Page 23 of The Case of the Missing Dancer
"I don't have a choice!"
"You always have a choice. Help me stop this, and Inspector Crawford Sinclair will protect your family."
Cooper's hands shook as he stared at me. Below us, the transformation sequence reached its climax. The final ascension was only minutes away.
"It's too late," he whispered. "I've already weakened the primary cable. When she reaches maximum height . . .”
He didn't need to finish. I could see the partially severed rope he'd been working on. It would hold Anya's weight initially, but the stress of the full ascension would snap it completely.
“Fix it," I said, raising the hatpin. "Now."
"I can't! The backup rigging is controlled from the other side of the gallery, and there's no time?—"
The music below shifted to the final act. Any moment now, Anya would begin her ascension to freedom. And her death.
"There must be something!"
Cooper looked around desperately, then pointed to a lever near the wall. "The emergency release. If I could trigger it the moment the main cable snaps, it would deploy the safety rigging. But the timing has to be perfect, and someone would need to signal from below when the cable starts to fail."
Below us, Anya had taken her position for the final sequence. In the wings, I could see Volkov watching with that cold smile, anticipating his revenge.
"I'll signal," I said, moving toward the edge of the gallery where I could see the rigging clearly. "You watch for my signal and trigger the release."
"Miss Worthington, if the timing is wrong, or if the signal is unclear . . .”
"Then we'll have failed, and a brave young woman will die." I gripped the police whistle tightly. "But we're not going to fail."
The final music began, and Anya started her ascension. Below, the audience gasped in wonder as she rose toward the gallery, her costume catching the stage lights like real fire.
I watched the sabotaged cable, waiting for the first sign that it was about to snap.
CHAPTER 12
CURTAIN CALL
Anya rose through the air with ethereal grace, her crimson and gold costume catching the stage lights as she ascended toward what the audience believed was her triumphant transformation. From my position in the fly gallery, I could see both the beauty of her performance and the deadly truth. The sabotaged cable was already beginning to fray under the strain.
Twenty feet. Twenty-five. The music swelled toward its climax as Anya reached the height where she would hover in seeming flight before her final ascension to freedom. I watched the cable with desperate intensity, seeing the individual strands beginning to snap one by one.
Cooper stood ready at the emergency release, his face pale with terror for both Anya and his own daughter. The timing would have to be perfect. Too early, and the emergency rigging would interfere with the performance and alert Volkov that his plan had been discovered. Too late and . . .
Thirty feet. The cable was holding, but barely. I could see it stretching under Anya's weight, the cut strands separating farther with each subtle movement of her performance.
Then I saw movement in the wings below. Volkov had stepped forward where he could see the rigging clearly, and his expression had changed from anticipation to suspicion. He'd noticed something. Perhaps the way Cooper was positioned, or some detail of the rigging that wasn't quite right.
The music reached the moment for Anya's final ascension to freedom. As she rose higher, I saw the exact moment when the cable reached its breaking point.
"Now!" I shouted to Cooper, bringing the police whistle to my lips.
But even as Cooper lunged for the emergency release, I saw Volkov pull a revolver from beneath his evening jacket. He wasn't going to wait for the rigging to fail. He was going to shoot Anya himself.
The police whistle's shrill blast echoed through the theatre just as the main cable snapped with a sound like a gunshot. Cooper triggered the emergency release, and the backup rigging deployed with a mechanical clatter that was audible even over the orchestra.
But Volkov had already taken aim.
Anya dropped suddenly as the main cable failed. But rather than plummet to her death, she was caught by the emergency harness. Even as Volkov's shot went wide as his target moved unexpectedly, the audience gasped, thinking it was part of the performance.
Chaos erupted in the wings as Robert's constables moved to apprehend Volkov, but the former Okhrana colonel was far from finished. He fired again, this time at the emergency rigging itself, trying to complete his murderous plan even as the police closed in.
