Page 39 of Script Swap (The Last Picks #11)

“God, you can’t imagine what it was like. When he said all that business about knowing what you did, I almost passed out. My head went completely blank; I don’t even remember what I said. Fortunately, I’m good at staying in character.”

“Very good,” I said. “But not perfect. Because Kyson—”

“He noticed something.” Nora shook her head. “I have no idea what. He was a little worm, did you know that? Very much like you, as a matter of fact. Always sneaking around. Always snooping. Sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.”

“And he confronted you.”

“He thought he could blackmail me.” Nora’s laugh carried an echo of her disbelief.

“I mean, he didn’t even know what I’d done, but that didn’t stop him.

He walked right into my dressing room—didn’t even bother to knock—and said he’d meant what he’d said on stage, and if I didn’t pay up, everybody was going to find out.

My God, in that moment, my heart—” She put the hand not holding the gun over her heart.

It was a pretty pose, and I wondered if she’d used it in Just Justice .

“But I had enough sense to try to figure out what he knew. I thought he might only suspect. Jonni had spent so much time hounding him, and I always wondered if she had—had entertained the possibility. He was like a shark; he smelled blood in the water, and he kept pressing and pressing, getting more and more aggressive. Do you know the number of men like that I’ve had to deal with in my life?

They think that because they have something between their legs, it gives them the right to act like complete and total jerks.

” (Uh, not exactly the word she used.) “I told him I wanted him to leave, and eventually he did.”

She stopped. She swallowed. The skin of her neck wobbled with the movement.

“And you followed him.”

Nora blinked her eyes clear, and in a strange moment, I thought maybe this —out of everything—might not be acting. She cleared her throat. “Yes. Well. I was so angry.”

Tinny let out a whimper, and the noise made Nora’s eyes refocus.

“You killed him,” I said. “With the trophy. And then you wiped it clean and hid it with Ray’s body. You put him in the bathroom, and you closed the door, and you went home.”

“I think we’ve talked enough, Mr. Dane.”

“Do you know what I couldn’t understand?

Why you’d let Jonni have the dressing room.

I thought for sure you’d want it for yourself.

I mean, Ray’s body was right there. I thought you’d want to keep everyone as far away from him as possible.

The leak upstairs, the damaged ceiling—your secret was about to come out.

I didn’t consider the possibility that you wanted him to be found.

That it was part of your plan, so that you could ‘solve’ the mystery. Nora Day, rising from the ashes.”

She didn’t say anything. And even though guns—real guns—are heavier than most people expect, the pistol never wavered.

“You’re not going to get away with it,” I said.

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”

“And the sheriff doesn’t believe that story you cooked up about Jonni, either. She’s smart, the sheriff. She’ll figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out, Mr. Dane. Every thread is tied up. Every loose end neatly snipped. Except two, I suppose. And in all fairness, we wouldn’t be here if your friend hadn’t followed you on your run the other night—I really can’t believe your luck.”

“You did a good job,” I said. “But you’ve had time to learn, haven’t you? As you said, all those roles you had? The parts you studied? You’re always so committed; you become the character.”

A fresh wariness surfaced in Nora’s expression.

“On the other hand,” I said, “you were a girl when you had to get rid of Ray.”

Caution dissolved into laughter. “That was forty years ago. Everything has changed, Mr. Dane. The world has moved on. What are they going to do? Use a time machine?”

(Side note: that would be an awesome premise for a detective novel.

Although maybe it’s already been done? But what if the people solving the crimes in the time machine were two aging actresses—would Meryl Streep sign off on me using her as a character?

Teamed up with—who was that old British lady that turned into a cat?)

(No time for that now, but file it away under Genius.)

“You’re right,” I said. “That happened a long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that the sheriff’s department uses the case as an example on their detective’s exam.

” I raised my voice slightly. “Tinny, show Nora your hands.” Behind me, the disposable gloves rustled.

“You were young. You were scared. It was your first time.” The sharp edge of horror turned in Nora’s face.

