Harriet felt the fabric then held it up to her nose.
"What are you doing?” Carla asked.
"I was hoping to tell if this was hand-dyed fabric. Lauren dyed her own fabric. This smells faintly of vinegar. Acetic acid is one of the chemicals people use to set dye. There are commercial products that will do the trick, but some people still use vinegar."
Carla walked along the wall past the cutting table area to another table. This one was smaller and lower, with a wheeled armless chair pushed up to it. A light box was built into its surface. She felt along the edge of the table until her finger hit the switch. She flicked it on.
"Wow,” she said.
A page that looked like it had been torn from a spiral sketchbook was taped to the center of the lighted portion of the table surface. A larger sheet of tracing paper was taped over the first sheet. It appeared that someone was in the process of copying the image from the sketchbook page to the tracing paper.
"What have you got?"
"Someone is copying a really cool picture from a sketchbook."
"Is it Lauren's?"
Carla bent closer to the page. “It's not the one she's in a flap about. There's some writing at the bottom of the page, but the tape is covering up part of it. I can't tell if it's a name or not."
Harriet crossed to the opposite side of the room. Four sewing machines sat on tables in a row. Selestina had one each of the popular brands, each a high end model for the maker.
"Business must have been good,” she said, running her hand across the top of the nearest machine. She opened the partially completed quilt that was folded neatly at its side. “Whoa, look at this.” She held it up. “Look familiar?"
"Oh, my gosh, isn't that the quilt that was hanging to the left of the entry door in the exhibition hall? In the group before Lauren's? Or at least most of it?"
"Looks like it's well on its way to being an exact copy.” Harriet folded the quilt and put it back on the machine table.
A tall shelving unit filled with folded fabric that was organized by color separated the sewing machine area from what appeared to be a sitting area. Two matching overstuffed chairs with ottomans sat on either side of a multi-headed floor lamp. A woven-wood basket was on the floor beside one of the chairs. A piece of folded fabric lay on top of the basket.
"This just keeps getting better.” She unfolded the fabric and held it up.
"Geez,” Carla said as she recognized the quilt top. “They copied the applique class, too?"
"So it would seem."
Harriet moved to the final space in the room. Two computers sat on desks, side by side. One had an in-basket next to it on the desktop and a lateral file cabinet standing beside it. The other had an oversized monitor and a For Dummies book on a popular quilt design software program lying open beside the keyboard. Clever, thought Harriet. They were using design software to analyze other people's original work.
They still didn't know why the copies were being made, but she and Carla were getting a clear idea of how they were doing it.
"Let's see where the back door leads,” she called to Carla.
Two doors were set in the back wall. Harriet turned the knob on the first and pushed, exposing a neat white-tiled bathroom. She leaned her head in and looked around.
"Nothing in here,” she said.
Carla turned the knob and opened the remaining door, exposing a large kitchen. A Formica-topped fifties-style table with red vinyl-seated chrome chairs sat in the center of the room. One wall contained typical appliances, including a full-size stove, refrigerator, microwave and an industrial-sized dishwasher. The opposite side of the room had two double utility sinks with wood-topped counter space on either side of the sinks. A bundle of dried flowers and branches lay on the counter to the left. A pair of garden shears was on the counter beside the flowers; a pair of worn leather garden gloves had been abandoned next to them.
"This is quite the set-up,” Harriet said as she entered the room. Carla followed her.
"Why didn't they fix up the outside?” Carla wondered. “I mean, the inside is really cool, but the outside looks like it's falling down."
"I don't know, but sometimes when property or zoning laws change, especially if there's an environmental impact, you're only allowed to repair existing structures, not rebuild or replace. People leave old boards to try to prove they haven't really built something new. Maybe something like that happened."
"Seems like it wouldn't be very safe to have that old siding and roof on a building this big."
"Oh, I'd be willing to bet that between in here and the ramshackle outside is a bunch of engineering."
Carla had come to stand beside her. She tilted her head and looked at the open-beam ceiling. A loud click sounded behind them.
Carla grabbed Harriet's arm. “What was that?” she whispered.
"I don't know.” Harriet went back to the connecting door. She twisted and pulled on the knob. “It's locked.” she said.
"Are you sure it isn't just stuck?"
Harriet pushed, pulled, twisted and rattled, but the knob didn't budge. She turned around and noticed two doors at the back of the kitchen. The one in the left-hand wall led to a screened porch. She went onto the porch, crossed and tried its door.
"Locked,” she reported.
The door in the right wall opened onto a dark stairway that led downward. She shut it again quickly.
"I'm not going down there. We're going to find another way out of here that doesn't involve a dark, damp stairwell into the unknown."
Carla took a thin spatula from the dish rack and went back to the door between the kitchen and the sewing room. She slid the flexible blade between the door and the jamb. It clicked as the blade hit metal.
"Someone's turned the deadbolt,” she said, her eyes round.
"Don't panic.” Harriet looked around for other possible ways out. She turned a full circle, noting the high clerestory windows. Her eyes came back to the door Carla was standing at.
"Oh, jeez,” she said. A thin curl of smoke was seeping under the door. “Get away from the door."
She went to the counter and started pulling drawers open. When she found dishtowels, she pulled a handful out and threw them into the sink. She turned the faucet on and soaked the towels then rolled them lengthwise and carried them back to the door, pressing them along the bottom crack.
"See if you can get anything to open on the porch,” she called, but Carla was already there, rattling the storm windows and pulling on the door. Harriet heard a crash. She found Carla banging a ceramic flowerpot she'd found on the floor into the window. A fine pattern of cracks spread across the glass from the point of impact, but the window didn't give.
"There's wire or something in the glass,” she cried, panic clear in her voice.
Harriet took a closer look. “It looks like its some kind of safety glass."
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She dialed Aiden's number, and his phone went directly into his voicemail.
"We need help,” she said, and her phone went dead.
"What happened,” Carla asked, her voice rising. “Why did you stop talking?"
"I lost the signal. And his phone went straight to his voicemail anyway."
Carla pulled a drawer open on a hutch standing against the back wall of the building. She found a small common head screwdriver.
"We can unscrew the hinges,” she suggested, but Harriet could see the screwdriver wasn't going to be up to the task.
She looked back to the connecting door and could see smoke starting to once again curl into the room, this time around the edges of the rolled towels.