Dark Places: Long Shadows

Previously:

Crouching down, she examined the area closely and was intrigued to find that there was no mortar between the bricks. With trembling fingers, she eased the topmost brick out and peeked through the resultant hole. Her flashlight caught some kind of brown package, carefully wrapped, and the edges of several other things…

Later that day, she caught up with Honey, just bursting to tell all that had happened. Her friend was interested to hear the latest developments, but expressed her gladness that she had not been there to share in the excitement this time.

“I don’t know what it is, Trix,” she shared, with a shiver, “but ever since that weekend at Grandmother’s house I’ve really felt like staying out of dark places. I don’t have any desire at all to see all these things you’re describing!”

Trixie grinned. “You’ll get over it, Hon. Maybe in a few weeks the work will be finished down there and you can come and see it for yourself. It’s not really that scary.”

Honey shrugged and altered the course of the conversation. “Have you had many responses to the advertisements?”

Shuddering in an exaggerated manner, Trixie nodded. “I think every person who ever set foot in that hotel – and all their relatives – has called me. Half of them don’t know a thing about the place, they just want to try to sell me stuff that we don’t want for a hundred times what it’s worth!”

Intrigued, Honey asked, “What kind of things?”

“Mostly those little cardboard matchbooks,” Trixie answered, digging through her bag to find one. She held out the small folder, printed with the hotel’s name and stylised S logo, along with a drawing of a stylish woman. Flicking it open, she showed that the inside had a picture of the outside of the building. “There were quite a few designs over the years. On the first day the ad ran, someone gave us a whole lot for free. You can look at it; that one was already damaged when I got it. Practically every day since, someone else has called me and offered to sell me some. Some of them get pretty upset when I tell them we don’t want to buy them – especially the ones who think I’ll pay hundreds of dollars for one.”

“One?” Honey squeaked. “One little bit of cardboard like that and they think you’ll pay hundreds of dollars?”

Trixie gave another shudder. “And if you think that’s bad, you should talk to the ones who think they have some secret knowledge of the place that they think I should pay them for. Mostly, it’s just that their father or grandfather told them that there was a speakeasy in the basement, in which case, I know more about it than they do.”

“So, you haven’t gotten anything of value from the ads at all?” Honey asked, disappointed.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Trixie took the matchbook back from her friend and tossed it into her bag. “Some of the things that people have offered have been pretty cool and a few of them have given useful information. There’s one old lady I’ve spoken to who worked in the hotel when she was young and remembers all kinds of things about it. I’m going to go to see her sometime for an interview. Maybe you could come with me.”

Smiling, Honey agreed. “That sounds like fun.”

A couple of days later, the news broke of an overnight police raid on the underground storage facility of a drug syndicate and the successful capture of several suspects. Trixie smiled faintly when she heard. She was glad that she had played a small part in their arrest, but frustrated that there would be no further explorations until the police gave the all-clear.

For the time being, she would have to concentrate on her studies and content herself with speculation. On her copy of the plans of the hotel, she had pencilled in her guess as to the layout of the lowest level, made partly in conjunction with the young engineer. The two had spent part of her long wait discussing the matter and developing opposing theories as to the original purpose of the space Trixie had found, and its relationship to the hotel. His consultation with the surveyor, with whom he had worked several times previously, yielded one snippet of information which had sent Trixie’s mind spinning: if the space was a part of the hotel, then this end of the basement appeared to be around five feet wider than the part which opened up from the hotel itself.

With a thoughtful expression on her face, she traced her pencil in a dotted line along the edge which stood proud. Could there be another hidden passageway? she wondered. Maybe there is something I can do in the meantime. I think a little research is in order.

