Who Signed the Transfer

Priya met her at an all-night diner three blocks from the theater, and didn't bother pretending she was surprised by the question.

"I wondered how long it would take you to find that clause," Priya said, stirring coffee she wasn't drinking. "I noticed it myself, six weeks ago, when I processed the contract amendments for the whole company. I didn't say anything because I didn't have proof of anything yet. Just a bad feeling and a clause that made no sense unless someone expected Vivienne not to be available."

"Who signed the transfer, Priya? The money that moved through the production account eight weeks ago."

Priya was quiet for a long moment, and when she finally spoke, her voice had dropped low enough that Naomi had to lean in to hear it over the diner's late-night hum.

"The production's lead financial backer," Priya said. "A man named Julian Ferris. He put in four million dollars eighteen months ago to get this show fully funded, and from what I could piece together going through old approval emails, Vivienne found something in the production's books three months ago that she wasn't supposed to find — some discrepancy in how Ferris's investment was actually being used. She went to the producers about it. Quietly, at first."

"And then she disappeared."

"And then," Priya said, "your bonus contract changed, tied to her unavailability, eight weeks ago — which is one week after Vivienne first raised the discrepancy with the producers. Naomi, I think whoever built that incentive knew exactly what might happen to Vivienne before it happened. I think someone was already planning for the possibility that she wouldn't be here for opening night, and they wanted a financial reason for the rest of the company to stay quiet about why."

Naomi sat with that in the diner's fluorescent hum, two days from the opening night of her career, and understood that the notes in her dressing room hadn't been a threat at all.

They had been a warning, from someone inside the production who knew exactly what had happened to Vivienne Laurent, and who had chosen Naomi — of everyone in the company — as the one person with enough at stake, and enough conscience left, to actually do something about it before Thursday.

"I need to talk to Julian Ferris," Naomi said. "Before opening night. I need to look him in the eye and ask him directly where Vivienne is."

"Naomi." Priya's voice was careful. "If you're right about this, and you go asking that question directly, you may not get to open Thursday at all — in the role, or possibly anywhere else in this business again."

"I know," Naomi said. "I've been trying to convince myself that doesn't matter more than getting to play Isadora for one night. I don't think it's working."