by Tina Michele
“Third time for what?” Kyle asked as he sat next to her.
She peeked out from between her fingers. “For me to completely embarrass myself in front of her.”
“I don’t think she even noticed your, let’s call it a sudden inability to communicate.”
“Oh, she noticed. Why wouldn’t she have noticed? A woman like her?” Belle dropped her hands and looked at him.
“For the same reason you never noticed what she was wearing.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Belle stated.
“I know.” Kyle stood and held out his hand to pull Belle up off the bench. “But I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough.”
Belle took his hand and stood. “Not before she figures out every other woman on the property,” Belle murmured to herself. All Belle needed to figure out was how to avoid any more awkward encounters with the striking new guard, Tara.
*
Tara spent an entire forty-hour week in the most intensive training program she had ever experienced at all of her jobs combined. There had been several occasions during her training that she asked herself what the hell she was doing. But each day, she learned something new, and each day after that, she returned with a curiosity of what she would learn. It wasn’t her first experience working in a security position. However, the museum environment proved to be a far more complex and regulated set of tasks and procedures than when she had patrolled concert venues. The reason she took that job was as a means to enjoy a variety of free shows. Tara hadn’t yet figured out why she had taken or kept this job, beyond the obvious, which was, of course, Belle. Yet, after a week of being sequestered in a room for no less than eight hours a day, she had yet to even catch a single glimpse of her so-called motivation. Tara assumed that to be the reason for her anticipation as she arrived to work that morning for her first real day on the job.
She assembled with the rest of the security staff for the thirty-minute morning roll call training—a required start to every guard’s day. It was where command staff disseminated various information relating to the day’s onsite art students, special groups, and exhibit closures or changes. It was also a time used for training on other areas of museum workings. Staff and curators from the different departments would conduct short lessons in a wide range of museum disciplines. She overheard another guard groan when the daily topic was announced—art handling. Tara learned the very basics of the topic during her training. To her surprise she found herself interested in learning more. She took out her pen and small spiral notepad in case she learned any information that would be useful to her. She scribbled the subject header on the page just as a woman’s soft and familiar voice spoke.
“Hi, everyone.”
Tara’s eyes flashed toward the front of the room where Belle stood and addressed the group. Her hair was braided and fell forward over her shoulder. In spite of her desire to be closer, Tara stayed toward the back of the room. She had an unobstructed view that allowed her to stare without disturbing Belle’s concentration. Before Tara knew it, Belle thanked everyone for their time and excused herself from the room. Tara hadn’t heard a single word that had come from the lips she couldn’t look away from.
“Hicks?” A tall, gray-haired man repeated her name until she responded.
Tara snapped out of her trance and every eye in the room was on her. “Yes, sir. Sorry.” She offered no explanation for her absent-mindedness.
“Okay. Your partner is out sick so I’m going to have you tag along with me for now.” There was a mixture of low gasps and quiet snickers at his announcement.
Tara accepted the assignment. Although she was curious about the varied responses in the room, she thought it was a great opportunity to train with the head of museum security. She didn’t see the downside. Joseph Jones was a dedicated, no-nonsense man with a wealth of knowledge that she was eager to tap into. There was no doubt that Tara would learn a great deal during her time at the Grayson Museum, no matter how long or short that time would be.
She and Joe started their rounds after the meeting was dismissed. Like a perfectly oiled machine, each guard reported to their station and began the day. As the two of them made their way through the building, Joe stopped here and there to give Tara an important lesson in the “art” of protecting art.
“It is imperative that we never let our guard down. Serenity and silence is our enemy. It is easy to become complacent in a comfortable environment with high security and low risk. But there is always the foreseeability of crime against the collection,” Joe explained as they passed through an empty gallery.
Tara remembered reading that in her handbook, but it was the way Joe had said it that drove it home.
She said, “I understand,” and meant it.
