Chapter 10 - TRICK OR TREAT, WITHOUT A MASK
The next Halloween, Sabrina hung eleven deliberately wilted black roses over the entrance to a building that had once been scheduled for demolition.
The Playhouse Annex had not become a pristine monument. Its bricks still bore scars. Some rooms remained closed for stabilization, and protective barriers marked the areas under continuing structural repair. But one rehearsal hall had reopened after a long preservation process, and the old northern passage had been documented, protected, and incorporated into an exhibition about what happened when safety warnings were ignored.
The new community program did not carry the Duca name.
It was called Open Door Arts.
Sabrina liked that name more every time she said it.
The project was governed by a nonprofit board that included former participants, families affected by the fire, local arts educators, and independent financial oversight. Duca Holdings had contributed funds under a negotiated agreement, but no Duca family member controlled the programming or the history on the walls.
That, Beatrice had said, was the first condition of accepting any money at all.
The criminal cases were still moving through the courts. Anton's attorneys contested the evidence; prosecutors continued reviewing the financial records and the alleged suppression of reports. There would be hearings, perhaps trials, perhaps appeals. Sabrina had learned not to confuse a headline announcing an arrest with justice accomplished.
But the door remained open.
She stood on a ladder adjusting a strand of silver webbing when Josie came into the rehearsal hall carrying three bags of battery lights.
“I've spent the last year watching you climb ladders,” Josie announced. “Every time you do, I expect a rich man to materialize and offer to buy the building so you won't fall.”
“Then keep watching. I love disappointing people.”
Josie looked around the hall. “Walter would have driven everyone insane today.”
“He'd be measuring every light.”
“And he'd say our fog machine is too enthusiastic.”
“He would say the fog machine has no artistic restraint.”
They smiled at one another.
For the first time, the thought of him here didn't feel like being cut open. It felt like a door creaking gently on a familiar hinge.
The evening's celebration was free. Local children had painted the backdrop. Their costumes ranged from elaborate handmade dragons to last-minute ghosts with athletic shoes visible beneath the sheets. A row of cardboard tombstones lined the entrance, each bearing silly epitaphs written by the teenagers in Sabrina's workshop.
A small exhibit showed photographs of the 1998 youth program, including one of Lenora Duca standing beside Walter with the paint roller. Families had approved the display and contributed stories, not just names and dates. The people lost in the fire were remembered as dancers, parents, teachers, neighbors—not only victims of a legal dispute.
Sabrina's company had been paid fairly to design the event. The invoice came from the independent arts board and would be processed through an accountant who asked irritating questions about every line item.
Sabrina considered that a beautiful arrangement.
At six forty-five, Adrien arrived through the main entrance carrying a box of cupcakes from a bakery on the corner.
He wore a charcoal coat, no mask, and an expression of carefully managed uncertainty.
“What is that?” Sabrina asked, pointing to the cupcakes.
“A contribution.”
“To the party?”
“To the children who threatened to grade my cardboard work last winter.”
“You know they will.”
“Yes. I'm prepared to fail honestly.”
Sabrina took the box and set it beside the dessert table. Over the past year he had learned a great deal about showing up without taking over. She had learned how to accept kindness without assuming it came with a bill. Neither lesson had been quick.
Their first dinner had been at a modest Italian restaurant chosen by Sabrina because the owners knew Josie's grandmother. Adrien had come alone, ordered soup, and listened while she described a client who wanted an indoor snowfall without moisture, paper, or visible equipment. She had laughed so hard at his practical questions that the waiter returned twice to check on them.
There had been more dinners after that. Some good. Some complicated. There had also been arguments, because neither of them was designed to become easy company simply through affection.
Sabrina had once walked out of a restaurant when Adrien made a decision about a security escort without consulting her. He apologized and changed the arrangement. Another time she refused to speak to him for a day because he described a damaging business decision as “necessary” when he meant “convenient.” He corrected the word, then the decision.
He did not turn into a harmless man. His work remained subject to scrutiny, and some of the people he had once regarded as partners were no longer in his life. His father’s role in suppressing the fire report remained painful to acknowledge publicly. Sometimes grief made him withdrawn. Sometimes her own independent streak made ordinary compromise feel like a trap. They spoke about those things instead of pretending the attraction between them could erase them.
That was new for both of them.
Now he watched Sabrina climb down the ladder and inspected the silver webbing overhead.
“The left corner is a quarter inch lower,” he said.
She stared at him. “I'm going to put that on your gravestone.”
He laughed, and a teenage volunteer at the table nearby looked up in surprise at the warm sound.
The guests began arriving just after seven.
Naomi Flores came with her daughters. Lena Morrow, wrapped in a bright orange scarf, accepted a seat near the exhibit and told children stories about the old program. Beatrice stopped by after court and immediately checked whether the accessibility ramp had been installed to code. Patricia Okafor sent a flower arrangement from the Blackthorn Hotel and a handwritten note thanking Sabrina for refusing to abandon an old building full of inconvenient history.
