Page 38 of Script Swap
“You may find this hard to believe, Dash, but no, my father didn’t conveniently explain away the crux of the entire case the sheriff is building against him.”
(That sounded more like the old Fox.)
“I know this is an ugly question, but could your father have been having a…relationship with Kyson?”
“Myfather?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said.“I mean, Kyson was a young, attractive man, and—”
“My father is straight.”
“Oh.”
“He’s sleeping with Tinny.”
“Well, I got that much, but I thought—”
“I shouldn’t have to say this, butobviously.”
“Right, I mean, okay, but the tabard—”
“What about the tabard?”
“You know what?He wasn’t sleeping with Kyson.That’s the important part.”
Fox let out a frustrated breath.“What drives me crazy is that I know he’s hiding something.And I know Tinny, and that little country bumpkin—” (Again, my term.) “—is hiding something too.In my whole life, Dash, my father has never lied to me.And now it seems like all he does is lie.I can’t reason with him.I can’t argue with him.I can’t even talk to him.”
A pair of teenage girls approached the smoothie bar.They were laughing, whispering to each other, and glancing at Chester.Poor Chester looked like somebody had lit a fire under him—I think he was the only person in the universe who hated attention more than I did—but to his credit, he kept hold of my hand.
“Come to the show tonight,” Fox said.“Please.Maybe he’ll talk to you.”
“Will he be there?”
“Unless they arrest them.And even if they do, you still need to talk to the cast and the crew.Dash, someone killed that boy, and it wasn’t my father.That means the killer is still out there.”
I mean, what was Isupposedto say?
After I disconnected, Chester’s smile curled at the corner.“Let me guess.You’re about to go looking for trouble.”
Chapter 9
If anything, The Foxworthy was even busier the next night.Hastings Rock has a lot of good qualities, but the residentsdolove a murder, and they’d turned out in droves to see what was going to happen at tonight’s performance.Jemitha Green was there to take pictures for the local newspaper—it was mostly a tourist gimmick, but Jemitha did some real reporting too and sold the stories to larger news outlets.Cyd Wofford, our resident Marxist, was there.He was handing out pamphlets on the evil of the theater and the use of mass entertainment to quell the masses.(I know because he cornered me and read half of it out loud before Bobby could rescue me.) Mr.Cheek was there too.He’d come in drag as a young Vivienne Carver, and he was carrying a sign that said VILLAINS ARE THE HEROES OF THEIR OWN STORY.Which I have to admit I took kind of personally.I also didn’t like it when he tried to goose Bobby’s bum, but Ilovedit when Bobby got this look on his face and turned around.If you want to see an aging drag queen try to run in heels.
“Maybe we should move,” Bobby said as he took my arm and steered me toward the theater—er, theatre’s—entrance.“I think he’s getting bolder.”
“He’s definitely getting bolder,” I said.Tonight, I’d worn extremely skinny jeans (black), this super cute shirt with horizontal stripes (and no matter what Keme said, it didnotmake me look like a gay sailor), and a scarf that might have been a littletoojaunty.My fear was that Mr.Cheek would use the scarf to murder me, but I was starting to suspect I should have been more worried about the jeans and, uh, chafing.“He’s getting so bold he’s going to push me in front of a bus and pretend to be me.”
“The wig would eventually give him away,” Bobby said.
With Bobby, sometimes it was hard to tell if he was joking.
We made our way into the theater and found Fox waiting in the lobby.Somehow, it was even more of a madhouse than outside, with people mingling and chatting and clamoring for Coke and popcorn.(And those little Butterfinger Bites that are in-sanelygood, and calories don’t count if you chop them up small like that.) Fox gave us a tight grimace that failed to turn into a smile, beckoned for us to follow, and started down the hall.
“Would you ever want to?”Bobby asked.
“What?”
“Move.”
