Escape Room

by Brian Ullmann

  Wolfie looked puzzled. “I thought the two of you went to see Kate’s parents? That was the last visit we had to make.”

  “No,” said Chance. “There were five of us. Jenny is dead, but she was still one of us. I think we should go see her family, too.”

  “I agree,” Tahoe nodded. “But we don’t know where she lived.”

  “I have a pretty good idea,” Chance said.

  Fresh & Dry Cleaners was located just off Baltimore Avenue in the bustling arts district of Hyattsville. The neighborhood was once a blighted area along the Maryland-D.C. border, but now sported a Yes! Organic Market, a bookstore-restaurant called Busboys and Poets, and a bagel-and-coffee shop just across the street that seemed to serve everything except a plain cup of joe. It was early afternoon on a weekday, and the shops were mostly deserted. They stood in a mostly empty parking lot and tried to peer through the front window.

  “This is her family’s dry-cleaning store?” Wolfie asked.

  Chance nodded. “Jenny mentioned it briefly. Told me she grew up working the counter and eating four-cheese bagels from a bagel bakery. She goes to the University of Maryland, said she wanted to stay close to home. So that limited the choices significantly. This is the only dry cleaner with a Bagels-and-Brews place right next door that is close to the university.”

  “Sherlock Holmes,” cracked Wolfie.

  “It’s a little stereotypical, isn’t it?” asked Tahoe. “Dry cleaners always are run by the Chinese, right?”

  “Jenny wasn’t Chinese,” Chance said. “She was Korean.”

  “Let’s go in,” Kate said. “We’re not going to get anything done by standing out here.” There was no animosity in her voice. If she was in any way upset by the trip to see Jenny’s family, she did not show it. Quite the contrary, she seemed to understand why they needed to be here.

  A bell attached to the front door jingled when they entered. A few seconds later, an elderly Asian woman shuffled out from a back room to the counter. “Name?” she said.

  “We’re not here for pickup,” Chance said. “We’re actually looking for someone. Jenny Chen. Do you know her?”

  “Yes, yes. But she no work here, long time gone.” The woman’s accent was thick, her expression blank.

  “Are you … her mother?”

  “Jenny’s mother? No, no. Jenny’s mother no work here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tahoe said. “We thought Jenny and her parents worked here.”

  “No work here,” the old woman said. “They own here. Own lots of dry cleaners. Like eight, nine of them. Is a chain.”

  “So there’s a stereotype blown out of the water,” Tahoe said once they were back outside. They crossed Baltimore Avenue into a community of renovated Victorians and tree-lined streets. “Jenny’s parents aren’t toiling away beside a hot dry-cleaning press; they’re entrepreneurs with a burgeoning chain of neighborhood businesses.”

  “The truth is always more complicated than stereotypes and clichés,” Chance said. “We are all examples of that.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Kierkegaard now,” said Wolfie.

  “You know Kierkegaard?” Tahoe asked.

  “What, a black man can’t know about Danish philosophers?”

  “Didn’t say that. But the dude is pretty obscure.”

  “‘Once you label me you negate me.’ Kierkegaard said that. Somewhere along the line someone gave me a book of quotes, and this Kierkegaard was all over it. My favorite is ‘It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.’”

  Tahoe playfully shoved Wolfie in his chest. “You’ve got a real rebellious streak in there, don’t you?”

  “You goddamn right,” he said. “Like the great Kanye says, ‘Nobody can tell me where I can and can’t go.’”

  “There,” Chance interrupted. He gestured to a white Cape Cod with green shutters. “2039 43rd Avenue. That’s Jenny’s house.”

  The old woman at the cleaners had helpfully provided them with the address. She had been all too willing to help out Jenny’s school friends. Luckily, it wasn’t far. The shop beside the Bagels-and-Brews had apparently been the Chens’ first venture, just three blocks from home.

