She knew the voice. A woman’s voice. She hadn’t even begun to suspect that it could have been this woman!
Who was not alone.
Just how many people were involved?
Suddenly, the mannequins were shoved at her. They all seemed to be coming at her, their faces grotesque in the shadows.
Painted faces, wooden faces, laughing faces and the leering eyes of a Dracula...
She tried to remain steady, but tripped and fell. One of the arms struck hers, and the Glock fell with her in the chaos. She hit the floor.
And something soft.
A body.
Kelsey.
She managed to keep quiet.
“Have you found your friend yet, Jane? Such a conspiracy! And so easy to figure out. I mean, Sloan was friends with Logan. They sent you in, and then Kelsey and Logan showed up. So easy when lawmakers get involved. Just like before!”
Jane felt for Kelsey’s pulse. She was still breathing. In the darkness, Jane patted her holster. They’d taken Kelsey’s gun.
She realized they’d never been alone in the theater.
“We’re going to get you, Agent Everett! Oh, don’t go thinking it’s like the play—that the good guy’s going to save you. We’ve been waiting for him, and in a few minutes, well...the gang will all be here! And the gang will all be dead!”
Sloan let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He raced to the stage and was startled to run into Cy Tyburn, who seemed to be practicing a monologue.
“Cy! Where is everyone? Has the ambulance come? What the hell is going on?”
“Damned if I know! Everyone’s supposed to be in here. What did you say? Who needs an ambulance?”
“Brian. Brian Highsmith,” Sloan said. He started to go backstage. As he did so he heard the familiar click of a gun.
He spun around. Cy had a Colt aimed at him. “Yes, go on back.”
“You are not going to shoot me, Cy.”
“Oh, yes, I am. But...play your cards right, and you can hope for escape in the next few minutes.”
“What?”
Sloan moved toward Cy, itching to reach for his own weapon.
Cy shot the stage floor in front of him—barely missing his foot.
“Turn around and walk. We’re going down to the basement.”
“This place’ll be crawling with cops in about two minutes,” he said.
“I don’t think so.” Cy indicated the aisle along the side of the seats.
Someone was coming—and he knew who it was. Betty. His trusted deputy. Sweet, older, gray-haired.
And lethal.
“No, I just talked to Scotty and I called Newsome,” Betty said. “On your behalf, of course. I assured him that no ambulances were needed. You’re here, and everything is under control.”
“Kelsey called for the ambulance. Not me. A federal agent,” Sloan said.
“And you know how those feds are, always trying to take control. No, I assured him that I’m all right. We’ve got Brian Highsmith again...and it’s all good.”
“Until they find us all dead, of course?” Sloan asked.
“You’ve figured out the old story—you and your so-called artist. So, figure this out. When we’re done, it’ll look like you—the sheriff—and Agent Jane Everett got together and plotted to take the gold for yourselves. You were going to shoot Brian and me and the others, but we’re not idiots. We shot you first.”
“Seriously? Who the hell is going to believe that?”
“We have our story down pretty well,” Betty told him. “So, do you want to die alone or see your pretty agent one more time before you go?”
“Well, of course I’d like to say goodbye,” Sloan said. “And if we’re going to die, I think I’d like to hear how this all started. Brian wasn’t involved, was he? Cy, you were the one who put live bullets in the gun, but when Jane did her little charade in the street, you really had no choice but to go along with it. But why start this whole thing? Why kill people over gold when you didn’t even have it?”
“Caleb Hough found some of it. Didn’t you know? He had it—and he was acting like a big shot. He called in that enforcer of his to keep the rest of us in line. Can you believe that? Caleb knew Jay Berman and probably thought we’d all be afraid of him, that we’d keep our mouths shut and obey his every edict. But I think Caleb felt that his own enforcer got greedy—and that’s why he shot Jay Berman out in the desert. Then, well—”
“Shut up, Cy. Quit being such a dramatist!” Betty snapped. “Get him downstairs.”
“Not fair. Not fair if I don’t know the whole story. So, let me see—Caleb was holding out on you. That’s why he wound up dead?” Sloan asked.
“Get him moving!” Betty shouted.
“I’m moving, I’m moving.” Sloan turned, hands held high, and started walking toward the front of the room as Betty indicated. She had her gun trained on him.
