Stage Fright (Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Book 6) (9 page)

“Not much,” Nancy shrugged. “But I think someone is
stealing her stuff. She said a couple of things have gone missing from her purse
recently, including her journal with all of her notes on the show. You guys got
anything?”

“There was some sticky stuff on the
plane,” Frank said. “And someone locked me down there and left this helpful
note for me.”

He pulled out a piece of paper with the word “LEAVE” scrawled
on it in black marker.

“Claire was definitely poisoned—Vijay confirmed her juice
boxes were tampered with. Want to know the last person who definitely touched
them?”

We all nodded.

“Damien.” I mimed dribbling a ball, then slam-dunked it in the
air. “And the crowd goes wild! Joe Hardy with another fantastic play.”

“Great,” sighed Bess. “Have you set us up as babysitters
for yet another crazy?”

“Don’t think of yourselves as babysitters,” said Nancy.
“Think of yourselves as …”

“Prison guards?” prompted George.

“That doesn’t sound much better,” said Bess. “Do
guards get tips?”

“Go,” said Nancy, laughing. “I’m going to stick
around here. I’m sure when Claire gets off the phone, she and Linden will want to
get back to rehearsal.”

We said our good-byes and headed out.

•  •  •

The next morning, we went out to visit Madonna bright and early.

“I love this city!” I said, as we passed three men
dressed like superheroes. They were carrying briefcases, and aside
from the spandex, looked as if they were headed to work. Next to them, a wedding party
was being pulled down Broadway in a series of horse-drawn carriages. “I mean,
don’t get me wrong, Bayport is awesome. But New York City is … New York
City!”

“Huh?” said Frank, who was too busy staring at his phone to
appreciate any of the awesomeness that was all around us. “Right. What you
said.”

I recognized the tone in his voice instantly. It was Frank’s
I’m-thinking-about-something-on-a-case-and-not-really-paying-attention-to-you-Joe
voice. I heard it a lot.

“What is it?” I asked.

Frank handed me his phone as we dodged through the crowds in Times
Square.

“Look at this photo,” he said. “Look
familiar?”

“Whoa! That dude’s getting wasted by a chick.”

I looked more closely.

“Oh, snap! That’s Nancy and Linden. You took that?” I
asked.

Frank shook his head.

“Vijay forwarded it to me. Apparently, it showed up on a website
called Broadway Buzz last night. It was headlined
UNKNOWN ACTRESS SLAMS
DIRECTOR
. It’s already been picked up by two major news
agencies.”

My heart sank. This wasn’t good news.

“At least you can’t really make out her
face,” I said, staring at the photo. As detectives, it was never a good idea to
get in the papers
before
the case was done. You never knew who
might get tipped off, or recognize you later. “Who do you think took it? And who
put it up?”

Frank grimaced.

“That’s the worst part. This isn’t the only photo out
there. Look!”

Frank scrolled down, showing me images of the fiery plane, an injured
Madonna being carried out of the theater, and a host of other accidents that had
happened on the set of
Wake
.

“Who’s always around the set, with her phone at the
ready?” I murmured, half to myself.

“Laurel,” said Frank, and I nodded agreement.
“That’s what I’m thinking too. No one else was in that rehearsal room,
unless Bess is a secret celebrity blogger.”

“But why would Laurel do that? Is she out to sink the
show?”

“I don’t know. Why would she bring us in to protect Claire if
she’s the one harassing her?” Frank wondered.

“What if Linden forced her to bring us on board?” I
answered.

“What if Linden is in on it? They are brother and sister, after all
 …”

Frank trailed off, lost in thought, staring at all the gossip photos.
Finally, he clicked his phone shut.

“Man!” he said. “The list of
suspects on this one is just getting longer and longer. Maybe Madonna can shed some
light on all this.”

We’d arrived at her hospital, an impressive complex of glass and
pink stone buildings that took up more than an entire city block. Over the automatic
doors, the sign read
BELLEVUE
. A cluster of doctors and nurses were
chatting across the street, as a steady stream of patients and families—some
anxious, some excited, some tired—moved briskly through the entrance.