  Even from across the street, they could hear a commotion coming from the back yard. They crossed the street, drawn by the sounds. It sounded like someone was crying, loudly. Chance wondered if they had just stumbled into a memorial service.

  They had just reached the front lawn when a sharp crack shattered the air. It sounded like a gunshot.

  Acting on instinct, Chance bolted around the side of the house.

  There were maybe 50 people assembled in the manicured back yard. Tables were laid out with hamburgers, shrimp, hot dogs, and a bowl of red punch. Helium-filled balloons were everywhere, tied to chair backs and table legs. Six or seven kids, waist high to the grown-ups, darted between the tables, yelling, laughing.

  It wasn’t a gunshot, Chance realized. It was the sound of a balloon popping.

  It wasn’t a memorial service. It was a birthday party.

  “This family sure has a funny way of mourning,” Tahoe said.

  The sudden appearance of four strangers drew the attention of a few of the partygoers. Puzzled glances passed through the crowd until they reached a handsome woman in a tailored pantsuit. She approached with a welcoming smile before they could retreat.

  “Hello, there,” the woman said. “Can I help you?”

  “Mrs. Chen?” Chance said tentatively. “You are Mrs. Chen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Jenny is your daughter?”

  “Yes, she is. Is she a friend of yours?”

  Is. Chance immediately noted the use the present tense.

  She doesn’t know.

  “Yes, we are friends, from college. Is she … home?”

  “No, no, I’m afraid she’s not here right now,” Mrs. Chen said pleasantly. “But she doesn’t live here. Not full-time anyway. She keeps a small apartment near the university. But of course she’s not there right now, either.”

  Chance studied the woman. Her face was bright, her smile warm. This was a woman, a mother, completely unaware that her daughter was dead. He wondered how Mrs. Chen would feel when she realized they had held a party when her daughter had been dead for nearly 48 hours.

  “Mrs. Chen,” Chance began. “I’m afraid —”

  “I’m surprised you don’t know where Jenny is,” her mother said. “I just assumed her friends from school would be with her on the trip.”

  “I’m sorry, ‘trip?’” Tahoe asked.

  “It all came up so suddenly, actually, so I’m a little unclear about the details. We got a call from the school over a week ago, informing us that Jenny had been accepted into a service-learning trip, an emergency mission to Haiti, to help with hurricane damage. She had to leave right away. You know the situation is so awful down there. The school told us she’d be gone for a week. No email or cell service in Haiti, though. She really didn’t tell you about all this?”

  “She didn’t,” Chance said. “But you know Jenny. Putting the needs of strangers above her own.”

  “You said the ‘school’ called you,” Tahoe said, probing. “Do you remember, by any chance, exactly who called you?”

  “Of course,” she said, smiling. “Because I was a little surprised that such a high-ranking person would make the call to me personally. It was that nice woman from the university, the provost. Her name was Madeline Levick.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  The University of Maryland was a sprawling 1,344-acre campus located just four miles north of Washington, D.C., and just a mile north of Jenny’s home in Hyattsville. Every day from September through May, nearly 40,000 students and another 8,000 faculty crisscrossed McKeldin Mall, headed for classes in the gleaming Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center or the new A. James Clark Hall for bioengineering. Within a year, the best and the brightest would be studying inside the sleek Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovatio
n, named for and paid for by the founder of Oculus Virtual Reality. The Iribe Center would be the new home for the Joint Quantum Institute, the clubhouse leader in the worldwide quest to build the first quantum computer.

  The university’s proximity to the nation’s capital positioned it as one of the area’s power players. High-tech partnerships with NASA, Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation. University faculty conducted classified research with government agencies as well as dozens of private firms. Last year alone, the university had generated nearly $1 billion in research funding.

  The Main Administration Building sat at the eastern end of McKeldin Mall, the green center of campus. It was evening and McKeldin was deserted, the students back in the dorms, or choking down dollar drafts in Bentley’s on the strip. Main Admin was dark when they arrived, the wide double doors behind the Georgian columns locked.

