I drew my licensed concealed carry from my jacket, the metal cold against my sweating palm, and pushed the door open. The office was a disaster. File cabinets lay gutted, papers strewn across the cheap linoleum like dead leaves. They had torn the place apart looking for something.
But I knew Carl. He was a paranoid ex-cop who didn’t trust filing cabinets. He trusted the floorboards beneath the heavy, bolted-down iron radiator in the corner.
I shoved the heavy desk aside, my muscles screaming, and pried up the loose oak planks. Beneath them sat a biometric lockbox. Carl had registered my fingerprint on it a year ago when we started the divorce case, jokingly calling it my “insurance policy.”
My hand shook as I pressed my thumb to the scanner. A green light blinked. The lid popped open.
Inside lay a thick manila envelope. I pulled it out, my flashlight clamped between my teeth, and began to read.
