Page 54 of Once Broken
There was a brief silence as Hayes processed this information.“I’m still ten minutes from St.Barnabas,” he finally said.“I’ll continue here in case we’re wrong, but I’ll dispatch units to the studio immediately.How far away are you?”
Riley glanced at the GPS.“About fifteen minutes in this traffic.”
“I’ll make sure officers meet you there.Be careful, Paige.”
“Understood,” Riley acknowledged before Ann Marie ended the call.
Riley made a sharp turn at the next intersection, the tires squealing slightly as she changed course toward Magnolia Gateway Films.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Sarah Brooks stood motionless in the darkness of the soundstage, her body still as sculpture while her mind raced.The muffled voices outside—security personnel, no doubt, their confusion evident in their rising tones—confirmed what she had suspected: her carefully constructed plan was encountering its first true complication.But she refused to surrender to panic.Decades of familial rage couldn’t be undone by a few rattling doorknobs and raised voices.
She tilted her head, listening as the sounds faded.They would return, of course.With greater numbers.With proper tools.With police, perhaps.But Stage Six housed the setting she needed.
Let them come.By then, her work would be complete.
A whimper broke the silence.
Sarah could just make out the vague shape of Lucy Morgan on the altar, illuminated only by thin strips of emergency lighting that outlined the stage doors.Lucy had stopped screaming behind her gag hours ago, her voice giving out after futile efforts heard by no one who could help.
“Patience,” Sarah whispered, her voice silken in the darkness.“Art can’t be rushed.”
She reached into her pocket for her phone, activating the flashlight.The harsh beam cut through the blackness as she swept it across the meticulously arranged set.Every detail had been considered, positioned exactly as it appeared inShadows at Dusk.The gothic arches.The ornate wooden pews.The faux stained glass windows that would never catch real sunlight.And at the center, elevated on three shallow steps, the altar where Lucy Morgan lay bound.
Sarah moved with confidence through the darkness toward the light board nestled against the far wall.She selected the switches with the expertise of someone who had spent countless hours in these spaces, bringing imaginary worlds to life.
With a soft electrical hum, the work lights flickered on overhead, washing the entire set in harsh, unflattering illumination.The church set stood before her in all its gothic splendor, far more elaborate than strictly necessary for the period drama it had originally served.She had personally lobbied for its construction, had altered the designs to include specific architectural elements fromShadows at Dusk, had overseen every detail with a passion that her colleagues had mistaken for professional dedication.
And there, upon the altar, Lucy Morgan stared back at her with wide, terror-filled eyes.The arts and culture editor ofThe Atlanta Chronicle,whose hands had typed those damning articles a decade ago, now lay securely bound with rope, hand and foot.Her auburn hair was damp with perspiration.The gag across her mouth was stained with saliva and blood where she had bitten her lip in her earlier struggles.
Sarah approached slowly.In her right hand, she caressed a length of thin, flexible wire—the same garrote she had used on Crystal Keene.Sharp enough to slice through flesh.Its weight familiar, comforting in her grip.
“Do you appreciate the irony, Ms.Morgan?”Sarah asked, her voice echoing slightly in the vast space.“‘Bad Blood Reckoning.’That was the title of your series, wasn’t it?Such a fitting phrase.”She reached the altar, looking down at her captive with clinical detachment.“Though I wonder if you truly understood the concept when you wrote those articles.”
Lucy made a muffled sound behind her gag, her eyes darting frantically between Sarah’s face and the wire in her hand.
“I read them all, you know.Every word.Your exposé of Myrtle Carroway’s activities during the McCarthy era.How she used her gossip column to destroy lives.How she took particular pleasure in revealing my grandfather’s pseudonym, ensuring he would never work again.”Sarah’s voice remained conversational, as if they were discussing the weather over coffee rather than in the midst of a premeditated murder.
Sarah circled the altar slowly, trailing her fingers along its polished edge.“Yet here you are, alive and thriving, your career built on the back of her infamy—profiting from the very destruction she caused.While my grandfather, Weston Black, died penniless, forgotten, his brilliance snuffed out by the venomous pens of women like your great-great-grandmother.”
She flexed the garrote between her hands, the wire catching the harsh overhead lights.“Bad blood, Ms.Morgan.It flows in your veins.The same blood that pumped through Myrtle Carroway’s heart as she wrote the words that finished what Roberta Rimes started.And now, that blood will spill on this altar—the final scene in a trilogy decades in the making.”
Lucy’s struggle renewed against her bonds, her body jerking against the unyielding ropes.Sarah watched dispassionately, unmoved by the display of terror.
Sarah knelt down next to Lucy.
“You’re wondering about the others, I imagine.Veronica Slate and Crystal Keene.Why them?Why now?”Sarah leaned closer, her voice dropping to an intimate whisper.“Because the time was finally right.Because the pieces were finally in place.Because justice delayed is still justice deserved.
“It took me years to piece it all together, the betrayals my grandfather endured.Three women, three treacheries, destroying a genius who deserved so much more.Roberta Rimes was the first betrayal, naming him to HUAC to save her own rising career.But Myrtle Carroway delivered the killing blow when she exposed his pseudonym.Between them, they ensured he would never direct again.”
She smiled, cold satisfaction glittering in her eyes.“As for Crystal Keene—well, she was simpler.A film critic, just like the victim inThe Broken Window.And not just any film critic, but one who finished the process of erasing my grandfather, by not including him in her prized list of ‘pantheon directors.’My grandfather was relegated to oblivion on account of her, once and for all.”
She straightened and resumed her pacing, still playing with the garrote wire.
Sarah’s voice took on a passionate intensity.“Do you know what it means, to be erased?My grandfather’s final two masterpieces—The Broken WindowandShadows at Dusk—aren’t even properly attributed to him in most film histories.They remain credited to a nonexistent man named Chip Raines.”
Sarah caressed the garrote lovingly.
