After getting the call from his mother, he couldn’t help but worry a bit. It wasn’t unusual for drunks in Manchester to get robbed, beaten, or even stabbed when they wandered the streets at night. Elmer worked for a magazine called The Verve as a journalist at the far end of the city. Shawn jumped on a bus, and half an hour later, he arrived at the office. The building looked beaten down, a bit like some of its occupants. A lot of the interior was wooden, and it wasn’t very spacious. He walked up to the counter where a grumpy old man was sitting at the reception.

“Hey, my dad works here… Elmer Woodward?” he asked, then added, “I’d like to know whether he is in the office already. I was supposed to pick something up for him.”

After he stared at him for a moment, the man started typing away at his old keyboard.

“Just a moment,” he replied, “Show me some identification…” Shawn took out his ID and pointed at his surname. He looked at him and, with a sigh, said, “Your dad hasn’t been here since Tuesday morning. We’ve been unable to reach him.”

Fuck.

“Uhm, would it be okay for me to go into his office? He said it is urgent.”

“Okay, but be back quick, or I’ll come in and get you.”

He walked up a few stairs and down a hallway. He only vaguely remembered the way. He read the names on the old, wooden, glass-paned doors until he finally saw “E. Woodward” at the end of the hall. He stuck in the key he had gotten from the reception desk, and with a click, the door opened.

“What a mess,” Shawn said out loud. There was one large window, with a half-closed roller shade dimming the room. “Typical Dad. I knew he’d close the blinds,” Shawn thought with contempt. In front of the window sat a big office table and, next to it, a bookshelf. Opened binders and documents were scattered all around the table and floor. It reminded Shawn a bit of his own workspace, and he kind of hated himself for being so like his father. I will not be like him. He reminded himself to clean up his bench next time he was in the lab to prove he could be better than him.  He knew he shouldn’t poke around, but after the last confrontation with his Dad, he couldn’t care less about what one should or shouldn’t do. He wanted to get an edge over him, to reveal some dirty secret. He enjoyed thinking of what he might find, momentarily suppressing the fact that, first and foremost, he was worried. He took a deep breath, and with a sigh, he said, “Let’s see.” He took a seat at the table and started skimming through the papers. He saw a few articles, arrows, and notes in red. Uninterested, he pushed them aside, then tried to open the drawer. “Locked,” he thought. His heartbeat sped up, and his curiosity was piqued. He had to know what was inside. It’s worth a try, he thought, then took a paper clip from the pile on the table and unwinded it. “Lockpicking 101,” he said aloud, feeling a slight rush of excitement. He hadn’t felt that way since he was a kid breaking into his mother’s cookie jar. He took out his phone, put on the video he had practiced with, and murmured to himself, “One is the tongue. The other is the ripple.” He now had two paperclips, one of which had two wavy bents, which he made with scissors, the other straight. He put in both clips at the same time. The straight one he kept still while jiggling the wavy one, feeling the cylinders of the lock. He knew he didn’t have much time and started to lose faith. He gave it a few more jerks when he felt a click. “Now don’t move, don’t move,” he thought, his heart banging in his chest. He held both of the pins together and twisted them. The sound of the barrels moving into the lock gave him immense pleasure. He hardly believed it worked. He remembered his classmates laughing at him playing with locks. Joke’s on you, he thought.

In the drawer was a binder with the title “Timur Petrov.” Shawn read the title out loud when he got a little heart attack. He heard footsteps approaching. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The footsteps were getting closer and closer. He had a few seconds left at best. He turned skittishly from side to side, looking for a place to hide, then realized the idiocy of what he was doing. The old man was at the door, gave it a knock, and said, “Young man, I told you to make it quick.” As the door opened, Shawn stuffed the folder up his shirt and turned to face the window, pretending to stare out at the trees deep in thought. The old man cleared his throat. Shawn turned around and said, “Oh, sorry, I got lost in thought,” took a few brisk steps, stuffed the key back into the old man’s hand, and walked away.