The same security guard was working. He waved me through without even questioning me—apparently nobody had alerted him about my previous visit being bogus. This time I pulled into a parking spot right in front of the studio. My palms were sweating, but I had to act like I belonged here if I was going to pull off getting inside again. I was already counting on nobody recognizing me, and on avoiding the blond man, who definitely would. I pulled down the visor and gave myself one last look, tucking loose strands of hair up into the bandanna, took two deep breaths, grabbed the Fat Sal’s sacks, and got out.

You can do this, Nikki.

A young man was standing behind the front desk. He barely looked up when I walked inside. I had a whole spiel practiced in my head about getting a lunch order and wanting to deliver it in person to make sure I hadn’t made any errors, but it turned out I didn’t even need to. I had just opened my mouth when he motioned over his shoulder with his pencil, not tearing his eyes away from the magazine open on the desk in front of him. “Go ahead,” he said.

I closed my mouth, paused for the tiniest second—seriously, my luck was never that good—and walked past him, ducking my head so I didn’t accidentally make eye contact with anyone.

Once I was inside, I realized I had no idea what I was really looking for. Something, anything that would tell me who the blond man was. That would be a start, anyway.

As luck would have it, they were mid-take, the set full of extras, with Celeste Day in the center of the crowd. The white-blond man was sitting in a tall chair with his legs crossed, looking completely bored as he tapped on a tablet. A handful of people stood around the edges of the set, at the ready should their services be needed. But nobody was really hanging around the dressing area.

I snuck back through the area where I’d pretended to be Celeste’s makeup artist and set the bags on a chair. I had to move fast, so I tried hard to focus on colors as I scanned the dressing tables, nudging bottles and tubes and hairbrushes aside so I could riffle through any papers I found. Mostly scripts, the occasional memo or printed list, a press pass. Nothing useful. I crouched and duckwalked to check under each table, looking for open bags or purses. I pawed through what I recognized as Celeste Day’s bag, where I’d found the matchbook before. Nothing. Less than nothing, actually. Nothing, with a side of not having a clue what something would look like even if I found it.