“This was long before they were using computers to match fingerprints. What are the odds that somewhere in the sheriff’s office, they still have the prints they recovered from that safe?

What do you think, Nora? If they print you, will they get a match? ”

Nora’s breathing changed: higher, tighter. In a brittle voice, she said, “That doesn’t mean anything.”

I shrugged.

“There could be a hundred explanations for those prints.”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid not.”

She stared at me, air whistling in the back of her throat. And then she said, “Let’s go, Mr. Dane.” She motioned at Tinny with the gun. “You too.”

“It’s over, Nora.”

“It’s not over!” The words were a scream. Some of her hair swung in front of her face, into her mouth, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Nothing is ever over. You keep trying and trying until it works out!”

Behind me, Tinny let out a single sob.

The hair on the back of my neck was standing up.

Nora wiped her mouth. The gun was trembling now, and she made a snappy movement with it. “Let’s go.”

Even though it was clear that Nora’s cheese—to borrow a Foxism—done slid completely off her cracker, she was still surprisingly careful as she marched us out of the box office.

We moved down the darkened hallway, heading toward the backstage area.

Tinny’s crying and moaning weren’t actually all that loud, but with the blood pounding in my head, I couldn’t seem to hear anything else.

As we moved away from the lobby, daylight dwindled, and the shadows thickened until we were swimming from one pool of light to the next, like this was some kind of awful dream.

And every time I thought I saw an opportunity, Nora was careful to minimize my chances.

When we got to the fire doors I’d passed through on my way in, she made me and Tinny lie down on the floor while she opened them.

When we reached the doors that led backstage, she repeated the maneuver.

And then, with Nora behind us, Tinny and I stepped backstage.

The sound of the space was distinctly different, and it had that open, empty quality that probably had something to do with good acoustics.

A few emergency lights suggested the shapes of curtains, the flies, even—faintly—the catwalk.

But the darkness swallowed everything else.

The smell of fresh paint and sawdust had faded to a faint note on the chill of the air conditioning.

What was her endgame here? If I could figure that out, maybe I could figure out how to escape—presumably with Tinny, too.

I hadn’t been bluffing when I’d told Nora earlier that she couldn’t expect to shoot us and get away with it; Bobby would catch her eventually.

But on the other hand, Nora was, uh, one tostini short of a charcuterie board, and clearly my argument hadn’t swayed her.

Was she going to shoot us anyway? Maybe she’d force us into the trap room below the stage and kill us there, hoping that nobody would find the bodies until she could make her escape.

But that didn’t make sense either—she didn’t want to run.

She wanted to be famous again. (Well, not again; B-List famous.) (And yes, I’m exactly petty enough that even with the threat of imminent death poking me in the rear, so to speak, I wasn’t going to let Nora get away with delusions of grandeur.) A part of me that had been dormant for the last few weeks—the writer, that section of my brain devoted to jumping to conclusions and making wild inferences and generally indulging in flights of fancy—poked its nose out, tested the air, and suggested maybe Nora was going to try to make it look like Tinny and I had killed each other in a lovers’ quarrel.

The wave of hysterical laughter that swelled inside me nearly carried me off my feet.

I was still trying not to break down with a fatal case of giggles when Nora said, “Stop right there.”

I stopped. Tinny bumped into me. And, to my surprise, she slipped her hand into mine; she was shaking.

“You’re not going to get away with this—” I began. (Hey, it’s a classic for a reason.)

But Nora said, “Enough of that, Mr. Dane.” And then, calling up into the dark, “How’s that, my love?”

The catwalk creaked as someone up there moved.

It was like my guts, my bones, everything turned to water.

“A little to the left,” Betty called down. No fear. No worry. The same stage director’s voice that had seen hundreds of productions through The Foxworthy successfully. And now she was stage-directing Nora’s performance of a lifetime.

