The diner door hits a little brass bell when I push it open, and the sound rings brighter than the gray light pooling over the river.
Warm air presses in on me—grease and coffee and something syrupy that clings to the back of my tongue. A ceiling fan pushes the smell around without clearing it. My hair frizzes instantly after the damp walk from the motel, tiny curls springing loose around my headphones.
Laurel Canyon feels far away. No oat milk, no green juice, no reclaimed wood barista counters. Just cracked red vinyl booths and a long Formica counter, each seat stamped with decades of denim. Through the big front windows, I can still see the outline of the mill across the water, all rust and broken squares of glass. The river below it moves in sluggish sheets, the color of old pennies.
A waitress looks up from stacking plates. She has a nametag that says DEE in red letters and a ponytail threaded through the back of a visor. Her eyeliner has that practiced small-town precision: sharp wing, dark line, no shimmer.
“Grab anywhere,” she calls. “We like to pretend we do table assignments, but we don’t.”
I slide into a booth near the window. The vinyl squeaks and sticks to the back of my thighs through my jeans. My phone screen throws a faint white reflection on the glass, overlapping the mill outside with my own face, headphones resting around my neck like a stethoscope for other people’s damage.
Dee arrives with a coffee pot before I can ask. “You look like a bottomless kind of girl,” she says, tipping the pot toward my cup.
“Dangerously accurate,” I say. “Thank you.”
The coffee hits the mug with a dark splash, steam curling up with that bitter diner smell—burnt edges, watered-down middle. I wrap my hands around the cup, letting the heat push some feeling into my cold fingers.
“You just passing through?” she asks. “We don’t get a lot of headphones-and-notebook types unless the mill’s caught fire again.”
“Quinn,” I say, offering my hand. “I’m, uh…working on a story. A podcast.”
At the word podcast, something in her eyes sharpens. She flicks a glance toward the TV bolted above the counter, where muted daytime news loops a shot of Nora Hayes on a red carpet, captions scrolling. Then she looks back at me, lashes lowered.
“Let me guess,” she says. “You’re here about her.”
My stomach does a small, traitorous drop. “I’m talking to folks about the old show,” I say carefully. “River’s Edge High. How it was to have a production here. How people remember it.”
Dee snorts softly. “Sugar, people around here remember it every time they pass that.” She tips her chin toward the window and the mill beyond it. “You want pancakes or eggs while you open that can of worms?”
“Pancakes, please,” I say. My recorder suddenly feels heavy in my bag. “And…if you have a minute, I’d love to ask you a few questions, off the clock or on.”
“On is all I got,” she says. “Table seven’s my only other, and he’s married to the crossword, not to me. You can talk at me while I top you off.”
I pull the recorder out, set it on the table. “Is it okay if I record? You can stay anonymous on the show or pick whatever name you want. I don’t have NDAs, just consent forms.”
Her mouth quirks at that. “You can use Dee,” she says. “I like my own name fine. Hit your little red button. I remember that girl.”
I click record, my heart tapping faster. “Which girl?”
“Nora,” she says, as if there isn’t any other possible answer. “She used to sit right about where you are now. Her and that other girl, the one from out of town. The one who…”
She trails off, eyes flicking to the mill again. The coffee pot handle creaks under her grip.
“Lila?” I prompt. My voice comes out softer than planned.
Dee nods once. “Yeah. Pretty kid. Sharp tongue. Gave me my first tip bigger than a dollar. Nora would be here with her, or with some boy cast member, or her little sister, all elbows and eyeliner. I always thought Nora was sweet but intense, you know? Like there was a fire under her skin that could warm you or scorch you, depending on how close you stood.”
I write the phrase down: sweet but intense. It matches early interviews where Nora talked about “working hard” in that self-deprecating way she does. It rubs against the voicemail from the PA who heard a shove.
“What do you remember about the night at the mill?” I ask.
Dee exhales. I hear the whistle of air through her teeth. She refills my cup even though I haven’t taken a sip yet, then leans a hip against the edge of the table.
