sweatshirts approaching the statue behind Tyler. One scrambled up into Washington Duke’s lap, while the other giggled and aimed a camera phone. At the flash of the camera, Laurel halted in her tracks.
“Of course,” she said aloud. “Of course.” Before Tyler could speak, she had turned and was running, across the grassy yard again toward Perkins Library.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Laurel pushed through the doors of the Special Collections room and approached the rolltop desk. Ward gave an exaggerated sigh and reached for the keys to the basement.
Laurel gasped out, still breathless from her mad dash across campus. “Actually … I was wondering if the library kept a collection of school yearbooks … and where I might find those.”
On the third floor, Laurel sat at a table with stacks of yearbooks in front of her and a panoramic view out the window in front of her. After two weeks in the basement it was strange to sit at a library table with a view of trees and Duke Gardens and the spires of the Chapel, rather than the windowless gloom of the underground.
As she began to browse the yearbooks, one thing was immediately clear: the parapsychology lab had been a vital, vibrant part of university life. In nearly every yearbook since the lab’s opening there were candid and posed photos of Dr. Rhine, his wife and colleague Dr. Louisa Rhine, other professors and assistants, and students. Laurel turned the pages and saw history go by in the progression of photos on the lab, the evolving postures and attitudes of the students, along with the changing hairstyles and tie widths and skirt lengths.
She skipped through to the sixties, reached for the 1965 yearbook, and opened it to the inevitable section on the Rhine Lab. Her eyes were immediately caught by a candid black-and-white photo of a mesmerizingly handsome, light-haired man. Laurel felt an electric thrill: the man was unidentified in the photo caption but she recognized Dr. Alaistair Leish from the film.
“Yes!” she said aloud, so forcefully that several students looked out from their study carrels. Laurel blushed to the roots of her hair, but she felt a rush of triumph at this proof of her intuition.
So it’s true: Leish was at the Duke lab. I knew he couldn’t stay away from the poltergeist research.
He was here, and he died.
She sat very still … then started turning pages impatiently. When she found the photo, she recognized it instantly: a handsome, ruddy, round-faced young man with bright, clear eyes that she knew were blue, Carolina blue.
Uncle Morgan …
There were no captions identifying the students, either. In the photo he was standing beside a lab counter, watching a dice machine with its rotating oblong cage.
To be sure, Laurel flipped to the senior portraits, and found his photo in the Ms—Morgan MacDonald. It was the same boy. He was laughing and glowing with youth and health, his eyes and face animated. There was a string of initials and notations under his name: Varsity Football, Varsity Baseball, Kappa Alpha …
Laurel felt an ache in her heart.
What happened, then? He was at university, he was in a frat, he played sports—he was alive and sound. He had a life.
She stared down at the yearbook.
I have to know what happened.
She was still brooding on the question as she halted in the upstairs hall of the psych department and reached for the door of her office, carefully balancing the armload of yearbooks (1960–1965) she’d persuaded the reference librarian to loan her, as she fished for her keys. A gratingly familiar voice called from behind her.
“I’ll get that for you.”
She half-turned, almost losing her stack completely, and saw J. Walter Kornbluth bustling up behind her. He deftly plucked the books from her arms. Unable to protest, Laurel forced a smile, unlocked her door, and pushed it open. Kornbluth marched into the tiny office and unloaded the books on the desk.
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Laurel said dutifully from the doorway.
“Happy to help,” Kornbluth said expansively. He looked over the volumes he had deposited with a frown. “Yearbooks?” Laurel thought his eyes lingered on the dates.
“Yes, my … my aunt is an alum … ,” she hedged.
Kornbluth turned, took in the office with a sweeping glance, and sat on the edge of the desk. “How are you settling in?”
Laurel paused, disoriented by the sudden and seemingly unwarranted attention. “Well … it’s a big change from L.A., that’s for sure. At least I’m not getting lost every time I get on the freeway. I’m enjoying