CHAPTER 1 #2
Celia freezes because Molly was once the kind of gossip blogger actresses pretended not to read and secretly checked in bathrooms.
I look at Molly. “We have a system.”
“We do,” Molly says. “It’s a bad system based on me knocking and you saying no.”
“Molly.”
“I brought food.”
“That’s not a warrant.”
“It’s dumplings.”
Celia looks between us. “Is this a normal appointment?”
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” Molly says at the same time.
I give her a look.
She lowers the paper bag by one inch. Steam and garlic escape into the office. My stomach, traitorous and dramatic, reacts before my pride can stop it.
Molly sees my face. “You haven’t eaten.”
“I’ve eaten.”
“Coffee isn’t eating. It’s bean panic.”
Celia makes a sound that turns into a real laugh this time, unsteady but alive. Molly beams at her like she meant to do that, then seems to remember she is standing in front of a celebrity whose leaked intimate videos may or may not be in a manila envelope on my desk.
Her smile dims.
“Sorry,” Molly says. “I have different levels of entrance. That was level raccoon.”
“Molly,” I say again.
“Right.” She shifts the laptop to her hip. “I need two minutes. Maybe three. Four if you ask questions like a person with trauma and a color-coded filing problem.”
Celia glances at the piles on my desk.
I put my hand over them. “She means someone else.”
“I never do,” Molly says.
I should fire her at least once a week. Instead, I trust her with passwords, bodies of evidence, and the parts of my life too ugly for small talk.
Molly worked celebrity gossip for eight years before she developed a conscience or a stomach ulcer.
The order depends on which day you ask her.
She knows where every career is buried and who brought the shovel.
I turn back to Celia. “Give me your ex’s full legal name, your manager’s number, and the original email. Molly will walk you through secure transfer.”
“I will,” Molly says. “Gently. With dumplings.”
“No dumplings for clients.”
“That feels hostile to healing.”
“Molly.”
“Fine. Professional dumplings.”
Celia looks at the bag. “I’ll take one.”
“See?” Molly points at her with the laptop. “A brave woman.”
Five minutes later, Celia is in the smaller conference room with Molly, eating a dumpling over a napkin while being coached through encrypted file transfer like a nervous spy with excellent cheekbones.
I stay in my office and read the threat again.
PAY OR EVERYONE SEES WHAT HE SAW.
Not what you sent. Not what you did.
What he saw.
Possession language. Humiliation language. Someone wants her punished for being witnessed. Men like that don’t stop because you pay. They stop because stopping becomes safer than continuing.
I make two notes for Gideon, then reach for the cold coffee near my keyboard.
It tastes burnt and metallic.
I drink it anyway.
The phone buzzes again.
MOLLY: need you now MOLLY: not celia MOLLY: blood house
The room doesn’t move. I do.
My hand closes around the phone hard enough that the edge presses into the soft part of my palm.
For one second, the office goes too detailed: the nick in the corner of my desk, the dust on the lower shelf, the dumpling smell turning greasy as it cools, the thin line of sun touching the carpet like yellow tape.
I read the words again.
blood house
Lowercase. Molly does that when she’s trying not to make something worse.
The conference room door opens before I can stand. Molly steps out, laptop clutched against her chest. Her face has lost every scrap of humor.
Celia, behind her, senses the change and stays seated.
“What?” I ask.
Molly glances at Celia.
“Say it.”
Molly’s throat works. “Avery Lorne is missing.”
The name means nothing for half a second. Then it does.
Avery Lorne. Twenty-six. New actress. New face. New final girl. Cast last month in the Blood House reboot after three rounds of feverish trade coverage about legacy horror and female rage and practical effects returning to their roots.
I hate that I know this.
I hate that some part of me has followed every scrap of news about a movie I told myself did not exist.
“Missing how?” I ask.
“From set.” Molly’s voice comes out careful. “Last night. During a closed shoot.”
My mouth tastes worse than the coffee now.
“That’s LAPD.”
“Production hasn’t announced it.”
“Then it’s studio security.”
“It was studio security.” Molly’s eyes flick down to her laptop. “Until her agent got a message.”
A thin pressure starts behind my teeth.
“No.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I know enough.”
“Clara.”
“No.”
Molly looks over her shoulder at Celia, then steps fully into my office and closes the door most of the way. Not enough to be rude. Enough to be private.
She opens the laptop on my desk and turns it toward me.
The message is displayed in a screenshot from Avery’s agent.
Four words.
Clara knows the scene.
The letters sit there in plain black text. No blood font. No threat. No performance.
That makes it worse.
I stare until the words lose shape, then find it again.
Clara knows the scene.
I don’t sit. Sitting would admit the room has changed.
“What scene?” Molly asks softly.
“There are a lot of scenes.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Become customer service.”
I almost laugh. It comes out as air through my nose and nothing else.
My gaze drifts, not by choice, to the narrow shelf behind my desk.
There is one photo in my office that has nothing to do with cases. I keep it tucked behind a row of binders, half-hidden, because grief gets nosy when it has a frame.
Laurel and me, eleven years ago, outside Stage 14.
She is wearing the red coat from the final act. I’m holding two coffees. She has stolen one and is denying it with her entire face. Someone wrote on the back of the photo in silver marker.