“I wasn’t there,” she says. “People like to pretend this whole town was on set that night, but most of us were trying to keep the lights on. I remember what happened after.”
“Tell me.”
“The morning after, Nora’s mom came in here,” she says. “Hands shaking so bad the coffee slopped over the cup. She kept saying, ‘She saved her. They still might ruin her, but she saved that girl.’ Over and over.”
My pen pauses. “Saved her how?”
“Word around here?” Dee says. “That there was an argument on the stairs, that Lila slipped, that Nora grabbed for her and kept her from going all the way down. Took a hit herself in the process, bruised up her shoulder. That’s what the church ladies tell each other, anyway. The miracle version.”
I imagine a young Nora on those wet stairs, arm stretched out, fingers closing on Lila’s wrist. It’s a version that slots neatly into the public Nora: flawed but heroic. Redeemable.
“You believe that?” I ask.
“I believe Nora loved that girl in her own messy way,” Dee says slowly. “I believe they were kids working in a place nobody should’ve been working, and the people paid to protect them didn’t. Whether Nora’s hand was on her shoulder to stop a fall or shove her first?” She shakes her head. “I don’t get to know that.”
The bell over the door jingles. A gust of damp air rolls in with a man in a faded Carhartt jacket and a cap pulled low. Dee straightens.
“Hold that thought,” she says. “Your pancakes are hollering at me.”
She moves off, leaving me alone with the mill framed in the window and my own reflection layered over it. Sweet but intense. Saved her. I have a dozen threads already; I came here for one more, not an answer. The recorder’s red light blinks steady. Somewhere in LA, fans are probably replaying Nora’s early scenes, looking for clues in the tilt of her smile.
Behind me, a male voice says, “You doing true crime on our dime, miss podcast?”
I turn. The man from the door sits at the counter, hunched over a chipped mug. Up close, he’s older than I first thought, late fifties maybe, with hands that are all knuckle and callus. The cap says LOCAL 413. A newspaper is folded beside his plate, crossword half-solved in block letters.
“More like media criticism,” I say. “Less murder mystery, more…why did everybody forget a girl who bled on a stair rail.”
His mouth twists. “Fame bought that girl’s erasure,” he says. “And fame bought Nora her innocence.”
The words land heavy. My hand tightens around the pen.
“Can I sit?” I ask, sliding off my booth seat before he answers. Dee gives me a warning look from the pass, but she doesn’t stop me.
I take the stool one space over, recorder between us. “I’m Quinn,” I say. “I talk to people about the stories that got lost.”
He eyes the device. “You recording now?”
“I’d like to,” I say. “You can say no. Or you can pick a fake name and tell me whatever you want off the record.”
He snorts. “Fake names are for executives. You can call me Ron. I worked the mill three decades before Hollywood turned it into a set.”
I tap the record button again. “Ron, what do you remember about Nora Hayes back then?”
He takes a slow sip of coffee, grimacing at the taste, then sets the mug down with a small thud.
“She was a kid,” he says. “A kid who got tapped on the head by fate and told she was better than this town. People treated her like a golden ticket. Your mama’s behind on rent? Send Nora a prayer. Your job gets cut at the plant? At least Nora’s on TV.”
His jaw flexes. I count four seconds of silence in my head before prompting.
“And the night at the mill?” I ask.
Ron’s gaze flicks to the window, to where the skeleton of the factory cuts into the sky. For a moment, his eyes shine, but not with tears—more like rage polished smooth over time.
“My cousin’s kid worked lighting for the show,” he says. “He came home that night white as the plates in Dee’s hands. Said the girls were fighting on the stairs. Said voices were raised, hands flying. Said your Nora had been in a mood for days ‘cause the other one got more lines in the season back half.”
My pulse jumps. It fits too neatly with the PA’s story, the disappearing episodes, Lila’s last credited appearance.
“He see the fall?” I ask.
“He heard it,” Ron says. “Turned and saw that girl down on the landing, body at an angle no spine should bend. Saw Nora frozen at the top. He told me he heard someone yelling, ‘You pushed her,’ then a whole crowd of suits poured in and nobody said that again.”
