Page 33 of Ghosted Cowboy
This wasn't part of the plan.
My pulse spiked. In the distance, I heard Vivian falter mid-sentence, then recover with a nervous laugh. "Well, folks, seems we're having some technical difficulties. Just a moment..."
The dressing room door creaked open.
Slow footsteps entered the room. Deliberate. Careful. Not Ransom's confident stride or Turley's heavy tread. Someone trying not to be heard.
I pressed back against the vanity, my hands gripping the edge. The darkness was absolute—no emergency lights, no exit signs, nothing. My breathing seemed too loud in the silence. The vanity behind me creaked—or was that footsteps? The darkness pressed against my eyes until I saw phantom colors dancing in the void.
"Where are you, Rainey Bell?" The whisper came from my left, near the costume rack. High-pitched, strained. "Haven't you learned?"
Something crashed—the mannequin in the corner, from the sound of splintering wood. I jerked sideways, nearly knocking over the makeup bottles.
"You should have quit when you had the chance." The voice was moving, circling. "Should have taken the hint. But you're too stubborn, aren't you? Too proud."
My hand found the heavy glass paperweight on the tabletop—a prop from last year's production ofGlass Menagerie. Not much of a weapon, but better than nothing.
Something else shattered, closer this time. The chair where Ransom had been sitting moments ago.
"Come out, come out," the voice sing-songed. "Let's finish this. It'll be quick. Just a little accident. Tragic, really. Local actress injured before opening night. Break a leg, right?"
Metal scraped against wood—something being dragged across the floor.
The lights blazed on.
The sudden brightness stabbed at my retinas. I heard gasps from somewhere—the audience?—and Ransom's boots thundering across the floor. When my vision cleared, Darcy Coleman stood three feet away, a hammer raised in her right hand.
"Drop it." Ransom's voice, low and controlled, behind her.
Darcy froze and her face crumpled. The hammer clattered to the floor.
"I—I didn't—she made me—" Tears streamed down her face, smearing her heavy eyeliner into dark rivers.
"Hands where I can see them," Sheriff Turley commanded from the doorway, his service weapon drawn but pointed at the floor. "Now."
Darcy lifted her arms, her whole body shaking. "Brooke promised me everything! She said—she said you didn't deserve the lead. Said you stole it from her."
"Darcy, shut up!" Brooke appeared in the doorway behind Turley, her perfect composure finally cracking. "Don't say another word!"
"She knows people in LA!" Darcy continued, almost hysterical now. "She can get me into film school! She promised—all I had to do was help scare you off—"
"You stupid little—" Brooke pushed past Turley, but Ransom stepped between us, blocking her path.
"That's enough," he said.
"Oh please." A harsh sound that might have been a laugh escaped Brooke. "Like you haven't wanted to play hero this whole time? Big strong cowboy protecting his helpless little—"
"Actually," Darcy interrupted. She fumbled in her jeans pocket, pulling out her phone and scrolling frantically through her videos. "I have something you should hear."
"Darcy, no—"
But Darcy had already hit play. Brooke's voice filled the room, tinny but unmistakable through the phone's speaker:
"—stubborn bitch won't take a hint. Tomorrow night, when she's in her dressing room, go after her. Try to break one of her legs. Make it look like an accident." That horrible laugh. "It'll be our little joke, you know—'Break a leg!'"
The recording continued—Brooke detailing which breaker to flip, where to hide the hammer beforehand, and how to get rid of the evidence once the deed was done.
"You recorded me?" Brooke's face went white, then red. "You little—"
