“Like make conversation,” I said. “Keep her occupied.”
“Charlie, what’s going on?” he asked.
In the distance, I heard a curt knock on a door and then low, indistinct voices.
“I have a plan,” I said. “Just trust me.”
I didn’t have time to say any more, because the receptionist had returned to her desk. “Mr. Thornton will see you now,” the woman said. She sat and gave a little nod at the hallway behind her. “Second door on your right.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I gave Greyson a subtle wink as I left him at the receptionist’s desk and turned down the hallway. There were three doors along the hallway, one on the left and two on the right. The receptionist had left the second one on the right slightly ajar. The other doors were closed.
“So, are you a Huskies fan?” I heard Greyson ask the receptionist behind me. “Big into basketball?”
Face palm. What was I thinking relying on Greyson’s social skills for a reliable distraction?
“No,” the woman said.
“Football?”
“No.”
I glanced behind me to be sure the receptionist wasn’t looking my way. She wasn’t. I grabbed the handle to the first door on the right, praying it wasn’t locked. It twisted in my palm. So far, so good. I opened it as quietly as I could and peeked inside. It was dark but I caught my reflection in the mirror above the counter. Bathroom. Not what I was looking for. I closed the door and continued down the short hall.
I stopped in front of the door on the left. With one more glance behind me to make sure the receptionist wasn’t looking, I pushed the door open as quietly as I could. It was dark because the shades were drawn on the far window, but there were a desk, a couch, and a couple of filing cabinets. Peter’s office. Score. I slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind me.
I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and turned on my flashlight. I surveyed the filing cabinets, which were arranged along the right wall a little ways behind the desk. The first set of drawers was labeled with business items: “Accounting,” “Bank Records,” “Contracts,” “Permits and Licenses.” I moved on to the second cabinet. This one contained client files arranged alphabetically. The cabinet on top read “Clients: A–C.” Bingo. I reached out and tugged on the handle, but it was locked. Crap.
I looked around me for something to pick the lock with, trying to remember everything I could from all those tutorials Drew had watched on YouTube in preparation for her first A’s ticket. From what I remembered, I’d need two large paper clips—one to use as the pick and the other to put tension on the lock. I rummaged around Peter Hindsberg’s desk and found a pair of paper clips in his wire mesh desktop organizer. I unfolded the clips and fashioned a small hook at the end of the clip I would use as the tension wrench. Then I stuck the tension wrench into the bottom of the lock and turned it to the right slightly, applying pressure in the direction the lock should go. I held it there and inserted the pick into the top of the lock, raking the pins until they set. It took me several tries to get all of the pins set, and then I felt the lock give and I was able to turn it with my other paper clip. I was in.
I eased the drawer open slowly and held my phone light close as I searched through the files. There were at least a hundred files packed tightly together in the drawer, some fat and some thin. I skimmed through the A’s and the B’s, searching for the beginning of the C’s. Then, near the back, I found it: “Calloway, Grace.”
The file was light. It contained a few pieces of yellow legal pad paper, full of chicken-scratch notes, and a smaller envelope. I opened it, and dozens of photographs slid out onto the floor of the office. I picked one up, shone the light of my phone on it, and gasped.
It was my father.
He was just a teenager in the photograph; his face still had the roundness of a boy’s. He had a beer in one hand and his other arm was slung around the shoulder of a boy I recognized. Jake Griffin.
It was nighttime and the picture was dark. The red time stamp in the bottom right corner of the photograph read, 9:32 p.m. December 21, 1990. In the picture, Jake beamed at the camera and held up his own beer in salute to whoever was taking the picture. A girl stood on Jake’s other side, posed to give him a kiss on the cheek. I recognized Matthew York, one of my father’s friends, standing to my father’s right.
I reached down and picked up another photograph off the floor. This one was of a slender blond girl I didn’t recognize. In the photograph, she was naked, and she stared at whoever was taking the picture with a steady, unabashed gaze. Her body was marked up all over with red permanent marker with derogatory words and descriptions. Parts of her were circled and labeled: her nose, which someone had marked “beak,” her stomach, which someone had marked “fat.” The time stamp for this one was months earlier: September 22, 1990.
Through the wall, I heard the phone ring in the front office and the receptionist answer.
“Hindsberg and Thornton Investigations,” she said. “Oh, hello, Peter. How was your flight? Hmm. Okay, let me see if I can find it for you. Let me transfer the call. One moment.”
Next to me, the phone on Peter Hindsberg’s desk rang and I jumped.
I heard Greyson’s voice through the wall next, loud and panicky, as if he were trying to alert me to the fact that I was about to be discovered.
“Um, real quick, can you show me where your restroom is?” he asked. “I really have to go. Like, I HAVE TO GO NOW. Sorry, it’s these burritos I had this morning. They didn’t really agree with me.”
Shit. I closed the cabinet drawer and dropped to my knees, trying to gather all of the photos that had spilled and put them back in the file.
“Oh, is this it?” Greyson asked. “Okay, thanks. Um, the toilet paper looks a little low. Do you have more in the back or something? Sorry, just trying to be prepared—I have this condition and things can get—oh, you keep them here, right under the sink? Jeez, that’s a lot of toilet paper. I bet you have a Costco membership. You know, I’ve been thinking about getting one of those, but I can’t decide between the standard and executive memberships. Which one do you have?”
I had just enough time to slam the folder shut and climb underneath Peter Hindsberg’s desk before I heard the door open. I snapped off the flashlight app on my phone and held my breath.
