Page 56 of Lovely Darkness

“Hello?” Indie calls. “Are you gonna look at these files, or what?”

I turn to her. “Haven’t you looked at them?”

“Fresh eyes?”

I don’t think we’re gonna find anything in this place, but I go through the motions for Indie’s sake. She wants me to look, I look.

The files are weird. They do give the impression that Donovan was doing some kind of self-hypnosis on himself. But there’s no smokin’ gun or anything. Not even a clue that leads to a next step.

I leave the box and go looking through each room. Most of the rooms are empty, and I don’t find anything of interest in the ones that are not.

Finally, after about thirty minutes, I say, “I don’t see anything. Unless you’ve got something else for me to look at, I think we’re done.”

Nate looks disappointed, but Indie… Indie looks devastated.

“Hey,” I say, directing this to her. “You guys are overreacting. Adam brought Merc here to save Donovan. He’s not giving up on you.”

“Yet,” Indie says.

I’m just about to have a repeat of this same earlier conversation when Wendy says, “What did you say was downstairs?”

“A print shop,” Indie replies.

“Do you have a picture of Donovan?” Wendy asks.

“I’m sure I have one on my phone,” Indie says. “Why?”

“We should show them the picture and ask them if they’ve seen him around.”

“What good will that do?” Nate asks. “It’s not gonna tell us much. We already know this is his place and they won’t know the difference between Donovan and Carter.”

Wendy smiles. It’s a bright smile. Not a happy smile, because there’s always that underlying layer of sadness when she wears that one. But the bright smile is almost as nice. It’s one she doesn’t flash often, but when she does, she is typically working. Which means right now she’s working. And Wendy Gale is a professional procurer of information. It’s what she does. It’s her lifeblood, so to speak.

So I take her side. “Wendy’s right. Let’s go ask downstairs.”

Indie throws up her arms. “Might as well, since we’re already here.”

We go back down the way we came and we’re already at the front door before we remember that the place is closed.

“Well, shit,” Indie says. “That sucks. And look.” She points to the sign on the door that has the hours listed. “They’re supposed to be open. Says nine to four-thirty.”

“Didn’t you say earlier that they were always closed?” Wendy asks Indie.

“Yeah. I’ve never seen this place open. Have you, Nate?”

“I can’t say I’ve paid much attention to this place over the years. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Pearl Springs since I left for college. But I’m pretty sure the cheerleaders used to get banners made here for the football games. So it wasn’t always closed.”

“Well, it sure looks closed now,” Wendy says.

Nathan jiggles the door handle. Then he presses his face to the glass, cupping his eyes to cut down on sun glare.

We all do the same. But there’s nothing to see.

“What is that?” Wendy asks. “A wall?”

“I dunno,” Indie says.

“I think it is,” I say. It doesn’t really look like a wall, it’s just black. Like… a black hole of emptiness. There aren’t even any shadows. There should be sunlight passing through the glass, but there isn’t.