been carefully compiling of the Rhine files, not in any of the texts she’d been using as supplemental material to her research into the boxes.
It was almost dawn when Laurel finally looked up from her computer. Rain was pouring outside the window. Lightning branched across the sky, illumining the street in blue-white light.
Laurel stood from her desk and paced her study (which had somehow acquired a red couch and bookshelves, already filled almost to overflowing with what had now become several hundred books, library books, new purchases, almost entirely to do with psi and the paranormal). She stopped and stood facing the array of books, flooded with doubt.
Is any of this real at all?
Her uncle’s grasp on the present, the past, on reality in general could not by any stretch of the imagination be called solid.
But the card trick!
No, even the perfect layout of cards, as dazzling as it had been at the time, could have been nothing more than a common magician’s sleight of hand.
But she had a feeling—no, more than that, a nagging, tickling certainty—that there was such a thing as a Folger House, and it was exactly what she’d been looking for all along, the mystery that had shut down the parapsychology lab for good. In her mind she kept seeing Uncle Morgan holding up that Jack of Diamonds, and she believed.
She reached for the 1965 yearbook and opened it to the page she’d marked, the one with Uncle Morgan’s senior portrait. She studied the photo, his smile, his clear and sparkling eyes.
What happened?
Thunder rumbled through the dark again, and the wind hurled rain against the windows.
Laurel went downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee, sleepy but wired. She stepped out on the front porch to watch the rain, brooding as she sipped the hot, bitter liquid, staring out into the dark.
We’re going to have to be careful, now.
The encounter with Kornbluth made it clear that she was not alone in her interest, and Kornbluth was as competitive a competitor as she could have drawn. But she felt on the verge of a breakthrough, and she had a plan. She stepped up to the porch railing and tipped her face up to the rain.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Duke Parapsychology Lab became the model for parapsychology labs throughout the U.S. and Europe. Rhine’s scientific methods were employed at both university laboratories and privately funded research centers such as, among others, the Paranormal Research Center in Raleigh.
—Dr. Alaistair Leish, The Lure of the Poltergeist
The Paranormal Research Center was a disappointingly plain and provincial building: a cheaply made and functional two-story beige-and-tan block with a tacked-on triangle-roofed facade and shuttered windows.
Laurel parked outside in the lot, filled with about two dozen cars, and contemplated the building.
After Dr. Rhine retired in 1965, he and his wife founded the private Rhine Research Center; he was already making provisions to continue his work. Another Duke poltergeist investigator, Dr. William Roll, moved on to a position at the University of West Georgia, and another group of researchers had broken off from the Duke lab earlier to found the Paranormal Research Center, located in Raleigh, just a forty-minute drive from Duke. Leish had made several mentions of the PRC in the articles Laurel had been able to find of his; it was clear he had ties to the organization, and Laurel hoped someone at the Center would be able to give her more answers about Leish’s work at Duke.
Laurel had phoned the Center and spoken with a receptionist, explaining she was a new Duke professor interested in the history of the Duke parapsychology department and the Research Center. “I wondered if I could arrange to get a tour, at the Center’s convenience, of course.”
“I’m very sorry. The PRC is a private facility. We don’t conduct tours.”
Laurel pressed, but both the receptionist and the administrator that Laurel insisted on being transferred to held their ground. “I’m sorry—the Center is not open to the public. You are perfectly welcome to attend one of our open lectures, though. We have one tomorrow night at seven.”
Laurel decided to go to the lecture and take it from there.
She was as jumpy as a cat as she got out of the car and moved up toward the building. It was unaccountable, the feeling of going into enemy territory, but her instinct was to proceed cautiously, not to let too much slip.
Her uncle’s voice whispered in her head. You need to pay attention.
The double doors of the lecture hall led into a hundred-seat auditorium