House on Fire

21

Someone was coming around the corner. I immediately backed up against the doorway, flattening myself so I was momentarily out of his line of sight. For a few seconds.

A whisper: “Heller? What the hell?”

Maggie. In jeans and a white T-shirt and white sneakers. She still had her coppery wig on. At least I assumed it was a wig. A big purse was slung over her shoulder.

“Mags? I was going to ask you the same thing.”

She moved in close, and then she kissed me, to my surprise. Then backed up a few inches. “I got dibs, Heller,” she whispered.

“On what?”

“On the files is what, and you know it.”

I nodded. “The alarm is on.”

“What’d you expect? You have any idea how paranoid the man is? A couple of months ago, he brought in some high-end security contractors to protect his home files. Now he always sets the alarm. Lets his housekeeping staff in to clean but only when he’s there. He’s protecting something.”

“Probably all his company’s dirty secrets. Do you have the alarm code?”

“He doesn’t trust his own kids, Heller. No, I don’t. But I don’t think I’m going to need it. Not as long as I have this.” She pulled out a handheld device with four antennas on it like teeth of a comb.

“Wi-Fi jammer?”

She smiled. This little gimmick blocked the signal between the control panel and the alarm sensors, temporarily disabling the alarm. I saw the red LED light go dark. She leaned forward and inserted a key in the lock. She turned the key, then pulled open the door. No alarm sounded, no noise.

It was pitch-black inside.

“We have two hours,” she said.

“How do you know that?”

“If the sensor doesn’t receive a signal in a hundred twenty minutes, the alarm goes off. It’s a countermeasure.”

“Anything else to worry about inside? Motion sensor?”

“Not in his home office.”

“Pressure pads?”

“Highly doubt it.”

She followed close behind me as I entered, then closed the door after us. She stood her Wi-Fi jammer on the floor right next to the door.

I exhaled. I could hear her breathe too, could smell her perfume. Something different from what she used to use. Brassier. A perfume called Opium, I decided. Part of her disguise. In the old days she wore patchouli. I closed my eyes and opened them again, letting my eyes get used to the dark. It wasn’t pitch-black after all. Faint mottled moonlight came in through the leaded-glass diamond-pane windows.

“What are you after?” I asked.

“The files.”

“Which ones?”

She paused. “Not gonna say.”

“Who hired you?”

“Can’t say. You?”

“Same. Where’d you get the key?”

She shrugged. “Can’t say.”

“You have any idea where the files are?”

“Not exactly. Could be anywhere. But I’m interested in the fact that he had a safe room put in a few months back. With a concealed entrance.”

“For the files, you think?”

“Dunno. Maybe it’s only for Natalya’s jewelry. So I plan to search the whole office.” She pulled out a tiny LED flashlight and swept it back and forth across the room. I could make out some shadowy details, including a large, ornately carved desk. Books lined the walls. A Chesterfield-style leather sofa, with matching hulking leather Chesterfield chairs facing it on the other side of a coffee table.

Nothing that looked like a filing cabinet.

I glanced back at the desk drawers. Possible. I took out my own little Maglite and approached the desk, tugging at the top right drawer. It slid open. No lock.

I smelled lemon-oil furniture polish and cigars. I focused the light. A Scotch-tape dispenser, a checkbook, a couple of pens and sharpened pencils, a pair of scissors.

The next drawer down was taller and more likely to contain files. That one came right open as well, revealing a stack of individually wrapped reams of computer paper. Nothing else. Conrad Kimball’s files weren’t in his desk.

I turned around to see Maggie, meanwhile, inspecting the bookshelves closely with her flashlight. She’d mentioned a safe room with a concealed entrance. A safe room, also known as a panic room, is a hardened shelter installed in a private residence that can be used by the homeowners to hide in order to stay safe during home invasions. Some of them, like the civil defense shelters of the early sixties, were big enough, with enough supplies, to live in for a few weeks. It would also make a logical place to hide something valuable.

My flashlight beam raked the walls of the study, the bookshelves, looking for cleverly built-in cabinetry. Lines in the wood that looked wrong. Seams. But I found nothing. Just books. The floor was covered in an antique-looking Aubusson carpet. The windows had recently been fitted with alarm contacts.

I noticed a door that I remembered from the plans led to a bathroom. That was worth checking out. I opened the door, saw a narrow space. An old-fashioned toilet with a pull-chain water closet above, black and white tiles on the floor, subway tiles on the walls. An old pedestal sink. All probably original to the house.

And it had windows that opened to the outside. I entered the bathroom, inspected the windows, saw no alarm contacts. They hadn’t bothered to alarm the bathroom window. Had I known this, I could have sneaked in that way, from outside, avoiding the alarm entirely.

Then a faint sound came from the hallway.

The sound of a door closing.