security room.
“Mister Addison.” A man wearing the tan uniform of a Myerson-Schmidt guard stood upright so hastily that his chair rolled backward. Sam stopped it deftly with the sole of one flip-flop and slid it back to him.
“Louie. We’re just sightseeing.” Addison’s gesture gave her the run of the room.
Twenty monitors dominated the room, stacked in fours with a master computer in the middle and another two units to one side for playback purposes. “Is there usually just one guy in here?” she asked.
“Unless there’s a big party,” Louie said, resuming his seat, “one is all it takes.”
“How come we surprised you when we walked in?” she pursued. “Didn’t you see us coming?”
The guard cleared his throat. “I’ve been monitoring the outer perimeter cameras,” he returned, his expression becoming defensive. “With all due respect, ma’am, you wouldn’t have gotten indoors at all if Mr. Addison hadn’t been with you.”
She had several responses to that, none of which he would like, but she nodded. “Okay. The cops have the tapes from the other night, I suppose?”
“Yes,” Addison answered. “Anything else?”
“The gallery.”
They crossed back to the front of the house and started up the main stairs. The Picasso still hung on the landing, apparently having escaped all fire, smoke, and water damage. That had been a several-million-dollar piece of good luck for Addison.
“Does this sort of thing happen to you often?” she asked.
He slowed. “I’ve had death threats before, but this is the first time anyone’s gotten this close to actually killing me.”
“Nice line of work.”
“Look who’s talking.” Addison shrugged. “The fact that somebody invaded my home to do it makes me very angry.”
“But what if the bomb wasn’t supposed to kill you?”
“It was meant to kill someone under my roof, which means under my protection.”
“Your protection?” she repeated with a faint smile. “You sound like a feudal lord.”
Addison nodded. “Something like that. Be careful up here. There’s still debris lying about, and the floor’s got some weak spots.”
Yellow police tape stretched the width of the hallway right at the top of the stairs, but he pulled it loose as though it was nothing more significant than a spider’s web. The way Addison stood there, the way he eyed the destruction of the gallery with a deep, cold anger, made it clear just how personally he took what had happened.
“Wasn’t there more armor?” she commented, stepping past him.
“My estate manager sent some of the more salvageable pieces out to an armorer, to see what he could do with them.”
“They were beautiful.” For the first time Samantha reached the door that had secured the stone tablet, to find it hanging off twisted hinges and blackened with soot.
Richard stood back and watched her. He’d been over the floor himself already, but it fascinated him that she looked at it differently, that she saw things he would never have conceived of. She fascinated him.
“This is your secure room, right? Double-bolted, with infrared crossing the floor?”
Keeping in mind that he would ask how she knew all that later, he nodded. “Yes. With video on the far wall, facing the door.”
“And nothing showed up on tape, I presume.”
“Nothing so far, according to Detective Castillo.”
“If you’re so concerned with people invading your privacy, you maybe should consider putting more cameras inside the house,” she suggested.
“That would protect my things, not my privacy.” Walking closer so he could keep her in sight, he saw her squatting infront of the broken door, running her finger along the secondary lock. “What do you see?”
She straightened, brushing her hands off on her borrowed shorts, leaving black soot smudges across the yellow. “I was going to pick the secondary lock and cut the main,” she said after a moment. “Whoever did this thought the same thing.
“Mister Addison.” A man wearing the tan uniform of a Myerson-Schmidt guard stood upright so hastily that his chair rolled backward. Sam stopped it deftly with the sole of one flip-flop and slid it back to him.
“Louie. We’re just sightseeing.” Addison’s gesture gave her the run of the room.
Twenty monitors dominated the room, stacked in fours with a master computer in the middle and another two units to one side for playback purposes. “Is there usually just one guy in here?” she asked.
“Unless there’s a big party,” Louie said, resuming his seat, “one is all it takes.”
“How come we surprised you when we walked in?” she pursued. “Didn’t you see us coming?”
The guard cleared his throat. “I’ve been monitoring the outer perimeter cameras,” he returned, his expression becoming defensive. “With all due respect, ma’am, you wouldn’t have gotten indoors at all if Mr. Addison hadn’t been with you.”
She had several responses to that, none of which he would like, but she nodded. “Okay. The cops have the tapes from the other night, I suppose?”
“Yes,” Addison answered. “Anything else?”
“The gallery.”
They crossed back to the front of the house and started up the main stairs. The Picasso still hung on the landing, apparently having escaped all fire, smoke, and water damage. That had been a several-million-dollar piece of good luck for Addison.
“Does this sort of thing happen to you often?” she asked.
He slowed. “I’ve had death threats before, but this is the first time anyone’s gotten this close to actually killing me.”
“Nice line of work.”
“Look who’s talking.” Addison shrugged. “The fact that somebody invaded my home to do it makes me very angry.”
“But what if the bomb wasn’t supposed to kill you?”
“It was meant to kill someone under my roof, which means under my protection.”
“Your protection?” she repeated with a faint smile. “You sound like a feudal lord.”
Addison nodded. “Something like that. Be careful up here. There’s still debris lying about, and the floor’s got some weak spots.”
Yellow police tape stretched the width of the hallway right at the top of the stairs, but he pulled it loose as though it was nothing more significant than a spider’s web. The way Addison stood there, the way he eyed the destruction of the gallery with a deep, cold anger, made it clear just how personally he took what had happened.
“Wasn’t there more armor?” she commented, stepping past him.
“My estate manager sent some of the more salvageable pieces out to an armorer, to see what he could do with them.”
“They were beautiful.” For the first time Samantha reached the door that had secured the stone tablet, to find it hanging off twisted hinges and blackened with soot.
Richard stood back and watched her. He’d been over the floor himself already, but it fascinated him that she looked at it differently, that she saw things he would never have conceived of. She fascinated him.
“This is your secure room, right? Double-bolted, with infrared crossing the floor?”
Keeping in mind that he would ask how she knew all that later, he nodded. “Yes. With video on the far wall, facing the door.”
“And nothing showed up on tape, I presume.”
“Nothing so far, according to Detective Castillo.”
“If you’re so concerned with people invading your privacy, you maybe should consider putting more cameras inside the house,” she suggested.
“That would protect my things, not my privacy.” Walking closer so he could keep her in sight, he saw her squatting infront of the broken door, running her finger along the secondary lock. “What do you see?”
She straightened, brushing her hands off on her borrowed shorts, leaving black soot smudges across the yellow. “I was going to pick the secondary lock and cut the main,” she said after a moment. “Whoever did this thought the same thing.
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