A visit to the library told her what she wanted to know. After scouring a number of historic maps, Trixie thought she had the solution to the problem. Well, there’s definitely no more subway tunnels near enough, she decided, so, if there’s a connecting passageway to the outside, it has to connect to one of the nearby buildings, and one that was built either before or at the same time as the Stanfield. I guess that means there are two possibilities – but only one of them is still standing. Lucky that one is the more likely of the two. Nodding her head in affirmation of her logic, Trixie determined to ask Mr. Wheeler about the owner of the building directly beside his new acquisition.

“Yes, I know who owns it,” he told her when she called later that evening. “In fact, he’s a friend and fellow investor of mine. I’ll get onto to him right away.” She could hear the satisfaction in his voice as he continued. “I’d certainly be interested to know if your theory is correct. I’m not sure, but it seemed unlikely that the speakeasy had only those two entrances and exits. I was thinking, too, that there should have been some storage space down there to keep the contraband.”

“I’m thinking that’s what that little space under the floor was for,” she agreed. “My guess is that the bricked-up doorway behind the bar opens into a room above it. I think that room also had a hidden passageway out to your friend’s building, and from there to the street.”

“Well, that sounds well-reasoned,” he agreed. “As soon as we get the all-clear, I hope you’ll continue with the physical investigation, to either prove or disprove the theory.”

“Of course, Mr. Wheeler,” she asserted. “Just try keeping me out!”

Later that week, Trixie found an opportunity to tackle Dan on the subject of the subway station. It had seemed as if he was avoiding her, but finally she managed to corner him at his own place one night. Short of physically throwing her out, or running out and leaving her behind, he was stuck with her and she took full advantage of the situation.

“You knew something about the place where I found the drug stuff, didn’t you?” she accused, watching the guarded look on his face turn even colder. “You knew that I might run into drug runners if I went through that door, and you didn’t say anything.”

Instantly, he was angry. “I didn’t know anything. I told you that already. You can’t say I didn’t warn you, though. It’s not my fault if you ignore me. Yes, it’s true that I thought you were walking into danger, but you can’t say I knew what you’d find there. It’s been years since I lived there. Yes, I admit that bad stuff happened down there back then. For all I knew, some of the people I knew might still be there, or it might have been found by someone worse. Whoever you found there would probably be breaking the law, and they wouldn’t be happy to see you on their turf.”

“People you knew?” She pounced on the words. “Bad stuff? What bad stuff, and which people?”

Dan shook his head. “Just bad stuff, okay? I first met Luke down there, if you must know. It was our gang hang-out back then. It’s got bad associations for me and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But why didn’t you say something about your suspicions?” she persisted. “Maybe the drug dealers could have been caught quicker if you’d said something earlier. Think how many lives they’ve ruined.”

“The police don’t act on guesses,” he pointed out, a glimmer of a smile appearing on his lips. “You, of all people, should know that.”

With a rueful smile, she nodded. “You still could have told me what you suspected.”

He shook his head. “I thought I’d credit you with enough intelligence to figure that out for yourself. Are you telling me I need to reconsider my assessment?”

Punching him playfully on the arm, she shook her head. “Don’t go there, Dan.”

“That’s what I kept telling you,” he quipped, punching her back. “You just don’t seem to listen.”

“Okay, I get the idea now.” The smile faded from her face. “In future, though, forget assessments of my intelligence and give me the tip, right? I’d rather you think I was dumb than find out how dumb I am for myself.”

“Deal,” he agreed. A wicked smile appeared on his face. “So, does this hold for everything, or just mysteries?”

Trixie gave him another punch, much harder this time. “Don’t push your luck!”

Finals were closing in on Trixie when she had the opportunity to explore once more, but she could not resist the temptation and took a couple of hours off her studies to make time. The doorway behind the bar was being reopened and she really wanted to be there to see it happen. Reaching the hotel, she signed in, donned her hard hat and slung her ear protection around her neck before heading inside. The apartment from which they had originally accessed the speakeasy stood open and she entered to find it stripped bare. The door to the secret stairway was open, emitting the sound of some power tool, and she quickly plugged her ears, put on her safety glasses and headed down.

