“My grandfather used to have a desk like this. I loved curling up underneath it, pretending it was a castle. When he was in a good mood, he’d let me sit at it and cut up papers. I’d arrange books along one side, and have my brother check out books. I loved that desk,” I said meditatively, memories swamping me.
“I will buy you one like it later, but you must search now,” Kristoff answered, his attention wholly on the computer screen in front of him as his hands flew over the keyboard.
I sat slowly in the chair behind the desk, my fingers caressing the rolled wood that edged the desk, wondering why I felt so oddly reluctant to open the drawers.
“I do not like prying any more than you do,” Kristoff said, addressing my unspoken thoughts. “But if he is in danger, there might be something here that will permit us to rescue him. And if not . . .”
He stopped speaking, but his thoughts were readily apparent.
“If not, we’ll find that, too. I know.” I tried my best to release my feeling of guilt at invading Alec’s privacy as I opened the first drawer.
Kristoff swore. “He’s password-protected most of the documents. I can’t get into them.”
“Rats. You don’t know his password?”
He shook his head, turning off the computer. “No, and it’s useless to try to break the encryption. It would take far too long.” He thought for a moment or two. “You keep searching the desk. I will go through his bedroom and the other rooms.”
“There’re only the three floors?” I asked, a handful of bank and credit card statements in my hands. I glanced through them quickly, but didn’t see anything that was out of the ordinary.
“There’s an attic, but it’s not used. There is a small guesthouse, however. I’ll check that when I’m through with his bedroom. It, too, should be empty, but it is better to check. Go through his papers carefully, Pia. There could be something in there that will give us a hint as to his state of mind or plans.”
The ticking of the thin marble clock hanging on the wall opposite kept me company for the next forty minutes. Kristoff popped in briefly to say he’d searched all the rooms on this floor, and was going to check the guesthouse before starting on the main floor.
Magda arrived not long after that.
“I’ll say this for Alec,” she said from where she stood in the doorway, watching me sort through several file folders. “The man has a damned fine wine cellar. I’m afraid we gave in to temptation and opened a bottle of Gaja Costa Russi that’s absolute heaven. We saved you guys some.”
I looked up from a stock portfolio statement, somewhat surprised by the figures it detailed. Kristoff might disclaim having any wealth, but Alec certainly couldn’t deny that he had holdings worth a significant amount of money, even by today’s standards. “Thanks, but I don’t think Kristoff drinks, and I’m not a big fan of red wines. Did you find anything else?”
She hiccuped and came into the room to plop down in the chair next to the computer. “Nothing that said what happened to him. Everything is shipshape, as far as we could tell. Nothing out of place, no giant map of the world with a big arrow pointing to his destination, nothing but a home theater, pool table, video arcade machines, and the wine cellar. Whatcha got there?”
I tidied the papers and put them back in their file folder, tucking it back in the appropriate drawer. “Just financial stuff. Nothing interesting, unless you want to be amazed at Alec’s financial genius, which I have to admit is pretty darned awesome.”
“Loaded, is he?” she asked, looking around the room.
“Very. That’s the last drawer.” I closed it and sat looking at the desk, my hands stroking the polished, cool surface.
“So the trip here has been for nothing.” Her voice reflected her unhappy expression.
“Probably.” I was oddly reluctant to leave the dusty hallways of my memory. “I was telling Kristoff earlier about how I used to play at a similar desk my grandfather had.”
“Oh, really?” She sat up. “Ooh! Don’t tell me your grandpa’s desk had a hidden drawer!”
“No,” I said, frowning down at my hands on the desk. “I used to beg him to show me the hidden drawer, but he said it didn’t have one.”
“Damn.” She thought for a moment, brightening up to add, “That doesn’t mean this one can’t have one.”
“You’re welcome to look. I already did, but two pairs of eyes are better than one, and all that.”
Magda hurried over to the desk and, one by one, pulled out the drawers. We checked them for false bottoms and false backs, looked underneath for anything taped to the underside, and more or less gutted the desk. By the time the marble clock chimed the hour, I realized we’d been searching for more than twenty minutes.
“I think we’re going to have to face the fact that there’s no hidden anything in the desk,” I said, rubbing my fingers absently along its rolled edge.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Magda said, crawling out from where she’d been on her back underneath the desk, examining the underside. She sat on her heels, her eyes narrowed on my hand. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Keep doing what?” I looked down at the desk. “Rubbing the edge? I don’t know. The carving on it is pretty, don’t you think?”
She leaned to the side, peering over the desk. “Yeah, but the desk has that edge all the way around it, and you keep touching just that one spot.”
I shrugged. “Coincidence. I suppose we should go report in to Kristoff that we haven’t found anything.”
I started to get up, but Magda held up a hand. “Hang on a sec. I think there’s more to it than coincidence. You had to scoot your chair over a foot so you could touch that spot. It’s not something you can reach when you sit square at the desk.”
“So? It’s just a weird quirk. I like wood. I like to touch it.”
“Only that one spot?” she asked.
I frowned at the desk. “Now, that is odd. I guess I have been drawn to this one edge. . . . Oh, Magda, you don’t mean to say-”
“Stranger things, my dear, stranger things.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Look at it this way.” She crawled over to where my hand had been resting, examining that edge of the desk closely. “You’re a Zorya. You’re not normal anymore.”
“Thanks.”
She brushed away my grimace. “You know what I mean. You’re Pia-plus, and no, I’m not talking about your size. Maybe there’s something here that you’re subconsciously picking up on. Hand me that letter opener, will you?”
I shook my head but did as she asked, giving her the thin knife that Alec obviously used as a letter opener. She poked at the edge for a few minutes, making me flinch a couple of times as the blade marred the wood.
“Oh, let me do it,” I said, nudging her aside. “You’re just going to scratch up the lovely finish. Not that I think there’s anything to what you’re . . . Well, I’ll be damned.”
I don’t know if it was Magda’s prodding with the knife that did it, or if I triggered some sensitive spot, but a piece of the molding about seven inches long came off in my hand. I thought for a moment that I’d broken it, but a glance at the minute dovetail work of the desk and molding told me it was intended to come off.
“Look. Is that an opening?” Magda asked, peering closely at the desk. “It is. I think there’s something in there. You got a pair of tweezers on you?”
“Do my eyebrows look like I’m the sort of person who has tweezers?” I asked, getting on my knees so I, too, could peer into a thin, narrow slit that had evidently been carved into the thick top of the desk. Like Magda, I could see the faint outline of an object deep in the recess. I used the paper knife, gently guiding the object out. “I think . . . Ah, there it is. Yes, I have it.”
“What is it?” she asked, peering over my shoulders at the slim book I held. “Something important?”
“I can’t imagine stuffing something trivial in there,” I answered, carefully unwrapping a saffron yellow animal skin that had been carefully folded into a bundle. Inside it was what appeared to be a hand-stitched goatskin journal. It was small, about the size of a PDA, the outer cover brown and stained with age. The pages inside, about ten total, appeared to be made of vellum, also mottled and stained with the effects of time. I rubbed my fingers along the pages, not seeing, for a moment, the thick black handwriting, but admiring the profound sense of age that wrapped around the book.
