The Red Slippers Read online

  “Yeah,” George said. “I’ll type it all up, and that way we can move the clues around to try to see them differently.”

  “Good idea!” I said.

  George left to get her laptop from her bag backstage, then came back to sit next to us.

  “Ready,” she said, her hands poised over the keys.

  “Okay,” I began. “Let’s go in the order we discovered the clues, so we don’t forget anything.”

  “All right,” Bess said. “Yesterday someone tampered with Maggie’s phone to make her late for rehearsal.”

  “Right. Then a little after that we discovered that someone had vandalized the poster for the show, so that Maggie’s picture was destroyed,” I said.

  “But,” George put in, “given the timing of printing posters, that probably happened before the phone was tampered with. Should I put that above the phone on our timeline?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s a good idea.”

  “So, next—” Bess started, but she was interrupted by Jamison’s voice echoing throughout the theater.

  “You!” he boomed. “Corps de ballet! Get onstage.” I froze as I waited for whoever he was yelling at to respond, but no one moved. “Hello! Corps de ballet! We are waiting.” I looked around the theater as a horrifying realization dawned on me. No one else from Miss Taylor’s class had returned from the fire drill. Jamison must have fully closed the rehearsal. It was just me.

  Jamison marched up the aisle toward me. My mouth went dry and my hands started shaking as adrenaline surged through my body. This was it. He was going to blow my cover and kick me out, and I still didn’t know who was after Maggie.

  “Hello!?” he repeated. “Do I have a deaf dancer in my company that I didn’t know about?”

  He stared at me, awaiting my response. I looked up blankly. Did he actually believe that I was a member of this tour? Next to me Bess squeezed my hand. I took a deep breath. There was no way out. I was just going to have to muddle through the best I could.

  “Sorry, sir,” I said, pleasantly surprised by how confident my voice sounded. I had been sure it would come out a barely audible squeak. “I—”

  “I don’t want to hear any excuses. Get on the stage now,” he roared. “You are holding up my rehearsal!”

  I gave one last look at George and Bess, who nodded encouragingly, and scurried onto the stage. All the other corps de ballet members stared at me. I could hear whispers among the crowd. They, at least, realized I didn’t belong.

  It would be only a matter of moments before the whole jig was up. The music started and the rest of the corps de ballet glided out to their positions.

  “Stop!” Jamison said. He looked right at me. “If you’re so sure you don’t need to rehearse that you can spend time gabbing, let’s see you dance . . . alone. Everyone, clear the stage, please.” The other corps de ballet members shuffled off to the wings, leaving me alone on the stage. I knew I was imagining it, but it felt like there was a giant spotlight directly on me.

  “Sebastian!” Jamison barked. “Begin.” He turned back to me. “All right, missy, let’s see what you can do.”

  Sebastian started to play. I stepped into the center of the stage as I had seen the other members do earlier.

  All of a sudden, there was a loud creaking noise above me. It sounded like something heavy was giving way. I looked up to see a giant tree, a prop and an essential element of the enchanted forest set, swaying ominously directly above me.

  There was another cracking noise, this time louder than the last, and one side of the tree dropped dramatically, as if the cable holding it had snapped.

  Acting purely out of instinct, I leaped out of the way, covering my head with my arms, just as another crack echoed through the theater, and the tree came crashing down onto the stage.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A Shift in Perspective

  I KEPT MY HANDS OVER my head and my eyes shut until the crashing stopped. I could hear people screaming all around me.

  “What on earth?” Jamison yelled. “What else can possibly go wrong?”

  I was wondering the same thing as I quickly took stock of my body. I ached from hitting the stage as hard as I did, and a sharp, piercing pain was shooting through my right foot.

  Slowly I opened my eyes. A dozen members of the corps de ballet, all in matching tutus, hovered over me. I felt like I was inside a kaleidoscope; I started to wonder if I had hit my head, too.

  Before I could do anything, I felt an arm wrapping around my shoulder. I turned my head and saw a small but strong-looking woman next to me; her entire presence exuded calm. I immediately felt safe.

  “I’m Linda, the medical trainer with the theater. Does anything hurt?”

  “My foot . . . ,” I started, reaching down to grab it. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain felt even more acute. “A piece of the set hit it. I think it might be broken,” I said.

  “Let’s get you back to my office and we can take a look.” She helped me up as I balanced on my good leg. “Can you put any weight on it?” Linda asked.

  Gingerly, I tried to take a step, but the pain intensified and shot up my leg all the way to my knee. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I tried to stay calm, but I was already imagining trying to navigate around River Heights on crutches in the snow. Ned and I were supposed to go on a ski trip for Valentine’s Day. Now who knew if I would be able to go?

  Linda helped me down the hall to her office. I knew George and Bess would be following as soon as they could. Behind me, I heard Jamison bellowing at his dancers, telling them rehearsal was over and to go back to the hotel to rest before the show.

  Inside her office, Linda helped me up onto the exam table. Before she could get started, Bess, George, and Maggie burst in. I was grateful to see them.

