CHAPTER 24 #2
“My name is Malcolm Reed,” I say. “I am giving this statement from the emergency department after injuries sustained at the Blood House shuttle set. Clara Vane did not flee studio custody. I was present when Detective Alvarez identified a note from the sealed Stage 14 red-door wall. The note directed investigators toward Marla’s.
Ms. Vane was transported under law enforcement supervision after Detective Alvarez authorized movement to that location. ”
Gideon says, “Good. Stop before motive.”
I stop.
The nurse looks surprised.
I resent that.
Soto says, “Anything else?”
Gideon answers before I can. “One more sentence on physical evidence, no interpretation.”
I breathe carefully.
“The note, the hospital transport, and the decision to send units to Marla’s were known to law enforcement before Ms. Vane arrived there.”
“Stop,” Gideon says.
I stop.
There is a strange relief in being told where the edge is.
Maybe I have been waiting too long for someone to do that without turning it into a leash.
Soto ends the recording.
Gideon says, “Send that to Alvarez. Do not release publicly yet. If the department confirms, it weakens the fleeing narrative without making Mr. Reed the story.”
“I am fine not being the story,” I say.
Gideon makes a dry sound. “Your timing for that realization is exquisite.”
“Where is Clara?”
“At Marla’s. Gavin Rook is in custody. Evidence team has arrived. A film canister was recovered from a freezer behind what Molly describes as ‘criminally red pie.’ It is sealed. Not viewed yet.”
My hand closes on the sheet.
Bad hand.
Pain runs up my arm.
The nurse notices and gently extracts my fingers from the fabric like she is disarming an idiot.
“Laurel left it,” I say.
“That appears likely.”
“Is Clara okay?”
Gideon’s silence lasts one second too long.
My ribs tighten.
“Park.”
“She is standing.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“It is what I can verify.”
Fair.
Brutal.
Useful.
Molly’s voice enters from farther away. “Tell Security Batman she’s upright and terrifying, which is her version of okay.”
“Molly,” Gideon says.
“What? He’s bleeding. Give him familiar data.”
I close my eyes.
The room lights turn red behind my eyelids because pain has opinions.
“Is she touching evidence?” I ask.
Molly snorts. “No. She’s touching the table like it personally wronged her, but evidence remains unmolested.”
“Good.”
“Don’t sound relieved. I am also here, doing heroic non-touching.”
“You’re very brave.”
“I know, but I like hearing it from injured men with shame complexes.”
The nurse pauses with a syringe. “I like her too.”
“Molly,” I say, before the room starts liking itself too much, “who fed Entertainment Wire?”
“That’s the ugly part,” she says.
Everything in me waits.
“Not from studio PR account,” Molly continues. “Gideon got a friend to check the metadata from the first image before it got scrubbed. The office-wall photo was uploaded from a public Wi-Fi network near your hospital.”
My eyes open.
The curtain.
The white rail.
Soto’s face.
The nurse stills.
“Here?” I ask.
“Near there. Not inside, maybe. A coffee shop across the street. But the second update—the fleeing evidence claim—went live after you were already en route.”
The room presses in.
Victor doesn’t need to be everywhere.
He needs people placed where stories turn.
Hospital. Office. Studio. Diner.
Doors again. Not physical now. Information doors. Places where a lie can enter before the truth gets badge access.
Gideon says, “This does not mean hospital staff are involved.”
“No,” I say. “It means someone knew I’d be brought here.”
Soto steps back toward the corridor and looks out.
The nurse puts the syringe down. “I’m going to ask everyone not to accuse my hospital of anything while I’m holding sharp objects.”
“Noted,” I say.
“Noted is what difficult people say before continuing.”
Clara has said that.
Or close enough.
The overlap hits me so unexpectedly that for one stupid second I want to laugh.
Then a hospital TV outside the curtain changes volume.
Entertainment Wire.
I know the theme because the last eleven years trained me to hate certain sounds.
Soto reaches for the curtain.
Too late.
The anchor’s voice slides into the bay.
“New audio obtained from sources close to the investigation appears to capture former security coordinator Malcolm Reed admitting Clara Vane gave Laurel West the lighter found at multiple staged crime scenes—”
My blood goes cold in a way the hospital blanket cannot answer.
The curtain opens.
A television mounted near the nurses’ station shows my face from an old production panel beside a still of Clara at twenty-three, eyes hollow after Laurel’s funeral. The lower third reads:
EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: DID CLARA VANE PLANT THE FIRST PROP?
Then my voice, raw from the booth, plays.
“You gave Laurel the lighter.”
Cut.
“Because I gave it to you first.”
Cut.
“You gave it to Laurel before the fatal take because she was scared.”
