Neil awoke, his head lurching from side to side. He could make out faint lights in the gloom, but they were spinning around in circles. He closed his eyes and fought the urge to throw up.
He lost the fight.
Instead of leaning over far enough to throw up away from his lap, he found he could only lean forward a few inches. Ropes held his arms tightly to his chest, and the ropes kept his body bound to an uncomfortable chair.
A familiar voice came at him from the swirling lights. “Ah, Chef Flambé. I see that you are awake. A pity you’ve ruined your trousers, but far better than throwing up on the wonderful banquet I have prepared for your funeral.”
Neil could smell food, but it was coming faintly from somewhere in the room, not from a table in front of him.
“Lord Lane!” Neil spat. “I thought you were dead.”
The man gave a high, long laugh. “Lord Lane is dead! You fool!”
Neil could hear footsteps as the man circled around him, but he was still too sick to open his eyes.
“I can smell honey in your hair,” Neil said. “Your voice is the same!”
“Tsk, tsk. Young boy. Lord Lane was long dead before we ever met at your charming little dump of a restaurant. How would you know what the real Lord Lane even looked like?”
Neil tried again to open his eyes to see the man’s face, but a rush of nausea forced him to shut them again.
“Who are you, then?” Neil croaked.
“The name is Cullen Skink.”
“The actor on the poster?” Neil said.
“The very same. You see, Neil, Lane was a very large backer of my career. He built theater after theater to try to hit the big time. But he had a penchant for picking bad theaters. They all needed millions in renovations; some were condemned before we could even put on a show.”
“Sounds like all he did was pick a bad actor. You must stink for him to keep losing money on you,” Neil said.
“Not at all. He needed me to help him with his master plan.”
“His master plan? Building theaters?”
“It was never about the plays, or his love of theater, much as my patron loved Shakespeare.”
“What was it, then?” Neil needed to stall for time. There was no way he could muster the energy to escape, but Larry must be on his way.
“Long ago, Lane bought a building, a dilapidated building, a dump. He wanted to make a theater for a special person in his life. But when they started digging the foundation, they discovered an even older theater underneath.”
“Whoopee,” Neil said.
“Whoopee indeed. It was a theater from the time of Shakespeare.”
“That must have made headlines,” Neil said, still too queasy to open his eyes and see for himself if this was the same man who’d visited his restaurant.
“Yes, but it stopped that project dead in its tracks. In the subsequent excavation Lane discovered something else. There was an iron box that had been buried for centuries in the stone foundation. Inside, Lane discovered a piece of very old metal.”
Metal? Neil thought. That’s different from all the other clues.
“But not just any metal. This had an inscription carved into it. ‘Dearest Shakerags. If thou hast discovered this shield, you are not without guile and thine own precious jewel is now close to your right hand. The key is ready for the lock. Master Kemp bows to your propensity for wonder.’ A precious jewel? Shakerags? Could that be Shakespeare?”
Neil felt a dawning realization. “Let me guess. It was the final clue.”
“Final clue? Hmmm. Thanks for that tidbit of information. It makes the picture a bit clearer now.”
Neil cursed himself for his stupidity. He struggled with the ropes. But even that little effort left him exhausted.
Skink continued. “Lane didn’t go public with the find, as valuable as it would be. He knew from the inscription that it was just one part of a larger mystery.”
“With an even bigger payday at the end of the rainbow,” Neil said.
“He spent years looking for the other clues. He assumed that they were hidden in the same way. He bought buildings on top of, next to, a block away from all the Elizabethan theaters he could locate. He was obsessed.”
“Sound familiar?”
Neil felt a slap across his face. “He lost all his money on this search, always looking for boxes, metal signs, some scrap of evidence left behind by this Kemp.”
“But he never gave up the search,” Neil said.
“He borrowed money from some incredibly disreputable characters. Perhaps you have met them. They also have a propensity for wonders, such as the oh-so-useful chloroform, and more . . . persuasive techniques.”
“And now they are helping you search for the jewel?”
Skink merely chuckled, then stood up and walked away from Neil. Neil heard him fiddling with some sort of bucket or canister.
“So let me guess, Skink, you’re going to keep me tied up here until I tell you the solution to the rest of the code?”
“Tsk, tsk. So naive. My very close friend Rose has already filled me in on the code. She and I are very appreciative of your help.”