“Go on. Go on!” Betty urged, nudging him with the muzzle.
“To the basement?”
“You got it, smart boy!”
He walked slowly. Betty might have stopped the county people from coming, but not Logan. Still, he didn’t want Logan taken by surprise—as he’d been.
He didn’t waste a lot of time cursing himself; he’d made a mistake. Now he had to fix it.
“Why were you out at the mines?” he asked.
“That bastard, Hough!” Cy said. “He had us all convinced the gold was in the mines. But it wasn’t. And he admitted it.”
“So, if you knew where it was, why didn’t you just get it and take off?” Sloan asked. “And, by the way, where is it?”
Silence was his answer.
He chuckled softly. “You still don’t know, do you? Let’s see, Caleb showed you a sample because he was going to need help getting it. He needed a cop on his side, so he got you, Betty. And then he created a little gang of thieves, but you were so afraid of being double-crossed that you did him in. Of course, he was trying to double-cross you, wasn’t he? He actually cared for his son, so that probably got in his way, didn’t it? And let’s see—one of you was supposed to torture the truth out of him, but you lost it. Or else he fought back and you had to kill him.”
“Get down those steps!” Betty yelled.
“Cy,” Sloan said. “Why you? Ah...you don’t really have what it takes. But you were dissatisfied and Caleb saw that in you. Betty, you, too. You hated playing second fiddle.”
“Shut up!” Betty shouted. “You think you’re so smart. You think you’re right about everything.”
“I’m sure I am right. You needed a cop for protection, and you needed the actors because...well, because, of course, you searched the mine shaft—no luck—and realized the theater was the most likely place. The gold—”
“Get down the stairs!”
“I’m going. I’m going!”
“Watch it!” someone called from below.
Jane was down there, just as they’d said. But she wasn’t alone.
“She’s in with the mannequins,” the voice said.
Damn! He’d never suspected.
“Heidi,” he called. “You weren’t making enough on the trail rides, huh? But working the trail rides, you were able to set up Jay Berman’s body with the corpse of poor Red Marston pointing at it. Caleb didn’t leave the body there. You dug it up and put it there so Caleb would know you weren’t just a bunch of country hicks. You left Red pointing at him to scare Caleb, but then you killed Caleb, anyway. This is really pathetic—because you still don’t know where the gold is.”
Sloan reached the bottom of the stairs. He tried to judge their firepower. They hadn’t taken his gun, and he’d seen to it that Betty’s was worthless; that was what his sleight of hand had been about. But Heidi and Cy were armed—and he didn’t know who else might be in the basement with them.
“She can find it. She knows where it is,” Heidi said. “Sloan, come on over here.”
He walked around the fallen wig stand. The basement floor looked gruesome—with the wigs and heads everywhere, it seemed to be a floor full of decapitations.
He was about four feet from the first of the mannequins in the third room. He judged his chances.
“Agent Everett!” Heidi called out. “I’m going to suggest you show yourself. You might live if you tell us where the gold is. Oh—and let’s see. I’ll start by shooting Sloan in the foot, then the calf—maybe a shoulder. Don’t want to hit an artery until you come out.”
And she would come out, he was afraid.
They were too confident. Heidi wasn’t even looking at him. Cy was by the stairs, peering into the mannequin room. Sloan saw that Betty had her gun on him.
He reached for her in a swift movement.
She fired.
Nothing happened; he’d emptied her gun.
He pulled her in front of him and pushed her toward Heidi just as Heidi fired. Heidi’s bullet hit Betty, who screamed and choked.
“Shit, Heidi, you killed Betty!” Cy cried. “She was our cop. We needed a cop!”
“Shut up, Cy!” Heidi fired again.
She missed Sloan.
He’d plowed into the mannequins.
They seemed to embrace him. They were everywhere.
“Mike, get out here!” Heidi shouted. “Get the hell out here and we’ll just shoot until we get them all.”
Mike! Mike Addison made up the last of their little club—or so he hoped.
He heard a scrambling near him; he could have fired. But he didn’t know if it was Jane or Mike.
He tackled the moving creature.
A clown went down before him. Mike Addison as a clown. Maybe it was fitting.
Mike had a gun. They struggled for it; it went off, but then flew across the floor and disappeared in the pile of mannequins.
When he ripped off the clown face, Mike stared up at him furiously.
