Serious Moonlight(97)

Or maybe the whole thing was a dumb idea. The hall was filling up with people, and that made it harder to spot someone. We couldn’t find Darke, not in the lobby or on the promenade. Not sipping on wine or chatting with other people in his circle, the ones who were wearing tuxedos and long evening gowns.

“It’s getting swamped in here,” Daniel said. “Let’s split up. You make a pass back to ticketing, and I’ll go upstairs to the mezzanine. We’ll meet back here in five?”

I didn’t want to split up, but one moment Daniel was squeezing my hand and the next he was slipping through the crowd.

Every detective has setbacks. That’s what I tried to tell myself as I wandered through the crowd, eyes peeled for any sign of Darke or Ivanov. But after I’d covered all the ground we’d already walked, circled back around, and stopped at our designated meeting spot, I began to worry less about finding Darke and more about finding Daniel.

Five minutes passed. Ten . . .

I glanced at giant red banners cascading from the second floor. They were red and black, a dark silhouette of a woman in front of a red Japanese parasol that fanned out like the sun.

Like a sunset. Huh.

Something fired inside my head, and I remembered where I’d seen it before: at Mona’s place, on her wall of Broadway posters. It was from a play.

But that wasn’t why it was important. Because it wasn’t the only place I’d seen it.

I pulled out my opera program and quickly thumbed through it, stopping when I got to right page.

It was suddenly clear to me now. That framed poster I’d spied inside Darke’s house, with its yellow sunset inside a red border and its swirly, black shape blocking the sun . . . I was looking at it right now, reprinted in the opera program. The black shape I couldn’t quite identify when we were spying into his windows was clear now: It was a collection of brushstrokes, a vague Asian-inspired script that also doubled as a sketch.

A sketch of a helicopter.

Cherry’s words came back to me from when she was telling me about auditioning for a dancing role in an off-Broadway production at 5th Avenue Theatre: Miss Saigon has a real helicopter that hangs from the rafters and descends onto the stage.

Nerves jangling, I skimmed the text of the opera program as tuxedos and gowns passed me. The program said that Miss Saigon was a Broadway musical set during the Vietnam War, a tragic tale of a doomed romance between an American GI and a Vietnamese bar girl who has his child after he abandons her.

Based on the opera Madama Butterfly.

Everything swirled inside my head: Madama Butterfly. Miss Saigon. Raymond Darke’s framed print. Cherry’s story of meeting Daniel’s father while she was auditioning for Miss Saigon at 5th Avenue Theatre—I pictured myself living in his big mansion that overlooked the city.

My heart raced wildly. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. It could all be a coincidence.

It had to be . . . right?

Then where was Daniel now?

I glanced upstairs, where he said he’d be looking—which also happened to be where the private opera boxes were located. . . .

Hiking up the hem of my gown, I raced up the staircase and glanced around the mezzanine, where patrons clustered around a cocktail bar, drinking and chatting. No Daniel.

I spotted a side hall. An usher stood outside, but when she turned her back to help someone, I slipped past her and immediately found myself in one of the curving halls at the rear of the private boxes.

Red doors lining the hall. The performance hadn’t yet started, but most of the patrons seemed to either be drinking at the bar outside or already in their seats. A lone woman was walking toward me, and as she approached, I recognized her face.

The interior designer, Darke’s wife.

Her head was down as she strode past me, talking rapidly on her phone in a hard-to-place accent. She didn’t even spare me a glance. I rounded the corner and peered through the open door of the first private box, seeing down into the theater below. An expansive curtained stage sat in front of an empty orchestra pit. The seats in front of it were buzzing with people, standing and talking, coming and going. The atmosphere on the floor was much livelier than it was up here. But because the private hall was so quiet, it made it easy to spot the only person standing in front of the door to the next booth. And easy to spot the only man strolling out of it.

I came to a stop a few strides away from Daniel and whispered, “Wait!” But he didn’t even notice me. His gaze was squarely fixed on Raymond Darke, who stilled in the opera box’s doorway, hands on the lapel of his tuxedo.

Darke looked at Daniel. Looked at me. And then he sputtered, “You’re the goddamn kids who went through my trash!”

Words . . . I didn’t have them.

Darke pointed an accusatory finger at Daniel. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve got you on video, you little delinquent. Perfect shots of both your faces looking straight into the window of my house.”

Cameras were inside the house? Why had we been so reckless?

I was going to have a stroke.

“That’s trespassing,” Darke said. “What are you doing here now? Trying to rob me?”

“I don’t want a damn thing you’ve got, old man,” Daniel said.

No, no, no! Why was Daniel confronting him? We should run now, while we could get lost in the crowds and escape. THIS WAS NOT PART OF OUR PLAN.