[Veritas]

A stout, middle-aged woman named June stood bewildered before the formidable figure of Chief of Security Macaffey. She was crisply dressed in the regulation housekeeper's uniform of the Luxor Hotel and Resort, but her hair was disheveled after a long shift. When Macaffey informed her about the theft in the editing room and demanded to know if she had taken the photographs, she vehemently denied any knowledge about it.

"Go ahead!" she said defiantly. "Seach my locker! Search my cart! Search the whole damn office if you want to! You aren't going to find anything, because I didn't take anything from anywhere! Besides, I didn't even work last night! If anyone stole those pictures, it was whoever was on duty that night!"

"You know who was on duty last night?" Macaffey asked.

"Schedule's on the wall over there," June said, pointing to the bulletin board.

Macaffey scanned the abbreviated heiroglyphics on the crudely printed schedule on the bulletin board. "Where's the editing room?"

June came over and pointed it out for him on the form. "There."

"D. Kemmings," Macaffey read. "Who's that?"

"Danise," June told him. "But she's been here for years; she wouldn't take anything."

"Get her over here now," Macaffey ordered.

Danise Kemmings was summoned. The slender black woman with the tight bun arrived after a few minute's delay. "What's going on here?" she asked.

"Did you take out the trash in the MindFreak Productions office last night?" Macaffey demanded bluntly.

"Not last night," Danise replied. "More like around five-thirty in the afternoon. Why?"

"Because there are some photographs of Criss Angel here missing from that office," Macaffey said. "You were the only one who was in that office besides the editor. Care to explain?"

"Mister, I swear to God I didn't take anything besides the trash out of that office!" Danise protested.

"Did you see anyone take anything out of that office?"

"No." Suddenly, Danise halted, as if recalling something. "I did see someone around that office, though, just as I was coming in," she said quickly.

"What'd he look like?"

"Well, it's hard to get a description, because his face was covered with something white," Danise told him. "He wore a black jacket, like a biker's jacket, and dark pants. He was all hunched over, like this." She bowed her shoulders and clenched her arms about her.

"We'll check the tape from surveillance," Macaffey said. "Maybe they got your hunchback. In the meantime, we would like to search your locker for the photographs, just in case. Do we have your permission?"

Danise heaved a huge sigh. "Okay, but you're not going to find anything," she said.

"That's for us to find out," Macaffey said brusquely. "You can go now."

Danise turned to leave, but she spun back around. "Hey, if you find my spare set of keys, let me know," she quipped.

Criss turned to Macaffey. "Listen, I gotta get back," he said. "Good luck finding those photographs."

"We'll find 'em," he said. "If that hunchback took the main corridor, they got 'im on tape."

Criss sighed in frustration. "This is starting to turn into a wild goose chase," he said.

Macaffey nodded grimly. "Yeah, and when we find that guy who stole those pictures, his 'goose' is cooked!"