Page 177 of Chosen Beta

“I’ll open it,” I tell her. “We still don’t know who installed that camera.”

I wait for her usual protest, but she doesn’t make it.

She gives me a peck on the lips and hands the keys over.

“A please would be nice when you’re asking for something.”

“Thanks for the reminder. Please step back while I make sure the room is safe.”

She nods, moving back to give me space.

I unlock the door, and I listen for a second before I open it.

The room is empty.

I take a few steps and push in the bathroom door.

The mirror above the sink tells me the room is empty, but I take another step to be sure.

All clear. I turn to head back, glancing at the door next to the bathroom.

I try the handle. It won’t open. Looks like it’s locked.

“What’s this?” I ask, pointing at the door.

“I’m guessing it’s safe to come in?” Lana asks, as she steps forward into the room. “It’s a closet. I decided not to use it, so I left it locked. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, as I check through the keys on her chain. “But I can’t think of a good reason for a closet to have a lock on it.”

“Huh,” she murmurs. “I never really thought about it.”

That doesn’t surprise me. Most people aren’t in the habit of questioning things that might seem out of place if they gave it any thought. They typically have too much else going on to care.

Lana definitely has more than enough to worry about.

“It’s probably nothing. You should get ready for work.”

She nods and closes the door to the room. I move over to the side of the dresser while I pick the skeleton key out of the bunch, giving Lana room to get past me.

She goes into the bathroom, and I go back to the locked closet door.

I slip the key in the lock. It doesn’t get very far, and no amount of wriggling is going to make a difference. Something’s blocking it on the other side.

I poke around, trying different keys but nothing works.

There’s metal blocking the slot.

I guess it’s possible that someone did that while the door was open and unlocked, but I have no idea how they would have gotten the door to lock again when they closed it.

It’s weird, and I don’t like it.

If I had nothing else to do, I’d be finding out where the tools are and taking the thing off its hinges to find out what’s inside. As it is, Lana’s going to be out of the bathroom soon and I don’t want to worry her when it could be nothing.

This is the last time she’ll be in this room, anyway.

I don’t need to think about this.

I move over to her dresser and start taking piles of clothes out and stacking them up.

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