“Betty,” I said, “you don’t have to do this. Whatever she told you, she’s using you. She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t love anyone. That’s why she killed Ray. That’s why she framed Jonni. As soon as she’s got what she needs from you, she’s going to abandon you.”

“You don’t give up, do you?” Nora asked.

Her tone wavered between admiring and a growing certainty that I wasn’t right in the head.

“I read the stories, of course, but then I saw you, with that ridiculous haircut, those idiotic clothes, the way you zipped back and forth, ‘investigating,’ making a total fool out of yourself, and I thought there was a misunderstanding. Someone was helping you. Your friends, maybe. Or that deputy you’re so attached to.

But is this how you do it? Persistence?”

“As someone pointed out to me once,” I said, trying for haughty, “I mostly solve mysteries by blundering around until the killer shows up and tries to kill me.”

“I don’t think that’s as flattering as you seem to believe, Mr. Dane,” Nora said with a smile. “Step to the left, please.”

Tinny moaned.

“Betty, she’s going to leave you again—” I called up.

A shivering, metallic boom rang out overhead. A shadow leaned out over the rail. “She won’t! Because we’re tied together now! This is the last thing, and then we’ll be together for the rest of our lives.”

Irritation flickered across Nora’s face, gone almost as quickly as it appeared, but I had the sneaking suspicion that Betty was going to have an accident of her own sooner rather than later.

When I opened my mouth to say something to that effect, though, Nora wagged the gun at me and said, “One step to the left, Mr. Dane. Right now, or I will shoot you.”

Tinny’s grip tightened, crushing my hand.

“An accident,” I said as I stepped left. Tinny moved with me—mechanically, automatically, like a frightened child. “That’s your plan?”

“It’s an old theater,” Nora said breezily.

“Accidents happen all the time. And Betty has been hounding Terrence for years to replace the rigging. I have to admit, Milton gave me the idea; the only useful thing that man ever did, and it was an accident. In any case, it’ll be a simple but all-too-common tragedy: Tinny was here doing whatever she does—presumably finding fresh ways to ruin the show with her creative ‘vision.’ My God, child, you do realize there are other colors besides neutrals, don’t you? ”

(Two scare quotes in two minutes—apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was petty.)

“And you,” Nora continued, “were doing your usual bungling. A tragedy, of course, but—” She smiled as she steadied the gun. “—you know what they say, Mr. Dane: the show—”

“The show must go on,” I said over her. Her mouth thinned into a line. “Yeah, you don’t like it when someone interrupts you, do you? Maybe you’ll think about that the next time someone is doing a grand reveal—”

“Dash,” a voice shouted overhead, “run!”

Fox.

It was Fox up there on the catwalk.

And then there was a thud, followed by a crash, and Betty cried out.

Nora’s head whipped back. The conflict above us distracted her only for a moment, but it was all I needed. I started to lunge—

Tinny beat me to the punch. Literally. All ninety pounds of her flew across the stage like some sort of Millennial ghost, and she clubbed Nora in the face with the prop pistol.

Nora let out this weirdly dramatic moan, like you’d expect from an outraged dowager in a period piece.

Her knees buckled. The hand with the gun flopped at her side.

Tinny hit her again, screaming, “Neutrals go with everything!” And Nora collapsed.

Tinny followed her to the floor, bringing the prop pistol back, but by that point I’d recovered from my shock (awe? glee?). I caught Tinny’s arm to stop an incipient homicide—er, another incipient homicide. And then I kicked Nora’s gun away.

It ended up right in front of the set piece for the hidden tunnel under Hemlock House—the grand finale of the Daniel Dank saga. (He gets saved by Pippi in that version, or whatever her lightly fictionalized character’s name is.)

If that isn’t symbolism, I don’t know what is.

Above us the sounds of struggle stopped. Ragged breathing floated among the trusses.

“Fox?” I called.

Voice reedy, they answered, “Okay. We’re okay.” And then their voice tightened as they fought a wave of emotion: “It’s over.”

Betty started to cry.