The Manolo Matrix (30 page)

Who knew that the area between your big toe and the next was all that erotic? I certainly hadn’t.

But now, as I slowly woke up in his arms, the room dark around us, I wiggled my toes and thought that I’d never look at thong sandals the same again.

“Hey,” he whispered, stroking my hair. “You awake?”

“Mmphblg,” was about all I could manage. But I did roll over, snuggling against him and just breathing deep. He smelled really, really good, and I would have been very, very happy to just stay there forever. I

snuggled closer, liking that idea. “You know,” I said, dreamily, “maybe this isn’t so bad. Maybe we can just stay in this hotel room forever. Stay in this bed forever. Just like this.”

He made a noise that suggested he was pretty keen on that, too. And since I was on a roll, I continued to spin my scenario. “We’ll just live in this room. Nothing but us and room service and sex.”

“I can live with that,” he said. “At least when I die, I know I’ll die happy.”

“And we can haunt this room. Better,” I said, rolling over and staring at the ceiling. “We can haunt that bird bitch.”

“Absolutely,” Devlin said. “We can—”

“Devlin!” I sat up, grabbing his arm and cutting him off. “Oh my God!”

He was up immediately, his expression alarmed, and rolled out of bed. He came up, his gun in his hand, his face tense and alert.

“No, no,” I said, “it’s okay.” I reached over and pulled him back into bed. “I’m sorry. But that’s it. I

figured it out!”

He looked at me, his expression dubious. “Figured what out?”

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“The clue. Devlin, I know where we’re supposed to go next.”

DEVLIN

“The clue,” he repeated, his brain still fuzzy from sex. “The clue that we lost? The shot glass?”

“Yes! Only we didn’t really lose it. Or, we did, but it doesn’t matter because the only thing that’s important is the Jekyll & Hyde Club.”

He shifted, propping himself up on one arm as he stared at her. “Explain.”

“The Jekyll & Hyde Club is supposed to be a haunted restaurant, right?”

“That’s the schtick.”

“Well, that’s also the clue.” She leaned back, the sheet pulled up around her chest and her expression as smug as he’d ever seen it.

He lunged for her, pulled her squealing to him. “Okay,” he said, nibbling on her neck. “Tell me.”

“Can’t. You’ve gone and got me all distracted.”

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He came in for another attack, nimble fingers racing over her skin, tickling her until she surrendered amid peals of laugher. “Okay! Okay! I’ll tell, I’ll tell.”

Smug, he leaned back against the headboard. “Come on, babe. Spill it.”

“The shot glass sent us to a haunted place.”

“Right.”

“And what sent us to the shot glass?”

Probably a trick question, but he answered anyway. “The horse clue.”

“Right. And…” She rolled her hand, egging him on.

He might have gotten the answer right, but he still didn’t see the big picture. “And…I have no idea where you’re going with this.”

“Bishop,” she said. “That’s the name of the horse.”

“Right. So?”

“The clue could have said Sean. Or it could have been hidden in any other horse’s buggy. So why there?”

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“Because that was the horse our tormentor took a ride in,” he said, just to get a rise out of her. It worked, and she aimed a sternly arched brow his direction. “Or,” he amended, “maybe it’s because the name of the horse is important.”

“Bishop,” she said again, this time overly emphasizing the word. Then, “Haunted,” with that same emphasis. “Get it?”

“No,” he said, feeling a bit grumbly now. “Come on, Jenn. Don’t torture me.”

“Well, I could make you beg…”

“You could,” he admitted. “But I can think of other things that would be much more fun to beg for.”

“Good point,” she said, her grin wide. “The Bishop of Broadway.”

As soon as she said it, he got it. In fact, it was so painfully obvious he was embarrassed they hadn’t seen it before. “David Belasco,” he said. “Of course!” A pioneer of Broadway, and American theater for that matter, Belasco had a bizarre tendency to wear a cleric’s collar. Not that bizarre considering he was schooled in a monastery, but some of the rumors about the man—including that he ran a high-end bordello—suggested a demeanor that was less than saint-like.

