Bella would have plenty of time to appreciate aesthetics later, while running through the pageant. Right now she needed the files Gio had told her about. The files held the transcripts of previous pageants, priceless evidence. Her chest felt heavy as she remembered Gio’s insistence that the Ms. Mustang Valley pageant was the most tortuous, demeaning experience of all the pageants she regularly competed in. Sure, Ms. Mustang Valley held the highest prize—a full, four-year ride to the local college. But it came at such a high price. As part of her prep for going undercover, Bella had interviewed a couple dozen Ms. Mustang Valley pageant entrants from the past decade. She’d found their names in the archives of the local newspapers, as all contestants were announced before the final night.
While all described the competitive environment she’d expected, with the stakes so high, none gave her the specific details Gio had in those last months before she died. Bella needed the pageant’s written history, and if she was lucky, she’d find out what Selina Barnes Colton and Hannah Rosenstein had really said to Gio.
Acutely aware that she could be interrupted at any second, Bella searched the room for the file cabinet. Nothing resembling Gio’s description or her memory existed in the staff room. Tears of frustration and rage threatened and she blinked. She refused to have her attempt to find justice for Gio stymied this early into her efforts.
Calm down. Think.
Hands on hips, she took one more look around the room, beginning and ending with the stage door. Her mind’s eye saw the stage beyond the double doors, the dressing area to the left—
The dressing room! The space beyond the room divider where the cabinets had been placed. She recalled Gio’s offhand comment about how crowded it was in there, with twenty-four women changing for swimsuit and evening-gown competitions.
She slowly opened the double doors to the stage, aware of each tiny creak and squeak. The voices of the pageant board floated through along with the unmistakable scent of the stage. Pinewood, varnish, decades of sweat and joy that had been expended through performance after performance, tryouts and auditions. To her left the sun’s rays filtered through dust from the dressing room. Sweat beaded on her upper lip and trickled down her spine, even made her palms wet. Apparently air-conditioning wasn’t in the school’s weekend and evening budget.
As soon as she could close the doors without a sound, she made haste toward the side room. Before she reached the threshold, her gaze landed on her prize: the old, battered metal file cabinet sat in the far corner of the room, laden with props resting atop its rusty finish.
Yes.
She reached into her pocket for the key that she’d found in the box of treasures Gio had left for her. A favorite pair of earrings Bella had always admired, photographs going back to elementary school, the tickets from a summer concert series they’d scrimped and saved to afford. And a small, sealed envelope.
Gio’s mother brought the box over to Bella’s home two weeks after her daughter had passed. She expressed again how much Bella had meant to Gio and how much Bella’s support helped her during the awful grieving process.
Bella wasn’t surprised to find a small note in Gio’s unmistakable neat print addressed to her. Her bestie liked to have closure and loved writing letters. The surprise had been the file cabinet key tucked inside the exquisite stationery.
Bella had expected that she’d have to do a lot of digging and research before getting enough evidence to take to the police in the hopes of obtaining a search warrant, to get official access into the files. Gio’s claim that certain pageant officials had caused her eating and mental disorders needed to be substantiated.
The pageant files from years past would tell Bella not only who the judges had been, but bear witness to their thought processes and training methods. Methods that Gio thought still existed even today, with all the knowledge about eating disorders and mental illness.
Bella looked at her watch. She figured her time was running short, as the security guard was bound to get up and check the backstage area. Did she have enough time to finish her theft?
No time to worry about it.
The key was in her pocket and she wrestled it out, jiggled it into the lock. For one heart-stopping moment she feared the key might break before she was able to turn the lock as both were practically ancient, the metal spotted with rust.
Finally the lock turned and she grasped the handle, used her thumb to slide the drawer stop to the right.
The sound of fabric against fabric was her only warning before a strong hand clamped over her nose and mouth. She was pulled up against a person behind her. She fought to turn but her attacker was stronger and yanked her hair, hard.
“Don’t move or I’ll snap your neck.” The low, taut voice vibrated with menace and sounded like a horror-film villain’s. Spots started to float in front of her vision and she kicked backward with her heel, hoping that the blows against this maniac’s shins and feet would make him loosen his hold on her.
He tugged harder on her hair and she cried out in pain but with her air supply cut and in such agony it came out as a whimper.
“You’re not being very smart. You’ll never win this pageant. If you want to live, you’ll quit before you start.”
Focus. Observe. She tried every tool she’d ever read about to capture a solid description for the police. And most of all, she fought for her consciousness. Victims who passed out didn’t always fare well.
“Stop!” A loud, booming voice echoed through her rapidly fading awareness. Bella tried to hold on to that voice, its strength, its promise of safety.
But her world crashed into nothingness.
* * *
“Stop or I’ll shoot.” Holden had his weapon aimed on the man in black, whom he’d gone after when he saw him in the shadows. The creep held an unconscious, drooping Bella Colton with one arm, her head up next to his as protection from Holden’s bullets. At least, Holden hoped she was unconscious and not dead.
“Never.” The assailant turned and faced him. He wore a ski mask and sunglasses under the black ball cap. A mouthpiece revealed how he disguised his voice. “I will crush her throat if you don’t back off.”
Holden stood his ground, praying for extra time. For this suspect to make a mistake, to move enough so that he could get a clear shot without risking Bella’s life.
Unless the killer had already claimed his next victim. He risked a quick look at her face and its pink tinge assured him her heart was at least still pumping.