Miles ran the lighting desk with the confidence of a man who had rebuilt it twice. Candace arranged dried branches in enormous clay pots. Rory, now preparing to finish school, managed the children's craft station. Josie was everywhere at once, wearing a skeleton costume upgraded with velvet sleeves and a ridiculous silver crown.
Sabrina looked at the crowded room and felt a deep, almost disbelieving relief.
The business had survived.
Not because a billionaire paid all its bills. Because her team had adjusted, local clients had hired them, insurance had covered part of the verified damage, and they had learned how to rebuild around work they actually loved. The scars remained in the ledger. But so did the future.
At eight thirty, the event coordinator asked Sabrina to speak for a moment before the lantern walk.
She stood beneath the old stage arch with Walter's restored moon hanging behind her, its paint uneven in ways she had refused to repair.
“When I was little,” she told the room, “my grandfather taught me that the trick to frightening someone on Halloween is making sure they always know there's a way out. Real fear doesn't give you that choice. A good haunted house does.”
Some of the children nodded solemnly, as if she were explaining a rule of magic.
“Tonight is about the children who made art here years ago, the people who refused to let their stories disappear, and everyone who helped open this place again. We don't need to pretend nothing bad happened. We can make something good without lying about what came before.”
She looked toward the photograph of Walter and Lenora.
“And we can keep the exits clear.”
The applause began softly, then grew.
Adrien stood near the back, hands resting loosely at his sides. He did not clap louder than anyone else. Sabrina loved him a little more for that.
The lantern walk moved through the restored corridor, past photographs and children's painted scenery, to the protected display marking the old north door. The exhibit explained the original plan, the unauthorized closure, and the investigative process without reducing the past to a single villain or an easy ending. Several families stopped to read the names twice.
Sabrina stayed beside the doorway after the group moved on.
Adrien returned to her.
“Your grandfather would have been proud,” he said.
She considered the familiar sentence. It was usually offered as an easy kindness, but Adrien had earned the right to say Walter's name with her.
“He'd have complained about the angle of the lanterns.”
“He absolutely would.”
“And then he'd have eaten six cupcakes.”
Adrien glanced down at the box in his hands. “I only have two left.”
“Then you're improving.”
They stood quietly for a moment, looking at the old door now freed from the lie around it.
“Do you ever wish we'd met somewhere else?” he asked.
“Somewhere without forged signatures, a family scandal, and a man trying to steal photographs?”
“That would be my preference.”
She smiled. “I wish we'd met under better circumstances. But I liked you before I knew your name. That part was real.”
He turned toward her. “And now?”
“Now I know your name. I also know your mistakes.”
He waited, not trying to rescue the moment with a joke.
“And I like that you've stopped pretending either can be hidden behind a mask,” she finished.
Adrien took her hand. He did not pull her closer until she stepped forward. Their kiss was brief and warm and had nothing to do with a dramatic promise made in a dark hotel ballroom. It belonged to two people who had chosen to be honest after discovering how difficult honesty could be.
A child interrupted them with a loud theatrical groan.
“Ewww. Grown-ups!”
Sabrina laughed and stepped back. Adrien looked toward the little witch who had caught them, then bowed solemnly as though she'd arrived to inspect his manners.
“My apologies,” he said.
The girl handed him a plastic pumpkin. “Candy tax.”
He reached into his pocket and produced a wrapped chocolate.
“Does this satisfy the authorities?”
She inspected it, nodded, and ran away.
Sabrina shook her head. “You're learning.”
“From demanding teachers.”
At nine, the guests gathered for the final surprise. Sabrina had designed a mirror corridor small enough for children to navigate easily. Every turn contained a lit floor arrow and a plainly visible route back. At the final panel, reflected lights revealed a message across the glass:
YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND A WAY OUT.
The children gasped. Then they laughed and ran through again, no longer afraid, eager to understand the trick.
Adrien watched with Sabrina from the side.
“A crooked panel?” he asked.
“Not a quarter inch,” she said. “Exactly as planned.”
Later, when the volunteers had gone and the last lanterns were being packed away, Sabrina stood in the empty hall beneath the cardboard moon. The room smelled of candle wax, paint, and sugar. Outside, the city moved through another Halloween night.
She thought of the woman she had been one year earlier: exhausted, glitter on her cheek, too-large shoes hurting her feet, walking toward a stranger because the host looked like he had forgotten what a party was for.
That woman had not known how much could be hidden behind a beautiful room. She also had not known how many people would help open it once she refused to look away.
Adrien approached carrying two paper cups of hot chocolate.
“Trick or treat,” he said quietly.
Sabrina turned, remembering the dark mask and the joke that had stolen her prepared response.
She accepted one cup.
“This year,” she said, “you don't get to use the same line.”
He smiled. “Then I'll tell you the truth.”
“Risky.”
“Very.”
He looked around the hall, at the safe exits, the repaired stage, the work of countless hands.
“I don't want to own any of this,” he said. “I only want to be invited back.”
Sabrina took his free hand.
“Then ask nicely.”
May you like
He did.
And for the first time in a long while, the man who once stood by every exit stayed exactly where he wanted to be.
