Chapter 4: Midnight in the Chapel

Abel parked behind the chapel at eleven forty on Tuesday night and cut the headlights.

"Back door," he said. "My key still works. Gil changed the front locks and forgot the kitchen."

"Gil forgot something?"

"Gil thinks only about money. The back door doesn't cost anything."

We sat in the dark truck and looked at the building I had signed a lease for at twenty-five.

One light burned in the narrow window of the live room.

"Somebody's recording," I said.

"Dax isn't due until twelve-thirty." Abel checked his phone and frowned. "Calla's been booking the room on her own since Monday."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm the engineer. I know everything that happens in there at night."

I wanted to ask him why he hadn't told me about any of it before.

I got out of the truck instead.

The back hall smelled the way it always had, of old carpet, coffee and warm tape.

Abel went first with a flashlight pointed at the floor.

I had brought notebook thirty-one from my mother's table, to check it against the old lyric sheets.

Passing the control room, I set it open on the console to free my hands for the cart.

The vault was a closet behind the second rack, with a steel door and a keypad.

He punched in a code, and the door opened on shelves of white boxes, labeled in my handwriting and his.

I stood there longer than I meant to.

"Nine years," I said.

"Six in here. Three at your kitchen table before we had a door."

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