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  “We got her,” Jack said simply.

  “You got her? Her?” Harry repeated, cut off in mid-rant.

  “We got her,” Jack said, taking the gun lightly from Harry’s hand. “Charley shot her.” I couldn’t tell if it was pride or amusement in his voice.

  “Oh my God!” Brenda rushed towards me. “Charley, are you all right? Sit down. Are you hurt?”

  I sat on the couch and winced a little as I took off the scarf. “It’s just a little—”

  “If I may?” Gordon said from the doorway.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” Harry demanded.

  “I thought this might prove useful.” He held up a first aid kit and made his way over to me. His fingers were surprisingly gentle as he explored the wound. “I don’t suppose there’s a very high likelihood of you agreeing to go to the hospital for stitches?”

  “After the show?” I negotiated.

  He muttered a few phrases that ended with “as bad as Jack,” and started taking things out of the first aid kit.

  He had just dabbed on something that stung like hell when I heard a strangled cry from the doorway. Flank staggered in and threw himself to the floor at my feet. The only phrase I could isolate in his half-sobbed monologue was “forgive me.”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to forgive,” I told him, looking to Jack for a little assistance. “It was all my own fault for wandering off without you.”

  “Right,” Jack said, pulling the man to his feet. “And I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t managed to get Yahata here and put everyone in position the way you did.”

  There was a huge sniff, and Flank wiped his face with his sleeve. Or the hair on his wrist. Then, with as much dignity as a damp grizzly wearing Armani can muster, he said, quite clearly, “I’ll never let you down again,” and left.

  “That’s a damn fine man,” Harry commented.

  “Everybody out,” I said. “Go watch the play.”

  ***

  Ethel Merman would have been proud of us. From what I was told, it was one hell of a performance. Still in the office, Jack and Gordon and I started hearing the audience’s laughter soon after the curtain went up. Gordon made tsk-ing sounds and applied butterfly bandages to my scalp. Then he ordered me to go wash up in the ladies’ room down the hall.

  When I got back Mike had joined them, holding a fist full of wires and electronic-looking things. “Are those the cameras?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Isn’t that tampering with evidence or something?”

  Mike looked uncomfortable.

  “They’re not exactly over-the-counter equipment,” Jack said. “It’s best if they’re not traced.”

  Right. I sat on the desk and took the Tylenol that Gordon handed me. Then I took a deep breath and looked Jack in the eye. “You knew.”

  Gordon and Mike exchanged looks and backed away.

  Jack faced me. “I knew.”

  “For how long?”

  “Since yesterday, when we were able to trace the owner of the bank account where Rix sent the money we gave him.”

  “Rix—that’s why she was so shocked when I told her we knew she’d bought his debts.”

  “Right. She must have figured there was a chance we’d found out about her, so she had to speed things up a little.”

  I swallowed. “Why didn’t you just tell Yahata and have her arrested?”

  “There wasn’t enough evidence. There wasn’t anything to tie her directly to any of the crimes. Once we found her little hideout in the costume shop we could have—”

  “You knew about that too?” I stared at him. Then I flashed back to how Jack had rescued us. “You had a knife hidden in the sofa, didn’t you?”

  Mike spoke up. “We had weapons hidden all over the place. And microphones and cameras. See, we figured whatever she was planning would happen on opening night. We just had to wait and watch her and, um, catch her in the act.” He’d started his speech all proud of himself, but by the end he’d melted slightly from the look I gave him.

  I turned back to my husband. “And you didn’t think it might be a good idea to tell me any of this? That my stage manager was the psycho killer who’d been stalking us?”

  “I thought you’d be safer if you didn’t know.” I noted this was not phrased as an apology.

  “Right. We can see how well that worked out.”

  Jack grinned. “I have to tell you, Pumpkin, when Flank told me where you were tonight I could have killed you myself.” He shook his head. “How did you figure out it was Lisa?”

  “I’m brilliant, remember?”

  He put his hands around my waist and slid me off the desk. “I’ll never forget that again.”

  Things got a little fuzzy after that, but at some point, I suppose, Mike and Gordon left us alone.

  ***

  At intermission Brenda and Eileen came upstairs and sent Jack away to meet Harry at the lobby bar.

  “Where’s your dress?” Eileen took charge. “You’ve got to be ready for curtain calls. You’re going to say something, aren’t you?”

  I’d prepared a few words to say in memory of Nancy Tyler after the performance. I suppose that was when Lisa had planned to blow me up. “I have to do it, don’t I?”

  “If you’re not up to it…” Brenda began.

  “Of course she’s up to it,” Eileen snapped. “What kind of makeup do you have with you? What can we do with her hair?”

  It took their best efforts, but my friends got me dressed and presentable in time for the curtain calls. The cast was flushed with victory. Chip was practically dancing with glee. He grabbed me in a ferocious hug. “Charley, it was great! Everybody was great! You should have seen Victor! And Regan…she was…I just can’t…” and then it was our turn to join the cast onstage.

