Nothing that could have caused that long, angular shadow to spill over her and onto the trunk…and then slide away.
Vivien sat there, her heart thudding so hard that she could barely breathe. Her palms were damp and her knees were so weak that she didn’t think she could pull to her feet even if she wanted to.
She hadn’t imagined it. No, she hadn’t. It had been a tall shadow—angular and straight, not soft and organic like a living being—just like before.
She sat there staring into the depths of the orchestra pit for quite a while. She shined her flashlight around, hoping to see something that could explain the shadow—a forgotten instrument that might have somehow tipped over (what instrument looked like a long, forbidding beam with a slanted end?)…a piece of wood…a chair?
But everything was silent, still, and nothing moved. Nothing breathed except for her.
After a long while, she rose to her feet. Her knees were still a little shaky. The trunk squatted there, unopened and tempting—yet she felt a sense of foreboding. Surely her joke about finding out what the trunk had been hiding had no relationship to the strange shadow fall. After all, the same thing had occurred when she was up on the stage, right above where she was now sitting.
Vivien frowned. She didn’t like that train of thought.
Part of her wanted to get outside, into the late afternoon sunshine, and forget about long, dark shadows that came from nowhere and glided over the floor…
But the bigger part of her, the stubborn part, the determined and furious part, the part that always picked herself back up when she was knocked for a loop—the assets that had brought her this far in life after so many ups and downs—insisted she not capitulate to weakness.
She would stay.
She would open the freaking trunk.
And she fully expected nothing to happen, nothing unusual or shocking to be inside. It was the atmosphere that put those thoughts into her head. There was simply no reason for her to be nervous about opening the trunk. It would be anticlimactic.
Thud-squeak…thud-creak…thud-squeak…
Footsteps. On the stage, directly above her.
Chapter Eight
The theater was empty and silent, but Jake knew Vivien had to be there. Her car was in the parking lot, and he’d walked in through the unlocked side door.
“Vivien?” he called, and then he saw her purse on the edge of the stage. So she was definitely somewhere around. He just hoped everything was all right, considering. “Vivien! Where are you?”
Then he heard a muffled reply. “Jake? Is that you? I’m down here.”
Sounded like she was right below his feet…? Oh, she was in the orchestra pit.
Not that he had any idea how to get there…
“I’m in the pit. Stairs are off stage right,” she called up from right beneath his feet.
Moments later, he was pushing away a swath of cobwebs as he descended into the dimly lit, shadowy place. There was only one light bulb working, but it was enough. Vivien was standing near the bottom of the steps, eyeing a large antique steamer trunk.
To his surprise, she greeted him with neither “What are you doing here?” nor “What do you want?” Instead, she said, “I’ve been working on getting this trunk open—it was locked and I broke off the hasp. I have no idea why it was shoved way under here, beneath that crawlspace.”
Her words sounded normal, but there was something in her eyes that seemed…off. It was probably him. She’d made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want him around.
And that was part of the reason he’d come back to the theater once everyone was gone. They needed to talk—to clear the air or something. He knew he had things that needed to be said.
And aside from that, he wanted to make sure she was all right.
“All right. Well, let’s open it,” he suggested. He sensed a slight hesitation in her manner and wondered about it.
Just open the trunk. Right?
“All right.”
No, he wasn’t imagining her reluctance. There was a strange look on her face. “Want me to do it?” he asked.
“No,” she said, suddenly firm. “I’m just not sure what to expect.”
“What do you think is in there? A dead body?” He laughed a little, and when she scoffed and reached for the lid to raise it, he felt a sudden prickle over the back of his neck. A little rush of cool air—no, cold air. Frigid, even. Icy.