Logan crawled out from underneath the runway and stood, brushing off his pants. He'd spent almost three hours checking to ensure it was safe and was now sure it was. He hadn’t planned on it taking that long to check, but it was so big and had so many areas that could be messed with he'd had no choice but to go over every inch of it.

The place was abuzz around him with everyone getting the area ready for the show. The wait staff were placing the crisp linens over the various tables scattered around to hold the food and swag bags. There were some people placing flowers all over the place, and another person was carving an ice sculpture for the middle of where the buffet was to be set up.

The maintenance crew was hard at work setting up and wiping down all the chairs as well as setting up the outdoor bars for the after-party. Logan scanned the whole area intently, looking for any signs of something, or someone, that looked out of sorts. He didn’t see anything unusual, which made him even more suspicious and on high alert.

He decided to go find Ben, to see if he could figure out what kind of cigarettes he smoked. He also wanted to speak to George and find out where he'd been when the fire started. He figured the two of them would be working together today. Hmm, could they both be in on this together? He hadn’t thought about the possibility of two people working together to do these things, but anything was possible.

Veronica interrupted his train of thought as she yelled his name from down the hallway and hurried over to him, a worried look on her face.

“Have you figured out who it is yet? Have you seen anything?” she asked him in a low tone, looking around as she did so.

“Nothing yet. I did check out the runway, and it’s safe. So, no worries there at least.”

“That’s good.” Veronica didn’t sound as happy as Logan assumed she would be.

“It took almost three hours to do it.”

“I’m sorry, I mean that is great. Really. I’m nervous about this person doing something really crazy today, and to make things even worse, I can’t find Gertie. She left for an interview hours ago and I haven’t been able to get hold of her since. It’s totally not like her to just disappear on me.”

Logan ran his hands through his thick dark hair. Veronica was right, Gertie going MIA was completely out of character. He knew Gertie liked to be on top of things here, and that usually meant she was always hovering around.

“Where have you checked for her?” He took his phone out and called Gertie.

“Well, I called and texted her a bunch of times, looked in her office, asked Myrtle if she'd seen her and told her to keep an eye out for her. Oh, and I asked Harper to go look for her. Wait. That was over an hour ago and I haven’t heard back from her, either.”

Logan put his phone back in his pocket, his call to Gertie going to her voicemail. Learning both women were missing told him something was really wrong. He didn’t want Veronica to know he now considered both Gertie and Harper might be in danger, that would only cause her to panic.

“I’m sure they are both fine, maybe Harper found Gertie and they are just in the middle of something for the show. You know how Gertie gets when she is busy, so focused she doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Yeah, I guess. But—”

“I know you have a ton to do right now. I will take care of finding them, okay? I’ll check back with you as soon as I do,” Logan said to Veronica reassuringly, relieved when she agreed with him and went on her way.

He immediately rushed to the back of the building where the runway was, hoping to catch the setup crew. He knew Noah, Ben, and George were all involved with setting things up, and he also knew one of them had to be in on whatever was going down. This guessing game would end right now, he was determined to find out who was causing all the problems. And Ben was first on his list.

“You okay? Looks like something’s wrong, with the way you just rushed in here. There’s not another fire is there?”

Logan turned to see Noah looking at him, holding one of the dozens of chairs he was setting out for the guests. He didn’t want to blow his cover, so he took a deep breath and tried to think fast.

“Nah, nothing’s wrong. I’m just trying to get through checking all the computers, to make sure they are all set for the show.”

“Yeah, sorry, I can’t help you with that. I don’t know jack about computers.”

“It’s good, I’m almost done anyway. I was craving a cigarette and came out here because I thought Ben might be here. He smokes Camels, right? Non-filters? I left mine in my car I guess.”

Noah looked at him, his eyes narrowing as if he were trying to remember.

“Yeah, I think he does smoke those. Actually, he’s over there smoking right now I think.” He jerked his head towards the smoking area.

Logan thanked him and left, picking his pace up to get to the smoking area. He could see Ben and George standing and talking, each of them smoking. He paused for a moment just to watch them, neither one seemed to be in a rush or in fear of being watched. They weren’t standing close to each other and whispering or looking around cautiously. They looked like two employees taking a smoke break.