Not that any of that mattered for their purposes, Devlin thought. But one rumor was all important: The

Belasco Theater was widely rumored to be haunted.

“You’re amazing,” he said. “For a woman who said she didn’t know how to play this game, I’d have to say you’re acing it.” Not that he was surprised. He’d been able to tell from the first moment she’d barreled her way into his apartment that this was a woman who got whatever she put her mind to. If she ever truly decided to apply herself to the theater, he figured, Broadway would never be the same.

In front of him, the woman who would one day be a diva blushed an appealing shade of crimson. “I’m giving it my best shot. That’s for damn sure. It’s amazing what a little motivation will do for you.”

“That,” he said, “I believe. So what now?”

“Now,” she said, “we get into the theater. And I know just the way to do that.”

JENNIFER

“Ihave to come in with you,” Brian said.

I’d called him to meet us, and he’d arrived in record speed. Now Brian, Devlin, and I were
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standing on

44th Street outside the Belasco Theater, dawn’s light just beginning to break. A street sweeper hummed along. Around us, the city was beginning to stir, just like it did every day. Ordinary.

Typical.

And yet there wasn’t anything ordinary or typical about it.

I sucked in a breath and shook my head. “No. Just sneak us in somehow. If we’re lucky, it’ll slide by under the radar. I don’t think we’re watched all the time. That wouldn’t make any sense. And I don’t

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want you getting dragged into this any more than you have to. I wouldn’t have even called you except I

didn’t know what else to do. We have to get into that theater.”

“Because the next clue’s in there,” Brian said, his face pale and his eyes more tired than I’d ever seen.

“And you can end this thing. Get safe. And after that, you can find the asshole who killed my cousin.”

“That’s right,” Devlin said.

“Well, you need me for that.”

“Brian, just get us in. Make up some excuse. You don’t—”

“No.” He held up a hand. “Look, I get that you’re worried about me. I’m worried about me, too. But my cousin is dead because of this game and I’ve missed rehearsal because of it. Miss again, and I’ll be out of the show. This assassin’s already messed up my life, I’m not letting her mess it up more.”

He took a deep breath. “Iam going to help you. You want in that theater, I’m going in with you.

It’s damn near impossible to get backstage at a theater these days. You sure as hell aren’t sneaking in. Who else are you going to call?”

I met Devlin’s eyes. I’d gone through exactly that train of thought. We could probably fake it, pretend to be reporters, something. But that would take time. Time we really didn’t want to waste.

“Jenn, dammit. Let me help you end this. Let me do this for Fifi.”

I nodded because I really didn’t have a choice. We needed Brian, he knew it, and we weren’t getting in that theater without him.

“It may not even be inside,” I said. “We don’t know what we’re looking for. Maybe a message with the house manager or the guard or left at the box office.”

“That’s a point,” Devlin said. “If we have trouble getting into the theater tolook for a clue, our gamemaster would have a problem getting inside toleave a clue.”

“Maybe,” Brian said. “We’ll ask.”

We would, of course. But I already knew the answer would be no. That just wasn’t clever enough.

Somehow, the clue got inside the theater. Considering everything our tormentor had pulled off so far, I

really was going to sweat the details of how he’d managed that.

The nondescript stage door was just a few yards down from the pristine set of dual double doors that opened into the Belasco’s lobby. Since the box office wasn’t open yet, that’s the door Brian took us in.

He pulled open the metal door and we stepped into a plain, white-painted area with a hall leading off to the left. In front of us was a little office with a cluttered desk, a television, and a wizened man sitting there in a security guard uniform. The man looked up, his eyes owlish behind glasses. “Hey, buddy. What you doing here so early?”

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Brian hooked a thumb toward me and Devlin. “Friends from out of town. I promised them the grand tour, but they’re catching an early flight. So they dragged my sorry ass out of bed.”

“Tourists,” the guy said, with a shake of his head and a friendly grin. “Go ahead on in.”

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“Thanks, Marvin.”