At the bottom of the stairs, she found that work had already begun, but that there was no visual access to the other side of the doorway yet. She watched impatiently as a hefty man took his time on deciding exactly where to make the final cut with the water-cooled diamond brick-cutting saw. The noise of the machine filled the room and threatened to shake down the dust of decades from hidden crevices. It did its work quite quickly, though, and soon the room fell into comparative quiet once more. The workmen began removing the cut-out bricks. Moments later, an opening appeared.

Trixie took a step or two forward, wanting to see what was beyond, but not wanting to get in the way. Eager as she was, she could not help but glance over her shoulder towards the stage, almost expecting to see someone there. Shaking her head to rid herself of the notion, she turned her attention to the doorway once more. One of the workers, whom she had befriended previously, saw her and ushered her forward. “Hold off a minute while she takes a look,” he directed the hefty man.

Grateful for the opportunity, Trixie took a long look around the revealed room before moving back and letting the workers continue. The long wall to the right was lined with heavy-duty shelves, so substantial and so close-fitting that they were probably original to the building. The long wall to the left and the shorter end wall were fairly bare, and there was no sign of another doorway. The floor was partly covered with debris from the demolition, and no sign of a trapdoor was in evidence.

It did not take the workers long to completely clear the doorway and remove the fallen brickwork. The engineer was satisfied that the original lintel over the door was in good enough condition to make the area safe, so Trixie was free to explore to her heart’s content.

Her first priority was to find the opening into the space below, but at first the room’s bare floor offered no clue. Its hard, brown surface showed the signs of many years’ wear, but little else. Finding a broken edge near the newly reopened doorway, Trixie scrabbled at it with her fingers, trying to pull it up. The same worker who had indulged her curiosity earlier offered some assistance.

“You need that pulled up?” he asked, grabbing a tool. “Let me do that for you.”

The brown stuff turned out to be ancient linoleum, which cracked and split as the man stripped it off. To Trixie’s delight, a trapdoor was clearly visible underneath. In a flash she had lifted it and confirmed that her first theory was correct. To one side, the newly-repaired brickwork was evident. The former contents had been removed.

“That’s great,” Trixie announced, dropping the lid back into place and dusting her hands. “Now, how would they get out of here?”

She frowned at the space around herself, trying to imagine the layout. Earlier investigations had already proven that a corridor ran along the back of this room, connecting the subway entrance to the main part of the basement that they had examined on the first day. There was no room between the boarded-up doorway and this wall for anything else. It was also plain to see that this room was the same length on the inside as it appeared on the outside. The secret passageway, if there was one, must open out of the wall with the shelves.

Frowning even more deeply, she tried to picture how you would access a secret passage hidden behind shelves of heavy articles. Turning back toward the doorway, something caught her eye. There was a narrow space at the end of the room nearest the doorway, carefully concealed with a panel. A small amount of manipulation opened it, revealing a cavity and a well-worn handle.

Trixie pulled on the handle, gingerly at first and then with increasing strength. To begin with, it seemed to do nothing, no matter which way she pulled. Suddenly, whatever had been holding out gave way and a whole section of shelving moved along a few inches and clicked into place. Mouth dropping open, Trixie gently touched the shelves and found that they now swivelled.

Her friend the workman stepped up behind her with an appreciative whistle. “Nice work,” he told her. Walking over to examine the second bay of shelves, he found that it could be shifted along and swivelled also. Turning the wall section all the way around, he showed her another set of shelves just the same. He let out a laugh. “Now that’s good thinking. When there’s a raid, you pile all your best stock here and switch the wall around. You keep all your legal stuff on the other side and that’s all the G-men would find when they raided.”

Trixie smiled to see him appreciating the ingenuity of those long-gone smugglers, but turned her attention to the black void she had revealed. Her heart beat faster as she switched on her flashlight and shone it into the recess. She let out a soft sigh of relief as she saw the passage stretching away to her right. A stern voice behind her almost caused her to drop the light in fear.

