No, something else must have happened. Perhaps something odd happened in the casting itself. I jot down: audition room. After all, strange things happen in auditions all the time. I struggle to imagine what could have tipped hers over the edge to the extent she’d just up and vanish. There’s no way of knowing what was said in that darkened room, though, as each casting suite was soundproofed. Which isn’t unusual, the last thing a casting director wants to do is to hand, say, Steven Spielberg a bunch of audition tapes with another actor’s muffled screaming in the background. Filming is ninety percent waiting for background noise to stop, so soundproofing at studios is essential. Nothing to be suspicious of in the slightest, but then most actresses don’t disappear after going into casting rooms to tape.
I recall the final scene of that Mars audition: everyone who auditioned ripped out a desperate animal roar into space and nobody in the waiting room heard a peep. Anything could happen in that room and we wouldn’t have known. That’s the point of soundproofing. I shudder at the thought.
And now that I think about it, the casting studio receptionist didn’t seem to have any idea who was coming and going from the rooms. I feel the blood drain at the idea that someone who wasn’t supposed to be there could have gotten into that room with her. And I remember her pleas for me to go first. Did Emily have a feeling something was wrong, is that why she was so keen to switch places? Yes, her parking meter had run out when I got there, but it had been on empty for a full twenty minutes before and yet she made it seem urgent. But I said I’d go feed her meter and she went in. If I had agreed to go first, would I have disappeared in her place?
I try to remember the casting director. She was in her mid-twenties, short, with a kind, round face. Hardly intimidating. I think she said her name was Claire, but I could definitely be wrong about that.
I scrawl the name Claire out on the notepad. While I’m guessing she had nothing to do with Emily’s disappearance, she might have been the last person to see her after me. She can confirm whether Emily made it in to that audition room. She might even know what happened after.
Because there’s the strong possibility that something stopped her from going in. I think of the excuse Joanne-as-Emily gave for disappearing—of her getting a phone call about an injured boyfriend—and while I know it’s just a story she came up with on the spot, it’s entirely plausible that a phone call did drag the real Emily away. An urgent call that would require immediate attention. My eyes flick to her phone on the table.
I know exactly when she disappeared, so all I’d need to do is check the last call before then. Emily even told me she was expecting a call after her audition. Perhaps that call came early.
I pick up her phone and gingerly tap the screen. A passcode keypad appears.
I stare at the screen hopelessly, my own blank expression reflected back at me. I have no idea what her code might be and I’m guessing there’s no way to bypass it. I scrabble over to my own bag on the couch opposite and pull out my phone. I google bypass iPhone locked screen.
A couple of hokey videos about unlocking come up. I watch one until it becomes obvious it’s nonsense then head directly to the Apple website instead.
The website tells me it is possible to bypass the locked screen but if I do that it will wipe the whole phone. Which obviously is the exact opposite of what I want to do. There’s also an option of trying to retrieve her call log through iCloud on her laptop, and for a moment my heart skips a beat, but as I read on it becomes clear I would need her iCloud password to do that—which I also do not have.
That only leaves trying to guess the six-digit number and I’m reminded of a horror movie I once watched where the hero, needing to open a stranger’s phone, simply holds it up to the light; as he tilts it we see the fingerprint traces of a code on the phone screen. Then he traces the fingermarks and the screen opens. Easy-peasy.
Apprehensive, I raise Emily’s iPhone screen toward the light and tilt it.
The screen is a mess of indecipherable finger smears impossible to read. I console myself with the fact that though I can’t open it, I can hand it over to the police tomorrow. Perhaps they’ll have a way of accessing her call log that I don’t. But the idea that I might never know if they do spurs me on in a different direction.