I’d heard enough to follow Nora into the lobby, nearly outpacing her for once. What was happening here? This wasn’t the Oscar I knew, the one on the phone, the one in the interview. That Oscar had told me that everything was great. That rehearsals were amazing and productive. Had he lied? To me? Maybe two weeks had been too long. Maybe I was the very last person who’d be able to get through to him now. My step faltered on the marble floors. I scanned for the stairwell linking Lilly Hall to the rehearsal rooms.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked Nora, glancing back like he might be trailing us.

“He should be back from his appointment any minute.” Nora trotted up the steps ahead of me. “But he’s not what we need right now.”

“This way?”

She pointed. I kept going.

“So glad you’re back, by the way! You’ll have to fill me in on your big trip after all this is . . .” Nora sighed, flustered. “Yep.”

I didn’t want to chitchat, or face her, confront her about why she’d lied to me so blatantly, turned my hopes into a stampede and then steered them straight off a cliff. I wanted to find . . .

Rehearsal Room B.

Nora stepped back. And back again.

I knocked. “Oscar? You in there?”

My hand shook as I lowered it. A muffled sound came from inside the room—a scrape—a chair being kicked.

I tried the door. It was locked from the inside. Right. Okay.

Gathering up all my energy and dubious acting abilities, I knocked again, this time louder. The noises inside the room stopped.

“Oscar, I’m back! Plane landed, um, two hours ago. Let me in, I want to see you!”

There was a long pause—and then the door cracked open and Oscar said, “Ruby?” like he’d thought I was dead.

I glanced quickly back at Nora. She slid soundlessly around the corner. I wished she would go all the way downstairs. Or home. Go home.

The door swung wider, so I could finally see him. Oscar looked exhausted, wired, wrong. No swagger. No grin. No front. I swore he was thinner than when I left. Older somehow, too. But this was still the face that had filled my mind every second I spent in South Carolina trying desperately to clear it.

“Hi.” He let out a feeble laugh, as if his greeting had been sarcastic.

I touched his face, his shoulders, and pulled myself up into a hug. He clung on and stepped backward, leading me into the rehearsal room.

I’d successfully snipped the first red cord. I hadn’t defused the bomb.

“So . . . things have gotten a little stressful while I’ve been away, I take it?” I smiled, holding his hand. “I had no idea.”

He let go. “Did they send you?”