The Key To the Kingdom (11 page)

“Tell me why I shouldn’t call security and have you arrested!”

Hawk blew out a breath. “It’s a long story.”

“You have sixty seconds to tell it,” she threatened.

Nearly melting from the heat of her glare, Hawk gave her a rundown of the events of the last few days.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

Day Four Evening

B
Y THE TIME HAWK FINISHED
the tale he was nearly breathless. He had tried to share every detail and hadn’t wasted time by pausing to inhale. Slowing he looked at Kiran, awaiting her reaction. Her eyes did not reveal what she was thinking as she stood silently processing the information. The silence was painfully deafening before Kiran obliterated it.

“Let me make sure I understand this,” she said in an angry whisper. “Farren Rales, one of the most respected and legendary Imagineers in Disney history, is a friend of yours.”

“Yes,” replied Hawk.

“Be quiet!” Kiran snapped. “He asked you to meet him at a real-life Dwarf Cottage and gave you a key that he called the key to the kingdom. He gave you some vague instructions to take the key and do what Walt did after he left the Dwarf Cottage all those years ago. But you weren’t clear on what he meant, and Rales seems to have disappeared so you couldn’t ask him about it.”

She paused for a moment but Hawk knew better than to acknowledge the accuracy of her review. He didn’t have to wait long before she launched back into her dissertation.

“Even though you aren’t sure what the key is for, you figured you needed to bring it to Walt Disney’s office because there was something inside that the key would open. The only way to get to Walt Disney’s office was to break into
the exhibit, inside a closed attraction, inside a closed theme park. But then I came wandering by leading a private tour and noticed a pair of feet attached to a man hiding in the corner of the office. As I was getting ready to alert security I was able to get a glimpse of the burglar and recognized him as the pastor of the Celebration Community Church, who I was supposed to have a date with tomorrow. Did I miss anything?”

“The date is at seven o’clock.” Hawk mustered a crooked smile.

“There is no date,” Kiran fired back. “Your story is the craziest one I’ve heard in a long time. I still haven’t heard a reason I shouldn’t call security.”

“I know it’s unbelievable, but I don’t think it’s crazy,” Hawk countered. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t mess up anything in the office.”

“So you were in the office long enough to search it?”

“Yes, but my key didn’t fit anything. Walt’s desk doesn’t have a locked drawer; there is no drawer in the desk. Nothing else in the office has a lock that the key fits.”

“You really rifled through the office of Walt Disney?” she repeated in disbelief.

“I was trying to do what Farren told me to do.”

“You aren’t sure what he intended for you to do! Somehow I don’t think it involved trespassing in a valuable exhibit.” Kiran dropped her head and looked down at the ground. She drew several deep breaths before she spoke again. “And what did you plan to do after you found whatever you were looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Hawk said.

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t really know what I would do after I was done. The plan was just kind of unfolding as I went.”

“Unbelievable.” Kiran shook her head.

“See, I told you it was unbelievable. Not crazy, just unbelievable.”

Kiran opened her mouth, then closed it. Her hesitation prompted him to fill the silence that hung between them.

“I promise you I am not crazy. I guess after I was chased out of the Gamble Place and Farren disappeared without any word, I thought that if I figured out what the key meant . . .”

“You might figure out what happened to your friend?”

“I guess.” Hawk nodded. “So are you going to call security?”

Kiran pressed her lips together. “Let me see the key.”

Hawk produced the key from his pocket and unwrapped it. Kiran watched the care and reverence he used as he released it from its bindings. He held it out between them and she reached out and took it from his grasp. Frowning, she turned it over and studied it.

“This key looks extremely old,” she stated. “I doubt there was ever anything in Walt’s office that this would have opened. The exhibit contains Walt’s office as it would have looked when he passed away in 1966. Most of what’s in there are recreations of the original pieces. Anything this key might have opened is something that the family would have kept.”

“Like I told you, according to what Rales said, Walt went back to his studio and the memories of what he had seen at Gamble Place inspired him in
amazing ways. After he gave me the key he told me to do the same. A little while ago it made sense to me that it would unlock something in Walt’s office.” Hawk knew his thinking had been more emotional than rational. “Kiran, if you’d been there when Farren gave me the key, you would have seen the look on his face and heard the intensity in his voice when he . . .”

“When he what?” Kiran responded with less intensity than she had moments ago.

“When he told me not just to treasure the key but to use it,” Hawk said softly.

“So he actually told you to use the key?”

“Yes. That’s what has me standing here with you.”

Kiran’s demeanor was less angry and now more puzzled than before. While Hawk waited for her to decide what to do next, she raised her head and gazed off to her left. With a look that balanced caution and confusion, she focused back on Hawk as if trying to decide to say what she was thinking.

“If Walt was in Florida at the Dwarfs’ Cottage in 1939, there’s no way he could have gone back and reflected on his trip in his office,” she said with conviction.

