PART 8 — THE EXPLOSION IN THE DARK
The explosion threw me against the projection-room wall.
Glass shattered somewhere behind us.
Caleb screamed his mother’s name as the lights vanished and smoke pushed through the doorway.
“Everyone stay low!” Detective Ortiz shouted.
Emergency lights should have illuminated the aisle.
They did not.
Someone had disabled them.
Rachel found Caleb in the darkness and pulled him against her.
Mr. Harlow had fallen beside a row of broken seats. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow, but he was conscious.
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
A second sound came from beneath the stage.
Not another explosion.
Fire.
Orange light appeared through gaps in the floorboards.
The evidence technician grabbed the metal box containing Thomas’s tapes and documents.
“I already uploaded the digital copies,” she said. “But we need to move.”
Detective Ortiz directed us toward a side exit.
Smoke filled the auditorium so quickly that I could no longer see the stage.
Caleb coughed behind me.
I reached backward until I found his hand.
“Don’t let go.”
“I have my mother.”
“Then hold both of us.”
We moved through the darkness like a chain.
Rachel held Caleb.
Caleb held me.
I supported Mr. Harlow while Detective Ortiz led us toward daylight.
A burning section of curtain fell behind us.
Heat pressed against my back.
Then an officer forced open the side door.
Cold morning air rushed over us.
We stumbled into the alley as firefighters ran toward the theater.
Rachel dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Caleb.
Mr. Harlow sat against a brick wall while a paramedic treated his head.
The evidence technician emerged last, carrying Thomas’s metal box against her chest.
Victor stood across the street beneath a large black umbrella.
He watched smoke rise from the building he had attempted to demolish an hour earlier.
He did not look shocked.
He looked disappointed.
Detective Ortiz walked toward him.
“Where is Samuel Croft?”
Victor raised an eyebrow.
“Mr. Croft does not work weekends.”
“His company vehicle delivered Rachel Reed to Ethan’s house last night.”
“Then you should ask him about it.”
“We intend to.”
Victor glanced toward the burning theater.
“Old buildings have old wiring. This tragedy proves why the Rialto should have been demolished years ago.”
The fire marshal heard him.
“We don’t know what caused the explosion yet.”
Victor smiled.
“I was offering an opinion.”
“You offered it very quickly,” I said.
His eyes found mine.
“You should be more concerned about your injured attorney.”
“I’m concerned about the person who disabled the emergency lights.”
For the first time, his expression shifted.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Then he turned away and called someone on his phone.
The fire department contained the flames before they reached the front lobby.
The hidden dressing room beneath the stage suffered the worst damage.
If we had found Thomas’s box twenty minutes later, everything inside it would have been destroyed.
A fire investigator located the source of the explosion in a utility chamber beneath the auditorium.
The gas line had been opened deliberately.
An electronic ignition device had been attached to the main breaker.
“This was not faulty wiring,” Detective Ortiz told us. “Someone wanted the building to burn after we entered.”
“Croft,” Rachel whispered.
“We need evidence before we name him.”
The theater’s security system belonged to Mercer Development.
Most of the cameras had been turned off.
But one exterior camera remained active.
At five forty-one that morning, it recorded a man entering through the side service door.
He wore a Mercer security jacket and a baseball cap.
The image was unclear.
The access record was not.
The door had been opened with Samuel Croft’s security code.
Victor immediately denied knowing anything.
His company issued a statement saying Croft had been placed on administrative leave and could not be located.
He was already preparing to sacrifice the man who had protected him for seventeen years.
By noon, we were inside a temporary police command room two blocks from the theater.
Mr. Harlow had three stitches above his eyebrow.
Rachel sat beside Caleb while the evidence technician opened Thomas’s letter.
The bottom edge had been darkened by smoke, but the pages were readable.
Rachel,
If you are holding this, then the worst thing I feared may have happened.
Do not blame yourself.
Victor made his choices.
I made mine.
And Daniel made the mistake of believing the truth would protect us simply because it was true.
It will not.
Truth needs witnesses.
Truth needs copies.
And truth needs people willing to survive long enough to speak.
Rachel paused.
Caleb stared at his father’s handwriting.
She continued.
The tape in this box contains my statement.
It may help, but Victor will call me frightened, angry, or unstable.
He will say I blamed him because I was about to lose my job.
So I made another recording.
This one contains Victor’s own voice.
He spoke to Croft inside the site office. Neither of them knew the recorder was running.
I hid that tape somewhere Croft would never search.
Inside the rear control compartment of Daniel’s guitar.
Daniel left it at the Rialto after rehearsal. I borrowed it for one final show.
Tell him I’m sorry I returned it with something more dangerous than music inside.
My heart stopped.
Dad’s guitar was not with us.
It was inside the Whitmore Music Room.
With Mason.
I called him.
No answer.
I tried again.
Straight to voicemail.
I opened the home-security application.
The camera above the driveway was still active.
I moved backward through the recording.
At ten forty-seven, a dark sedan stopped outside the house.
A man stepped out wearing a police jacket.
He walked to the music-room entrance and showed something to the camera.
A badge.
Mason opened the door.
The man lifted his face.
Samuel Croft.
“He’s inside my house,” I said.
Detective Ortiz grabbed her radio and dispatched the officers stationed nearby.
The security feed suddenly went black.
My phone rang.
Mason.
I answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
His voice was barely a whisper.
“Upstairs.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. But he’s between me and the front door.”
“Police are coming.”
“He keeps asking where you put the guitar.”
A floorboard creaked through the phone.
Mason stopped breathing.
Then Croft’s voice sounded somewhere behind him.
“Your friend cannot protect you, Mason.”
The call disconnected.
