“Everyman is my favorite of all the morality plays, though I’m looking forward to exploring others as well as the mysteries and miracles. I hope you return. Oh, and for those of you who want another viewing, we’ll be adding another performance tomorrow night. Thank you.”

Father Mathias exited the back of the theater as the houselights went up and everyone began picking up their belongings. O was out the door in a flash and Kristi tried to follow her, but got caught in the crush and held up retrieving her cell phone, which was, as promised, ready and waiting for her. She handed another attendant, a girl who had played Knowledge in the play, her claim ticket and was given her phone without any eye contact. Kristi then made her way out the door and into the night, hoping for a glimpse of O. But the girl was gone. As were the others she’d recognized in the audience.

Great, she thought, slinging the strap of her purse over her shoulder. All the girls who had been abducted had attended Father Mathias’s plays, so she’d hoped she’d find some connection, but she was at a loss. Standing in the dark, buffeted by the cold wind, she watched as other attendees left the theater, some heading to the parking lot, others toward the heart of campus. The professors who had shown up had all left, beelining out of the theater as if they couldn’t escape fast enough.

The few stragglers who’d stopped to talk or smoke or just hang out weren’t people she knew. So what about the people in the play? Didn’t she suspect they might all somehow be connected?

Face it, she thought, discouraged, you should leave being a detective to your father.

On the way back to her car, she walked past Wagner House. Dark, angular and looming, it looked even more forbidding at night, with only the faintest of light coming from the windows. She checked the gate again, and of course it was locked. Then she noticed a flicker, just the tiniest bit of light, coming from a basement window.

Was she imagining it?

When she looked again, the glimmer of light was gone.

Had it been a reflection? A figment of her imagination?

Flash!

She saw another bluish light through the dirty glass. It too disappeared quickly.

Storage area, my ass, she thought. Who would be sorting through old crates at night? And why had Father Mathias been down there the other day? He really hadn’t explained himself, except to say that he’d seen evidence of rats, but maybe that was just an excuse to make her stay away. Well, it damned well wasn’t working. She’d been beaten and chained, dealt with snarling, vicious dogs, demented psychos, lost her mother and her biological father, and nearly died. A few rats were nothing.