  After leaving Jenny’s house, they stopped at the Hyattsville Library to use one of its computer stations to learn more about the university, and to map out their next move.

  “The Maryland website said this was the building where all the top administrators work,” Chance said. “President, vice president of administration and the provost’s office. Madeline Levick’s office is in there somewhere.”

  “But it’s locked,” Tahoe pointed out.

  “I already told you guys, Madeline Levick was the woman who came to the science fair, and made it a point to humiliate me and my project, right in front of everybody, right in front of my dad. A minute later, I found my golden ticket to the escape room, just sitting on my table.

  “Now we learn that this very same woman, the fucking provost, called the mother of a student and lied about some kind of fake humanitarian mission to Haiti. Why? To cover up Jenny’s death? Why would a university administrator need to cover that up? What’s the connection? What are we missing?”

  “And you think the answers are in there somewhere?” Tahoe asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But something is going on here, something bigger than we think. And we owe it to Jenny and Bigfoot and all the others to try figure out what that is.”

  They all nodded in silent agreement.

  “So how do we get in?” Tahoe asked.

  All eyes turned slowly to Kate, who held up her hands in mock exasperation. “I love how I’m the go-to criminal mind now.” When they didn’t respond, and didn’t avert their gaze, she added, “Fine. Let’s go.”

  They found a back entrance adjacent to a small employee parking lot. It was locked, with a magnetic swipe card box installed on the wall beside the door. Kate pried the front panel off the box and examined the wired circuitry. She smiled at the others.

  “You can bypass all that?” asked Wolfie.

  “Heck, no. Do I look like an electrician?” Kate said. “But I can still get us in. I need a credit card and a piece of string.”

  She settled for Wolfie’s driver’s license and a long section of vine, pulled from a nearby tree. She tied the vine around the license and approached the door. She dropped to the ground, examining the gap between the front step and the bottom of the door. With a flick of her wrist, she Frisbeed the card under the door.

  “What the hell?” Wolfie protested. “I need that.”

  “And you’re about to get it back,” Kate assured him.

  Slowly, she started to pull on the end of the vine. The door lock clicked loudly. Kate stood, and pulled the door open. She bent down to retrieve the license, unspooled the vine, and handed it back to Wolfie. He stared at it a moment, open-mouthed.

  “You’re a witch,” he said. “A goddamned witch.”

  “No,” she said. “Just a problem solver.” Kate pointed to a small camera installed just above the inside of the door. “It’s a motion sensor. The same kind you see at grocery stores and office buildings. The kind that opens the door automatically when you approach. The movement of driver’s license on the inside of the doorway was enough to trigger it.”

  Wolfie smiled his approval and admiration. “I still think you’re a witch.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Chance interrupted, “Come on. The provost’s office is upstairs.”

  The stairwell opened into a long corridor illuminated only by a pair of orange exit signs. They crept down the corridor to a small lobby area. Just beyond, glass double doors led to an office suite. Above the door, raised silver lettering read: OFFICE OF THE PROVOST.

  This glass doors were unlocked. They slipped inside, quietly closing the door behind them.

  The large suite was ringed by six individual offices, each helpfully identified with nameplates. The largest was for Madeline Levick. Her office door was frosted glass, and etched with Levick’s name in large white letters. Inside, it looked more like a living room than an office. A couch and a pair of plush chairs faced a low glass table. There was a desk, but it looked more like a museum showpiece than an actual workspace. It was mostly devoid of papers. Two framed photographs faced the center of the room. A bookshelf held a few dozen books and a few other framed pictures. A filing cabinet sat against the far wall. Chance flipped on a brass desk lamp.

  “What are we looking for?” Tahoe asked, opening up a desk drawer. It was empty, save for a half-dozen mechanical pencils.

  “I don’t know,” Chance said, leafing through some of the volumes on her bookshelf. Psychology texts, mostly. B.F. Skinner’s Science and Human Behavior. On the Soul, by Aristotle. Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams. He carefully replaced them where he found them. “Just flag anything that looks interesting, out of place.”

