Chapter 5
“I’m trying to keep this roof from coming down on your head,” he whispered, his voice suddenly stripped of all professional detachment, raw and undeniably shaken. “Can you understand that? I don't want to condemn this place, Talia. But you are lying to me. You’ve been lying to me since I stepped through that door.”
“Parker...” Her name on his tongue sounded like a prayer, or an indictment.
“Tell me what’s down there,” he murmured, stepping around the corner of the drafting table, closing the remaining distance between them until the front of his thighs brushed the wool of her skirt. He reached out, his large, calloused hand hesitating for a fraction of a second before his knuckles gently grazed her cheekbone, tucking a loose strand of auburn hair behind her ear.
The touch was so shockingly gentle it made Talia’s breath catch in her throat. Her heart thudded violently against her ribs, not with the cold panic of her father’s secret, but with a terrifying, liquid heat that pooled low in her belly.
“Tell me,” he repeated, his thumb tracing the soft line of her jaw, lingering at the sensitive hollow beneath her ear. His eyes were entirely consumed by her, dark with an attraction he clearly hadn't wanted to feel, an attraction that was wrecking his methodical, orderly world as completely as it was wrecking hers. “Give me a reason to sign the waiver, Talia. Give me something that makes sense of this math.”
Talia looked up into his eyes, her lips parted, her entire body leaning toward his warmth. For one reckless, catastrophic heartbeat, she wanted nothing more than to press her forehead against his chest and surrender the crushing weight she had carried alone for three agonizing years. She wanted to tell him about the water-stained diary in her safe, about the blood on the fly-ropes, about the drifter whose face she had never seen but whose ghost had lived under her floorboards her entire life.
She wanted Parker to hold her. She wanted him to kiss her until the fear stopped.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, his head tilting down, his breath warm against her cold skin. He was going to kiss her—she could feel the magnetic, irresistible pull between them, a gravity far stronger than the timber stress in the auditorium.
*Clatter.*
A sudden, sharp metallic crash echoed from the corridor outside, breaking the spell like ice shattering over water.
Parker went rigid. His hand dropped from her jaw, the warmth vanishing so instantly that Talia felt physically chilled. He turned toward the door, every muscle in his back coiling with instinctive alertness.
“What was that?” he asked, his voice rough.
Talia scrambled for composure, pressing two fingers to her trembling lips, forcing the oxygen back into her lungs. “The... the radiator pipe in the costume shop. It expands when the secondary boiler kicks on. The valve rattles against the metal storage racks.”
Parker looked back at her, his eyes clouded with unresolved tension, his jaw tight. He clearly didn't believe the radiator story, but he didn't push it. Instead, he grabbed a heavy industrial Maglite from the desk.
“Let’s check it,” he said, his tone once again professional, though the huskiness in his voice betrayed how close they had just come to the edge. “The costume shop sits directly over the south foundation wall. If the steam pipe is hammering, the vibration could be exacerbating the shear crack.”
“Parker, it’s fine—”
“Talia. Show me the room.”
Defeated, and still trembling from the heat of his skin against hers, Talia led him out of the green room and down the narrow backstage corridor.
The air grew colder as they moved deeper into the theatre’s bowels. The Starlight’s costume workshop occupied a long, cavernous vault that had once served as a scenery warehouse in the nineteen-twenties. It was a labyrinth of shadows: towering metal rolling racks draped in thousands of garments, from velvet Elizabethan capes to beaded flapper dresses, smelling powerfully of cedar chips, mothballs, and forgotten perfume. Tall wooden armoires lined the exposed brick walls, their mirrored doors reflecting the sweeping beam of Parker’s flashlight in distorted, ghostlike flashes.
“Mind the floor,” Talia warned, her voice hushed by the cathedral-like stillness of the room. “The floorboards here are cedar. They’re uneven.”
Parker didn't answer. He was moving with deliberate purpose, sweeping his light along the ceiling where the rusted cast-iron steam pipes ran parallel to the timber joists.
“The pipe isn't hammering,” he noted quietly, his flashlight illuminating the dry, intact insulation around the main valve. “The boiler hasn't run in this sector for hours.”
“Then it was a draft,” Talia said quickly, staying close to his shoulder, desperate to steer him back toward the hallway. “The loading dock doors don't seal properly. We should go back to the office. It’s freezing in here.”
Parker ignored her. He took three long strides down a narrow aisle flanked by heavy winter cloaks and Victorian hoop skirts, his light dropping down to the baseboards.
“There’s a secondary access hatch in here, isn't there?” he asked, his voice dropping into that chilling, quiet certainty that made her blood run cold.
Talia froze. “No. The only access to the lower vault is through the stage trap.”
“Blueprints say otherwise,” Parker said. He reached out with one broad hand and shoved aside a rack of heavy, dust-caked brocade coats.
Behind the rack, set flush into the brick wall, was a narrow wooden door reinforced with rusted iron bands. A heavy steel padlock hung from the hasp, tarnished with decades of grime. Above the lintel, half-faded letters stenciled in white paint read: *SUB-STAGE VENTILATION & ARCHIVE.*
Talia’s breath seized. She had known the door was here, of course. It was the door her father had chained shut in the winter of ninety-four, the door he had warned her never to unlock, even if the building was on fire.
“Parker, don't,” she pleaded, stepping into the cramped space between the coat rack and the brick wall, placing herself squarely between him and the padlock.
The space was impossibly tight. Her back hit the rough brick; Parker was forced to step in close to avoid tangling in the trailing velvet hems. His flashlight beam dropped to the floor, casting them in a warm, shadowy half-light.
“Why is this padlocked, Talia?” Parker asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He was so close she could feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, the rhythmic heat of his body pressing against the chill of the vault. “This isn't an archive. Look at the threshold. There’s hydraulic cement caulked around the frame.”
“It’s dangerous down there,” she whispered, her eyes wide, locked with his. She didn't have to fake the terror in her voice now; it was real, raw, and suffocating. “The limestone collapsed in seventy-eight. The floor isn't stable.”
Parker stared down at her. In the enclosed, fragrant darkness of the costume shop, surrounded by decades of masquerade, the tension between them flared again, hotter and more dangerous than before. His hand came up, resting against the brick wall right beside her ear, caging her in.
“You’re terrified,” he murmured, his gaze searching every line of her face. “Not of the floor collapsing. You’re terrified of me.”
