Frank shook his head. “I don’t understand. What do you mean he ate your curry?”

“I came in last night, and I looked in the fridge first thing. I wanted some of the curry that she’d left, but when I looked in there, I couldn’t find any. So I just assumed I’d eaten it all in the middle of the night or something. Instead, I went to make a goddamn sandwich, and I ended up seeing all the stuff from the break-in.”

He gave me a look like I was a crazy person.

“He’s been here,” I said. “Or he came back while I was out, Frank. I don’t know!”

He scratched his chin, not betraying a single emotion.

“Okay. Let’s go with the idea that he’s been here the whole time. Where could he have been hiding? The attic? The basement?”

I shook my head. “We don’t have a cellar up here. And wouldn’t I have heard someone in the attic?”

“Weirder things have happened. People went up with homeless people living in their attic more often than you think.”

The idea of a random person living in my attic just gave me the willies. Way more than the idea of having my own father living up there, which was freaking bizarre on its own. I screwed up my face. “Let’s not discuss that.”

He waved me off. “Fine. Where else could he be?”

I shrugged. “I mean, it’s bigger than your place, Frank, but it’s not like I have wings of the house or something.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath and squinted his eyes a little. “You said curry, right? I could’ve sworn I smelled some curry upstairs earlier. Something I hadn’t smelled the other day, but that might be because it hadn’t gotten ripe enough.”

I made a face. “Ew. Curry stench? I didn’t smell anything while I was up there.”

Her put a finger to the tip side of his nose. “You should see me at wine tastings.”

“You do wine tastings?”

He just gave me a look. “Alright, let’s go check out the upstairs. See if we can find anymore clues.”

Together, we headed up to the other rooms, to the one on the east side of the house that Frank said he’d smelled curry in.

Built mostly over the garage, this room was off on its own and away from the others. Mainly, it was one of the spare bedrooms that we’d put guests up in whenever they came to visit, like for ski trips and the like. I think even Sheila had holed up here a couple different times after she’d had one too many during ski season. The room was dominated by, of course, the bed. Big picture windows graced the wall both over the head of the bed and the one opposite. This was one of the only rooms to do stretch to both sides of the house like that. Built-in bookshelves spanned the wall opposite the doorway, and my parents had loaded it up with leather bound volumes of all shapes and sizes. Most of them were law books, but there were other near-ancient scientific journals, old maps and atlases, and geography books.

Standing in the bedroom doorway, Frank sniffed the air almost like a hound. He just shrugged when I gave him a weird look.

“It’s how I smell,” he said.

“Uh…huh.”

“Well, it’s definitely from in here.”

I sniffed the air, just like him. And, while I got a more distinct whiff than I had from just my normal attempt, I didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. Only old books, wood from the floors and built-in shelves, and fabric softener. The usual smells of the cabin. Disappointed that my nose wasn’t as talented as his, I went and sat on the bed.

He gave me a strange look. “How long has your father had this place?”

I shrugged. “Long as I can remember. Fifteen years maybe? I remember coming here when I was a teenager, I know that.”

“Fifteen years, huh? Did he build it?”

“Yeah…?”

“Ever notice how short this room is?”

I gave him a look. “No, I haven’t.” I got up off the bed and turned to him.

He walked the floor of the room, measuring the floor plan by marking it off with his steps. “I’d put it all on black that this room is ten feet short.”

I shook my head. “No way.”

He went over to the bookcase and pressed himself to it. “There’s something on the other side of this wall.”

“Another room?” I went over and pressed myself to it as well. I began pulling at the bookshelf, trying to see if I could somehow get it to budge. I might as well have been trying to move the mountain we were standing on.

“Reckon so.” He tried to push and pull at the shelf unit, too, and it was almost gratifying to see this man nearly twice my size with muscles on muscles having as little luck as me.

Then I had an idea. “Do you think there’s a special switch?” I began to pull books from the shelf, dropping them at my feet. “Like in a haunted house or something?”

Instead of answering, he joined me, starting to pull the books down all around him.

Finally, on my second shelf, I found one heavy tome that wouldn’t budge. It was an old encyclopedia from the early 1900s. The letter R. I stopped and looked at Frank, and he motioned me to pull it. I tilted it back towards me, like it was on a hinge attached to the bottom of the spine. It stopped when I fully extended it, clicking.

“That do anything?” Frank asked, coming over and pulling the bookshelf towards him. The shelves swung out easily, perfectly balanced just like a normal, non-secret door on its hinges.

Frank pinched his nose shut with one hand and drew his gun with the other. The smell of old, rotting curry hit us, blooming out from the pitch black room like an oil spill on the ocean, slowly rolling over both of us with its putrid scent.

The bile rose up in my throat at the sudden assault on my senses, and I began to gag. “Jesus!”

Apparently not afraid of anything, he stepped into the darkness, his gun sweeping over the unseen. I guess he was satisfied, because he holstered his gun and began searching for a light switch or a bulb string.

I stepped into the room after him just as he found the switch for the overhead light.

“Well,” he said as we looked around. “Reckon we found the files.”

Despite it being hidden, it was just a room like any other. Pictures of me and my mother adorned one wall. Just beneath it was an unmade cot, its sheets and blankets tossed aside. A small writing desk sat in the corner, pressed up against the wall with a lamp set on it and a small, plain chair tucked underneath. On top of it was the offending half-empty container of curried rice, already beginning to mold as a tiny swarm of flies settled on it. The only point of real interest, though, was what had been stacked against the wall on our left, with their contents spread across the hardwood floor. A half dozen banker boxes full of files and papers.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “I think you’re right, Frank.”