  “Nancy! Are you okay?” Bess asked frantically.

  “Are you hurt?” George added.

  “We’re about to find out,” I said.

  Linda gently removed my shoe. “Well, I see a nasty bruise already. Can you flex your foot forward?” she asked, supporting my ankle in her hand.

  Wincing, I rotated my foot forward. “It hurts, but I can do it,” I said.

  “That a good sign,” Linda said. “How about back?”

  I flexed it back and gave her small nod.

  “Good. Now tell me where it hurts,” she said. Carefully she worked her way up my foot, starting with my toes, softly applying pressure.

  “There!” I yelped, instinctively yanking my foot out of her hand.

  “Okay,” Linda says. “I don’t think it’s broken. Probably very badly bruised. I’m going to get you some ice. You need to take it easy, use crutches for a few days, and take aspirin as needed for the pain.” She headed toward the door to get the ice but stopped before leaving, turning back to face me. “You’re a very lucky girl,” she said. “This could have been much, much worse.”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding, so relieved that my foot wasn’t broken.

  “She’s right,” Bess said. “You are extremely lucky. If you hadn’t gotten out of the way in time, that tree could have come down right on your head. Who knows what might have happened to you?”

  “Yeah. I wish you could have seen yourself diving out of the way,” George said. “You were like an action star. If I hadn’t been so terrified, I would have recorded it. That dive was epic.”

  “That was pure luck,” I said. “I wasn’t even thinking! I just heard the cracking sound and my legs moved.”

  “Nancy, I’m so sorry,” Maggie said. “If you hadn’t been here helping me . . .”

  I looked up at her. “This isn’t your fault,” I said. “I wanted to help you. There are risks involved in every case.”

  “You should go back to the hotel and rest,” Bess said to Maggie.

  Maggie looked torn. “I want to stay.”

  “You need to be ready for tonight. Bess and George
are here. It’ll be fine,” I said.

  Maggie hesitated. “I wouldn’t feel right.”

  “Look, this isn’t the first time I’ve been hurt on a case,” I said, “and it won’t be the last. Tonight is your big break. You need to do everything you can to be ready.”

  “If you’re absolutely sure,” Maggie said hesitantly.

  “I’m positive,” I said.

  “Okay, Thank you again, Nancy, for everything you’re doing,” she said as she exited.

  Bess, George, and I sat in silence for a moment. “What’s really lucky,” I said, “is that the stage wasn’t full. If Jamison hadn’t wanted me to dance on my own, that stage would have been covered with people! Any one of them could have been injured.”

  “Do you think that was the plan?” George asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If several members of the corps de ballet were unable to dance tonight, that would ruin the show.”

  “And Maggie did get that note threatening her if she danced today,” Bess said.

  “Plus,” George added, “she was onstage right before it fell. The suspect’s timing could have been off.”

  “We need to take a look at that scenery and figure out why it fell.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “That must be Linda with the ice,” Bess said, opening the door.

  Only it wasn’t Linda standing in the doorway. It was Jamison.

  “We need to talk,” Jamison said.

  “Her foot is injured,” George said.

  “Yeah,” Bess said. “She won’t be able to dance tonight.”

  One look at the amused smirk on Jamison’s face told me everything.

  “He knows,” I said to George and Bess.

  “Did you really think I don’t know who the members of my corps de ballet are?” Jamison asked.

  “If you knew I wasn’t part of your show, why did you make me dance? Why didn’t you just kick me out?” I asked.

  “You sneak into my rehearsal and you think I’m not at least going to have a little fun? I was going to let you humiliate yourself, and then kick you out, which I’m still going to do. Get out of my theater just as fast as you can hobble.”

  “You think Nancy’s trying to ruin your show?” Bess asked.

  “We’ve been on this tour for more than two weeks now. This is our tenth performance. Not one single thing has gone wrong in our nine previous shows, but we show up here, you three invade my theater, and suddenly the whole thing is falling apart. Explain that to me.” He frowned and added curtly, “Or I’m calling the police.”

  “We’re not causing the problems,” I assured him. “We’re trying to stop them. Someone is threatening Maggie. We’re trying to figure out who before the show tonight.”

  Jamison laughed. “First of all, Maggie is being hazed. Every star dancer goes through it.”

  “No—” I started, but Jamison didn’t stop to listen to what I had to stay.

  “Second of all, a kid like you is a detective? Yeah, right.” He headed to the door. “Get out of my theater and don’t come back.”

  “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when you do solve it,” George said.

  I tried to calm the anger bubbling inside of me, and instead slid myself forward on the table. “Hand me those crutches,” I said to George. “We need to find out why that scenery fell—no matter what Jamison says.”

  It took longer than expected for me to wobble out to the stage on the crutches. By the time I got there, I was sweating and my arms were exhausted.

  The theater was empty except for a few members of the stage crew, who were working fast to repair the scenery. Even still, the tree wasn’t going to be perfect. There was no way they would be able to reattach a branch that had broken off.

  I approached the crew member who looked like he was in charge. “Hi,” I said.

