2 Death Makes the Cut (30 page)

Hastily, I tried to turn Roland’s attention away from the girl. “Canceling the performance. Wow—that was very wrong of Nancy. Very wrong. She can’t do that, not after all your work. The show must go on, right?”

“It was wrong,” he agreed. “Completely unjustified.”

“Exactly! Unjustified. But you can still fix this. You can make Larry understand that Nancy doesn’t have the authority to cancel anything. It’s not too late. Larry hasn’t made the announcement yet. All you have to do is catch him in the morning and explain that you’re in charge now. I know him, he’ll support that one hundred percent. You know, Larry admires a take-charge kind of man, the kind of man who gets the job done.”

Roland blinked and twitched like an addict in withdrawal. I wondered if that was indeed the case, but at least he lowered the knife away from McKenzie’s throat.

“Not cancel?” he asked at length. “Perform anyway?”

“Right! You can override Nancy. Everyone would support that.”

“She already told the kids,” he said slowly.

“So what? You can untell them in the morning. You’re in charge now.”

Without meaning to, my eyes flew to Nancy, still lying motionless on the stage, like a walrus on the sand. What had he done to her? I couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.

He followed my gaze, glancing at Nancy’s bulk with something like annoyance in his glance. “She’ll try to interfere.”

Maybe she was alive after all. If so, I didn’t want his attention turning that way.

“No, she won’t. Half the school has been trying to get her fired for years. And canceling the show at the last minute—that just proves she’s not up to the job anymore. Everyone will be glad that you’re stepping in.”

“She’ll be mad,” he said, looking like a small boy worried that he was going to be in trouble with Mom.

“So what? Nothing you can’t handle, right? When you show her how well you can run things, she’ll probably be grateful to you. She’d probably be happy, knowing she can leave everything to you.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he repeated under his breath, brightening a little. “Yeah. She can’t talk anyway. Not with what I know about her. She has to do what I want.”

I hesitated, not knowing how best to support this statement.

He gave me an odd sidelong glance, half-fearful, half-triumphant. “I bet you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t,” I admitted readily, trying to sound admiring, anything to keep him talking. “You’ve been one step ahead of me, of everyone, from the start.”

“Yes,” he agreed, blue eyes glinting in the spotlight. He pointed the knife toward Nancy again, a decided improvement as far as McKenzie was concerned.

“She started it all. Her and her temper. Bet you didn’t know she’s been attending anger-management classes.”

“They don’t seem to be working very well,” I said, which was the first thing I’d said to him that I’d really meant.

He laughed at that, too loudly. McKenzie quaked under his hand. “No, they sure aren’t. She’s the one who killed that idiot Coach Fred. Entirely by accident. He was in her office demanding something or other and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She hauled off and hit him. I was standing right outside her office. Saw the whole thing through the glass. The old guy spun around and cracked his head on her desk. Dead before he hit the ground.” He laughed at the memory.

My jaw hung open slightly, mouth dry as sand. Waves of horror washed over me as my fingers itched to slap his face. Keep him talking, I reminded myself.

“What did you do?” I managed to grate out, unable to maintain the admiring tone I’d been trying to use. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, it was perfect for me. I saw that right away. The stupid bitch should have called for help right away, but she panicked. I helped her hide him until it was dark, then we rolled him out to the shed on one of the AV carts.” He grinned at the memory. “Old guy was heavy.”

“But why? Why move him?”

He looked at me with contempt. “You really are stupid, too, aren’t you?”

Apparently, since I had absolutely no idea where this was going. I simply waited.

“She was terrified that she’d be found out. Which meant,” he added as though explaining something to a particularly slow three-year-old, “that she had to do whatever I wanted.”

Blackmail. A few things clicked into place. “The show,” I said without thinking.

He nodded with satisfaction. “Now you understand. She just couldn’t understand that we had to have the show ready while Michael Dupre was here. It was my chance. I knew that once he saw me perform, he’d want me for his movies, especially when he found out I’d written the script myself, too. Actor, writer, singer. I’d be on my way to Hollywood at last.”

“And so you got her to agree to move the show up to September and to buy the professional costumes. And the set,” I added, looking at the extravagant props, the gem-encrusted elephant towering sightlessly behind him.

