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peeve.
    “Come on, Zack.” Yep. She sounded peeved.
    Zipper was sitting in the front seat, paws on the steering wheel.
    When Zack and Judy opened their doors, he hopped into the back, tail wagging, ready to roll.
    “I cannot believe that man!” said Judy, staring back at the dark building.
    “Our school janitor hates kids, too,” said Zack. “They probably have to list it on their job applications.”
    Judy laughed.
    “Don’t worry about it,” said Zack. “I’ll stay out of his way.”
    “I guess you’re right,” said Judy. “Let’s go on with the show!”
    “Is that another show tune?”
    Judy nodded. “From Annie Get Your Gun . I guess that janitor really isn’t a show person.”
    Zack played along. “Why’s that?”
    “They’re supposed to smile when they are low.”
    As they drove away from the theater, Zack glanced at the side-view mirror for one last look at the darkened Hanging Hill Playhouse, perched behind them on the river-bank. Now all the windows were black, so it didn’t look like a ginormous jack-o’-lantern anymore, just a deserted haunted house lit by a spooky moon.
    Suddenly, Zack saw a flurry of bright flashes flare from casement windows in the basement. It looked like somebody was down there working with a welder’s torch.
    Or plugging in an electric chair.

15
    The spinning saw blade kept grinding against the rusty lock, sending up a shower of red-hot sparks.
    Reginald Grimes and the man who called himself Hakeem were in one of the rooms in the maze that was the basement of the Hanging Hill Playhouse. Sparks streamed off the whirling teeth of the miniature power saw as it gnawed its way though the hinged shackle and lit up the cobweb-coated casement windows behind them.
    For whatever reason, Hakeem was attempting to open an ancient steamer trunk that had been triple-looped with heavy chains, the links secured with padlocks.
    “How did you know this trunk would be here?” asked Grimes.
    Hakeem shut off his power tool and grinned. “Why do you think you are here?”
    “What?”
    “You were placed here to be the guardian of this treasure chest.”
    “No. I came here after college to direct plays. Musicals. I am Reginald Grimes!”
    “We know this, for we are the anonymous donors who agreed to endow the theater with one million dollars, provided, of course, they hired you to be the company’s artistic director.”
    “Nonsense.”
    “We are the same benefactors who made certain you received a college degree in either theater or theology.”
    Grimes was shocked.
    Theater or theology .
    That was precisely what his guidance counselor at the High School for Orphans and Helpless Youth had told him: An anonymous donor was willing to pay for his room, board, and college tuition, provided he studied theology or theater. At the time, Grimes had thought the bequest rather peculiar if not downright ridiculous. Why two subjects so alphabetically linked? Why the fixation on “t-h-e” degrees? He would have been foolish, of course, to turn down the offer for reasons related to spelling, because it was his ticket out of the orphanage, a chance to show the world the special talents he knew he had.
    Grimes chose theater because he felt studying theology would have been a complete waste of his time, since he had stopped believing in God long ago—at least, any benevolent, all-powerful, halfway-caring god.
    Hakeem’s saw blade started whirring again, chewing through the final lock’s steel shackle. Grimes shielded his eyes from the spew of sparks.
    “Why me?” he called out over the harsh whine of steel on steel.
    The final lock popped free. Hakeem turned off his power tool.
    “I knew your grandfather.”
    “Impossible. I have no family.”
    “So you have always been told. However, in truth, you are the sole surviving male heir of a very noble line. Your family tree has its roots in antiquity and the most glorious civilization to ever spring forth along the coasts of the Mediterranean