Limping across the floor, I picked up the keys and tossed them into the desk drawer. I was done.
I walked down the hall with my hand still pressed against my throbbing hip and stopped at the top of the stairs. Cynthia’s voice was weary as she spoke on the phone. Idling for a moment before taking the first stair, I heard her speak my name.
“Nina’s fine. She’s upstairs, resting. What do you expect me to do? Forbid her to...? Honestly, you worry too much! She just didn’t want to be alone tonight. I heard some commotion upstairs; I assumed she knocked something over. It mustn’t have been as bad as…,” she sighed, “yes. I’ll check on her. Goodnight.”
Cynthia turned to look up at me. I sheepishly waved, cursing under my breath for getting caught eavesdropping.
“Are you all right, Dear?” she called.
“I’m fine. Ran into a desk; bumped my side. Who was that?”
She shrugged. “Was it really necessary to yell out such profanities while I’m on the phone? My friends were under the impression that I had raised a lady.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was being so loud.”
Cynthia nodded dismissively. “I’ve got a beautiful ham in the oven. You’ll be staying for dinner, won’t you?”
“Er…yes. I was going to stop by the hospital, but it can wait.”
Cynthia made her way up the stairs. I followed into her study where she set some unopened envelopes on her desk.
“How is your friend doing?” she asked, I assumed just to be polite.
“I’m not sure, I haven’t been back since this morning, but no one’s called to tell me otherwise. I’m sure there’s been improvement.”
“Wonderful news, Dear,” she said, preoccupied.
She pulled her pearl drop earrings from her ears, and placed them on the silver tray that sat on a small table near the wall. My eyes wandered to a hutch that matched her table and desk. The fronds of a plant obscured the top cabinet, and I zeroed in on a small silver circle on the top right corner.
“Coming, Nina?” Cynthia asked, pausing at the door.
“I’ll be down in a minute. I wanted to check my e-mail, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she smiled. “Don’t be late for dinner.”
I watched her walk out the door and waited as she descended the stairs. Once she was deeper into the lower level, I sprinted down the hall to my father’s office. Yanking open his desk drawer, I grabbed the small silver ring of keys.
With a sense of excitement, I hurried back to my mother’s study and pulled the plant to the floor. It was heavier than it appeared, and I grunted as I worked to set it down without overturning the whole pot onto its side.
After the first five keys failed, I blew my bangs from my face with a puff of air. Only two keys left. The sixth key slid in, and when I turned my wrist and the key continued to turn ninety degrees, I gasped.
Pulling the cabinet door open, I peered behind me for a just a moment, afraid of what my mother would say if she caught me snooping in her things. There were several files, so I pulled all of them out and spread them on the floor. On my knees, I thumbed through contracts, shipping papers, a receipt for the ring my father bought me, insurance claims and filings, and the occasional deposit slip.
I slid one folder to the side to uncover another with Jack’s no-nonsense scribble on it.
Port of Providence
My hands shook as I opened the flap of the folder. Did I really want to know? I felt I was opening Pandora’s Box.
Sitting on top, I found a thick, wrinkled manila envelope. I pulled the packet from the file and opened it. It contained a stack of black and white photos. Picture after picture featured a dozen or so different men, but those same faces appeared over and over, at times alone, and at other times together. One man that was most often the subject in the pictures stood beside the governor of Rhode Island. Another man was pictured in both casual clothes and some type of uniform; I assumed he was a police officer in formal blues.
I’d seen enough movies to know that these were surveillance photos. I turned each of the pictures over, but they were all unmarked. I had never seen these men before that I could remember, and I couldn’t fathom why my father would have them photographed. I looked at the file on the floor, knowing I was about to find out.
A hand-written sheet of paper caught my eye, and I poured over it. I flipped to the next page, and the next. My heart pounded as the words burned into my irises. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.
“Nina? Dinner!”
I rushed to gather the files and shoved them into Cynthia’s hutch. I locked the cabinet door and heaved the clay pot back to its shelf. After returning the keys to Jack’s desk drawer, I met Cynthia in the dining room.
I sat in my usual chair, across from my mother. A steaming plate of food waited for me on fine china, and I grimaced as the mouth-watering smell invaded my nose. I realized I hadn’t eaten since five o’clock the evening before. I was famished, but couldn’t eat.