Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
The rehearsal was in progress when we moved quietly into the back of the theater.
There were cast members sitting sporadically in the first few rows while Professor Hale, Jay Loomis, who had once been Hale's TA, and my aunt sat together about ten rows back from the stage, with a table and microphones in front of them.
I felt an almost overwhelming rush of memories as I went back in time to my years as an actress.
There was a familiar smell to the theater and the sights and sounds of the actors rehearsing while the crew worked to enhance the position of the set pieces and the lighting.
It all made me feel a wistful pang of longing for a life I'd turned my back on a long time ago.
Morgan and I slipped into a row about three rows behind my aunt.
And my pang of envy grew stronger when Carrie Dunsmuir took center stage, her hair a beautiful blend of red and brown, her face amazing under the warm glow of the lights.
But she didn't sound as good as she looked.
She wasn't delivering her lines with conviction or passion. It felt…mechanical.
I wasn't completely surprised by my reaction.
She hadn't stood out to me at all in our college theater group.
And because she was two years younger than me, I'd brushed her off as not worthy of my competitive concerns.
But she was apparently good enough to get the lead role here, so maybe I was just missing something, or she was having a bad day.
When the scene ended, both Professor Hale and Jay Loomis had extensive notes about Carrie taking too many liberties with her lines and not emphasizing the right words.
Carrie seemed more disgusted than eager to learn and defended her choices as making the play better. As the conversation grew heated, Vivienne stepped in to calm everyone down and suggested they take ten. They'd talk about some of Carrie's concerns and come up with appropriate solutions.
Vivienne was kind but firm, and Carrie didn't seem inclined to argue. Apparently, she realized who the real boss was.
As the cast and crew took a break, Jay and the professor walked out of the theater while Vivienne moved to the side to talk to the lighting director. Carrie came down from the stage, and as she walked past Vivienne, I realized she was coming to talk to me.
I jumped to my feet, feeling an instinctive need to be at eye level, which was odd, since I hadn't cared much about her at all when we were in school. I certainly had never been intimidated by her. Back then, I was the one who had done the intimidating.
"It's true. You're back," Carrie said. "And already causing trouble in typical Tessa fashion."
"Nice performance," I said dryly, ignoring her comments.
She stiffened and said, "Today wasn't my best day. Jay's alterations to the script suck."
"If you say so."
"I was always better than you, Tessa. Look where I am now and look where you are. There's really no comparison. The ironic thing is that you were too busy hating on Paige to realize I was your real competition."
"You weren't my competition. You were my understudy, and you never took my place," I reminded her.
"Well, I find it very odd that you're suddenly investigating Paige's death when the only one who benefited from that tragic accident was you.
What's the deal, Tessa? What are you really trying to do?
Is this just clickbait drama for your podcast?
Because there are people who actually cared about Paige, who still grieve her death, and most of them know you didn't like her at all. "
I shouldn't have been surprised by her level of animosity, because I'd seen varying degrees of it in everyone I'd spoken to so far, and Carrie and Paige had been friends.
"You know what I find interesting?" I asked, deciding to go on offense instead of playing defense, because that was getting me nowhere.
"That people who cared about Paige are reacting so negatively to the idea of her death being reinvestigated, not only by me, but also by the police, which makes me wonder what they are so afraid of? "
Carrie's gaze wavered at my words, which had clearly struck a nerve, but she wasn't the type of person to back down. "No one is afraid. They just don't see the point of rehashing it all, when it was so painful the first time around."
"I don't think that's it. I believe someone knows something, and they're afraid I'll generate enough public interest to get the police reinvolved and the questions will start again, and maybe this time they'll be more pointed.
I think," I emphasized, "that I'm doing more to get justice for Paige than anyone else has ever done. "
She stared back at me, clearly unsettled by my words. "You really believe someone killed Paige?"
"Don't you?" I challenged.
"No. I think it was an accident, just like the police said it was. And you should leave it alone."
"Carrie," my aunt called. "We're ready to start again."
Carrie hesitated, looking like she wanted to have the last word but couldn't think of what that would be. Then she just walked away.
I let out a breath as she moved toward the stage, glancing toward Morgan, who gave me a sympathetic look.
"Are you okay?" Morgan asked in a hushed voice.
"Yes. I need a minute. I'll be back. I want to talk to the assistant director when this is done, but I need to catch my breath."
"I'll wait here."
I nodded, then headed up the aisle and through the double doors leading into the lobby. I was walking so fast I almost barreled into a man crossing the lobby.
"Sorry," I said, jumping back. As our gazes met, my pulse sped up once more. "Nate? Nate Gardiner?"
"Tessa Conway." He looked startled by my presence but not all that surprised. "I heard you were in town. How are you?"
"I'm good," I said, my gaze running across his face, noting that the past decade had actually made him a little more handsome than I remembered.
He had blond hair, hazel eyes, and a thin, narrow face.
He'd been a runner in college, carrying little weight on his frame, and he looked much the same now.
Nate had been Paige's boyfriend at the time of her death. He'd also been in the theater group on the crew side. Now, he was working for my aunt.
"Did you want to talk to me about Paige?" he asked.
"Yes. Do you have time?"
"Let's go into the ticket office." He moved me toward a door leading into the office.
The three windows that opened into the lobby were closed, so it was just the two of us in a rather small room, and I felt a little uneasy, but it wasn't like there weren't dozens of people within earshot, including Morgan.
"Have a seat." He pushed one of the three rolling stools in the office in my direction.
I sat down as he did the same.
"I heard you're trying to get the police to reopen the case," he said without any real emotion in his voice, no anger, no spite, which was somewhat surprising, since he had been one of the persons of interest by virtue of his relationship with Paige.
"Alina asked me to put Paige's case on my true crime podcast."
"She's always been unhappy about the fact that the police considered Paige's death an accident."
"What do you think?" I asked curiously.
He hesitated. "I'd rather believe she tumbled into the water than imagine someone killing her. That said, I don't understand why she would have been walking so late at night." He shook his head, then gave a helpless shrug. "I can't think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt her."
I was happy that my name wasn't coming out of his mouth as the best possible suspect. "I don't remember exactly when you last spoke to Paige," I said.
"It was Friday morning. We talked on the phone for about ten minutes before I drove to Lake Geneva for a weekend trip with my brother."
"And how was she during that conversation?"
"She was annoyed that I was going out of town, which, frankly, irritated me.
Because she was spending eighty percent of her life at the theater.
I wasn't the one who was always too busy to get together.
So why would she get pissed off when I finally had something fun to do?
It didn't seem right. I told her that on the phone, and she said she was sorry, that she was very stressed, and she really wanted to talk to me.
I said we'd talk when I got back on Sunday, and that was the last conversation we had.
It kills me that we were arguing for most of it, that I didn't tell her I cared about her, that she didn't say the same to me.
I've relived it a million times. It still hurts when I think about it.
You never know when your conversation with someone is going to be the last time. "
He seemed genuinely sad about everything he was telling me, and it didn't feel like he was trying to hide anything. But maybe this was a story he'd come up with nine years ago and had polished to perfection. I couldn't afford to take anything at face value.
"Let me ask you something, Tessa."
"Okay."
"Did you really think Paige slept with Professor Hale when you started that rumor?"
I sucked in a quick breath. "I never said she slept with him."
"You implied it. She was unhappy about that accusation. She said you were trying to make her look bad."
I thought about how I wanted to respond to that, then said, "I thought she and Hale were closer than they should have been.
I caught them whispering together a few times.
Maybe she was just flirting with him. It's not like she would have been the first or the last aspiring actress to do that.
" I paused. "Did she tell you anything about him? "