Another attempt

Corrigan left Tuesday giving me a week of late night access to his office (given the assumption that my colleagues have gone home for the evening). The bastard locked his door this time, but I managed to find an extra key hidden in Mack’s desk drawer. I carefully snuck into Corrigan’s office, my ears painfully alert to each crack and thud of the world outside the clinic. I tip-toed over documents and files sporadically arranged across his floor and desk, cautiously avoiding imaginary cracks to not disturb any semblance of order his office might possess.

I first tried conquering the locked drawer. Sliding my fingers delicately across the filing cabinet, I felt for a place one might hide a key. No luck.

Turning to his desk I found, to my surprise, a newly started notebook. I read first few lines and debated pocketing the whole thing. Instead, I photocopied the five or so entries and saved them for later use. The pages don’t reveal much information now, but I know in a month or so, providing he leaves it again, this journal can potentially become a good resource to explain what’s been going on.

I scanned through his planner and ripped a page from his calendar. There’s a bunch of suspicious “important meetings” on dates. Some of the days are ones on which I know he will be in town but aren’t OISD meetings. Where is he sneaking off to?

Returning to the filing cabinet, I searched his old clinical trial files for any trace of the boy or room. I almost began half wishing that there was some mysterious and forgotten room in the clinic that isn’t used anymore, one unknown to me. Maybe this is just an old patient. Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. As my fingers crawled like spiders over each labeled folder, I counted the maybes. Maybe I should just keep looking.

Getting into that locked drawer is the key. I know it.