We walked up to the front desk, where a woman in green scrubs sat behind a
computer. Her nametag read
DOLORES
. For five minutes, she acted as though
we weren’t there.

“Excuse me?” I said finally. “We’re here to see
 …”

“Visiting hours don’t start for another fifteen
minutes,” she interrupted me without looking away from the screen. Was everyone in
New York like this? “Name?”

“I’m Joe Hardy, and this is my brother Frank.”

Her eyes flicked away from the computer screen for a second, giving me a
look of contempt. “Not your name. The patient’s name.”

“Madonna de la Varga,” I replied. If Dolores wanted to keep
this short and sweet, I could play that game too.

Dolores tapped on her keyboard for a few minutes. The ancient yellowed
printer on the desk next to her slowly rattled to life.

“These are your visitor passes,” she said,
pulling two poorly printed labels out of the printer. “Show them to the guard on
the seventh floor.”

And with that, Dolores forgot we existed.

We grabbed some candy bars from the vending machines, because sleuthing is
definitely hungry work. Then we took the elevator up. Security on the seventh floor
didn’t seem to care that we were ten minutes early for visiting hours.

HA!
I thought, as we walked down the long,
masking-tape-colored hallway.
Take that, Dolores.

Madonna was sitting up in bed when we arrived. Both her legs were in solid
white casts, but her makeup and hair looked professionally done, and the room was ringed
with flowers.

“Welcome!” she said as we walked in, as though she were the
host of some game show. “Now, don’t tell me your names. I always remember my
fans. Joe and … Frank, was it?”

We nodded.

“You’re working with Linden and Laurel, right? That’s
lovely. Did you come here for an autograph, or did they send you to tell me when I could
come back to the show? I’ve been thinking that the part could really work well
with me in a wheelchair. I sent them a few e-mails about the idea, but I haven’t
heard back from them yet. Do you know what they’re thinking? They
haven’t gotten another understudy yet, have they?”

Madonna talked so fast that there was hardly a chance to get a word in
edgewise. But she had to breathe at some point.

“Actually, we are working with Linden and Laurel,” Frank
began.

“But not in the way you think,” I continued. “We work
for an organization called American Teens Against Crime. The von Loudens asked us to
pose as high school students in order to find out who has been threatening
Claire.”

Madonna’s face turned white.
Poor girl!
I
thought. Bad enough to be injured at work and lose her job, but now it turned out it was
a murder attempt!

“We need to ask you a few questions Madonna,” Frank said.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Before we could say another word, Madonna
burst out.

“Okay!” she said, her voice breaking with fear.
“You’ve caught me. I did it. Please, please don’t send me to
jail!”

Then she started sobbing.

CHAPTER
11

NANCY

LOOKING UP

“Let me go!” I yelled, struggling against the man who held me from behind. He had his arms around me in a bear hug. I threw myself to the left, and he staggered, suddenly off balance. His grip weakened, and I slipped free.

“Now,” I said, pointing a gun at his head. “You will tell me everything you know.”

“STOP!” yelled Claire, who was sitting in the director’s chair while Linden played the part opposite me. “The line is ‘you had better tell me everything you know, you traitor!’ We have to let the audience know that he isn’t just some run-of-the-mill Nazi. He’s a turncoat. An informer. The lowest of the low!”

Claire was so in character she was nearly foaming
at the mouth! I wasn’t sure whether to admire her or worry for Linden’s safety.

“You have good intonation, though,” said Linden with a smile. He stretched his arms. “And you’re strong for your size,” he said, impressed.

I shook my head with frustration. “You traitor, you traitor, you traitor,” I mumbled to myself. I’d gotten it right in the last take—but I’d forgotten to draw my gun. I’ve never really liked weapons, especially firearms. The take before that I’d done everything perfectly, but I hadn’t remembered to face out toward the audience while doing it. Acting was much, much harder than it looked. Still, being a detective had taught me to have a good memory, or else I would have been totally lost.

