Amy Cousins - When the Lights Go Down

At least he now knew who the blonde serial killer was. His gaze followed her as she stomped back through the metal doors.

There was no mistaking that voice. It didn’t matter that today she was all 60s glam and last night she’d been a dark-haired grease monkey in mechanic’s overalls with a bandana tied around her head, shouting orders and curses and elbowing him out of the way as she ruled over the chaos of a backstage on opening night.

All he would ever need to recognize Maxie Tyler was one of two things: a glimpse of those midnight-dark eyes, glittering with intensity, or one word in that husky growl of a voice.

He sighed, wondering why he always got stuck coming to his mother’s rescue after the damage had been done. The money she’d sunk into backing a hot new playwright’s work had already been spent, of course, by the time he heard about it. She never called him before she made her next disastrous decision. Just sent out a press release—literally, she had the Tribune, Sun-Times, Chicago Reader and all the rest on speed dial—and then cried for help when her latest project escaped her control. At least this was one loose end he could handle himself, which was the only reason he was here, waiting for a breakfast meeting with a lunatic.

The budget of the play was already spiraling out of control, and the director had insisted that the next crucial step was to hire a brilliant stage manager. The only name on his list was Maxie Tyler.

Nick’s self-assigned duty, with his mother’s grudging approval, was to check her out. If she wasn’t up to the job, he’d make it clear that the golden goose wasn’t laying any more eggs until someone wrestled this train wreck back onto the tracks.

Before he’d arrived backstage last night, he hadn’t even been sure Maxie Tyler was a woman. His introduction to the theater world had been quick and intense, but the first thing he’d learned about the industry was that it teemed with unusual characters. Maxie could just as easily have been the nickname for a three-hundred-pound grizzled old man as this pixie who probably didn’t top a buck-five soaking wet. But at the very least, he’d expected someone a little, well, older.

And a little less dramatic.

And a lot less sex-on-wheels hot.

The van finally drove off down the alley. Nick maneuvered his baby into a nearly empty parking lot behind the building, bumping over cobblestones and chunks of lumber along the way. He made sure to park as far as possible from the giant pickup truck that screamed I’m compensating for my tiny penis.

He shook his head as he walked back to the door into which the go-go girl had disappeared. This entire venture, not just this meeting, was a frustrating waste of his time. If his mother had any sense of restraint at all...

Who was he kidding? He’d spent his entire life wishing his mother possessed some of the self-control and propriety of all the other Gold Coast society matrons. When friends had lamented their cold and demanding parents, Nick’s only thought had been if only. In these past months, ever since she’d met that playwright, the wheels had really come off. His mother had lost her mind. To the tune of several hundred thousand dollars.

He yanked the alley door open, heading down a barren hallway past dimly lit doorways sporting handwritten signs that read like a list of doomed-to-fail enterprises: Abel’s Anytime Carpet-Laying, Darning by Deborah, SnowGlobe: The Magazine.

At the end of the hall, under another roughly sculpted wooden banana that was a miniature of the one outside, he stopped and eyed the words painted on the frosted glass pane.

Carving Bananas, Inc.

He sighed—here was yet another reminder of the eccentricity of theater people—and started to push open the door, freezing in place as a voice he didn’t recognize leaked out through the crack. He nudged the door open a couple more inches and waited.

“—just saying. You couldn’t have played the role of straitlaced businesswoman today? Three-hole punch?”

“I am a straitlaced businesswoman, child. Cabinet, middle shelf, right-hand side.”

“Sure,” the female voice doing the scolding snorted, as metal squeaked on metal.

“See, right where I told you, doubting Thomasina.”

“I wasn’t questioning your bizarrely accurate knowledge of where every little damn thing in your life is placed, you weirdo. I was questioning your claim to straitlaced businessdom.”

Nick grinned in agreement with the scolder. Though if one of his employees spoke to him that way, he’d have them shipped off for drug testing.

Maybe they were both high.

“It’s what I am. That doesn’t have any relation to how I dress.”

“Clearly.”

“That’s it. I’m docking your pay for insolence. Brat.”

“You don’t pay me, remember? I’m an intern.”

“And why do you work here?”

“I think I’ve forgotten.”

“Well, make yourself useful and keep an eye out for Mr. Sharp-Dressed Man, will you? I’m trying to make a good impression here.”

Nick entered the claustrophobic office just in time to glimpse a flash of turquoise and platinum disappearing through an interior door to his right. A floating echo that sounded like “Gotta pee” slipped past the door as it swung shut.

The young woman behind the wood-laminate desk wore a shell-pink twinset, a short strand of pearls, and a velvet hair ribbon. She was still rolling her eyes when she turned back to see who’d entered.

Her recovery when she saw him, the “Mr. Sharp-Dressed Man” for whom she was waiting, was remarkable. She should be paid more...or at all.

“Mr. Drake, I presume?” At his nod, she waved her hand grandly to the one unoccupied flat surface in the room: a metal folding chair huddled between two enormous steel cabinets pasted over with advertisements for dozens of shows. He was sure she guarded the chair with the ferocity of a mother lion. Every other open space in the room was piled high with everything from crumbling bricks to ladies’ satin underwear. “Ms. Tyler will be with you momentarily.”

He twisted his mouth and raised an eyebrow. “As long as she unplugs the saw first, I can wait.”

The girl didn’t drop her smile for a moment. “Ah. So it’s too late for the good impression.” She shrugged philosophically. “Coffee?”

“Who makes it?”

“I do. Fresh ground Columbian.”

“I’m in.”

By the time the click of high-heeled boots approached, he’d discovered that the unpaid intern’s name was Clarissa, that she’d been working full-time for Maxie for six weeks, on top of a full course load in theater management at Columbia College, and that Maxie was the best stage manager she’d ever met. Apparently, the same woman who’d pegged him with the lid from a can of dog food was “surreally talented, kind of spooky and not a little bit of a tyrant.”

Not exactly what he’d been hoping to hear. He was on the lookout for someone solid, understandable and amenable to taking orders.

But when Maxie strode into the crowded office, he turned from the girl, who was now perched on the corner of the desk, to watch as an earpiece of her big white sunglasses slid into the turquoise V of her dress, drawing his eyes down from where they ought to be.

He looked back up to find big, dark-chocolate eyes waiting for him under equally dark brows that somehow worked with the icy white-blonde hair. Her cheekbones were high and sharp and her wide, full mouth was frosted pink.

He held his breath, every muscle in his body tensing at the first drift of her scent—leather and vanilla. Even the smell of her was fascinating.

She held out her small hand.

Enveloping it in his own, he was caught off guard by the strength in her fingers. An electric shock jumped through him at the gentle bite of her white fingernails into the back of his hand. He had a momentary vision of those same fingernails stair-stepping lightly down his spine and his dick stiffened at the thought.