Lights Out Tonight (23 page)

Meg was excited when Langley arrived in the dressing room. “I was watching on the monitor,” she said. “You were great, Langley.”

“Thanks, honey,” Langley said, rushing by Meg. “Help me change quickly, will you? I want to have some time to go over my lines for the next act.”

“You want me to run them with you?” Meg asked eagerly, knowing the copy of the script that Belinda had given her was still in her tote bag.

“Yeah, that would be perfect,” said Langley.

Meg helped Langley dress in the green velvet ball gown. She pulled bobby pins from her apron pocket to secure tendrils of hair that had fallen from Langley’s upsweep.

“Okay, we have about five minutes before I have to be back onstage,” said Langley. “Let’s go over that final scene. Let’s start with, ‘I know the scariest thing …’”

“All right,” said Meg. She pulled the script out of her bag, cleared her throat, and began. “I know the scariest thing is lying in bed with someone who has sold her soul to the devil.”

“No, Meg. You’ve got it mixed up. You’re reading my lines, Valerie’s lines. You’re supposed to be reading Davis’s.”

Meg closed her eyes, hating herself. She had to stop smoking that weed. The pot was making her dumber by the day.

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Meg had secured excellent cabaret tickets for her father and stepmother. Caroline and Nick arrived early, taking their seats at the reserved bistro table.

“This is nice,” said Caroline. “We’re right up front.”

“How about something to drink?” asked Nick.

“Just a ginger ale, please,” said Caroline. “I’ve already had enough wine for the night.”

“You got it,” said Nick.

Caroline watched her husband maneuver his way through the jumble of tables to the bar at the side of the room. She helped herself to a chocolate Kiss from the handful that had been sprinkled on their table. Then she leaned back and considered her surroundings.

She sat in what had once been a church, but all the pews had been removed and a stage stood where she supposed the altar had once been. The choir loft had been extended, forming a balcony that surrounded three sides of the room. From that elevated position, theatrical lights were trained on the stage. The room was very warm, despite the opened windows and the cool
night air outside, and the smell of beer and spilled wine permeated the atmosphere.

“Here you go, sweetheart.” Nick deposited her soft drink and his beer on the table as a man and woman sat at a table beside them.

“John Massey?” Nick said, leaning forward.

The man smiled, rose from his chair, and leaned over to shake hands. “Nick, my man, great to see you. This is Megan, my wife.”

Nick introduced Caroline. “I didn’t know you were a Warrenstown fan, John,” he said. “Do you come often?”

“We’ve been here a few times. It’s a nice break from L.A. You?”

“Yes, many times over the years, but this season my daughter is an apprentice. She’ll be in the cabaret tonight. She’s singing ‘Second Hand Rose.’”

“So the showbiz bug has bitten her, too,” said John. “Lord help her.”

The couples chuckled. “We just came from seeing
Devil in the Details,”
said Megan.

“We saw it last night,” said Caroline. “What did you think?”

John answered the question. “I think you were the lucky ones. That understudy was actually pretty good, but how can anyone hold a candle to Belinda Winthrop? What’s the story, anyway? Do you know where Belinda was tonight?”

Nick explained that no one had seen Belinda all day.

“That’s weird,” said John. “Nothing can happen to her. I’m
about to invest a nice piece of change in a movie version of
Devil in the Details.
Keith Fallows wants to direct.”

“I’ve been hearing rumors about that,” said Nick. “And who will star?”

“Belinda Winthrop, of course,” answered John. “At least, that’s the only way
I’ll
invest in the project. I doubt that, without Belinda playing the lead, anyone else will pony up, either.”

The audience clapped politely but with none of the exuberance they’d shown for some of the other cabaret acts. Caroline winced as she watched Meg walk offstage. She looked over at Nick. Disappointment was clearly registered on his face.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.

Caroline bit her lower lip, not knowing how to respond, either. Meg simply hadn’t measured up to the other, incredibly talented kids who had performed this evening. But it didn’t make sense. In her college musical this past spring, Meg had been fabulous.

“This wasn’t a true measure of her talent, Nick,” Caroline finally responded. “Everybody has an off night once in a while.”

They waited for Meg in the church vestibule. As the audience filed out of the building, the Masseys stopped to compliment Meg’s performance politely.

“That’s very kind of you,” said Nick quietly. There was an awkward lull, and the couple said good-bye and moved on.

The church was nearly empty when Meg finally walked over. “What did you think?” she asked.

“I think you’re capable of much better, Meg,” said her father. “Honestly, I was very disappointed.”

“Nick,” said Caroline, reaching for his arm to stop him.

“No, Caroline. It’s the truth, and Meg should hear it. If she has any real desire to work in this business, she is going to have to give a lot more than she gave tonight. Look at those other kids, will you? They were dripping with talent and energy. Meg, you were sleepwalking out there. What was the matter with you?”

Meg’s gaze shifted from her father to Caroline. As the two women’s eyes met, Caroline knew they both recognized this would be the perfect moment for her to reveal that her stepdaughter was smoking dope. Still, Caroline held off.

“Even the biggest stars have given performances they wish they could take back,” she said. “All you can do is learn from this, Meg, and figure out what you should be doing differently.” Caroline looked directly at her. “Do you know what I mean, Meg?”

“Yes,” said Meg. “I get it, Caroline. I promise, I do.”

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Well after the last patron left and the theater cleared out for the night, the killer went to the bulletin board and pulled down the sign-up sheet. As expected, it looked like almost every apprentice had signed up to meet with the New York agent.

The killer perused the list, finding the Brightlights e-mail address, with the name, telephone number, and place where the young woman who had gotten Amy’s last photo message slept at night.

Across the road from the dormitory, the killer waited. The parade of students coming back to get some sleep, some of them stopping to smoke cigarettes and talk on the lawn, slowly dwindled until there was complete stillness outside the redbrick building. Each of the kids had paused at the door, using a key to get inside.

Trying to sneak in behind one of the students had been an option, but there would still be the problem of Meg’s room being locked. And there was the even larger issue of having to deal with Meg herself. She wasn’t exactly going to welcome someone into her room and hand over her computer.

Crossing the street, the killer approached the dormitory.

Meg typed her journal entry knowing she would edit the material before she turned it in to her college theater department to get credit for her experience at Warrenstown. It wouldn’t go over well if her professor read about everything that had happened today. Yet Meg wanted to write about it as a catharsis.

Her father’s words after the cabaret had shaken her, as had her pathetic, stoned performance onstage. She was embarrassed, too, by the ways she had scrambled her lines with Langley, using the script Belinda had given her. But, surprisingly, Meg found herself feeling the worst about the fact that her stepmother, in spite of the resentfulness Meg made no effort to hide, had turned out to be a friend. Caroline could have told her father about the pot, but she hadn’t.

What had begun as occasional recreational drug use was becoming more and more frequent. When she felt sad about losing her mother, when she felt angry at her father’s remarriage, when she felt anxious about her performances or threatened by her competition—just about any situation where an emotion
was involved was triggering the urge to get stoned. She wasn’t giving in to every urge, but she was smoking enough that now she was worried. Of course, worrying made her want to light up a joint as well.

Meg entered all her observations and feelings in her electronic journal, including her oath to stop smoking marijuana. Somehow, seeing it in black and white made it more real. Like a contract with herself or something. When she finished, Meg closed the laptop, turned off the light, and went to bed.

There it was. The small metal box was attached to the wall beside the front door, the small metal box that would make entry to the dorm possible.

The killer pulled the lever and stepped back as the fire alarm pierced the air.