murder in return for testimony against Kane. So far she's holding out, but I know she'll break. A woman like that can't take jail.'
'I almost feel sorry for her,' Gelsey said. 'She really did love Kim.'
'Whenever you start feeling that way,' Janek said, 'just remember what she did to Kirstin.'
Gelsey dabbed at her canvas. Then she stopped and shook her head.
'Netti can't seem to work things out with Carlson.' 'I heard,' he said.
'Give it time.'
She turned to him. 'I'm going to have to go to jail, too, aren't I?'
'I don't know. But soon you're going to have to turn yourself in. You have a good lawyer. You helped us solve a major case. Nine judges out of ten'll suspend your sentence. I'm pretty sure you'll get off.'
'I might not.'
'There's always a ' not,' Gelsey. You can't think about that.'
'Jail would kill me.'
'It won't. You're a strong person.' But he didn't like thinking about her serving hard time.
Later, after it started to rain, she asked if she could sit beside him on the couch. Then, when she rested her head against his shoulder, he gently drew her closer with his arm.
She turned to him: 'You have an idea about the Minotaur.
'Did I say that?' The rain was falling steadily, streaking the windows, washing the skylight.
'I just have a feeling.'
'I'm not a shrink,' he said.
'I know. You're a detective.'
'If it was in your head, the way Dr. Zimmerman-'
'He was wrong. It wasn't just in my head.' She paused.
I think you know that, too.'
The rain began to fall hard, exploding like thousands of little firecrackers against the metal roof. Gelsey started to shake. He held her tighter. Was the sound getting to her, or was it memories of loneliness? He imagined how she must have felt when it rained, alone in her strange house, the water beating on the tin, the maze with its mysteries and terrors beckoning from below.
'Why don't we go down and take a look?' he said finally. 'Maybe we'll find something. It's worth a shot.'
' I'm scared. '
'Of the maze?' 'Not the maze,' she said. 'The Minotaur. I'm afraid of what he might turn out to be.'
When they were on the catwalks and the lights were on, he walked with her above the places where the ceilings were opaque.
'What's down there?' he asked as they stood above a blocked-off portion.
'Storage area.' 'What about there?' he asked, pointing to another.
She looked down. 'That's just some dead space between three mirrors.'
'Are you sure?' She thought a moment. 'Yes, that's where the corridor turns back on itself.'
After asking her to identify three more such areas, and finding her more tentative, he asked her what was wrong.
'It's easier when I'm down on the floor,' she said. 'I know the maze better there. I'm not used to analyzing it from above.' He suggested she go down while he remained on the catwalks. Then he could walk above the places where the ceilings were opaque and call down his questions.
She agreed, shinned down the rope, then together they worked their way methodically through the maze, verbally mapping its invisible areas. She opened mirrors that were also doors, confirming the existence of each storage and backstage section. It was only when they reached the Great Hall that she became confused.
'No,' she said when he asked her about a small area with an opaque ceiling off the Great Hall. 'No, there's nothing there.' 'I'm standing right above it, Gelsey,' Janek said. 'There's a covered space, maybe five feet by five.'
'Impossible.' Her voice was agitated. 'I knew this part very well.'
They continued. When there were no other hard ceilinged areas she could not identify, he guided her back to the one off the Great Hall.
Again she insisted there could be nothing there.
'Maybe just more dead space,' he offered.
'Maybe… ' She didn't sound convinced.
His original notion was that the person Gelsey had seen, whom her father had dubbed 'the Minotaur,' had been standing on the catwalks. Then this person's image, caught somehow by one of the mirrors, had shown up reflected in the Great Hall. But now he wondered if there might not be a hidden room below, a place where a voyeur might have been concealed.
Gelsey had explained every covered space except for one.
He guided her around the space, urging her to search for a mirror that would open like a door. When she called to him that she could find nothing, it occurred to him that if he had been her father, and had wanted to create a secret chamber, he would not have placed the opening mechanism in its usual position five feet off the floor. He'd have put it where she wouldn't expect it, Janek thought, perhaps in an opposite position, very low.
He asked her to meet him at the bottom of the ladder. Then he climbed down to the floor.
When she greeted him she seemed disturbed.
'What's the matter?'
'I'm getting tired, that's all,' she said.
'Want to do this some other time?'
'No. Let's see it through.'
As she led him rapidly through the maze, he was again awed by its complexity. There was no possible way to know where he was in relation to the configurations of mirrors he had seen just minutes before from the catwalks. The reflections defeated any attempt to define real as opposed to illusionary space. Occasionally she led him through doors, shortcutting her way to the Great Hall. When, finally, she stopped before a series of sharply angled mirrors, he could only guess that they had arrived.
Gelsey was sweating.
'You all right?'
'I get like this when it rains.'
'Is it still raining?' She shrugged. He looked around. 'Are we near… where the bad stuff happened?'
She nodded, pointed across the Hall, then lowered her eyes.
'Were you always facing the same direction?'
'I don't remember. Anyway, it wouldn't make any difference. No matter which way you face down here, you see everything… reflected to infinity.'
He detected weariness in her voice, almost, he thought, despair. He felt it would be wrong to push her further.
'Let's go back up.'
She shook her head. 'You're on to something.' He didn't answer. 'I feel you are.'
He studied her. She looked stronger.
'Okay,' he said, 'I want you to press on these mirrors. Apply the usual pressure but not in the usual place. See if you can spring one open.'
'You really think there's something behind?' 'Let's find out,' he said.
She shook her hands to loosen her fingers, like a safe cracker preparing to break into a vault. Then she began to explore the surface of the first mirror panel. When nothing happened, she moved to the second.
Janek observed that she was sweating again, that the stress was building up. Suddenly she stopped. She was crouched on the floor. She glanced up at him, eyes catching fire from the silvered glass.
'I feel something.'
'A spring?'
'I think so.' 'All right,' he said. 'Remember, I'm here beside you.
Whenever you're ready… open it up.'
