“Sure,” said Bess. “But what kind of distraction?”

I thought about this as we walked into the exhibit room, but as it turned out, I wouldn’t need a distraction at all. Everyone inside was gathered around one photograph on the far side of the space. They were all pushing against one another, and no one was looking in the direction of the staff hallway at all.

“Actually,” I said, “that’ll work. I’ll be right back. You guys check out what everyone is looking at. I hope it’s not another missing person.”

Bess and George nodded at me and then began to walk over to where everyone else was standing. I hung back and made my way slowly toward the STAFF ONLY door. Doing my best to look unsuspicious, I leaned against the wall next to the restricted door. When I was certain no one was looking, I opened the door just a crack and slipped inside.

The hallway looked just the same as I remembered it. There was still all the clutter and the dust, and as soon as I stepped inside, I sneezed twice in quick succession.

First I wanted to check the door behind the bookcase and make sure it was still locked. I walked as fast as I could manage while still being as quiet as possible. It took me only a few light steps, walking on the balls of my feet, to reach the end of the hallway and slip behind the large bookcase. I reached my arm out toward the door handle and gave it a tug downward. Still locked. Above the door’s keypad there were four small lights. They weren’t on now, but I was willing to bet this meant the combination would be four numbers long. I just had to figure out what they were.

I stepped out from behind the shelf and dusted myself off. I remembered seeing two offices in this hallway. I thought that maybe one of them had the code for the door written down somewhere.

In the first office there was a desk, but otherwise the room was mainly empty. I walked around anyway, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. There were frames that looked similar to those out in the hallway, and leaning against one of the walls was a collection of large signs. But there really wasn’t anything that made me think this room was still being used as an active office space. I walked back over to the door and took one last look before moving on.

The second office was a bit larger, and slightly less cluttered than everywhere else. There was a name tag on the desk that read SUSAN MILLER, and behind that was a large pile of paperwork and mail. I began shuffling through it all, and found that Susan had a number of unpaid bills and overdue payment notices. She clearly had not been lying about the museum not doing very well.

Unlike the rest of the room, Susan’s desk was pretty well organized, so I was able to search through everything fairly quickly. I opened one of her drawers to find an old card she’d received, the lease for the museum, and letters from a few more companies the museum owed money to. I got out my phone and took photographs of them all, in case they might be useful in the future.