“Okay, ladies. You all know what we’re here for tonight. We’ll take it from the top, with the opening number.” Selina, garbed in a sparkling, formfitting multicolored dress, stood onstage with a gold microphone, her bright red nails like talons on its neck. Holden wouldn’t miss this woman’s drama, or the pageant itself.
You’ll miss Bella.
He scanned the stage as the music began and the lights focused first on each contestant as she walked across the stage. He followed the beams to where the lights were affixed to scaffolding brought in just for the pageant. The school’s theater lights were manually operated from a control booth in the audiovisual room above the theater seats. The scaffolding lights were remotely operated, too, but he knew there were two techs up in the rafters affixed to the metal structure, there to maneuver some of the special effects, to include a net of balloons that would drop when the new Ms. Mustang Valley was announced.
He counted one, then two of the techs, in place as prescribed.
“You’re looking awfully dapper for a G-man.” Spencer stood next to him in the theater, grinning as if he’d discovered Holden’s deepest secret.
“It’s for the pageant. Selina demanded it.”
Spencer guffawed, the noise swallowed by the loud music booming through the theater as the contestants moved through the opening dance routine. Holden’s gaze never left Bella’s form, and he didn’t see why she was so unhappy with wearing body armor. To him, it only made her look more the warrior that he already knew her to be.
“Do you really think the killer’s still even in Mustang Valley?” Spencer spoke from the side of his mouth as they both watched the stage.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“It seems stupid. If he really wanted to kill Bella, he would have.”
Spencer’s comment was salt to the self-inflicted wounds he’d been nursing the last few days. And the long nights in three different hotel rooms around the area, where he’d slept on a bed next to Bella’s, while the entire place was in lockdown with plain clothed MVPD officers and two rookie FBI agents who’d been sent in to help out.
“Aw, crap, Holden, I didn’t mean to say—”
“Yes, you did. I left your sister in the hallway and never thought about the fact the killer had disabled two officers and would enter through the master-bedroom sliding door.”
“You’re not perfect, Holden. You kept the killer from coming into the kitchen. If you hadn’t, you’d both be dead.”
He shoved his self-loathing aside, spoke out of the side of his mouth as he kept vigilance on the stage.
“We’re both still here and I have a killer to catch. Bella can defend herself as needed.” Not that he’d ever let it get to that point. “I’m certain he is still here, a part of the pageant. His MO is to take his time, draw out the actual murder. You’ve read the same reports I have.”
“No, I haven’t. You have more access than I do with the other two murders—they’re out of my jurisdiction.”
“Trust me on this. The killer is still here.”
And he was going to catch him.
* * *
Bella squatted down behind stage left to adjust her ankle holster. Her dress was long enough to not reveal the weapon, but she didn’t want any of the leather to show, either. Holden had watched her affix it to her leg, and it had been difficult to keep her mind on the investigation and the killer who was after her with him looking at her so closely.
“You holding up okay?” Holden had materialized as if from her thoughts.
She stood and even in her heels only came up to his chin. “I am. To be honest, I’d really like this to be over once and for all.” She was tired of fighting her fears, and the knowledge that the end of the pageant meant the end of ever seeing Holden again was getting to be too much for her already-worn-out emotions.
“I’m sorry it’s not already finished for you.”
Was he referring to the killer or their unrelationship?
“Everyone center stage, please. Last call before the final number.” Señora Rosenstein was filling in for Selina while the woman changed into what she said was the best costume this pageant has ever seen. Someone needed to tell her that she wasn’t a contestant.
“Do you really think the killer is still even in Mustang Valley?” She and Holden spoke in hushed tones as they stood on the stage, under the lights, waiting for the last instructions.
“Yes.”
Holden’s grim expression told her what she dreaded. The killer was that cold, that measured in his attack plan that he’d do anything to get his way and have the murder be to his liking. His depraved needs.
Funny, she’d willingly entered a contest she didn’t believe in, only to find she had more in common with all the other women that not. Bella understood how Gio had seen the pageant community as an extended family.