It’s not my first time picking a lock; in the last home I stayed in we used to hack our way into each other’s rooms all the time whenever someone managed to lift a fork from the kitchen. And paper clips are much more malleable than kitchen utensils. I bend and fold one so it has a forty-five-degree angle and can act as a tension tool. I open another one until it’s flat with a loop at the crown, but when I apply pressure, it takes way longer than I expect to lift all the pins in the barrel. The lock is tiny and the tension from the safety pins is barely enough, but I keep trying to rake the pins until I hear Izzy coming, her footsteps heavy and measured as she descends the staircase as if she’s still in pain. I consider ducking behind the desk in case she comes in to check to see if I’ve left, but instead, I slip the paper clips inside my back pocket, ease the drawer shut as quietly as I can and slip behind the door. Izzy crosses the threshold, and I hold my breath, but the second she gets another step into the space, another wave of nausea hits her and she scurries back out with a terrible, guttural sound.

Hoping this wave of sickness is as powerful as the last one, I hustle back over to Simon’s desk, stick the hook I made with the paper clips into the lock and concentrate on bumping up all the pins in the barrel. Finally, the mechanism disengages, and I’m in. I’m fucking in and there’s...not even much here. A leather-bound portfolio with a stack of personal documents—birth certificate, passport, social security card, the death certificate of his wife. That last one makes me pause. I vaguely remember seeing my parents’ death certificates, and then suddenly, time is slowing and my head is filling with hazy, psychedelic images of them. When I blink, it comes into focus. Another legal document.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF is printed at the top. Then a blank line that has been filled in with “Simon Van Doren.”

I have Simon Van Doren’s will in my hands for less than five seconds before an audible gasp escapes my throat. My jaw tightens and there is almost an audible click in my head, the satisfying sound of the final pieces shifting into place. It seems so simple to me now, so obvious.