Stage Fright (Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Book 6) (13 page)

Beekman Place turned out to be a narrow, tree-lined street. It was
beautiful, and if the first thing I saw wasn’t Laurel climbing into the backseat
of a black town car, I might have really liked it.

“We’re too late!” I banged my fist into my leg in
frustration.

“No we’re not!” Joe shouted. “Stop
here!”

The limo pulled slowly away from the curb, but there was nowhere for it to
go—the pedicab was in the way, stopped in the middle of the intersection.

“I’m going to have to turn around,” our cabbie said.
“Sorry about this, guys, but it’s hard to make a U-turn in this. This will
take a minute.”

“Not a problem,” said Joe. “I was counting on
that.”

He hopped out of the pedicab. He looked up at the
girl cabbie.

“I’m really, really sorry about this,” he said. He
pointed at me. “He’ll pay you back.”

Then Joe took a deep breath, steadied his posture, and kicked the pedicab
as hard as he could. The modified bicycle tire collapsed beneath his foot and the whole
cab sank onto its side, blocking the street and making it impossible for Laurel’s
town car to go around. The street was too narrow for the big limo to make a U-turn.
Laurel was trapped.

“Hey! What did you do that for? That was not cool man!” Our
cabbie started yelling at us. The back door of Laurel’s town car flung open, and
one stiletto-heeled shoe poked out. We had no time to waste.

“So sorry!” I yelled at the cabbie. I thrust my phone at her.
“Here, talk to our manager. He’ll pay for all the damages.”

I trusted Vijay to think on his feet, and I left him apologizing to our
cabbie. He’d probably tell the story he usually used in these
situations—that Joe and I were spoiled rich kids out for a joyride in Manhattan.
Sometimes I thought Vijay liked that story so much because it made us look bad!

Joe and I ran toward the car. Laurel, in a getaway dress that looked ready
to be worn on the red carpet, barely made it two feet before we were on her. I grabbed
her arm, ready to tackle her if I had to, but there was no
need. She pressed her back against the trunk of the car and slowly sank to the ground,
laughing and crying at the same time. She looked more than a little bit crazy. I almost
felt sorry for her.

“Laurel?” I said. “Ms. von Louden? Hello?”

Laurel didn’t even look up at me, she just pulled a monogrammed
handkerchief from her purse and tried to wipe her face. But all she managed to do was
smear her makeup like a clown.

“She won’t say anything,” I told Joe. He picked up her
purse and searched inside.

“She won’t need to,” he said, pulling out a clunky black
phone. It was nothing like the slim, sleek smartphone she’d been tapping away on
all week. “I bet I know what we’ll find if I check the outgoing messages on
this,” he said to Laurel. “Now do you want to talk to us?”

“Yes!” she said. “Why not? It’ll all come out
anyway. Yes! I sent her those messages. Little spoiled brat. She was ruining us, you
know?”

“How do you mean?” I asked, squatting on my heels next to her.
Her driver had exited the car, but he took one look at Laurel’s face and decided
to get back inside instead of coming to talk to us. I could only hope he wasn’t
calling the police.

“Her contract! We were paying her a fortune every
week. We thought with her on the bill, we’d have a guaranteed hit on our
hands. So we just put her into the first script we could acquire. But the show was a
mess! It took months of work to get it ready, and she refused to renegotiate. She had us
over a barrel. Conniving little …”

“So you decided to kill her?” I asked.

“No!” screamed Laurel. “I just wanted her to leave. We
couldn’t fire her, but if she quit, her contract would be null and void. But
nothing I did could get her to leave. That girl is made of steel. And then
 …”

“Then what?” Joe prompted. Laurel had broken off and was
staring into the distance.

“Somehow, someone learned about the threats. They leaked it to the
media. Suddenly, people were interested in the show! We started getting some press.
Linden and I … we were desperate, you see. If we could make our money back, we
figured this might not be a total disaster. So that was the plan. We hired all new
crew—people with no experience, crazy fans, anyone we thought might make for good
gossip. Any time something went wrong, I tweeted about it, and our press shot through
the roof. We actually started selling tickets! But he took it too far….”

Laurel broke off. Her lips quivered and she collapsed into sobs.

