The Book Behind the Drawer

“Fourteen thousand six hundred and twelve,” Etta said. “That is how many times they counted a ticket. I want the book that says what those tickets paid.”

The five-dollar ticket lay between her and Dess on the counter. Etta had put a salt shaker on one corner to keep it flat. She kept her hands clear of it, as if the paper had already been asked to do too much.

Femmie stood by the diner pass-through, watching without offering to help. She had learned that much, at least. Tessa was not in the store; the count-room station in the wall had gone quiet after the previous settlement. No one had promised the records existed.

Dess pulled open the register drawer. “Roy kept notes in everything except the places that would help.”

“Then check the places that wouldn’t,” Etta said.

Dess checked the notes first anyway. A grocery list in Roy's cramped writing, two dead batteries, a phone number scratched out so hard the paper had torn, and a strip of register tape recording three years of coffee orders. No ticket records.

She slid the drawer out to reach the back. A metal stop caught. Dess tried the left side, then the right. Something tapped inside the counter.

Etta came around beside her. “Let me see.”

Dess stepped aside. Etta pressed her palm against the drawer's wooden base, then traced the seam with one fingernail. “That panel's newer.”

It was a thin rectangle fitted beneath the drawer, painted the same brown as the old wood. No keyhole. Dess tried the edge of a coin. The panel shifted inward with a dry click.

A second drawer sat behind it, iron-fronted and shallow. It had a small lock with a keyway shaped like a narrow slot. Etta ran her thumb over the metal, then looked at Dess.

“Do you have a key?”

“Not for that.”

Femmie had not moved. “Roy never showed me that drawer.”

“That doesn't mean he didn't know about it,” Dess said.

It meant something else, too. Etta looked at Femmie, waiting. Femmie lowered her eyes to the pie case.

Dess took the keys from the register hook. One by one, she tried them. The last key stopped halfway. She eased it back before it snapped.

“Don't force it,” Etta said. “We have time to find another way.”

The phone began to ring.

Dess glanced at the clock. It was 5:18. The 2:22 call had long passed, and the phone had no business ringing now. She held still through the first ring, waiting for a second.