She walked around to the desk chair and pulled it out of the way. Another look to the doorway, but no one stood there. She listened, straining to pick up a hint of footsteps or talking. When she didn’t hear either, she brushed her hand over the top of the desk, shifting one stack of papers then another. Looked like trade magazines and other nonsense but nothing important.

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. She hadn’t expected top secret documents and a map of Baines’s house to spill out, but come on. A little luck would have been nice.

After another peek at the door, she pulled out the long middle drawer. Did she have to worry about fingerprints? Just in case, she picked up a pen and used the end to move the contents around. Nothing but the usual paper clips and notepads in there. Breath mints. Random business cards. A key to . . . something. She grabbed it and immediately regretted it.

Okay, time to speed up. She opened the drawers on the left. File folders. So many file folders. A quick run through the labels didn’t turn up any names she recognized. Fine. Now the right side. And . . . bingo! A locked drawer.

She took out the key and opened the lock. A tiny voice in the back of her head said getting in had been too easy, but she kept going. Diaries? No, they were calendars. She tried to think if those would be helpful. A few small notebooks. She paged through one, and the scribbles weren’t in sentences. Numbers and dates only.

The lack of incriminating evidence explained why the key had been so easy to find. This isn’t where they hid things that needed hiding. There wasn’t much of a need to lock down stuff that didn’t matter.

She reached around, patted the inside of the drawer. Felt around, let her fingers smooth over every edge as she snuck looks at that damn door. Under it? Nope. Behind it? She felt . . . something. She winced at the thudding sound as she slipped the drawer out to get better traction.

Tape and another key. Great.

She shoved the drawer back in and jumped at the unexpected thump that sounded more like a bang when she closed it. “Shit!”

She froze, half expecting Retta to walk in with a gun in her hand. A few seconds ticked by, and the doorway stayed clear. She heard the muffled sound of Retta’s laugh and realized the call raged on. “Thanks for staying in touch with your parents, boys.”

Jessa stood up and looked around the room with the key pressed against her palm. Something in this room required a key. A small hard-to-find key.