Chapter 7
The ceiling offered nothing. Mason had been staring at it long enough to know.
He turned onto his side. Then his back. The rain against the window had a rhythm that kept suggesting it was about to stop.
It didn’t stop. He thought about what Olivia had said, and then, before he could help it, he thought about Lara at twenty, the way she had always seemed to be waiting for something just past the edge of what anyone could give her.
He had never thought of that quality as dangerous.
He had thought of it as sad. He sat up, found his clothes in the dark, and reached for his keys before he had consciously decided where he was going.
By the time Mason reached the theater, the rain had turned hard enough to flatten itself against the glass doors.
The night guard looked up from the paperback spread open on the desk and began to smile, then seemed to think better of it when Mason crossed the lobby without removing his coat.
“Mr. Warren. I thought everyone had gone.”
“Not everyone.”
The guard glanced toward the darkened auditorium. “Cleaning crew’s still here. Couple of technicians too.”
“I need the security logs from last night.”
That brought the man fully upright. “The logs?”
“And whatever camera footage covers the stage door, backstage corridors, and dressing-room hall.”
The guard’s expression changed by degrees, surprise giving way to caution. He closed the book and rested both hands over it. “I can’t release footage without authorization.”
“Who can?”
“At this hour? Production manager, maybe building operations.”
“Call them.”
The guard held his gaze for another second.
Mason could see the question forming and knew better than to answer it before it was asked.
Questions created stories. Stories traveled.
By morning, half the company would hear that Olivia’s husband had stormed into the theater at midnight and wonder why. Gossip would abound.
The guard picked up the phone.
Mason stepped away from the desk and looked toward the sweeping staircase that led to the dress circle.
In daylight, the lobby was ornate enough to seem almost smug about its history, with its gilt molding and red velvet and framed photographs of actors who had died before Olivia was born.
At midnight, with most of the lamps turned off, it looked less like a monument to theater than a place built for concealment.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He knew who it was before he checked. I hope everything is okay with you and Olivia.
Lara had always written as though she were trying not to burden anyone, even when the burden was the point. She rarely asked for anything directly. She left an opening instead, small and careful, then waited for someone else to widen it.
Mason had widened hundreds of them.
He put the phone away without answering.
The guard spoke quietly into the receiver, then covered the mouthpiece. “Mr. Keane is on his way down. He says ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“You want coffee?”
“No.”
The answer came too sharply. The guard’s eyebrows rose, and Mason made himself lower his voice. “No, thank you.”
He moved toward the windows, where the rain blurred the theater district into smears of white and gold.
Olivia had stood beside him in a similar spot on opening night of her last production, trying to pin an earring into place while he held her coat and told her she was going to be extraordinary.
She had laughed and asked whether he was saying that as her husband or as someone who had watched the final dress rehearsal.
Both, he had told her.
He had believed that loving her made him uniquely qualified to see her clearly.
The production manager arrived in a creased shirt with one side of the collar folded beneath his jacket. Mr. Keane had the permanently harassed face of a man who expected every conversation to end with an insurance form.
“What happened?”
“I need to know whether Lara Bauer was in the building after rehearsal last night.”
Keane stopped short. “Why?”
“Can you check?”
“I can check. I asked why.”
Mason looked past him toward the security desk. The guard had reopened his book, though his attention had not returned to it.
“Somewhere private.”
Keane’s mouth tightened. He gestured toward the corridor behind the box office and led Mason into a narrow administrative office crowded with filing cabinets, production binders, and two dead plants. He shut the door behind them.
“All right.”
“There have been too many incidents involving Olivia.”
Keane stared at him without comprehension for half a beat, then understood. “You think Lara is responsible.”
“I think Olivia believes that.”
Keane dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus Christ.”
“I want the logs and the footage.”
“And if I say no?”
“I call Philip. Then the producers. Then the theater owner. By the time everyone finishes protecting themselves, Lara will know we’re looking.”
Keane’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve thought this through.”
“I’m not accusing anyone on the basis of a hunch.”
Keane studied him, perhaps deciding whether Mason was still a husband in a panic or had become something more difficult. At last he crossed to the desk and woke the computer.
The sign-in records took less than a minute.
Lara Bauer had entered the theater at 9:17 the previous night and signed out at 9:54.
Keane leaned closer to the screen as though the numbers might rearrange themselves into something harmless.
“She brought coffee for the night crew.”
“You knew she was here?”
“I heard about it this morning. They adore her downstairs.” He sat back. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“I know.”
“She could have stayed to talk.”
“I know.”
Keane gave him a sharp look.
The production manager opened the camera archive. “The coverage isn’t complete. There are blind spots all over backstage.”
“Show me what you have.”
The first recording caught Lara entering through the stage door with two cardboard trays balanced in her arms. Even in grainy black and white, she looked polished.
Her hair had been tied back loosely, and she wore the soft coat Olivia had once admired at dinner, the one Lara claimed to have found in a consignment shop after months of searching.
She stopped almost immediately to speak to the night guard. A carpenter came into frame and took one of the coffees. Lara laughed at something he said, tipping her head back with the open pleasure that made people feel clever in her company.
Keane scrubbed forward.
“She was down there six minutes.”
“Play it normally.”
“Mason—”
“Please.”
Keane let the recording run.
Lara moved through the corridor at an unhurried pace, giving coffee to one technician, touching another lightly on the shoulder when he leaned in to hear her. She looked completely at home.
