Steel Glances (Rocky Mountain Novella Series #1)

  Chapter 7

  As she tried to get back to work, Kristen couldn’t clear her mind of the handsome neighbor. She was confused. She was engaged to Adam, and cared for him deeply. But, since meeting Steel, she knew one thing…she was drawn to him. When she was with him, it was almost as if Adam didn’t even exist, and that made her feel guilty.

  She stood by the door trying to wipe him from her memory and focus on the task at hand. But, the more she tried to forget him and the way he made her feel, the stronger the attraction became.

  “Get your head together,” she chastised herself.

  Before heading back to her father’s office, Kristen decided to splash some cold water on her face. It wasn’t a cold shower, but she hoped it would have the same effect at least.

  “Now, where was I?” she mumbled under her breath as she re-entered her father’s office. It was then that she recalled the name Thomas Cadbury. She was packing the papers with the other accountant’s name on them.

  She went back in forth in her mind as to whether she should pack those documents in a separate box, since they weren’t her father’s. Ultimately, she did decide to keep them separate. As she searched the stack to see where the Thomas Cadbury documents left off and the Thomas Casey ones began, something was gnawing at her.

  “What’s wrong here?” she asked herself. Something just didn’t feel right and she decided to examine the documents closer as she packed them each away.

  Kristen must’ve gone through at least a thousand pieces of paper, and she still could figure out why the name on the forms bothered her so much. With the last stack in hand, though, something stood out. It was the signature. She recognized it.

  Kristen sprung to her feet and retrieved a stack of papers from one of the other boxes. She flipped through the papers quickly to find what she was looking for. There it was! Her father’s signature! Holding the papers side by side, she could easily tell both signatures were signed by the same person…her father.

  She still didn’t know what it meant though. Why would her father have been using a different last name? It didn’t make sense.

  Kristen began searching the room, but nothing else seemed to stand out as being odd. She wasn’t able to find anything other than that one stack of documents with the name Thomas Cadbury. She searched the books on the book shelf, the desk draw, and even the computer. As she finished checking the single desk cabinet, she slammed its door in frustration, sending a picture that sat on top of the desk crashing to the floor.

  The picture was of Kristen as a toddler. She must’ve been only two at the time, and in the picture with her were both her mother and father. She didn’t really remember her mother; she had died right around that time. Kristen was surprised that she hadn’t noticed the picture sitting on top of the desk before then.

  As she bent down to pick it up, she felt a sharp pain on her finger. She quickly withdrew her hand and noticed a small shard of glass was wedged inside like a splinter. Her finger was already bleeding, so after removing the glass piece, she sucked her finger until the bleeding stopped.

  Once the bleeding was under control, she again knelt down and carefully picked up the other broken pieces of glass. It was then that she noticed something metallic sticking out from behind the picture which was still barely being held by the broken frame.

  It was a key. But, to what? Kristen picked up the picture and frame and began examining them closer. The frame was just cheap, and seemed to have no other clues as to what the key was for. But, as Kristen looked at the front and back of the picture, in small print at the very bottom was written the number 405b. “405b?” she asked herself.

  All of her life, her father seemed to be a very devoted but dull man. Even if it saved her life, she couldn’t think of anything really exciting about him. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He was happy and that’s all she wanted for him. But, now Kristen found herself wondering how much she really knew about her father. First there was the different name that was signed in his own handwriting to a bunch of forms and now a mysterious key that was accompanied by a mysterious number. Kristen didn’t know what to make of it.

  As she sat down, trying, struggling to think of a reasonable answer for the things she had discovered, her hands shook. She felt the urge to cry, but didn’t really understand why. Deciding that she wasn’t going to give into the feelings she was feeling, Kristen placed the picture and key in the box of Thomas Cadbury documents and decided to head home. Maybe after a warm bubble bath, she could figure things out.

  She carried the box to the car, and turned back to see if Steel’s lights were still on. She thought briefly about asking him for help. Between him being an ex-police officer and her father’s friend and neighbor, he may have been able to give her answers. His house was dark though. It was probably a good thing, Kristen thought to herself. Steel was still virtually a stranger. She didn’t doubt she could trust him, but since she didn’t know what it was she’d be trusting him with, she decided to keep it all to herself. At least until she had more information.

  Since it was so late, there was virtually no traffic on the road, making it a quick trip back home. After bringing the box inside and placing it next to her computer desk, Kristen made a b-line straight to her master bathroom where she started her bath water. She added bubbles and then changed out of her clothes and into a robe.

  She decided to send a text to Adam since she had not really talked to him in a while. It read: HEY. JUST GETTING IN AND EXHAUSTED. I’LL TALK TO YOU TOMORROW, OKAY?

  As she sat in warm fragrant water, with bubbles all around her, Kristen turned on the jets to help relax her. She closed her eyes and tried to figure out a plan to get some answers. The water went cold several times, but Kristen just kept adding in more hot water to get the bath back up to temperature. The only thought she could come up with was to figure out what the key went to. She hoped that when she figured that out, she might have more answers and things would start to make sense again.

  Even though she was getting extremely tired, she put on her robe and slippers and returned to her computer desk where she had left the box. Before doing anything else, she took the key and added it to her key ring. With her luck, she would lose the key and then never get any closure.

  Next, she booted her laptop up and started searching the internet. The key contained an engraving, but as she searched for information that might tell her what it meant, nothing came up, just generic information about the company that produced it. Unfortunately, they were one of the largest key and lock manufacturers in the world, and made keys for every purpose.

  Kristen’s next hour was spent looking at pictures of keys on an image search. She thought that maybe she would be able to find a picture of the same key and at least figure out what it went to. But, again, she had no luck. After searching at least a thousand pictures, she made the call to go to sleep. She couldn’t be productive when she was so tired. She would get a few hours of sleep and try again in the morning.