Chapter 162: Shocking Discovery
"Then be here," said Sean. "Tell me what else needs to happen and I’ll handle it."
She looked at him. "The press coordinator needs the revised introduction remarks. I rewrote them but she’s expecting the original version and will need time to brief the moderator."
"Send them to me," said Sean. "I’ll get them to her."
"The venue lighting team needs to know about the adjusted presentation order," said Vanessa. "The pieces in positions three and seven have different lighting requirements from the ones I originally scheduled there."
"Send me the revised order with the technical notes," said Sean. "I’ll find the lighting coordinator."
"The front of house team needs to be briefed on the negative space ending," said Vanessa. "They’re expecting a seven piece third act. They’ll get four pieces and then the lights will go to black. I don’t want anyone signaling confusion when that happens."
"I’ll brief them," said Sean.
Vanessa looked at him with the expression she sometimes had when he said something that arrived faster than she’d expected it.
"You’re going to spend the next two hours running logistics for my show," she said.
"Someone has to," said Sean. "You have to be here."
She held his gaze for a moment. Then she picked up her tablet and transferred everything he’d asked for to his phone in one organized folder, the specific efficiency of someone who had everything documented precisely because she’d learned a long time ago that documentation was protection.
"Sean," she said.
"Yeah."
"Thank you," she said. The direct version. Nothing layered on top.
He went.
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Next Morning
The venue was coming alive around him as he moved through it, the specific organised chaos of a space that would be ready for four hundred people by evening and was currently several hours away from looking like it could manage forty.
He found the press coordinator in a temporary office near the main entrance, a sharp woman named Miriam who read Vanessa’s revised introduction remarks on Sean’s phone and asked three precise questions that told him she understood what she was reading rather than just processing it.
He found the lighting coordinator in the main space on a ladder, supervising a rig adjustment with the focused attention of someone who understood that light was not a backdrop but a participant. The conversation about the adjusted presentation order took eleven minutes and required Sean to look at Vanessa’s technical notes twice, but the coordinator understood what was needed and said he’d have the rig reconfigured before the two PM run-through.
He found the front of house manager in the backstage corridor and briefed her on the third act ending with the specific clarity of someone who had watched Vanessa explain the negative space concept in the storage room and had understood immediately why it would work.
Between each of these he checked in with Laurent, who was building the full profile on Dominique Voss with the methodical efficiency of someone who had spent twenty years in this industry and knew exactly where to look for what.
At eleven forty-three Max sent him a text.
Full venue footage from last night is timestamped and secured. I’ve pulled the relevant segment and saved it to a secure link. You have what you need.
Good work, Sean replied. How’s Amara.
Doing the thing where she reorganizes things that don’t need reorganizing, Max typed back. The nurses have started letting her help sort the supply cart because it’s easier than watching her resist the urge.
Sean smiled at his phone and went back to the storage room.
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Noon
Céleste looked up when Sean came in and said something to Vanessa.
"She says two of the four are finished," Vanessa translated. "The junction repairs are taking longer but she’s confident both will be done by one o’clock."
Sean looked at the two completed pieces on the stand. He couldn’t see the repairs without looking specifically for them, and even knowing where they were he could only find them under close examination.
"They’re invisible," he said.
"Céleste doesn’t do visible repairs," said Vanessa. "That would be the wrong kind of reputation."
Céleste said something else without looking up from the piece she was working on.
"She says you have good eyes," Vanessa translated.
"Tell her thank you," said Sean.
Vanessa told her. Céleste made a small sound that might have been acknowledgment and kept working.
Vanessa sat down in the chair she’d pulled up beside the examination table at some point in the morning, her tablet in her lap, the revised running order and introduction remarks and technical notes all updated and distributed. She had the look of someone who had done everything they could do in the present moment and was now waiting for the next thing to require doing.
Sean sat down beside her.
"Laurent’s full profile on Dominique arrived an hour ago," said Sean. "I haven’t read all of it but the headline is consistent with what he told us this morning. Two previous incidents with other designers. Both settled privately. She has a pattern."
"I’ve heard rumors," said Vanessa. "Over the years. I didn’t believe them fully because I didn’t have reason to and because it’s the kind of industry where rumors exist in proportion to competitiveness rather than truth." She looked at the pieces being repaired in front of her. "I believe them now."
"Tonight," said Sean. "After the show. I’ll speak to her."
"What will you say," said Vanessa.
"What’s necessary," said Sean. "She’ll understand clearly that what she did has been documented completely, that the documentation exists with people she can’t reach, and that the conditions for it remaining where it is rather than going somewhere considerably more damaging require specific things from her."
Vanessa looked at him. "You’ve done something like this before."
"I’ve had conversations where leverage existed on one side and the other side needed to understand that clearly," said Sean.
"You don’t have to handle this," she said. "It’s my problem. My collection. My industry."
"That’s true," said Sean. "And you can handle it yourself if you want to. I’m not doing this because you can’t. I’m doing it because I don’t want you to have to spend the hours between now and the show thinking about Dominique Voss. I want you thinking about what you built."