Leon arrived on his bicycle, breathing hard from the hill.

“Ellis was here at six,” he said. “He asked the custodians to unlock the gym, but they wouldn’t without the principal. Julian drove him away.”

“Did you see what they were carrying?”

“A wooden crate marked P12.”

“Petal twelve,” Mara said.

“Is that bad?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s what makes it dangerous.”

She called Evelyn. The older woman listened to the sketch’s description and surprised Mara with a laugh.

“Of course,” Evelyn said. “Peter removed the twelfth petal before the final rehearsal. The loading ramp couldn’t fit it. It was too wide for the hall.”

“Then it was never installed?”

“Not during public shows.”

“What did Peter do with its control channel?”

“Put a dummy load in its place. A big bank of resistors. It made the controller think there was another motor, without moving anything.”

“Where is that dummy load?”

“Last I saw, in a metal box under the stage.”

Mara imagined the fresh brackets and new motor housings she’d seen. “Suppose someone removed it.”

“Then the controller should warn them.”

“Unless they tied that channel to another motor.”

Evelyn went silent. “That would be foolish.”

“Would it be enough to explain the jump?”

“It could explain one jump. Not the cascade from fourteen years ago.”

“Maybe the first jump isn’t the whole problem.”

Mara met Ada at the town hall and laid out the concern. Ada agreed to require a witnessed mechanical test at noon. She also arranged for the municipal events officer to be present. When Julian arrived, he was carrying a neat folder of certifications that Mara inspected carefully. The papers were legitimate but covered electrical distribution, flame-resistant fabric, and crowd barriers. None certified the old mechanism itself.

“You said your corporate engineer had signed the floor off,” Ada told him.

“He will after the operational rehearsal,” Julian replied.

“Who is he?”

Julian named a consultant, Daniel Sutter, who was traveling from another county. Ada immediately called the number printed in Brightline’s packet. Sutter answered on speakerphone and said he had agreed to examine the rigging and overhead loads, not the moving floor. He had never been sent its drawings.

Julian stood very still.

“It appears we had an internal communications issue,” he said.

Ada closed the folder. “Then there will be no public operation until we have a qualified assessment. That’s not negotiable.”

For a moment Mara thought the argument had ended. Instead Julian asked whether they could proceed with the static flower and independent lighting. Ada agreed, provided the moving apparatus was physically isolated and verified.

Julian thanked her, so politely that Mara was certain he intended another plan.

***

At lunchtime Ellis knocked on Mara’s garage door. His gray sweatshirt was streaked with grease. He looked as though he hadn’t slept.