The projector clicked steadily.
“I found the original ledgers in the cinema office. Names, dates, payments and photographs. I planned to take everything to a journalist in the capital.”
Celeste paused.
“Someone warned Gideon.”
Saffy whispered, “Who?”
On the screen, Celeste seemed almost to hear her.
“The night I was supposed to leave, Gideon brought me to the harbor. He forced me onto a boat. He said I would sign a statement admitting fraud and disappear quietly. We struggled. A fuel lamp fell. The cabin caught fire.”
Mara looked at Gideon’s scar in her memory.
The kitchen accident.
“Elias pulled me from the water,” Celeste said. “The newspapers were already reporting my death by morning. Gideon had prepared the story before the boat ever left the harbor.”
The film trembled in the gate.
“I wanted to come home. Elias begged me to wait. He believed Gideon would hurt you if I returned without proof. We hid the ledgers inside the cinema walls and arranged to expose everything.”
Celeste’s voice broke.
“But Gideon found us again.”
The picture disappeared.
White light filled the screen.
“No,” Mara whispered.
The reel continued spinning, but the remaining film had been cut away.
Saffy inspected the loose end.
“Someone removed the rest.”
A sound came from below.
The auditorium doors opened.
Footsteps entered the darkness.
Mara switched off the projector.
A man’s voice echoed through the cinema.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
Gideon.
Saffy tightened her grip on Mara’s hand.
Another set of footsteps followed him.
Then another.
He had brought security men.
“You know the building better than they do,” Mara whispered. “Is there another way out?”
“My grandfather showed me a tunnel under the stage.”
“Go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You are finding Elias.”
Saffy’s eyes shone with anger and fear.
“How?”
“The note said the truth was in the walls. Your grandfather left clues for us. The rest of that film is somewhere inside this building.”
A flashlight beam swept across the projection booth window.
Gideon called again.
“Mara, this has gone far enough.”
She opened the booth door and stepped onto the narrow balcony.
Gideon stood in the center aisle beneath the broken ceiling. Two men waited behind him.
“You knew she survived,” Mara said.
His face was half-hidden in darkness.
“I knew she escaped the boat.”
“You declared her dead.”
“She chose not to return.”
“You threatened me.”
“I protected you.”
“From what?”
“From becoming like her.”
Mara descended the stairs one step at a time.
“Like my mother?”
“Obsessed. Reckless. Unable to understand that families such as ours survive only because unpleasant decisions are made quietly.”
“You burned people from their homes.”
“I was twenty-nine years old and following instructions.”
“Whose instructions?”
Gideon looked toward Saffy.
“Take the girl outside.”
One of the security men moved forward.
Saffy ran.
She slipped through a side curtain and disappeared behind the screen.
The man followed.
Mara stepped into Gideon’s path.
He caught her wrist.
“Listen to me,” he said. “Your mother destroyed herself chasing a truth that changed nothing. Do not repeat her mistake.”
“Where is she?”
Gideon’s grip tightened.
“Gone.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer you need.”
Behind the screen, something heavy crashed.
Gideon glanced toward the sound.
Mara twisted free and ran down the aisle.
The second security man caught the back of her coat. She tore one arm from the sleeve and kept moving.
Saffy appeared beside the stage.
“This way!”
They climbed through a gap in the screen.
The space behind it was filled with ropes, ladders and fragments of painted scenery. Saffy pulled open a trapdoor.
They dropped into a narrow passage beneath the stage.
A wooden beam blocked the door behind them.
“Will that hold?” Mara asked.
“No.”
They hurried through darkness.
At the end of the passage stood an iron cabinet.
A crescent had been painted above the lock.
Mara tried the brass key.
It opened.
Inside were dozens of film canisters.
Photographs.
Ledgers wrapped in waxed cloth.
And a small portable recorder with a red light blinking.
Mara pressed the playback button.
Elias Reed’s voice emerged through static.
“Saffy, I am sorry.”
The girl covered her mouth.
“If you are hearing this, Gideon found me before I could finish transferring Celeste’s final testimony. Do not come to the house. Do not go to the police station. The deputy chief has been receiving Voss money for years.”
Saffy began to cry silently.
“I moved the last reel to the safest place I could think of. Celeste always said a secret shown to one person can be buried again. A secret shown to an entire town becomes history.”