Hey guys, sorry about the wait. I've had exams, you know. Anyway, I finally go this up, so enjoy! And don't forget to review, believe it or not, it motivates me to write.

Chapter 6

"Scott, Rachel!" Kelvin called that afternoon. He was standing in his office, a room off the stage that was small enough to have once been a broom closet, poking his head out the door. The room was small enough that with Kelvin's tiny desk and the two plastic chairs sitting in front of it, Shawn and Juliet barely fit in with Kelvin and the man standing next to it.

"Scott, Rachel, this is Albert Donahue, the owner of our theater, Kelvin said hastily. "Mr. Donahue, this is—"

"Save it, Kel," Mr. Donahue said. "I know these two are undercover. The chief called me this morning. Shawn Spencer and Juliet O'Hara, right? Call me Al, just not in front of the other actors."

"Okay, Al, we promise we'll due everything we can to find Zach and Ashley before opening night."

"Do what you can," Al grunted. "Zach and Ash knew what they were getting into when they signed up. To tell you the truth, we're all pretty much used to this."

"Why?" Juliet wrinkled her eyebrows. "Do your actors go missing a lot?"

"Only when we put on this particular play," Al explained. "We've been trying to perform this show for ninety years now. Every time, our Macbeth and Lady Macbeth go missing the day before we're scheduled to open. This time, we even tried rescheduling opening night at the last minute to, but they still went missing."

"What about the actors that went missing in previous years?" Juliet asked.

"Never found," Al shrugged. "Last time it was in 1987, Todd Warner and Julie Daniels, both mid-twenties. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are supposed to be older, but this is a young theater. We use makeup."

"Exactly how many times has this happened?" Juliet ask, narrowing her eyes.

"This makes five," Al sighed. "The first time my grandfather owned the theater, the second and third time was during my father's ownership, and then Todd and Julie and Zach and Ashley." Juliet nodded. "Mr. Spencer, you've been very quiet. Anything to say?"

"Mmm, no," Shawn said, after a minute, shaking his head. "No, I'm good."

"Well," Al said, clapping his hands together. "We about finished?"

"Thank you for your time," Juliet held out her hand.

"O'Hara, Spencer," he nodded his head at each of them before opening the door.

"Bye Al!" Shawn called as he left.

"He won't even let me call him Al," Kelvin muttered.

"Did you know about this?" Juliet asked once the door had swung closed behind Al.

"Know about what?" Kelvin asked, backing up.

"The other Macbeths," Juliet clarified.

"What?" Kelvin asked, surprised. "No, of course not. Mr. Donahue doesn't tell me anything."

"If I find a shred of evidence that you knew," Juliet was saying.

"Wait, Jules," Shawn stuck his arm in front of her. She looked at him quizzically. "I'm getting," he rubbed his fingers against his temples. He hadn't seen anything, but he had to keep Juliet from assaulting Kelvin. "I'm getting that if you go to hall we came through when we first got here, you'll have faces for the previous victims." It wasn't much, but it was all he was willing to disclose without further investigating.

"The back hallway?" Kelvin asked, curious.

"Let's go," Juliet muttered.

"Don't hide things from us," Shawn murmured before stepping out the door. "I'll see it."

He caught up with Juliet in the back hall. "These must be the past victims," Juliet said. She stood in front of a row of pictures.

"It's a tribute," Shawn said. "Set up by the rest of the cast." He spotted the area on the wall where messages had been written to the last victims. They were barely visible after twenty-three years. He could just make them out.

"I can have Lassiter look into these," she whispered.

"He'll find that her husband was investigated," Shawn added, pointing to a woman with curly light hair in the second picture.

"I'll look into it," Juliet said. "What time period does that look like? World War 2 maybe?"

"1944," a voice said from behind them. A woman who looked to be in her mid-forties looked over Shawn's shoulder, the one who must have straightened her hair every day for the past twenty years. "Rose Carver and Henry Knox."

"Who were they?" Juliet asked, remembering to become clueless.

"Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the second ones," the woman answered.

"What do you mean?" Juliet asked.

"You haven't heard the story?" the woman asked. "They didn't tell you when you got the roles?"

"Clearly not," Shawn answered.

"Every time we try to put on this play, our leading man and lady disappear," she explained. "Never to be heard from again."

"Well that would have been nice to know," Shawn looked Juliet, who looked appropriately shocked and angry.

"Probably not Kelvin's fault," the woman shrugged. "Al does purposely try to keep him out of the loop. Thinks it's funny. Kel doesn't even know that all the rest of us are aloud to call him Al."

"Is there what, like, some bad blood between them or something?" Shawn asked.

"Kelvin didn't exactly inherit the family gift, if you know what I mean," the woman said, suddenly in a hushed tone.

"Wait," Juliet said. "Kelvin and Al are related?"

"Uncle and nephew?" the woman answered.

"Why would they hide that?" Shawn asked Juliet, forgetting for a moment that he was undercover.

"Oh, they don't tell anyone," the woman replied. "But when you've been at a theater as long as I have, you know things no one else does. I watched Kel and his cousin when they were little. They played with my sons. Al practically raised them in this theater, but Kel was…never as talented as his cousin. Jack's a natural-born actor, Al's dream, but then he went up to New York to be a big-shot. We haven't heard from him in ages. Kel probably stands to inherit the theater now."

"Wow," Shawn said, turning to Juliet.

"Did you know any of them?" Juliet asked, gesturing to the portraits on the wall.

"Todd and Julie," the woman nodded to the last portrait. I was in Macbeth with them. Auditioned for Lady Macbeth, didn't get it. They were good people. Todd had a two-year-old little girl. After he disappeared, his wife took her up to Michigan to live near her parents. And I never knew Gloria Murphy," she gestured to the third portrait. "She disappeared before I was born, but she used to live down the street from the house I grew up in. Her boys went to school with my brothers."

"Interesting," Juliet nodded. "I've never known anyone who's disappeared. Of course, I grew up in Illinois, not much going on up there."

"Except the White Sox," Shawn added. "And the mob." Juliet elbowed him.

"Scott Winslow," Shawn held out his hand.

"I know," the woman answered, shaking it. "And Miss Steward. Diana Crosky, Lady Macduff."

"Nice to meet you," Juliet replied.

"Sorry you die at the end," Shawn called as she turned to walk away.

"So do you," Diane reminded him as she turned onto the stage.