a couple of the dealers, poke around a little. Helga, if you get them, I can run images of tire tracks through the system—”
“Ah, that’s all right, Cap,” Helga said quickly. “It’s best if you just stay away from the electronics, all right? I’m happy to do it, and type up the report for this morning too. He’s an excellent cop,” she said to Vivien and Jake, “great investigator, wonderful boss—but this man can’t walk past the copy machine without it spontaneously jamming or blowing a fuse, and every time he tries to print something, he ends up disconnecting every computer from the entire network. Then I have to reboot it, and…ugh.”
“Right,” said Captain Longbow, shaking his head sadly. “Not being able to use all that equipment… It’s a curse…and a blessing.” His eyes twinkled, and Vivien realized she was glad to have someone competent at the law enforcement helm here in her new hometown, even if he was a menace around electronics.
Once Joe Cap and Helga left, Vivien and Jake were finally able to go backstage to see what had caused the chaotic crashing sounds that had preceded the earthquake-like event on the scaffolding.
“I’m almost afraid to look,” Vivien said, more grateful than she wanted to admit that Jake was on her heels as she strode to the stage-right wing. “It sounded like it was coming from back in the workshop.”
“It sounded pretty ugly,” he replied.
It was pretty ugly.
The scene looked as if a cyclone had come through and tossed everything around in a jumble. Set pieces once leaning against the wall had collapsed into a pile, metal rods and tools were flung to the floor, and paint cans (fortunately, none had come open) were strewn all over. The posters of old show casts Stephanie Lillard had found were in a tumble in the middle of the floor.
Vivien stood there trying not to think about who, or what, had done this. At least it all happened after the big cleanup day, or the mess would have been much worse with so many more things to throw around.
“It won’t take that long to put things back,” Jake said, already picking up paint cans to restack them against the wall. “It’s really not that big of a mess.”
“No, it’s not as bad as it sounded from out there. But how did it happen? How?” She picked up The Nutcracker show photo, which was in the middle of the floor on top of the pile, and sighed.
Of course, Jake didn’t have an answer for that—or if he did, he didn’t want to share it. Neither of them did. The answer wasn’t pretty.
In an effort to distract herself, Vivien began to sing an old song from The Little Mermaid about all the neat stuff, and by the time most of the mess had been picked up, she was belting out how she wanted to be where the people were.
In the middle of the chorus, she turned to find Jake standing there watching her. When their eyes met, her heart jumped a little. Then he gave a funny grimace and returned to tipping the last of the large set pieces against the wall with the rest of them.
“Cute song,” he said. “I think your voice has gotten even better over the years. It’s more mature.”
Feeling supremely self-conscious, Vivien brushed off his compliment. “Only because the acoustics in here are better than my apartment—or yours—was back then.”
“I thought the acoustics in the shower back then were pretty damned good,” he said, holding her eyes with his.
Her throat went dry and something sizzled in her belly. She gave a nervous laugh and looked away, turning her attention to straightening a row of nail cans on the worktable. “Well, that’s why people like to sing in the shower—”
“I loved hearing you sing in the shower,” he went on mercilessly. “I’d still be in bed, and you’d be up and at ’em, and then I’d hear you. It was a wonderful way to wake up in the morning. I could hear you right through the wall. You could be singing anything from a sad tearjerker to a big, happy dance number to a sassy, silly thing like—like ‘If You Were Gay.’ That one always made me smile, but I liked them all. I liked hearing you.” He was looking at her so affectionately. “I could always tell what your mood was by what you sang in the shower.”
She wanted to swallow, but there was something clogging her throat.