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“You sure?”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t miss meeting your parents for the world. That’s what all this is about, right?”
My wave encompassed the entire townhouse that was emblematic of their proposition to me. I was here to help convince his parents that he had a girlfriend, and I would be as accommodating as possible.
He smiled back at me. “Great. It’s a date.”
“A fake one, at least!”
I slung the small duffel bag over my shoulder, put on a long coat, and took the train back down to midtown. On the walk from the station to the theater I stopped at a Turkish restaurant on the way to get some food to go. When I got to the theater, I found it unlocked. I went inside and locked it behind me.
Ryan and Andy were up in the catwalks checking all the screws and bolts on every single light. “Nadia!” Andy called out. “I was expecting Braden.”
“You’re a lot better looking than Braden,” Ryan said happily. “I call this a win.”
I waved up to them. “I wouldn’t go that far. Braden is an awfully pretty man.”
“You’re not wrong.” Ryan sniffed the air. “Is that hummus?”
“I figured you boys would be hungry.”
The sandbags had already been cleaned and the stage sweeped, leaving no evidence of the triggered trap. We arranged the food on stage, using three of the prop chairs and table. We had to be careful not to lean on the table too much; since it was a prop, it was designed to be lighter for easier moving on and off stage between scenes, so it wasn’t very sturdy. I unpacked the food and arranged it: two types of flavored hummus, black bean chips for dipping, and slices of pita bread.
Ryan dug in and said, “Braden hates Turkish food. We never get to order it.”
“You guys know you can buy your own dinners, right? You don’t always have to get the same thing.”
Andy shrugged his shoulders. “We’re kind of like a little family. It’d be weird to get different food.”
Ryan leaned into me and said, “I get my own food all the time, and it pisses the others off.”
“It upsets Dorian, not me,” Andy said. “He’s always trying to emulate the close family unit he had with his sister.”
“Whatever the psychological reason,” Ryan nudged me, “I’m glad to have another free spirit.”
“Ooo, careful now,” I said in a spooky tone. “You don’t want to mention spirits around here.”
Ryan waved a hand. “Sunset isn’t for another half hour. We’re safe from spirits until then.”
“Oh, good,” I said with a straight face.
Andy slathered hummus all over a piece of pita bread. “Who do you guys think set the trap?”
“I was watching Atkins awfully hard,” Ryan said, pausing to swallow a bite of food. “I couldn’t get anything from his expression, but did you notice how he tried to touch the sandbags?”
“What does that imply?” I asked.
The redhead turned toward me. “If he’s the saboteur, then his fingerprints might be on the sandbags. But if he touched them in front of us, it wouldn’t be suspicious when the detective comes back with a match.”
“I don’t think the detective got any prints,” Andy said. “And even if he did, it’s awfully optimistic of you to believe he would put any effort into finding a match.”
“That’s not the point,” Ryan replied. “If Atkins did it, from his perspective he would want to create doubt, just in case.”
“He insisted on calling the detective,” I pointed out. “Not a smart move if he’s the saboteur.”
Ryan jabbed a finger at me. “I think it’s very smart. The trap was already ruined, so he took advantage of the failed plan to make himself look more innocent by calling the detective. He wouldn’t have done that for a trap we didn’t find.”
“I think he’s innocent,” Andy announced. “He seemed exhausted by the discovery of the trap. As if he had hoped it was all over.”
