“I’ll worry about Sage later. You are the real problem, Miss Lodge. I realized that when I saw the effect you had first on Oxlade and then on Arthur. That’s far enough. Stop.”
Maggie halted in front of a door.
“Open it,” Dolores said. “It’s unlocked.”
Maggie turned the knob and moved through the opening into a windowless room lit by a dim overhead fixture. Ahead was a partial wall flanked by a corridor on each side.
“This is the back of the theater,” she said.
“Atmosphere is everything when it comes to setting the scene,” Dolores said. She gave Gloria a shove. “The stage. Both of you.”
Once again Maggie led the way. She stopped at the entrance of the stage. The curtains were open. The rows of seats lay in dense shadow, but there was just enough light coming from the wings to reveal the shapes of the chair and the gilded couch that had been used in the psychic reading the previous night.
She glanced over her shoulder. “If you think you can get away with a repeat of the same scene you used for Beverly Nevins’s murder, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were, Dolores.”
“Don’t worry,” Dolores said. “The press will buy it, and that means the cops will, too.”
Gloria started to turn. “You murdered that woman? The one who died in here the first night of the conference?”
“I told you to shut up,” Dolores said.
Her voice rose a little. Her control was slipping. Maggie heard a soft thud and turned to see that Dolores had dropped the evening bag. An object gleamed in her fingers. A syringe.
“No,” Maggie gasped.
Dolores stabbed the syringe into the curve of Gloria’s shoulder.
Gloria managed a shocked yelp, staggered a couple of steps, and turned to stare at Dolores in stunned horror. She grabbed the edge of a nearby curtain in an attempt to steady herself, but she lacked the strength to maintain her grip. Her eyes glazed over. She crumpled to the floor.
Maggie stumbled back a step. She braced one hand on the bank of light switches to keep her balance and looked at Dolores.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
“She’s not dead,” Dolores said, her voice once again calm. “I used a strong sedative. You learn a lot about drugs and medications when you work for a doctor. Gloria will wake up next to your body. The pistol will be in her hand. It will have her fingerprints on it.”
“She’ll remember what happened,” Maggie said. “She’ll tell the police.”
“I doubt it. The sedative creates some amnesia. But even if she does remember, no one will believe I was here. Arthur will testify that I was in the lobby with him the whole time. Given the size of the crowd tonight, no one will be able to dispute him.”
“You’re losing control, aren’t you, Dolores? You used to be able to make your kills look like natural causes, or even supernatural causes. I’ll bet you’re the one who fired up the rumors of the Traveler after you murdered Virginia Jennaway. You resurrected the story after you killed Beverly Nevins.”
“I had to kill them,” Dolores said. “They gave me no choice.”
“Did you murder Jennaway because she slept with your husband?”
“If I got rid of every woman Arthur fucks I wouldn’t have time to run the business. I had to take care of Jennaway because she became a problem.”
“How?”
“The stupid woman was convinced Arthur loved her and wanted to marry her. When he tried to walk away, she had the nerve to threatento go to the press and claim that he got her pregnant. She planned to tell the world the Dream Master was fucking his acolytes. The scandal would have destroyed us.”
“You were the one who stole the vial of the enhancer drug from Oxlade four years ago. You used it on Virginia Jennaway.”
“Jennaway and Arthur went to a nightclub that night,” Dolores said. “Neither of them saw me. You know how it is in the clubs. So dark. When they left the booth for a dance, I dropped some of the drug into Jennaway’s drink. It took a while for the effects to kick in, but when they did, Arthur was terrified. As usual he panicked. He got Jennaway as far as the parking lot. I was waiting. I told him I would take care of everything.”
“That’s your job, isn’t it? Cleaning up after Arthur.”
Dolores shrugged. “I’m the fixer. I do whatever is necessary to protect the star. I sent him home in a cab that night and then I drove Jennaway back to her beach house. I got her out of the car. She was so disoriented and so woozy she never realized I was walking her into the sea. She struggled a bit at the end, but it wasn’t difficult to push her head underwater and hold it there. She was hallucinating. Thought I was the Traveler.”
