Chapter 17: A Name on a Door

The screen went dark, and Camille screamed.

It was not a loud scream at first.

It was a thin, furious sound.

"Turn it off," she said. "Turn it off, that's been edited, that's been cut together, he's an editor!"

"It's raw footage," Mason said.

"It's a fake!"

"It has a timecode."

"Then he made it!"

She spun toward the audience, pointing at him with a trembling arm.

"He's in love with her. Can't you see that? He's been sleeping with my sister since Sunday, and he'd say anything."

A gasp went round the room.

Beside me Mason did not so much as blink.

"I would," he said evenly. "She's a better writer than you, and I'd say so on my knees."

A few people laughed, in shock.

Roz let out a bark I could hear from the stage.

Camille's face changed.

I had known that face for sixteen years, warm and bright and always one step ahead of me, and I watched it come apart.

"Lance," she said, turning on him. "Tell them. Tell them she's a liar, tell them you made it up, you drunk little..."

"I took the money," Lance said.

He had sunk back into his chair with his hands hanging between his knees.

"Two thousand a month for a year," he said to the microphone, to nobody. "I told Willa on Roz's porch last night. She has it recorded."

I had not known I'd be asked.

I held up my phone.

"It's all on here," I said. "Anyone who wants to hear it can."

The man in the Draper lanyard had stopped in the aisle with his phone down by his side.

I saw him read the faces around him and understand that nobody in the room was going to listen to him now.

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