Read Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) for Free Online

pulled on the door handle, fully expecting a hundred bats to come flying out in her face, just like in the Scooby Doo opening credits.
    The door creaked open uneventfully.
    It’s just a building! She reminded herself. So what if every blasted thing about the place was creepy?
    “Come on in,” she said with false cheer, holding the door open for the Pack and then pointing the way to the sanctuary. “Go see if you can find your Aunt Bess.” She would have made a joke about the — very real — bats waiting in the rafters, but she didn’t care to hear Lenna shriek again.
    The kids took off toward the sanctuary without looking back, and Leigh lingered in the hall a moment, wishing she hadn’t had quite so much diet cola on the drive down. Bess had said that the plumbing in the bathrooms was functional, but there was little else to recommend them. Would they even have toilet paper? Leigh grimaced as she opened the door to the women’s room and stepped inside.
    Her nose was struck immediately by the distinctive scent of lemon mixed with ammonia. She looked down to see a black and white tile floor not only clear of debris, but shining in the harsh fluorescent light. Looking up revealed bright pink stalls, gleaming white sinks and a spotless mirror. The metal trash can in the corner had disappeared, replaced by a white wicker bin with a neatly tied-off plastic liner. The towel dispenser hung straight on the wall, exposing an appropriate two inches’ worth of brown paper.
    Leigh stood still and stared. It was Saturday morning. She had just been here on Thursday. There could be only one explanation for such a phenomenal transformation.
    A toilet flushed. Leigh watched as a woman’s behind backed out of the stall, clad in fake-denim, elastic-waisted work pants with a cleaning smock tied around the back. The woman straightened and turned towards Leigh. Her carefully coifed hair was covered with a clear plastic rain bonnet, and she held a toilet bowl brush in one hand and a bottle of cleanser in the other.
    “Hi, Mom,” Leigh greeted. “Wow. You’ve been busy.”
    Frances’s lips pursed. “Your aunt has gone too far this time. You do realize that this scheme of hers isn’t feasible?”
    Leigh considered the question rhetorical. “The bathroom looks great.”
    Frances harrumphed. She set down her tools in a bucket by the sink and removed her gloves. Then she pulled off the bonnet, tucked it in a pocket of her smock, and fluffed her limp curls. “Decent restrooms are the least of Bess’s problems.”
    Leigh short-circuited the rant she feared was coming by slipping into a stall and attending to her business. When she emerged, her mother was no longer in the bathroom. Smiling at the success of her tactic, Leigh washed her hands with the provided industrial-strength antibacterial hand soap and stepped back out into the hall.
    “What Bess does not realize,” Frances continued from her position just outside the door, “is that a building this size cannot just be cleaned once. It will require constant diligence both in cleaning and in repairs, absolutely indefinitely. Her rag-tag group of part-time thespians cannot possibly manage such a task, nor can they afford to pay to have it done properly. Why, if your aunt had any idea how much it would cost to hire a so-called ‘professional’ to perform all the cleaning services so desperately needed around this—”
    “Did you see the bat guano in the sanctuary?” Leigh interjected hopefully.
    Frances’s eyes narrowed, and Leigh fought the urge to shrink. She could live to be a hundred and the sight of her mother’s keen eyes glaring out of slits would still make her feel like a preschooler with a stolen cookie. “Bat guano?” Frances repeated in a gravelly deadpan. “You have seriously seen the droppings of bats, inside this building?”
    Leigh smiled weakly. “On the choir railing.”
    Frances departed, bucket in hand.
    Leigh breathed a sigh of relief and headed