Sure enough, the manager — Fabi had already forgotten his name — turned into her office, jacket slung over his briefcase, keys in one hand. “Hey, Fabi — you doing all right?”
She beamed at him as if she had never had so much fun. “Oh yeah! Getting the new database up and running.”
The supervisor’s eyes flicked momentarily to her screen and then back to her eyes. “Glad to see you hit the ground running. But it’s your first day so don’t burn yourself out, okay? We like to keep our employees long-term around here.”
He left and Fabi waited a few minutes before resuming her research activities — waited until she heard the outside door close, faintly heard the sound of the manager’s car engine starting up. Then she got up from her desk and walked out into the hallway, looking both ways while listening carefully. She was pretty sure she was the last one in the clinic, but to be safe she did a walkthrough of the building. She didn’t need anyone catching her at what she was about to try. After completing a circuit of the facility and finding it deserted, Fabi made her way to the manager’s office.
His door was closed so she reached out and turned the knob, only to find it locked. Fabi found that to be a little suspicious. None of the other office doors were kept locked after hours. The building itself was reasonably secure; it had to be, since this was a health clinic where drugs were kept. But an office? The computers did contain information that could be considered sensitive — patient records, financial information — but that data was encrypted and password protected.
Maybe the manager was reluctant to leave his office open knowing that a brand new employee would be here after he left? He didn’t know her, after all. But still, he was aware she had volunteered under Dr. Avila’s umbrella of clinics on Haiti for some time now, and therefore should be considered trustworthy.
Fabi examined the lock more carefully. Not a serious affair like a deadbolt, but merely one of those stock doorknob locks meant more for convenience than anything else. She removed one of the bobby pins from her hair and used it to pick the lock. As a child growing up in Haiti, she’d had plenty of friends in school to show her these sort of tricks.
She stepped into the office and softly closed the door behind her. Leaving the room lights off and using a small keychain flashlight, Fabi took a quick look around the office. As expected, nothing at first glance seemed fishy. The manager had visitors to his office every day, in any case, so she wouldn’t anticipate anything not above board to be in plain view.
She walked behind the desk and eyed the computer. Powered completely off. She was no technology or hacking expert, and so no way was she going to try and get into that; she knew it would be protected, and even if she could get in, she wouldn’t know how to cover her tracks.
She surveyed the room again from this new vantage point. When her weak beam highlighted a rusty metal file cabinet, she moved to it. The piece of old furniture was about head high, with six deep drawers. She tried a couple of them, but they were locked. Eyeing the locking mechanism, Fabi swept a hand on top of the cabinet, but aside from a thick layer of dust, she came away empty. Then she eyed the desk again and moved back to it. Figuring these drawers would be locked, too, she tried the shallow one in the center beneath the computer keyboard. To her surprise, it slid open with a creak.
The contents were routine office supplies, but she lifted a plastic divider tray that held rubber bands and staples and smiled when she saw a small gold-colored key beneath it. She took it over to the file cabinet and tried it in the lock. It fit, and when she turned the key she felt the click of the lock disengaging.
She opened the top drawer and rapidly scanned the files it contained, held in hanging folders. These were patient records, and Fabi nodded her silent approval that they were kept in a secure fashion before moving on to the other drawers. Two more also contained patient records, while another two seemed to be devoted exclusively to routine clinic financials. Flipping through the folders in the bottom drawer, however, Fabi’s features took on a puzzled expression. What were these?
After a few minutes of examination, she determined that they were one-off projects of some kind. Each had its own budget and records. She was about to close the drawer when the title card of one of the folders, each of which appeared to be named for a different project, caught her eyes.
Project HAITI.
The same one she had come across earlier in the computer file. She plucked the folder from the cabinet and moved to the desk chair where she could examine its contents more thoroughly. She had just dug in when she heard footsteps coming down the clinic hall outside.
Quickly, Fabi doused her light and snapped the folder shut. The footsteps grew louder. She pulled the chair out and got beneath the desk.
Then the sound of the walking stopped, and the door to the office opened.
Chapter 26
Safely back aboard the Sea Foam, still at anchor in the natural harbor, Maddock, Bones and Willis sat on deck, each with a cold bottle of the boat’s stash of Dos Equis in their hands. After a few laughs over Bones’ encounter with the gigantic tarantula, as well as a recapping of their conversation with the old local, talk turned to next steps. They were still no closer to finding the treasure, and it worried Maddock that he could see the frustration settling in deeper in both Willis and Bones. Especially Bones.
Yet the fact was that Maddock didn’t think Tortuga was a likely spot to find the sailing ship’s riches. “According to the journal, the crazy sailor drifted along, floating with the current for about eighteen hours.” Maddock put a finger on a marine chart spread out on a folding table, held in place against the breeze with seashells on the corners. “Considering the prevailing wind and current patterns in the region at that time of year, he'd have been carried west-northwest, which would make it virtually impossible to end up on Tortuga instead of being carried ashore somewhere on the Haitian coast.”
Bones and Willis agreed with this after a brief discussion of the finer details pertaining to the local currents. When they had finished this digression, Maddock looked up from the chart.
“Besides the probabilities we have based on current and wind patterns, we know the sailor was most likely captured on the south side of Haiti, closer to the fort where he was originally imprisoned.”
Bones drained the last of his beer and tossed the empty in a bucket. “Maybe Jimmy can check that out.”
Maddock nodded, his sea gray eyes alight with a twinkle. “He’s already on it.”
Fabi ducked down as a wedge of light penetrated the manager’s office as the door opened. A woman’s heels clacked on the floor. She drew herself into a tight ball in an effort to be as small as possible. Her mind reeled with what she was going to say if discovered. Just looking for a file… and I got scared when I heard someone coming? She sure hoped it didn’t come to that. But then a darker thought overcame her.
This wasn’t the best part of town. What if she was about to be found by some common criminal here to rob the place or worse? Her mind was running through all sorts of terrible scenarios when she heard her name being called, by a female voice.