“You’re not thinking of going in there alone, are you?”

Trixie turned to find Mr. Jackson, the project manager. “No, sir,” she replied, meekly. “I was just taking a little look.”

The older man smiled. “Well, how about if I come with you so you won’t be on your own,” he offered.

With a cheerful nod, Trixie agreed and they set out. To her relief, he let her go first. The passage was dim and dirty, but well-ventilated. Like the speakeasy, it showed not the slightest signs of recent use by anything larger than a rat. True to Trixie’s prediction, it followed a straight course for roughly the length of the building. Stairs ascended from the end of the tunnel, cut off part-way up by a mess of roughly nailed boards.

“I’ll talk to the boss about this,” the project manager promised. “You’ve done a good morning’s work.”

A blush springing to her cheeks, Trixie thanked him and they made their way back.

Later that day, she received a call from Matthew Wheeler. “Good news,” he greeted. “They’ve found the opening at the other end of the passageway and you were right: it does open into the building next door. Better still, I have the owner’s permission for you to access the tunnel from his side once the work on that level is finished. You can pick up the keys from my secretary when it suits you, as well as the latest revision of the building plans. There’s still a mystery or two for you to solve, I think.”

“That’s great, Mr. Wheeler,” she replied, with enthusiasm. “I can’t wait to get down there and have another look around. Does this mean there are still some unaccounted-for spaces?”

“It certainly does,” he confirmed. “A tiny one next to one of the dressing rooms, and a small room between the hidden staircase and the main elevator shaft. They’ve pretty much confirmed that if there’s an opening into it, it must be from the speakeasy.”

“I’ll get onto it as soon as I can,” she promised.

“As soon as you’ve finished with college,” he corrected. “Work on that level will be finished by then, other than the redecorating. Speaking of which, I’m in the process of getting approval to reopen the other doorway and the street entry.”

“Oh!” Trixie cried, suddenly reminded of a point that had puzzled her. “I’d been meaning to ask about that doorway. Where did it go?”

“According to the old records,” he explained, “part of the subway entry actually impinged on the building site and so the hotel was built around the existing stairwell. As part of the deal that the owner made with the railway company, they allowed a doorway to be cut into the adjoining wall to allow direct access from the street to the hotel basement. They ran a corridor along the outside of the speakeasy – with a hidden door to access it – and an ordinary door into another basement restaurant that was where the basement apartments are now. The street entry was sealed off when the station went out of use, which was after the original owner’s death and, presumably, after both the club and the restaurant had closed.” There was a smile in his voice as he added, “So, you’ll promise me to let the matter slide until after finals?”

“Yes, Mr. Wheeler,” she agreed with a groan. “I’ll try to hold out that long.”

“I’ll be in touch if anything else comes up,” he told her and the conversation came to a close.

The very day of her last final, Trixie and Honey went for their interview with the old woman who had responded to the advertisement, a Mrs. Baker. She met them in a coffee shop a few steps from the door of her apartment building. Settling down with a pot of tea and a muffin, she smiled in a friendly manner and invited the two young women to ask her anything they wanted to know.

“First,” Trixie decided, while rearranging her notes, “can we go over what you told me on the phone, please? Let me know if I’ve gotten any of this wrong. You started working at the Stanfield as a maid when you were sixteen, which would have been 1941. You were just about to leave to get married in 1946 when John Stanfield died and you were actually in the hotel when it happened, and you knew one of the men who was on the scene right after Mr. Stanfield died.”

“That’s right,” the old lady confirmed. “Actually, I knew all of the people who worked there, but my late husband was the one who found Mr. Stanfield. Poor Herb, he never really got over it.”

Honey shivered. “What do you mean? Didn’t he just have a heart attack or something?”

Mrs. Baker looked from one young face to the other. “Oh, yes. It wasn’t a messy death, or anything like that. It’s just that…”

“We know about the old speakeasy, and we’ve heard the ghost story, too,” Trixie put in quickly.

