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On the floor, Dylan scurried through the main ballroom with her eyes darting from her phone toward the corners of the room. The thought of finding Ari fixated her focus. She didn’t notice a woman dressed as a plague doctor walking in her direction. The cane she carried slapped her in the chest, making Dylan stop in her tracks. Startled, the pounding of her heart rattled her rib cage.
Lady Katrina lowered her mask. “Dylan, darling. I hear there might be others who are not who they say they are. Frauds. Maxi tells me you’re dedicated to”—she pressed the foot of her cane upward, under Dylan’s chin—“sniffing out the deception. Take a really deep breath, Dylan. What you’re looking for might be right under your nose.”
Dylan swatted it away. “Oh, I’ll find exactly what I’m looking for. Don’t you worry, Lady— Excuse me, I got a job to do.”
She sidestepped Lady Katrina and pressed forward, not giving her the satisfaction of even mentioning the fake name. When she reached the corridor, Dylan turned and watched Lady Katrina stroll out of the main entrance. There were still a few hours before the club opened, so she’d use the time to explore and find these invisible rooms.
Inside the first playground to the right, she pulled the Saint Andrew’s cross from the wall, and as she did, the wall rattled like it was a door. At the edge of the platform, she noticed a little nob, like a lock. A bolt clicked. Dylan pulled again, and the wall moved with the cross, exposing a secret room. A full-size door allowed Dylan to walk right in. On the inside wall, there was a light switch, which she flipped.
The hum of electrical ballast came first, and then the flicker of fluorescent lights illuminated the room in purplish white. It was nothing more than a janitor’s closet. Mops and brooms leaned against the wall. Shelves lined the sides with a door at the far end. She walked to it, gave it a pull, and found herself in a stairwell. Upward, there was a sign at another door indicating the thirty-first floor. Below her, she saw the sign for the twenty-ninth.
Dylan returned the way she came, back into the playground, where she pushed the cross against the wall and twisted the lock closed. Another glance at her phone. She crossed the corridor and entered the second door on the left. Much like the other side, another playground hid behind a narrow door. She walked through it, but this time, there were no lights. She used her phone’s flashlight and found a long hallway with electrical panel boxes and Internet wiring.
Frustrated, Dylan slammed her fist against the inside wall. These rooms were nothing more than maintenance. Better to hide the wires than to have control panels inside the beautiful club.
She kept going. And each time, she returned empty-handed. Every hidden room had a purpose. There was nothing strange going on in Adytum. Maybe all of this was the crazy imagination of an impressionable woman, brainwashed by a man who had a grudge. As she stood in the entryway of La Prizonye, Dylan doubted herself.
Cooper hollered at her from back at the bar, “Hey, Dyl. Come here for a second.”
She tucked her phone back into her pocket and traveled to the main ballroom. Dylan sidled up on a stool, shaking her head at herself. “What’s up, Coop?”
“Have you heard from Lucy lately?” Cooper asked.
Dylan shrugged. It wasn’t odd that Lucy’s schedule kept her busy. “Not since the club. Why?”
“Had breakfast plans with her and she never showed. Went by her place. No answer. Hasn’t called me back. I’m not one to be jealous, but if she’s got another piece on the side—”
“She doesn’t. That I know for sure. Something probably just came up.”
“I guess. Just hate being clam jammed when we were gonna get our freak on.”
“Dude, I told you. I don’t want to know about what you and Lucy do. She’ll call. Don’t worry so much.”
“It’s just—”
Dylan raised her hand to stop her, and she slid off the barstool. “I know. You’re pussy-whipped.”
With that, Dylan returned to her office and closed the door. Behind the desk, she glanced at the screens and all the live feeds. There was nothing. No stone unturned. Her head turned to the clock ticking behind her, one hour before the staff meeting. She opened the bottom drawer where she normally stuck her phone. Inside were little silk panties. Various colors, including the yellow ones from the audition.
On a screen in front of her, Maxi adjusted the rug on the stage in the arena. It reminded Dylan there was one more hidden room left on the blueprints that she hadn’t gotten to yet. She was torn. Everything so far had led to nothing, either maintenance rooms or electrical rooms, not some torrid love dungeon or torture chamber. As much as she wanted to believe Terry and Ari, nothing manifested based on their beliefs. But. In order to have faith in her findings, she had to check them all.
She pulled the yellow panties from the drawer and tucked them in her pocket—a talisman to drive her closer to Ari—and then she headed to the arena.
In La Prizonye, Dylan made sure the coast was clear. She had an hour before anyone would arrive for the meeting. Through the back way, she trekked to the arena and compared the diagram to the room. According to the blueprints, the rich, dark mahogany wall behind the stage must conceal the secret room. The thought of Ari being held there launched Dylan forward to find a way in. She examined every inch of it, but she found nothing.
In frustration, her hands assaulted the surface with increased desperation, looking for an entrance. No passage was revealed, but the pounding exposed an echo of a hollow space behind it. Dylan stepped back and surveyed the area, drawing in slow breaths to calm her nerves. She needed to focus.
The ornamental molding framed each large square panel under the chair rail. Not knowing what she was looking for, she drew her fingertips along the edges of the wood. Nothing escaped the scrutiny of her touch. Across the top. Bottom. Each side.
A rush of adrenaline hit her when she felt a notch under the chair rail. Dylan tried pushing and sliding the notch, but nothing happened. More frustrated, she jabbed her finger in the hole and yanked on it.
The panel below opened, revealing a small entryway into the darkness. Just wide enough to crawl through, Dylan bent down, flicked on her phone’s flashlight, and climbed into the unknown. Inside, she stood up and found a light switch above the opening.
As she closed the panel, she flipped the switch to reveal a small private movie theater. A secret den with a sofa, an enormous television screen, and a variety of electronic devices in the cabinet next to it. Along one wall was a library of videotapes and discs, which didn’t seem disturbing in itself, but the thought of hanging out to watch a movie within the walls of Adytum was odd and creepy.
She hoped to have found Ari, not a secret cinema, but then she remembered Terry’s claim. They had filmed his attack, which compelled her to turn her attention to the shelves. On the wall, DVDs and VHS tapes lined shelves. Each contained a name and a date. Dylan arched her brow and ran her finger along each case as she read each label. Some names she recognized as past performers, others were unfamiliar, and most of them were feminine.
Sorted chronologically, the DVDs spanned a five-year window. She pulled one of them: Candy Britton, dated October 3, 2019. On the disc itself were the name and date, and underneath was a website address: www.subpryzone.net.