  I paid my tribute to Nancy. Part of me wanted to announce from the stage that she hadn’t killed herself, and that her killer was now on her way to justice, but I decided Inspector Yahata should have the privilege of telling the family the news. So I stuck to my script, and got embarrassingly choked up as I ended my words with the hope that everyone would remember Nancy’s name. Regan gave the playwright’s sister, seated in the front row, a bouquet of roses. It was very moving. I couldn’t wait for it all to be over.

  I don’t recommend walking across a stage in three-inch heels after you’ve had the kind of day I had.

  ***

  There was one last surprise waiting in the wings.

  “Inspector Yahata.” I doubted he’d come back to the theater to congratulate me on a great show.

  “Mrs. Fairfax.”

  Jack joined us. “Inspector. What can we do for you?”

  Yahata, always so careful with his words, seemed to be at a loss for them. “I have to tell you—I’m sorry to say—”

  “What’s happened?” Jack asked. I began scanning the crowd for everyone I loved, a hundred horrible fears about what might have happened to one of them all popping into my mind at once.

  “It’s the woman.” Yahata seemed to pull himself into focus. “Lisa.”

  I snapped my head around. “What did she do?”

  “She escaped,” he said. “She knocked the paramedic unconscious and jumped out the back door of the ambulance.”

  “Where is she? Did you catch her? What—” But something in the inspector’s face stopped my questions cold.

  “She jumped from the speeding ambulance, managed to run a few steps, and was hit by an oncoming truck. She was killed instantly.”

  Killed. Instantly. The noise of the crowd rose around us, people laughing and congratulating each other. “When did it happen?”

  “Only a few moments ago.”

  During curtain calls. Despite everything, she’d managed to kill herself right on schedule.

  Chapter 31

  When I got to the theater the next morning I found Chip and Martha in conversation onstage. I was just about to join them when we h
eard a shriek and a loud crash from somewhere upstairs.

  Chip looked at me in alarm. “Simon’s in the office.”

  We ran up the stairs and came clamoring down the hall to find Simon red-faced and gasping over a broken lamp. He stared at us wildly.

  I looked around for a snake or tarantula that Lisa might have left as a parting gift, or at the very least another bomb, but couldn’t see any immediate danger.

  “Simon? Sweetie? What’s wrong?”

  He grabbed a piece of paper from the wreckage. “That bloody blond bitch!”

  Regan. A completely different kind of snake.

  “What did she do?”

  “She’s gone.” Simon gave the paper a vicious twist, then began tearing it into pieces. “She left us a note!” He thrust the crumpled mess at me.

  I picked out a piece at random.

  but I know you won’t be angry with me when I tell you my fantastic news. A casting director saw my performance last night and made me an offer to be in a movie with

  “Oh, hell.”

  “What is it?” Chip asked. “Has she been kidnapped?”

  “I wish,” Simon said. “She’s dumped us.” He kicked the desk, yelped in pain, and slumped into the battered sofa.

  “I’m not surprised,” Martha announced. “She’s a user. She used that guy—Rix—to get here, and then she dumped him when he lost all his money. And she used us to get into the movies. Of course she dumped us.”

  I knew this wasn’t Regan’s first time in the movies—just her first time with her clothes on. But I didn’t think I’d accomplish anything by sharing her sordid past. Besides, something else had caught my interest. “Regan dumped Rix?”

  Martha looked surprised. “I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew. She went on and on about how he lost all his money gambling and what a loser he was.”

  “When was this?”

  “A couple of weeks into rehearsals. But then something happened and she took him back.”

  Something had happened, all right. Lisa had bought all Rix’ debts. She must have learned about his gambling losses the same way Martha had.

  “She broke up with him again the night of the preview,” Chip said.

  “How do you know?”

  He blushed slightly. “Because I saw her making out with Paul at intermission, and so did Rix. He rushed Paul, but Paul decked him. Then Regan told him she never wanted to see him again, and he left.”

  All the best drama happens offstage.

  “I didn’t know Regan and Paul were an item.” Martha sounded disappointed.

  “I did,” Simon said hollowly. “I read it in her note.”

  “Simon, you’re not saying…”

  “Yes, darling. Our leading man is gone too.”

  ***

  A few days later Brenda moved back into her house. I went with her to help clean it up after being abandoned for almost two months. Well, I went with her to keep her company while she cleaned. But Harry had gotten there before us. He’d sent a maid service over the day before to make sure the place sparkled and to put fresh flowers in every room.

  “He’s even had someone take care of the garden,” she said, looking out at her tiny backyard.

  “Brenda,” I began, but didn’t quite know how to go on. “Are you sure you want to move back here?”

  She turned from the window. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

  I was profoundly uncomfortable. But she was my best friend. “It’s just that you seemed like you were pretty happy at Harry’s.” I took the plunge. “Pretty happy with Harry.”

  She crossed the room and hugged me. “Oh, Charley. Thank you for that. He’s a good man, you know. Deep down.”

  I resisted the impulse to say “way deep,” but I’m pretty sure she knew me well enough to feel it.

  “So…?” I asked.

  She rearranged one of the bouquets he’d sent. “He knows where I am.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “I am.” She put her hands on her hips and looked around. “Now where do you suppose my Birkenstocks are?”

