Click Here to Start by Denis Markell

surface. It’s just hacked in there. Like someone was in a hurry. After all these preparations. It’s weird.”
    “I told you. He had enemies,” Caleb says darkly.
    “Maybe…Right now, we’ve got to figure out what 1405 refers to.”
    “It could be a date in a book,” Isabel muses, looking over at the shelves. Then, seeing Caleb’s look, she immediately adds, “But he wouldn’t use books twice. Would he?”
    “I don’t think so,” I say.
    “I still say it’s got to do with the clock. He was in the military, wasn’t he?” asks Caleb.
    “They use the twenty-four-hour clock, right?”
    “Which would make it 2:05 p.m.,” I remark, walking over to the wall clock in the kitchen.
    “You watch. He’ll enter the time, and a compartment on the back will open, and there will be the key.” Caleb smiles at Isabel.
    I slowly take the clock off the wall. There’s a battery compartment in the back. I carefully set the time. I know from years of playing these games that the trick is to turn the hands to two o’clock and continue to turn it a full twelve hours.
Then
it will be 14:05.
    I adjust the minute hand so that it’s on the line right after the five-minute mark and listen for the click.
    No click.
    I turn the clock over and open the battery compartment. Nothing but a pair of old batteries. Not even a note. I shrug. “Sorry, Caleb. No key.”
    “I don’t mean to sound stupid or anything, but could the key just be inside the lighter?” Isabel asks, shifting it in her hand.
    I laugh and run over to her side. Sometimes you
can
outsmart yourself.
    “Oh, yeah!”
    Isabel gives me a look that says
Like I need your approval
and hands the lighter over to me.
    “You do it. He was your great-uncle.”
    I slowly pull the lighter out of its case.
    Nothing. Empty.
    We stand in silence, contemplating the box and the lighter.
    I close my eyes and try to concentrate. It’s hard, feeling Isabel looking at me, expecting me to have the answer.
    A loud buzzing noise makes us all jump. I realize my phone is vibrating. I pull it out of my pocket and answer.
    “Hey, Mom. What’s up?” I turn away from the others and take the call into the kitchen.
    A few minutes later, I come back and tell the others the news. “Okay, guys, there’s been a little change of plan. Apparently the only day the Goodwill people can come before the end of the week is tomorrow. So that means we’ve got to have this place all ready for them to cart stuff out of here by the time we leave.”
    “That’s impossible! It’s noon already!” protests Caleb.
    “Then I guess we better get back to work,” Isabel says briskly.
    “You think we can get this stuff organized in one afternoon?” Caleb asks doubtfully.
    “ ‘The prospect of being hanged focuses the mind wonderfully,’ ” quips Isabel.
    Caleb and I stare at her.
    “What? You don’t know that quote? It’s Samuel Johnson. We used to say it all the time at St. Anselm’s the night before a big test if we hadn’t studied.”
    “We just say ‘I’m screwed,’ ” says Caleb, bless him.
    As we get out bags and start to throw things in, I wonder about what kinds of friends Isabel has back east, who quote people I’ve never even heard of.
    “What is it again? ‘The prospect of being hanged…,’ ” I begin.
    “ ‘—focuses the mind wonderfully,’ ” Isabel finishes.
    “I have to use that one on my dad,” I laugh. “He’ll love it.”
    “I think he knows it,” Isabel said.
    “Yeah, but he doesn’t know
I
know it,” I add, raising my eyebrows.
    The next two hours are a blur of activity as we move stacks of magazines, take what few clothes remain in the closet and fold them, put books in boxes, and neatly pile up all the things that might be of value to someone at Goodwill.
    I leave out the box with the old video games, and Isabel’s eyes light up when she sees a volume of
Great Short Fiction from the
New Yorker.
    “Would it be okay if I took this?” she