No context.
No Gavin.
No tram.
No Avery.
No me admitting I let her forget because remembering would hurt.
They leave the blade and hide the hand that sharpened it.
The nurse says a word she probably does not use in patient charts.
Soto looks at me. “Is that audio from the scene?”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
“Gavin. Booth system. Maybe studio feed. Maybe Victor’s people if they tapped the control room.”
My vision pulses at the edge.
Not from head injury.
From rage forced to remain useful.
Gideon is still on speaker. “Do not respond publicly.”
“I wasn’t planning to hold a press conference from a gurney.”
“Good. Your sarcasm suggests partial brain function.”
Molly’s voice is no longer joking. “Malcolm, Clara can’t see this yet. We’re keeping phones away from her until the canister is logged.”
“She will see it.”
“I know.”
The admission is quiet.
That scares me more than the headline.
Because Molly is not trying to decorate fear.
“She’ll think it’s her fault,” I say.
Molly says, “She’ll think twelve things, seven of them unprintable.”
“She’ll think I made it worse.”
Gideon says, “Did you?”
The question has no cruelty in it.
That is why it works.
I look at the TV. At my old panel photo. At Clara’s funeral still. At Laurel’s lighter turned into a public accusation by people who understand that grief is easier to sell when a woman is holding the prop.
“Yes,” I say.
The room goes quiet.
Then I add, “Not by telling the truth. By waiting until they could cut it.”
Gideon says nothing.
Good lawyer.
Good man, maybe.
The doctor enters then, because timing in hospitals is either nonexistent or targeted. She is compact, mid-forties, brisk, with dark hair pulled back and a penlight clipped to her pocket. Her badge says Dr. Imada.
She looks at the TV, then me, then the cluster of people and phones and police energy around my bed.
“No,” she says.
No one speaks.
She points at Soto. “You. Door.”
She points at Gideon’s voice on speaker, which is impressive. “Lawyer, finish in thirty seconds.”
She points at me. “Patient, you are getting imaging, pain control, and a shoulder reduction if needed. You are not doing media strategy while your pupils are arguing with each other.”
“They are?”
“A little.”
“That seems private.”
“Your skull made it my business.”
I might definitely like her.
Molly says through the phone, “Doctor, please keep him alive. He is annoying but currently plot-relevant.”
Dr. Imada takes the phone from Soto, looks at it, and says, “I don’t know who you are, but I respect that sentence.”
“Molly Keene. Assistant. Emotional support menace.”
“Good. Menace elsewhere.”
She hands the phone back.
Gideon says, “Mr. Reed, say nothing further. I will locate independent counsel and coordinate with Alvarez. Molly will keep Clara away from the clipped audio for approximately twelve seconds, maybe less.”
“Tell Clara—”
“No,” Gideon says.
The word lands hard.
I stop.
He continues, calmer. “Do not send emotional messages through intermediaries while she is standing in a crime scene. She does not need another thing to carry.”
My mouth closes.
Every instinct I have leans toward sending something.
I’m sorry.
That isn’t the whole audio.
I didn’t mean—
All useless.
All weight.
All about making my pain arrive at her feet for acknowledgment.
Gideon is right.
I hate him for it, which is how I know he belongs on Clara’s side.
“What can I do?” I ask.
“Get medically cleared. Preserve your memory. Do not become another emergency.”
Molly adds, “And stop bleeding on legal strategy.”
The call ends.
Dr. Imada takes her phone from the nurse, gives orders, and starts examining me with the efficient irritation of someone who believes bodies are repairable only when their owners stop narrating.
She checks my shoulder.
White pain burns through the joint, down the arm, up my neck, and behind my eyes. My stomach lurches. My good hand grabs the rail before I can stop it.
“Language is allowed,” she says.
“I’m trying to be impressive.”
“You’re failing medically and succeeding stupidly.”
Soto coughs into his hand.
The nurse smiles without showing teeth.
Dr. Imada steps back. “Likely dislocation or severe AC injury. CT for head, shoulder imaging, burn care. You’re on medical hold until I say otherwise.”
“No.”
She gives me a look so flat it could level buildings.
I correct myself.
“I understand.”
“Better.”
“I need to remain available for police.”
“You will remain available from a bed, which is where people with head injuries belong when they are determined to be irritating.”
Soto says, “Detective Alvarez wanted him protected.”
Dr. Imada glances at the TV. “From himself or other people?”
“Both,” the nurse says.
“Then close the curtain and keep nonessential visitors out.”
The nurse pulls the curtain.
The TV disappears.
The audio stays faint.
That is worse, in a way. A lie heard through fabric. Public life reduced to muffled voices while a doctor presses around your injury and asks where it hurts.