Reaching for the drawer where she stashed her bag, her hand stalled partway. It was partially open. Yanking it the rest of the way, she saw her bag was open too. Had someone been in here rummaging through her things? Snatching it up, she did a quick check to see if anything was missing. She never carried much cash, but what little she had was still there, as were all her credit cards and her ID. With the most important things accounted for, she looked through the other items. Her brush was there, and her makeup… Wait. Had she taken her hand lotion out to use and forgotten to put it back? She must have. She couldn’t imagine anyone being so desperate for moisturizer that they’d steal from her. But then, why was her bag open?
Unnerved, she quickly gathered up her things and was more than happy to take up Danny’s offer when he volunteered to walk her to her car. He was interested in her; she knew that. He hadn’t exactly hidden it, but then, according to some of the gossip she’d heard, Danny was interested in anything with a pulse. And while he was tall, fit, and attractive, with his dark blond hair, green eyes, and perfect smile, he didn’t do anything for Chloe. She’d made it clear she just wanted to be friends, and he’d accepted her decision good-naturedly.
“I can still flirt with you, though, right?” he’d teasingly asked her.
Chloe laughed. “Can you be around a woman and not flirt?”
He’d thought about it for a moment before unabashedly replying, “No.”
“Then I guess you can still flirt with me.”
There was no flirting today, though, as he walked with her out to the parking lot. His usually irreverent grin was banished under the weight of what happened. “That was fucked up.”
Yes, it was. In all her years on the stage, nothing like that had ever happened. “I hope they’ll be okay.”
Danny nodded with a grimace. “They won’t be able to perform. They’ll need to be replaced.”
He wasn’t wrong, though his pointing it out so soon after it happened struck a distasteful chord inside Chloe. As if the showwas more important than the performers’ well-being. “Lattie will make that decision once he knows more.”
When they reached her car and she used her remote to unlock it, Danny opened the door for her. “Are you going to be okay? I can come over if you want.” He quickly raised his hand as if to forestall any protest. “Just two friends hanging out.”
Chloe tried for a smile, knowing it was a weak attempt at best. “I’ll be fine. I think I’ll use the time to catch up on my sleep.”
“Okay.” Leaning in, Danny hugged her and kissed her cheek. “Call me if you want to talk.”
“I will.”
But when Chloe got home and the walls began to close in around her as a fearful feeling tightened her chest, she didn’t call Danny, but another man instead.
As soon as Erik left the opera house, he called Jayla, and she began searching through earlier footage, trying to find the culprit. Once he was home, he immediately logged in to help her search. They located the person on the feed, but the problem they’d run into was two-fold. One, Erik had a limited number of cameras, so he’d had to prioritize, and the feed from the one camera with a view of the catwalk didn’t pick up enough detail of their saboteur’s facial features, even with the low-light technology, especially since he’dbeen wearing a dark hoodie with the hood up. All they knew at this point was that he was a clean-shaven Caucasian male of roughly the same height and build as Jackson Savoy.
From there, they switched their focus to the feed monitoring points of entry, hoping to get a clearer picture. This brought them to their second problem: the number of people moving freely in and out of the opera house. Performers, musicians, stagehands, set builders, wardrobe people, and administrative staff, all of whom had at least one person among them who fit that limited description and could have easily thrown on a hoodie. More so among the stagehands and set designers. There were too many variables, and if Jackson Savoy chose to disguise himself, blend in with the crowd, would they even recognize him? He could walk in with a supply crate or violin case loaded with plastic explosives, and they might never suspect a thing.
Erik let out a low growl of frustration. Short of posting up at the door and searching everyone before they entered, he wasn’t sure how to work around it.
“Someone went into Chloe’s dressing room.”
“What?” Switching the feed on his laptop, he accessed the camera that monitored her door.
“It was while she was on stage, just after the light fell.” Jayla gave him the corresponding time-stamp, and he navigated to it, watching as the door slowly eased open and a man in a navy-blue hoodie with the hood up slipped cautiously inside.
“Dammit! The fucker kept his head down.” Had he known there was a camera? And now Erik was kicking himself for not putting another one in there with a full view of the space. Instead, he’d attempted to protect Chloe’s privacy – it was a dressing room after all, and he hadn’t felt right about possibly seeing her unclothed without her consent – and had only installed one camera with a view of the door so they could monitor who went in there. Jayla had agreed with the decision at the time, deeming the point of entry more important since the room didn’t have any windows that someone might slip through.
“I’m going back there,” Erik announced, standing and grabbing his keys. Whether it was Jackson Savoy or someone else, according to the feed, the guy had been alone in Chloe’s dressing room for thirteen minutes. There was no telling what he could have done in that time. He could have planted his own cameras, or worse, sabotaged something. “I need to check it out. Do you have eyes on Chloe?”
“I do.” A moment passed as Erik headed for the door, before Jayla added, “She seems agitated.”
That stopped him in his tracks. “What do you mean? Is she okay?”
“She’s pacing in her living room and keeps looking at her phone.”
“Probably waiting for an update on the people who were hurt.”
“Looks like she gave up waiting, she’s calling someone.”
Erik’s eyes widened as a moment later, his phone flashed with another call, Chloe’s name appearing on the screen. “Er… She’s calling me.”
Sounding perplexed, Jayla asked, “Why?”
