Inside the case she found the blue key fob, a tiny silver USB drive, and a label written in faded block capitals: FINAL NIGHT / NOT FOR SHOW.

At first she thought the drive contained obsolete music cues. She’d left it untouched because she had a hundred more immediate problems, including a broken pivot on a paper dragon.

Now the label had become difficult to ignore.

She called her father from the kitchen. He answered over the noise of a lawn mower.

“Did you know Evelyn Rusk owned that blue fob?”

Silence.

“Dad?”

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Stay there. I’ll come by.”

“Why is everyone acting like I found a live grenade?”

“Because I thought that box had been emptied years ago.”

He hung up.

Mara looked through the living room window. Evelyn’s red ladder still leaned against the house, its top splattered pink. Children riding past slowed to look at the ruined camera. Across the street, Mrs. Keene lifted her phone and took a photograph.

By noon the photograph would be on the neighborhood message board. By evening everyone would have a theory. Mara needed a better one.

She carried the tool case to her workshop in the detached garage and examined the USB drive. It was no larger than her thumbnail, with scratches on the metal sheath. Someone had attached a thin cord of blue thread through its loop. The fob had a printed number beneath the notch: 04.

A knock interrupted her.

On the step stood Leon Price, seventeen, holding two cartons of donated fabric. He was one of the student volunteers building the centennial parade, a patient, soft-spoken young man with exceptional mechanical instincts and a tendency to apologize to objects when he dropped them.

“Brightline wants the rear wheels by four,” he said. “Also, somebody painted your camera.”

“News travels.”

“Mrs. Keene made a poll. Thirty-nine people think it’s a protest against surveillance.”

“What’s the other option?”

“That she’s just mad.”

Mara put down the drive. “Leon, have you seen the white Brightline van on the corner?”

“Sure. They keep some of the parade parts in it.”

“Who has access?”

“Julian, his assistant, and a contractor named Ellis. Why?”

“Do you know what they’re loading tonight?”

Leon’s cheerful expression slipped. “I thought you did.”

“Loading what?”

“They brought in the old moving floor.”

Mara stared at him. “What moving floor?”

“The one with all the little trap panels. Julian says it’s from the original show.”

She had inspected every item on Brightline’s official safety list. No moving floor appeared anywhere in it.

“Where did they put it?”

“Inside the school gym. It’s covered with a green tarp.”

Mara reached for her car keys. Outside, a boy pointed toward the pink camera and shouted something about a crime scene.