My pen scratches without my permission. Pushed her. Frozen. Suits.
“Why hasn’t your cousin’s kid come forward?” I ask.
Ron barks a humorless laugh. “He tried. You know what he got? A visit from some shiny-haired lawyer from LA who reminded him how much he liked paying his mortgage. His non-disclosure might as well be stapled to his tongue.”
“But you still talk about it here,” I say.
“We talk about everything here,” he says. “Half the town swears Nora pulled that girl back from the edge. Half swears she sent her flying. Funny thing is, those halves line up neatly with who’s punched a union clock and who’s cashed a check off her face.”
The way he says it slices the air between us. I press my thumb harder into the side of the pen until it stings.
“Do you hate her?” I ask quietly.
He considers that. “I don’t know her,” he says. “I hate a world where a poor kid falls in a factory and the rich kid walks away with a new publicist. Maybe she shoved. Maybe she slipped. Either way, the system decided whose body mattered.”
I think of my own college report, the way my department closed ranks, the emails that framed my memory as “confused.” I thought this trip might give me clarity about Nora. Instead it hands me a mirror.
Dee drops a plate of pancakes in front of me, syrup sweating down the stack. “Don’t let him scare you off your breakfast,” she says lightly, but her eyes flick between us with a tension I can taste.
“Nobody’s scaring me,” I lie. My stomach has gone tight. The smell of butter and sugar turns cloying.
I tap my screen to drop a marker in the audio. Fragmented narratives. Class lines. A town that never stopped talking because the official story never rang true.
Later, during Dee’s break, I follow her to a side booth where the light doesn’t reach as easily. She lights a peppermint gum instead of a cigarette, teeth worrying at it like it’s the only thing keeping her from speaking too fast.
“You’re not the first to come sniffing around,” she says. “Journalists, fans, some grad student who thought she was Woodward with a ring light. They all wanted the same thing: proof Nora’s a monster or proof she’s a saint.”
“I’m looking for neither,” I say. “I’m looking for the people who disappeared in the middle.”
At that, someone shifts in the next booth.
I hadn’t realized anyone was there. A woman in her early thirties leans forward, elbows on the back of the seat. She wears a hoodie with the local high school logo and paint-splattered jeans. Her hair is pulled into a messy bun, and there’s an art teacher energy about her—the kind who holds grudges against unfair grades from ten years ago.
“You’re Quinn Hart, right?” she asks. “From Second Take.”
My throat goes dry. “Yeah,” I say. “Hi.”
“I’m Mariah,” she says. “We had bio together, but you don’t remember me.”
I blink. “We did?”
She laughs, no sting in it. “Kidding. I’m not that dramatic. I went to school with Nora. Drama club, even. You wanna hear about people who disappeared, you should stop staring at the mill and look at the cast list.”
My whole body leans in. “Can I sit with you?”
Dee raises an eyebrow. “My break just got interesting,” she says, sliding in across from Mariah. I take the spot beside Mariah, my recorder between us.
“I thought it was just Nora and Lila,” I say. “At least, that’s what the episodes show now. Some background players, sure, but…” I trail off, watching her.
“There was a third,” Mariah says. “Fourth, if you count the kid who played Nora’s little brother, but he left for a Disney thing. I mean the other girl. Hannah Klein.”
I flip back through mental images of posters, promo stills, convention photos listeners sent me. No Hannah Klein. No smiling extra with a name worth printing.
“Tell me about her,” I say.
Mariah’s fingernail taps a rhythm on the table. “Hannah was…good,” she says. “Not in a trained way. In a way where you believed her when she cried. She had a recurring arc; they were going to bump her to series regular if the show got a full third season. She and Nora and Lila were tight at first. Then the mill incident happened and Hannah…vanished.”
“Vanished how?” I ask. “Quit? Move?”
