Jennie wasn’t in the bathroom or anywhere in the room. Jane felt a growing sense of unease and even checked under the bed. Again, no sign of her.
Coming out of the room, she saw Sage McCormick. The ghost was waiting for her on the second landing by the stairs, and as Jane approached her, Sage drifted down the stairs. She walked around to the bar and behind it.
Puzzled, Jane followed her.
Sage went through the door at the far end of the stage. Jane opened the door to a set of stairs that led to the basement, now the costume storage area.
Where Sage’s skull had been found.
Jane carefully went down the stairs. It was broad daylight outside, she reminded herself, and when she tried the switch on the wall, the basement flooded with light.
Sage kept moving.
The basement seemed to run the entire length of the theater. From the stairway, Jane could see the rows of wigs that now sat on mannequin heads, old and new. Most of them had faces either carved into them or drawn on them; they were supposed to be artistic, Jane supposed. Mostly, they were grotesque.
She was, however, glad to see no skulls among them.
She walked around the center of the main room.
There were racks hung with costumes, most of them now conserved in cases. There were shoes, canes, stage guns, props and boxes everywhere. She saw no sign of Jennie.
“Jennie?” Jane called out.
No one answered her.
She realized there were three rooms that led off the main section of the basement; they were separated by foundation walls. There were no doors, just arched separations with handsome wood carved designs as if someone, long ago, had determined that a theater must be beautiful—even in the storage areas.
Jane made her way through crates and boxes to the first of the rooms.
It contained more crates and boxes.
Irritated, she shook her head.
“Where are you?” she whispered aloud.
The ghost had gone through the door—and then disappeared. But Sage had brought her here for a reason.
And then disappeared.
“You could be more helpful,” she said. But then again, if she was right and the ammo in the one Peacemaker was live, the ghost had been a great deal of help; she’d saved a man from dying.
But if it was live...
Then someone here was setting people up to die.
The thought chilled her, and she walked into the last room, the one closest to the Old Jail Bed and Breakfast. In fact, it almost seemed as if she was under the Old Jail.
This room was different. The light from the main room didn’t seem to reach far enough and she couldn’t find another switch. The one bulb down here illuminated the main room and stretched as far as the second room. By the third room...
The third room was filled with shadows. As she walked toward it, she stopped for a minute.
It was creepy, mostly shadowed—and crowded with mannequins. Some of them were poor, barely more than two-dimensional, and held theatrical billboards. Some of them were excellently crafted and wearing costumes or cloaks from the many decades the theater had been in existence. Some were old movie props, collected fifty-plus years ago.
Some were headless.
And some had heads with faces that offered very real expressions of anger, fear, hope, happiness—and evil. Some were lined up. Some were falling over on one another.
“Ah, Sage, where are you?” she asked.
At first, there was nothing. Her little pencil flashlight was back in her room; she hadn’t thought to stuff that in a pocket with her cell phone.
She wondered if it was better to see—or not see—the mannequins. Coming close to one, she saw that it was a mannequin of a Victorian woman, carved from wood.
The eyes were huge, made of blue glass. The mouth was a circle, as if the woman had witnessed the greatest terror on earth.
A placard hung from the wrist. Jane stooped to read it. Come One, Come All. Come Scream! The Gilded Lily Brings You The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!
Turning from the mannequin, Jane bumped right into a mannequin of Mr. Hyde.
She almost screamed but managed to swallow down the sound.
Federal agents don’t scream at the sight of mannequins! she chastised herself.
Something swung toward her—an arm. A gasp escaped her and then she laughed softly. Backing away from Mr. Hyde, she’d pushed a replica of King Lear.
“Sage!” she whispered.
She was stunned when, in response, she heard a groan.
So far, Sage McCormick’s voice had been silent; it was unlikely that the ghost had suddenly decided to groan.
“Jennie! Jennie, is that you? Are you down here? Are you hurt?”
She began to squeeze her way through the mannequins. In the eerie light, some seemed real, as if they could come to life. Among them were chorus girls and cancan dancers, fan dancers, handsome men in tuxes. And wolf men and grisly zombies and vampires....
She heard the groan again.