  Wolfie and Kate opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet. Each began to remove random file folders, reading through the contents.

  “Program reviews,” Wolfie said.

  “Personnel files for the deans,” Kate reported.

  Chance looked up. “What kind of programs?” he asked.

  Wolfie read off the titles of each folder. “Phillips Collection, Terrapin Teachers, Brain and Behavior Institute, First-Year Research Program, Maryland Dialogues. Ms. Levick is a busy woman.”

  “The dean of the architecture school lied on his resume,” Kate said, reading from the personnel file. “Apparently, the Gdansk School of Design in Poland doesn’t really exist. Hell, I could’ve told you that.”

  “Wait a minute,” Chance said. “Go back. What did you just say?”

  “Gdansk?” Kate said. “Apparently, it’s in Poland.”

  “Not you. Wolfie, read off those program names again.”

  “Phillips Collection, Terrapin Teachers, Brain and Behavior Institute, First-Year—”

  “Brain and Behavior,” Chance stopped him. “That one. Tell me what’s in that file.”

  Wolfie pulled the thin file from the cabinet, and opened it. “It’s empty,” he said. “Except for one letter.” He scanned it quickly. “It’s a funding request for … whoa … $6 million for something called the Picasso Project. It’s signed and dated at the bottom by Levick and some other guy, Richard Kaiser from the Wood Foundation. I guess the project got its funding.”

  He was about to place the file back in the drawer, another dead end, when he paused. He looked at the letter again.

  “Do you still have that scrap of paper we found at the industrial park?”

  Chance pulled the torn corner from his pants pocket and handed it to Wolfie, who looked at the cut-off image on the card, then at the letter. And smiled.

  He slapped the letter down on the desk, and placed the scrap of paper over the top of the logo on the top left hand corner. The images matched perfectly.

  “The Brain and Behavior Institute,” Wolfie said.

  “There’s an address here,” Chance noted. “It’s in D.C. That’s strange.”

  “Why strange?” Wolfie asked.

  “Why would the University of Maryland locate a research institute off-campus, far from its researchers and faculty?”

  Suddenly, they all spun
at a sound in the lobby. Heavy footsteps on the tile floor. Then, the door to the provost’s suite opened with a bang.

  Somebody was coming.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  A shadow fell across the provost’s closed door. Then a second. Two figures, ghostly silhouettes, paused there as they cocked their pistols with loud clicks.

  Chance, Wolfie, Kate and Tahoe instinctively retreated behind the provost’s desk. They were cornered in a windowless office, with two relentless killers mere feet away. All that separated them was a government-built Plexiglas door. Chance struggled to think clearly, but an escape plan eluded him.

  Something heavy banged against the door. The sound echoed through the office like a thunderclap.

  “Step outside,” commanded the voice from beyond the door. Chance recognized the deep booming voice. It was Desmond. “Slowly and immediately. After five seconds, if you have failed to follow these precise instructions, my colleague here will break down this door and put a single bullet into each of your foreheads. I assume I have made myself clear, so we will begin immediately. FIVE.”

  Chance felt a hand clamp down on his arm. Kate. “Chance, there’s no magical way out of this, not this time,” she whispered. He felt the weight of three gazes upon him. He knew they were counting on him, but he was out of ideas.

  “FOUR.”

  Chance climbed up onto the desk and reached up to test the ceiling tiles. They slid out of the way easily enough, but there was nothing above them but a series of corroded pipes and electrical wire.

  He edged down and turned to the others, speaking in a low, quiet voice. “We have two really bad options. Surrender, and put our fates in the hands of those two men. Or wait for them to barrel through that door, guns blazing. Like I said, bad options. So we need to find a third option, a less bad option.”

  “THREE.”

  Chance told them the plan, and when they looked at him like he was certifiable, he explained it to them again. It did nothing to allay their fears.

  “TWO.”