Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

didn’t open. I ran to the kitchen, rummaged in the drawers for anything I might use, grabbed a corkscrew and a metal skewer. They were also useless. I slammed my fist on the top of the box until pain stopped me.
    I sat back and shoved hair off my damp face. A bead of sweat dropped from my chin to the carpet, leaving a dark spot. In spite of the cool air pouring from the overhead vent, my underarms were wet and my blouse clung to the skin between my shoulder blades.
    This is nuts, I told myself. Calm down.
    Then I thought, A locksmith.
    Hire somebody to enter Mother’s private space and break into the cabinets and the box?
    No. It was unthinkable.
    I shifted the box, judging its weight. I could take it to a locksmith. Obviously I couldn’t take the file cabinets, but I was strong enough to get this box out to my car. It would be back in its proper place by the time Mother came home from work. But no, this had to be done before Michelle came home at three. I glanced at my watch: almost noon. I pulled the yellow pages from a bookshelf and hurriedly thumbed through it.
    I found a locksmith shop in Arlington, near enough to reach quickly yet far enough afield that Mother wasn’t likely to ever use its services. The man who answered the phone said he had to leave for an outside appointment soon but he could make a key if I got the box to him within half an hour. Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the narrow parking strip outside the shop on a commercial stretch of Lee Highway.
    I staggered in with the box.
    “Hey, whoa,” the young locksmith exclaimed. “You shoulda let me do that.” He hustled around the counter and lifted the box in muscular arms bristling with curly black hair. The box seemed to become weightless in his grasp.
    “Now, let’s see what we got here,” he said, dropping the box onto the counter with a loud thump. But his attention was still on me. His grin, his appraising look, said I’d made his day just by coming through the door. When he failed to get an answering smile from me, he turned to his task and made a quick examination of the lock.
    “Piece of cake. I opened one just like this a couple weeks ago. They don’t make these things for security, you know, just fire resistance. About the only thing the lock’s good for is keeping the lid on real tight so it won’t pop open if a fire heats it up.”
    Easy for you to say, I thought.
    Almost apologetically, he added, “I have to get your ID before I can do this. It’s pretty silly, but I gotta have it. I mean, I know the box belongs to you, I’m not saying—”
    “That’s all right, that’s fine,” I said, hoping my alarm was well hidden. Calm down, I told myself. This will never get back to Mother. I showed him my driver’s license and waited while he jotted information on a form.
    He described in detail what he was going to do, how he would select a key blank that matched the lock type, and little by little grind it to fit. He inserted the blank in the lock, pulled it out and showed me the faint scrapes that told him where to start cutting. I was nearly crazy with impatience, but nodded and smiled and held my tongue. At last, when he got down to the work of making the key, he became absorbed and fell silent.
    Too restless to sit in the single orange plastic chair, I surveyed the display of locks on a side wall. Padlocks ranging from minuscule to monstrous, dead bolts, childproof latches, keyless security locks. All the ways to keep people out of places where they didn’t belong. I couldn’t believe I was here, doing this.
    The minutes dragged. I bit my lip to keep from urging the locksmith to hurry. Through the storefront window I watched the traffic start and stop, start and stop in response to the light on the corner. A sharp pain shot through my bruised knee whenever I shifted position.
    “Miss? All done.”
    I turned. The box sat on the counter with its lid thrown back. I caught a tantalizing glimpse of something inside, a smooth blue surface, before he lowered the lid again.
    He grinned and held up the shiny new key. “Want some extras in case you lose this one too?”
    “No, thanks,” I said, not bothering to go along with his good-natured joke. I held out my hand and he dropped the key into my palm. The metal was warm from the cutting. What was that in the box?
    I paid the bill in cash so I wouldn’t have to wait for my credit card to clear.
    The locksmith carried the box to my car. I thanked him and closed the