I pushed the door in and tasted lemon cleaner and hot electronics. The loft breathed like a stage after closing: warm, perfumed, hungry for an audience that had already eaten. The neon script on the back wall slanted a hair off-level, a crooked halo over the plant wall. My jaw tightened. I set my phone to video, framed wide, and let my hands move where my head refused to go.
I filmed a slow pan for myself, not the internet. My thumb kept the frame steady while my other hand traced the air, naming objects under my breath. “Ring light. Arm. Adhesive.” I passed the marble island and caught the ring of the light reflected in its surface, a pale moon on faux stone. The sound in the room was small: fridge hum, a faint tick from the countdown tablet I hadn’t yet located, and the soft rasp of my own sleeve against my coat. Sugar hung in the air from the last shoot; I could taste it on my tongue, sticky as a promise.
I had already learned to separate what Lyla loved from what Lyla sold. She loved the fern that refused to die. She sold the honeycomb shelves that made everything look like it belonged. Today the hexagons looked like cells in a hive where something had been caged and prettied for the camera.
I slid the phone to stills and shot straight-on frames of the ring light. A shine on the telescoping arm caught my eye. I crouched, inhaling the faint plasticky tang of new glue. Fresh adhesive had been spread to hold the arm at a lower angle—too low for her usual head-and-counter framing. I pressed a finger against the seam; tacky. I lifted it away and watched a filament string, a spider’s line of truth. Staged adjustment, recent, not an accident.
“You changed the angle to catch the confetti,” I said to no one, and stood.
The pantry door was half-closed. I paused long enough to register the tiny notch on the doorframe—gaffer tape residue like a bruise. I didn’t touch it yet. One sweep at a time. I opened the drawer below the island where she kept napkins, linen folded tight and smug. Beneath them, a hush of bright color flashed like a fish. I pulled the cloth aside.
Confetti packets lay pre-loaded, four in a neat row, two more stacked beneath. Tear-notches already started so a production assistant could rip cleanly and feed the cannon mid-roll. Each packet held primary-color paper, not her palette. The packets were labeled with sharpie: A, B, D, E. No C.
“Multiple takes,” I said, voice low. “You were going to do it more than once.”
I set the packets on the counter and took photos: wide shot, medium, macro of the label. A citrus peel smell rose from the trash like a made-for-camera scent—no rot, no mess, only the top coil of philosophy. I lifted the lid with my knuckle. Under a neat stack of packaging, an orange had been shaved surgically, all pith and no juice, the rind arranged in a spiral like a prop you reset between resets. The pit in my stomach tightened, not from hunger.
The phone in my pocket buzzed. I didn’t look at it yet. The clock on Lyla’s site ticked in my head. I stood, let the room settle around me, and crossed to the pantry.
The pantry smelled like cardamom and new plywood. A dull shape crouched in the corner by the baseboard: a tiny lav mic, taped over with matte gaffer like a gag. I peeled one edge back with a thumbnail. The tape gave with a soft chirp, pulling little splinters of paint. The mic’s tip gleamed. Not hers—she favored flesh-tone stickers and neat cord keepers. This had been slapped quick to capture or muffle sound that wasn’t designed to sell soap.
“Who taped your mouth, Ly?” I whispered, voice bouncing stupidly off spice jars and glass.
I bagged the tape and mic in a zip bag from my pocket. Old habits. A good bag can keep a story from smearing. I turned to the plant wall. She always kept a Monstera leaf with a small tear that made a heart. The leaf was there; the heart looked deliberate. I snapped a picture and stepped back.
I could feel fog outside tugging at the window, the way Larkspur Bay funnels weather through the city like a whisper in a crowded room. Evening neon down on River Street would smear early today; the cliff line hoarded the light for itself. The honeycomb shelves held props in their cells—copper measuring cups, a stack of linen aprons stitched with tiny bees. The pattern repeated everywhere, more hex than home. Hive, yes. Haven, I wasn’t sure.
I found the tablet in the equipment cabinet behind a blusher curtain, tucked like a hidden metronome. The screen glowed with that cold white countdown: 71:38:12. The brand watermark clung to the corner, stubborn and proud. My hands went cold from the screen’s proximity, even though the glass felt warm. I toggled the settings menu and looked for the device name.
Owner: Riverlane Holdings, Device 12.
Not Lyla’s account. Not any of her aliases. I took a photo of the profile screen: device name, serial, the little MDM management badge that told me it belonged to someone’s fleet. A shell LLC—generic enough to disappear into paperwork, specific enough to invoice.
My phone buzzed again. I checked the lock screen. Two texts from the bakery staff thread, ghost-clicks from app spam, and one from an unknown number that had called me once last winter and never again. I dismissed them and opened my notes.
I dictated softly, letting the room be my witness. “Fresh adhesive on ring-light arm—tacky. Confetti packets labeled A, B, D, E—pre-loaded for multi-take. Pantry lav mic taped over—non-standard tape, paint transfer. Tablet behind curtain—countdown active—owner Riverlane Holdings—MDM present. Neon sign off-level by two centimeters. Additional soft box hung from ceiling rail not part of standard layout.”
My mouth tasted like stale tea and regret. I swallowed and kept going. “Props arranged for continuity: orange peel spiral, antibacterial wipes half-out for easy grab, candle wick unburned but soot ring present—staged ‘use.’”
The slate-blue sky outside shifted. A gull screamed once, then again, the sound ricocheting off glass. I closed the curtain on the cabinet to dim the tablet, then reopened it and shot another angle. I wanted the reflection of the neon script on the tablet glass; reflections tell stories people forget they’re telling.
