She returned to the kitchen to refocus. Dennis was swimming fast, reinvigorated. Odessa checked the cabinets for a receptacle large enough to serve as a temporary bowl for changing the water. She looked around for a little net. Nothing in the cabinets, nothing in the drawers. She continued to look around, and as she did so, she realized that something about her surroundings was bugging her. It took a few more moments to realize that the dimensions of the house did not seem right.

She opened the front door and walked halfway to the sidewalk, turning to take in the house. There was a window to the right with its interior shade drawn. There should be another room or two on that side.

She returned inside, more energetically this time. She located a narrow utility closet near the front door, recessed into the side wall. Boxes of trash bags sat on shelves, an Electrolux vacuum standing on the floor. There, hanging on a nail, was a fishnet—but she wasn’t interested in that anymore.

She knocked on each wall. The back wall beneath the trash bag shelf sounded different from the two side walls. Hollow. She examined the seams and pushed on the right side.

With a soft click and a tiny kickback, the rear wall gave way, swinging left on hinges. The space beyond was dark.

Odessa halted. She took a beat before pushing through. What if it was some sort of sex dungeon? This was how her FBI mind worked.

She entered the narrow passage. The air was not stale but fresh, with a hint—more like a memory—of cigar smoke. Her shoe met a soft carpet. She felt for a light switch and the hidden room came to life.

Bookshelves. Floor-to-ceiling ones, occupying most of the wide walls, with old, textured maroon-and-gold wallpaper covering the rest.

Before her was a small work desk with a wide leather chair. Headphones lay on the desk, connected by a cord to a large reel-to-reel tape player.

To her right, vented out through the wall, whirred a large air purifier. A small humidor containing a few expensive-looking cigars sat next to a standing ashtray. Against the wall on the other side of the desk was a side cart, liquor bottles on the lower tray, thick crystal rocks glasses on the top.

And then she saw them: the tapes.

“Sweet Jesus…”

The shelves contained not books but thin cardboard cartons. Mylar audio recording tapes on seven-inch reels, each narrow spine labeled and dated. Reel number, date, and subject. There were hundreds—perhaps thousands—of them, many of them from multiple recording sessions with the same date, four or five reels long.

The shelves were mounted on sliders, revealing yet another layer of tapes behind—on a wall-mounted system. But this was not hoarding—it was a careful, methodically organized system.