“Anything I wanted,” he crowed. “She could hardly refuse me, now could she? And what I wanted wasn’t unreasonable, not really. She should have wanted all those things for the department anyway.”

“It was very clever. A production that will never be forgotten. You will be a star.” I tried to sound enthusiastic and admiring. It wasn’t easy. I drew a breath and said in a bright tone, “So, look, Roland, why don’t you let McKenzie come with me? I’ll run her home before her parents start getting worried, and then you can tell Larry in the morning that the show is back on.”

For a moment, I thought he considered it, but then he shook his head a little sadly. “No, that’s just not going to work.”

“But why? You’ve got everything under control. Michael Dupre will be here tomorrow, the show will go on, and he’ll see you. Everything will be perfect.”

“You’re not only stupid, you think I’m stupid, too,” he said, sounding more regretful than outraged. “I know the three of you would never let that happen.”

Something in his tone made my hands break out in a cold sweat. I swallowed, trying desperately to think of anything to say that would sound convincing.

At that moment the phone in my pocket rang, its cheerful little ringtone slicing through the strained silence.

Roland brought the knife back to McKenzie’s throat in one swift motion. “Answer it and I’ll kill her,” he shouted at me.

I kept my hands where he could see them. “It’s my boyfriend in Dallas,” I said quickly. “He’s worried because I haven’t checked in with him, and he’ll call the cops if he can’t get hold of me. Just let me tell him I’m all right.”

Roland hesitated, while the ringtone continued. Then he gave a sharp nod. “Tell him you’re safe at home. If you say anything else…” He gave McKenzie’s shoulder a painful squeeze, and the girl gave a pitiful cry.

“I won’t!” I snapped open the phone. “Alan, hi,” I said, hoping to God it wasn’t really Alan.

Colin’s voice sounded both hurt and annoyed. “It’s Colin,” he said.

I could feel Roland’s eyes on me, could see the terror in McKenzie’s face. I struggled to control my voice.

“No, I’m fine,” I went on, trying desperately to sound natural. “At home, doing homework. Sorry I didn’t call.”

“What the … Are you in trouble?”

His quick comprehension filled me with gratitude.

“That’s right,” I said with a nod and a smile. Or as much of a smile as I could manage with frozen lips. “Look, I’m completely swamped here. Can I call you tomorrow? Okay. No, love you, too. Bye sweetie.”

I closed the phone and looked at Roland. He seemed to be considering, then gave a curt nod. “That was good. Now toss it here. I don’t want you trying anything.”

From my position in the aisle, I was five feet below stage level and some fifteen feet back. I swung underhand and let the phone fly, intending to have it land somewhere near Roland’s feet. Instead, it left my hand late and flew high and wide, whizzing past Roland’s ear and landing with a thump on Nancy Wales’s inert form. Specifically, in the right eye, which would have been painful if she could feel anything. And to my enormous relief, it seemed she could. Against all expectation, she stirred and gave a shuddering moan.

She was still alive.

Roland half turned, distracted by this new threat. He took a step toward Nancy, dragging McKenzie with him. I didn’t know what he had in mind, but it couldn’t be good. I prayed Colin would hurry, and that he would have the sense not to come with sirens blaring. In the meantime, I had to do something to distract Roland.

I took several steps closer to the stage and called his name.

He stopped. “Stay right there,” he said sharply.

I stopped, holding out my hands desperately. “So Roland, how about it? Why don’t you let us go home? We can sort out the play tomorrow. In fact, I’ll come help you talk to Larry.”

The look he gave me was colder than anything I’d ever seen before. I saw his eyes flash from me to Nancy, from Nancy to the top of McKenzie’s golden head. He was considering his options. I had to distract him before he realized he had none.

Desperately, I said, “So what happened with Laura, Roland? How did you get Pat Carver involved? Or was that something entirely different?”

For a moment, I didn’t think he’d heard me. Then he gave a bark of laughter and turned back to me, Nancy now forgotten. I prayed if she was conscious she would have the sense to hold still.

“Pat Carver. What a godsend.”

“So why’d she kill Laura?” I asked. “Did it have something to do with the money for the show?”

