Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

"Ah, and so she appears," Bobby said with a good bit of attitude when Natalie walked down the center aisle between the rows of theater seats.

Since it was two-thirty in the morning, Natalie almost hadn't appeared. The only thing that had her keeping her appointment with the ghosts after what had turned into a lengthy first night of theater tours and Letisha's lectures was that she was sure Bobby would come get her out of bed if she didn't.

At least she'd remembered to disengage her microphone from her clothes and leave it in her bed. That way it would pick up Alice snoring and passing gas while under the influence of a pot laced gummy induced slumber and Natalie would be able to speak freely to the spirits. Luckily Harper had drugged herself to sleep too, so Natalie was free to sneak out.

The stage was dark except for the ironically aptly named ghost light . Apparently every theater kept one light lit at all times. The cast had learned about the superstition—that if the stage ever went dark the theater would fail—during tonight's very long tour.

It, and the exit signs, provided just enough illumination Natalie could make her way down to the front row and flop back into a creaky seat. She was already exhausted. Her back and her feet both hurt from standing around listening to all the many ghost stories, personal encounters and history the Stanley Theater staff members giving them a tour had to offer.

All Natalie wanted to do was crawl into bed, even if it was a roll-away in the dressing room she was sharing with Harper and Agnes. But the ghost world waited for no living so here she was.

"Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Bobby LaRue," the ghost said dramatically as he bowed to Natalie from center stage.

She nodded. "Costume designer from, I'm guessing, the nineteen-seventies?"

His thin brows rose. "Hmm. Good guess. I died in eighty-one. And you are?"

"Natalie," she answered, thinking the less she revealed about herself to these unfamiliar spirits the better.

"Natalie..." he prompted.

"Natalie Chase from Mudville, New York," she elaborated, feeling the temperature of the air in the theater drop as the ghost population thickened.

"And are you a medium by trade?" he asked.

"Nooo," she said, elongating the word as she shook her head. "Just a shop owner."

"Really? Yet you communicate with the spirit world."

"Not by choice," she said, opting for honesty.

That earned her another signature brow lift from Bobby. "And what is Natalie Chase, shop keeper from Mudville, doing here in Utica at the Stanley Theater?"

"They're filming a reality television show about ghosts. Or more accurately, about how livings react to being trapped together in a haunted building, day and night, for a week. I was chosen as one of the cast."

"Is that what's happening? I'd wondered since none of you seemed to be actual actors. Perhaps that Letisha person," the starlet commented as she sauntered smoothly, seductively, across the stage toward Bobby. "This reality television business is another reason I'm happy I'm dead. Honestly, what happened to good old-fashioned acting with actual scripts?"

"Preaching to the choir, sister." Bobby shook his head before saying, "Natalie, may I formally present Evie Hartwell. Star of the silver screen."

"I made the transition from silent films to talkies seamlessly at a time when many others did not. And just as my career was really taking off, wouldn't you know it, someone up and murdered me. Right here in this theater at my very own movie premiere."

That information knocked any sleepiness out of Natalie. "You were murdered? How?" She looked for any signs of injury on Evie's ghost but saw none.

"The doctor concluded poison, though the murderer was never identified or brought to justice."

"Wow. I'm sorry. That's horrible. Although I have to say, you look fabulous." It never hurt to flatter the spirits.

Besides, Natalie spoke the complete truth. Evie would be eternally young and beautiful as well as dressed to impress.

"Aren't you sweet. Thank you." Evie smoothed her dress and looked pleased.

"I always said, there are worse things than dying at your peak." Bobby brushed his nails across the wide lapel of his lavender suit jacket. "Now, back to the introductions. Clara. Stop hovering and come out here, girl."

The child stepped out from the wings and into the glow of the ghost light.

"This is Clara Delaney. Singer. Dancer. And the one most likely to cause havoc among the livings whenever she can. She began performing with her parents in a traveling Vaudeville act at five years old, if you can believe that. The show came through here the year after the theater opened."

And Clara, obviously, never left. How tragic.

Natalie itched to ask what happened when Bobby literally stage whispered, "Influenza."

