Her Last Chance

by Michele Albert

  Midafternoon traffic wasn’t much fun, and it took her longer than she’d expected to get to the Alliance Gallery. First came a road construction delay, then a fender bender snarled up traffic. Crawling along the roadway, she had plenty of time to think, and it still struck her as significant that the last three thefts had been within such a close geographical range. The first six had been spread out, with the only common denominators being “small” and “private” and “East Coast.”

  It was late afternoon by the time she arrived at the Alliance. Owned by collectors who specialized in antique needlework, it was on the first floor of an early-nineteenth-century building on the National Register, in another pretty part of Old City that was a solid horizon of brown brick, window boxes, black ironwork, and trees.

  She’d thoroughly investigated the gallery back in April—when she and Vincent had first met—but now she wanted to check for similarities that tied this building with the one that housed Champion and Stone.

  Claudia walked around to the narrow brick alleyway at the back. While the row houses didn’t have much in the way of landscaped grounds, window boxes overflowed with impatiens, marigolds, and petunias. The paned windows on the side facing the street, as well as the big bay window in front, were secured, but there’d been no evidence of a forced entry or exit at the time.

  This afternoon, someone had propped open the back door with a broken brick, probably to let in fresh air. Not smart. From what she remembered, this door was secured against entry from the outside only and led to a public bathroom and a small office but not the sales floor itself.

  The back alley had enough room next to the Dumpster for a couple of cars to park. It was mainly a service drive accessed by delivery and garbage trucks. Nothing unusual, but then, there’d been nothing unusual about Champion and Stone’s back entrance setup, either—not until she got wind of suspicious Dumpster activity.

  Claudia briefly considered not warning the gallery employees about the open door. If they hadn’t learned their lesson from the earlier theft, it was their problem, not hers. Nor was it her job to police every instance of idiotic behavior she encountered.

  An instant later, her conscience kicked in.

  With a sigh, she walked through the back door, careful to make plenty of noise just in case the lesson the gallery owners had learned came in the form of a shotgun.

  Within seconds, a woman’s voice called, “Richard? Richie, is that you?”

  “No Richie back here,” Claudia answered and waited as footsteps hurried her way. A small, overly tanned woman in her late sixties—Claudia recognized her as the owner-manager—poked her head into the room, surprise stamped on her face as Claudia chirped, “Hi!”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Who are you? My goodness, you shouldn’t be back here! This is for employees only.”

  “The back door’s propped open with a brick. All of Philly could wander in here and help themselves to that.” She motioned to the big, old-fashioned desk, where a half-empty box of donuts sat next to a sleek new laptop, both of which were surrounded by sloppy stacks of paper. “Or they could help themselves to just about anything in the place.”

  “Richie!” The woman’s shock dissolved into annoyance. “The man doesn’t have the good sense that God gave a goat, I swear! And . . . hey, wait a sec. I know you.”

  Claudia wasn’t surprised that the woman remembered her, and not because she flattered herself that she was so unforgettable. There’d been some shouting—definitely the kind of shouting that people remembered.

  “I’m Claudia Cruz, and you’re Ms. Rose Dempsey, correct? I investigated a theft at your establishment back in April, on behalf of your insurance provider.”

  Recognition showed on Ms. Dempsey’s face. “Yes! Oh, yes, I remember. How could I forget? What a horrible day.” Then, recalling what had brought her into the back office to begin with, the woman added hastily, “This isn’t something that happens frequently at all. I wouldn’t tolerate it, I assure you. I’ll speak to the employee in question as soon as he returns and stress how irresponsible it is to leave doors open.”

  “Especially in light of what happened.”

  “Yes.” Rose looked uncomfortable at having been caught with her pants down, so to speak. Then, eyes narrowing, she went on the defensive and said, in a frosty tone, “You never got our sampler back.”

  “Not yet, no,” Claudia admitted.

  “Have you made any progress at all?”

  Claudia held back a smile, aware that the woman was trying to turn attention from her own negligence by insinuating that Claudia was inept.

  She could’ve been nasty about it, but she wasn’t in the mood. Besides, she had an idea she wanted to explore: a little niggling possibility that had been darting about in her head.

  “Yes.” Only a little lie. More an embellishment of a burgeoning possibility than a lie, really. “Have you upgraded your security yet?”

  Rose glanced away. “Somewhat. We’re still working on it. Business hasn’t been as brisk as we’d hoped this summer, and—”

  “That’s okay; just asking. As long as you get a few cameras in here, that’ll help keep your insurance people happy.” Claudia perched on the edge of the desk. “There’s something I want to ask you, though, and it relates to the theft.”

  “Ask away, but we need to go back to the main gallery room. I’m a little short-staffed today and we’re busy.”

  “No problem.” Claudia waited as Rose shut the back door, then followed her to the gallery. It was small, consisting of a main room stuffed with antiques, mostly textiles. A stairway to the second floor was cordoned off. Claudia recalled there were more storage rooms up there, along with an employee lounge and a small bathroom.

  A half dozen customers were browsing the narrow aisles under the watchful eye of a young woman at the cashier counter.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Rose asked the closest couple. When they smiled and said they were only browsing, she smiled back and retreated a short distance. Again, Claudia followed.