He twisted the knob of a locked door and, content with its security, he moved on. “Our biggest and most important responsibility is to the protection of the objects and persons within this building. Sharp implements and dirty hands both pose significant risk of damage to any artwork,” he said as he straightened a steel post that held up a barrier rope. “The ‘do not touch’ rule goes for everyone, including us.”
“Yes, sir,” Tara said just to be sure he knew she was indeed listening.
“Everyone keeps a notepad with them to record various situations or suspicions. But never, under any circumstance use any undesignated surface for writing.” He stopped next to a large wooden table in the center of the room and pointed to a small corner section. “See there?”
Tara leaned in for a closer look. “Those markings? Yes, what are they?”
“Those are the worthless indentations of a ballpoint pen on a priceless piece of history. Needless to say, he no longer works at the Grayson.”
“Damn.” Tara remembered all too well the time she used her Spirograph on her mother’s antique Rococo side table. She would’ve preferred to have been fired than to have endured her mother’s wrath. But she now understood.
She followed Joe downstairs. She didn’t think the building could be any cooler than the constant seventy-two degrees, until they reached the vault. A thick glass wall framed with steel every ten or twelve feet ran the entire length of the building beneath the museum. A solid steel door at one end looked impenetrable, and Tara had very little doubt that it was. Inside the first room was a small area with desks and vertical storage slots and cabinets covering every inch of available wall space. The next was far more expansive with enormous floor-to-ceiling sliding panels on each side of the room. Each one held any number of precious paintings not on display in the gallery upstairs. Tara shivered both from the cold and the impressive sight.
Joe and Tara greeted the vault guard who wore a large coat as she made her rounds through the area. “It’s always a refreshing sixty-nine or so degrees down here. I would suggest a jacket on those days. And be glad you aren’t in there,” he said as he pointed into the vault. “It’s a controlled atmosphere. It never gets over sixty-four degrees, humidity is a steady fifty percent, and the oxygen level is less than seventeen percent. It takes a special person to work in there, and you don’t have the degree. Speaking of the devil, there she is.”
“Who? Oh.” Tara’s pulse increased when she saw Belle, who was no devil.
“Belle, our lead art technician and all-around wonderful girl.” Joe waved at Belle to try to get her attention, but she didn’t see him. He chuckled. “That wall could be solid concrete because she doesn’t notice a thing on the outside when she’s working. All right, let’s head back upstairs.”
Joe pressed the button on the freight elevator, but Tara didn’t dare move a muscle. When the doors opened, Joe called her name, and against every want she had, Tara followed him into the elevator.
Chapter Eight
Once Tara completed her training and orientation, she was reassigned to the second shift and began her official part-time position. She was surprised by how much knowledge she had gained about the inner workings of museum security, but also
by how much it interested her. Joe never did partner her with anyone else after her first day with him. He took her under his wing, and she let him. She didn’t see the harm in learning something new. After all, she had started more than a handful of college majors that she found interesting until she didn’t anymore. This one wasn’t any different.
After closing, the guard staff reduced from over thirty employees down to just two. Per protocol, one person was assigned to monitor the control room while the other made their rounds through the building. As required, in order to eliminate complacency or boredom, Tara and the other guard, Scott, took turns in each position throughout the shift. It might have been her trainee attitude or her previous job experience, but she didn’t put much confidence in Scott’s abilities as a guard. She couldn’t help but think that Joe had scheduled them together in order for Tara to keep an eye on him. It was a responsibility that she hadn’t expected, but she was honored by his faith in her.
With her portable radio in hand, Tara took her turn at walk, testing the alarm systems. She patrolled each room, testing door security and purposely tripping the motion and vibration alarms. She couldn’t resist the urge to make a game out of it by attempting to sneak through the room without activating the sensors. Each time she failed, Scott laughed and buzzed over the radio like a game of Operation.
“You think you can do better do you?” Tara asked him.
“Hell yeah! I am the reigning champion,” he declared. “I could do it with my eyes closed.”
