"Say that again."
"You're next," Michael repeated. "That's what it says. Nothing more."
Lia's ears rang like someone had struck a bell beside her head. "Let me see it."
She thought, for one reckless second, about pulling her own note out and laying it on the desk between them. Two matching envelopes, with two matching answers. It would have been the easiest and responsible thing.
But responsible meant handing the investigation to a man who'd already decided Aria was probably fine, or probably tired. He hadn't earned her note yet. Not until she understood more of this than he did.
"It's evidence now. I can't hand it over to you."
"It has my name on it. I think that earns me a look."
Michael hesitated, then turned the bag enough for her to read the words herself. Cream paper. The same slanted handwriting from the note in her bag, the one she hadn't told him about.
Her stomach twisted at her own silence.
"Miss Robetor, is there something you want to tell me?"
She quickly shook her head, "No."
"You're a bad liar."
"I don't care, I've been told tonight." She forced her hands still in her lap. "Where exactly did you find that?"
"Taped under her mirror. Whoever left it wanted it found, just not right away."
"Or they wanted Aria to see it and panic."
Michael's brow lifted slightly. "That's a good theory. Where did you learn to think like that?"
"Three years of understudying doesn't just teach you blocking, Detective. It teaches you to notice things people would rather you didn't."
He studied her for another beat, then pocketed the bag. "Stay in town. Don't leave without telling someone where you're going. And if you get anything else with your name on it, you call me before you fold it up and shove it in your bag."
Her pulse jumped. "How did you know I had one?"
"I didn't. Until now." He gave her a small, humorless smile and left without waiting for her answer.
Lia sat frozen for a full minute after the door closed, furious at herself and too rattled to feel it properly. She pulled her own note back out and read it again, memorizing every word like it might vanish if she blinked too long: Ask him what he knows about the theater's other missing girls.
Other? This is plural. Which means, Aria wasn't the first.
She found Fendrik in his office twenty minutes later, still in his shirtsleeves, sitting behind a desk covered in ticket reports he clearly wasn't reading. He looked up when she walked in without knocking.
Showing him the note was a risk. She knew that. If he was involved in any of this, she was handing her only leverage straight to the person most likely to use it against her. But she needed to see his face the moment he read it. That was worth more to her right now than keeping the note hidden.
"You look like you've decided I'm the villain of this story," he said.
"Have you given me a reason not to?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Then explain something to me." She dropped the note on his desk, unfolded, and watched his face for anything he couldn't hide fast enough. "What other missing girls?"
For one second, just one, something moved behind his eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by the same practiced calm he wore like a second skin.
"Where did you get this?"
"Does it matter?"
"Every detail in crime scene is useful. So, it matters."
"It was in Aria's dressing room. Someone wanted me to find it." She leaned forward. "So tell me. What girls?"
"I don't know what that's referring to."
"You're lying."
"Don't accuse me of that, I'm choosing my words carefully. There's a difference."
"Not to me there isn't." Her voice cracked, and she hated it. "A woman is missing, I have a note telling me I'm next, and you're sitting here choosing your words like we have time for that?"
Fendrik stood, slow and deliberate, and came around the desk to stand closer than she expected. Close enough that she had to tip her head back to keep looking at him.
"Three actresses left this theater over the last six years without much explanation," he said quietly. "Officially, they quit. Officially, there was nothing strange about any of it."
"And unofficially?"
"Unofficially, I've never believed a single one of those stories."
"Why didn't you say something?"
"Because saying something without proof gets you called paranoid, and it gets the theater's reputation dragged through headlines that never lead anywhere." His jaw tightened. "I've spent two years trying to find proof quietly. Tonight, whoever's behind this decided quiet wasn't good enough for them anymore."
Lia's throat felt tight. "So what do we do?"
"We find out who wrote that note before they decide a warning wasn't enough either."
"We?" She didn't like how easily the word left his mouth, like he'd already decided this without asking her. "You spent two years sitting on a pattern you never reported. Forgive me if I don't immediately hand you a partnership."
"I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to be smart. You have no idea who wrote that note. I have two years of context you don't."
"Context you kept from three women who might still be here if you hadn't."
That landed. She watched it land, watched something flicker across his composure before he covered it, and for the first time since she'd walked in, he didn't have an answer ready.
"You're right," he said finally, quiet. "I don't have a defense for that. I only have a reason, and I understand if it isn't good enough for you."
"Try me."
"Not tonight." He rubbed a hand across his jaw, the first unguarded gesture she'd seen from him all evening. "Tonight I need you safe more than I need you to forgive me. We can go back to being angry with each other tomorrow."
It wasn't an answer. It was a deflection with better manners than most, and she recognized it as some traitorous part of her chest loosened at his tone anyway.
A knock cut through the moment. Isaiah leaned into the doorway, still in half his stage makeup, eyes darting between them like he'd interrupted something he shouldn't have.
"Sorry. Lia, can I talk to you? It's important."
"Can it wait?"
"No." His voice dropped, tight and urgent in a way she'd never heard from him before. "It really can't."
She glanced at Fendrik. He nodded once, silent permission, and she followed Isaiah into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her.
"What's going on?"
Isaiah checked over his shoulder twice before speaking. "I need you to tell the police I was with you tonight. Before the show. Around six."
Her stomach dropped for the second time that night. "Why would I say that?"
"Because I wasn't where I told them I was, and if they find out, it's going to look really bad for me."
"Where were you?"
He hesitated a beat too long. "I can't tell you that."
"What? Isaiah, a woman is missing. I got a note saying I'm next. You don't get to ask me to lie for you and then refuse to say why."
"I know how it sounds."
"Then make it sound like something else."
He pressed his palms against his eyes, breathing hard, and when he finally looked at her again, his expression wasn't guilty. It was scared.
"If I tell you where I really was," he said, "you're going to wish I hadn't."