Awaken the Devil Read online

  "Yes, time she flies, does she not? This woman, she has a gift," he told the others. "Taps like no trouble at all. I have to tell the others…ahh, a million times. Fielding, I tell once and…" He kissed the tips of his fingers. "Superieur. Merveilluex. A marvelous dancer. All of these years I dream of having another dancer like this. Where have you been?"

  Remembering how much she had enjoyed working with him the last time around, a smile curved her lips. "England, actually. I've been working there." She figured that if Daphne knew, everyone else would soon anyway.

  "I know your voice."

  Fielding froze for a moment, pulling herself together enough to turn and look Chandler Bentley in the eye. It took all the strength she had left in her after the day she'd been having. His gaze was potent, even from that distance. But at least she could tell herself the trembling was from low blood sugar. She knew she was going to have to be on her guard every second in his presence.

  "I'm sorry." She managed to sound barely polite when in reality she was scared to death. "I don't believe that we've ever met."

  "We haven't. I don't know you. I know your voice."

  If he remembered her from the phone call, her only option would be immediate flight. "I'm sure you're mistaken." She sounded almost as glacial as he.

  "Certainly I'm not. I never forget a voice."

  "Chandler, really. Leave the poor girl alone. She said she's been working at home. Maybe you saw her there." Sara Flynn swatted him on the arm. "Honestly, you are such an awful bore when you get in one of your moods. It's a miracle that anyone wants to work for you at all." She looked up at Fielding. "Go on, dear. Tell us about your song."

  Chandler had to stop his teeth from grinding together as Fielding French spoke. He had no doubt he'd heard her voice before. And recently. Not at home but somewhere else. Somewhere where he'd been annoyed at the time. Of course, that didn't work much to narrow the field. He was often annoyed of late. It was nearly the only emotion he had anymore after all the years of careful schooling.

  She knew it too, that he'd spoken to her. He could see it in her eyes. He could see something else there, too. A strength that he wasn't used to in people he spoke sharply to. She didn't appear to be the slightest bit afraid of him. Chorus girls usually cowered in his presence, either from his gruffness or because they had heard the rumors and were genuinely scared of him. Either way, it hardly mattered as long as he did his job, and they did theirs.

  She had come back to this audition in her street clothes. Even though there was nothing particularly revealing about her camel-colored cashmere turtleneck and black slacks, she didn't appear any less provocative than she had in her leotard. He knew it was his imagination, but he fancied that he could smell her perfume even from down on the floor. The way that she moved, simply to give her music to the pianist, flooded his mind with images of dark rooms, silky sheets, and slick, salty skin. He was attracted to her! The feeling was so foreign to him, it took him by surprise. He couldn't remember the last time he had pondered on any of those things when it wasn't an immediate need.

  "She's very beautiful in a natural sort of way." Sara's words startled him from his reverie. He realized that Fielding French had already begun to sing while he'd been lost for a moment in the sensation of her. Of course she was a good singer too, a clear and confident soprano. There was no way that he could dismiss her now.

  "She's a little bit…smallish. She'll upset the line."

  "Nonsense." Sara dismissed his concerns with the wave of her hand. "I'm a little smallish too, and I was in your line twenty years ago."

  "I had bad judgment twenty years ago." He thought of Helena, all that beauty and all of it worth nothing. Yet it had beguiled him. For such a short time. For long enough.

  "I like her hair. She looks very American, doesn't she?"

  "Must we have a running commentary on her physical appearance? If you like her, then we'll engage her. It's that simple."

  "I do like her. Why, you don't?"

  "I think she's lovely," he growled. "Wonderful, really. No doubt she's all that you say and more."

  "Really, Chandler. You're in a state today, aren't you? It's all right. I refuse to be daunted by you. She has a strange sort of…I don't know. Sex appeal. That's it. When she's on stage, she has enormous appeal. Strange how stage presence sometimes manifests itself. I saw her in the hallway earlier, and she's altogether nothing special."

