Murder for Choir (34 page)

I am sending this to you because you might understand what I have done. Last Wednesday, I decided Greg Lucas was finished pushing me around and arranged to meet him at the theater that night. I told him that I was going public. That I would tell everyone I’d written his famous song unless he paid me the money that was rightfully mine. Greg laughed in my face, and something inside me snapped. I grabbed the microphone off the stand, and I killed him. I never meant to do it or to let a student take the blame for it. You have to believe me.

Larry

The e-mail address of the sender read
[email protected]
. The same address Chessie gave me. I swallowed hard as blood pounded in my head.

“What do you think?” Felicia whispered behind me.

My legs barely held me upright as I stood and turned around. “We need to call the police.”

“Oh my God! You think this is real? Larry killed Greg.”

“Yes.” No. I had never been so certain or so scared. Blood pounded in my temples, and the back of my neck began to sweat. Larry hadn’t written this e-mail. Felicia had.

An icy streak of fear swirled through me as I smiled at Felicia. “Everything’s going to be okay. Let me call Detective Kaiser. He’ll know how to handle this.”

Felicia took a deep breath, gave me a shaky smile, and nodded. Thank God. I turned to grab my purse off the desk and felt the prick of something cold and sharp against the back of my neck.

“Give me the phone.” Felicia’s voice was no longer weak or whispery.

Oh shit! The metal jabbed deeper into my neck, and pain shot through my spine. Fear gripped my heart and squeezed hard.

“What are you doing, Felicia?” I asked trying to sound confused, though I wasn’t. All the pieces had been there waiting for me to put them together. And I had—too late.

Felicia laughed, deep and throaty. The room spun for a moment as I felt drops of blood ooze from where Felicia’s weapon bit into my neck. The sharp pain vanished, replaced
by the minor sting of the wound. I slowly turned. Felicia met my eyes, and she smiled as she stepped back. Scissors glinted in Felicia’s right hand.

I breathed a momentary sigh of relief, thinking I could outrun her and the scissors given half a chance. Then she reached into her sewing-smock pocket and pulled out a small silver gun. “You know what I’m doing, Paige. Give me your cell phone, please.”

I dragged my eyes away from the gun so I could look squarely at Felicia. “What do you mean?”

She pouted behind the raised weapon. “I was hoping when I brought you down here that you would believe the e-mail. But you didn’t.” She nodded toward my hand. “Your phone. I can’t have you calling anyone right now. You’ve caused enough trouble.”

My hand shook as I passed over my only lifeline to help. She took it and placed it on the table behind her with a satisfied nod.

Trying hard not to hyperventilate, I asked, “Why don’t you think I believe Larry killed Greg?” I couldn’t help asking. The professional performer in me was curious even as the rest of me shrank back in fear.

She shrugged. “Your left eyebrow twitched. You do that when you lie. I saw it the other day when I asked if you knew who the detective’s other suspects were.”

Detective Mike was right, and I was screwed. “So what now?”

“I have to kill you.” The regret in Felicia’s voice gave me a tinge of hope.

“Like you killed Greg?” I asked trying to quell the fear long enough to come up with a way out of this room alive.

“He wasn’t a good man. Greg used people and threw them away when he was done.”

“You had an affair with him.” Devlyn said Felicia had a thing for Greg. The photos in Larry’s office showed Greg leering at her. She must be the affair mentioned in Greg’s divorce.

Her eyes blazed. “It wasn’t just an affair. We were a team. Do you know how much I sacrificed for him? What I did to help his career? His wife never supported him. She never understood.”

“And you did.”

“Greg and I are both creative personalities. Dana couldn’t do the things I did for him.”

“What kind of things?” Felicia seemed to want to talk, and I was more than willing to let her. Hell, the longer she talked, the better chance I had of Devlyn coming to look for me. I’d left my dance bag in the choir room. He’d know I was still somewhere in the school. I hoped to God that would be enough for him to start up a search.

