best to protect her. Then again, ordinarily I would have had Nick to confide in. With no one else to talk to, I’d given in to the temptation to tell Betty. I realized immediately that I’d made a big mistake.

“Such terrible occurrences,” Betty continued as we strode through the lobby. “I can’t help but wonder what’s next.”

That was a question I’d learned never to ask. And the wisdom of subscribing to that policy was reinforced as soon as we walked into the theater.

“Oh, my goodness!” Betty cried, her hands flying to her cheeks. “Look at this place! What happened?”

The entire theater was in chaos. My first thought was that maybe this was just another case of tech week wreaking havoc. But if Betty’s reaction wasn’t enough to tell me otherwise, all I had to do was look around to figure out that the theater had been vandalized.

Signs of destruction were everywhere. The scenery at the back of the stage had been smashed, loose cables dangled from the ceiling, and the pieces from broken props littered the floor. The newspaper with the headlines
LADY LINDY LOST
had been torn into strips, and the carefully crafted bushes had been ripped completely apart, the blobs of foam strewn about like giant pieces of green popcorn. The red velvet upholstery on at least a dozen seats had been slashed.

Even the costumes had been shredded. I immediately recognized the ball gowns Lacey had so lovingly festooned with sashes and flowers. Only now they had been reduced to bits of fabric and crushed ribbons that were mixed in with the debris scattered throughout the theater.

Most of the other cast and crew members had already arrived. Like Betty, they were milling around the theater, looking stunned. No one spoke. It was as if the entire company had gone into shock.

“My costumes!” Lacey shrieked as she appeared in the doorway. “Look at them! All that work for nothing!”

“Where’s Derek?” I asked, my voice a hoarse whisper. “He must be crushed.”

Before Betty or anyone else had a chance to answer, Corey, the lighting designer, cried out, “The lighting board! Somebody fried it!”

I turned and saw Corey and Derek at the back of the theater, sitting at what had once been the control board for the entire theater’s lighting system.

Derek moaned, “That lighting board cost fifteen thousand dollars!”

“Not to mention all the hours that went into programming the computer, setting up the cues,” added Jill, who stood in the aisle, looking stricken.

I turned back to Betty. “What does he mean, ‘somebody fried it’?”

Corey heard my question. “It means somebody totally destroyed it,” he explained in a choked voice. “It’s not even that difficult. All you have to do is shove one end of a bare wire into a wall socket and touch the other end to the metal of the lighting board. The resulting power surge is enough to blow up the motherboard.”

“Look!” Jill exclaimed, glancing up at the ceiling. “Somebody took a long stick and pushed all the lights out of place!”

“Wow,” Kyle observed. Like everyone else, he sounded dazed. “It’ll take hours to reset them all!”

“It’s over,” Derek said in a dull voice, sinking into one of seats that was still intact. “The entire production. It’s done.”

“You don’t mean that!” Betty protested.

“Betty, there’s no way we can open in twenty-four hours,” Jill said mournfully. “Not when practically everything in the entire theater has been destroyed.”

I had to agree. Looking around, I couldn’t imagine how we could even clean the place up, much less put together new sets and costumes and lighting and everything else that was required to stage the production in such a short time. Then there was the fact that all those things required money, something I suspected was in pretty short supply.

And the most horrifying part was that all this destruction was intentional. Someone had worked hard to make sure
She’s Flying High
wouldn’t open on Friday night—someone who clearly felt the show mustn’t go on.

The entire company remained silent for what seemed like a very long time. And then Wendy, the little girl who played Amelia as a child, piped up in her sweet voice, “Derek? I don’t know if this would help, but I have a dress at home that’s the same style as my costume. I could wear that tomorrow night.”

“Thanks, Wendy,” Derek replied tiredly. “But I don’t think—”

“I have a long dress that looks a lot like my costume in the Presidential reception scene,” one of the other female cast members volunteered.

“We could probably throw something together for sets,” the stage manager said. “It wouldn’t be as nice, of course. But still, we have all day tomorrow to work on it.”

“And we can rent a new lighting board,” Jill interjected. “A sound board too.”

“If I spend the next twenty-four hours doing nothing else, not even sleeping, I can probably redo all the lighting,” Corey offered. For the first time, I detected a note of optimism in his voice.

Slowly, Derek rose to his feet. His face flushed, he said, “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. There’s nothing I want more than to see Simon’s production come to life on the Theater One stage. I meant it when I said it’s the best way I can think of to honor his talent and his creativity. If there really is some way we could pull this off…” His voice became too choked for him to continue.

It didn’t matter, since everyone else in the room filled in for him. The theater was suddenly buzzing with the excited chatter of the cast and crew as they shared their plans, each one coming up with ways to contribute to the reconstruction of what had been so brutally destroyed.

I had to admit, I was touched by their commitment to bringing Simon Wainwright’s production to life. Derek was right. Simon deserved this.

He also deserved justice. Reminding myself of that simple fact banished any feelings of defeat I may have been feeling. Instead, I felt energized. The horrifying destruction laid out before me only made me more determined than ever to find out who his killer was.

Friday morning passed in a blur. On
Pet People,
I did a segment on techniques for breaking dogs and cats of bad habits. The whole time I was on the air, I hoped desperately that no one would call in to blab that it wasn’t exactly a skill I’d mastered with my own menagerie. I couldn’t forget the day Nick’s parents had shown up at my cottage to find that Hurricane Max and Hurricane Lou had struck simultaneously.

I spent the rest of the day zigzagging around Long Island, making back-to-back house calls. So it wasn’t until late afternoon that I managed to make the one stop I’d been thinking about all day.

As I pulled up in front of the house Kyle and Ian shared, my heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say or do. I didn’t even know if I’d find anyone at home.

But I wasn’t about to let any of that stop me. Especially when Ian, the man who currently held the number one spot on my list of suspects, answered the door. I was curious about why it took almost three minutes of knocking, accompanied by Monty’s loud barking from out in the backyard, for him to open it. Still, there could have been a million different things he was busy with.

“Jessica,” he greeted me, sounding surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you. Did you set up an appointment with Kyle that he forgot to tell me about?”

As usual, I found his English accent disarming. But I tried not to let it distract me.

“I just made a house call nearby,” I said, hoping my lying skills were up to snuff. “I figured I’d stop by and take another look at Monty. I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

“Not at all,” he assured me.

Still, I noticed that he looked distracted. His wire-rimmed glasses were slightly askew, as was the baseball cap he was wearing once again. His hair was in disarray as well. Something about him seemed off balance somehow. “Do you mind if I come in?” I asked after what seemed like an awfully long silence. “Or I could go around back and check on Monty out there.”

“No need,” he chirped. “I’ll let him in. Please, come inside—and I hope you’ll forgive my rudeness. I was just on the phone with a rather irate client, one of those people who’s impossible to please. I’m afraid I have a tendency to let that sort of thing get to me.”