But nothing like that happened to get the role. I can see why you would think that you rebuffing me and her getting the role were connected, but I swear it was just a coincidence. If we’d never seen her, you’d have played Rosie, regardless of what happened at my apartment. I wouldn’t blackball an actress I thought was right for a role just because she wouldn’t sleep with me. If I did, a quarter of the actresses under thirty in this town would be unemployed.”
Calliope started at him coldly, disbelievingly.
“The funny thing is that I bet you think that makes you noble in some way,” she said, suddenly adopting a deeper male voice, imitating him. “I pressure women I have power over to have sex with me. But I don’t hold a grudge if they don’t.”
“It sounds awful, but it’s true,” he insisted.
She shrugged.
“Here’s the thing, Miller. Either way, you’re a scumbag. Or you ‘were.’ That all ends tonight.”
Then, without warning, she shoved him off the edge of the filing cabinet. He tried to grasp the side of it but everything happened so fast that he couldn’t get a grip. He attempted to brace himself for what was to come. But nothing prepared him for the agony as his body wrenched downward while his neck stayed in place.
It took him a second to grasp he hadn’t broken his neck. But that relief was replaced by the horrifying realization that he couldn’t breathe. The rope was digging into his neck, compressing his trachea, and cutting off both his circulation and the flow of oxygen. He knew that wriggling would only tighten the thing but he couldn’t help it. He tried desperately to extend his toes out to reach the floor. He could feel them bump something slightly as he swung but he couldn’t quite plant them down. Through watery eyes, he saw Calliope watching him intently, a hungry grin playing at her lips. But with each passing second, she got more blurry, as if someone had rubbed a thick layer of Vaseline on his eyeballs.
He tried to blink but found it impossible, as was speaking or even breathing. He felt the terror giving way to resignation. It wouldn’t be long now.
*
The conference room was empty.
Jessie dropped to her knees, thinking that maybe Boatwright was unconscious beneath the large table in the middle of the room. But there was no one there.
She had been sure that this was where Callie Hemphill would have taken Boatwright to punish him, the place where her dreams of stardom were supposed to take shape. But there was no one here. She was at a loss. But then, as she stood there feeling defeated, her previous thought popped into her head.
Supposed to.
This was the room where Callie’s dream was supposed to come true. But it hadn’t. She’d lost the role before the table read. She might never even have been in this room. The place where the dream had first seemed real was where she’d auditioned and done well enough to win the part.
Jessie pulled out her phone and quickly scrolled through the documents to the audition files. In the top corner of all the pages were the words “audition room 5, Katz Building.” That must have been where everyone tried out. That had to be where they were now.
She looked at the door across the hall. There was no sign on it. As she began to run down the darkened hallway, it became clear that other than the two conference rooms, none of them were labeled. Audition room 5 could have been any room at all that someone had taped those words to a decade earlier.
Jessie stopped running and forced herself to think. Callie and Boatwright were somewhere in this building. Though she couldn’t be sure, she suspected they were on the first floor. Callie wouldn’t have wanted to drag a famous, unconscious man around any longer than necessary. So they were close. Maybe she could hear them or, if he was already dead, at least her.
Don’t run. Walk quietly.
She started at the end of the hall near the main door and moved softly down the hall, listening for anything unusual. It was silent. She was just reaching the end of the hall, starting to wonder if perhaps Callie had gone to a higher floor, when she saw it.
Peeking out from under the door of the last room on the right was a dim but noticeable light. She moved closer. The door was wood and