CHAPTER 5 #2
Then my phone vibrates.
Molly.
Of course.
I answer because the universe enjoys timing.
“Tell me you’re not dead,” she says.
“I’m not dead.”
“Your tone says emotionally inconvenient.”
“My tone is none of your business.”
“So dead-adjacent. Got it. I’m tracking Celia’s blackmailer, eating cold dumplings, and refreshing three gossip accounts that are all pretending not to know Avery is missing, which means someone is suppressing and leaking at the same time. Very elegant. Hate it.”
“I need you to pull anything on Scene 17. Red Door Sequence. Original Blood House production. Reshoots, inserts, second unit. Search old forums, call sheets, leaked scripts, fan archives, court filings, insurance documents.”
Molly goes quiet for two full seconds.
“Clara.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. I mean, I found something.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. “Already?”
“I started after the first message because I’m emotionally unhealthy and professionally gifted.”
“What did you find?”
“A production blog from an extra in 2013. It mentions a deleted red door scene that was ‘too intense’ and had to be redone after an accident scare. The post disappeared, but the cache exists because the internet is a raccoon with a basement.”
I turn slightly away from Malcolm, which helps exactly not at all because he hears the way my silence changes.
“Molly,” I say. “Was it before Laurel died?”
“No. Two days before.”
My lungs work. My head does not.
Two days before.
Accident scare.
Deleted red door scene.
Not the fatal night.
A rehearsal wound before the killing wound.
“Send it,” I say.
“Already did. Also, don’t yell.”
“That phrase has never improved anything.”
“I may have ordered three coffees to the office because my hands needed a task and the app had buttons.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Good. I found another thing, but I want your face here when I show you because it’s either nothing or the start of the part where we both regret literacy.”
I hang up.
Malcolm watches me.
I hate that he knows I’m about to leave before I say it.
“You’re going to your office,” he says.
“Yes.”
“I’ll drive.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
I step closer. Not too close. Close enough to make the refusal personal.
“You don’t get to confess one lie and become my transportation.”
He absorbs that with a faint downward tilt of his head.
“You shouldn’t be alone with this.”
“I’m not alone. I’m furious. Very crowded in here.”
“That’s not—”
“Healthy? Safe? Productive? Pick one. I have a meeting with a woman who calls herself a chaos goblin and apparently bought coffee during a crisis.”
His mouth moves, not a smile, not enough.
“You need the full logs,” he says instead.
I hate that he pivots correctly.
“Yes.”
“I’ll send what Alvarez allows.”
“What you allow.”
“No,” he says. “What I can get without compromising the investigation.”
I glance at Victor. “So steal carefully.”
“That sounds like something you’d say.”
“That’s why it was useful.”
I start walking.
The lot stretches ahead of me with all its dirty little truths: puddles reflecting set lights, coils of cable, paper cups crushed under shoes, trailers lined up like confessional booths. The studio that once swallowed my life hums behind me.
Malcolm falls into step at a careful distance.
I stop.
He stops too.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To the east gate.”
“I know where gates are.”
“You know old gates. They changed traffic flow after the expansion.”
I stare at him.
He looks almost apologetic.
Almost.
“That is the most annoying practical sentence I’ve heard tonight.”
“I have others.”
“I’m sure you’ve been saving them.”
He doesn’t answer.
We walk.
The path takes us past Stage 14.
I don’t mean to look.
That’s a lie. I look because not looking gives it more power.
The doors are open wide enough for the red hallway to show in pieces. Cheap wallpaper. Rain pipes. Plastic sheeting. The red door at the end, too bright and too clean. A version of my nightmare built by people who ordered lunch while discussing whether trauma tested well in overseas markets.
My feet slow.
Malcolm notices but does not speak.
Good.
The silence is the only decent thing he gives me.
I stare at the red door until it becomes paint again. Not memory. Paint. Wood. Hinges. A prop with screws and budget approvals.
Then the angle shifts.
A crew member crosses between me and the opening, and for one second, reflected in the wet plastic on the floor, I see another red door.
Not the one ahead.
A second one.
Lower. Narrower. Wrong direction.
I stop.
“What?” Malcolm asks.
I step toward the stage entrance.
He moves with me, no command this time.
The reflection wavers as someone lifts a light stand. The second red shape disappears.
“Clara?”
“There’s another build inside.”
“No,” he says. “Stage 14 only has the main hallway.”
I look at him.
He corrects himself before I can.
“On paper.”
“Learning already.”
We stand there a second too long.
Alvarez calls Malcolm from behind us. The detective points toward the security office. Victor is beside him, visibly displeased. Diana watches from near wardrobe, arms crossed.
The night pulls us in different directions.
Good.
That is safer.
“Go,” I say.
Malcolm looks at me. “East gate is straight past the mill building, left at transportation.”
“I’ll try not to perish in the wild.”
“Don’t take the service lane behind Stage 18.”
“Why?”
“Blind spot.”
I tilt my head. “Yours?”
“Everyone’s.”
That lands wrong.
Not romantic. Not protective. Procedural.
A gap in coverage. A place someone could move Avery, a coat, a lighter, a body, a girl from one version of a night to another.
“Send me the blind spots,” I say.
His eyes hold mine.
Then he nods. “I will.”
No argument.
That should feel like victory. It feels like information I don’t know how to categorize.
I leave before either of us can make it emotional.
The east gate guard gives me the relieved expression of a man happy not to be important in my life. My car sits where I left it, badly parked under a light that flickers with municipal despair. I slide behind the wheel, lock the doors, and sit without starting the engine.
My hands are steady on the steering wheel.
Too steady.
I look at my reflection in the windshield. Dark coat. Pale mouth. Eyes that don’t look shocked enough.
