The Ghost and the Femme Fatale Read Online Free PDF Page B

at twelve noon sharp!”
    Applause greeted the news. Dr. Lilly smiled, and then she glanced over her shoulder at the poster featuring Hedda Geist.
    “Ms. Geist, now Mrs. Geist- Middleton, has lived such a quiet life for the last two de cades, few people were even aware that she was still alive. But she is! And she’s here this weekend, as you all know, if you’ve reviewed your program schedule. She’ll be on this very stage tomorrow, doing a Q&A session with Barry Yello. She might even be here in the audience to night. Ms. Geist- Middleton, are you here? If you are, I’d love you to stand up and take a brief bow....”
    Like everyone else, I twisted around in my theater seat, scanning the crowd, dying with curiosity to see what the famous femme fatale looked like sixty years after Wrong Turn .
    In the very back row of the house, an attractive young blonde rose from her velvet- lined seat. She stood and began to clap. Then people around her began to clap. The clapping grew louder, moving down the theater, row after row, until finally I saw what they were clapping about.
    Hedda Geist- Middleton had stood up—but she did much more than simply take a “brief bow” as Dr. Lilly suggested. The el der ly woman moved into the center aisle and began to stroll down the deep blue carpet. She walked with sure footing, her head regally high, on a slender but sturdy frame. She wore a gorgeously tailored white pantsuit dripping with silver em broidery. Large diamond earrings sparkled beneath white hair, which was pulled into a smooth French twist and held in place by a diamond- studded comb.
    Applause followed the woman, thundering down from the back of the theater. The woman blew kisses at members of the audience, who began to rise from their seats for a standing ovation.
    Once a diva, always a diva , Jack quipped.
    “Is that really her?” I silently wondered.
    Time’s a witch, ain’t she? Jack replied.
    “You’re not giving her much credit, Jack. For an eighty- five-year- old woman, she looks pretty darn good to me.”
    Though sixty years had passed since her stardom, I still recognized the same radiant beauty that lit up the screen in a half- dozen dark- crime dramas. Despite the wrinkles and age spots, Hedda Geist still possessed those incredibly high cheekbones and famous catlike eyes that had made her a star.
    I’ll give the old broad this: She managed to stay out of the skull orchard a whole lot longer than yours truly.
    On stage, Dr. Lilly squinted against the spotlight, shading her eyes as she peered into the theater’s aisle. “Is that her? Oh, yes. There she is, ladies and gentleman, Mrs. Hedda GeistMiddleton!”
    Next to me, Brainert was having a fit. “She came! Oh, my goodness!” He sprang from his seat and rushed up the aisle to greet the woman. “Ms. Geist- Middleton! I’m honored. We all are! Please, won’t you come on stage and say a few words?”
    “That was my intention, Mr. Parker,” the former actress imperially replied.
    “Why didn’t you sit in our reserved section?” Brainert asked.
    She waved her hand. “I didn’t need to sit through Wrong Turn again. My goodness, I’ve seen it enough times, you know. I just popped in at the end.”
    “Allow me.” Brainert offered his arm. She took it, and they moved down the aisle toward the stage.
    The young woman who began the applause followed them. When she moved past my row, I froze in surprise. The woman’s hair was styled differently than the Hedda of the 1940s—it was shorter and cut in layers—but otherwise she was the spitting image of the young Hedda Geist, with a stunning, hourglass figure, big green, catlike eyes and finely sculptured features. Even Jack was affected, and given his state, understandably confused.
    Wait a second , he said in my head. Which one’ s Hedda?
    “You’re in the twenty- first- century now,” I silently reminded the ghost. “Hedda was in her twenties when she made Wrong Turn . Now she’s well over