“Because dryers kill people!” he sobbed. “They kill people!” He wrenched his arms from Casey’s and fell to the floor, grabbing her around her knees. “I don’t want you to die, nice lady! Don’t die!”
“I’m not going to die. I promise.” She stroked his head, smoothing his hair back from his face. “But the dryer, Johnny. Why are you afraid of those?”
“When people use dryers they die,” he said. “Ellen told me so.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Casey could get nothing more out of Johnny, partly because he was too distraught, but mostly, she thought, because he knew nothing further. Loretta couldn’t remember hearing Ellen ever talk about dryers. Just that she had discovered something that could save the factory.
“She was happy about that, praise God,” Loretta said, “but behind the happiness was something sad, too. Like what she’d found out was haunting her, may she rest in peace.”
Which Casey could understand. If the saving of HomeMaker came at the expense of someone’s life, Ellen would have to feel the irony, and sadness, in that.
“What do you know about this, L’Ankou?” Casey muttered as she walked to rehearsal. But Death, when wanted, chose not to come. “You really are an ass, you know,” Casey said.
The air in front of her shimmered, but nothing materialized.
Rehearsal had already started when Casey slipped in the double doors, and Eric, Aaron, and Jack were on- stage. She scrambled to find her place in her script, glad to see the others rehearsing a scene she wasn’t in. Becca showed obvious relief at her arrival, and Casey waved her an apology.
Lonnie squeezed into a seat beside her, his eyes glowing. “And where have you been, our mysterious stranger? I was afraid Thomas was going to blow a gasket when you weren’t here at seven. Eric promised you were coming, but Thomas looked ready to pass out until you came in the door.”
A glance at Thomas provided only his stony profile, his focus—at least the one he was showing—on the stage.
“Any clue why he was so freaked out?” Casey asked.
Lonnie grinned. “He’s really anal about practice time?”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s it.”
“No.” He laughed. “Me, either. He never acts that way when Holly’s late. Which she is again today.”
Thomas turned and glared at them, and Lonnie covered his mouth with both hands. “I guess we need to behave,” he said, from beneath his fingers.
“We?”
Lonnie pushed his hands tighter to keep from laughing out loud.
At the end of the scene Becca called a break, and Eric jumped off of the stage, making his way toward Casey, Leila close behind him.
“Uh-oh,” Lonnie said. “Here comes loverboy. And his lapdog.”
Casey smacked his shoulder, then got up to meet Eric. She pulled him to the side, away from Leila, and explained, in hushed tones, what Johnny had told her.
“A dryer killed somebody?”
“If Ellen was right. And if Johnny’s correct about what she said.”
Eric dropped into the nearest seat. “Todd didn’t tell you that?”
“No.” She sat down next to him. “He said what he and Karl talked about was personal, and had nothing to do with Ellen. But then, maybe he didn’t know she knew about it. Speaking of Todd…” She looked up. “Where is he?”
“He was here earlier. Probably went outside for break. So that dryer latch we have—”
“—is somehow connected. It’s got to be. I’m sure it’s not actually the lock of that particular dryer—at least I wouldn’t think so—but it’s important.” She leaned over and grabbed Eric’s hand. “Eric, when you met with your dad that day, was it about dryers?”
“No. I mean, we never talked about dryers. Except in really vague ways about production. Never anything about somebody dying.”
“Who’s dying?”
They looked up at Leila, who stood, hip cocked, beside Casey’s seat, her face betraying some kind of excitement.
“Nobody.” Eric’s voice was flat.
Leila gasped. “Eric, did you not tell her?”
Casey looked at him. “Tell me what?”
“Nothing,” Eric said in the same flat tone.
Leila’s nostrils flared. “So are you taking a break or not, Eric?” She glared at Casey, as if Casey was keeping him from his respite.
Casey stood. “I’m going outside. I need some fresh air.” She walked quickly away, not wanting to hear anything else Leila might say.
Todd was not outside.
She waited in the lobby, in the hopes he would come through there before rehearsal resumed, but she was out of luck. By the time Becca was calling for them to return, Todd still was nowhere to be seen.
Casey went back into the theater, only to see Todd slumped in the front row. She moved up the aisle and sat beside him. He looked at her warily from beneath his half-closed eyes.
“What do you know about dryers?”
“Dryers?” His face was blank.
“You know, the appliance that dries clothes.”
“I know what you mean. I’m not an idiot.” He looked around, but no one was close. “What about dryers?”
“Did you and Karl ever talk about them?”
“About dryers?”
Casey felt someone’s eyes on her, and she looked up to see Thomas staring at her from several rows back. “Yes,” she said to Todd. “Did you ever have a discussion about them?”
His expression went from blank to confused. “No.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Casey! Todd!” Becca was gesturing to them. “Act five, scene one.”
“Coming.” She stood and looked down at Todd. “If you remember anything—”
“I’m telling you, we never talked about them.”
Casey climbed the stairs to the stage, Todd following her to join Eric. Eric still hadn’t recovered from what she’d told him, if the pallor of his skin was real and not just a trick of the lights. Casey winked at him, and a smile flickered on his face.
The double doors at the back of the theater flung open, and Holly strode in, making her way to the front.
“About time,” Thomas growled.
Holly froze. “Excuse me?”
“You’re late. Rehearsal began at seven.”
She stood there, her mouth gaping, while the rest of the cast looked at each other with shock. Lonnie laughed out loud. Holly and Thomas both rounded on him, and he pinched his lips together with his fingers.
“Um, Act five, scene one, Holly,” Becca said. “You’ll be on in a few minutes.”
Holly swung her hair off her neck and sat regally in a front row seat, her head forward, eyes at stage level. Casey caught Eric’s eye, and he made a face.
“Okay, people,” Thomas bellowed. “Let’s go!”
They got through the scene, and the rest of rehearsal, without anyone blowing up or stalking out. The atmosphere wasn’t exactly relaxed, however, and Casey breathed a sigh of relief when Thomas called it quits for the night.
