The Red Slippers (Nancy Drew Diaries #11)(21)

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maggie’s phone being tampered with and the poster being vandalized all happened before Colin was confronted by his dad.”

“Yeah,” George said, “but it’s not like Mike was ever supportive. I bet Colin’s been jealous of Maggie and the support she gets for a long time.”

I shook my head. “It just seems like a stretch. Besides, Colin wasn’t even at the restaurant last night, so he couldn’t have left the note.”

“But Mike could have,” George insisted.

“George,” I said, “you’re letting your personal dislike of Mike cloud your judgment. Mike seems really focused on Colin, and Fiona just confirmed that he hasn’t even seen the show. I doubt he knows how important Maggie’s role is.”

“I guess,” George said begrudgingly.

“He’s still guilty of being a bad father,” I said.

“Yeah,” George said.

We sat in silence for a moment. “I just . . . ,” I started, trying to figure out how to articulate my thoughts. “I feel like we’re not thinking about this in the right way.”

“What do you mean?” Bess asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “In most cases, we don’t have enough information, and it’s a matter of collecting more clues in order for it to all make sense.”

“But you don’t feel that way about this one?” Bess asked.

I shook my head. “No. It feels like we have all the information we need, but we’re not looking at it from the right angle. Like we have it upside down or sideways or something,” I said.

“Okay,” Bess said. “Why don’t we go over everything we know and then see if we can make sense of it?”

“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.