Tara had no doubt that he was pretty good at it since he’d managed to find all of the same blind spots and inconsistencies that she had. She made a quick note in her notebook to mention the finding to Joe. Tara wondered why Scott hadn’t done the same or if he had, why the deficiencies weren’t corrected. As she continued, she noticed that the doors to one of the galleries had been slid shut. Light shone out from under the door, and she radioed back to Scott. “Hey, man. I’ve got a closed door in the east wing.”
Scott responded, “I see you. That’s the Giles Grayson Gallery. No worries though. Ms. Winters is in there.”
“She is? It’s almost ten o’clock. Why is she still here? I didn’t know she was here.”
“Yeah. She always spends the last few minutes of her day in there. It is pretty late for her though. She looks fine. I wouldn’t bother her, especially if she has her headphones on. I made that mistake once.” Scott laughed.
Tara was curious, but she listened to Scott and fought the urge to disturb Belle. She hesitated for a moment before moving on past the closed room. “What happened?” she asked as she continued down the corridor. If Tara couldn’t see Belle then maybe she could try to garner some information from Scott.
Her radio crackled. “Where?”
“When you made the one mistake?”
“Oh. Well, I scared the shit out of her. By accident, of course. She wears her earplugs all the time when she works and can’t hear a damn thing with them in. I came up behind her, and she punched me right in the eye. My own fault.”
Tara laughed at the vision of Belle coldcocking Scott. He was by no means a small man, so the idea of Belle laying him out gave Tara another reason to admire her. “I’d like to have seen that.”
“I learned my lesson, that’s for sure.”
Tara moved on with her testing, but she still wanted to know more. “So, what else can you tell me about Ms. Belle Winters? East wing, secure.” Tara liked the way her name sounded when she said it out loud.
“Copy that. Like what do you want to know?”
“Anything, everything,” Tara stated.
Scott laughed in her radio. “Oooh. Okay. Well, she spends all of her time here. The art is her life.”
“So, no boyfriend or husband?” If Scott had come back and said that she was straight, she’d have been surprised.
“Ha! No. But she could have a girlfriend. Belle is a lesbian. Although, I’ve never seen her with anyone, male or female, except Mr. King. She’s nice, but like I said, she’s all about the art. She keeps to herself unless you ask her about a painting or whatever. Hey, go check out the staff corridor door. I’ve got a weird flicker on camera two.”
“On my way.” Tara knew nothing about art except the few things she’d learned during her training, morning roll call lectures, and of course, her nieces. Like anyone, she appreciated a beautiful painting or sculpture when she saw one, as her parents were avid patrons and collectors of the arts. But that was it. It wasn’t something she ever found herself interested in, until now. Tara entered the corridor and looked for the camera Scott needed her to investigate. “I don’t see anything. Which one was it?” she asked as she looked up into one of the cameras.
“That one. It’s not there anymore. The screen sort of flashed. Just once. It may have just been a moth. Or maybe a ghost.” He chuckled and moaned in her ear.
“I don’t see anything. But mark down the timestamp so they can check it tomorrow.” Tara wrote the same information in her notebook.
“Ten-four. East entrance, secure.”
Tara hoped to see Belle on her way back to the control center to relieve Scott, but when she passed by the Grayson Gallery, the door was open and the room was empty. Tara was disappointed that she missed yet another chance to not only see Belle but talk to her. “Stupid ass moths,” she grumbled to herself.
Scott stood and stretched his back when Tara returned to the desk. “Watch and learn.”
“From the master, right?” Tara laughed and sat in the disturbingly warm seat. She stood back up.
“Yes, ma’am. West wing challenge is a go.” He spun around like a James Bond wannabe, and they both laughed as he disappeared around the corner.