Linden, Claire, and I had been working on the same scene since Linden had returned from his fight with Laurel yesterday. Whatever had happened between them, Linden was in a better mood afterward—or at least a more focused one. Apparently, Claire was weakest on the first act of the play, so he’d decided to concentrate on that. That way, we could both be learning at the same time. So that was what we had done for the rest of yesterday, and we’d jumped right back into the first act this morning—which was good, since the official opening night was this evening, and it sounded like the show was going to sell out! I was just glad there was no way I was going on.

“Claire, you want to give the scene a try?” Linden asked. The tone in his voice made it clear that it wasn’t really a request.

“No,” said Claire. She’d settled back into his chair. “I’m kind of enjoying being the director for a change.”

I could hear Linden’s frustration in the way he blew his breath out through his nose loudly. He yanked his newly repaired glasses off his face.

“Are … you … sure?” he tried again, each word crisp and angry.

Claire nodded. She was testing him, I could tell—you don’t make it far as a private detective if you don’t know how to read people. All the signs I got from Linden showed he was headed toward a massive explosion. His face was red, his knuckles were white, and his eyes were tight and small. According to Frank, he had a pretty well-known temper, and a lot of the research I did online before getting here said that he blew up at his actors all the time.

Which is why I was surprised when he suddenly unclenched his hands, clapped Claire on the shoulder, and laughed.

“Very funny,” he said. “Now come on. We need you on that stage tonight, ready to wow the audience. This is the show’s biggest night.”

Claire smiled up at him. “Well, when you put it that way … all right,” she said.

If Linden still looked like he was carrying about a
million pounds of tension between his shoulder blades, at least he hadn’t taken it out on Claire. Or me!

Linden had us run the scene again, this time with me playing the Nazi. Then we ran it again. Then again. And again. And againagainagainagainagainagainagain!

By the time Bess and George returned, I was on the verge of going crazy. How many times could they do the same ten minutes’ worth of dialog?

“How are you doing?” I asked, eager to hear someone say something other than “you traitor” or “cut!”

“Great!” said Bess, bouncing over to me. “Sorry, Mr. Linden—are we interrupting?”

But Linden just smiled. “We needed a break anyway,” he said. “Claire, Nancy, take five.”

Either the Internet was full of lies, or someone had taken an anger management class. Or both.

“Actually, we were wondering if we could take Nancy away for an hour or so?” said George, who was half hiding behind Bess. “We wanted to show her some of the other parts of the theater. You know … before opening night.”

I could tell from the way she said it that they had something specific in mind to show me. Their plan had been to go over the theater inch by inch, since Damien had given them a good idea of the layout on his tour yesterday. I wondered what they had found, and how Frank and Joe’s talk with Madonna was going.

“Ahhhh,” said Linden. “You’re—how do they say it in the movies? ‘Casing the joint.’”

George winced, but continued smiling. “Yup! Is that cool?”

“Certainly,” said Linden. “Claire and I could use some time to ourselves, anyway. You girls go.”

“You two will stay right here in this room, right?” As much as I wanted to get out of there and see whatever it was that Bess and George had found, I had to make sure Claire wasn’t going to run off alone. Claire nodded absentmindedly, focusing on the notes Linden had given from their last run through.

“Don’t worry, Nancy,” Linden said quietly. “I’ll have my eye on her the whole time.”

George and Bess practically pulled me out the door. After the quiet of the padded rehearsal room, the energy backstage on opening night was almost overwhelming. Everywhere I looked dancers were practicing, racks of costumes were flying, last-minute adjustments were being made, and people were running back and forth carrying props and binders. It was amazing to see how much tightly controlled chaos it took to make a Broadway show happen.

“So what’s up?” I asked. “Did you find something?”

“Not exactly,” said Bess. “I spent most of my time checking out the sound system. Did you know there’s a microphone that when you speak into it, everyone with
one of those,” Bess pointed to the tiny ear sets most of the crew were wearing, “will hear you all at once? They call it the ‘God mic.’”

That was cool, but not really worth pulling me away from Claire.

“Ignore her,” said George. “She just wants to get one of those for herself. Plus, she actually spent most of her time checking out Tim, the scenic designer who was showing her the mics.”