“One day she was at school, talking about line changes and wardrobe. The next, her locker was cleaned out,” Mariah says. “Her mom told people they had family out in Ohio. Next thing we hear, the family house is up for sale. No goodbye party. No ‘follow my Insta’ moment. Just gone.”
A faint buzzing crawls up my arms. “Did she get hurt that night too?” I ask. “I haven’t seen her in any official accident reports.”
“Official,” Mariah repeats, the word sour. “Hannah told me she saw something at the mill she wasn’t supposed to. She came to my house the next day, shaking. Said she couldn’t sleep. Said there was blood on the stairs and that the adults were lying about everything. Two weeks later, poof.”
Dee shifts, the bench creaking. Ron’s words echo: fame bought her innocence. NDAs stapled to tongues.
“What did she see?” I ask.
“She wouldn’t say,” Mariah replies. “Kept saying, ‘It wasn’t just the fall.’ Then she’d clam up. Her mom got this look anytime I tried to ask, like I’d knocked the wind out of her. Next time I went by, the house had a For Sale sign in the yard.”
I picture my corkboard back at the loft, red yarn zigzagging between printed screenshots. Nora. Lila. The anonymous PA. Rhea. I left space for new names without knowing why. Hannah Klein. The blank spot tingles in my brain, ready for another pushpin.
“Have you tried to find her?” I ask. “Online?”
“Her socials went dark right after she left,” Mariah says. “The old handles redirect to some spammy wellness account now. I sent messages for a while. No reply. Eventually you tell yourself she’s fine, living in some suburb painting murals in a preschool that never heard of River’s Edge High.”
Her jaw tightens. “But you don’t really know.”
Outside, a truck rolls past, tires hissing on wet pavement. The sound mixes with the clink of forks and the gurgle of the coffee machine, and for a second I feel everything in the diner sliding a few inches sideways.
“Do you want me to look for her?” I ask. The question comes out before I can polish it. “On the show. I can’t promise I’ll find anything, but if there’s another girl whose story got erased—”
“You’re gonna put her in your little podcast too?” Ron’s voice drifts over from the counter. “Turn her into content?”
I flinch. Mariah’s eyes slide to him, then back to me.
“He’s not wrong,” she says, gentler than he deserves. “But maybe content is all we get these days. Maybe being a footnote in your messy story is better than nothing.”
I stare down at the recorder. The red light still blinks, steady and unforgiving. My reflection in the window floats over the mill, over the river fog, framed by streaks of rain on the glass.
I came here hoping for clarity, a quote that would confirm Nora as either savior or villain. Instead I get a waitress who loved her, a mill worker who distrusts her, and a classmate who hands me a new ghost.
“I don’t know what the truth is yet,” I say slowly. “What I can promise is that I won’t pretend there’s only one version. I’ll say that you remember her saving a girl. That Ron’s cousin remembers a shove. That you remember Hannah walking into your living room, saying, ‘It wasn’t just the fall.’”
Dee nods, tiny but firm. Mariah’s shoulders drop a fraction, some tension loosening.
“Then map it,” Mariah says. “Don’t pick for us. Lay it all out and let people sit with the mess.”
My fingers tighten around my pen. I picture the corkboard, the tangled yarn. I picture adding a new column just for hometown stories, arrows pointing in opposite directions, no clean through-line, only collisions.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll map it.”
When I step outside, the air hits cold and damp, river wind knifing through my jacket. The mill looms across the water, windows punched out, black gaps where glass used to catch the light. A freight train horn bleeds through the fog from somewhere upriver.
I raise my phone, snap a photo through the diner window. The shot captures my reflection faintly layered over the mill, the glass holding both at once—present and past, spectator and crime scene.
Later, when I print it for the board, I know it’ll sit next to a blank index card with a new name: HANNAH KLEIN – FIND HER?
For now, I tuck my recorder deeper into my bag, breathe in the wet-metal air, and start mentally tracing how I’ll tell a story that refuses to line up for the camera. For the first time since I hit publish on this series, I stop looking for a single confession and start wondering how many girls the narrative still hasn’t learned to say out loud.