Chapter 9

The next morning, Tom sighed, rubbed his eyes, and then looked at his off-brand smartwatch.

9:39 a.m.

So where was she?

She being the super-important insurance investigator who worked for a company that had enough pull to ensure she was, "…embedded completely into your investigation of this case and given the complete cooperation of your team and our resources."

That hadn't come from his lieutenant.

That had come from his captain.

It was yet another reason Tom hated this case.

In his mind, this whole thing fell under the category of Rich People Problems, and he was having trouble mustering up the give a shit level in himself to care.

So some hoity-toity museum—which he had never been inside of in his life until yesterday—got ripped off. Most of the culprits had been caught, the fucking Rembrandt had been saved, and the only painting missing was one he'd never heard of!

A painting of a girl?

In a meadow?

With fucking sheep?

By all means,he thought snidely, let's stop everything to find a painting only rich people care about!

And where the fuck was Emily? He had told her yesterday to be at the precinct house by 8 o'clock, but he supposed she was still at home, having trouble deciding if she should wear Chanel or Dior today.

"Okay," he said wearily, "let's go over it again…"

The others in Room 8 with him groaned. Room 8 was the video room. It was where evidence such as VHS tapes—yes, those were still in use—SD cards, CDs, or flash drives containing security camera, traffic camera, or even cell phone footage was examined for clues. As such, the room had a bank of flat screen monitors the detectives could connect their laptops to. For VHS footage, there was a tape player connected to a TV.

With him in the room was his partner, Andie, as well as Bernie and Vinnie. They had all just spent a shitload of time watching the security footage from the museum, trying to spot anything that would give them a lead to go on. But, so far…nothing.

They had watched—and rewatched—the five perps they had in custody arriving at the museum. It hadn't escaped their attention that there were only five of them, not six, but Tom had a theory about that. He surmised that the sixth perp had infiltrated the museum as either a visitor or as another member of the staff, and that the guy then positioned himself in the museum somehow to be able to snatch the stupid picture of the girl.

Bernie and Vinnie were convinced that the sixth perp was actually a member of the staff, and that this had been an inside job.

It was possible, Tom considered…but the problem was that all of the staff working at the time of the robbery had all been accounted for—even during the periods when the security cameras had been switched off. And they had all come in to give their statements, and nothing about what any of them had said had rung untrue. What's more…none of them had been carrying a stolen painting.

Nonetheless, there was a possibility that the painting of the girl had been cleverly hidden in the museum by a crooked staff member, although the place had practically been turned inside out by the police.

"The perps walk in, pretending to work for Overlord," Tom said, beginning yet another recap of the events. He pointed at Andie. "Have we heard from the phone company yet?" he asked her.

Andie checked her notes.

"Yes," Andie told him. "Last night, their guy discovered how they rigged the phone lines so that the call from museum security was rerouted to a cell phone. He said anyone could've done it with the right know-how."

And the cell phone—which one of the perps had on him—was a burner. Tracing it, they discovered that it had been bought all the way in fucking Pittsburgh.

So that was a dead end.

"They disable the alarms, and take over the cameras," Tom went on.

Vinnie scoffed.

"Those dumb-ass security pukes," he said. "You would think that if someone says to a museum, ‘Hey, your cameras aren't gonna work for a while, but it's nothing!' that it might raise red flags."

Tom sort of agreed…but only sort of.

"Who robs a museum in broad daylight?" he asked. "While it's open?"

It reminded him of a story…

When he was a kid in Long Island, one day his family left their house to go visit his grandparents. It was only after they returned when they realized that his dad had accidentally left the garage door open after pulling the car out. All day long, the garage had been up, and the house left vulnerable to being robbed.

His father had felt stupid—and his mother yelling at him probably hadn't helped—but as it turned out, no one had broken in, and nothing had been taken. It was his dad's theory that, oddly enough, leaving the garage door open had probably made it seem as if someone was home…because who leaves their house with the garage open in this day and age? Sure, the car had been gone, but that wouldn't have meant someone wasn't in the house.

The absurdity of the situation had actually made the house invulnerable.

The same kind of principle applied to what happened yesterday at the museum…

Even with all of the cameras off, the security guys had felt safe simply because it was daytime, and the museum was packed full of people. Who robs a museum under those conditions?

"They close off the second floor," Tom went on, "giving them the time to steal the paintings. Any luck yet on what they used?"

Vinnie cleared his throat.

"The lab is still working on it," he said.

"One of them—the sixth guy—steals the girl…" Tom continued.

"But how did he get out?" Bernie asked. It hadn't been the first time that question had been posed.

Tom was more interested in why Guy Number 6 had gotten out.

Why hadn't he stayed to help his buddies with the other paintings in Gallery 16?

"Something must have happened," he said, thinking out loud. "When he was out in the rotunda, he might have seen or heard something…something that spooked him."

"Well, why didn't he warn the others?" Andie asked.

Tom was warming up to his idea, and he sat up straighter.

"Too dangerous," he said. "Think about it…"

On a relatively empty table, he unrolled the second story floorplans of the museum, which the deputy assistant director had provided them. His colleagues gathered around him.

"Look," he said, "the guys we nabbed were here." He jabbed his finger onto the paper, indicating Gallery 16. "But Guy Number 6 was here." He dragged his finger along the paper to where the picture of the girl had been. "Not only is he outside the room where his buddies were, but he's clear across on the other side of the rotunda, a good twenty yards or so away—at least! He couldn't call out, he couldn't even speak…the acoustics in the rotunda would have made a whisper sound like a shout."

He stared down at the floorplan, nodding.

"Something spooked him," he said, "and he saw no choice but to get the hell out of there."

"Either that or it was a double-cross," Bernie suggested. "He decided to make off with that one painting and keep whatever he got fencing it for himself."

Tom nodded. That was also plausible, although with a Rembrandt on the list, one would think Guy Number 6 would want a piece of that action.

Before he had a chance to say anything else, however, the door to Room 8 opened, and Emily walked in.

She looked a little rough, Tom thought. Well…sexy as fuck, but still rough. She was dressed impeccably in a tight but professional pinstriped dress, and high heels. She had a light leather jacket on as well. However, she was still wearing sunglasses, despite the fact that Room 8 was nowhere near the entrance to the station house. Her face seemed a little drawn, as well, and her hair wasn't quite as flawlessly coiffed as it had been yesterday.

"Good morning," he greeted her. "Nice of you to, uh, stop by."

She looked at him, although her eyes were hidden behind the dark lenses, sighed, and then made her way to the nearest chair without saying a word…