My Ex's Uncle, My Trap novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Keating & Key

I picked up his program off the empty chair.

On the back, written in his square handwriting:

Dakota gave me a key.

I turned around. Dakota was suddenly very interested in a balloon.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," she said. "Rule two is yours, not mine. Go to the shop."

I drove to the Strip in my rented gown with the cap on the passenger seat.

The loading door was propped open with a brick.

The building was quiet. The new lights in the lobby were off.

At the end of the hall, the door to the back room stood open.

I'd kept that room locked for two weeks. I'd built in there every night after he went upstairs.

I'd told everybody it was a surprise for nobody.

Over the door, a little sign I'd cut out of brass said UNDER GLASS.

It was his line, from my workshop the night of the club dinner.

If he'd fought, he'd have ended up in the case instead of the lock. Under glass.

So I'd built him the case.

A room at night. A drafting table with a twenty-one-year-old's pencil drawings.

A cheap check in a frame. A strip-mall door with no air conditioning behind it.

Six puzzles in all.

And the last lock, the exit, a copy of the Pinwheel with thirteen pins.

I'd made the cylinder to fit one key in the world.

I'd never asked him for it. Asking would have ruined it.

So the room had never opened. It had been finished except for that.

Now the lights were on.

The drafting table had been played. The framed check was turned to the wall. The strip-mall door hung open.

Pierson stood at the exit with his back to me, in his navy suit, his head bowed.

The old brass key was in the Pinwheel lock.

Not on its cord. In the lock. Turned all the way around.

He heard my gown rustle and turned.

His eyes were wet, and he didn't wipe them.

"Thirty-one minutes," he said.

"You beat your record."

"I had help. I knew the guy." He looked at the key in the lock. "I didn't know you'd measured it."

"The night you showed it to me. I had it drawn by morning."

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