I pushed the window open and climbed inside, landing on the carpet with a soft thud, breathing in dust and stale air. A smattering of dead insects lay scattered across the floor, tiny reminders of how long this place had been ignored.
I pulled my flashlight from my pocket and clicked it on.
In what was once the reception area, I found a counter and a cracked leather chair that had been pushed against a wall. The file cabinets beside it were empty.
I moved down the hall, checking the offices one by one.
Empty desk.
Empty drawers.
The last office at the end of the hallway mirrored the rest. Bare walls. Dusty floor. I stood in the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle.
There was nothing here worth stealing.
Nothing worth hiding.
At least not at first glance.
I walked back the way I came, forcing myself to slow down, to look again, even though it seemed I was looking at nothing. When I reached a small room near the front again, my light swept across a tall bookcase on the far wall.
Unlike everything else in the building, the shelves held books, rows of them, spines loose, covered in dust. I stepped closer. There were books on parenting, counseling, and adoption ethics, among others.
The rest of the office had been stripped, yet the books remained.
It begged the question: Why were the books still there when everything else had been removed?
It felt—off.
I grabbed one side of the bookcase and pulled. It didn’t move. I shifted my weight and tried again. This time, a soft groan rose from the wall, and the base slid an inch. I braced my feet and pulled harder. The bookcase shifted. A narrow crack appeared between the wood and the wall, and behind it was a square panel that looked like a door, except it didn’t have a knob.
A hidden room, perhaps?
I wrapped both hands around the edge of the shelf and dragged it far enough to expose the rest of the panel. Then I flattened my hands against the panel and pushed, and it popped open, swinging outward with a low whine.
Stepping inside, the room contained a handful of boxes, all labeled with:
Client Files — A–C
Client Files — D–J
Client Files — K–M
Client Files — N–Z
Every record.
Every form.
Every document the agency had ever handled, perhaps?
Were these the missing files?
If they were, it was possible they were all still here, hidden from sight and that Cherished Connections hadn’t lost its records, they’d kept them out of reach.
I lifted the lid of the nearest box, finding stacks of folders filled it to the top with surnames as labels.
I closed the lid and moved to the next box.
