There was no one in the gallery. Most of the interior lights were off. Here and there an overhead light shone on some objet d’art: a blue glass vase artfully displayed on one shelf, a hammered copper bowl on another, an abstract painting on the far wall that looked like water lilies. Or was it a New York City taxicab?
Before I had time to give it any more thought, Beyla walked into the gallery.
I dropped to my knees below the window and the window box in front of it, pointing inside as I did. “She’s in there,” I whispered just loud enough for Eve to hear me. “I wonder what she’s doing.”
There was only one way I was ever going to find out.
With a signal to Eve to stay put and keep quiet, I rose to my feet. The window box was overflowing, and I positioned myself behind a spicy geranium and parted the red impatiens, trying for a better look. I was just in time to see Beyla peering into the copper bowl.
That might not be a weird thing for a customer to do, but it struck me as an odd way for a burglar to act.
So did the fact that when she’d satisfied herself that the bowl was empty, Beyla lifted it, looked underneath it, and ran her hand over the shelf where it was displayed. When she was done, she took what looked to be a man’s big, white handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped every surface she’d touched.
“She’s not looking to hide anything,” I told Eve while I shifted positions from the cover of a geranium to a curtain of marigolds. “She’s searching for something.”
“You think?” I saw Eve’s muscles tense and stopped her with one hand on her arm before she could move. It was dangerous enough for me to be risking exposure. There was no use taking the chance of Beyla seeing the two of us watching her through the flowers.
When she was done with the copper bowl, Beyla moved on to the blue glass vase. It was big and obviously heavy and she used two hands to lift it. She studied the vase and the shelf where it was displayed carefully before she put it back into place. She gave the same kind of attention to each of the paintings on the wall. When she walked over to the counter where purchases were written up and wrapped, I figured I’d better provide Eve with some kind of narrative.
“Whatever she’s looking for, she hasn’t found it yet,” I told her, partly to relieve the I’m-dying-to-know-what’s-going-on look on her face, and partly because I was trying to work through the thing in my head, and I found it easier to think out loud.
I also found out the hard way that keeping still while half crouched and hunched over did ugly things to my calf muscles.
I winced and dropped onto the sidewalk, rubbing the back of my right leg with one hand. “Something tells me Yuri got his info wrong,” I said. “If she already has the disc, why would she be here looking for it?”
“Unless she’s looking for something else.”
It was a possibility. Still, something about Eve’s theory just didn’t feel right to me. Neither did Yuri’s take on the situation.
“I don’t think so,” I said, convinced, though I didn’t know why. “She’s being too careful. And she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s been here, either. She’s wiping away her fingerprints.”
“Really? This I’ve got to see!” Eve moved too fast for me. Before I could stop her, she slid away from the wall and turned to look in the front window. Let’s face it, tall and beautiful is great when it comes to most things, but it’s not much of an asset when you’re trying to be sneaky.
I made a grab for Eve to tug her down next to me, but she waved me aside.
“She not there,” she said. I guess I must have looked like I didn’t believe her. “Take a look for yourself.” She pointed into the gallery. “She may have been in there before, but I don’t see hide nor hair of Beyla now.”
Eve was right; Beyla was gone. And the way I read the situation, that meant that there were two possibilities: either she was in one of the back rooms, or she’d already left.
Two possibilities, and only one way to find out which one was right.
“Come on.” I grabbed Eve’s arm and tugged her toward the street where Beyla had parked her car. “Let’s go around back and find out what she’s up to.”
We crept around the corner. When I saw that Beyla’s car was still parked at the curb, I breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s still in there,” I whispered and pointed. There were no windows on that side of the building, but there were three stairs that led up to a small, rectangular porch and a door. Obviously, that was the way Beyla had gotten in, and for a moment, I considered checking to see if the door was still open and going in after her.
For a moment.
Logic prevailed, as did my desire not to be caught doing anything that looked even a little like breaking and entering. I continued down the sidewalk toward an alley behind the building. “Maybe there’s a window.”
“Back there?” Eve hissed. She glanced to where the sidewalk met the back alley and gulped, as if she expected something to jump out of there and bite her.
Which, for all I knew, it could have.
“It’s the only way we’re going to find out what she’s up to,” I reminded Eve, fishing in my purse for the mini flashlight I kept there. I might have been a new woman, but I hadn’t lost all my common sense.
“There’s the Annie Capshaw I know and love,” Eve said, relieved now that we had a little bit of light. “Always prepared. Always on the ball. Always sure of herself.”
I hated to burst her bubble. Because I was about to make a very un-Annie Capshaw-like move. I pulled back my shoulders, lifted my chin, and trained the beam of my flashlight into the pitch-dark alley. Before I could talk myself out of it, I followed the trail of light inside.
My self-confidence lasted for exactly three steps.
That’s when I slammed my knee into the corner of a wooden packing crate. I stopped to rub it, arcing the ray of light all around.
From what I could see, the alleyway ran along the back of Arta as well as behind the two buildings beside it on M Street. My flashlight beam only penetrated so far, and beyond its soft yellow glow, everything was dark and quiet. At our backs was another row of buildings, their shapes tall and hulking in the dark. Right next to us were the packing crates I’d already gotten too up close and personal with. They were stacked one on top of the other in a neat pile, probably awaiting a trash hauler to cart them away. There was no back door, but there was a window that looked out over the alley. From what I remembered from our reconnaissance trip, the window was in Drago’s office. Unfortunately, it was also at least ten feet off the ground, and there were no lights on inside the office. From here, all I could see was a black square a little less dark than the building around it.
Until a light came on inside.
“She’s in there. In the office.” I flicked off my flashlight and backed up as far as I could, but because of how high up the window was on the wall, I still couldn’t see anything. Even Eve standing on tiptoe couldn’t catch a glimpse of the person inside. I shook my head in frustration. “We’ve got to see what she’s doing. We might be missing something important.”
Before I could remind myself that sensible women didn’t do unsensible things, I manuevered the first packing crate into place.
“You’re not-” Eve began, but one look at the set of my chin told her I was.
It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to place three crates one on top of the other like stepping-stones.
Using Eve’s hand for support, I carefully made my way to the top of the stack. From my vantage point, I could just see over the ledge of the window.
As I expected, Beyla was in the office. What I didn’t expect, though, was that it would still be as much of a mess as it was the last time I’d looked inside. Why hadn’t Yuri cleaned? How could he work in such chaos?
I recognized the questions for what they were, the workings of a mind too obsessed with cleanliness, and snapped myself back in focus. I watched Beyla kick her way through the flurry of paper on the floor. She hurried across the room.