The Final Frame

The zipper teeth caught. Stuck halfway. Marcus Webb tugged harder. The leather trunk gaped open like a wound.

He checked his pockets again. Keys. Wallet. Train ticket to Chicago. The compartment felt empty without his gold signet ring—somewhere on this table, buried beneath props and playing cards.

Mirrors lined every wall. Marcus's fractured reflection multiplied into infinity. A thousand versions of a man who'd spent fifteen years not seeing what was right in front of him.

Three dead performers. Each one murdered using variations of tricks from Marcus's own repertoire. The Vanishing Cabinet. The Bullet Catch. The Final Frame itself.

His signature illusions. Stolen. Weaponized.

Marcus polished his ring compulsively. The gold gleamed in the harsh dressing room lights. Integrity, he'd called it once. Now it felt more like a shackle.

The trunk waited. His escape. His cowardice given form.

He reached for the signet ring. His hand trembled. The metal bit into his palm—cold, heavy, accusing.

The velvet curtains swished. A woman burst through. Rapid-fire words poured from her lips like ammunition.

"November third, Victor Fontaine's hanging. December seventh, Maria Rosetti's drowning. January twelfth, Thomas Chen's fall."

Eleanor Vance. The gossip columnist who'd been asking questions about Titan Studios. She adjusted her spectacles, her eyes scanning the room like a predator.

"Each death on a Monday morning." She tapped her fountain pen against her chin. Rhythmically. Like a metronome counting down Marcus's final moments of willful blindness. "Each one during a 'late-night rehearsal.' Each one ruled an accident within hours."

Marcus's spine straightened. Instinct.表演训练. The posture of a man who'd spent decades performing confidence he didn't feel.

"I don't know what you're talking about." His voice steadied. Theatrically precise. "The smoke hasn't cleared yet, Miss Vance."

She slammed photographs onto his makeup table. Playing cards scattered like dry bones. Three black-and-white glossies, face-up. Three crime scenes.

Marcus stared. His breath hitched.

Fontaine dangling from a studio rig. Rosetti submerged in a water tank. Chen impaled on a prop fence. Each death staged with the precision of Marcus's own illusions. His signature flair. His impossible angles.

"The smoke hasn't cleared?" Eleanor's voice rose in pitch. Sharp. Biting. "Mr. Webb, you're the one who lit the fire."

She pulled a notebook from her purse. Flipped it open. Dates filled every page. Timeline. Deaths. Acquisitions. Titan Studios swallowing smaller production companies one funeral at a time.

"Fontaine's studio. Acquired by Sterling three days after the hanging." She tapped the page. "Rosetti's lot. Sterling signed the papers before her body was cold."

Marcus's gaze fixed on the photographs. His illusions. His creations. Used to kill.

The prop guillotine blade gleamed from the corner of his table. Truth cuts both ways. And Marcus had been sharpening it for fifteen years without noticing the blood.

"Your ring." Eleanor pointed. "You keep polishing it. Like it's a shield. Like it protects you."

Marcus looked down. The gold signet ring. Integrity. The virtue he'd betrayed every day he stayed silent about what he saw in this town.

"I know what Sterling does." His voice cracked. The performer's mask slipped. "I've always known."

The trunk sat open behind him. His escape to Chicago, to anonymity, to a life without mirrors. Eleanor stepped closer. Her spectacles caught the light. Reflected a thousand terrified versions of Marcus Webb.

"You can leave." She pulled another photograph from her purse. A younger woman's face. Clara Vance. Eleanor's sister. "Or you can help me stop him before the next performer dies."

Marcus checked his pockets. Felt the train ticket. The Chicago departure was in three hours.

The smoke hadn't cleared. It had just begun.