Page 23 of The Picasso Heist
“Here, as in—”
“Yes, valuations.”
“Why do I feel like I know where this is going?”
“Because you have a dirty mind, Halston Graham.”
“No, that’s only you, Pierre,” I say. “But, really? In the vault? They must have known there were cameras.”
“They did. But they also knew the blind spots.”
“Blind spots?”
“Actually, there’s really only one, an area toward the back with this high shelf that the cameras can’t see.”
“And that’s where they—”
“Avoir des relations sexuelles.Had sex, yes. It was after hours when they were ‘working late,’” he says, putting air quotes around the words. “They thought they were in the clear, so to speak, and they probably would’ve been.”
“What happened?”
“Terrance! That’s what happened. The boss. He had forgotten something here in the office that he needed and he came back late that night. Apparently, Mindy was quite the moaner.”
“Pierre!”
“What? That’s what Terrance said, although you didn’t hear that from me, okay? The funny thing was, Terrance had only just been named head of the department a week earlier. So his first big executive decision was firing them. And that’s the story of Bruce and Mindy.”
“I take it back,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“Maybe I don’t want you to give me a tour of the vault after all.”
Pierre laughs. “Are you sure? The blind spot is still there.”
“Really? They never fixed that?”
“Well, after Bruce and Mindy, it was safe to assume no one else was going to use the vault as their motel room.”
I’ve spent so much time doing the necessary research, gathering all the intel I need. You can never rely on luck when it comes to what I’m doing. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t get lucky.
I’m smiling. Pierre thinks it’s because of the story of Bruce and Mindy, and it is. But not for the reason he thinks. It’s barely ten o’clock in the morning and it’s already been a good day.
“Anyway,” says Pierre, “I couldn’t give you that tour. You haven’t received your security clearance yet.”
The timing’s unbelievable. Only a few seconds later, Jacinda Jefferson is standing at the door to his office.
“There you are, Halston,” she says. “I tried calling your extension a few times.”
The fact that she couldn’t wait, that she had to come all the way down from HR to find me, says plenty. None of it good. But, lest there be any doubt…
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
Jacinda glances at Pierre, then hesitates slightly before she looks back at me. “Why don’t we head to my office,” she says.
And that’s when I know for sure.
Halston, we have a problem.