“I never meant for this to happen!” she wailed. “I was
trying to warn her.”

My stomach heaved and my hands broke out in a cold
sweat. Whatever Laurel was talking about, I could tell it was bad news.

“Trying to warn who about what? Who went too far? Talk to us,
Laurel!”

Laurel broke off crying and grabbed my arm. Her eyes were wide and
crazy.

“Tell me it’s not too late!”

“Too late for what?” I said. “Tell us!”

She flinched and took a deep breath. She turned her face to the ground as
though she were too embarrassed to look at us. Then she started speaking in a fast,
quiet whisper.

“It was Linden’s idea. I never would have agreed to it but he
said I had to. ‘We’ve come so far,’ he said. ‘The police will
never believe you if you turn on me now.’”

“What’s he planning, Laurel?” said Joe. “If you
tell us, we can still stop him.”

“Is she … is Claire still alive?” Laurel’s voice
cracked as she spoke.

“Yes, but she might not be for long. You are the only one who can
help us, Laurel.”

“You have to stop him!” she yelled, suddenly animated again.
“He’s paid one of the chorus girls to kill her. Tonight! He said, if she
dies during opening night, it will be publicity like no other. We could replace her with
some no-name and we’d be raking in the cash. I
didn’t
want to do it! I tried to get her to quit, but she ignored all of my threats.
That’s why I got this phone, so I could warn her! I didn’t know what else to
do.”

Laurel was crying quietly now, her eyes closed, her head slumped back
against the car. All the fight and the crazy had seeped out of her, and she just seemed
tired now. Joe pulled a pair of cuffs from his back pocket and slipped one around her
wrist. He attached the other to the door handle of the car. She barely seemed to
notice.

“Who is it, Laurel?” I grabbed her shoulder and talked to her
quietly. “Who did Linden pay off?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t
want to know …”

Our former cabbie still had my phone, but luckily, Joe had his in his
pocket.

“Nancy!” I heard him yell. “We have a
situation.”

Quickly, he filled her in on everything we’d learned. Then he was
quiet for a minute.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can. Be careful!” he said.
He listened for a second.

“The curtain’s about to go up? There’s only one option,
then. Nancy, you have to go on in Claire’s place! Until we can figure out who the
killer is, it’s the only way to catch her.”

CHAPTER
16

NANCY

STAGE FRIGHT

As I hung up on Joe, my heart leapt into my throat. I was going to have to go onstage. On opening night. On Broadway! I think I’d had this nightmare before. It was right up there with the one where I showed up at school for final exams and realized I’d missed every day of the semester.

Claire, Damien, Bess, George, and I were all in Claire’s dressing room. It wasn’t a very large room, and with all of us there, it felt like a sardine can. A very pink sardine can. But at least we were all safe here. Claire was in her costume already, and I could dimly hear the sounds of the audience filling up the theater. It was now or never.

“Claire,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.
She looked up from the mirror on her vanity, where she’d been checking to make sure her wig was perfect. “You can’t go out there.”

Behind me, someone gasped. Claire’s brow furrowed and her lips pursed. I could tell she was about to argue with me. I cut her off before she could even start.

“Linden’s paid someone in the cast to kill you during the first act. We know it’s a chorus girl, but not which one. You can’t be on that stage with them.”

I paused and took a deep breath.

“I’m going to do the opening number.”

“No way,” said Claire. “This is my opening night!”

“And you’ll have it,” I said quietly, trying to impress Claire with the seriousness of the situation. “The whole thing—except for the opening number. Would you rather be the famous actress who fooled a would-be assassin and still did the show? Or the famous actress who was murdered while the orchestra was still playing the overture?”

When I put it that way, Claire had to agree. Quickly, she began stripping out of her uniform and getting me into it.

“George, I need you to go up in the grid,” I said, as Claire pulled the curly wig down over my head. “I need you to be my eyes and ears. From up there, you should
be able to see anyone who might try to make a move on me.”

“On it,” said George, already rushing toward the door. “But how will I let you know what I see?”

“Leave that to me,” said Bess. “Damien, can you get me three of those mics all the techs use?”

“Sure, but why?” I couldn’t help but notice that somehow, amid all the chaos of the last few minutes, Damien and Claire had ended up holding hands.
Interesting,
I thought.

