She moved closer, until her shins were flush against the cushion of the velvet sofa, squinting to see.
“Ah. How’d you like Paris?” he asked, tossing his doublet and apron to hang over the screen.
Yes, she was almost certain it was Sean, in his younger days. In the photograph, Marcello looked very young, too. A teenager, with a thick head of dark hair and a white smile that made him look like he was up to no good. He looked a bit like a young Frank Sinatra. “It was an adventure,” she said, scanning over to someone who looked very much like Julia Roberts. He was only a young man in that photograph, but he had his arm draped possessively around her, as they walked some red carpet. She nearly choked. Did he date Julia Roberts? “I went to Versailles and got a little bit more than I bargained for.”
There was a bit of rustling behind the screen, and then he draped his white undershirt over the top of the frame. He coughed again, and his voice was fainter. It sounded like he was losing interest in her. “Eh? How so?”
Now her eyes caught on a picture of him giving a cheek-kiss to a smiling and delighted-looking Idina Menzel. So, Marcello dallied with A-list celebrities. What was she doing here, with him, when he could be with all of these more exciting, glamorous women? She couldn’t stop shivering enough to even think of bringing the wine to her lips without spilling it. Instead, she started to pour out the whole sordid story to him. “Oh, you see, I went to Versailles for their annual ball. And I met an individual who turned out to be a jewel thief, and the necklace I was wearing—the Madame Royale, which was worth over a million dollars—went missing. And then the man was mur—”
THUNK.
The sound made Diana whirl so fast that the drink in the glass sloshed onto her hand. All rustling behind the screen stopped, and a strange silence settled over the room, in which she could only hear the beating of her heart. She was about to ask him if he was all right, when her eyes drifted down to the ground.
Lying there, palm upward, was Marcello’s hand, and a few inches from it, his spilled wine glass.
“Marcello?” she asked, though she already know she wouldn’t receive an answer, even as she crept forward, revealing more of him—a pale forearm, a shoulder, a chest, clothed only in an undershirt.
But it was when she finally went past the screen and saw his face, eyes wide and empty, staring forever at nothing, his mouth open in a silent scream, that she realized something was very, very wrong.
Letting out a squeak of terror, she backed away, up against the wall, wishing she could unsee that ghastly expression on his face. His chest hadn’t been moving, so did that mean . . . was he . . .
Oh, god.
But he’d just been talking to her, and he was fine. Perfect. Virile and strong and happy to be done with the play. And now he was . . .
Oh, god.
She had to have been seeing things. This wasn’t right. Her eyes went to the screen, to the pale hand, fingers raised to the ceiling, as if clawing for something above.
No. Still there. It was real, as real as the crystal glass just a hair away from his fingertips . . .
Stifling the scream in her throat, she looked down at her own glass, then dropped it like it was on fire, wiping the spilled wine from her hand on her dress feverishly. Then she rushed for the door.
CHAPTER TEN
Diana sat in the front row of the theater, almost exactly where she’d watched A Midsummer Night’s Dream a few hours earlier. The silent stage and empty seats around her were eerie, even with the sun sinking behind it in a cheerful pink glow. She was holding the glass of water a police officer had given her in a trembling hand, pretty sure she was never going to drink anything, again, ever.
Poisoned.
That was the word that floated in her head. Even though she didn’t know it for sure, the word seemed to drift in and out of her subconscious. That, and another one.
Murder.
Marcello Camillo, the actor who’d played Peter Quince, the man who’d charmed her on the train and given her a ticket to the performance, was dead. That was obvious. If the fact that he hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time she’d rushed up and down the narrow hallway, asking for help, hadn’t given away the fact, it was made pretty clear now, as two EMTs carried a sheet-covered stretcher off the stage and up the staircase. As much as she tried to ignore it, she couldn’t unsee Marcello’s dead eyes, his pale, horror-stricken face. It was almost as if he was as shocked by it as Diana had been.
She looked down at the clear water in the plastic cup, and her stomach swam.
But she was being silly. It probably had nothing to do with the wine, or poisoning. Marcello Camillo may have looked virile and healthy, but perhaps he was masking a hidden heart condition. Or some other medical problem.
Yes, that made more sense. He was a smoker. He was likely pushing sixty. He’d been excited by the play, and boom. Heart attack.
Besides, most people never witnessed a single murder in their entire lives. Diana could remember thinking that back in Paris, when she’d seen the dead man underneath the balcony at Versailles.
Witnessing two, in just one month? That was impossible. Or very unlucky.
Though the stage itself was empty, there were plenty of police officers walking around the aisles of the theater, gathering up the other actors to interview. Diana couldn’t remember who they were or what parts they played, now that they were all dressed in their regular clothing. Not that she cared much about getting her program signed now. Or at all. In fact, she was pretty sure she never wanted to see another actor, ever again.
As she was sitting there, trying to wipe her memory of the last hour, the large man with the headset came lumbering down the stairs to the stage. He threw his clipboard down with a startling clatter that echoed through the cavernous space. “Disastro. Catastrofe!”
Someone spoke up. “Pietro, remember to address the troupe in English. We have a few English actors here who don’t speak much Italian.”
Diana nearly laughed. Disastro? Catastrofe? It didn’t take a genius to understand what he was saying, in any language. It was clear this Pietro Colombo, the director, had a bit of a temper, because he scowled and began to mutter on in Italian, his face as broad and red as a tomato.
A woman who might have played Hermia came over to him and said, very gently, “Yes, it is a terrible shock for our troupe. He was a fine actor and a good friend to us all. We will all miss Marcello very much, both personally and professionally. In the light of this, I’m not sure how we can continue—”
“Sciocchezza! We go on. No interruptions in our schedule, do you hear me! It is a full house! Every ticket sold for tomorrow! We no miss!” he shouted, so loud his voice echoed around the arena. “That is the last word! Final!”
A man in khakis and a tie, who must’ve been an investigator for the police force, shook his head. “We still have our investigation to do, and there’s a good chance it won’t be completed by tomorrow afternoon.”
Pietro’s dagger-eyes swung to the man. “How long?”
“Difficult to say right now.”
Pietro slammed both palms on the stage, and his hefty body shook with tension. For a second, Diana felt afraid for him. Carrying all that extra weight couldn’t have been good. And he was clearly so stressed out that she didn’t put it past him to have a heart attack and add to the night’s body count. Then he turned and scanned the actors who had gathered around them. “Then we prepare. We rehearse tomorrow with a new actor in place for Quince.”