Chapter 10: The Locked Drawer

Kyle's study was the only room in the house I never cleaned.

He liked it that way.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder and flipped on the desk lamp.

"You open the drawers," I said. "I'll take the shelves."

"That's not a split," Sam said. "That's me doing all the lifting."

"You've got longer arms."

He gave me a look and started on the desk.

The top drawers were pens, receipts and loose cufflinks.

The shelves were architecture books and a framed photo of Kyle shaking a governor's hand.

We went through all of it in half an hour.

There was nothing about a clinic.

There was nothing about anything.

Sam crouched at the bottom drawer and pulled.

"This one's locked," he said.

"Of course it is."

"I can take the front off."

"It's his father's desk. I'd like to see his face when he finds the front off."

"Does he have a spare key?"

I thought about Kyle, who was neat to the point of cruelty.

A man like that didn't lose keys.

He hid them in the one place that made sense to him.

"The closet," I said.

The study closet was a narrow thing, built for coats, with a high shelf of old tax binders.

I stepped into it and felt along the underside of the shelf in the dark.

Sam came in behind me.

There wasn't room for him.

He turned sideways, one hand against the doorframe, and his chest was an inch from my back.

"I can feel a piece of tape," I said.

"Where?"

"Left side, behind the green binder."

His arm reached past my shoulder.

He was so close that his breath moved the hair at my ear.

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