Chapter 62: What Peter Chose to Say
Peter eventually agreed to release a short written statement about the Lantern Room incident.
He wrote it with his attorney and insisted on reading every sentence aloud before approving it.
The statement explained that he had left the theater through an unsecured service route at age ten.
It noted that surviving records raised serious questions about the supervision and safety procedures in place that night.
It did not identify the person who told him his father was outside because that person’s identity remained unknown.
It asked Westbridge and future producers not to use his childhood disappearance as entertainment without his consent.
Peter also said he would not participate in speculative reenactments.
The statement was fewer than three hundred words.
Several reporters asked for interviews anyway.
He declined them.
One local journalist published the statement in full and described the disputed company records without inventing an ending to the unsolved question.
That article mattered to Peter more than a dramatic documentary would have.
People finally had a chance to read his words without a performer standing in for him.
Harriet sent a handwritten note through the attorney.
She thanked him for allowing her statement to become part of the record and apologized again for the monitoring failure.
Peter kept the note but did not answer immediately.
Victor offered to meet him in person.
Peter declined politely and said he might reconsider later.
He was learning that a person could accept evidence without accepting every invitation to relive it.
June worried that his refusal to talk publicly would allow Bell’s version to survive.
Peter understood the concern.
“People can believe whatever they want,” he told her.
“I don’t have to spend my life proving I was frightened for a reason.”
June looked at him for a long time.
Then she apologized for treating his silence as another problem to solve.
They finished the cabinet door they had abandoned during the first week of the investigation.
The hinge finally closed without scraping.
Peter laughed at the small success.
There had been a time when even laughter in that apartment led somebody back to the old theater.
That afternoon, it was only laughter.
Chapter 63: The Workshop With Windows
By late autumn the garden behind Elena’s house had settled into a pattern of shorter days and wet leaves.
The workshop’s shelves held tools, paints, and labeled jars of screws.
The patched wall looked slightly different in the evening light, but Elena had decided not to hide the repair beneath a display cabinet.
It reminded her that she had been allowed to investigate her own property on her own terms.
Tess visited with a housewarming gift wrapped in brown paper.
Inside was a small brass door handle salvaged from a demolished theater office.
Tess had bought it legally from an architectural salvage store, and she included the receipt as a joke about their recent obsession with ownership.
Elena laughed and held it against the workshop door.
“It doesn’t fit,” she said.
“Then put it on a drawer,” Tess replied.
Peter arrived with June carrying an old side table that needed a new leg.
He explained that the table had belonged to his father and that he wanted to repair it rather than leave it in storage.
Elena agreed to help him learn the process.
They spent the afternoon measuring the damaged wood and choosing a replacement piece.
No one mentioned Bell until June’s phone vibrated with a news alert.
A civil claim had been filed concerning Westbridge’s financial representations and unpaid contractor bills.
The article also stated that investigators continued reviewing the old safety documents.
It did not announce arrests or a final verdict.
Elena asked whether Peter wanted to read it.
He shook his head.
“Not today,” he said.
They returned to the table.
Tess showed him how to test the new leg against the uneven floor.
June made coffee and opened the back door for air.
The ordinary sounds of their work filled the room.
Elena looked down at the doorway symbol on her arm.
Lorraine had mistaken it for a sign of secret loyalty.
Bell had treated it as something that could be borrowed for a story.
Tess had designed it to help people find an exit when the obvious route failed.
Elena finally understood why she had chosen it long before she knew its history.
A door was useful because someone could decide to walk through it.
She lowered her sleeve, picked up the sanding block, and returned to the workbench.
END OF PART SEVEN