  ***

  The play was up and running, featuring hastily rehearsed stand-ins for our two leads, and I had a few weeks before casting for the next show would begin. I made a huge to-do list, including everything from joining a gym to finding a house. But I’ve never really been a to-do list sort of person. And I was starting to think the whole house-hunting thing should probably be postponed until after the season. It was just such a gigantic effort.

  Jack was keeping busy with Mike, helping him work on the business plan for his new company—for real this time. They named it MJE, for Mike and Jack Encryption. I could only hope what they lacked in creativity they’d make up for in computer and business skills.

  He’d been gone a lot, so I was surprised to come back from a particularly enjoyable girl-type lunch with Brenda and Eileen and hear the sound of the shower. I went into the bedroom and found a large, beautifully wrapped gift on the bed. I arranged myself next to it and waited for Jack.

  He emerged from the bathroom dripping, with a towel riding loosely on his hips. It was a sight I’d never get tired of.

  “Why don’t we go away?” I greeted him. “On a sort of honeymoon? The traditional kind without people trying to kill us? Someplace where you can be naked and wet all the time?”

  He grinned. “I can be naked and wet here, see?” The towel dropped.

  “Very nice. And is this for me too?” I nudged the box with my toe.

  “Open it.”

  I pulled the paper off and was baffled to find a state-of-the-art six-cup French press coffee maker. “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s for when we get a house.”

  “Oh.” Warning lights flashed the words Dangerous Topic in my mind. “Great. Now why don’t I go get naked and wet, and then we can—where are you going?”

  Into the closet, obviously. Leaving me quite alone with my wet and naked thoughts. “To get dressed,” he called. “We have to be ready in an hour.”

  “Ready? For what?”

  He popped his head out. “You’ll see.”

  “I’ve had quite enough mystery from you lately,” I called after him. “I expect you to be completely forthcoming with me from now on.”

  He came out wearing black slacks and a bare chest. He looked directly at the spot where I’d dripped Bolognaise sauce on my white linen blouse at lunch. “You might want to change.”

  I looked down. “Brenda said I’d gotten it all out at the restaurant.”

  Jack sat on the bed next to me. “Brenda’s sweet,” he said, cir cling the remains of the stain with his finger. “But you can’t believe a word she says.”

  “Unlike you,” I answered.

  He gave me a look of unadulterated innocence. “Have I ever lied to you?”

  “Would I ever know?”

  “Excellent point.”

  “You know,” I said, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Why does that make me nervous?”

  I ignored him. “I’ve been thinking about Nancy and Cece and Eileen, and how they all met these fabulous men and had these whirlwind romances, and how these men all turned out to be complete fakes, and—”

  “Are you going somewhere with this?”

  “I am.”

  “Okay.” He left his exploration of the stain and began concentrating on a spot behind my left ear. It’s possible there was spaghetti sauce back there too, but I doubted it.

  “I’m just trying to say that I’m glad you’re not a fake. Even if you are more full of shit than any man I’ve ever known.”

  He pulled away to give me a pleased smile. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

  “Jack,” I said softly, hoping he was too preoccupied with the buttons of my blouse to pay attention to what I was saying. “How much about everything did you tell Inspector Yahata?”

  Jack’s ministrations ceased. He eased himself away to lie on his back. “
How much do you think?”

  I’d thought about it a lot. About why the inspector, who had been suspicious of Jack at first, had suddenly seemed to trust him for some reason. And why he’d let us off the hook so easily on more than one occasion. And who might have been on the other end of the phone call that he’d taken in the costume shop that night. “In my experience,” I told Jack, “when the police suddenly start looking the other way it generally has something to do with my uncle.”

  Jack appeared to be thinking it over. “Harry is very influential in this town.”

  “Mmmm.” I scooted closer to him and joined him in his perusal of the ceiling fixtures. “But.”

  “But?”

  “But…” I waited.

  Jack cleared his throat. “I suppose it’s possible Harry wasn’t the only one watching our backs.”

  “I thought not.”

  “It’s possible I still have a few friends who have a few friends…”

  “In high places?” I asked.

  “In a variety of places,” he said dryly.

  “Jack, there’s something else.”

  “I’m shocked.”

  I looked over at him. “I’ve been wondering where you got the half a million you gave Rix.”

  “Have you?” He frowned. “It was pretty much my life savings, plus Mike’s and Gordon’s.”

  “Jack.” I was horrified. “You have to let me pay it back—”

  “That’s very sweet of you, Pumpkin, but not necessary. Mike was able to get it.”

  “Mike?”

  “Remember how he traced it to Lisa’s offshore account?”

  I sat up. “He took it out? How?”

  Jack grinned. “Sometimes it’s best not to ask Mike how he does things with computers. The point is we all got our investments back, and there was some left over.”

  “How much?”

  “Enough for Gordon to open a restaurant.” Jack rolled over on his side to look at me. “I don’t know what Harry’s going to do without him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Enough for Mike not to worry about finding investors for MJE for a couple of years.”