Sage laughed, then drifted down the bar to help another customer. Lena sat alone, which was fine. She wasn’t lonely. She was just… precise. Her apartment was small and orderly. Her closet was organized by color and season. She had a spreadsheet for her groceries and a five-year plan that accounted for inflation.

Lena watched the video three times. Then she put her phone down, finished her whiskey, and asked Sage for another.

“Emotional guest,” Lena said. “Tears. Dog story.”

She worked as a production coordinator for Nightfall , a late-night talk show that taped in Burbank. The title sounded glamorous. The job was not. It was spreadsheets and walkie-talkies and making sure the cue cards were printed in the right font size. It was telling the B-list actor’s assistant that no, the greenroom could not have “more of a jungle vibe” twelve minutes before air.

She pressed play.

She didn’t remember that moment. It must have been before the stress, before the kombucha crisis, before the psychic breakdowns and the chandelier and the nineteen-page rider. It was just a crack between tasks. A glitch in the machine.

Then she saw it. A video. Thirty seconds long. Recorded by accident last week when she’d fumbled her phone in the control room.