The Red Slippers (Nancy Drew Diaries #11)(26)

Around us the lights in the lobby started flashing.

“We’d better take our seats,” she said with a smile.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I said.

“Make it quick. You don’t want to miss it.” She headed inside the theater. A few feet away, she stopped and turned back. “Nancy, please don’t say anything about what I told you. I know the parents of the ballerina I mentioned are very protective of her privacy. They’ve worked really hard not to let it get out beyond a small group of people. I just happen to have a friend at the New York City Ballet who told me.”

I nodded as I hobbled back to my friends.

“What’d you find out?” Bess asked.

The ushers were giving us dirty looks. We had three minutes until curtain time.

“Well, she’s definitely bitter,” I said. I hesitated for a second. I knew Miss Taylor had asked me not to tell, but this was a big clue and I needed their help. “This is a secret, but she said Jamison causes his students to have nervous breakdowns, including one who made it into the New York City Ballet,” I said.

“Didn’t Maggie say that Jamison only had one student who made it into that company?” Bess asked.

All of a sudden it came back to me “Yes! Veronica, Sebastian’s sister!” I said.

My brain raced, no longer sluggish, as the pieces snapped into place. Sebastian had easy access to Maggie’s phone. He handled odd jobs for Jamison all the time. He easily could have altered the poster. He was also at the restaurant with us, giving him plenty of opportunity to leave the note.

“It’s Sebastian!” I announced. “He’s getting revenge on his sister’s behalf.”

Inside, the house lights went down. The ushers shut the theater doors as the piano started playing.

George, Bess, and I all stared at one another in horror.





CHAPTER TWELVE





Showtime


“WHAT DO WE DO?” BESS asked.

“You know he has something planned,” George said. “This guy was a professional piano player by age fourteen. He’s determined.”

“We need to get into his dressing room,” I said. “Maybe there’s a clue in there.”

“How do we get there?” Ned asked.

“Around back,” Bess said. “There’s a stage door we can go through.”

“We have to go outside and around the building?” Ned asked.

Bess nodded. Ned looked at me on my crutches. After a beat, he wrapped his arm around me, handed my crutches to George, and swooped me up, holding me like a baby.

“Forgive the indignity,” Ned said, “but this is going to be a lot faster than you hobbling through the snow. Safer, too.”

“All right,” I said, “Let’s find out what Sebastian is up to.”

As we made our way around the building to the stage door, I was glad that it was cold and the area outside the theater was empty. We must have made for an odd sight: the four of us sneaking through the parking lot, George and Bess each carrying a crutch, and Ned carrying me.

Bess opened the stage door and Ned put me down. I got my crutches back and we made our way down the hall.

We made it past the greenroom, where all the dancers who weren’t onstage waited their turn. A group of them played cards. Others were on their cell phones. A few stretched. A video feed showed the performance onstage, so they could see when they needed to get to the wings.

“This is it,” Bess said, pointing to a door on the right.

She tried the knob, but it was locked.

“Now what?” George asked.

“I can probably break in,” Ned said, leaning back to throw his shoulder against the door.

“I have a better idea,” I said, nodding at George. She grinned, reached into her bag, and pulled out a set of lock picks. “No need for both of us to get hurt.”

“I wouldn’t have been hurt,” Ned protested.

“Did you get a new set?” I asked George as she knelt in front of the lock.

“My aunt gave me some money for Christmas,” George explained. “It was either this or a GPS tracker.” She stuck two picks in the lock and started working one around inside carefully, sticking her tongue out unconsciously as she tried to manipulate the pin inside the lock. George had taught me some of the rudimentary principles of lock picking, but it was as much an art form as a science, and George had the magic touch.

Sweat beaded on her forehead as she continued to work. Her brow creased in worry. I could feel myself starting to get anxious that this was taking too long, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want George to feel any more pressure.

“I could still break it open,” Ned said.

“Got it!” George exclaimed. She turned the knob and we were in.

We scanned the room, which was incredibly tidy. Sebastian’s casual clothes hung neatly in a closet. Piles of sheet music sat on a table. There was a backpack in the corner.

“Are you sure there’s going to be a clue in here?” Ned asked. “This room looks barren.”

“There has to be something. The app on Maggie’s phone, the poster, the scenery—all required research and planning. Sebastian hasn’t done anything spontaneous. If my hunch is right, he’s been thinking about getting revenge on Jamison for a long time. We’ll find something that indicates what he has planned next.”