Rooms - James L. Rubart [10]
A feeling washed over him. The feeling of a string about to be pulled.
CHAPTER 4
The door hadn’t been there the day before. Had it? Micah pushed his front door closed with a soft click, never taking his eyes off the one at the end of the hall.
He’d done a full tour of this part of the home the day before and didn’t remember a room even being there, let alone leaving a light on. He hung his leather coat on an oak peg near the staircase, then eased down the hall toward the open door.
He pushed it open the rest of the way with two fingers and peeked inside. It was well lit. Too well lit; so bright he had to squint. At least twenty spotlights drilled down on a variety of magazine covers sitting on glass pedestals. Other pedestals held plaques; still others had laminated newspaper articles on top of them. Even before Micah’s eyes adjusted enough to see clearly, he knew what the room was.
How could—? He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he half expected the room to be gone.
It was a shrine to his meteoric rise in the world of software. Micah and Julie were on the cover of each magazine displayed: Forbes, BusinessWeek, Wired, Fast Company, and more, as well as newspaper articles from The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times.
The plaques were awards RimSoft had won, from their first up to an award from last month. Whoever collected them hadn’t missed a thing. Micah shook his head.
Wow.
Weird.
He gazed at the walls filled with photos of Julie and himself, pictures from the earliest days of the company up to the present, just the two of them along with movie stars, athletes, and leaders in the world of software.
It must have taken months to dig all this up.
As Micah contemplated how they’d done it, he noticed a small door at the back of the room, only open an inch or two. He walked over to it and pushed, but it scraped to a halt after a foot and a half. He leaned his shoulder into it, and the hinges squealed in protest but opened enough for him to enter. For a new house this door was decidedly out of place.
The room was dim, and Micah couldn’t find a light switch, but his eyes slowly adjusted from the glare of the room he’d just left. The only light came from an oil lamp sitting on an oak nightstand in a corner.
More oil lamps circled the room, all sitting on oak stands, all unlit. Their charred wicks were evidence they’d burned once, but all were now out of oil. He turned back to the still-burning lamp. Next to it rested a Bible covered in a fine layer of dust. Beside the Bible were two pictures. Micah was in both of them.
In the first picture five kids and he handed out egg salad sandwiches at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission. In the second his arm was around his best friend from high school youth group. Micah smirked. He was really into religion back then.
Almost against his will, he approached another lamp stand. On it was a sheet of paper. He held it up and squinted at it in the dim light.
Micah gasped. Impossible. Where would Archie have found it? It was a flyer for a concert—the concert—the one he’d gone to on a whim. The one where he’d decided to follow God.
Sweat covered his palms. This was beyond strange. It was bizarre.
There’s no way Archie’s builders could have gotten that flyer.
The pulse in his neck beat double time. He’d never understood people who had panic attacks. How could they go from feeling normal to expecting their body would explode any second? Now he knew.
He slowed his breathing. No help. Goose bumps broke out on his skin.
Archie wanted to highlight his career? Fine. Nice display. But the other room? Why dig so deep into his past? Who cares?
Archie. The words in his letter rang in Micah’s head. “Time to face your past. It is time to deal with it.”
He rubbed