  I could see that he didn’t want to waste time talking to me, but when he saw the crutches, his face softened.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened to you, sweetheart. We’re all just glad you’re okay.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I was wondering if you could tell me what went wrong. I thought the cables holding this tree were strong.”

  “They are,” the guy said. He looked around to make sure no one was listening. “I shouldn’t be telling you this—you seem like a sweet kid who caught a bad break—but this wasn’t an accident.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Someone cut the wire.”

  I shook my head. “I was looking up right before the tree fell. There was no one there.”

  “Someone cut it a couple of days ago. Just enough so that it would fray little by little until it broke all the way.”

  My head shot up. “A couple of days ago?”

  “Yeah,” the guy said. “My bet is that it happened during load-in. That cable’s been weakening for at least three days now.”

  Suddenly it all made sense. I had been right—we had been looking at it upside down this whole time. Bess and George saw my face and knew I had made a breakthrough.

  “Thank you for your time,” Bess said.

  “You’ve been extremely helpful,” George added as we made our way through the theater, my crutches clattering loudly.

  “What is it, Nancy?” Bess asked.

  “The cable was cut three days ago,” I said.

  “What’s so important about that?” George asked.

  “It was cut way before Maggie ever got the note at Hugo’s.”

  “Right . . . ,” Bess said.

  “It didn’t matter if Maggie hadn’t come to rehearsal today. That scenery would have fallen no matter what.”

  “So . . . ,” George said.

  “The note wasn’t a threat,” I revealed. “It was a warning!”

  I could see the gears turning in Bess’s and George’s minds as they put the pieces together.

  “If that note was a warning . . . ,” Bess said.

  “Then Maggie’s not the target,” George completed for her.

  “Exactly!” I said. “Someone is trying to ruin the entire show, not just Maggie’s performance. Maggie’s just a pawn.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Recalculating

  “IF THE CULPRIT ISN’T GOING after Maggie, then who is the target?” Bess asked.

  “Who else suffers if the show is a disaster in front of Oscar LeVigne?” I asked.

  “Jamison?” George asked.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Sebastian said it last night. Maggie will have other shots—so will the rest of the dancers—but Jamison’s getting older. If he doesn’t break through soon, he’ll never make it as a choreographer.”

  “It makes sense,” George agreed. “Sebastian said that if Maggie doesn’t dance tonight, the show will be a catastrophe.”

  “So, who would want to sabotage Jamison?” I asked.

  “Everyone in the company,” George said, half-jokingly.

  “It’s true,” Bess said. “We’ve seen him insult practically everyone and we’ve only been around for two days. Imagine listening to that every day on this tour.”

  “Or longer,” George said. “He teaches at the academy, where a lot of these dancers are students. Some of them have heard him yelling for years.”

  “That leaves a lot of suspects, and the theater opens in two hours. What are we going to do?” asked Bess.

  I looked at her. I knew what we had to do, but my friends weren’t going to like it.

  A few minutes later, I knocked on Jamison’s office door.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” George asked me for the third time in five minutes.

  “It’s all we can do,” I said. “He’s the only one who might have an idea who’s behind this.”

  The door flew open. As soon as Jamison saw us, he rolled his eyes. “I thought I told you to get out.”

  “This is personal,” I said. “Whoever is sabotaging Maggie wants you to fail. You’re the real ta
rget for all of it.”

  Jamison shook his head. “Let’s say I go along with your theory that what’s been happening to Maggie is more than hazing. Why would anyone want me to fail?”

  “Seriously?” George asked.

  “You abuse people all day, telling them they’re terrible at the thing they love the most, and it’s never occurred to you that someone might want revenge?” Bess asked indignantly.

  “You think what I do is abuse?” Jamison said, laughing.

  “Yes,” George said.

  Jamison turned to me. “How did you feel when I questioned your abilities as a detective, when I talked down to you and needled you?”

  “Angry,” I admitted.

  “And what else?”

  I thought back to the fire I’d felt rise inside of me when he had called me a kid playing at detective. “I wanted to prove you wrong.”

  Jamison nodded. “I inspire greatness. Do you know what it takes to be great?” he asked.

  “Practice,” I said.

  “Determination,” George said.

  “Discipline,” Bess added.

  “Yes, all of those,” Jamison said. “And how do you keep pushing, keep going when you’re tired? It’s not by someone telling you you’re doing well; it’s by someone telling you that you can do better.”

  I understood what he was saying, and I knew that there was some truth to it. I had seen Maggie dance better after he had laid into her. I had even felt my own passion rise in the face of his dismissiveness, but I still wasn’t convinced.

  Bess wasn’t either. “There have to be other ways to help besides telling them how awful they are.”

  Jamison shrugged. “I’ve turned out a lot of great dancers. When you’ve coached dozens of people to the apex of their abilities, we’ll talk again about methodology.”

  “But what if someone with the potential to be the best can’t take that kind of pressure and quits?” I asked.

  A cloud passed over Jamison’s face, but he quickly regained his composure. “Then that person could never truly be great, no matter what you thought, no matter how much you believed in them.”