Beth really had climbed back up that hill. After all, she was still here, living at the hospital.
“Did you follow her career after the incident?” she asked.
Beth smiled.
“Not for a long time. But you hear things, even in here. I knew she lost some cachet lately and that she was trying to get it back with that new horror movie. I wish I could say I felt bad that she was struggling but that wouldn’t be completely honest.”
“How did you hear about the Marauder movie?” Trembley wanted to know.
“Partly because I still follow the industry. That’s why I stayed out here in L.A. My parents wanted me to move back east so they could be closer to me. But I told them that I still plan to make it here. I’m working on a screenplay. It’s almost six hundred pages now.”
Jessie smiled back at the girl, who was clearly proud of the length. Though she was no Hollywood expert, Jessie was pretty sure most scripts didn’t run longer than 120 pages. Still she said nothing about that.
“So you knew about the movie because you follow entertainment news?” she pressed.
“Well, that and the tour,” Beth said matter-of-factly.
“Tour?” she repeated, confused.
Lenore spoke up from the back of the room. Jessie hadn’t realized the nurse had been able to hear their conversation from outside the room.
“We take low-risk residents on field trips from time to time. We go to the zoo, museums, that sort of thing. On Friday, we took a tour of Sovereign Studios.”
Jessie and Trembley exchanged looks, trying not to appear as stunned as they felt.
“Friday of last week?” Trembley reconfirmed.
Lenore nodded. Jessie turned back to Beth and asked her question as if nothing was amiss.
“So they mentioned the movie on the tour?”
“Yeah. We passed by different stages and they said what shot on each one. There was that TV show Lenore is excited to watch, Courting Justice, on Stage 31.”
“We can’t wait. It premieres in the fall,” Lenore volunteered over the loudspeaker.
Neither Jessie nor Trembley corrected her misimpression.
“She’s got a crush on the main star, Kendall Cox,” Beth teased. “Personally, I like Callie Hemphill. She’s a tough cookie. Anyway, the guide mentioned that Marauder was shooting next door on Stage 32 and that Corinne was returning to the franchise that helped make her a star—his words.”
“How did you react to that news?” Jessie asked.
“I might have had a mini panic attack,” she admitted. “They had to stop the tram so I could go to the bathroom and regroup. But after that I was okay.”
“You never saw her?” Trembley pressed.
“No. Or else the mini panic attack would have probably turned into a mega attack.”
“Beth,” Jessie said, trying to redirect the conversation as casually as possible, “what were you doing on Sunday night?”
“This last Sunday?” she said, trying to recall. “I know it was spaghetti dinner. Sunday is always spaghetti. Then we watched a movie in the rec room. I left early because I’d already seen it. I had some Private Time.”
“What’s private time?” Trembley asked, turning to Lenore, who seemed surprised to be asked a question. She pushed the speaker button to reply.
“It’s a privilege for low-risk, long-term residents,” she said. “If they aren’t interested in that evening’s group activity, they can cash in some ‘privilege points’ for ‘Private Time.’ They can return to their room, relax in the courtyard, work in the art center—as long as it’s quiet, solo, and not disruptive, it’s okay.”
“Are residents supervised during Private Time?” Trembley asked.
For the first time, Lenore looked uncomfortable.
“Only if they’ve violated a rule recently,” she said. “Beth hadn’t so she would have been on her own.”
“For how long?” Trembley wanted to know.
“As long as she was back in her room for final check at lights out, the evening was hers.”
“When is lights out?” Jessie asked.
“Eleven thirty p.m.,” Lenore said.
Jessie nodded as if all this was going just as she’d expected and turned back to Beth.
“So what did you do with your Private Time, Beth?”
Beth smiled as she recalled her evening.
“Not much. I walked around a little. I went to the picnic area across the road to work on my script. It was dark so I had to use my flashlight.”
“So you were off the hospital property for a while?” Trembley asked, failing to sound as casual as Jessie had.
“I guess,” Beth said, frowning, “for a little while. Why?”
“No reason,” Jessie answered, sensing that Beth was getting slightly agitated. “You heard about what happened to Corinne, right?”