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everything he did for me, how much I loved him. But as always, a terrible fear of ruining our friendship—the most important thing in the world to me—held me back.
    Letting out a quiet sigh, I unlocked my car. I was about to say some parting words to JT when Cameron swore loudly, his voice slicing through the cold night air.
    “What’s wrong?” JT called to him.
    Instead of responding, Cameron swore again, stepping away from the back of JT’s truck, one hand running through his hair, his every move agitated.
    JT jogged across the parking lot toward him. Still holding my violin, I locked the car door before following after him. The tailgate of JT’s truck was down, but I assumed Cameron had lowered it, until JT took one look in the back of the truck and echoed Cameron’s cursing.
    “What’s going on?” I asked as I stepped closer so I could see into the covered bed of the truck.
    “Everything’s gone.” JT was more bewildered than I’d seen him in a long time.
    I took in the sight of the empty truck bed. He was right. Whatever equipment he and Cameron had stored there was gone, not even a single cable left behind.
    “But how?” I asked, my stomach sinking.
    “Did you lock it the last time you were out here?” JT directed the question at Cameron.
    “I thought I did but . . . I must not have.” Cameron looked as though he might be sick.
    JT checked the tailgate. “There’s no sign that the lock was jimmied.”
    Cameron swore again. “I’m so sorry, man.”
    JT didn’t respond, and I knew he had no idea what to say. I could tell from his expression that he was still shocked by the theft. He’d not only lost hundreds—maybe even thousands—of dollars’ worth of equipment, he needed that equipment to finish the job at the theater.
    I put a hand on his back. “We should tell the police.”
    Still dazed, JT nodded.
    I took his arm and led him back down the alley to the stage door. Cameron followed several feet behind us, not saying a word. By the time we’d reentered the theater, JT had recovered enough to shake himself out of his daze. He approached Constable Ryan and told him what had happened.
    While JT spoke with the police officer, my gaze drifted past them, down the hall to where two men in suits were speaking with Olivia Hutchcraft. As I watched, the two men showed her their identification and Olivia put one hand to her throat, clearly upset. Even though I couldn’t see the men’s identification from my vantage point, I didn’t doubt for a second that they were police detectives.
    Would they have arrived on the scene even if Fred hadn’t found blood on his hammer? Or had the focus of the investigation shifted from a routine review of what was believed to be an accident to a possible homicide case?
    I knew it would take time for the police to find out if the blood on the hammer belonged to Pavlina, but I wondered if the investigators had found any other signs that pointed toward murder. As that thought wandered through my head, a man and a woman dressed in crime scene coveralls appeared from the direction of the women’s washroom and caught the detectives’ attention.
    The two men in suits excused themselves from their conversation with Olivia and moved farther down the corridor to join their colleagues. I wished I could overhear what they were saying, to know what they’d discovered by examining Pavlina’s body and the scene of her death, but I couldn’t hear a single word.
    Disappointed, I returned my attention to JT and his predicament. Sympathy for my best friend and anger at the unknown thieves battled for dominance inside of me. A flicker of annoyance at Cameron also made an appearance, but I did my best to extinguish it when I saw how upset he was. He’d made a dumb mistake by forgetting to lock the truck, but it was a mistake anyone could have made.
    Still, I worried about the effect the theft would have on JT, especially while he waited for his insurance claim to be