a little confused.
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry—it’s just that my dad really wanted to see the place again, and I heard you talking with Susie and knew you were going to be here…and since Dad doesn’t get to get out much, I thought we’d just stop in so he could look around. Sort of a nostalgia thing.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine,” said Vivien as a prickling swept over the back of her neck. She looked around, hoping the ghost wasn’t going to get impatient and start acting up. “I didn’t realize your father knew the place.”
“Oh, yes, he used to be here all the time, didn’t you, Daddy?”
Vivien had stepped off the stage by now, getting close enough to greet them—and close enough to see the way Mr. Carlson’s eyes suddenly sharpened with lucidity as he looked around the space.
“This…here…” he said, gripping his daughter’s arm tightly.
“Yes, Daddy, I know,” she said, giving Vivien an apologetic look. “Why don’t you sit down right here in the front row so you can watch the show?”
As Melody helped Mr. Carlson settle uneasily into his seat, Vivien got a good look at him and started. She’d just seen that face—albeit twenty-five years younger—when she was poring over the Nutcracker cast photo…
“You were here,” she said without thinking. “During the Nutcracker production, the last—”
And then she saw the glint of metal in Melody Carlson’s hand.
It was a gun.
And it was pointed at Vivien.
Chapter Twenty-One
“If you had only taken my warnings seriously and given up the idea of reopening this place,” Melody said, moving the muzzle of the gun closer to Vivien. It was only six inches away, and Vivien’s knees were trembling so much that she thought they might give out—which would be a sudden movement and not a good idea, all things considered.
“Go or die. I was very clear. But you didn’t listen, and so now it’s going to get a little messy,” said Melody. “Now, up onto the stage, if you please. Daddy, stay there and watch just like I did. You won’t tell anyone either, will you, Daddy? We’ll have another secret to share.”
Vivien caught the strange glint in Melody’s eyes and decided, for the moment, at least, to comply (if her knees held her upright)…and to try to keep her talking.
Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when confronted by a homicidal maniac? Because clearly she was homicidal—Vivien was guessing it ran in the family—and the creepy look in Melody’s blue eyes was definitely maniacal.
“What do you mean, watch like you did?” she asked as she climbed up the five steps onto the stage.
“He didn’t know I was here,” Melody said. She was talking as if in a dream as she prodded Vivien toward the catwalk ladder. “Up we go, bitch. I never did like you, from the very beginning. The way you came in to school and lorded your celebrity over everyone. Thought you were better than the rest of us just because you’d been on Broadway.
“I was going to be on Broadway too. Daddy promised me. I’d been working hard for so long to be ready…for years and years. It even broke up my marriage—not that I cared when I had Daddy to take care of me. And then he got sick—far too young—and had to go into the home, and I had to take care of him. And he couldn’t help me anymore.”
Vivien took her time grasping the sides of the ladder and taking the first step up as she tried to follow Melody’s convoluted, trancelike speech.
Why was Melody making her climb up? Vivien was afraid she knew, and she didn’t like it.
“Your mother—she was the Sugarplum Fairy, wasn’t she? In The Nutcracker production, the last one here,” Vivien said as she stepped up another rung.
If Melody was following her up, she’d have to manage the gun and the climbing. That might give Vivien an opportunity to escape.
“Daddy, don’t get upset, all right?” Melody called over to him. “She’s not going to tell anyone. I’ll make sure of it. Just like I always promised I wouldn’t tell either. Up you go, bitch.” She jabbed the gun into Vivien’s arm, and Vivien climbed.
“What did you see? You had to have been very young,” Vivien said, trying to climb as slow as possible without upsetting the crazy lady below her.
“He hit them, and then he—he s-stabbed them. The Nutcracker and the Sugarplum Fairy. And then my beautiful, dancing momma went away and I never saw her again. But then it