Chapter 13: A Conversation Between Shelves

Lorraine walked straight toward their table.
Her eyes moved from Peter’s face to the photographs spread before him.
“You shouldn’t have brought those here,” she said.
Peter closed the program without standing.
“You told my parents you hadn’t seen me after rehearsal.”
Lorraine glanced at Elena.
“This is a private matter.”
“It stopped being private when you damaged my house,” Elena replied.
A librarian looked up from the circulation desk.
Lorraine lowered her voice but did not retreat.
“You think a tattoo makes you part of something you don’t understand.”
Elena pushed her sleeve above her elbow.
“I drew this symbol after a theater emergency in Colorado.”
“I know,” Lorraine said.
The answer startled Elena more than a denial would have.
“How could you know that?”
Lorraine looked briefly toward Peter.


“Because I searched for you after I saw the mark.”
“You recognized it before you searched,” Elena said.
Lorraine pressed her lips together.
Peter placed the photograph of the painted scenery between them.
“Who told me to take the side corridor?”
Lorraine stared at the picture.
“You were never supposed to go through there.”
Peter leaned forward.
“Then why was there a painted arrow?”
Lorraine reached for the photograph, but Peter moved it out of her grasp.
“You need to stop,” she whispered.
“Someone could get hurt.”
Elena asked whether Lorraine was threatening them.
“I’m trying to tell you that the building was wrong,” Lorraine said.
“The building was wrong before any of us understood it.”
The librarian approached and asked them to keep their voices down.
Lorraine stepped away from the table.


At the end of the aisle, she turned once more.
“Ask June why she built a room nobody was allowed to enter.”
Then she left through the side entrance.

Chapter 14: The Technical Director

Elena called Officer Shah from the library parking lot.
She reported Lorraine’s appearance and repeated the conversation as accurately as she could.
Shah advised her to document any further contact and avoid entering the workshop alone.
Peter remained beside Elena while she made the call.
When it ended, he admitted that he had never heard Lorraine speak so openly about the theater.
“She always said I had imagined the corridor,” he said.
“Today she admitted it existed.”
Elena suggested finding June Kessler before drawing conclusions.
Peter knew that June now lived in a small town outside Dayton.
He had discovered her address years earlier but never contacted her.
Elena asked why.
“I was afraid she would tell me I remembered everything wrong,” he said.
They drove separately and met outside June’s upholstery shop that afternoon.
The shop occupied the ground floor of a narrow brick building.
A bell sounded when Elena opened the door.
An older woman appeared from behind a curtain carrying a length of blue fabric.
She looked at Peter for several seconds before recognizing him.
“You grew up,” June said quietly.
Peter nodded.
“I did.”
June set down the fabric and invited them into a workroom.
Elena introduced herself as the new owner of the Hartwell property.
June’s expression changed at the mention of the workshop.
“Did they finally sell it?” she asked.
“Yes,” Elena said.
“Someone has been changing the door and floor.”
June gripped the back of a chair.
“Then the old storage system is still there.”