MEET CALISE

As I held my arms and rubbed 

them, I figured being alone would be most useful tonight. On the bright side, it was an opportune time to investigate. I wanted to revisit the portrait in Chris's bedroom and find out why that interesting face kept popping up, reappearing in my mind like an unending daydream.

But when I got to his room, the double doors were locked. 

A small device was cleverly camouflaged in the limber of the door, a sort of electronic pad that required a pass code. I bit my lip. There were too many storage facilities and too many banks in America for someone's room to be bolted up like this.

If something was that valuable, it should've been placed in a facility that specialized in locking things up, not systematically buried in his bedroom. Leaving the hall, I wanted to laugh at his request for me to 'stay out of things' as though I had any choice in the matter; he'd already made certain I couldn't get inside his room.