The room had all of Jeanine’s passions on display: flower press still stuffed with orchids and daisies, posters from classic films on the walls, and pots of artist’s sculpting clay and acrylic paints.

Jeanine had always taken a flower from everywhere she’d gone, and pressed it into a scrapbook. She didn’t keep a diary or a blog–her laptop was tucked in a corner too–but her flowers served that purpose and then some. Arthur was tempted to open the press and see if there were any labels, but the light layer of dust that had already accumulated–it was an old house–said that the press had been left unattended for some time.

The classic posters were all reproductions save the one in a place of honor: an original 1941 banner for “The Maltese Falcon”–she had always liked mysteries–yellowed with age, edges ragged and deep crevices crisscrossing Bogart’s face where it had been folded over the years. It wasn’t a particularly attractive poster to begin with, but it was nevertheless lovingly mounted in a brass, archival quality frame.

Jeanine had been trying to take up sculpting as well…most of the paint bottles and sculpting clay cans were unopened, and only a few half-finished turtles and squirrels littered the small work area on her desk. They needed work–a lot of work–but she had been ready to do what it took to master the art.

If she’d gotten the chance.

“I wonder what someone will think when they go through my room, afterwards,” Arthur sighed. “Dead or disappeared, it’s still a clean cut through everything her life used to be.”