Jane quickly fell to her knees at his side and rolled him over...and recognized Brian Highsmith.
She put two fingers on his throat to check for a pulse. It was there but weak. “He’s still alive.”
As she spoke, Brian’s eyes flew open. He stared at Jane but couldn’t seem to focus. “She’s dead...she’s dead, too. They knew...they knew...they killed her.”
His eyes closed.
Jane felt for his pulse again. “Kelsey, I think...the bullet is in his shoulder. He might make it.”
“I can’t get a signal down here,” Kelsey said urgently.
“Go out to the street. Get an ambulance over here!” Jane begged. “I’ll stay with him.”
Kelsey left her, running upstairs and out to the street. As Jane tried to staunch the flow of blood, she heard something behind her. She looked up, assuming Kelsey had returned.
But it wasn’t Kelsey.
It was one of the mannequins. An old one, from the late 1800s. She’d seen it downstairs.... Jennie had claimed that a clown attacked her, but they’d figured out that it had been Brian, that he’d pushed a clown figure toward her....
This clown was moving—alive and moving.
It lifted its arm; it held a gun and took aim at Jane.
She rolled to a corner of the room just as the bullet exploded against the dressing-table mirror. The sound of the mirror shattering was what she heard, and she realized there was a silencer on the gun.
Someone had tracked Brian down. Someone had tracked him to this room. That someone meant to kill him.
And now her.
*
Sloan searched up and down the road, seeking a trail of blood. While he walked, he called the office and reported that Betty and her prisoner were missing. Then he called Newsome and asked for officers to scour the streets in town, the hell with Silverfest.
He got into his car and drove slowly, searching the road for any sign of either Betty or Brian Highsmith.
He was five minutes from town when his phone rang.
Logan said, “Got a call from Kelsey. She has an ambulance rushing to the theater. She and Jane found Brian Highsmith, shot and bleeding to death, in his dressing room at the theater.”
“I’m almost there,” Sloan told him. “Any word on Betty?”
“None. I’ve got another officer coming to the hospital. I’ll be there as soon as he shows up.”
“Thanks. Whatever’s going down seems to be going down now,” Sloan said.
He stepped on the gas.
As he reached the outskirts of Lily, he was forced to slow down. There was some kind of Silverfest event happening on the road.
He left the car on the edge of Main Street and started running in.
As he did, he nearly ran by a heap on the ground. He recognized what it was—a body—and stopped himself.
He turned and fell to his knees.
It was Betty.
His heart thundered as he carefully examined her for an injury.
“Betty!” he said softly.
She groaned and looked up at him. “Sheriff!”
“Betty, what the hell happened?”
“There was someone flagging me down...I veered off the road. Next thing I knew, someone was in front of me, spraying something in my face...I can’t remember. My head...my head is killing me.... I...”
“Stop talking. I’ll get an ambulance out here.”
Betty sat up. “No, no, I’m fine. Go...after him. Whoever it was...took Brian. He took Brian....”
“Betty, who the hell was it?”
“I...don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“He—I can’t even say if it was a man or a woman—was dressed up. Dressed like a...like a Plains Indian...like an Apache in buckskin...with a dark wig and makeup and a black mask. I don’t know who it was...but—”
He’d reached for his phone. She set her hand on his. “No, Sloan. I’m all right. Go—get to the theater!”
“Betty, you’re injured—”
“I’m fine! I’ll call for help. Go.”
He didn’t trust her. Betty—who’d been his right hand since he’d returned to Lily.
He rose, suddenly very afraid—for many reasons. On many fronts. He crouched down again and pretended to make sure she wasn’t shot or injured, hoping his sleight of hand was successful.
“All right, Betty,” he said, and rose.
She might be innocent; she might be telling the truth.
But he didn’t know.
Cops would be crawling all over the theater any minute—but he felt a growing urgency to get there himself.
“Go!” Betty insisted.
He did. He ran. As he raced through the streets, he looked for people he knew. He didn’t see anyone. He paused just long enough to pull out his phone and call Logan. “Found Betty on the road. I left her there. I’m at the theater.”
“You see Kelsey? The ambulance?”
“No.”
“I’ve called for backup. Was Betty shot? Dead, alive?”
“Alive. I don’t trust her, Logan. I don’t trust anything right now.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. You’ve also got county cops moving in. Maybe you should wait for backup.”
Maybe he should.
“I can’t,” he said.
He burst in through the slatted doors of the theater.