You Know Who I Am (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries Book 2) Read Free Page A

position. Colin came up behind me and put his hands around my waist and his cheek against my head. “They love you.” He kissed my hair. “Don’t leave.” He interlaced our fingers.
    Fabulous. Now he was lovey-dovey Colin. Up mood, down mood. I was tired of babysitting him, just as I was tired of babysitting my sister Stevie, but she came much higher on the priority list than he did. Colin didn’t know that, because he’d never even heard the name Stevie, let alone met my younger sister. Six months into our stage partnership and sham marriage was not the time to mention her existence. Or the fact she lived in a small one-room apartment in a run-down building a few miles off the Strip. He had never asked where I went when I wasn’t with him, and I never volunteered that information. “Colin, don’t do this.”
    “At least tell me where you’re headed.”
    “I have to get on-stage.”
    When Colin’s mood was up, he was fun, he was exciting, he was supportive. Those times I actually looked forward to doing the show—well, if not the actual show, then the rehearsals and the kidding around and going out together afterwards. Bad Colin made things unpleasant.
    I remembered what Bad Colin had just done, and I reached into his pocket. No bracelet.
    My hand moved to his right pocket but he smacked it away. “Yes, I’m irresistible. Save it for later.” He grinned and pulled the curtain aside. “Your cue.”
    I headed out.
    The finale was an over-the-top spectacular of blood, gore, and exceptional deftness with capes. Or, in some cases, dropcloths stained pink from all the stage blood that had been dropped on them during previous shows.
    At the end, Colin merrily lopped parts off Kristin while I ran around reattaching them. It was all very Sweeney Todd and the audience enjoyed it, finally getting into the blood and gore of the Grand Guignol. Then Colin eluded both of his assistants, vowed to return, and then disappeared.
    In sync, Kristin and I both looked up at the large sheet-covered mass hanging from the stage ceiling. It had hung up there the entire finale, of course, but no one would have looked at it with all the antics on-stage. And a bloody stain began to spread from where the cable disappeared into the sheet.
    “You don’t think—”
    Kristin said, “Isn’t he afraid of heights?”
    “Isn’t he afraid of hooks?” I always got a laugh with that one.
    I shimmied out of my heels and lifted my foot. After waiting a moment, I wiggled my toes. “Oh!” Kristin said, late on the mark as usual. Then she wove her fingers together to form a platform for me. I stepped on her hand, she boosted me up, and I jumped to snatch the sheet off Colin.
    I landed on the ground, bloody sheet in hand. And nothing happened. The audience was supposed to gasp at the sight of Colin, impaled on a meathook, before he raised his golden head and winked at them. But as I stood there with the sheet, the audience sat there, silent. Waiting.
    Kristin stared up at Colin. Then she looked at me, widening her eyes a little to signal me that something was wrong.
    I looked up. The round, smiling plastic mannequin’s face of the practice dummy beamed down at me. The blood pack leaked dark red corn syrup. And the dummy wore a square piece of paper pinned to his chest.
    Right on cue, as though the show was continuing as usual, the meathook began to lower. At the point where Kristin and I would help Colin off, to fervent applause, we unhooked the dummy to silence broken only by ice in glasses and a few murmurs here and there.
    Kristin took the note off the dummy’s chest. “Sorry, have to go,” she read. She looked at me. “What does that mean?”
    The audience seemed to get the idea that something had gone terribly wrong, because the murmurs graduated to talking at full volume.
    I put my hand on Kristin’s shoulder. “Stay here,” I whispered. I ran backstage, to where Sam and Q waited by the curtains. “Where is he?”
    Q shrugged at