Better safe than sorry, as Gran always said.
Vi pulled a tiny flashlight from the back pocket of her shorts and flipped it on—a silver penlight Gran had given her, the kind a real doctor would use for checking someone’s pupils. Vi used it as a backup on her monster-hunting missions. Now it was her spy flashlight.
She held still, looking around. The ticking of her watch was the only sound in the room.
A huge maple desk dominated the small wood-paneled room. The left wall had built-in bookshelves. On the right wall was a fireplace made of the same yellow brick as the outside of the building. Just to the right of the door stood a large leather chair. And in the other corner was tucked another less-comfortable-looking chair. Sometimes Gran used her office to meet with other doctors or concerned family members. But mostly, this space was for Gran and Gran alone. It was where she wrote her notes each day. Where she made phone calls. Developed treatment plans.
Her framed degrees hung on the wall, along with a silver frame holding a certificate she’d been awarded for all her volunteer work with the criminals and drug addicts at the state-run clinic, Project Hope.
Vi walked over and sat down at the desk, tried to open the top drawer, but it was locked. Feeling foolish, she tried the door key, but wasn’t at all surprised when it didn’t fit. The big upper drawer on the side pulled open easily, and in it Vi found pencils and pens, rubber bands, empty notebooks and pads of paper. The second drawer held letterhead and envelopes, a roll of stamps. No keys to the basement. No notes about B West or the Mayflower Project or who Iris might be. Nothing interesting at all.
The top of the desk was uncluttered. Gran never left any half-finished work. A black phone with a dial and glowing buttons for reaching each extension of the Inn, a rinsed-out coffee mug, a desk lamp with a stained glass butterfly on it, a heavy glass ashtray, and two photos sat on the desk. One snapshot of Vi and Eric standing together in front of the house, their arms around each other. Gran had taken it with her Instamatic last year: Smile and say Gorgonzola, my lovelies! And beside it, in a thick gold frame, a black-and-white photo of Gran when she was young, from back in her med-school days. She was with an older man in a white coat with a neatly trimmed mustache and little round glasses. Vi had asked about this photo before, and Gran had told her the man was one of her professors and mentors. Vi looked at Gran’s face in the photo, wearing the half-smile Vi knew so well. The one Gran gave whenever she was asked to pose for a photograph, like a full smile was too much effort.
Vi picked up the photo to look at it more closely, seeking some sign of herself in her grandmother’s young face—she thought they looked the same around the eyes maybe. And that’s when she saw it: a small, flat brass key hidden beneath the edge of the heavy gold frame.
Vi set the photo down and removed the key, studying it for a second, then slipping it into the keyhole in the top drawer of the desk. It fit perfectly and turned easily.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the God of Keys. Then, “Please,” to the Clue-Finding God.
What could be in the drawer that Gran felt the need to keep locked up?
Surely nothing that important, or she would have hidden the key better.
Vi pulled the drawer open slowly, carefully, as if she expected a snake to jump out. She angled the beam of her little flashlight down.
Unlike the tidiness of the room and desktop, the drawer was a messy jumble of objects.
Two packs of cigarettes. Cough drops. Matchbooks. A little silver flask that Vi was sure must contain some of Gran’s gin. An unlabeled amber plastic vial of pills—Vi picked it up gingerly, saw tiny blue capsules inside.
At the bottom of the drawer was a hardcover book. Weird. Why would Gran keep a book in a locked drawer and not on the bookshelves with all the others?
Vi took it out, shone her light on it.
A Case for Good Breeding: The Templeton Family Study and the Promise of Eugenics by Dr. Wilson G. Hicks.