A small, sad smile crossed Felicia’s red painted lips. “Greg knew his choir didn’t have the talent to win solely on their own merit. So I helped.”

“By making ugly costumes for our team?”

She laughed. The combination of her laughter and the gun made my stomach heave. “I didn’t have to work hard on that one. Last year’s coach was clueless. Not like you. You understand what it takes to win.”

“Thanks.” I think.

“Greg understood winning, too.” Felicia leaned back against the table and sighed. “The judges get tired of the same team taking first year after year. They needed a reason to vote for his team. I helped him with that, too.” The sultry, knowing smile she gave me made me pretty sure verbal arguments hadn’t been part of her strategy.

“You must have loved Greg a lot to go to such lengths for him.” Larry’s
photos included shots of some of the judging panels. A couple of the men looked old enough to be Felicia’s grandfather.

“I did.” Her lower lip trembled. “The two of us were going to conquer the world together—him with his music, and me with my fashion designs. He said we’d go public with our relationship once the divorce was final and his money was secure.”

“What happened?” As if I couldn’t guess.

Her eyes narrowed. “He said we still had to be careful. He’d convinced the judge to give him control of the money he’d made with his music, but that could change if Dana appealed. We had to be patient. Greg promised when the time was right, he’d use his money to finance my first collection.”

“You mean he was going to use Larry’s money.”

She shrugged. “Larry didn’t know how to capitalize on his music. Greg saw an opportunity, and he took it.”

“Which is what he did with you, right? He knew you loved him, saw an opportunity to advance his career, and took it.”

“He loved me,” Felicia yelled as she stood up straight. The gun in her hand trembled as her face contorted with rage. Icy terror snaked through my chest. “He loved me, and then he pushed me away. I tried to get him to see reason, but he wouldn’t take my calls.”

“So you let the air out of his tires.”

“I knew he’d have to wait for a service truck, and I wanted to talk to him face-to-face.”

“But he didn’t want to talk to you?”

“He said I needed to move on. That he already had. He made a mistake,” she whispered. Her eyes glinted with hurt, anger, and a love-struck gleam that scared the shit out of me. I needed to get away from Felicia—now.

I edged closer to the desk and tucked my hand behind me, hoping Felicia wouldn’t notice. “You hit him with your car.”

She chuckled again. “Larry’s car. I told him mine was at the shop and I needed to run an errand during show choir practice. He handed over his keys without asking where I was going. Larry still trusts people even after everything.”

“But Larry figured it out.” Which was why he traded in his car for a new one.

“When he read the newspaper report, he came over to my place and asked if I was the driver. I told him how Greg dumped me. How I’d learned he’d been cheating on me the entire time we were together. When I saw him in the street looking so smug, I couldn’t help myself.” Her smile said differently. “Larry suggested I go away for the summer to get some distance. He said it would make me feel better. I thought it had.” She gnawed at her lip. For the first time she looked confused. Some of the red of her lipstick had smudged onto her teeth, making her look even scarier.

My hand brushed the edge of my purse, then found the opening. Wallet. Gum. Eye shadow. Checkbook.

Eureka!

My fingers closed around the can of Mace. At least, I hoped it was the can of Mace and not a tube of lipstick.

“So what happened when you came back?” I asked, easing the Mace toward my pocket.

“Greg found me the first day of camp. He told me how much he missed me. He wanted me back. This time we’d get married. I wanted to believe him.” Her eyes got a faraway look, and I slipped the Mace into my pocket while she was lost in a memory. “Wednesday, I waited for him in my car after camp ended. I figured I’d surprise him.”

“You saw him hitting on Chessie.” I took a step to the
right, and Felicia’s eyes narrowed. Her trigger finger twitched, sending goose bumps racing up my arms.

