CHAPTER 3 #2
“Last night,” Malcolm says. “Who checked it out?”
Teresa exhales. “That’s the thing. No one checked it out.”
“Teresa,” he says.
“I’m telling you. It wasn’t logged out. I locked the archive cabinet myself before dinner break. At midnight, wardrobe got a set note asking for the red coat. I said it wasn’t approved. The note said production override. I called Paul. He said he thought Diana changed her mind.”
“Did she?” I ask.
“No.”
“Did Paul bring it?”
Teresa’s face tightens. “Paul says he didn’t.”
“Where is Paul?”
“Home. I sent him home after…” She glances toward the active set. “After Avery.”
Malcolm takes out his phone. “I need Paul’s full name and address.”
Teresa nods too fast. “Yes. Of course.”
I look past her into the trailer.
Costumes hang in narrow rows under fluorescent light: blood-streaked nightgowns, clean duplicates, rain jackets, mud-spattered jeans, three versions of the same white tank top with different levels of distress.
The air smells like fabric spray, plastic garment bags, old sweat, and the sugary copper of fake blood.
My body remembers this smell before my mind permits it.
It pulls me backward.
Not all the way. Enough.
Laurel in the trailer mirror, flipping off her own reflection because the director asked her to look “more breakable.” Me sitting on the counter, eating licorice from a bag hidden behind makeup sponges. Malcolm outside the door, laughing at something a grip said, his voice lower than the others.
The memory has no right to include him.
I step into the trailer.
Teresa moves aside. Malcolm starts to follow.
I hold up a hand without looking back. “No.”
He stops.
A beat passes.
“Fine,” he says.
I glance over my shoulder.
He stands at the bottom of the trailer steps, jaw set, tablet tucked against one side, doing the exact thing I told him to do and making it look painful.
Good.
I hope obedience itches.
Teresa follows me inside and closes the door halfway, not fully. Smart. She wants privacy but not implication.
The trailer is too bright. Every surface has a job.
Racks labeled HERO BLOOD, STUNT, PHOTO DOUBLE, CLEAN.
A folding table with thread, stain sticks, safety pins, a lint roller, two Diet Cokes, and one untouched protein bar.
On a narrow counter, someone has lined three red buttons beside a seam ripper.
My eyes catch on them.
Three objects in a row.
Not mine.
Not sugar.
Breathe through the nose. Count the exits. No, that’s Malcolm’s trick. Mine is labels.
I read them until the room steadies.
HERO BLOOD. STUNT. CLEAN.
Teresa watches me pretend not to recover.
“Do you need water?”
“I need people to stop offering me water on sets.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“At least you didn’t call me brave.”
“I thought about it.”
“That would’ve been fatal for both of us.”
She gives a small, startled laugh, then covers it with the clipboard.
There. Human.
I can work with human.
“Show me where the coat was kept,” I say.
She takes me to a locked cabinet near the back. The key trembles once before she gets it into the lock. Inside: archival wardrobe bags, tagged and humidity-controlled better than most actresses’ careers.
A gap sits between two padded hangers.
I do not touch it.
“What was beside it?” I ask.
“Original raincoat from the deputy character. Two stunt duplicates. A scarf from the basement sequence.”
“Anything else missing?”
“No.”
“You checked?”
“Yes.”
“Check again.”
She wants to argue. Doesn’t. She starts pulling tags, counting with her lips, touching each hanger with practiced care.
I crouch.
The floor beneath the cabinet is clean except for one pale thread caught in a screw near the base. Not red. Beige. Cheap cotton.
I take tweezers from the open sewing kit on the table and lift it free.
Teresa looks over. “That could be from anything.”
“It could.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I charge extra for convinced.”
Her nervous laugh comes easier this time.
I fold the thread into a tissue from my bag.
The trailer door knocks twice.
Malcolm’s voice comes through. “Clara.”
I close my eyes.
Teresa looks between me and the door with open curiosity.
“No,” I call.
“I wasn’t asking to come in.”
“Historic moment.”
A pause.
Then, lower, “Diana’s outside.”
That changes the room.
Teresa’s mouth tightens.
I stand and open the door.
Diana Sutter waits at the bottom of the steps beside Malcolm, hair still damp, black coat belted tight. She looks at me with the frank assessment of a director deciding whether an actor will break before the line.
“Clara Vane,” she says.
“Diana Sutter.”
“I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”
“I wish you’d chosen another franchise, but here we are.”
Malcolm looks at the ground.
Diana does not.
“I did,” she says.
That lands in a strange place.
Teresa steps out behind me, hugging the clipboard. “Diana, I told them about the coat.”
“Good.”
“You rejected it,” I say.
“I did.”
“Victor overrode you.”
