Trust Me

him. He was alive.
    “Don’t move.” Desdemona crouched beside him. “Let me see if you’re bleeding. Then I’ll call 911.”
    She leaned over him to check for a wound of some kind and nearly screamed when she saw that his eyes were open and filled with an urgent warning. It was a warning he could not verbalize because his mouth was sealed with duct tape.
    “Oh, my God.” Desdemona saw that his hands were bound. With trembling fingers she ripped the tape from his mouth.
    Ian’s chest heaved as he gasped for breath. “Get out of here, Mona. Now. The cops. Call the cops.”
    “I’ll get them.” Desdemona staggered to her feet.
    A brilliant white spotlight struck the stage with the intensity of a star gone nova. Desdemona froze, trapped by the light.
    “I’m afraid it’s too late for heroics.” The voice that boomed down toward the stage was disembodied and severely distorted by a deliberately abused microphone and sound system. It was the voice of a robot. Mechanical and completely unidentifiable. “We are gathered here this evening to perform a short play in one act. No one leaves until the final curtain.”
    “Shit,” Ian muttered. His head fell back onto the stage in silent defeat. “I was afraid that he was still up there.”
    “Who?” Desdemona whispered.
    “Don’t know. Never saw him. Came up behind me.”
    Desdemona raised her hand in a futile attempt to shield her eyes from the blinding whiteness of the spotlight. She looked toward the control booth. The glare of the spot was so intense it hurt her eyes. It was impossible to see anything behind it.
    “I don’t know who you are,” she said very loudly, “but you had better get out of here while you can. Other people are on their way.”
    “Your cousin Henry and his wife, Kirsten? Don’t hold your breath, Miss Wainwright. I sent the email message that brought you here. Your relatives know nothing about it.”
    Desdemona fought the fear that twisted her insides into a knot. “What do you want? If it’s money, you picked the wrong people. Neither Ian nor I have very much cash. The Limelight is on the verge of bankruptcy, and everything I’ve got is invested in my business.”
    Ian stirred briefly. “Not bankrupt. The Limelight is going to make it,” he muttered. “Got a new plan.”
    Desdemona ignored him.
    The amplified voice thundered down from the lighting booth. “It’s not your money I’m after, Miss Wainwright. And I do not give a damn about Ivers’s impending bankruptcy, either. Unfortunately, he was in the way when I got here. It was you I needed. And now I have you.”
    “I don’t understand,” Desdemona said.
    “I know you don’t.” The robotic voice seemed to grow even more metallic. “But Stark will.”
    “Stark?” Desdemona’s heart thudded. “What has this got to do with him?”
    “Everything.”
    “This is about ARCANE, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, Miss Wainwright,” the distorted voice said. “It’s about ARCANE. It was always about ARCANE.”
    “What happens next?”
    “We wait.”
    “For what?” Desdemona demanded.
    “For Stark to bring ARCANE to me.”
    “Are you crazy?” Desdemona said. “He’ll never do that.”
    “You’re wrong, Miss Wainwright. He’ll hand over ARCANE quite willingly in exchange for you.”
    Desdemona swallowed. “That’s why I’m here? I’m a hostage?”
    “You may as well sit down on the stage, Miss Wainwright. I just sent the email message to Stark. It will take him a while to get here.”
    “He’ll probably have the cops with him when he arrives,” Desdemona warned.
    “I don’t think so,” the mechanical voice said. “I told him what would happen to you if he brought the police. He likes to think that he’s the star of the show, but this time I’m the director. This time I give the orders.”
    “And just what will happen to me?” she shot back recklessly.
    “I will kill you, Miss Wainwright.” The voice was chillingly hollow as it echoed off the walls. “Just as I killed Tate. I will also put a bullet through Ian Ivers while I’m at it. Now sit.”
    The final words were a shattering blast of sound. Desdemona cringed and put her hands over her ears. She crouched down beside Ian.
    Together they waited in the pool of hot, dazzling light.
    Desdemona spent the time concocting a dozen different methods of escape. There were two basic problems with each scenario. They all depended on whether or not she could leap out of the spotlight and into the