“I’m sure you’ve heard some version of it,” the old lady agreed. “I never really believed in the ghost and Mr. Stanfield would never allow any mention of it in his presence – he got terribly angry if even the slightest hint was given, and he had the worst temper I’ve ever come across in a man.” She gave a deep sigh. “They’re all dead and it’s such a long time ago, so I guess I can be plain. Mr. Stanfield died in the secret club – it wasn’t a speakeasy any more, then, because Prohibition had already ended – but Herb didn’t want the police wandering through there, so when the girl ran upstairs and gave the alarm, Herb took it on himself to move the body.”

“And that’s what he never got over?” Kind hearted Honey gently touched the woman’s arm. “That’s terrible.”

“Mr. Stanfield had such a look of horror on his face,” Mrs. Baker continued. “Quite a few people saw him and they all said he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. That’s the main source of the old story, of course. I’m sure he saw nothing of the kind, unless it was a figment of his own imagination.”

“Do you know anything about the original death?” Trixie asked, leaning forward in her eagerness. “That’s the other half of the story.”

“I’m not old enough to have been there back then,” the old lady contradicted with a laugh.

Trixie blushed. “I know that, Mrs. Baker, but you worked there for five years and you must have known some people who had been there for that long, or at least heard some stories.”

A smile creased the elderly face. “Yes, I heard a story or two. Mr. Stanfield would have fired us on the spot if he’d heard us talking about such things, but I think I can recall a thing or two. Right from the first day I started, the other girls warned me not to cross Mr. Stanfield because he had killed a girl who didn’t do as she was told and hidden the body so well that no one could find it. Whenever anything went missing, or guests complained of strange noises, or if things were broken for no earthly reason, someone would say Feathers! – which, I think, started as a code name for the ghost, but by the time I heard it was more of a superstition. And nothing would have convinced any of us girls to go down to the secret club when it was closed, whether we believed in the ghost or not.”

“There’s one thing that’s been bothering me, Mrs. Baker,” Trixie added. “Why did they brick up the doorways to the secret club? The door behind the bar and the door that connected it to the restaurant were bricked up when we found it, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it.”

The old lady sighed. “My poor Herb,” she repeated. “He never told me exactly what had happened – why should he, when I made it clear that I didn’t believe in the ghost – but I guessed most of what happened down there. The night that Mr. Stanfield died, Herb was the night manager of the hotel. He was alone in the lobby when the girl came running up the stairs, screaming at the top of her lungs. He got her calmed down and went to see what was wrong and that’s when he found that Mr. Stanfield was dead. He got another man that he trusted to keep watch while he moved the body to Mr. Stanfield’s office, where he left it until almost morning. Then, he had to go back downstairs and tidy up.”

Mrs. Baker poured herself another cup of tea and stared into the distance as she stirred it. “He was alone down there for a long time, and I think he might have searched and found where the dead girl’s body was hidden, but he never told me where it was. When he was finished down there, he secured the hidden doors and ‘discovered’ Mr. Stanfield’s body. After that, it was business as usual – including in the secret club – while we waited for the ownership to be sorted out. But poor Herb got more and more nervous until one night, just before the hotel was sold, he ordered early closing. He got all of the staff to carry out everything that wasn’t nailed down – chairs and tables, glasses, stock, everything. The next day, he got someone in to block off the downstairs entrance. He knew there had been an old secret passage opening from the room behind the bar, but didn’t know how to open it, so he had that doorway sealed, too. He did something to the upstairs door so that it wouldn’t open and he never would speak of the matter again.”

“But what happened down, there, Mrs. Baker?” Honey asked anxiously. “What did your husband see?”

She took a long sip before answering. “He said something about it once, not long before he died. He told me that he felt haunted by that place, and by that unknown girl. He told me that he’d seen her down there and that ever since he’d felt guilty for not doing something about it and that she’d never rest in peace now. I told him not to be so morbid. I wished I hadn’t, later. It never occurred to me to ask him whether he meant a ghost or a body until it was too late.”