A younger version of me would have cried.
A younger version of me did.
She did not get much for it.
I start the car.
Los Angeles at night has no respect for personal crisis.
The traffic on Barham is rude. A food truck idles near a corner selling tacos to crew members who have no idea they are extras in the ugliest night of someone else’s life.
A billboard for a superhero sequel stares down at the road with four beautiful people pretending rubble is destiny.
My phone buzzes at every red light.
Molly sends links. Screenshots. A voice memo titled DO NOT LISTEN WHILE DRIVING UNLESS YOU WANT TO BECOME LOCAL NEWS.
Malcolm sends a file.
SECURITY BLIND SPOTS — LOT MAP.
No message.
Of course.
I do not open it until I’m parked outside my office.
That is either maturity or survival. I’ll take the credit.
The office building is mostly dark. The lobby smells like floor cleaner and the ghost of someone’s microwaved fish. The elevator mirror reflects me with dead fluorescent honesty. I hate it and use it anyway, checking my hair, my coat, my face.
Nothing obvious.
That means nothing.
Molly opens the office door before I can unlock it.
She is holding a large iced coffee in each hand and has a pencil tucked through the messy knot of her hair like she lost a fight with a stationery drawer.
“You look terrible,” she says.
“So do you.”
“I know. I’ve entered my feral academic era.”
“You never left.”
She steps aside and hands me a coffee. “Drink. It’s mostly ice and poor decisions.”
The office is chaos.
Not normal Molly chaos. Focused chaos. My whiteboard is covered with names, arrows, question marks, and one drawing of a door with an angry face.
Three laptop screens glow on the conference table.
The dumpling bag from earlier sits open beside a stack of printed pages.
Celia’s case files are neatly pushed to one side with a sticky note that reads SEX TAPE BLACKMAIL — PAUSED BUT STILL GROSS.
I point at it. “Professional.”
“Accurate.”
I take a sip of coffee. It is too sweet, too cold, and exactly what my body needed.
Molly watches me swallow. “Do I need to ask?”
“No.”
“That means yes, but with teeth.”
I set the coffee down and take off my coat. My visitor badge catches on the fabric. I rip it free harder than necessary and toss it onto the table.
Molly looks at it.
“Souvenir?”
“Threat.”
“Same industry.”
I sit.
My legs are grateful in a humiliating way.
Molly slides a printed screenshot toward me. “Production blog. Extra named Len Price. He worked two nights on the original. This post was dated two days before Laurel died.”
I read.
Half the post is boring set gossip. Cold pizza. Rain machines. A joke about fake blood staining socks. Then:
They shot some weird red door thing tonight. Girl in the red coat kept saying the lock stuck. Everyone laughed it off until the smoke got too thick and someone yelled cut. A stunt guy got pretty heated with production. Heard they’re reworking the whole sequence. Hope they pay those girls more.
My eyes stick to one phrase.
The lock stuck.
Molly says nothing.
I read it again.
The lock stuck.
Not the night Laurel died.
Two days before.
“They knew,” I say.
Molly’s face is pale under the screen light. “Looks like they knew something.”
“Who deleted the post?”
“Can’t tell yet. The blog went private, then vanished after the movie came out. But someone scraped it.”
“Find Len Price.”
“Already trying. Common name. Very annoying. Men should be legally required to have searchable trauma relevance.”
“Put that in your platform.”
“I’m workshopping.”
She slides another page toward me.
“This is where literacy regret begins.”
It’s a partial call sheet. Poor quality. Cropped. Someone’s old scan or photo. The top reads BLOOD HOUSE — ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY. The date is three days before Laurel’s death.
Scene 17 — Red Door Sequence.
My coffee turns sour in my stomach.
Under cast: CLARA VANE. LAUREL WEST.
Under notes: RAIN RESET. SMOKE TEST. DOOR PRACTICAL.
In the margin, handwritten in black:
IF SHE CAN’T OPEN IT, KEEP ROLLING UNTIL CUT.
The room gets too detailed again.
The wet ring under my coffee cup. The smell of cold dumplings. Molly’s chipped nail polish. The air conditioner clicking on with a tired rattle. The whiteboard door with an angry face.
I press my palm flat to the table.
Not lining things up.
Not this time.
“What does ‘door practical’ mean?” Molly asks.
“A working door. Not decorative.”
“And ‘keep rolling until cut’?”
I look at the words until they blur at the edges.
“It means somebody wanted fear on camera.”
Molly is quiet.
For once, she lets the silence work.
My laptop pings.
Both of us look at it.
Unknown sender.
No subject.
Molly says, “That’s not me.”
“I gathered.”
“Don’t open it.”
I reach for the trackpad.
“Clara.”
“Go stand behind something if you’re emotionally attached to caution.”
“I’m attached to not being murdered by email.”
“Valid hobby.”
I open it.
One image loads.
Slowly, because even horror has buffering now.
A blurred scan, maybe a frame grab. Grainy. Dark. Red-black shadows. A hallway. A door.
Laurel stands behind the red door’s small wire-glass window.
Not fully visible. One hand pressed to the glass. Red coat sleeve bunched at her wrist. Her mouth open around a word the image cannot give back.
Behind her, in the reflection on the glass, a figure stands outside the frame.
Too blurred to identify.
But the outline is tall.
Male.
Near enough to the door to open it.
Or keep it shut.
Molly whispers my name.
I don’t answer.
I am looking at the bottom of the image.
There is a timestamp burned into the corner.
Not the night Laurel died.
Two days before.
The rehearsal.
The first warning.
And beneath the image, one line of text:
SHE SCREAMED BEFORE THE TAKE THAT KILLED HER.