Willa was no longer missing. She had gone to the police station herself shortly after midnight and admitted breaking Mara’s window. She repeated her explanation about being threatened, identified the man as Simon Rusk, and described meeting him outside Arcadia Rooms. Holt confirmed that Rusk was listed as the company’s creative director. She did not promise that Willa would escape consequences for the damage.

“She knows she broke the law,” Holt said. “She also believes she was stopping an immediate threat. We’re sorting those facts out separately.”

Mara appreciated the distinction. She could not forgive the brick simply because a more frightening person might have arranged it. But she was beginning to understand why an anxious woman would do something reckless when she felt nobody would listen.

Alma located the library tablet under a stack of discarded craft materials. It was locked, but the account was still signed into the photo album. Several newly uploaded pictures had come from the device, even though it had supposedly been in storage. The most recent files were stamped with dates and times that did not match the library’s opening hours.

The library’s caretaker said someone from Arcadia had collected a forgotten lighting stand on Tuesday. Alma remembered opening the side entrance for him. She could not recall whether he had carried anything out except the stand.

“I gave him access to the craft room,” she admitted. “For five minutes.”

Holt arranged to inspect the library with Alma and sent a separate officer to speak with Arcadia’s owner. Mara wanted to join them, but Holt asked her to wait. Instead she and Priya studied the promotional material available publicly on Arcadia’s site.

The Lost Room was advertised as an experience without actors. Guests would enter a small fictional neighborhood and piece together a child’s disappearance from photographs, household objects, and unexpected messages. It promised a surprise ending that would change the way players looked at ordinary doors.

Priya frowned at the wording. “That’s a story concept, not a game description.”

Mara pointed at a photograph of a fake living room set. There was an old orange armchair, a crooked painting, and a small window in the background. Beside the window stood a red wagon.

“There,” she said.

The wagon in the photograph was identical to the one that had briefly appeared beside Mara’s garden shed. But the stage room was inside Arcadia’s warehouse. Why transport a simple prop to Mara’s yard and photograph it there?

Priya enlarged a second image, showing players reading cards beside a cardboard house. Across one card was printed the phrase IF THE ROOM IS EMPTY, OPEN THE WRONG DOOR.

“Maybe they were testing their game on real houses,” she said.