Page 23 of Silent Home

Except this wasn't a movie.And somewhere in these festival crowds, a killer walked free.

They just had to figure out why before anyone else died.

CHAPTER TEN

Thomas Rivera loved the quiet moments on his shift, like now, when the hallways of the Mountain View Hotel briefly emptied as guests filtered out for evening screenings.Nine PM, and the usual lull had settled in.He'd finished collecting room service trays from the third floor and was organizing the storage closet, a task he found oddly satisfying after the chaos of festival check-ins.

The hotel felt different during the festival—more alive somehow, with every room booked and creative energy humming through the corridors.Directors huddled in the lobby, planning shot lists.Actors practiced lines in the elevator.Even the complaints were more interesting: a documentary filmmaker upset that his room didn't face the mountains he was here to film, a method actor who insisted on sleeping on the floor to prepare for a role about homelessness.

Thomas smiled as he sorted clean linens.His friend Jason from sound design had tried to get him back into acting last year, practically dragging him to audition for some psychological thriller.

What was it called?"Ghost Light"—that was it.A heavy piece about a convicted murderer seeking redemption through theater.Thomas hadn't prepared much, just showed up and read the sides.He'd gone purely to humor Jason, telling himself it was just a favor for a friend.

But something unexpected happened when he stepped into that audition room.The moment he began reading, everything came flooding back—the electricity of inhabiting another person's skin, the raw thrill of discovering a character's truth.The role was complex: a man who'd made terrible choices trying to find redemption through art.As Thomas read deeper into the scene, he felt himself falling into the character's desperate need for forgiveness, his hunger to rewrite his own story.

By the time he finished the monologue, his hands were shaking.He'd forgotten how much he loved this, how alive it made him feel.The director had leaned forward, clearly interested, and for one bright moment, Thomas had allowed himself to imagine returning to the stage, reclaiming that part of himself he'd buried after the divorce.

But he hadn't gotten the part, which turned out to be fine after all.He'd stepped away from theater three years ago for a reason, needing something more stable after his marriage fell apart.The hotel job wasn't glamorous, but it paid the bills on time.And there was something peaceful about working nights, about being useful in small, concrete ways.

Still, sometimes late at night, he found himself running through that audition monologue in his head, remembering how it felt to lose himself in a role again, if only for a few minutes.

His radio crackled."Rivera, you copy?"

"Go ahead," he said.

"Got an alert on the Carson Street emergency exit.Probably another smoker who doesn't want to walk around front."

Thomas sighed.It happened every festival—guests propping open emergency doors for convenience, not thinking about security."I'll check it out."

He left the storage closet and headed toward the back of the hotel.The service corridors were quieter here, away from the guest areas.Industrial carpet replaced marble floors, and the walls were bare except for safety notices and cleaning schedules.

The festival always made him a bit nostalgic for his acting days.He'd been good once—not great, maybe, but solid character work in local productions."Twelve Angry Men," "The Crucible," a decent run as George in "Of Mice and Men."But life had other plans.The divorce had hit hard, and somehow temporary survival jobs had become permanent.

Still, he enjoyed being adjacent to the film world during festival week.He liked overhearing passionate debates about cinema in the elevator, seeing rough cuts of documentaries on laptops in the lobby.Just this morning, he'd helped Bradley Greenwald's team set up their production office in the conference room.They'd been editing until all hours, preparing for tonight's premiere.

The emergency exit was at the end of a long hallway lined with vending machines.Their hum covered his footsteps as he approached.The door was indeed propped open with a block of wood, letting in cold October air and the distant sound of the festival crowds on Main Street.

Thomas moved to remove the block, but something made him pause.The hallway felt different—a shift in the air pressure, maybe, or a shadow that seemed out of place.He'd worked nights long enough to trust these instincts.

"Hello?"he called."This area is for employees only."

No response, but the vending machines' reflection showed movement behind him.

Thomas turned.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sheila watched the festival transform as night deepened.Gone were the families clutching popcorn bags and the tourists with their festival programs.By ten PM, a different crowd had claimed Main Street—film students with expensive cameras slung around their necks, producers huddled in doorways making deals, directors holding court at café tables.The bars glowed with warm light, their windows fogged from intense conversations within.Outside the Antler Room, a group of documentary filmmakers debated the ethics of reenactments, their breath visible in the cold air as they gestured passionately.

She knew this was when the real business of the festival happened—after dark when the casual moviegoers had gone home, and only the true believers remained.These were the people who lived and breathed cinema, who saw the world through an imaginary lens.

And somewhere among them, she suspected, walked a killer who had turned murder into performance art.

"Jessica kept to herself mostly," said Annie Martin, a production assistant from "The Winter Palace."They'd found her nursing a beer at the Peak Mountain Brewery, where festival staff tended to gather after shifts."But the last few weeks, she started asking questions.About the production, about financing, about who had access to what."

"What kind of access?"Sheila asked.

Annie shrugged."Digital files, dailies, raw footage.Weird stuff for an actor to care about."She took a sip of her beer."I figured she was just trying to learn the business side."

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