“So Farren was just telling me a story?”

“I have no idea what he was telling you. I’m telling you that Walt could not have come back and sat down and did whatever he did in this office. This was the office from the Walt Disney Studios that didn’t exist until years later. Like I told you, this was what his office looked like in 1966. That would have been twenty-seven years after he went to the Dwarfs’ Cottage.”

Awareness dawned like a sunrise ending a moonless night. Recreating the moment as Walt sat down behind his desk in this office couldn’t happen because it had not existed until years later. Realizing the idiocy of his plan, he nodded.

“You’re right.” Hawk’s voice echoed with a twinge of disappointment. He lowered his face.

“Bad plan, huh?” she said softly.

“Yes, bad plan,” Hawk agreed as he looked back toward her.

She cocked her head over her right shoulder. “To do what Walt would have done, you’d have to get back to the office he had in 1939. That building and office disappeared years ago.”

“Kiran, will you get me out of here?” Hawk asked and waited as silence fell between them once again.

“I am going to regret this.” She shook her head from side to side as she spoke.

Hawk felt a wave of relief that Kiran was willing to help him extract himself from this mess he had created. However, she held up her index finger.

“You can’t visit the office Walt had in 1939, but you could still get behind his desk.” Her voice took on a conspiratorial tone.

“What?” Hawk’s pulse tripped.

“The desk from his office at the old studio is here.”

“Here?”

“Yes, it’s here, in this attraction. You’ve walked past it every single time you’ve walked through it.” Kiran clamped her mouth shut again as though realizing she’d offered too much information.

He waited to hear what she was going to say next. Finally Kiran reached out and took Hawk by the hand. She led him forward through the narrow passageway that curved to the right and then made a slight jog behind additional exhibits. Kiran stopped at a wall with a small door that resembled an oversized doggy door. The door was large enough for a person to get through, and like the others, had a keyed lock. Kiran once again faced Hawk and handed him the old skeleton key Rales had given him. In all of their discussion, he’d forgotten she still was holding it.

“Here, you hold your key to the kingdom. I need to find a key to the door. Don’t go wandering off,” she instructed, then moved away, leaving him standing there.

Hawk looked at the key in his hand. Earlier he had been so sure he needed to get into Walt’s office. Speaking with Kiran had shown him how ridiculous his line of thinking was. Now he didn’t know what to think. Hearing footsteps, he turned his attention to the sound of Kiran returning from around the corner of the passageway. She smiled triumphantly, holding up a key.

“I’m going to open this door and we’re going to crawl through. We only have a few minutes inside. This key is a maintenance key, which means the crew isn’t working inside this part of the attraction yet.”

“What about security cameras?” Hawk inquired.

She looked at him with astonishment. “You’re worried about that now?”

Kiran did not wait for an answer. She knelt down and placed the key into the bolted lock.

“Actually there is a security camera inside this exhibit. Behind this door is the desk from Walt’s office in the late thirties and early forties. We used to have the special Academy Award that Walt had received for
Snow White and the Seven Dwarf
. sitting on the desk itself. That was the one with the large statue flanked by seven smaller ones. While that was on display this part of the exhibit was monitored closely. Now that piece of memorabilia is on display elsewhere, so the camera isn’t monitored anymore.” She paused as she turned the lock and prepared to open the door. “At least I hope it isn’t monitored anymore.”

Kiran got on her hands and knees and managed to navigate her way through the door opening. Hawk watched with distracted amusement and admiration as she did so in a skirt which made the trek through the door even more difficult to accomplish with the appropriate degree of modesty. Seeing her straighten up and step out of the way through the opening, he heard her whisper.

“Are you coming in here or not?”

Crouching and then moving to his hands and knees, Hawk navigated the path through the door as Kiran had just done. Straightening up, he found himself standing inside a compact display with an old wooden desk as the focal point. Hanging on the back wall above the desk was a picture of Walt Disney receiving the Academy Award for
Snow White
. from Shirley Temple. The spotlights that illuminated the desk were intense and Hawk once again
looked out at the interior of One Man’s Dream from behind the glass of another display.

“This was the desk Walt used in his office when
Snow White
. was created. If he went back to his office and sat behind his desk after his Florida trip to the Dwarfs’ Cottage, this would be the desk.” Kiran’s eyes sparkled. “This is what you came for. See if your key fits.”

Hawk stepped to the back of the desk. This was what you could see from the tour of the exhibit. Kiran had been right. Hawk had walked past this every time he had been in the attraction. He had never paid as much attention to this desk or the history behind it as he had the other things in the exhibit. With his back against the glass separating the desk from the touch of the tourists, he reached down to the center drawer of the desk. He pulled it toward him. It did not open. Hawk looked up at Kiran, and without saying a word, confirmed for her that it was indeed locked. Standing to the side of the desk, she placed both hands on it and leaned forward to better see what Hawk was about to attempt.