He gave me a scathing look. “Do you really think Pat, Fat Pat, killed anybody? She wouldn’t have the balls for it. Or the strength. It wasn’t easy, you know.”

A tear slid down my cheek. “No, I guess not.”

“But as long as the police think she did it, everything is just fine.”

“Did it have to be in the toilet, Roland?” I asked, not to keep him talking but because I needed to know.

“She walked in here and told me she was going to make sure I didn’t perform. That the part of Christian should go to a student, as though a student could handle a part like that. She said it was pathetic that I should have a part in a high school play. Pathetic. Me.” His voice quivered with rage. “I was perfect in the role. And Michael Dupre would have seen that.”

“But Roland, Laura couldn’t do anything. Nancy wouldn’t have let her stop you,” I said.

“Nancy wasn’t here. She’d gone home with a headache.”

“That doesn’t matter. Laura might even have tried to talk to Larry, but she couldn’t have done anything. Not really.”

“She called me pathetic,” he said sullenly. “She said I was a terrible actor, and she walked away from me. Like I was nothing.”

His words hung heavy in the air, like a faint echo of a bad dream. I thought of how Laura and I had giggled together about Roland’s ridiculous performance, of our scathing comments, of our outrage that this grown man had usurped a part in a high school theater production. Unlike me, Laura had possessed the courage to repeat those comments to his face, and now Laura was dead. Behind my paralyzing fear and sorrow, a slow rage began filling my veins.

“So you followed her out of here? And then what? Dragged her into the ladies’ room? She was half your size, Roland.”

For a moment he looked confused, then his face hardened. “Enough of this. Get up here on the stage. Now.”

The knife pressed again into McKenzie’s throat. I could see the skin turning whiter under the pressure of the long blade. Where was Colin? What if he hadn’t understood me after all? Or what if he couldn’t figure out where I was?

I moved as slowly as I dared, walking in front of the stage, then up the stairs on the right. Kyla’s bag slipped from my shoulder and fell heavily, the strap catching in the crook of my arm. Automatically, I lifted it back into position, a gesture every woman wearing a shoulder bag performs half a dozen times a day. As I slowly mounted the stairs, I slipped my hand into the hidden pouch that Kyla had bragged about. Sure enough, the gun was held upright in a deep pocket, heavy and cold against my flesh. I slid my fingers around the grip, searching for the safety catch with my thumb.

Roland looked from me to Nancy Wales. “I think we’re about to have a tragedy in three parts. Here, you come over here,” he gestured at me with the knife, keeping a death grip on McKenzie.

I moved as slowly as I dared, trying to catch the girl’s eye as I did so. If I could just get her to move, even to fall to the floor and give me a clear target. Unfortunately, she seemed dazed, her eyes unfocused and blank.

“Let’s see, should Nancy attack you first? No, maybe you should attack. You see Nancy bending over this kid’s body and you strike her. She stabs you, but you’re able to wrench it out and kill her. Then you both die together before help can arrive.”

I stared at him. “That’s insane.”

“Don’t call me that!” he shouted, his voice rising suddenly to a high-pitched scream.

“No one will believe that story, Roland. You’ll have to do better.”

“They’ll believe it. Now get over here.”

I took one step closer to appease him, then stopped again. “Seriously, Roland. Why would Nancy stab one of her students? The police will arrest you and then you’ll never get to audition for Michael Dupre. You need a better story.”

He hesitated, the dramatist in him considering the possibilities.

I stared again at McKenzie, willing her to read my mind. Her glazed eyes slid past my face, then suddenly returned. At last, she seemed to realize I was trying to tell her something.

I went on. “You have to let us go. This has just gone too far.”

Roland blinked, then his handsome face crumpled like a child’s. “It has gone too far. I’ll never get to audition now. The play is canceled. There’s nothing I can do.”

Was he going to see reason? Maybe this thing was going to end without any further violence. Where was Colin?

His face hardened again, now with a hopeless despair, as though he had nothing left to lose. “You come over this way now,” he said quietly. “You’re going to sit in that chair.”

I didn’t like that. Looking into his eyes, I knew that he was going to kill us all.

“Let me take McKenzie home,” I pleaded again.