He turned the heavy deadbolt on the inner oak door with a loud, final metallic clink.

I stood on the cold wooden porch in the falling dusk, listening to his footsteps walk away into the kitchen.

The brass key turned stiffly in the lock of the glass side door at Vance Contracting at ten o’clock the next morning.

The side hallway smelled of dry pine sawdust from the shop floor and cold coffee from the break room around the corner.

My goal was simple: get to the gray metal file cabinet behind the estimator’s counter and pull my personal state tax returns out of the bottom drawer.