Mason knew that quality in her. Lara never entered a room as though she expected to be noticed. She entered as though she hoped not to inconvenience anyone, and people noticed her for it.
The camera switched when she reached the dressing-room corridor. Lara adjusted the strap of her bag, glanced down at her phone, and disappeared from view.
Nothing happened for twenty-six minutes.
Keane fast-forwarded through the empty hallway until movement appeared on another feed. Lara emerged from the corridor leading to the backstage stairs.
The production manager stopped the footage.
“That’s not the same hall.”
“No.”
“She went in by the dressing rooms.”
“I saw.”
Keane rewound and played it again. On the second viewing, Lara’s route looked stranger. On the third, it looked deliberate.
“She could have gone to find someone,” he said, though with less conviction.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was anyone rehearsing?”
“No.”
“Was anyone working near the balcony?”
Keane did not answer.
Mason kept his eyes on the frozen image. Lara had been caught mid-step, one hand around the strap of her bag, her face turned slightly toward someone outside the camera’s range. There was no tension in her body. No urgency. Whatever she had done, she had not believed herself in danger of discovery.
“Run the stage-door footage from when she left.”
Keane did.
Lara exited at 9:54 alone. She paused beneath the awning to open an umbrella, checked her phone, and smiled at whatever she saw there.
Mason remembered the message she had sent him that night.
Dropped coffee off for the crew. They’re working so hard. I felt guilty going home and relaxing.
He had answered with a heart.
Keane shut off the recording. “This still isn’t proof.”
“No.”
“If you confront her, she’ll say she got lost or went looking for wardrobe.”
“I’m not confronting her.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Keep her from knowing we’ve seen this. Tighten access to the set. No one alone near props, costumes, food, or Olivia’s dressing room. Quietly.”
Keane pushed away from the desk. “You don’t get to make production decisions.”
“Then call Philip.”
“At one in the morning?”
“Yes.”
Keane looked at him for a long moment before reaching for the phone.
Philip arrived twenty-five minutes later wearing a wool coat over striped pajamas and carrying the temper of a man denied sleep for reasons he had not yet decided were valid.
Robbie came with him. He had apparently been at Philip’s apartment going over the next day’s rehearsal notes, and he entered the office already speaking.
“This had better involve fire, nudity, or a dead critic.”
Then he saw the paused footage on the monitor.
His expression emptied.
Philip noticed it too. “What is that?”
Keane explained.
Mason watched Robbie instead. The younger man did not interrupt or react theatrically. He moved closer to the screen and stood with one hand braced against the desk, staring at Lara’s image until Keane finished.
“Play it,” he said.
They watched the footage from the beginning.
Philip asked questions in clipped bursts. Which technicians had been present? Who had access to the backstage stairs? Was the balcony area under active repair? Could Lara have crossed behind the fly system and emerged there accidentally?
Keane answered when he could.
Robbie remained quiet until the final frame. “She knew where she was going.”
Philip turned to him. “You can’t know that.”
“I’ve watched her navigate this building for six weeks. She knows it better than half the company.”
“That isn’t proof.”
“No one said it was.”
Philip’s irritation sharpened. “Everyone keeps saying that while behaving as though we’ve solved a crime.”
Robbie straightened. “Olivia nearly went over a balcony.”
“She did not nearly go over a balcony.”
“The railing came loose under her hand.”
“And she caught herself.”
The room changed.
Mason saw Robbie’s face harden and Philip realize, too late, what he had said.
“That’s your standard?” Mason asked. “She caught herself?”
Philip’s jaw flexed. “Don’t twist my words.”
“I don’t need to.”
“I’m trying to keep this production from imploding because four people watched an understudy walk through the wrong corridor.”
“My wife has been injured repeatedly in your rehearsal room.”
“And every incident had an explanation.”
Robbie’s answer came after a pause, and because he did not raise his voice, it landed harder.
“I’ve seen Olivia stop trusting her own judgment because every time she names what’s happening, someone tells her she’s tired, threatened, jealous, or difficult.
I’ve seen Lara learn that all she has to do is look wounded and somebody will explain Olivia away for her. ”
No one spoke.
Mason felt the words settle into every part of the room he had been trying not to examine.
Philip turned back to the monitor. When he spoke again, some of the fight had gone out of him.
“If we shut Lara out now, she’ll know.”
“Yes,” Mason said.
“And if there’s nothing more?”
“Then we will have inconvenienced an understudy for a few days.”
Philip looked at him. “You make that sound simple.”
“It is simpler than explaining why we ignored Olivia again.”
That ended it.
By the time they left the office, they had agreed on measures that could be presented as ordinary tightening before technical rehearsals.
New sign-out sheets. No unattended drinks.
Wardrobe access limited to assigned staff.
Props checked before and after each run.
No one entering the house or backstage corridors after hours without production approval.
Nothing that named Lara, but everything that would make it harder for her to act unseen, if she was in fact responsible.
The rain had eased when Mason stepped into the lobby. He stood alone beneath the dim chandelier and took out his phone.
There were three messages from Lara now. The last had arrived seven minutes earlier. I hope Olivia isn’t upset with me again. I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.
He read it once. Then he turned off his phone without answering her.
When he finally went home, Olivia was still asleep with the door locked. He stood outside it for several seconds, listening to the faint hum of the fan she always used at night. His hand rose toward the wood before he stopped himself.
He had spent weeks asking her to trust his judgment.
For once, he would respect hers.