I feel a sudden flush of shame. She came to take back the things I stole from her. I can hardly accuse her of theft.
But then she didn’t just enter my apartment once, did she? I think of my broken security monitor. She’s been breaking in for four days. I’ve been missing emails; she’s been sending emails, moving things, taking things, and that message. God knows what else might have gone missing that I haven’t even noticed yet.
My mind scrambles for an explanation for all of this. She must have seen me tap in my iPhone passcode while I was sitting next to her in the waiting room and then she rifled through it, found my address, took my key, and emailed Lucy her lie. All while I fed her meter and auditioned. But why? Why use my phone that day, why take my key, why keep coming back? I have nothing to steal.
I take a breath and try to make sense of this tangle of facts. Emily didn’t disappear, she was coming here as Michelle. She must have hired Joanne to collect her things from me and play out those scenes. Perhaps she knew she couldn’t get past reception as both Michelle and herself. So she wrote those strange character breakdowns and scenes that Joanne showed me and texted Joanne instructions on where to go next in her place.
Emily came straight here after emailing Lucy from my phone. That’s why I couldn’t find her after my audition. She kept me busy looking for her while she searched my apartment. But what was she looking for on that first day?
Lucy’s voice breaks my concentration. “Do you recognize her?” she asks. “Michelle?”
I nod. “Yes. That’s—” I catch myself in a lie. I can’t tell Lucy this is Emily because she still thinks the woman she let in three nights ago to collect her keys is Emily. I could explain the whole story but I’m not sure that would do me any favors. She misreads my pained expression for concern and shoots out a hand for the desk phone.
“I’ll call the cops,” she offers, lifting the receiver, fingers poised to dial.
“No,” I blurt out. My mind is racing to put everything together without misstepping. Emily isn’t missing but she’s certainly pretending to be. The recording I listened to was real. Her emails were real. The Zoom call from Moon Finch seems to be the thing that set all of this in motion. Perhaps she really did mean to disappear that day but I had her wallet and keys. Perhaps that’s why she went into my bag. I should have dumped them back in there before I went into my audition, but for some reason I pocketed them. She couldn’t find them so, perhaps in the hope of getting them back later, she stole my apartment keycard.
But she wouldn’t have been able to take back her car keys and wallet from my apartment that first day because I was still at the casting. So she must have wanted to check out how possible it would be to gain access. And then the next day she wouldn’t have been able to take them back either as I took her things out with me all day. Emily knew if she wanted her things back she’d need to collect them from me directly, as I kept leaving the building with them on me. But that would have meant showing up here as Emily Bryant, so she sent Joanne instead. Emily Bryant is hiding.
After Joanne collected Emily’s stuff Emily would have realized I still hadn’t returned her rental document. I’d accidentally locked it in my car. So she had to come back again.
“Has this got something to do with the woman who lost her wallet?” Lucy asks, placing the chunky cream receiver back into its cradle.
“Yeah, I think it might,” I reply carefully. “I hate to put you in this position, Lucy, but could you let me try to speak to Michelle before we report this? I don’t know exactly what’s going on yet but I am pretty sure I’m missing something very important here.”
Lucy weighs my request, concern creasing her brow, but I sense she’s aware that calling the police means admitting she let someone into my apartment without checking their ID properly, email or no email. Finally she nods, returns the monitor screens to their live feeds, and swivels her chair back to me.