  “What is your question, Ms. Cruz?”

  “When I last talked to you, I recall you telling me you had a cleaning service that came once a week. The rest of the time, the employees were responsible for keeping the gallery tidy. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And at the time of the theft, the cleaning crew was not due to arrive for several days?”

  “Right. It was a Tuesday, and the cleaning service only comes on Fridays.” Dempsey looked puzzled. “I remember the FBI agent telling me the maids weren’t under suspicion.”

  “They’re not.” To the best of Claudia’s knowledge, anyway. “No doubt you’re aware of the recent incident at Champion and Stone.”

  “I heard about it on the news. I’m sure I speak for most in our line of business when I say that this is a most alarming trend.”

  “I’m working that case as well. Ms. Dempsey, could someone have remained in this building all night without being noticed and then found a way to slip outside the next day?”

  The woman blinked. “I . . . I can’t say for sure. I mean, I’ve never thought about it, but I suppose it’s possible. The upstairs isn’t used very much.”

  Claudia glanced up, recalling small, barred windows and how badly the stairs creaked. “If I’m remembering correctly, after your security alarms are activated for the night, they’ll trigger a response only when someone enters from the outside and fails to provide the deactivation code. But if someone leaves from the inside, nothing happens.”

  “We’ve changed the alarms since then, but yes, that’s how it worked at the time. Are you suggesting someone hid inside our shop and then walked out when nobody was around?”

  “It’s a theory, ma’am.”

  “Well, it’s not one that makes much sense,” Rose retorted. “Why take only the one sampler when they could’ve taken so much more?”

  “A good point,” Claudia admitted. Her fledgling theory
had its possibilities, but also some logic problems. “Can’t say for sure why they didn’t take more.”

  “Are you still working with the FBI agent who was here that night? Agent Del . . . De—”

  “DeLuca.”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “We’re working together, but separately.”

  Rose gave her a strange look but said only “Well, by now I hope you’ve both learned to be a little more respectful to each other. I thought the way you shouted at each other that day was terribly unprofessional.”

  The heat of embarrassment crept up Claudia’s cheeks. Had it really been that bad? She’d been so focused on holding her ground while DeLuca was trying to push her out the door that she hadn’t paid much attention to anyone else.

  “We’re working on that, too.” Then, inclining her head toward the back room, she asked, “Do you mind if I look around the office again?”

  Ms. Dempsey hesitated, then said, “I don’t see why not, but please don’t disturb anything. We’re in the midst of an inventory.”

  “No problem. If you’d like, you can come with me. I’d understand if you wished to do so.”

  “I should probably.” Turning to the cashier, she said, “Kelli, I’ll be back in the office. Call me if you need me. And if Richie shows up, tell him I wish to speak with him immediately.”

  Back in the little office, Claudia reassessed the area, this time with an eye for hiding spots. It was a far-fetched idea, and one she might not have considered if not for Digger Brody’s info.

  Her search didn’t take long, as there were very few places anyone could hide. A supply closet and, if someone was thin and small, a sink cabinet in the public bathroom. Neither struck her as very feasible.

  “I think that’s all I needed to see, thanks,” Claudia said. “If I have any more questions, can I give you a call?”

  “Of course.” The woman finally softened a bit. “I do appreciate the fact that you’re still working on this. We try to get information from the police, but they never have anything to say. I suppose if we haven’t gotten our property back by now, we never will.”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . . art theft’s funny that way. Things sometimes turn up when you least expect it.” Claudia headed toward the door, then stopped short. “One last question. I don’t have my notes with me, so I can’t remember details, but were you unusually busy that day at any point? Did anything happen that would have distracted you from seeing someone go upstairs or to the back office?”

  Rose Dempsey folded her arms across her chest, frowning. “Oh, boy, it’s been months . . . but yes, I do remember that we had a sudden spurt of business shortly before closing time. I was the only one working, because our cashier had gone home sick a little after lunchtime. I don’t remember any disturbances, but it’s possible that I might have missed someone who was sneaking around.”

  “Even with the squeaky stairs?”

  The woman shrugged. “You get used to certain noises after a while. If I was busy with customers, I might not have noticed since the floors squeak a lot, too.”

  After leaving the Alliance Gallery, Claudia drove to Champion and Stone. Because of her run-in with Vincent, she suspected she wouldn’t be welcome to stroll around the gallery. Luckily, details of the layout and security were still fresh in her mind, and she really only needed to poke around outside.

  Unlike her FBI Man, she’d taken the time to check the neighborhood and ask questions about other trouble that night, which had led her to a police report of a knife fight in the area, then to Little Otis, and finally to Digger Brody.

  Sometimes extra snooping paid off.

  Brody claimed he’d spotted the black-clad woman walking away from the back alley Dumpster, and while he and his associates weren’t model citizens—that night they’d been after a local drug dealer who owed them money—he had little reason to lie about a detail like this.

  Champion and Stone took up the first floor of a turn-of-the-century building at the corner of a busy intersection, and Claudia followed the sidewalk around to the back, noting the fire escapes, Dumpster, and a few random parking spots marked private.

