She swallowed her fears and pushed open the heavy door.
Nighttime wasn’t the best for this.
Ghosts don’t exist.
Yet, she could feel her father here.The smell of his pipe tobacco.The creak of his shoes.
She closed the door, pressed her back against it, and shut her eyes.Her accelerated heart rate told her shewasafraid.But not of ghosts, not real ones, anyway.
Just the ones she couldn’t rid herself of: the memories of her father and Henry.
A few quick steps took her over to a lamp.She pulled off the sheet covering it and turned it on.The yellow glow of the bulb chased away some of the fearsome shadows.
Her mother clearly hadn’t wanted to sort through her own ghosts—the study was still closed.No doubt coming here was painful in a way Ginger couldn’t understand.Her mother had been forced to watch her father’s demise but couldn’t stop it.
That her mother had managed her knowledge of his affairs with such graceful silence and savvy only spoke to her intelligence.And the nature of her parents’ relationship.Not all husbands troubled themselves with telling their wives about their business dealings.The more Ginger learned of her mother, the more she admired her.
Ginger moved toward the large mahogany desk, which was still shrouded.She uncovered it and bundled the sheet into the chair behind it.Her mother had told her the CID had taken some of her father’s belongings.What if she couldn’t find anything here?
She brushed her fingers along the grooves of the desk.How often had her father sat here, making notes in ledgers, his head buried in books?At home, his study in Penmore had been used for more personal matters.But in Egypt he’d done the lion’s share of work here.She’d missed most of it, of course.Her work as a nurse had kept her in the hospitals or on the front.
She’d missed the last three years of her father’s life.Henry’s too.
A quick search revealed empty drawers, just as her mother had suggested.The CID had taken everything.A fountain pen rolled in the top drawer as it opened, smacking against the side.She sighed.Other than a few bits and bobs of junk, nothing else seemed to be inside the desk.
She sank into the chair, her back against the bundled sheet.What had she expected?To simply open the desk and find valuable information right there?
It would have been too easy.
Ginger closed her eyes once again, listening to the stillness of the room.While her father was alive, the butler would have taken care to wind the grandfather clock.She missed the familiar rhythm of itstick-tock, counting the seconds of life.Its life had been extinguished like her father’s.
She stared at the desk.Her father loved his secrets.He wouldn’t have hidden the paperwork for the concession, otherwise.Wouldn’t have succeeded in his misdeeds as long as he had.
He wouldn’t have left information about Paul Hanover anywhere that was easy to find, even if Paul used an alias.
Ginger leaned forward, then pulled the top drawer of the desk open once again.Back home in Penmore, her father had a secret compartment in his desk.She’d found it while exploring his desk as a child and received quite the scolding for it.
Running her fingertips along the sides of the drawer, she felt for anything unusual but found only the smooth grain of the wood.
She flattened her hands, ran them along the surface.Toward the back, she felt the slightest groove, barely big enough for two fingertips to fit in.She dipped her pointer and middle fingers into the groove and pushed them forward, toward the back of the drawer.
The bottom of the drawer slid open a crack, revealing a compartment underneath.
She was right.
A smile curved at her lips as she pushed it open further.
A flash of gold caught her eye.The compartment was lined with velvet, with thin wires embedded into the velvet to hold various objects in place.A pair of gold-hinged Egyptian cuff bracelets was tied down with the wire, the hinge open to accommodate the narrow space of the compartment.Ginger untied one of them, lifting it with wonder.Her lips parted.Hieroglyphs were inscribed on the inside of the bracelet, the outside encrusted with lapis lazuli.
If she’d ever needed proof her father was involved with smuggling, this was it.
A matching Egyptian broad collar necklace was carefully tied down beside the bracelets.
These objects were invaluable.
And most likely stolen.
A black leather book lay behind them.She placed the cuff bracelet on the desktop, then lifted the book.Flipping it open, she found her father’s neat script.An address book.