We followed Brian to the left, entering a labyrinth of narrow corridors. “Stage and green room are that way,” he said, pointing. “Wardrobe and some principals’ dressing rooms are downstairs. Chorus upstairs, along with some old dressing rooms being used to store extra props, promo stuff, other assorted junk.” He frowned. “Any ideas what we’re looking for?”

“Not a one,” I said.

“Are there lockers? Like for the chorus?” Devlin asked.

“Sure. For that, we go down.”

We followed him down the narrow corridor, took a quick left, and ended up in a quick change area created in the wings out of a few pipes and a curtain. We maneuvered around that and then, before I

knew it, we were on the stage.

“Wow,” I said.

I’d been on a stage before, of course. But I’d never actually been on a Broadway stage when it was dressed for a show, though of course I’ve been in tons of Broadway theaters, sitting in the audience like everybody else.

Theaters on Broadway are surprisingly small. Most people expect them to be huge, like the concert halls touring productions are often staged in. But the beauty of Broadway is in its intimacy, and this theater was no exception. A good size, sure. But not overwhelming.

And elegant…my gosh, this place was amazing.

I knew that it had been restored, and the job that had been done was superb. As I stood there on stage, I looked up and saw ornate glass fixtures that looked like they’d come from Tiffany, and an intricate mural of naked nymphs over the box seats and extending over the proscenium.

I stood, imagining myself kicking it up and belting it out.

Someday…

“Jenn.” Devlin’s voice was soft, but firm.

“Sorry.” I felt my cheeks heat, and turned away from my fantasies. Once I survived my reality, though, I’d be back. Someday, I thought, I’d be back for real.

We continued across the stage, but I paused. “Could it be something on stage? There’s no guarantee that we could get back here. So maybe it’s something out in the open. A clue in the set or the scenery or something.”

Devlin and Brian looked at each other and shrugged. “It’s worth looking around,” Brian said,

“but I

don’t know what it could be. I’ve been living with this set for weeks now, and nothing odd has popped out at me.”

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I turned in a slow circle, trying to think. “You’re probably right,” I said. I wandered upstage, inspecting the little wooden shack erected there in a cluster of fiberglass trees strung with plastic and silk vines.

“Puck’s cabin,” Brian said before I could ask. “This is the opening set piece. I’m actually in the first scene, you know.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded, then crossed the stage toward me, his arms out. “I come over like this—I’m a
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pain-in-the-ass who spends the show harassing Puck—and when he comes out of his cabin, I fly up out of the way before he can catch me.”

“You told me about the flying,” I said. “How do you—”

He pointed to a prop in one of the trees; an ornate bird with a long, flowing tailfeather crafted out of some sort of metal. “There’s a handle under there. I do a twirl and a leap and I catch the handle. When I

tug down, that activates the mechanism and it pulls me up and over to that catwalk.” He pointed and

Devlin and I both looked at the catwalk. Long and dark, it would make a pretty good hiding place for just about anything. Or anybody.

I shivered, and smiled at Brian, hoping he didn’t notice my reaction. “Sounds unnerving,” I said, scrambling to make conversation. “Can you show me now?”

I was kidding, but he must’ve thought I was serious because he shook his head. “The mechanism’s not turned on.” He nodded toward the wings. “The union guys would have my head if I touched the board.

I’m thinking you’ll just have to wait until opening night.”

I laughed, then hugged him. “I am so proud of you. Your first Broadway show and you’re already flying.”

He rolled his eyes. “Let’s just find the clue so I don’t get fired.”

“Good plan.” But while he and Devlin started to inspect the stage props, I looked back up at that catwalk again. Something about it just seemed creepy.

“Hey.” Devlin’s hand came down on my shoulder and I yelped. He laughed. “Sorry.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’m just jumpy. Probably expecting the ghost of David Belasco around every corner.”

“That’s better than the alternative,” Devlin said, and I agreed it was.

We finished inspecting the stage, finding absolutely nothing that seemed weird, out of place, or that hinted at being a clue. Defeated, we moved on to the stairs, then headed down into a basement. The electrical equipment was off in one room, and across a cramped hall was a cavernous room filled with lockers.