Ol’ Ralph believes his system is impossible to breach, but I’ve got Devon on my team. There is nothing I’ve requested from him that he has not delivered, and he can say the same about me.
I walk into Buffalo Wild Wings and scan the restaurant for him. He nods when we make eye contact and I make my way through the crowd to the booth where he’s waiting.
Sliding in across from him, he passes me a beer. If we were in private, I’d throw my arms around him, pulling him in for a hug since I haven’t seen him in a while, but he insists that in public we do nothing to draw attention to ourselves. But I do get a small smile and I return it with a much bigger one.
“Those colors look good on you,” I say. He’s wearing a Cowboys jersey even though I know he hates them. He wore it because he knew more than half of this restaurant would be wearing apparel celebrating the home team. As I glance around the room, all I see is a field of blue, white, and silver.
“Don’t start. The things I do for you.” He rolls his eyes and fake gags.
“You love me, I know it.” I tip my bottle, tapping it against the neck of his. “Cheers!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, then takes a swig of his beer. “First time you’ve been sent to Texas. Not sure I like it.”
Devon’s weariness for anything new is the one constant in my life. “Maybe my territory is expanding,” I say with a laugh. He tilts his head to the side, his expression telling me he’s not so sure, but he doesn’t say anything else once the waitress approaches the table.
“Hey, hon,” she says. “Can I get you something to eat?”
I look at Devon and he says, “I got the burger and fries. It’s good. You’ll like it.”
I nod and say, “Same for me.” Once the server has walked away, I pull a manila envelope out of my bag and hand it to him, filling him in on everything I know so far. I sip my beer while he reads what I’ve given him, relaxing for the first time since I crossed the state line into Texas. I know Devon arrived at least an hour before I did and did a sweep of the place for any bugs or recording devices, even though absolutely no one knows we’d be here.
Our food is delivered and I people watch while Devon carefully reads each page.
A kid stops a few feet away from our table and says, “This phone sucks. I can’t get this pic to download.” He and his friend examine the device and then walk away. I chuckle and Devon looks up at me.
I point to the small black device on the table. “How big of a dead zone did you make?”
He chuckles as he glances at the kid. “Twenty-five-foot diameter.” Then his attention is back on the plans in front of him.
I gaze around the room, noticing everyone is having similar issues with their devices. Devon is causing chaos around us. “Everyone is freaking out.”
“I’m saving a lot of people from making bad decisions right now.” His eyes go to the rowdy bar not too far away for just a second or two. “They’d thank me later if they could.”
Finally, he turns over the last page and looks at me. “I’ve never seen a security system designed like this.”
“Can you hack it?”
Devon cocks his head, giving me a look. A look that says Don’t dare insult me like that.
“Lay it out for me,” I say, with a smile.
He digs through the stack of papers and pulls out a floor plan. “This setup is gorgeous. Super hot. There’s no reason for how it’s laid out and that makes it exquisite.” He points to one section and asks, “The painting is believed to be in this room in the middle of the house, correct?”
“Yeah, it’s his trophy room, where he keeps those stuffed exotic animals he killed in Africa. I’ve found a few pictures from inside that room. There’s also one of those commercial cigar humidors and a tequila collection that’ll make your mouth water.” I pull a piece of paper from the pile. “And this drawing shows the addition made to the room shortly after that painting went missing. Looks like there was a false wall added that retracts. My best guess is that the painting, and whatever else he’s obtained illegally, can be hidden behind that wall if he’s got people in the room he doesn’t trust to see it.”
Devon studies the drawing of the addition, then goes back to the main set of blueprints. “You’ll need to be at the keypad outside the room where you believe the painting is kept”—then he moves his finger across the page, tracing lines that represent cables and wires—“while I’m here at the backup system to prevent it from kicking in right away. Neither can be accessed remotely. It’s devastatingly simple but chaotic. And you will only have maybe five minutes. Five minutes inside a room we haven’t seen, so there’s no telling what else awaits you there. No other way around it. It’s magnificent, really.”