“I decided to give him one more chance. I called and asked him to meet me at the theater. He jumped at the opportunity. He thought I was going to let him help select the costumes for the choir. That I was going to do everything I did for him before. He even wanted me to talk him up to you. Greg said he was going to finesse you into helping his team.” I held my breath as Felicia glared at me. “When I told him I wouldn’t, he got angry. He told me how stupid I was to believe he was ever going to spend his money on my no-talent designs. That I was only good for one thing and even that wasn’t so great. And he laughed. The next thing I knew, he was bleeding as I wrapped the microphone cord tight around his neck.” Her eyes met mine. “I’m not sorry I killed him, but I’ll regret killing you. I tried to scare you, but you just wouldn’t go.”

Yikes. “People might believe that Larry killed Greg, but me? No one will believe that.” Raw desperation clawed at my throat, making me sound breathy and weak.

I fingered the Mace can in my pocket. There was the nozzle. I would only get one chance at this.

“They’ll believe what I want them to believe. Now, open that door, please.” Felicia pointed to the door next to me.

My left hand gripped the door handle while my right tightened on the Mace. I swung the door open and saw a set of stairs leading down.

A jab in my back told me to move.

One step.

Two steps.

Three.

The stairs were steep. Felicia’s heels clicked behind me
as she followed me down. Fear pressed against my chest. I was going to die.

Four.

Five.

I could see fabric at the bottom of the stairs.

Six.

It was a costume storage room. I heard a moan to my right as I stepped off the stairs.

Larry.

He was bound and gagged, but alive. Larry’s eyes widened as Felicia’s heels clicked against the final steps, and he let out a muffled yell. I pulled the Mace out of my pocket and said a prayer. Taking a deep breath, I turned and fired.

Felicia screamed and grabbed at her eyes. She lost her balance and fell backward. Her head hit the edge of a step, and suddenly there was a loud explosion.

Shit!

White heat seared through my left upper arm. My legs muscles trembled and threatened to collapse. My eyes blurred with tears as the world faded for a moment before coming back into full color. I had no time to think about the pain or the blood dripping onto the floor. A shrieking Felicia sat up and pulled the trigger again.

A fake fur coat to my right took a slug to the upper chest, and I sprayed my Mace again, hoping to keep Felicia shooting blind. The smell of the Mace had me gagging and backing away, trying my best not to inhale.

“You bitch!” she gasped as she struggled to her feet and fired again. A straw cowboy hat bit the dust two feet from where I was standing.

A piece of straw landed on my bleeding arm. Too close. I wasn’t sure how long the Mace would impair Felicia’s vision. If I wanted to live, I had to find a better weapon—fast.

I took a step to my left. Felicia swung in my direction and fired. The bullet dug into the wall just above my head. We were in the farthest, deepest part of the school. Worse yet, the entire theater wing had been soundproofed to prevent potential disturbances to other classes. To put it bluntly, I was screwed.

My heart slammed against my chest. Panic and pain swirled through me. Not sure what else to do, I reached behind me and grabbed a gaudy metal-and-rhinestone tiara off the shelf and threw it to my right.

Felicia fired at the sound. Hope slashed through the panic as I grabbed the next two things I could get my hands on—a British Bobby helmet and an ugly Pepto-Bismol pink handbag. I let the first one sail—right at Felicia. That one missed. It thudded behind her on the stairs. She turned around and fired, and I let the handbag fly.

Direct hit to the back of the head.

The gun went off again as Felicia spun wildly looking for me. I grabbed a Roman gladiator chest plate off the shelf and charged. I could see in Felicia’s face the minute she heard me move. The gun aimed as I raised the metal chest plate above my head and swung with everything I had.

The gun fired. The bullet struck somewhere to my left as the metal plate smashed down on Felicia’s head with a satisfying clang. “Oof.” Felicia collapsed to the ground. If this was a theatrical production, the curtain would come down and the audience would go wild. Instead, I grabbed a pair of fishnet stockings, tied up Felicia, checked that Larry was breathing, and went to call for help—hyperventilating and bleeding all the way.