  He took a deep breath, mentally willing Sara to talk about anything but Fielding French's sex appeal. The last thing that he needed was erotic imagery about a too young chorus girl he'd barely spoken to and yet was too much of a danger to him already. He stared at Sara, hoping that a fierce look would quell her. Apparently, it did because she sat back in her chair and turned her attention to the stage.

  When Miss French was finished Armand clapped enthusiastically, shouting nonsense about the girl's beauty and grace in French.

  "The second auditions will be a week from Thursday," Sara chimed in.

  "So, are you saying I'm supposed to come back?" Miss French pushed tendrils of her pale hair away from her face, a momentary frown suggesting she was a little put off by Sara's step away from the typical manner in which things were done. And so was Chandler.

  He turned sharp eyes on Sara before turning back to the stage. "Someone will call you, if you please, miss. We don't invite people back without consulting everyone." He sounded stiff and priggish. Wonderful. Just the way that he had always dreamed of being as he approached middle age. Maybe he needed to take Anne's advice and get a convertible. Vacation in the South of France with a girl in a string bikini. He refused to indulge his sudden mental picture of Miss French in a string bikini.

  Fielding French had a way about her, a look that was designed to put him in his place. And it probably would have worked on a lesser man. Her cheekiness seemed to please Sara enormously. Oddly, it also pleased some part of him. Good for her. Other young women with whom he worked could use some of her emotional stamina. Then maybe they would cease to become hysterical and weepy whenever he gave them a run down. He knew that they would hire her, of course. It was a given. Perhaps she could infuse some sense into the rest of the cast.

  "Thank you," she said, before she turned on the heel of her black leather boot and left the stage. Thank goodness. Now that he knew she would be coming, he would have to prepare himself for the next audition. That way she couldn't possibly take him by surprise with her lush lips, throaty voice and pert little attitude.

  CHAPTER THREE

  On the train, Fielding's mind spun crazily between thoughts of Mac's impending death and the auditions. Sara Flynn clearly liked her, and, just as clearly, Chandler Bentley did not. She'd probably set him off by staring at him, but he was so compelling. In the future, now that she knew who he was, she'd be careful to keep her eyes on the floor.

  The inside of her apartment was almost warm for the first time all day. The man from the HVAC company had finally arrived to turn on her heat. She stripped off her coat and scarf and hung them near the door, moving to the wall of windows in the living room. Outside, it had begun raining and fat gray clouds turned the afternoon dark. She slid off her shoes right where she was, and her feet were cold against her blond wood floors. She headed back to the coat tree and pulled down a sweater, slipping it on. The heat was on, but it wasn't enough.

  She'd moved towards the open kitchen, sterile and modern, not her choice, thinking about making dinner, another frozen meal. She'd sacrificed the kitchen of her dreams for the unobstructed view of the Manhattan skyline and the nearly three thousand square feet that she'd been convinced she and Dale would fill with children. She'd promised herself a complete kitchen remodel after the wedding. Of course, neither had ever happened.

  The doorbell rang, and she crossed the room to let Josh in. He was such a frequent visitor, the doorman didn't even call up anymore before letting him through. He had an armload of newspapers and a bag from Grisanti's. "Don't bother with dinne
r. I brought the goods. I've got something I want to show you."

  She spread the food out on her coffee table while he unfolded several of the papers, laying them out in some order on her sofa. "What is all this?"

  He indicated to the top of the papers. "Look at this date. Twenty-two years ago. This woman, Eladora Coxton, stage name Tawny Reed, chorus girl in an Off-Broadway production of Guys and Dolls. She was found murdered in her apartment. No sign of forced entry."

  "So?" Fielding stared at the grainy photograph of the girl, maybe twenty-one, with dark, curly hair. She was so beautiful that it was momentarily stunning. It was Eladora Coxton's black and white head shot, maybe from a program in the show where she had gotten a lucky break. Right before she had gotten a bad one.

  "So…guess who the choreographer was of the Off-Broadway production of Guys and Dolls? I'll even tell you, just in case you can't guess. Chandler Bentley."

