Scarlett sucked hard on her straw. What was she supposed to say?

Donna took out a leather case, which she snapped open. She wrote down her number on a piece of paper inside, and ripped it off.

“You should know,” she said, “that I work both with theater people and the tourist industry. It’s easy to get a bad reputation in the theater world, and it’s also easy for a hotel to get the wrong kind of publicity. I am taking this very seriously, Scarlett. Don’t think for one second that the fact that I’m not screaming and yelling means that I’m not angry. Whoever it was can contact me here. They should make it soon.”

Donna got up and left, leaving her coffee untouched. Scarlett put her head in her hands and allowed herself to panic. Spencer was under threat. The show was under threat. The hotel…

And Spencer didn’t even know what he had done.

“Oh,” she said to herself. “This is so not good.”

A COZY DINNER

There was a sickly smell gassing up the lobby, where Scarlett was pacing between the desk and the door, occasionally pressing her face into the diamond-cut glass to get a wobbly view of what was going on outside. She got the sinking feeling that the odor was homemade pizza. That acrid smell was the crust burning—the tangy, bitter smell was cheese being turned to rubber.

Both Spencer and Mrs. Amberson had sent her messages saying that they were on their way back from the move-in to the parking garage, the play’s final home. Mrs. Amberson arrived first in her cab.

“The cab wouldn’t take your brother’s bike,” she explained, as she pulled out her cigarette case. “He’s coming on the subway. You look better than I expected. You have good, fighting stock in you, O’Hara. I was also thinking about getting you an appointment with this wonderful girl, Katiya…”

“Donna came over,” Scarlett said.

Those three words didn’t quite have the chilling effect that Scarlett had hoped. It took Mrs. Amberson two matches to get herself lit, but otherwise, she didn’t look disturbed.

“Came over where?”

“Here!”

“And how was her haircut?” she asked, a wry smile slipping on to her face. “Was it very, very fetching?”

“Did you just hear me? She was here.”

“You’re repeating yourself, O’Hara. How did she get here?”

“She figured it out. Not about you. She recognized Eric, then worked back to Spencer and me.”

“Well, well,” she said. “Donna is a little smarter than I remember. I hope you were nice to her. Did you rub her head for luck? Did it feel like a squirrel?”

“She also said that she could cause trouble for Spencer and Eric, and that she might say things about the hotel.”

Mrs. Amberson gazed at Scarlett for a moment.

“She doesn’t have the nerve,” she said dismissively. “Or the brains.”

“Are you sure? She found us.”

“A little luck, that’s all.”

“Don’t you think you should maybe talk to her?” Scarlett asked. “She left her number.”