The conversation turned to more domestic matters after that, with Trixie questioning her guest closely on the layout and décor of the hotel in the time she worked there. Satisfied with the afternoon’s work, but feeling weighed down with too much cake, she went for a brisk walk with Honey and discussed the ghost story a little further.

“So, what do you think of that?” Trixie asked, excitedly. “That just about proves that I’m right and that the body is down there somewhere.”

“I am not ever, ever going down there,” Honey vowed. “Not ever!”

“Please, Hon,” Trixie wheedled. “You’ll be fine down there, truly.”

Honey just shook her head.

Two days after her last final, Trixie received an urgent summons to the hotel by Mr. Wheeler with the promise of further work. The two met at the door and he handed her a hard hat before they entered.

“There’s been a new development,” he told her, as they passed through the now-spacious foyer. The mailboxes and beaten-up wall had disappeared, as had the dingy fittings of the apartments beyond. “While they were stripping out some of the apartments upstairs one of the workers accidentally found another hidden space and when they checked, half the rooms on that floor have them.”

“I thought we’d accounted for everything up there,” Trixie mused, eyes shining with the possibilities. “What sort of space are we talking about? Big enough for a person?”

The older man shook his head. “They’re just hidey holes, really. Big enough to keep a few valuables – or a little bit of contraband. The issue really is to do with what we found in one of them. Mostly, it’s just someone’s papers and things that they’ve left behind, but there’s one item among them that has me rather puzzled. We’ve put it all back the way we found it for you to see.”

He guided her up the bare staircase, past piles of rubbish waiting to be removed and onto the floor where Dan had formerly lived. Trixie shivered as her friends’ father led her inside the exact same apartment that Dan had shown them. Her heart beat faster as they approached the spot and Mr. Wheeler fiddled with part of a door frame, a slight frown on his face. Something clicked and a gap appeared along one side of the doorway.

Trixie leaned forward to see what was concealed there, her brow creasing in confusion. With tentative fingers, she extracted the objects there one by one. First, a bundle of papers, curled and yellowed. Spreading them out hastily, she saw that the top page was a birth certificate for an Alan Carter, born in 1968.

“I don’t think those are relevant,” her companion explained, even as she riffled through the pages.

A name caught Trixie’s eye and she pushed the papers back together to avoid it being seen. “If it’s okay,” she mentioned casually, “I’d like to go through them later and make sure. Can I take them with me?”

At Mr. Wheeler’s nod, she set them aside and drew out a large photograph of a middle-aged woman and a boy of about ten or twelve. The abrupt end at one side and the very edge of a sleeve showed that there had once been a third person in the photograph. Putting the photograph with the papers, she reached for a pile of small notebooks held together with a crumpled and frayed piece of ribbon. A glance inside the first revealed pages filled with flowing script. Only a few words were needed to diagnose this as being a woman’s journal. Setting them also aside, she returned to the cavity, to the last remaining object.

The cover of the red book was embossed with a stylised ‘S’, similar to that above the hotel’s front door, and the edges of its pages showed signs of having been gilded. Trixie lifted it out with care and opened it to reveal lists of names, addresses and room numbers. It was the register of this very hotel, and dated from its earliest days.

“I would be very interested to know how that came to be here,” Mr. Wheeler admitted. “I’m also interested in these notations.”

Trixie looked closer at the page where he pointed. One of the names was marked with a faintly pencilled cross in the margin, while another few names had been added in pencil at the bottom of the page. “May I take all of these things to study?” she asked, half-afraid that he would refuse.

“That’s why I brought you here,” he replied. “I’ll keep you informed if we find anything else.”

She nodded and returned her attention to the cavity, to check whether there was anything she had missed. At first inspection, that appeared to be all, and her boss said as much as she put her arm back inside to feel around, but her fingers closed on a small, round object: a ring. On impulse, she hid it in her hand and said nothing.