“Nice try,” Neil said. “Rose would never work for you.”
“Such loyalty to someone you met only this week? Pathetic and, in keeping with Shakespeare, tragic.” His voice seemed distracted, as if he were answering Neil but concentrating on something else. Neil heard him moving some chairs.
“You’re lying!” Neil shouted, trying to rivet Skink’s attention back onto him.
Skink didn’t respond right away. “She does an incredibly realistic impression of the Queen. You should hear it. Oh wait, you have!”
“You’re lying!” Neil said, but he wasn’t sure. He had trusted the voice on the phone almost immediately. Her knowledge of the dinner with Lane had just clinched the deal. What if it had all been just an elaborate sting operation?
“What have you done with her?”
“I married her more than a year ago. Don’t tell that lummox Jones. He’ll be very angry, and I haven’t had a chance to kill him yet. It’ll be easier if he’s not agitated.”
Neil heard the telltale sound of a screw-top lid being removed. Skink was pouring a liquid over the stage. Neil didn’t need a supersensitive nose to realize immediately that it was gasoline.
“Lane isn’t just dead. You killed him!” Neil could hear the panic in his voice.
Skink chuckled. “I had no choice. Lane had become a liability. He had to go, so that I could take over the search for the jewel without his enemies at my heels.” Skink was getting farther and farther away. Neil tried yet again to open his eyes. He could see Skink climbing quickly up the stairs toward the curtained entrance, unrolling some kind of string from a spool as he went. A fuse, Neil realized. Skink was now too far away for him to get a clear view.
“You won’t get away with this!” Neil yelled, all the time straining against the ropes.
Skink gave an evil laugh and then was gone.
“Skink. Skink! Skink!” Neil yelled. Then he heard a low hissing noise from back up the stairs. Skink had lit the fuse. Neil could still smell the gasoline. In just seconds he was going to be burned alive.
Frantic, he struggled with the ropes, but it was no use.
“Help!” he yelled, certain no one could hear him. He gritted his teeth and tried standing up. His legs felt like jelly, but the hissing was growing nearer and nearer by the second.
His legs gave way, and he and the chair fell to the surface of the stage. He could see the flickering light of the burning fuse making its way down the steps. In a few seconds it would hit the stage. Neil kicked and kicked.
Then he felt a cool breeze next to his face, followed by a loud thwack!
He braced himself for the inevitable explosion and flames. But the hissing had stopped. Neil opened his eyes and waited for the room to stop spinning. He looked down at his feet. A large knife was sticking out of the front of the stage, just a few feet away. It had cut the fuse, just before it would have reached the gasoline.
“Larry!” Neil called. “Larry!”
“Neil!” It was Larry. Neil heard him running across the stage.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get inside. Cordelia was gone when I came back with the coffee and all the doors were locked. I remembered the stage entrance we’d gone through the other day, but boy did it take me forever to jimmy the lock.”
Larry cut the ropes and helped Neil sit up.
“The knife was lying on a table of props at the back,” he explained. “Now, see what happens when you don’t say ‘the Scottish play’ inside a theater? Think, you goofball.” But Larry was beaming as he said this.
Neil felt tears of joy and relief streaming down his face.
Larry seemed shocked. “Hey, Neil. You’re okay. I’m here. Man, when did you get so emotional?”
Neil couldn’t answer. He just shrugged. “I don’t know,” he finally croaked. When had he become so emotional? He suddenly missed his younger self, the cocky, always-sure kid who could face anything.
But now Larry smiled at him. “It’s cool, cuz. Truth is, it suits you.”
“How?” Neil wiped his eyes.
“Look. You’ve seen a lot of weird stuff for a teenager, okay? I’ve been waiting for a little emotion to creep through that gruff cheffy exterior. There’ve been glimpses before, but this is good. Don’t hold back anymore.”
Neil nodded and let the tears flow again.
“Okay, hold back now, Neil. We gotta move,” Larry said.
Neil laughed and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air. “But if you tell Amber and Zoe, I’ll kill you. The last thing I need is two employees who think their boss is a human being. I can’t afford it.”
“Nice to see the old Neil isn’t totally gone,” Larry said, laughing and helping Neil to his feet.
Neil steadied himself on Larry’s shoulder as they walked toward the back entrance. “We need to get back in touch with Jones and Isabella.”
“Okay. But first, can we buy you some new pants?”