  Judging by the thick, cracked layers of paint on the window frames, they hadn’t been opened in decades. No broken glass, no signs of forced entry, just like at Alliance.

  Claudia glanced at the Dumpster, her theory taking on new possibilities. Despite Brody’s claim that the black-clad woman wasn’t a homeless person stealing from the trash, he could be mistaken. Dumpsters in this part of town had choice pickings. But being a sneaky bastard himself, Brody would recognize the difference between aimless wandering and deliberate sneaking about. The fact that she’d been carrying one box, rather than lugging around a garbage bag or whatever, had been odd enough to catch his attention, too. A Corinthian helmet could easily fit in a cardboard box.

  Claudia noticed that both Alliance and Champion and Stone had public restrooms near the back service doors, and Dumpsters directly outside those doors. It wasn’t uncommon to find bathrooms by back doors, which was why she hadn’t considered it worth investigating before today, but it was easy to overlook something so utterly common.

  Claudia eyed the back door, secured with an older-style keypad lock and a bright security light that activated at dusk. The lock had shown no sign of tampering, and the security firm reported no alarm had gone off that night.

  What if the thief or thieves hadn’t actually left the gallery with their stolen goods? What if they’d hidden the object in a bathroom trash can, careful to protect any fragile pieces with paper towel padding, knowing the trash would be emptied later that night? Then in the wee hours of the morning, they came back to pick up their prize from the Dumpster?

  Risky, unless they’d observed routines and timing beforehand, but not out of the realm of believability. At least not at the Alliance. The security at Champion and Stone was a lot tighter, and her theory didn’t work so well under those conditions.

  Claudia headed back to her car, deep in thought but with a buzz of excitement. Hot damn, she might be onto something!

  Now all she needed to do was tease more information about Champion and Stone out of DeLuca, even if it meant swallowing her pride.

  On the way back to her hotel, Claudia decided to take a detour to Macy’s. If Vincent did show up tonight and if her negotiating skills failed her, she could always fall back on sex appeal, so she needed something appropriate to wear. And since it was related to her assignment, maybe she could even sneak it through on her expense report.

  Chapter Nine

  Wednesday evening, Seattle

  Ben Sheridan didn’t much like being a guest of honor at fund-raisers or giving speeches. He performed his civic responsibilities often enough to stay in the public eye, but not so much that he became a gossip page regular.

  Tonight’s gala—in a private banquet room that looked much like any other banquet room of the tony restaurants and upscale hotels he’d visited—

  involved raising money for an up-and-coming young pol. Ben was local money, and because he didn’t often attend these events, his appearance helped set a higher plate price. Besides, many attendees had eligible daughters or sisters, and Ben was still single after his divorce ten years ago.

  Since local wealthy business folk attended the fund-raiser, he’d trotted out his standard global business market survival speech, tweaked it with newer graphs and stats, and everyone had been politely receptive. Most guests were already familiar with running companies abroad, and tonight’s meeting only required a token speech. Once the speaking and political point making were out of the way, the guests toasted, the wine poured and first course served, talk and gossip and debate began to flow. His job done, Ben sat back and let the noise flow around him as he enjoyed a good meal.

  The young pol seated beside him was the chatty type and maintained a constant conversation with multiple people. Ben was content to let him keep on talking. By the time dessert arrived, however, it had become
apparent that the hard-eyed cougar in the off-the-shoulder blue gown, the one with the pretty blond daughter in tow, was intent on closing in on him.

  His sister Ophelia was right: he should find the time to get married again. Unfortunately, his lifestyle required a woman who could keep secrets, who possessed an iron will, and who could cope with a lot of lonely nights.

  Slim pickings here, given those criteria.

  Then his cell phone vibrated. With an apologetic smile, he pulled it out. “Sheridan.”

  “Ben, it’s Ellie. We have a situation. I need to transfer you a sensitive call.”

  Ah, shit, he didn’t like the tone of her voice. “Okay. Give me a moment to find a quiet place and I’ll call you right back.”

  He quickly made his apologies, and by the time he’d slipped out of the banquet room, Shaunda was waiting for him at the main entrance, the engine of the big black SUV humming behind her.

  She opened the door for him and asked, “Where to, Mr. Sheridan?”

  “Back to the office,” he answered as he hit Redial. The second Ellie answered, he demanded, “I’m in the car and on the way back. Who wants to talk to me?”

  “The first-floor receptionist transferred this one up. It’s Russ Noble, one of our guides in Peru.”

  Ben tensed. Dead or kidnapped hikers came to mind: his main nightmare, given the nature of adventure tours. Most were relatively tame, but others were much riskier. In the fifteen years he’d been running Sheridan Expeditions, there’d been only two incidents leading to deaths, one due to faulty climbing gear and the other a small plane crash that had killed the pilot and two of four passengers.

  “All right, put him through.” There was a click, then another. “Russ, are you there? This is Ben Sheridan.”

  “Yeah, uh, Mr. Sheridan, I’m here.”

  The connection wasn’t very good, and Ben had to strain to hear. “Is something wrong, Russ?”

  “I’m afraid so . . . my partner, Stuart, is missing.”