“Because we’re going to be on a relay. George, you’ll keep tabs on the show from above. I’ll be backstage. And Nancy—you’ll be center stage.”

“Don’t remind me,” I muttered as I quickly began applying makeup. Even as I went over the lines and steps in my head, I was still trying to pretend this wasn’t happening.

“What about me?” said Claire. “What can I do?” Damien nodded along with her words.

“Stay right here. Do not open this door for anyone other than us, or Frank and Joe. Do you hear me?”

“I’ll stand guard outside!” volunteered Damien.

“No!” said Claire. She pulled Damien closer to her. “I mean, can’t you stay inside? With me?”

“Inside, outside—just stay here!” said George. “I can hear the orchestra tuning up. We need to get to our places.”

I set my little WWII army cap on my head and looked in the mirror. With the outfit and makeup, even my dad would have had a hard time telling Claire and me apart.

“Let’s do this,” I said. Damien ran and got us mics, then locked the door behind us when we left. George split off from the group first, heading for the ladder up to the grid. Then Bess found a spot in the backstage left where she could see all of the action onstage (conveniently, I noticed, next to that cute carpenter, Tim). Then I was standing alone above the tiny tape
X
that marked Claire’s starting position for the show.

All around me, actors in uniforms and period costumes were filing in. From the grid, a model of a French country home slowly descended onto center stage. The opening number was a large group dance sequence that was supposed to portray the fall of France to the Nazis. I was thankful that it wasn’t a song in which Claire—I mean, I—had to sing. But there were a lot of steps to remember.
Ball
,
kick
,
change
,
jump
 … I repeated in my head.

The curtain was still down, but I could hear the audience growing quiet. I looked at the faces around me. Perfectly made-up, in crisp Nazi uniforms, any one of them could have been the killer.

Suddenly, a pair of violins began to play the opening notes of the score. The audience burst into applause.
From the sound of it, there were a lot of people out there.

“Break a leg, Nancy,” George said over my mic.

“Preferably, someone else’s,” Bess added.

Then the curtain was rising and the lights were shining down. All around me, dancers burst into action. The uniformed Nazis grabbed the Parisians and danced them menacingly off the stage. Some dancers dodged and wove around the Nazis, portraying the men and women of the French Resistance, who had plagued the Nazis long after the French government had surrendered. Despite the danger, the rousing music and the elaborate dancing filled me with emotion. I let the character of Nancy Wake fill me as I took my opening steps, ducking past two Nazis who pretended to grab me. One artful slow-motion spin kick later, and they were both down on the ground. The spotlight followed me as I dove across the stage.

And the people applauded! The audience seemed to be into every move I made. I could see why Claire loved her job so much. But I couldn’t let myself get carried away. I had steps to remember, and a killer to foil.

“Looking good from up here,” came George’s voice in a burst of static. Taken by surprise, I stumbled, crashing into one of the Resistance fighters, a handsome older man. He grabbed me gracefully and spun me to the side
so effortlessly it looked as though we had planned it all along.

“All clear from my angle,” Bess chimed in. But I shook my head, trying to ignore them. Something about my misstep had triggered my memory.

What was it Madonna had told Joe? Something about the backup dancers being less in sync than she was. It was one of the Nazis, she’d said! The blond one! A blond Nazi had nearly knocked Madonna down during rehearsal. It wasn’t much to go on, and there were a lot of blond dancers dressed as Nazis. I was grasping for straws, hoping to find the killer before it was too late.

I tried to watch the dancers as they dipped and whirled, but it was hard to keep track of them, they moved so gracefully. All except for one. There was a tall blonde in the back row who seemed to be out of step. In fact, she seemed to be trying to fight her way across the crowded stage toward me!

“George, backstage left—no, right—no, left! That girl, the tall blonde in the Nazi uniform. Do you see her?”

“Which one? Wait, I think I got her. Seems a little lost?”

“Is she trying to make her way toward me, or am I crazy?” I pirouetted around a “dead” girl, pulling off my jacket as I went. This part of the dance was meant to symbolize how I went underground and became a spy.
I was supposed to change out of my uniform and into civilian clothing, piece by piece. But I had bigger issues on my mind.