Chapter 1 — Maya sorting costumes late at night — Then Grant and David appear on the dark stage to question her
Maya stood alone in the dim glow of the backstage lights.
She pulled another sequined gown along the heavy metal clothing rack.
The metal rings screeched softly against the overhead bar.
She checked the small paper tag attached to the hem.
“I need to finish this entire rack before I leave,” she muttered to herself.
Her phone buzzed inside her jacket pocket.
Her ride was already waiting outside in the alley.
Footsteps echoed softly from the direction of the empty auditorium.
Grant and David stepped up onto the dark stage.
They walked directly toward the costume storage area.
“Why are you still working?” Grant asked, stopping beside the clothing rack.
Maya looked up, surprised by the sudden interruption.
“I volunteered to finish sorting the inventory,” Maya replied, dropping her hands to her sides.
“She said I couldn’t take anything until every single piece was tagged,” Maya added.
She pointed across the cluttered room toward an old, dusty metal locker.
David crossed his arms over his chest.
“Why is their costume locked away in there?” David demanded.
“They needed to learn responsibility,” a voice answered from the shadows near the wings.
Maya raised her arm and pointed straight up at the ceiling.
“She said the camera was turned off anyway,” Maya said quietly.
David narrowed his eyes and turned his head upward.
He stared at the black dome of the security camera mounted above the doorway.
David walked past the clothing racks without saying another word.
He stepped over to the equipment rack against the far wall.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard of the monitoring console.
The screen flickered to life with a harsh blue glow.
David tapped a sequence of keys to pull up the live feed and recent playback logs.
A timestamp appeared in the corner of the display.
Maya watched him closely from across the room.
David leaned in closer to the glowing monitor.
His expression hardened as he stared at the moving images on the screen.
“It wasn’t,” David whispered.
The monitor displayed the exact corner of the room where they were currently standing.
David’s eyes widened as he noticed a blinking red recording light reflecting in the lens of the camera.
He stared at the playback controls on the screen in total disbelief.
The system logs showed that the recording had never been paused or disabled all evening.
David reached out and tapped the screen to pause the footage.
He pointed a finger at a specific file folder labeled with a restricted timestamp from earlier that night.