“I’m not sure Karl would let Yvonne keep sensitive information out here,” Eric said, yanking open one of the desk drawers.
“But we’ve got to look. And we know things are on the computer.”
A box came up on the screen asking for a password. Casey looked to Eric, but he shook his head. “I have no idea what it is.”
Casey examined Yvonne’s desk, and the photos of her family. “What are her kids’ names?”
“Joshua and Caitlin, but why would she—”
“It’s what people usually do.” But not this person, apparently. Casey tried every combination of the names she could think of. “Okay. Husband’s name?”
“Jimmy.”
No good.
Casey turned with mounting desperation to the final photo on the desk, one of two Doberman Pinschers taking up an entire sofa. They looked a lot sweeter there than they’d seemed back at the house. “Pets.”
Eric sighed heavily, his face creased with irritation. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know that?”
Casey grabbed the frame and slid out the cardboard, exposing the back of the photo. “Roxie and Jabba at Christmas.” It was worth a try.
Seven long minutes later she hit it with “JoshJabCaitRox.”
“Guess Jimmy’s the fifth wheel,” Eric muttered.
But Casey didn’t care about that. She searched the computer for anything that said, “Marlowe.”
There was nothing there.
“But we saw it,” Eric said. “Right on the screen.”
“Well, it’s not here anymore.”
Casey sat back, looking over the computer toward Karl’s door. “We have to get in there.”
“I don’t have a key.”
“I know. But that’s where the information is.”
“Casey—”
She got up and went to Karl’s door, examining it. Assuming there was a way to get in, there was probably an alarm set to go if anyone entered. “You’re sure your key doesn’t work?”
He came over and tried to put his key in the lock. It didn’t fit.
Casey studied the door some more. It was wooden, not steel. She placed her hand on it. It was made of good quality wood, but it was also paneled. The insets would be weak points. All hell would break loose if she did what she was considering, but if they were quick enough…
“Be ready to move, Eric.”
“What? What are you doing?”
Casey took a deep breath and sat back on her left leg. She focused on the door, the upper section of the lower right panel, closest to the doorknob.
“Casey…” Eric’s voice rose.
She ignored him, and snapped her foot at the door. A loud crack ripped through the office.
“Casey!”
She kicked the door again, and once more, until the panel broke free from the door’s skeleton. She pushed the panel out and squeezed her arm through, unlocking the door from the other side. The door scraped open, crooked on its hinges. Casey stood in the opening, surveying the office. No security measures were immediately apparent, but she had no doubt they were there.
“Come on, Eric.” She strode into the room and approached the file cabinets along the side wall. They were labeled clearly, and she went for the one holding L-M. Of course there was nothing inside with the name Marlowe.
Eric stood in the middle of the room. “What should—”
“Check his desk.”
“The drawers are all locked. But the desk is wooden.” He looked at her expectantly.
“I can’t kick apart everything, Eric. Here.” She grabbed Karl’s letter opener from the desk and handed it to Eric. “See what you can do with this.”
He stared at it for a moment before going after the lock on the top middle drawer.
Casey turned back to the files. There were too many to go through in the few minutes they had. What else would it be under? Dryer? Lawsuit? We’re Screwed?
Eric cried out. “Got it!” He yanked the top desk drawer open.
“That was fast.”
“Cheap lock.”
He rifled through the contents of the drawer and came up with a key, which he shoved into one of the other drawers. It opened. Casey began going through that one while he opened the drawer on the other side.
She flipped through the contents. Folders for insurance, lawyers, Mexico…Marlowe. She pulled it out and slapped it open, resting it on the drawer. The top paper was the first page of the contract. The one they’d seen on Yvonne’s computer. She skimmed the document, searching for key words. As she read, the room fell away from her, and her blood turned to ice in her veins.
“Casey?” Eric looked at her across his drawer.
She blinked, slowly turning to him. “It was a child.”
“A child? How old?”
“Two.”
Eric stared at her blankly. “A two-year-old was doing laundry?”
“No.” Casey shook her head once. Twice. “He wasn’t doing laundry.” She licked her lips, opposite the swelling.
“Casey, what is it?”
She tried to talk. Cleared her throat. Began again. “He was playing hide-and-seek. He climbed into the dryer. His mother thought she had forgotten to start it, and turned it on. By the time she realized she couldn’t find him, it was too late.”
Eric’s eyes widened as the horror of the story sank in. “Why didn’t he just kick the door open?”
Casey swallowed. “The door latch…was defective. It stuck. Even if he had been strong enough to get the door open, if he could’ve found it while he … he wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
Eric sat hard on the desk chair. “How can a door latch be defective?”
Casey looked back at the folder. Found a place in the document and underlined it with her finger. “The boy banged against the door, and with pressure from behind, the metal piece on the catch pushed up against the strike, and did exactly what its name says.”
“It caught it?”
“So hard it wouldn’t let it go. Even when the mother realized what had happened, and was trying to get the door open.”
Casey put her elbows on the drawer and dropped her head into her hands. “Loretta said Ellen wasn’t happy about the reason people might be able to keep their jobs.”
“I knew that, too. But I don’t get it. How could this help HomeMaker get people back to work?”
Casey shook her head. “I’m not sure. Unless….”
“What?”
Images swam before Casey’s eyes. Board rooms. Teams of lawyers. Dottie Spears shooting daggers at her across the table with her eyes. A contract. Not a lawsuit. “A lawsuit wouldn’t bankrupt a place like this.”
Eric considered that. “Probably not. The amount of money this place goes through in a year…it’s more than a lawsuit—even a huge one like this would make—could destroy. And of course there’s insurance for this kind of thing. But the publicity. That would be bad.”
“I haven’t heard any publicity,” Casey said. “Have you?”
“No. Not a word. I haven’t even heard any within the company.”
“That’s why it’s a contract. Not an official case. An official case, the reporters would’ve been swarming the place the next morning. This is the only way to keep it under wraps. ”
Eric shook his head. “But why would the family do that? If a company’s machine killed my son, I’d want the world to know.”
“No,” Casey said. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t…”
“The mother…she started the dryer. She let her two-year-old die in a dryer.”
“It wasn’t her fault.”
“Of course it wasn’t. But what is the world going to see if they take this case to trial? They’re going to see a negligent mother who didn’t know where her toddler was. No matter what the verdict is against HomeMaker, there will be some people who will always see it as the mother, killing her son.” Casey let out a shaky breath. “She’ll always see it that way.”
Eric looked at his hands, then back at her. “Do you—”
“No, Eric. No. We are not going there.”
“Okay. Okay. Sorry.”
He glanced at the clock. “We’ve been here too long. We need to get out.”
“Yes, I know, but…” Casey skimmed the subject lines of other folders in the drawer. Nothing else with the name Marlowe. She looked down at the folder and shuffled through the papers. Behind the contract were numerous memos, letters, statements from doctors… And another contract. This one without HomeMaker’s logo. This one said simply, Karl Willems. Karl Willems, making his own deal with the Marlowes.