Micro-hook: If a device belongs to Riverlane, then a handler holds the clock.
I pocketed the bag with the mic and walked to the ring light. The adhesive smear caught dust; it glittered a little in the ring’s glow, like a quiet confession. I placed my palm on the light’s base. Warm. I found the tiny sticker with the serial number and peeled it carefully, then photographed the blank. The arm squeaked half a tone when I raised it. Lyla would have oiled that.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the room. “I taught you to optimize, not to kneel.”
The faucet dripped once, metallic ping in a ceramic sink. I set a bowl beneath to stop the noise. It rang again anyway, echoing in the bones of the apartment, attention’s own metronome.
I pulled up Sloane’s contact and typed, fingers finally catching up to the motor of my head.
Me: Need quiet consult. I’m at Lyla’s loft. Staged scene, not crime scene. Evidence list incoming.
I didn’t hit send. I forced myself to take two more photos: a macro of the gaffer residue on the pantry frame and the shadow under the neon where a cable had been re-routed. I unplugged nothing. I touched nothing I didn’t have to. When the country is made of screens, fingerprints are a language you can’t afford to smudge.
My phone vibrated in my hand. Sloane.
“You better not be tripping my chain-of-custody alarms,” she said. Paper rustled on her end; she always sounded like a precinct in motion.
“I’m breathing,” I said. “And documenting. Ring-light adhesive is fresh. Confetti packets staged for multiple takes. There’s a taped-over lav by the pantry.”
“Gaffer or painter?” she asked.
“Gaffer. Matte. Paint in the fibers.”
“Good eye,” she said, then caught herself. “And the stream?”
“Clock still running from a tablet hidden in the equipment cabinet,” I said. “It’s enrolled in an MDM. Owner name is Riverlane Holdings. Not Lyla.”
Silence hummed between us, then Sloane’s keyboard clacked like rain. “Riverlane. Could be a shell. Could be a vendor. Send me the serial and a still.”
“On your secure,” I said. I kept my voice steady so she would. “I haven’t posted anything. I won’t.”
“Your mother teaching you restraint now?” she asked, dry humor a small mercy.
“No,” I said. “Fear is.”
“Good,” she said softly, then hardened. “Leave the tablet. Don’t power anything down. You have the room to yourself?”
I looked at the lens on the far wall. A tiny red LED slept under the lens hood like a closed eye. I didn’t answer just yet.
“For now,” I said. “But the internet is already writing. If the scene reads as real, your phones will melt.”
“They already are,” she said. “I needed you to say it’s staged before I fight for a tailored warrant instead of a circus. Text me your ‘not normal’ list. And don’t touch the neon.”
“I wouldn’t fix that even if she begged,” I said, and heard her exhale through a smile.
I hung up and opened a new thread on her secure line. My thumbs moved without permission.
Subject: Not Normal — Honeycomb Loft
1) Ring-light arm glued low; adhesive tacky.
2) Confetti packets A, B, D, E prepped; missing C; mult take.
3) Lav mic taped over near pantry; non-standard; paint transfer.
4) Tablet behind curtain driving countdown; registered to Riverlane Holdings; MDM badge.
5) Neon sign off-level intentionally.
6) Extra soft box on ceiling rail not in past shoots.
7) Prop continuity hints; zero mess inconsistent with live cooking.
I attached photos and the short video pan. I added one more line, because my sister was more than data.
8) Personal tell: she hates crooked neon. It’s wrong to be wrong.
I hit send and breathed through the tightness in my chest. The phone whooshed, a quiet spray of pixels leaving my palm for hers.
Micro-hook: If Sloane pulled Riverlane’s filings, we’d chase a tree with no leaves and too many roots.
I knelt by the equipment cabinet again and studied the tablet’s beveled edge. The countdown didn’t blink. The brand watermark held its corner like a stamp on a passport. I toggled brightness down one notch to save the screen from burn-in and snapped it back up. An alert popped, just for a second, at the top right: Device check-in successful.
“You’re being watched,” I told it. The room offered no argument, only the faint ozone from the ring light and the clean itch of cleaner caught in wood grain. Outside, a bus sighed at the corner, and a gull tapped the glass once with a beak or a ring.
My phone lit again. Sloane texted a single line. Got it. Don’t leave until I confirm. Sending car if needed.
Me: I’ll be a statue.
I pocketed the phone and stood in the center of the rug, honeycomb pattern under my boots, hex on hex, sweetness trapped in geometry. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head—Don’t let them take her name—and the swell of wave and traffic below. The city was setting up its next pop-up a block away; I could smell kettle corn cutting through the fog, sweet and hot, the stage outside building itself like a reflex.
I walked to the window and looked down. Two kids took selfies with the building in the background, then scanned the QR on the boutique next door. Pavement for a stage, I thought. Everything a backdrop. It’s easy to love a community that looks like a crowd of friends. It’s easier to consume one.
Behind me, the room clicked.
I turned. The small eye under the wall camera had woken, tiny and definite—red. It held steady, the way a person holds their breath when they’re waiting to see if you know you’re being watched.
I lifted my phone, not to film, just to reflect that little red dot in my own glass. I let it see my face. I let it see that I had its serial number and its owner and its attention.
“You’re late to your own story,” I said, and opened a new text to Sloane.
Me: Addendum—camera LED just woke. I haven’t touched a thing. Do you want me to kill power or let it watch?
I waited for dots. The countdown ticked. The red light stayed on like a patient eye.
No reply yet.
I stood there, finger hovering over the send button of a second message I didn’t want to write, tasting lemon and electricity while the hive around me hummed—haven or trap, I couldn’t tell—and the little LED refused to blink.