The Stranger Within Me by Scott Ruby

Author:Scott, Ruby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

I know I’ll find Coco’s office. I saw glimpses of it last night. It’s a small, windowless room with a desk, a few bookshelves, and a safe. There’s a biometric lock on the door, and the only person with access is Coco herself. No one else goes in there, apart from the main housekeeper, once a week. She’s only allowed in to vacuum and dust, and she does so under close supervision.

Double doors lead to the east wing of the house. They’re flanked by two armed guards, who both incline their heads in silent greeting as I pass by them. They say nothing; they know better than that.

I pass through a reading room, and as I head towards the door at the rear of the room, I see glimpses of scattered memories in my mind’s eye. Coco held meetings here before, surrounded by guards and trusted confidants. I look at the velvet chaise sofa on the far side of the room and see the memory of Michael sitting with a glass of whiskey. He looks just as stoic as he did last night.

The door at the back of the room leads to another. This one is more sparsely decorated. A desk, a few chairs, and two locked doors. One leads to the basement, the other, behind the desk, leads to Coco’s office. She used this room for more private meetings.

As I walk around the desk, I glance back at the room and see flashes of other meetings. The Congressman for this district is sitting on the other side of the desk. A young man in a suit is standing in the middle of the room, a briefcase in hand. Another man, with blood on his clothes, is kneeling on the wooden floor with his head bowed low. If someone came into this room with Coco, they were either very important, or they weren’t going to make it out alive.

There’s no handle on the door to her private office, just a small box attached to the wall nearby. I press my thumb to it and the screen lights up. It flashes green, and then I hear the click of the door unlocking. It swings open, and I step inside.

How can anyone stand to work in a room like this?

It’s not like the office is horrible. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; with a plush leather chair and a solid oak desk, it’s just as luxurious as the rest of the building, but I don’t like it. The room is airtight, with no windows or natural lighting to speak of, and it feels so… claustrophobic. Perhaps that’s why she liked it so much. I don’t know.

At least the chair is comfortable.

I flop down into it and rock back and forth gently, digging my nails in the armrests. Looking through a person’s memories is a strange process. Sometimes it happens involuntarily. I can catch glimpses of their life without even meaning to. There are some people whose memories I don’t want to see, like Carl Newsome’s, but I can’t stop them from coming through.

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