LAST NIGHT SHOOT. DON’T DIE, IDIOT.
Laurel’s handwriting. Big loops. Too much pressure. Alive.
I look away before the memory can finish.
“Who’s head of security?” I ask, though the answer is already moving through me.
Molly’s face changes.
That is how I know.
“Malcolm Reed,” she says.
The name enters the office like someone opening a door I bricked shut years ago.
Malcolm Reed, who smelled like smoke and rain machines the night Laurel died.
Malcolm Reed, who carried me out while I fought him hard enough to tear his collar.
Malcolm Reed, who looked me in the eye three days later and lied in a deposition so cleanly I wondered if I had imagined every honest thing about him.
My fingers find the screenshots from Celia’s case and start lining them up again.
One. Two. Three.
I stop at the fourth because there is no fourth.
Molly notices. Of course she does.
“I can tell them you’re unavailable,” she says.
“They didn’t call me.”
“Avery’s agent did. While you were with Celia.”
“I’m unavailable.”
“Sure.”
“That wasn’t an invitation to argue.”
“I know. I’m arguing recreationally.”
I look at her.
She holds up one hand. “Bad timing. Sorry. I’m nervous. When I’m nervous, I become unbearable with accessories.”
“You’re always unbearable with accessories.”
“See? Normal conversation. We’re doing great.”
The office feels too small. The blinds are closed, but I can feel the city outside them, all that glass and heat and traffic moving around a piece of my past that refuses to stay buried.
I take the laptop and scroll.
Avery’s agent sent more screenshots. Last known location: Burbank studio lot. Closed night shoot. Phone off at 1:42 a.m. Production delay attributed to “technical reset.” No police statement. No press.
Then the message.
Clara knows the scene.
Below it, a photo is still loading.
Gray bar. Circle spinning.
I hate spinning circles. They give dread time to put on shoes.
Molly whispers, “There’s an attachment.”
“I see that.”
“You don’t have to open it.”
“That’s the first lie you’ve told me today.”
“I told Celia the dumplings were vegetarian.”
“Molly.”
“They were mostly vegetarian.”
The photo loads.
For a second, my brain refuses to arrange it.
A young woman stands on a set made to look like a hallway I know better than I know my own apartment. Dirty wallpaper. Water-stained ceiling. Red door at the end. Her blond hair is damp, her face turned slightly away from camera, one hand braced on the wall.
Avery Lorne.
Wearing Laurel’s red coat.
Not a replica. Not a wardrobe department tribute. Not the clean, glossy reboot version shown in press photos.
This coat has a dark mark near the left cuff from the night Laurel dragged it through fake blood and real rust. I know because I spent twenty minutes teasing her about ruining continuity while she told me continuity could kiss her entire ass.
My vision fixes on the cuff.
The rest of the room pulls back.
I put my hand flat on the desk.
The wood is cool under my palm. Real. Here. Now.
Not Stage 14. Not smoke. Not Laurel laughing from the wrong side of a door.
Molly says my name.
I close the laptop halfway.
Not enough to shut out the image. Enough to keep it from looking at me.
“I’m not going back there,” I say.
Molly is quiet.
Good.
I need quiet to make the lie fit.
My phone rings.
Unknown number.
Molly looks at it. Then at me.
I let it ring twice. Three times. On the fourth, I answer and say nothing.
For one breath, there is only static. Not phone static. Radio static. Set static. The old kind that used to crackle from Malcolm’s shoulder when he walked past me in dark hallways pretending not to watch whether I made it to my trailer.
Then a man’s voice says, “Clara.”
The pressure behind my teeth becomes pain.
Malcolm Reed sounds older.
Not softer.
Worse.
Tired.
I grip the phone and stare at the half-closed laptop, at the red coat, at the dead girl’s mark on the living girl’s sleeve.
“Don’t,” I say.
A pause.
He doesn’t ask what I mean. That is Malcolm’s first mistake.
Or maybe his first mercy.
“We need you on the lot,” he says.
I smile without feeling it.
There she is. Difficult Clara. Cold Clara. The woman they built because the real one kept bleeding in inconvenient places.
“No,” I say. “You need a better lie.”
Then I hang up.
For three seconds, I am proud of myself.
Then another message hits my phone.
Unknown number. One image.
I open it before Molly can tell me not to.
Avery’s face fills the screen, eyes open, mouth taped, mascara streaked under one eye. She is holding a white card with shaking fingers.
On it, written in black marker:
ASK CLARA WHAT HAPPENED TO LAUREL.
The office air turns thin.
Molly says something. Maybe my name. Maybe a curse. Maybe both.
I don’t hear it clearly.
I am looking at Avery’s hand. At the red stain under her fingernail. At the corner of the card where someone has pressed too hard with the marker.
At the proof that this is not nostalgia.
Not marketing.
Not some reboot stunt dreamed up by men in expensive sneakers who say trauma when they mean ticket sales.
This is a door opening.
And eleven years later, I am still standing on the wrong side of it.
I reach for my bag.
Molly’s voice cracks a little. “Clara.”
“I know.”
“You said you weren’t going back.”
I slide my phone into my pocket. My hands are steady now, which is how I know I am in trouble.
“I lied.”