Mom’s still staring at us curiously. I realize we haven’t answered her question. “We’re a little shaken up, yeah,” I say. “But it’ll be okay.” The last thing I want is for my mother to think we’re scared. She might pull me off Sadie Solves It. And then the show will shut down, and Cody will have to go to Texas, and we’ll never see him again.

“Okay,” my mother says. She probably senses I’m not saying everything that I feel, but I’m happy she doesn’t push it. She leaves a basket of mini bags of chips and cans of fizzy water and soda on the tree house floor. “Yell if you need me, all right?”

When she disappears down the ladder, I slump back on the couch. “Is our show doomed?” Cody moans. “Should I book my ticket back to Texas now?”

“We need to think positive,” I say, although I don’t really feel positive. “Let’s go over what we know. That light fell exactly where I was supposed to be sitting. It feels like someone is sending a message.”

“To scare you away?” Aubrey asks.

“Or maybe to get me to stop asking questions,” I suggest.

“You really think Amelia would want to hurt you?” Cody asks.

“But it wasn’t Amelia, remember? She wasn’t anywhere near Stage Five when this happened. We chased her down that fire escape.”

“Oh. Right.”

Aubrey and Cody exchange a glance I don’t quite understand. After the light fell and the dust cleared—literally—I found out that they’d grabbed Amelia as she streaked past them after climbing down from the props room. Aubrey told me that Amelia had stolen something, but she hadn’t said exactly what it was.

“We’ll let Amelia tell you,” Cody had added. “But we’re pretty sure it has nothing to do with the ghost.”

“Actually, I asked around,” Aubrey interrupts my thoughts now. “To cut one of those lights, you have to go to a crawl space up a staircase in a different part of the stage. Totally on the other end from the props room.”

“So who was it?” I try to consider everyone in the soundstage. There were tons of people, though. Too many suspects.

“Could it have been an accident?” Cody wonders aloud. “Like, maybe that light had come loose earlier, and for some reason, it chose that moment to fall?”

“Or maybe it’s a ghost,” Aubrey says.

Cody groans.

“Just hear me out!” Aubrey protests. “What if the story about Betty is true? A dancer out for revenge? It’d make sense that she’d go after you, Hayley, as you’re the star of the show.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” I mutter.

Aubrey raises her hands. “Hey, it’s why I said we should reach out to her to start with! To get on her side!”