Grady Locke wanted to cry. He wanted to turn off the lights, curl up in the darkness, and hide in his closet forever. He wanted to run. He could hide in the Klondike. He saw himself escaping to South America or Fiji or Ireland or Pago Pago in the South Pacific. He had a few thousand in the bank. He could cash out now, drive directly to Tijuana International, buy a ticket to Belize, and figure out what to do next.
Grady got up and went to the kitchen. The storm in his head was easing. He was scared, but the worst of the panic had passed. He needed to call Sanford and Horton, but he wanted to check something first. The lofts were owned separately, but the building itself, the entry, and the pool on the roof were maintained by the company that owned the building. A feature built into the deal was security cameras in the entry. People who bought a loft were given an app and code allowing them to see who was buzzing for entry. Grady rarely used it, so it took him a couple of minutes to figure out how it worked.
He did.
He opened the entry video feed and found three different views. Two were exterior views of the call box where visitors buzzed for entry, a wide shot of the area, and a closer angle from above whoever stood at the box. The third view revealed the interior of the entry from the elevator to the entry door.
Grady played around until he found time marks allowing him to scroll back and forth in time.
He did.
Not many people came and went. Almost all of them lived in the building, so Grady recognized them.
Then Grady saw a big hulk of a man he didn’t recognize. The man stepped from the elevator with a duffel slung from his shoulder and exited the building.
Grady scrolled back farther, and saw the man enter. This time he carried the duffel like a suitcase. The big green bag had a different shape now, more rectangular and sharp, as if something inside had corners.
Grady found the best view and paused the image.
This fucker was huge.
Grady had never seen him, but Chow had described him. Skylar’s friend. Josh something. Chow had been trying to find him. And now the fucker had stolen their money and dropped off the painting. The painting was a threat.
Grady was staring at Josh when his cell rang. He took the call.
Richter said, “We need to talk, but not on the phone. Let’s meet.”
Grady said, “Her friend came by. The big guy. He took stuff. All of it. Everything.”
“Jesus, Grady, what’d you do, stand by sucking your thumb?”
“Wasn’t here. He left something, too. I’ll tell you when I see you.”
“Sonofabitch.”
“Tell Chow. Chow was supposed to handle it.”
“The big guy. Shit, it was him. He was here. He actually came here. He said things.”
“Tell Chow. We have a problem, Sanford. A really big problem. And Chow has a problem, too.”
“Let’s meet. Come now. The usual place.”
Grady ended the call. He stared at Skylar’s painting and didn’t know what to do with it. He carried it into his bedroom, slid it under the bed, and left to meet Richter.
He would destroy it later if the painting didn’t destroy him first. The nasty bitch probably made copies.
59
Wendy Vann
Wendy followed Kurt into the cottage. The cottage was where Adele tinkered with her toys and projects and puzzles, which were mostly number fields generated by AI systems. The cottage also housed the secured communications gear and SatLink transceivers used by the staff, as well as their duty gear and equipment. Kurt pulled a black hard-shell Pelican case from a shelf.
“Someone was in the bug box.”
The bug box held their countersurveillance equipment. They swept Adele’s home, garage, property, and vehicles for listening devices every three days. If she went to a restaurant or a friend’s home, they swept. If she went shopping, they swept. Packages and mail and deliveries, swept.
Kurt opened the case. Each device had its place in a thick layer of foam. One foam cutout was empty.
Wendy looked at Kurt.
“Shit.”
Kurt said, “Uh-huh.”
Josh.
60
Elvis Cole
The L.A. City Hall sat across from LAPD headquarters, catty-corner to the Los Angeles Times building, and surrounded by courts, jails, and credit unions. It was a three-tiered building with a wide, heavy base and a central tower topped by an aircraft beacon named for Charles Lindbergh. Counting the beacon, City Hall stood thirty-two stories tall. A seismic retrofit strengthened the structure to withstand a magnitude 8.2 earthquake. The building’s strength was evident in its broad, burly stance. City Hall looked like a bulldog guarding a bone.