Luca was sitting in the house, three rows back from the stage with his phone and a coffee. He looked up when I sat beside him.
“Well?”
“Micah found the mark already moved. Corrected it partially and used Dominic’s approval to set the final position.” I looked at the empty stage. “His behavior across every visit has been consistent, and there is no reason to doubt the story.” I paused. “He also had the longest unsupervised access to this stage of anyone in the building.”
“So he stays on the list.”
“Everyone stays on the list.”
Luca set his phone face down on his knee. “What Dominic said this morning. About the arrival. Play it like you’ve been somewhere difficult and you’ve come back.”
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t just talking about the music.”
I stood and pulled out my tablet. “I need the stage manager before the afternoon session.”
“I’ll come,” Luca said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” He stepped past me into the aisle. “I want to see how you ask questions when you think the answer matters.”
Chapter nine
Luca
“Are you certain this is necessary?” Dominic asked from the passenger seat.
Thiago checked his mirror, signaled, and moved the SUV into the left lane with the unhurried ease of someone who had driven in considerably worse conditions than St. Charles Avenue on a Friday morning. “Yes,” he said.
I sat in the back with my tablet, reviewing a list of archive materials. Over seven years of managing Dominic’s world, I’d created a reliable internal filing system. He wanted Bridget’s early performance assessments, the press clippings from her first two seasons, and I knew which box they were in and approximately where inside the box. I needed twenty uninterrupted minutes at the Orpheum archive to retrieve them.
Dominic examined the interior of the SUV, lightly touching both the door handle and the dashboard.
“This vehicle belongs to The Guardians?”
“Yes,” replied Thiago.
“It’s excessive.”
“Someone shot at your house. We can’t continue using your regular cars and drivers or walk along the street. This is your safest form of transport.”
Dominic dismissed the comment with a small wave. I returned to my tablet.
We turned onto Canal Street, and Thiago slowed for a red light. The city had been up for hours already. A woman sold pralines from a folding table outside the Walgreens, and the first tourists of the morning clustered at the corner, photographing the streetcar tracks.
Thiago pulled into a drive-thru for coffee.
Dominic sat forward. “We are not doing this.”
“It might surprise you.”
“I have never once been surprised by coffee served through a window.”
Thiago pulled up to the speaker. He ordered Dominic a café au lait. Next, he ordered himself a black coffee and glanced at me in the mirror.
“Double shot,” I said. “Iced.”