“Thanks, Mr. Wheeler,” she told him, gathering the rest of the things together. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

Unwilling to wait until she was all the way home before examining her prize, Trixie found a place to eat and settled into a small booth in the back corner. The ring, which she had slipped onto her finger, glinted as she turned her hand back and forth. The large, transparent stone was of a rich golden-brown and cut in an oval shape. She frowned at it slightly. It wouldn’t be my choice, she thought. Screwing it more tightly onto her finger, she turned her attention to the photograph.

They look alike, she decided, without much hesitation. Mother and son, I’d guess, even though she’s dark and he’s fair. She squinted closer, trying to make out more detail. There’s something about her that’s kind of familiar. I wonder who she reminds me of? Try as she would, she could not remember. Neither could she make out anything else of importance. Checking the reverse, there was nothing to see, not even a photographer’s name.

Setting it aside, she read carefully through the bundle of papers. They included two birth certificates, one for Alan Carter, born in 1968 and another, much further down the pile, for Sheena Regan, who was born in 1969. A yellowed newspaper clipping gave stern warnings of the dangers of drug-taking, giving examples of recent deaths, including one unidentified young man who ended up in the river. A second clipping appeared to be an earlier take on the same event and named Sheena Regan, aged 15, as a victim. Neither clipping bore a date or the name of the newspaper from which it had been taken. The other papers were a mish-mash of bills, school reports and miscellanea, most bearing the name of Alan Carter and the remaining few that of Sheena Regan.

Taking a bite of her sandwich, Trixie untied the ribbon, opened the first little notebook and began to read. By the time she had covered a third of the pages, all that she had gained was a sense of the writer’s difficult life and the depression that plagued her. She gathered that the girl lived with an older sister, referred to as R. and the sister’s husband, T. She had a younger brother, B., who lived nearby in a Catholic children’s home. She had a steady boyfriend, A., and Trixie could not help but wonder if he was the Alan Carter of the documents.

A few pages further came an entry that sent chills up Trixie’s spine:

I can’t believe what we’ve done. R. and T. didn’t come home last night, so A. and I went looking. They’re both dead. We pushed T. into the river and just hoped he wouldn’t be found. Then we called the police and told them that R. was me, I was R. and A. was T. If we pull this off, we’ll have to live the rest of our lives as Rowena and Timothy Mangan, but at least we won’t have to worry about being put in a children’s home. The trouble is there’s no way we can go and get B. now. He never could keep a secret and the nuns know we’re not who we’re saying we are. I’m so sorry, Billy. I didn’t think it through before I agreed to this.

The rest of the little book was filled with the girl’s growing regrets, which culminated in the last two entries. The second-last detailed a plan to retrieve her brother from the children’s home and the last told only that he had been moved elsewhere and that she could not find out where he was. Without a pause, Trixie turned to the next little book to take up the story.

She was slightly disappointed. Perhaps Sheena had given up on making journal entries, or perhaps one or two volumes had been lost, because the next oldest entry was dated some five or six years later. A baby had arrived in the meantime, a little boy referred to as D. Times were still hard for the young woman and her family. Tim Mangan, it seemed, had a criminal record. It made it very difficult for the man who had taken his identity to find work. Every so often, one of Tim Mangan’s old associates would cause trouble for the family and they would have to move.

On the positive side, their little boy was healthy and happy. It was still a struggle to make ends meet, but they had a roof over their heads and there was usually enough food on the table. Once in a while, Sheena would mention her continuing fruitless search for her brother. This situation continued for another book’s-worth of entries.

The following notebook held the happy news that Bill Regan had been located in Saratoga. Sheena had been too afraid to actually meet her brother, lest he give away her secret, but she had started writing to him. She was elated that he actually wrote back, not particularly regularly, but often enough that she knew she had a connection with him once more.

