Holly woke that morning and immediately started working on the door between her room and Ricky's. Peeking though the keyhole she could see he was still sleeping, so she'd need to be quiet to avoid waking him up. They both planned to work on the door but since Holly was already up she thought she'd get a head start on it.
She did not remember ever seeing the door actually open so she was afraid it might be either nailed or painted shut. Not wanting to create any suspicion in her parents she wanted to keep the door looking exactly as it did right then. That way there was no need to have to make up some story about why they opened the door, if they could get it open.
Looking over the door from her room she could see it opened into her room, which was convenient because Ricky wouldn't need to dismantle all his shelving. Thinking he could just move them out a bit on one side, just enough so she could slip through, so all they needed to do was get the door to open.
The edge of the door had a small gap between it and the frame that seemed to run all around the door, so it didn't appear to be painted shut. Of course she couldn't see her brother's side, so she didn't know for sure. The next concern was the doorknob itself, there was a keyhole so obviously the door could be locked. Reaching to the knob she turned it and though it stuck for a moment as she turned it harder she felt it release and the knob turned.
She pulled lightly but the door didn't budge. Pulling harder she could see she was not strong enough to get it open. Of course it could still be locked so she went to her drawer and grabbed a flashlight. Shining the light in the tiny gap between the door and frame she saw a piece of metal going from the door into a hole in the frame. It was locked.
Her first reaction was to simply grab her key chain, but she quickly figured out that the rest of the doors in the house had been changed at least once since this knob was installed. None of her keys even looked like they'd work. Going through one of her drawers, she found a metal nail file and pushed it into the keyhole, moving it around some. There were a few places where it hung up on something, but she couldn't get anything to move.
Looking out her window she noticed the family car was gone, so she quickly got dressed and quietly came out of her room. Her parent's bedroom door was open but when she looked in she saw it was empty. Going down stairs she walked into the kitchen and spotted a note from her mother.
Dad and I have gone to finish shopping. May also pick up a tree.
Holly, empty the dishwasher and then put the breakfast dishes in but don't start it.
Ricky, move the furniture like we did last year at Christmas.
Love,
Mom
Damn, it was as if the world would end tomorrow if mom couldn't pass out a job or two. Figuring she could always take care of the dishes anytime, she decided to creep around the garage some and see if she might find some of the old keys there. She remembered at the back of the garage there were still a few old closets with old knobs, maybe one of those keys might work.
Turning on the light in the garage she walked back to her father's workbench where she turned on the bright fluorescent lights over his bench. It was almost as bright as outside with all the work lights on. Holly looked at the closets at the back of the garage and the knobs looked similar to the one on her door. One of the closets was unlocked, but she noticed the other one was locked.
Whispering to herself, "If the door is locked there must be a key somewhere. Daddy sure wouldn't just leave the door locked all these years," she went to his bench and began looking around. All his tools were neatly hung up on the pegboard or tucked in shelves under the bench. She slowly scanned the pegboard thinking the keys might be hung up with the tools but she didn't see anything looking like a key.