“Yes.”
No spin. No softening. That earns half a point.
“Why did Avery ask to see it?” I ask.
Diana’s gaze moves past me, into the trailer. “She was looking for something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“She asked too many questions about the original shoot.” Diana rubs a thumb along the seam of her coat sleeve. “Not press packet questions. Not actor homework. Specific things. How many cameras were running. Whether the rain machines affected audio. Who controlled the emergency door.”
The asphalt under my shoes seems to tilt by one degree.
Malcolm looks at me.
I don’t look back.
“What did you tell her?” I ask.
“That I wasn’t there.”
“And then?”
“That if she was smart, she would stop asking people who were.”
Teresa makes a soft sound.
I stare at Diana. “Did she?”
“No.”
“Did you report it?”
“To whom? Victor?” Diana’s mouth bends, not quite a smile. “I have many flaws. That level of optimism isn’t one.”
Malcolm says, “You should’ve told me.”
Diana turns on him. “And you should’ve told everyone the truth eleven years ago, apparently. We’re all disappointing tonight.”
The silence after that is so clean it could cut glass.
Malcolm’s face does not change, but something behind it takes the hit.
Good, I think.
Then, immediately, not good.
That anger is mine. I don’t like Diana borrowing it.
I step down from the trailer.
“What truth?” Teresa asks, too quietly.
“No,” I say.
All three look at me.
I point at Teresa. “You call Paul. You tell him his name is already in the access chain, and if he lies badly, he becomes useful to the wrong person. Tell him to answer Malcolm’s questions.”
Teresa nods, pale. “Okay.”
I turn to Diana. “You give me every place Avery went yesterday. Not the official schedule. The real one.”
Diana studies me. “You’re taking over?”
“I’m preventing everyone else from making this uglier.”
“That may be taking over.”
“Then send a memo.”
For the first time, Diana smiles. It’s quick and tired and not friendly enough to be a promise.
“I’ll get you the movement notes.”
“Now.”
She looks at Malcolm. “You always let her talk to people like that?”
Malcolm’s eyes stay on me. “Let was never the mechanism.”
Something unwanted warms under my ribs.
Absolutely not.
I look away first because the wardrobe racks are easier to hate.
A door opens across the lot. Victor steps out of a production office with his phone pressed to his ear. Even at a distance, he projects calm expensive enough to invoice.
Diana sees him. “He’ll come here.”
“Let him,” I say.
Malcolm’s attention sharpens. “No.”
I turn to him. “We’re still doing commands?”
“We’re doing common sense.”
“Great. Send yours over when it arrives.”
Diana makes a small sound that is absolutely a laugh this time.
Malcolm ignores her. “Victor wants you visible and emotional. Don’t give him both.”
“He doesn’t get emotional.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what you think you mean.”
His voice drops. “Clara.”
I step close enough that he has to decide whether to move back.
He doesn’t.
The space smells like his jacket, stage rain, and the bitter coffee cooling somewhere on the lot. He is larger than the memory I carried, or maybe I am less easy to tower over now. The thought is petty and satisfying.
“I survived a decade of men using the word emotional like a leash,” I say. “You don’t get to hold the end because your hands look cleaner.”
A muscle tightens near his mouth.
He looks away for half a second, toward the wardrobe trailer window, then back.
“You’re right.”
I am ready for resistance.
Agreement comes in from the side and knocks something loose.
“Don’t do that,” I say.
“Do what?”
“Become reasonable when I have momentum.”
Diana mutters, “God, this is going to be exhausting.”
Teresa makes a noise that might be a swallowed cough.
Malcolm’s mouth almost moves again. “I’ll try to be worse.”
“Don’t strain yourself.”
The exchange lands too easily, a familiar step my body remembers before my pride can object.
I hate that more than the fight.
Victor reaches us before I can rebuild my face.
“Clara,” he says, warm as a talk show couch. “I’m sorry this is how you’ve been brought back into our world.”
Our world.
My fingers find the visitor badge and press the plastic edge until it dents my skin.
“Victor.”
He spreads both hands. “Avery’s safety is our only priority.”
“That and liability.”
Diana looks away, mouth flat.
Victor’s eyes flick to her, then return to me. “I understand your skepticism.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. Given your history with the franchise.”
“My history has a name.”
A small pause.
Victor’s smile holds.
“Laurel,” he says.
Malcolm shifts beside me.
The name from Victor’s mouth sounds handled. Cleaned. Used in a room with lawyers.
Something cold settles behind my sternum.
I smile back.
Not much.
Enough.
“See?” I say. “You do remember women after all.”
Diana’s eyes lower, but not before I see the approval.
Victor’s smile thins. “I remember tragedies.”
“No. You remember assets.”