Read Chapter 8: The Wrong Angle

The sound hit Mara like a wall of warm beer and sweat. The Electric Ballroom was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, bodies pressed against the stage barrier, a sea of heads bobbing under the amber wash of overhead lights. She pushed through the crowd, camera held high above her head, her leather jacket sticking to her arms.

The Unknowns were three songs in. Dex had them on a tight set—four new tracks, two old ones, a cover to close. Gerald from Polydor stood at the bar with a pint he hadn't touched, watching with the flat appraisal of a man who'd seen a thousand bands and signed maybe thirty.

Mara found her spot, stage left, where the light caught Robbie's hands on the bass. He was good tonight. Better than good. He moved like the music was pulling strings inside him, his fingers dancing over the frets, his eyes half-closed. She framed him through the viewfinder and clicked.

The shutter fired. The film advance felt smooth—thank God for the repair.

She shot Dex next, all swagger and teeth, then Sophie at the drums, head down, hair whipping. The new song built toward its break, and Robbie stepped forward, finally giving her the angle she wanted.

*Click.*

Something tugged at her elbow.

Mara lowered the camera, annoyed, expecting a drunk fan. But the hand wasn't reaching for her. It was already gone—a flash of denim jacket disappearing through the crowd with her bag slung over one shoulder.

Her bag. Her film.

"Hey!" The word tore out of her. "Hey—stop!"

She shoved through the bodies, momentum her only weapon. People cursed as she elbowed past, but she didn't care. The denim jacket was already at the fire exit, pushing through the door into the alley.

Mara burst out after him, boots slapping wet concrete. The alley smelled of piss and stale ale. The thief was fast, but he was also stupid—he glanced back, and that hesitation cost him. She closed the gap, reaching for the strap of her bag.

He twisted, swung it hard.

The corner of the bag caught her temple. Stars burst behind her eyes. She stumbled, hand going to her head, and when her vision cleared, the alley was empty. A metal door at the far end was still swinging shut.

Her bag was gone. The film from tonight. The rolls from Abbey Road she'd kept as backups. The undeveloped promo shoot from Lenny's studio.

Gone.

She stood there, breath ragged, pulse hammering in her skull, her hands slowly clenching into fists at her sides.

"Ellis."

The voice was quiet, rough. She turned to find Robbie in the doorway of the fire exit, bass still strapped across his back, his face unreadable in the sodium light of the alley.

"You're bleeding."

She touched her temple again, felt the sticky warmth. "It's nothing."

"That guy took your camera."

Her camera. Her Leica. The pawnshop repair, her mother's watch—all of it, gone in forty seconds of bad luck and worse timing.

"I noticed." The words came out sharper than she meant. She was shaking, and she hated that he could see it.

Robbie stepped out fully, let the door close behind him. The music from inside was muted now, a dull pulse through the brick. He walked to her slowly, like she was an animal that might spook, and stopped a few feet away. He unslung his bass and set it against the wall.

"You don't chase thieves, Ellis. You get yourself killed."

"I wasn't going to let him take everything."

"Everything?" He caught the word, held it up to the light. "What's in the bag that's worth your neck?"

She should have lied. Should have said spare lenses, a wallet, keys. But something about the quiet in his voice undid her.

"Film," she said. "All of it. The whole shoot from Abbey Road. Tonight's rolls. And—" She hesitated.

"And?"

"An earlier shoot. From before I met you." She rubbed her face with the heel of her hand, then winced at the sting. "I keep a roll in my bag. Unprocessed. Evidence, maybe."

Robbie went very still.

"Evidence of what?"

The question sat between them, heavy. She could feel the shape of the words she'd been holding back for days—Lenny's name, Jack Mercer's disappearance, the frozen expressions on those young girls' faces through her viewfinder—but they wouldn't come. Not here. Not now. Her head throbbed where she'd been hit, and her hand felt empty without the weight of her camera.

"I don't know yet," she said. "That's the problem."

He held her gaze for a long moment. Then he reached up, unclipped something from his belt, and held it out.

A length of woven leather, worn smooth in places, snapped at one end.

"What's this?"

"My guitar strap. Was my guitar strap." He shrugged. "Broke it the night of our first real gig. The one that got us noticed. I was so angry I almost didn't go on—Sophie had to tape it up with gaffer tape just so I could play. I kept it, though. Stupid, right? It reminds me that things break. But you can still make music with the pieces."

Mara looked at the strap in her hand, then back at him. He wasn't smiling. His eyes were still shadowed, but there was something open in his expression, a crack in the wall he kept between himself and the rest of the world.

"Things break," she repeated.

"And you don't get them back. But you learn what you can carry forward." He took the strap back, clipped it to his jeans. "You lost your camera tonight. I lost that strap two years ago. The difference is, mine was my choice. Yours was taken."

She looked down at her empty hands. "I should tell Dex. Someone needs to know. The whole show might be ruined if—"

"Let it be ruined." Robbie's voice was flat. "Let them come find us."

He walked over to the metal door where the thief had vanished and tried it. Locked. He kicked it once, a sound like a gunshot in the alley, then stood there with his palm pressed flat against the metal.

"He had your film. Your evidence. Which means whoever sent him might know what was on it." He turned back to her. "Who knew you were carrying it around?"

The question landed like a cold stone in her stomach. Lenny. He knew she had that film—he'd seen her hand it to Frank, he'd watched her carry it from the studio. And now the one piece of physical proof she had was gone, lifted by a thief who moved like he knew exactly which bag to grab.

"I need to go back inside," she said. "I need to tell Dex what happened before the set ends."

"No." Robbie crossed the alley in three strides, close enough that she could smell cigarette smoke and damp wool. "First you tell me the truth. What's on that film that scares you so much you've been carrying it around like a live bomb?"

She looked up at him. In the low light, his face was all angles, hard and guarded—but there was a crack in him now, she could see it. A crack that mirrored something in her own chest.

"You don't want to know."

"Try me."

"He's not the person everyone thinks he is." She said it fast, the words tumbling out before she could catch them. "I don't know what he's done. But I saw something in that studio. Something wrong. And I think he knows I saw it."

Robbie watched her. Something shifted behind his eyes—not surprise, exactly. Recognition.

"Wrong how?"

"People who don't come back."

The words hung in the air. Robbie's jaw tightened, and she saw his hand go, almost unconsciously, to his wrist. The same wrist with the scar she'd photographed at Abbey Road.

"Jack Mercer," he said.

Mara felt the blood drain from her face. "You know that name."

"I know the sound of it." His voice was thick. "I know what happened to him. And if you've got proof that Lenny's behind it—" He stopped, shook his head. "Christ, Ellis. You've been carrying that around all week?"

"The band needed the shoot. I needed to pay off my debt. I didn't choose to be in the middle of it."

Robbie blew out a breath. He ran a hand through his hair, then looked at her.

"Here's what we do. We go back in, you don't say a word about the film to anyone. Not Dex, not Sophie. We wait for the set to end, we get through the meeting with Polydor, and then we figure out what to do about Lenny together."

"Together?"

Something flickered in his expression. "I've got my own reasons for wanting answers about Jack Mercer."

Mara held his gaze. The weight of the night pressed in on her—the stolen camera, the lost film, the secret she'd just shared with a man she'd known barely a week.

"All right," she said quietly. "Together."

Robbie held out his hand. She took it. His skin was rough against her palm, a grip that was firm, grounding.

"Come on," he said. "We've got a show to finish."