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Inside, I shifted a carton of wristbands off the spare chair. Laurie set little chicken pies on the desk while Damien remained near the open doorway. He checked the staff crossing before pulling up a folding chair, and when my aunt offered him a pie, he accepted it without the persuasion she usually needed to get me to eat.

I broke through the crust with a plastic fork. Steam rose from the filling, carrying the smell of thyme, and I realized how hungry I was. My breakfast had been hours ago. Laurie waited until I’d eaten several bites before asking how the preparations were going.

“I can make the shorter route work,” I said. “I don’t know what to do about people who won’t even speak to me.”

She put her fork down. I kept mine in the pie, breaking a piece of carrot into smaller and smaller pieces.

“I was standing right there when someone asked whether I was the woman they arrested. She’d talked to me about hiring me last spring. What am I supposed to say when somebody asks whether I’ll be in jail on their wedding day?”

I pulled my phone off the binder and set it facedown beside my plate. There weren’t any cancellations waiting in my inbox. I kept opening it anyway, expecting one every time I saw an alert.

Laurie reached across the desk and covered my hand. Her fingers were warm from the foil dish. “I wish I could make people stop talking. Pam’s been furious all afternoon, and I’ve had to keep busy because otherwise I’d have driven back here before you’d even finished your meeting.”

I turned my hand beneath hers, threading our fingers together. Outside, a burst of laughter came from the changing area, followed by somebody complaining about a missing mask. The ordinary noise made it easier to swallow.

“Neither of us is going anywhere,” she added. “Call us tonight, even if it’s late.”

“I will.” I squeezed her fingers before reaching for my fork again. “Thank you for bringing enough for him too. He’d probably have followed me into the kitchen if I’d gone looking for lunch.”

Damien finished his mouthful before answering. “I would’ve carried the plates.”

Laurie smiled at him, then tucked a napkin beneath the edge of my dish where gravy had begun dripping onto the desk. I ate the rest while she told me Pamela had saved the corner brownie I liked. When she left, I walked her back to the staff crossing with Damien beside me.

O’Shea met us near the farm office as Laurie headed toward the parking area.

“Bellamy’s here,” he said. “I want to clarify the safety dispute that ended his employment.”

I took a few minutes to put the empty dishes away and collect my binder, clipping a charged radio to my jacket before we joined him.

At the office door, Damien stopped beside the sheriff. “We found a lantern moved into a different part of a set during the walkthrough. Neither of us moved it, and Sybil says it isn’t part of a reset.”

O’Shea rested his hand on the door. Behind him, the last of the afternoon pumpkin customers were heading past the barn with their purchases. He waited until they’d moved out of earshot.

“I’ll want to see the room before you open. Leave the lantern there until then, and we’ll check who was working in that section.” He opened the door for us.

Grant sat at the same scarred table where we’d argued about reopening. His coat was folded over the chair beside him, and his short brown hair had more gray at the temples than I remembered. He stood when we entered and greeted me, then waited while O’Shea introduced Damien.

“I’m sorry about Justin,” Grant said. “I worked with him last year. We didn’t always agree, but he was careful.”

I rested the binder against my hip rather than taking a chair. Through the window behind him, workers were stacking empty pumpkin crates outside the barn. We still had a briefing to finish, and the afternoon light was fading from the office floor.

O’Shea returned to the table. “You’ve described your dismissal as a professional disagreement. What were you disagreeing about?”

“We disagreed about whether an effect needed to come out of service. I thought we could adjust it between groups, and Sybil wanted it shut down.” Grant looked at me. “You were responsible for the show. I understood that, even if I didn’t agree with how you handled it.”

“We’d already had repeated safety problems. Somebody nearly got hurt that night, and I wasn’t letting the effect run again.”

I could still remember standing in the cold beside him while the crew waited for a decision. Grant had argued then, loudly enough that I’d taken him away from the guests before firing him. Now he leaned back in his chair and let O’Shea finish writing.

“Were you at Hollowfield on Thursday night?” the sheriff asked.

“I was nowhere near the farm. I’ve been taking other work, and I haven’t kept up with what’s happening here.” He nodded toward the folder beside O’Shea’s notebook. “You’ve got my number. I’ll answer anything else you need.”

O’Shea asked me to leave the binder’s current staff list with him and said I could get back to work. I unclipped the copy from the front pocket. Damien stayed beside me as we left, and Grant remained at the table with the sheriff.

Clinton caught us outside, holding the delivery paperwork I’d been waiting for. I checked the page before he could hand it over and disappear into the barn. It confirmed what we’d already seen arrive, with nothing about the remaining six barriers.

“I need the revised vendor confirmation, not the driver’s receipt. I need to know the rest are actually coming tomorrow.”