Then, mere months after finding her brother, Sheena was visited with tragedy once more. Trixie’s eyes widened as she read the account of Alan Carter’s death. Her food lay on a plate beside her, forgotten. Alan had set up a business for himself as a kind of freelance delivery driver. He had accepted a job delivering some boxes to the town of Korea in Kentucky, but had never made his destination. On the outskirts of the town, a runaway truck had smashed into his van head-on, killing him instantly. Worse, for Sheena, due to the circumstance of Tim Mangan’s record, Alan had found it easier to register a vehicle in his own name. His family, from whom he had been estranged for many years, managed to claim the body before she had a chance to do so. He was buried under his own name, and in another state.

Sheena was then in a desperate situation. She started working two jobs to keep a roof over their heads, but could not work enough without leaving her nine-year-old son alone. Instead, she cut back on non-essentials, thinking that a simple life with loving relations was better than coldness and money. Then, a letter to her brother was returned unopened, with a rude message scrawled across it. For some time, she struggled with the feeling of being completely alone.

Trixie impatiently skimmed a few pages, anxious to find out what happened next. For a couple of years, there was no news. She let out a sigh of relief when she found the entry that told of receiving another letter from Bill, now settled in a new job with the Wheelers. A small smile crossed her face to see this link with her own life.

Not long afterwards, however, things went from bad to worse for the little family. A fire in another part of their building left it too damaged to repair and they needed to move right away. In desperation, she tried to find another place to live and finally found a place in the former Stanfield Hotel. A gasp escaped Trixie’s lips as she read the entry which told of their arrival.

Finally a place to stay! The rent is going to be hard to pay and it’s an even worse dump than the last place, but for now Danny and me are okay. I think I know about this place, though. I kind of remember Dad talking about it. I think he worked here once when it was a hotel and this is the place that story was about. And I think this is the place that old register is for. I know he took it from some place he worked. I just wish I remembered what he said the little marks meant. I know he wanted it kept safe for some reason, but I just can’t remember why.

A few entries later, Sheena recorded some bad news.

A bunch of things are missing after the move. Most of em aren’t that important. Worst is I can’t find Billy’s new address where his boss just moved. I think maybe a bag of our stuff got thrown out by mistake. Trouble is, I can’t remember the name of the town they were going to. I don’t know how to find him and I don’t know how he could find me.

The entries continued for perhaps a dozen pages more, spanning a period of almost a year, then suddenly stopped. Trixie gathered the books together and retied the ribbon around them. Her attention captivated by the other items, she had given the register barely more than a flick through. Remedying this now, she turned the pages, scanning down the names and addresses, but not really knowing what to look for. Her attention was caught on the final page, where a name had been added in pencil, but unlike the other entries, the pressure here had been heavy and the marks slow and deliberate. Alongside the name were a date and a location, but no other clue as to their meaning. Not seeing anything else new, she packed all of the materials away, knowing that the papers were the thing she needed to deal with first. Quickly finishing her meal, she raced outside, determined to speak to Dan as soon as she possibly could.

Less than an hour later, she was pounding on his door. He was slow to answer, despite having promised on the telephone that he would be home to receive her, and she pounded again. Footsteps sounded inside, then the door swung open. He gave her a bemused smile as he greeted her and waved her inside.

“I need some information,” she told him, rushing past him to the sofa and plonking down on it. “What were your parents’ names?”

“What?” he demanded, thrown completely off-balance by the unexpected question. “Why, Trixie? Why do you want to know?”

“I came across something today and I need to know whether to eliminate them from my investigation,” she explained without bothering to conceal her impatience. “So, their names, please.”

“Where did you come across it?” he asked, frowning. “What sort of something?”

“Just answer the question,” she pleaded. “I really need to know.”

Dan scowled at her for a few moments. “Timothy and Rowena Mangan. Mom’s maiden name was Regan.”

Slowly, Trixie let out a breath and shut her eyes. “I just knew it.”