"Nice to meet you, Clara. I'd love to see you sing and dance?—"

But Clara was already gone, skipping off the stage after sticking her tongue out at Natalie and saying, "Nope!"

"All righty." Natalie laughed.

"Don't worry. You'll get used to her," Bobby said with the flip of one wrist. "Next?—"

Before Bobby could finish his introduction, a well-dressed, classically handsome dark-haired man stepped forward and delivered a deep bow. "Vincent Carlisle, at your service."

"Vinny bit the dust that same fateful night as Evie."

"Two deaths in one night?" Natalie asked.

Bobby nodded. "Mm-hm. That must've been one hell of a night here at the Stanley."

"Although I'm certain no one wanted to murder me . Everyone loved me. I believe I accidentally stumbled upon the poison meant for Evie."

"That's what you get for nipping a glass from that expensive bottle of champagne in my dressing room," Evie called from the seat in the audience where she'd draped her lithe body. "And for your information, everyone loved me too. I can't fathom who in the world would want to kill me."

The comment prompted a dramatic eye roll from Vincent. "No? I can think of a few. And I left you a box of chocolates, darling. It was a fair exchange."

"A box of chocolates you'd half eaten!" Evie accused.

"It was one piece," Vincent defended.

Poison champagne. Natalie was fascinated and wished—not for the first time—that she had her cell phone so she could search for more information.

They were both movie stars. Both died in the same location on the same night in the prime of their lives and at the height of their careers. There must be something online about the mysterious deaths of Vincent Carlisle and Evie Hartwell.

Natalie tried to commit the names to memory for whenever she did get access to technology again. Ugh. It was going to be such a long week.

"I have a question. If that's okay?" Natalie asked.

Bobby spread his hands, palms up, before him. "I live to serve...so to speak."

"Is there a former employee named Art here?" Maybe it was selfish, but Natalie would love to debunk completely Madame Letisha's earlier reading .

"He was here, for a time right after his death. Used to be a projector operator. But alas, he moved on," Bobby explained.

"He was a sweetheart," Evie commented with a sigh. "Of all the spirits who could have moved on, he was the last one I would have wished gone. Now, Vinny, for instance…"

"Yeah, yeah. Love you too, Evie, babe." Vinny replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he stood with his hands in his pockets in a perfectly casual leading man pose.

"We don't get to choose our fates, my dears," Bobby said philosophically.

He clapped his hands together once and glanced around the periphery of the dim theater.

"There are a few more of us you'll see lurking around. Edgar Winslow is in death, as he was in life, always in the same seat in the back row for every performance. It is in fact, the seat in which he died. Heart attack. Rumor has it he was involved in some scandal during his lifetime. He's not much of a talker so the secret remains as such. Sadly. I do love a good scandal."

"Oh, we know," Evie commented.

Ignoring her, Bobby continued, "There's also Harold Ludlow. The typical eccentric playwright. You'll see him hanging around scribbling notes, eternally revising his last work. Harry's career never quite took off, but that didn't stop him, then or now, from dispensing unsolicited and generally scathing reviews and critiques of every show that played here. A few too many experimental drugs during the sixties took him."

Bobby peered beneath the hand he pressed above his brows.

"I see you down there, Horace. You don't want to come up? No? Okay. Anyway, there in the back of the theater is Horace Wainwright. He was hired as an usher when the theater first opened in nineteen-twenty-eight until tuberculosis took him in nineteen-thirty. I suppose it makes sense he's so quiet since that is an usher's job, no? To silently guide patrons to their seats."

Natalie twisted in her seat and spotted the usher who'd been outside when she'd parked the car. "Hello, Horace. I'm sorry I ignored you earlier when my friends and I arrived."

The usher tipped his head and touched two fingers to his uniform cap in what she interpreted as an acceptance of her apology.

"That brings me to one more question for you, Natalie the shop keeper from Mudville."

Twisting back in her seat to face the stage, Natalie ignored what seemed to be her new name according to Bobby and said, "Yes?"

"Why are you hiding your ability from everyone, including your friends?"

It was a valid question. She had her reasons. Had wrestled with those reasons for months now. But now that she was here, it was looking more and more like her secrecy might be coming to an end.