As he approached the two of them they turned quickly towards him, both with guilty looks on their faces and exchanging glances quickly. Logan could tell they'd been talking about something they didn’t want him to overhear.

“How’s everything going?” he asked them.

“Good. We’re just taking a quick break and will be back to setting up again in five minutes,” George replied quickly, taking a long drag on his cigarette afterwards.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to babysit you two. But I do have a question I need answered.” Logan looked directly at Ben as he spoke, his eyes staring intently and not blinking once. He'd learned to do this when he was a cop, it always seemed to help get the importance of what he was about to say across.

Ben shifted uncomfortably, and Logan leaned in closer towards him, still not breaking eye contact.

“Why did you lie?”

“Huh? What are you talking about, what did I lie about?” Ben looked at George and shrugged his shoulders.

“The other day, when I saw you walking away from the alley you told me you had been smoking over there, but that’s on the other side of the building. The smoking area is here, obviously.” Logan took in the body language of Ben and George as he said this, noting they both exchanged nervous glances and shifted on their feet.

“Is that a Camel non-filter?” Logan asked, pointing to the cigarette in Ben’s hand.

“Yeah, so?” Ben replied as he held the cigarette up and looked at it.

“So? So where were you when the fire started?” Logan asked him.

“What? Why would you ask me that? Who do you think you are, a cop?” Ben asked in an annoyed tone, standing up a little straighter than he'd been.

“Why were you in the staging room the other night? And where were you coming from the day I saw you out on the loading dock?”

“What are you trying to get at?” George asked gruffly.

“What I’m getting at is your buddy Ben here has been screwing around with things, causing issues for Gertie. And, you might be doing it too. In fact, you were the only one not accounted for during the fire.”

Logan nodded his head as he saw them both move nervously after he made his statement, the two of them looking at each other.

“That’s right, I’d be nervous too if I were you. And, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll spill the beans right now and tell me what’s going on. If you speak up now I can help you both, otherwise, all bets are off and you’re on your own.” Logan stepped closer to them as he said this, and he could sense their panic. Their facial expressions gave them away.

“Okay! Alright already! I lied about smoking that day. Yes, I smoke. But that’s not where I had been coming from when I saw you. I was feeding the homeless. I sneak food to them,” Ben said.

“What?” Logan asked incredulously, not prepared for the explanation Ben had just given him.

“Uh yeah, that’s also why I wasn’t around when the fire alarms went off that day. I was taking food to them. The homeless people, I mean,” George chimed in.

Logan stared at the two of them, at a loss for words.

“We sneak the food out of the kitchen. That’s where I was when the fire started, the kitchen. I was getting it together to give to George. We only use the food that’s going to be thrown away, though. We didn’t think anyone would mind, but if it’s that big of a deal then—”

“You were in the kitchen when the fire started?” Logan asked as he cut Ben off.

“Yes. You can ask that new chef lady, Sarah, if you don’t believe me. She was helping me out because her brother was homeless before and she knows how hard they have it.”

“Does anyone else here smoke Camel non-filters?” Logan asked. He'd already determined after years of questioning suspects these two weren’t guilty of anything aside from feeding the homeless.

“Um, what? I’m not sure. Not too many people that work here smoke besides us two. One of the servers, Christina, does, but she smokes those long brown cigarette things,” Ben said, making a face.

“What about Noah?” Logan asked.

“No, Noah doesn’t smoke,” they both said in unison.

“I’m pretty sure I saw him out here before, though.” Logan looked back and forth between Ben and George.

They both shrugged, and Ben tossed his cigarette down, grinding it out with his heel.

“Well he’s never joined us to smoke. As far as I know, he doesn’t smoke at all. And we see him a lot during the day. So, are we in trouble for the food, we will cover the cost.”

Logan wasn’t hearing a word Ben was saying, he was too busy putting new clues together. Ben had just stubbed out his cigarette with his foot. Like everyone else who smoked did. Yet, when he'd seen Noah the other day, he'd been leaning over to put his cigarette out with his hands. Except that wasn’t what he'd been doing, that’s what Logan had assumed he'd been doing.

What he'd really been doing was picking one up. He'd picked up one of Ben’s cigarette butts and there could only be one reason for him to do that. He wanted to frame Ben for the fire. And there’s only one reason he would want to do that. Noah had been the culprit all along.