Alchemy of Secrets - 48

The stuff up front is the sexy stuff for the tours,” Tom explained. “It gets less exciting the farther back you go.”

After about twenty feet, Holland could see there was less variety, but she still found it all fascinating.

Walls of motorcycle helmets. Enough guitars for all the freshman boys at a college campus. More taxidermy animals, cats this time, from a movie she’d loved as a child called The Nine Feline Lives of Calliope Canyon .

Then there was the Oval Office.

The replica was nearly perfect—it didn’t just have desks and chairs, it had windows and curtains and a view of the lawn so real that Holland would definitely have stopped if there had been time.

But there wasn’t. In fact, she could see Adam beginning to grow impatient as Tom paused in a room full of lamps. “The finance department always puts on the best Christmas parties,” he mused. “Last year, they rented all these.” He waved toward the ceiling, which was covered in crystal chandeliers.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just tell him the truth and then I can make him forget?” Adam whispered.

“No,” Holland said, followed by a look she hoped clearly told him that using his ability on this man was not an option. With Vic VanVleet, it had felt justified. But Tom had been nothing but kind and helpful.

Tom took them up a set of stairs and past a series of telephones: rotary phones, ’90s phones, emergency phones with only one button. After that, there was a disturbing number of doll heads. Just the heads.

On the third floor, there were desks and chairs and various bits of bedroom furniture. Tom stopped at an ugly plaid couch and proudly said, “This is my top moneymaker.”

“Oh, really?” Holland tried to sound polite. The couch looked like a thrift store reject. There was stuffing coming out of one arm, and the plaid smelled as if it had been around from the ’70s.

He smiled as if he knew what she was thinking. “This guy has character. People like things with character.”

They passed a few swords, though not nearly as many as Holland would have expected.

“Weapons are difficult for liability reasons,” Tom explained. “But, fun fact: There used to be a gun range underneath the yellow house from My Neighbor Next Door . There’s a trapdoor in the house’s kitchen that leads down to the range, or there used to be. The house is obviously part of the JME tours, so the trapdoor might be gone now. But if you get a chance, it could be worth exploring.”

Adam gave Holland a look that said don’t answer him and maybe he’ll stop talking .

I don’t want to be rude , she tried to reply with her eyes. But she was growing impatient as well.

“Are we getting close?” Adam finally asked.

“Don’t worry,” Tom said. He paused at another staircase and waved Holland and Adam up first. “Just one more floor.”

Holland really hoped he was telling the truth. She hoped she hadn’t made a colossal mistake in trusting him because of his easy smile and his anecdotes.

Her skin was prickling and her heart was pitter-pattering in a way that made her feel as if something was waiting right up ahead—either that or she’d just walked through the world’s largest thrift store, and she was now on the fourth floor with no easy escape.

“Don’t give up on me now,” Tom said affably. “And don’t eat any of those,” he added as they passed a giant gumball machine.

This floor must have been where all the horror movie directors shopped.

After the inedible gumballs was a series of disturbing carnival games, naked mannequins, a very lifelike clown, and then—

Tom stopped abruptly at an antique desk, and the smile fell from his face.

“What’s wrong?” Holland asked.

“It’s gone.”