***
“The plot thickens.” I announced to no one in particular an hour later. I had to leap over several piles of laundry to get to the light switch in the apartment. I blinked at the bright light and surveyed the place in shock. It was a mess. Everywhere I looked, there were piles of papers, newspapers, clothing, and various odds and ends. Dishes were piled in the sink. I shook my head, trying not to think about how long they must have been sitting there. Months. Gross. The condition of the apartment would make my search all the more difficult.
Yet a couple of things occurred to me just then. The first was that Mike was not a messy person. The second was that the apartment didn’t stink—not even a faint unpleasant odor lingered in the air. I walked over to the kitchen sink and carefully lifted a plate between two fingers for inspection. Clean. I dug deeper to find that the rest of the dishes piled in the chrome sink were also clean.
I picked up a shirt from the nearest laundry pile and sniffed, dropping it back down with smug satisfaction. So someone had gotten to the place before me. I had to admit whoever scoured the place did a fairly good job of covering their tracks. To the casual onlooker, it would look as if Mike was simply a lousy housekeeper, the typical bachelor. At first glance, it didn’t appear that the place had really been ransacked.
I froze, belatedly wondering if whoever had searched the place before me had gone. “Shit,” I whispered. “Well, this is a fine time,” I muttered. My eyes scanned the kitchen, looking in vain for some kind of weapon. I was imagining gun toting thugs around every corner, so the kitchen knife I grabbed didn’t bring me a whole lot of relief. I dropped it on the Formica table with a bang.
“Quiet,” I reminded myself. Without giving myself any more time to think on the virtues of a suitable weapon, I grabbed the nearest frying pan, which conveniently still hung from a rack over the oven, and left the kitchen. I paused in the hallway, sparing a glance at the door. It occurred to me that there were no other doors along the hallway. It was just a long entryway with the front door at the opposite end from where I stood, shaking in my sneakers. I could just run like hell for that door and come back some other time. Say, tomorrow when it wasn’t twelve thirty in the morning and pitch black outside.
I looked longingly at that door. I would be safe in my car and on my way home to a bath and a warm bed. All I had to do was run. It really was the sensible thing to do.
I pushed my shoulders back, took a deep breath, and turned toward the living room. Mike wouldn’t run, I reminded myself as calmly as I could. Besides, if there had been anyone left in the apartment, they probably would have finished me off about ten minutes ago while I was ignorantly sniffing the dinner plates in the kitchen. So I was reasonably safe. I hoped.
I jumped around every corner of the apartment—thank God there weren’t many. Each time, I brandished my frying pan like a ninja in a bad movie. Nothing. I quit holding my breath and dropped down onto the chair in Mike’s bedroom.
“All clear; okay, so…” I looked around, wondering where to start. In the end, I decided to start by cleaning up the place. I know it sounds crazy, but I just couldn’t stand to see the apartment in such a state of disarray. It wasn’t what Mike would have wanted. He was a very tidy person. Not quite fanatical, but close.
Plus, I, who has never been referred to as a cleaning fanatic, or organized for that matter, have always found that once you start to clean your house, you find things. It’s true. You find all sorts of interesting items when you put things away and deep clean a space. Car keys, lipstick, money, half eaten…ah, maybe that was just me…once. Okay, twice. Anyway, I figured that was my best chance of finding anything useful. And when Mike came back, I was sure he would greatly appreciate my setting things to right. He was coming back. I had to believe that.
Two hours later, I stood cursing in the middle of a very clean floor. My search had turned up absolutely nothing that stood out as odd or unusual. Books, papers, clothes, a couple of candles, and some incense did very little to crack the mystery of what in the hell had happened all those months ago and what was going on now. I didn’t know what I expected. I stretched and looked around again. I guess I had hoped he left me a letter or a note, something in plain English that explained what was going on. But I already knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
I ran my hand over the bookcase one last time and flicked off the computer on my way out before stopping dead in my tracks—the computer. I hadn’t checked the computer yet. I had dusted the computer. I arranged some nice candles around the solid oak desk that housed the computer. But I’d neglected to look at it. “Jesus, Claire.” I hung my head and smiled ruefully. “Mike, if I’m your last hope you’re in big trouble.”
As a man of science, Mike was used to working with technology, as was I. I was grateful that his choice of electronics reflected that. His computer was fast, and in about thirty seconds, I was looking through his files—only to be disappointed again. There looked to be nothing important. “Well, wait.” I looked again, rubbing my eyes.
“Legend,” I read aloud. I opened the file and began to read. Most of it contained the same story I had read from his notebooks. A beautiful and dangerous land and so forth. I began clicking through his files at a rapid pace, fully alert now and scanning through everything, committing it to memory. I came to a file marked CB. Claire Bear? I wondered. It couldn’t be that easy. Could it? No, of course not. I swore and thumped a fist against the desk in frustration. The file required a password. I typed in several guesses and finally sat back, staring at the screen in disbelief.
“You know, if I hear ‘access denied’ one more time this week…” I told the offending machine. I folded my arms across my chest and glared at the computer. Then I tromped into the kitchen to make coffee.
Leaning against the counter a few minutes later, I sipped the strong brew and thought hard. That file had to be meant for me. But how the hell was I supposed to get into it? I could go back home, I supposed, and read through his personal notes again. Maybe there was a pass code in there somewhere. I had taken my time when I read through his notes, painstakingly copying everything down and translating. I was almost positive that I hadn’t missed any hidden messages or passwords. But there had to be something I’d missed, because he wouldn’t leave me a file that was obviously important, with no way to get into it.
I took another sip and tried to picture Mike laughing and smiling and so full of ambition. Keep it simple, he always said. For years he had been telling me how much better my life would be if I would just learn to simplify. That was pretty much his motto and mantra. Keep it simple, I mused. I thought of the ridiculous ‘code’ language he had used for the notebooks and smiled. That ‘simple’ code had fooled and baffled several very intelligent and educated men, because no one ever thinks it’s going to be that easy.
CB. Claire Bear. I laughed and jogged back to my seat at the computer. What if that was it? I typed it in and triumphantly hit ‘enter,’ and just like that my hopes were shot down. Damn. Okay, so that wasn’t it. Well, now what? I thought, truly irritated. Simple, I reminded myself. Focus and keep it simple. Just like the notebooks. Then I grinned, recharged, and typed the pet name in backward. Yes, that was it. Just like the notebooks.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I laughed. “Okay, let’s see what we have here.” And I began to read. It took less than two minutes to realize I was not safe reading the file in the apartment. I stared at the neatly typed pages, quickly hit ‘print,’ shut down the computer, gulped the rest of the coffee, and shoved the papers into my bag on my way out the door.