She heard footsteps behind her a heartbeat before the voice. “You can’t have it.”
With a gasp she whirled, swinging the crowbar high above her head. Then she exhaled. “Theo, I swear to God, I’m going to hurt you one of these days.”
Theodore Albright the Fourth stood looking at her from the shadows, his jaw stern. Stiffly he crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You can’t have these things. Children will come in here. They’ll break them.”
“I don’t plan to put anything valuable out in the open. I’m going to have plastic copies made, and break the copies in pieces-to hide in the dirt for people to find. The way we’d find broken pottery in a dig.”
Theo looked around the room. “You’re going to make it look like an authentic dig?”
“That’s my plan. I know your grandfather’s treasures are precious. I won’t let anything happen to them.”
His wide shoulders relaxed. “I’m sorry I scared you.” His eyes dropped to her hand and she realized she still held the crowbar. Bending at the knees, she laid it on the floor.
“It’s okay.” Amanda Brewster’s little gift and phone call had left her shakier than she’d thought. “So… did you need something?”
He nodded. “You have a phone call. It’s some old guy from Paris.”
Maurice. “Paris?” She was already taking him by the arm and guiding him out the door. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded as she locked the room behind them.
In her office, she shut the door, grabbed the phone and let her mind relax back into French. “Maurice? It’s Sophie.”
“Sophie, my dear. Your grandmother. How is she?”
She heard the fear in his voice and realized he thought she was calling with bad news about Anna. “She’s holding her own. That’s actually not why I called. I’m sorry, I should have told you so you didn’t worry.”
He let out a breath. “Yes, you should have, but I can’t be angry that you’re not calling with bad news, I suppose. So why did you call?”
“I’m doing some research and was hoping you could give me information.”
“Ah.” His voice perked up and Sophie smiled. Maurice had always been one of the biggest gossips of her father’s crowd. “What kind of information?”
“Well, it’s like this…”
Tuesday, January 16, 8:10
P.M.
“So the victim is Bill Melville?” Liz asked on the phone as Vito turned his truck onto his street.
“His prints match the ones Latent lifted from his apartment. Nobody had seen him since Halloween. Kids in his building said he always dressed up and handed out candy.”
“Sounds like a nice guy.”
“I don’t know about that. He dressed like a ninja. The kids thought he did it to let them know he could handle weapons. Nunchucks, staffs. It was his way of maintaining security. But he did give out good candy, so everybody seemed happy.”
“Why hadn’t someone gone in his apartment before?”
“Melville’s landlord did but didn’t find anything. We got lucky. The landlord already filed an eviction notice. Another two days and all of Melville’s stuff would have been in the Dumpster.”
“Was his computer fried?”
“Yep. But,” Vito smiled grimly. “Bill printed out a few of the e-mails. Left them on the printer. He was contacted by a guy named Munch to do a history documentary.”
“Did you get his e-mail address?”
“No. The printed e-mail only said ‘E. Munch.’ If we had the actual e-mail on his machine we could have clicked on the name to get his e-mail address, but the files are wiped. The good thing is, we have a name to use when we question all the models on the UCanModel website who got hits on their résumés the days around our victims.”
“So Beverly and Tim were able to get into the website’s records?”
“Yeah. The owners of the site are cooperating fully. They don’t want all their clients pulling off the site because of a killer. They haven’t handed over any blanket lists, but they will work with Bev and Tim on a person-by-person basis. Bev and Tim are going to start contacting the models who were contacted by Munch tomorrow.”
“Although it’s not likely to be his real name. Are you headed back to the office?”
“No, I’m home.” He’d parked behind Tess’s rental and beside a car he’d never seen before. “My nephews are staying with me and I’ve hardly spent five minutes with them. I’m going to help my sister get everyone tucked in, then go grab some dinner.” And if he was lucky… His mind wandered to that single kiss. It had tormented him all day, distracting him, derailing his thoughts. What if she didn’t come? What if he had to walk away? What if he never got to taste her full lips again? Sophie, please come.
Vito got out of his truck and looked in the window of the strange car and saw the back floorboards strewn with McDonald’s trash and ratty old sneakers. Teenager, he guessed. When he opened his front door, he saw he was partially right.
Multiple teens were gathered around a computer someone had set up in his living room. One kid sat in Vito’s easy chair, feet up as he faced the monitor, a keyboard on his lap. Dominic stood behind the chair, a frown on his handsome face as he looked on.
“Hey,” Vito called as he closed his front door. “What’s all this?”
Dominic’s eyes flickered. “We were working on a school project, but took a break.”
“What kind of project?” he asked.
“Science,” Dominic said. “Earth-space,” he clarified.
The kid with the keyboard looked up with a cynical sneer. “We had to create life,” he said drolly and the others snickered.
Except for Dom, who frowned. “Jesse, cut it out. Let’s get back to work.”
“In a minute, choir boy,” Jesse drawled.
Dom’s cheeks flushed a dark red and Vito realized his oldest nephew had been taking ribbing for his clean-cut ways. He moved to Dom’s side. “What’s the game?”
“Behind Enemy Lines,” Dom told him. “It’s a World War II fighting game.”
The screen was filled with the interior of an ammunitions bunker, in which eleven soldiers with swastikas on their armbands already lay dead. The camera looked out over the barrel of a rifle. “This guy is an American soldier,” Dom explained. “You can choose your character’s nationality and your weapon. It’s the newest rage.”
Vito studied the screen. “Really? The graphics look two or three years old.”
One of the boys eyed him warily. “You play?”
“Some.” He’d held the community record for Galaga when he was fifteen, but didn’t think divulging that fact would do more than make him look like a dinosaur. He lifted a brow. “Maybe I’ll learn a few things about taking out the bad guys or fast car chases.”
The boy who’d just spoken grinned good-naturedly. “Well, you won’t learn anything from this game. It’s just average.”
“That’s Ray,” Dom said. “He’s a gamer. So is Jesse.”
“So what’s the big deal with this game?” Vito asked.
Ray shrugged. “Everything in the game part’s a rehash from this company’s last five games. Game physics, environments, AI…”
“Artificial intelligence,” Dom murmured.
“I know,” Vito murmured back. “So I repeat, what’s the big deal? The characters are flat and the AI really sucks. I mean, Jesse here just took out a dozen bad boys with armbands and not one of them winged him. What’s the challenge in that?”
“We’re not playing it for the game,” Jesse said, apparently unoffended. “We’re playing it for the cut scenes.” He laughed softly. “Fuckin’ unbelievable, man.”
Dom looked around, frowning. “Jesse. My little brothers are here.”
“Like they don’t hear it from your old man,” Jesse said, bored.