It was near the service entrance, at the end of a back corridor, that I heard it: a faint, small, rustling sound coming from behind the closed laundry-room door.

I almost walked past it.

It was the kind of sound you dismiss, a bit of machinery, a settling of pipes.

But some instinct older than reason turned me back toward that door, and I have thanked God many times since for whatever it was in me that stopped and listened instead of hurrying on.

I reached for the handle, an ordinary brass knob, and it would not turn.

It was locked.