Except that Arra wasn’t in the basement.

Tony stared at the empty chair, at the bank of monitors, and fought a sudden urge to smash something. The bitch had screwed with his memories. Made him forget. Made him forget the shadows, and the Shadowlord, and the danger they were all in.

He’d told her he was going to do something and she’d stopped him.

Maybe even stopped him from protecting Lee.

Heart pounding, he took the stairs back up to the production office three at a time, slamming the door behind him hard enough to pull curious glances from the surrounding smaller offices. Even Zev reemerged from post, a set of headphones slung around his neck like a stethoscope.

“If you’ll excuse me a moment.” As his visitor nodded a confused assent, CB surged to his feet and walked over to his open door. He considered himself to be a lenient employer, but petty displays of unnecessary noise were among the few things he refused to put up with. If it was one of the writers overreacting to script changes again, he would not be pleased.

He reached the doorway in time to see Tony Foster race across the production office.

“Where’s Arra?”

Amy slammed a staple through a set of sides and frowned up at him. “What?”

“Arra!”

“I’m not deaf, dipwad. She’s with Daniel, checking out cliffs for a new car-blows-up-in-midair-releases-afire-demon-into-the-world shot.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere along the coast, I guess. She said she was heading home after; that just because we’re running obscenely late, there was no point in her hauling ass all the way back out here.” The frown became more questioning than accusatory. “Why?”

Tony shook his head. “Where does she live?”

“I’d have to look it up.”

“A co-op on Nelson,” Zev put in unexpectedly, crossing to the desk. “Downtown Vancouver, across from the Coast Plaza Hotel. What’s the problem?”

Already turning, Tony paused. An evil wizard is about to come through a gate between worlds and kick ass. No. Not a good idea. That just wasn’t the kind of news that most people took well. “Let’s just say it’s none of your business.” It came out sharper than he’d intended and he regretted the sudden hurt on the music director’s face, but he didn’t have time to regret it for long. He had to find Lee.

“Man, you’re two for two on assholes today,” he heard Amy murmur as he ran for the door.

Returning to his desk, CB bent down and plucked the piece of drawing paper out of the trash. He slipped it under the edge of his desk blotter and settled back into the large leather chair, smiling across at his network visitor. “You were saying?”

He needed wheels. Riding transit, no matter how environmentally sound, was just not going to cut it. Fortunately, he knew where there were wheels to be had.