  Her stomach clenched as she stared at the girl's picture, reminding her that she still hadn't eaten, and maybe she still didn't want to. She wasn't ready to believe what Josh was suggesting yet, though it was in front of her in black and white. "Coincidence. Maybe it's a different Chandler Bentley."

  The look Josh gave her told her exactly what he thought of her denial. "Chandler Bentley, a relative newcomer from Essex, England, makes his American choreography debut to fantastic reviews for his brilliant tap dances and fresh chorus numbers," Josh read from the yellowed paper, brittle with age. "I think it's a safe bet that we're talking about the same man here. And the girl, Fielding, her throat was slit. Same as Helena Bentley. I don't like this."

  She didn't like it either, but she wasn't about to admit that to Josh. Otherwise he'd use it against her. He'd try and convince her not to do this, even for Mac. "I'm telling you, it's just a coincidence. Girls get killed all the time in New York. That's the way it is. You're reading too much into this. I don't even know how you found this connection."

  "I have my ways." He grinned, but it faded quickly. "Look, I'm not kidding. I don't like this guy. I know it's what Mac wants, but…this is pretty stupid."

  She dished some of the pasta out onto paper plates, included in the bag. "Don't worry about it, Josh." She rearranged a piece of toasted cheese bread, speaking with a great deal more casualness than she felt. "I'm not." Total lie.

  She smiled, but the expression felt strange and artificial. She would not be talked out of this one small thing Mac wanted. Not when she had so callously disregarded all his dreams to follow her own.

  Josh pulled at his tie over and over until she wanted to grab it out of his hand. His visibly rising tension made her nerves pull tighter. "What if he's dangerous?" he pressed. "What if it isn't a coincidence? What do you think he'll do when he finds out who you really are?"

  She didn't even want to think about that. She thought, instead, of Bentley's hard features, hostile eyes and cold, emotionless voice. "He's harmless. A pussycat. If you met him, you'd never suspect him of murder."

  Josh's intent stare seemed to burn right through her to the place where she was hiding her fear of Chandler Bentley and of this new information. She looked away.

  "I can't believe that you would be this stubborn." He grabbed up the papers and stood. Then seemed to change his mind and threw them back down. "You know what? Actually I can. But this story isn't worth your life. No matter what Mac wants."

  "You're worrying too much." She put on another false smile. "That's supposed to be my job. You're supposed to be my happy-go-lucky, boyish sidekick."

  He shook his head, raising his finger until it was almost touching her chest. "This is not the last time you'll hear about this from me." His voice was thick, and Fielding realized that, for the first time in their nearly twenty-five year friendship, he was really, truly scared about something. Fearless Josh, who skydived, free-climbed, and jumped from planes "just to see," was scared. "I'm watching you, and starting tomorrow, I'm going to be watching this guy too." He glanced at his watch, but she knew his words were a lie. "I just remembered I have an appointment. Think about what I said." He just wanted to get away from her so he could get control of himself again.

  She watched him leave in silence. Was he worrying too much? Chandler Bentley seemed cruel and cold, but he surely wasn't a murderer. Mac didn't think he was. Fielding picked up Eladora Coxton's picture and looked at it again. What did a murderer seem like anyway? If not detached and cool, then what?

  She booted up her computer and while she waited for it to connect to the internet, flipped through the articles that Josh left. Online, she searched for anything on Eladora Coxton. Then Tawny Reed. Finally, using the old musical as a search source, she was able to dig up all the articles about the murder that Josh hadn't brought.

  There weren't many. Eladora Coxton, AKA Tawny Reed, had been just like so many other girls that had lost their lives in the city over the years that it hardly seemed to warrant a mention. There were only two more articles online than she'd gotten from Josh. All of them contained nearly the same information.

  Tawny Reed was an eighteen-year-old chorus girl from Denton, New Mexico, who had won beauty pageant after pageant before trying her hand at Broadway. She had been living in the city for seven months before getting a part as a Hot Box Dancer in Bentley's production of Guys and Dolls; she had later been promoted to the role of Adelaide. No mention of what had happened to the original principal. Of course Chandler Bentley was not mentioned in regard to the murder at all. He'd apparently been a nobody then, a very young man from another country choreographing an off-Broadway show for a thankless crowd. Tawny Reed herself was barely mentioned. As far as the papers were concerned, she was another statistic.

