Blood Will Have Blood by Linda Barnes Page A

the stagehand who’d set up the platforms and the carpenter who’d built them. Spraggue photographed them all, feeling vaguely silly. Now he’d have to fingerprint the entire cast. And he was certain the joker had used gloves. Everyone used gloves. He inspected the nails, driven in clean and straight. Could tiny Georgina swing the necessary blow? The wire itself, Karen identified easily; right off a roll in the electrician’s booth. Kept on an open shelf in an unlocked room. Available to all.
    Spraggue shook his head, disgusted. “You’d better go get some lunch while there’s still time,” he said to Karen.
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œNot hungry.”
    â€œDid the joker leave you another note?”
    â€œCan’t find one.”
    â€œI’ll bring you back a sandwich,” she said.
    Spraggue went to pay a condolence call on Caroline Ambrose. Her dressing-room door was partially open.
    Caroline was alone, standing in front of her full-length mirror. She preened, testing one famous expression after another. Her smile faded and her fingers gently massaged her temples, her forehead, desperately smoothing age-wrinkled skin.
    The face reflected in the glass was a classic. Caroline Ambrose had huge violet eyes under arching brows, porcelain skin, delicate bones, a cloud of dark hair, and a sweet triangular smile. Cloying, Spraggue corrected himself, not sweet. A self-conscious smile designed to evade laugh lines. Appraising eyes that constantly searched, for approval, for weakness, for gain.
    Caroline mascaraed her long lashes, replenished her scarlet lipstick, patted more color into her cheeks. She made Spraggue long for the uncompromising face of Karen Snow, not beautiful, but real. He much preferred the intelligence in Karen’s eyes to the fake docility in Caroline’s.
    Spraggue rapped at the open door. Caroline was still engrossed in her reflection.
    She turned, offered him a three-quarter profile and a madonna smile. It was one of her best. She was often photographed that way.
    â€œMay I come in, Miss Ambrose?” Spraggue said with what he hoped was the right touch of deference for a request from a second lead to a star.
    Her triangular smile widened speculatively. She patted a place on the bench close beside her and beamed as he sat down.
    â€œCall me Caroline, Michael. Please.”
    â€œCaroline.” He said her name lightly, approvingly. “I hope my knock didn’t frighten you.”
    â€œOh, no.”
    â€œGood. After what you’ve been through—”
    â€œJust frightful, isn’t it?” She shivered, then smiled at her pretense. “The things actors have to put up with.”
    â€œYou, especially.”
    Caroline flushed with pleasure. “So you, at least, have noticed. There is such envy in the theater.”
    â€œYou seem to take it very calmly. If you had gone a few more steps down that staircase—”
    She put a hand on his arm. “Please, don’t even say that. I’m not calm, not at all.” She allowed a lip to quiver. “Really, I shouldn’t have been left here alone.”
    So John Langford had deserted her. For Emma? “I’m sorry,” Spraggue said.
    â€œI’m being foolish, I know.” Caroline smiled bravely. “But I can’t dwell on such things. It might affect my performance.”
    It certainly wasn’t affecting her performance at the moment, Spraggue thought.
    â€œThese things have happened to me before, you know.”
    â€œTrip wires?”
    â€œNo, no. But my dressing room has been broken into twice—and I have had setbacks in my career. Jealous people who’ve taken advantage—”
    â€œDo you know who set that wire?”
    â€œWhy, no, Michael. I feel it. I’m very sensitive to these things. I feel who my enemies are. I always have enemies.”
    â€œHave you discussed your suspicions with