Nobody answered. A forklift beeped behind them, and the contractor shouted that the loading dock had to be cleared.

June looked toward the open stage door. “Someone has been inside the room. Recently.”

7. A SECOND REHEARSAL

They returned to the workshop and found a young woman photographing the remaining props. She introduced herself as Nessa Ward, an architectural salvage coordinator hired to catalog reusable pieces before demolition. Her phone was full of images of old light fixtures, carved moldings, and theater seats.

“Did you move any panels?” June asked.

“Not the blue room. My crew isn’t allowed in there.”

“Who is?”

“The demolition supervisor, the building owner, and the people doing the hazardous-material survey.”

Lily showed her the crooked holes. Nessa studied them, then searched through her photographs.

“That looks like the panel I saw Tuesday,” she said. “There was a man measuring it. He said he was checking whether it could be used in the new display.”

“What display?” June asked.

Nessa looked uncomfortable. “The developer is making a heritage corner in the parking structure. A little installation with pieces from the theater. It’s supposed to open next month.”

June’s cane struck the floor. “They are using my work as decoration while they tear down the room that explains it?”

“I don’t make those decisions,” Nessa said.

“Who does?”

“Mr. Calder, the development manager.”

Lily asked for a photograph of the man measuring the panel. Nessa had one taken from the balcony. The figure wore a gray jacket and held a clipboard. His face was partly obscured, but Walter recognized the posture.

“Arthur,” he said.

June turned so sharply her cane slipped. “My brother hasn’t set foot in this building since the accident.”

“He’s here now,” Walter said.

Arthur Vale had moved to Indiana after the theater closed. He and June spoke on holidays, if at all. Lily had assumed the family quarrel was part of the old accident, but June explained that Arthur had become a contractor and later worked as a consultant for redevelopment projects.

“He knows the building,” June said. “He knows the moving room better than anyone. Why would they bring him back without telling me?”

Daniel called the number on Nessa’s contract. A receptionist confirmed that Arthur Vale was advising on the heritage installation. He was scheduled to return that afternoon.

June insisted they wait. Lily, however, walked back into the workshop and examined the model. She pressed the little stop again, then moved each wall in sequence. One panel advanced. Another retreated. The mechanism was simple enough for a child to understand.

She thought of her father, a practical man who never trusted a machine that needed luck to behave. He had written on the ticket that she liked the stars. He had also written, in the margin of a family photograph at home, that a good repair should be obvious to the next person who opened the machine.