Deadly Overtures: A Music Lover's Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

this way when they arrive?”
    “Of course,” Mikayla said. She gave my arm a brief squeeze and set off to do as requested.
    Hans slid his cell phone from his pocket. “I’d better call the police.”
    That took me by surprise. “The police? For a slip and fall accident?”
    “We don’t know exactly what happened,” Hans pointed out. “It’ll be for the police or the coroner to rule it accidental.”
    I nodded, realizing he was right.
    As Hans pressed numbers on his phone, I turned away from the washroom door where he stood guard and wandered back toward the lounge, his last words echoing in my head. I’d assumed that Pavlina’s death was purely an accident, but was it really?
    I shook my head. I had no reason to believe otherwise. The most likely scenario was that she’d slipped on a damp tile and hit her head on the counter on the way down, sustaining a fatal head injury. It was a tragic and unfortunate accident, but there was nothing sinister about it. That at least provided me with a small measure of comfort.
    B ACK IN THE musicians’ lounge, approximately half of the orchestra was still present, along with the three remaining competition finalists. Nobody seemed eager to leave and I didn’t doubt that all the hushed conversations going on revolved around Pavlina’s untimely demise. I stood by my locker, at a loss, not knowing what to do with myself. Somehow it didn’t seem right to go home, not with Pavlina still lying there on the washroom floor. There was nothing I could do for her now, and I knew that, but I still couldn’t bring myself to put on my coat and leave the theater.
    After a minute or two of indecision, I left my belongings secured in my locker and set out to find JT. There was a chance he’d already left the theater, but I hoped he hadn’t. As unsettled as I was, I really wanted the company of my best friend.
    I passed no one as I walked along the corridor and it wasn’t until I reached the wings of the stage that I spotted another soul. Fred, one of the theater’s maintenance workers, was moving chairs and music stands on the stage, clearing the floor so he could clean it. I raised a hand in greeting when he glanced my way and he nodded in return, but I didn’t pause to strike up a conversation. Continuing on my way, I descended the short flight of stairs leading down from the wings and pushed open the door at the bottom.
    Peering into the theater, I searched for any sign of movement. The audience had long ago cleared out and the only sounds I heard were the occasional scrapes and bumps coming from the stage where Fred was working. I almost turned around and retraced my steps, accepting the fact that JT wasn’t around, when I heard a hushed, urgent voice speaking words I couldn’t make out.
    Pushing the door open farther, I stepped into the theater and looked around. I spotted Cameron off to the side, in a shadowy corner, his back to me as he talked on his cell phone. The door shut behind me with a soft click, but in the quiet of the theater the sound was enough to alert him to my presence. He swung around, startled, and brought his phone call to an abrupt end.
    “Hi, Cameron,” I said. “Is JT around?”
    He hesitated for half a second, but then slipped his phone into his pocket and replied, “Somewhere.”
    “Right here.”
    I turned at the sound of JT’s voice and spotted him crossing in front of the stage, a laptop tucked under one arm, his recorder held in the other. When JT was close enough, Cameron relieved him of the recorder.
    “I thought maybe you’d already gone home,” I said.
    “I was just about to head out. I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
    “Normally I wouldn’t be. But tonight has turned out to be anything but normal.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Pavlina, one of the finalists in the competition, fell and hit her head in the washroom.” I remembered what Hans had said about the fact that we didn’t know for sure what had happened. “At