“It was old,” Tomas said. “That made it vulnerable. But the hinge didn’t loosen itself overnight. Someone worked on it.”
“Could they have done that while we were at the library event?”
“Possibly. Nobody passing on the street would have noticed.”
“Could it have happened before this week?”
“Yes. I can’t give you a date just by looking.”
Mara appreciated his refusal to guess. It was a small relief to hear an adult admit there were things he could not know. He left the box with Priya and promised to return when permission was given.
After he departed, Mara received a text from an unknown number. It was only one sentence: You’re making the ending worse by refusing to play.
She showed it to Priya and forwarded it to Holt. There was no demand attached, no number she recognized. She felt the immediate urge to type back that nobody had consented to Simon’s game. Instead she put the phone facedown on the table. The message was designed to provoke a reaction. Her silence could be its own answer.
“You look calmer,” Priya said.
“I’m not calm. I’m deciding what deserves a response.”
Priya put on her coat. “Then let’s go talk to the people who can actually stop him.”
In the car, passing shop windows lit for the evening, Mara thought of the boy who had asked whether stories became real when enough people repeated them. He had understood a danger she had dismissed with a pretty answer. A story could teach courage or invite cruelty. It could make someone hurry toward a stranger in distress. It could also persuade an elderly woman to pick up a brick. The difference lay not in how compelling the storyteller sounded, but in what the storyteller asked other people to do.
Mara looked at the roadside houses sliding past. Behind their curtains were dinners, arguments, homework, birthdays, and quiet rooms where nobody expected an audience. Those lives existed outside any script. Whatever happened in the warehouse, she intended to keep that fact clear.
Chapter Eight: The Preview
At seven forty, an officer drove Mara and Priya to the warehouse, not as guests but because Mara had agreed to identify materials belonging to the library and confirm which photographs had been used without permission. Holt was already there, speaking with Celia beside a stack of rolled carpets.
Arcadia’s main hall resembled a miniature street. Its facades had painted doors, imitation brickwork, and porch steps leading nowhere. Soft music drifted from concealed speakers. A ceiling projector cast clouds across a false evening sky. It was ingenious craftsmanship, and Mara felt an unwanted admiration before remembering what it had cost other people.
A row of chairs held eight invited visitors. They looked confused rather than excited. Two were local business owners. Another was a woman in a cream jacket who kept checking her watch. Holt had told them the private event was suspended pending an investigation, but several wanted to know why.
