Behind Closed Doors (Rochester Trilogy 3.50)

When I’m sure she’s settled in, her footsteps going back and forth, I move carefully to a closed door near the dining room.

I’m only here to surveil it. Determine if I’ll need to pick the lock. The hardware on the door is about the same quality as the rooms upstairs. I’m expecting this to need a key, since it’s been shut tight the whole time I’ve been here.

Instead, the knob turns under my hand. The door swings open to reveal a workspace. Marjorie keeps it neat, just like the rest of the inn, but there’s more.

A big worktable has a low stack of boxes on one end. A scrapbook is opened in the center of the table. A small lamp perches in the corner. A few paper organizers, stacked side-by-side, line the walls. A wire rack holds a variety of scissors.

Scrapbooking?

It strikes me as an odd hobby for a woman who only popped into existence five years ago. But when I lean over the table to see the open pages, none of them have to do with Marjorie.

The people in the photos look nothing like her. A newspaper clipping lined up next to the books has a photo of the same people with their names printed underneath. Howard Forsyth and his wife, Carol. I scan the area again. There’s a handwritten note tacked to the wall.

Thank you so much for doing this. It means a lot to our family. Can’t wait to see the results!

–Evelyn Forsyth

Who ever heard of making scrapbooks for other people? Though, if I think about it… maybe it’s the perfect hobby for a person like Marjorie. These scrapbooks must be new families for her just like the visitors at the inn. A sweet kind of wish fulfillment. From the way she spoke about family, it’s clear she wished she had one. In this workroom, she takes bits of the past and gives them pleasing arrangements on the page. It tugs at my heart to think of her in here with her head bowed over the history of someone else’s love.

I clear my throat and push that emotion down. Work has never been about emotion. If it was, I’d never have survived the shit that usually comes with my assignments. Long nights in enemy territory. Hours of what the government likes to call “enhanced interrogation.” Years without a home or a family.

Those things aren’t the end goal, either. The end goal is just to make it out. An operative doesn’t think beyond the conclusion of an assignment, even if it’s the last one. He doesn’t make plans.

The scrapbook isn’t the only thing in the room. Two file cabinets against the wall are the most likely place to find paperwork about Marjorie’s father.

And if I find the evidence now, I can spend the rest of the time…

What?

Being with her?

That’s hardly an option. If I find it right now, the only choice is to leave. Walk straight out the front door. All the things in my duffel bag can be replaced.

I pull open one of the doors on the filing cabinet. This is one of the better things I’ve done in my line of work. It doesn’t involve bodily injury or torture of the mind. It’s a search mission. The cabinet is filled with folders, each labeled with handwriting I recognize from the second column in her ledger.

It’s her. This is what she’s been doing. Her recent past. All that exists, if the records are to be believed. She came into existence five years ago, and all the proof is here.

I want to know about her.

I want to read every file in this cabinet. Assemble them like the pages of her scrapbook. If she made that into a book, I’d read it every night.

I recognize that urge for what it is—a fucking problem. Entanglement like this is not for a man like me. Not now. Not ever. I pull the folders apart methodically. Records from her Etsy business. Invoices. Notes from customers. One folder is thicker than the others. I ease it open with a fingertip and find a sealed packing envelope inside. It’s heavy.

A returned scrapbook.

“What are you doing in here?”

How the fuck did I not hear her? I keep my heartbeat steady out of habit, but I’m caught. Red-handed. I put both palms out in front of me, where she can see them. Marjorie stands in the doorway. Her face is pale. Eyes wide.

“I was curious.” I go for a smile, but she doesn’t smile back. “It’s an intriguing little room you have here.”

She swallows hard. “I saw your gun upstairs.”

Okay. I’ll need another approach.

“Marjorie—”

“Why do you have a gun?” She huffs out a breath and holds her body still. I can see how much she wants to run. “Are you police? CIA?”

I let my hands down. Let out my own breath. She needs to see me as calm. As calm as a man like me can look. “CIA.”