  The police had apparently handled the case as though it were the end of the same old love story that they saw every day. Boy meets girl. Girl gets her big break. Girl dumps boy. Boy shows up claiming he wants to talk and gives girl a piece of his mind and his weapon. End of unsolved case. Much like Helena Bentley, no one had even been arrested. Chandler obviously hadn't even been suspected. He'd had neither title nor notoriety to protect him from persecution back in those days.

  Once Josh was gone she picked at the food he'd left and put the rest away before curling up on the couch and attempting to relax. She couldn't focus enough to read, and the television didn't hold her attention through the turmoil in her mind. Around eight, she got a call from Liz Harris, the business manager at Pirates. Callbacks were a week from Thursday, at nine. Fielding confirmed she'd be present, reminding herself that there was always time to bow out gracefully. She didn't have to do this. That was the secret to not panicking. She would keep telling herself that she could always walk away. Even if it wasn't the truth.

  Chandler's mood had not improved a great deal in the time between the first auditions and the callbacks. He had spent days trying unsuccessfully to banish thoughts of sex from his mind. They weren't so much thoughts of Fielding French as they were a plea for attention from his long denied body inspired by the sight of her. Wretched girl.

  It wasn't helping that every person on his permanent staff had one personal issue or another. Sara, Liz and Lynette had all been with him for over twenty years. One would think that they would have learned by now not to press him on a day like this.

  The demand for his time and attention was one of the reasons why he tried to avoid close friendships. But he could not turn his back on women like these who had been with him all the way. Aside from which, Anne would kill him. The three women had acted as surrogate mothers for her.

  That was the art of compromise, something at which he had never been altogether skilled. Anne was the superior teacher in that department. Going on nineteen, she was fiercely independent and as stubborn as he was. Their many lovingly-meant arguments had finally, over the years, resulted in him learning to give a little. But she would have been the first to admit that it was only a very little.

  That seemed to be the story of his life. He learned a few things, but only very litt
le.

  If there was a lesson in Miss French's inexplicable effect on his libido, he didn't yet know what it was. Except that perhaps he wasn't as immune to the opposite gender as time and will had let him believe. He made his way into the auditorium bracing himself for another dose of Fielding French.

  Fielding was nearly late to the theater for callbacks. She'd fallen asleep in a chair at the hospice. A nurse had woken her around four. She'd barely had time to make it home, shower, and change before getting to the theater.

  They were sent to the holding room again to await the second round of screening, but the room was considerably emptier than before. Fielding's number this time was much lower. There were less staff members trolling the room too, only a middle-aged woman in a trim pantsuit and two younger women who were matching numbers with cards.

  Just inside the door, Fielding was accosted by Daphne, who was leading a cocktail party-like round of introductions between the dancers. Charlotte Wiseman was a tough, streetwise woman from Brooklyn in a skirt that could have doubled as a belt and a sweater that was so small she had probably purchased it from the children's section. Curse words fell easily from her red painted lips. She had the kind of spunk that would take her far in the dog-eat-dog world of the theater.

  Fielding had already met Kelly, a tanned and determined girl from Las Vegas who had just moved up from working as a showgirl, though she looked far more like someone from a Jeep commercial.

  Then there was Leslie Sanford, who was painfully shy for a professional actress. She had extraordinarily perfect posture, the kind learned from walking with a book on your head, and her clothes were so neatly fitted there was no question in Fielding's mind that Leslie had a personal tailor somewhere.

  Bob Triford stood six and a half feet tall with bulging muscles, a gleaming smile, and a voice that could carry halfway to Long Island. The voice and looks were enough to impress the women, and that alone made him king of this crowd. Kyle had also made the cut and was relaxing in a blue metal chair, looking campy in a pink, faux-snakeskin, button-down shirt and tan leather pants. Then, after about the sixth introduction, Fielding started losing track of the names.