He didn’t offer to help me look through the drawer.

He leaned down, kissed my cheek with cold lips, and walked out into the hallway toward the front door.

“Don’t worry about cooking dinner tonight,” he called back.

“I have a client meeting in the valley that will run late.”

The heavy front door clicked shut, followed by the distant hum of his car engine in the driveway.

I pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, where the thermometer usually lived beside his spare writing pads.

The plastic case wasn’t there, but my knee knocked against the small metal trash bin beside his leather chair.