Tara sat back down on the seat after it had cooled a bit. She made a mental note to get two chairs behind the desk. She watched Scott avoid every sensor with skill. Tara was both impressed and a little concerned. It shouldn’t be that easy for anyone, even someone as practiced as Scott was. After Scott went back and performed the tests, she secured the room. As she watched Scott on one screen, movement on another grabbed her attention. It was Belle, and she was leaving. “Of course she is. That’s what she does.” Several lights flashed on the console in front of her. She looked down and reset the sensors that Scott’s flailing arms and Belle’s badge had activated. When she looked back up at the staff corridor monitor, Belle was gone.
*
Before Belle left work for the night there were a few things she needed to get finished. Things that she could have gotten done before nine o’clock had she not spent the last half of her day thinking about running into Tara and the rest of the time trying to avoid it. She wasn’t even sure why she was trying so hard. Belle knew that she could be friends with Tara. The problem was the more-than-friends feeling that she got every time she saw Tara. Women like Tara—gorgeous, confident, sexy, and unattached women—didn’t settle down with the shy, creative, awkward, and guarded ones like Belle. Her head knew this, yet, for some reason Belle couldn’t convince the rest of her body of it.
Belle pushed the last open panel back into place and slipped out of her sweater. If she didn’t take it off before she left the vault she would wear it home and freeze her ass off the next day. She jotted down a few notes and reminders onto the pad on her desk before she turned off the lights and set the overnight alarm. The heavy steel door slammed behind her, and she trotted up the stairs to the main floor. Every night, regardless of the time, she spent a few minutes alone in the Grayson Gallery. While most of his collection was scattered throughout the entire museum, it was in that room that she felt his presence the strongest. She didn’t believe in ghosts or angels, but he had, and if he was one, she imagined that’s where she would find him.
She slipped into the room and slid the hidden pocket doors closed behind her. Belle sat on a bench and started her music as she pulled her legs up and crossed them beneath her. She let out a relaxing breath and surveyed the room as she did every night. She wanted to le
t him know in her own way that she and his art were safe, just as she promised him so many years earlier. Belle sat in silence, like she had so many times with Giles. They would sit for hours and not speak or even look at each other, but she was comforted by his presence. As she sat on their bench without him, she pretended he was there with her. When she was finished, she turned down the lights and pushed the doors back into their place.
The staff entrance and exit was located on the far end of the west wing of the building beyond the modernist and sculpture galleries. It was a narrow corridor flanked on either side by two steel doors, each with a badge reader and keypad. A long two-way mirror ran for several feet along one wall. During the day, guards sat on the other side and watched the comings and goings of the museum employees. No one ever stayed as late as Belle did, and for some reason no one was ever concerned about her walking out with a painting stuffed down her pant leg. She cringed at the thought of the damage that a priceless piece of artwork would sustain from such an action. Belle swiped her badge and entered her key code to exit the building.
It was a typical Florida night, hot and muggy even at ten p.m., but the sky was clear and bright. All employees of the museum parked on the bottom level of the parking garage across the street. On most nights, she didn’t mind the short walk as it allowed her to defrost from her day in the vault. It was those unexpected Sunshine State thunderstorms that could turn a short, dry walk into a long, wet run. Thankfully, this was not one of those nights. She walked along the side of the museum building toward the garage. When she heard footsteps behind her, she turned around. She expected to see a woman walking her dog or lovers on their evening walk downtown, but it was neither. Two men dressed in hooded sweatshirts followed along behind her.
On such a warm night, Belle couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to wear a sweatshirt. Their steps synced with hers, and the hairs on her arms stood straight up. When Belle increased her pace so did the men. She looked around her for any sign of other people, but there were none. She sped up to a brisk walk, but she still heard them close behind. Belle’s heart pounded in her chest and a voice in her head told her to run, so she did. She took off as fast as she could. The sound of their pounding feet behind her drew closer as she rounded the corner of the building. One of the men reached out for her arm, but she jerked it away. She almost lost her footing when her ankle twisted in the mulch along the sidewalk. Belle screamed in pain but didn’t stop. She saw the front door to the museum and nothing else. She didn’t know what else to do, so she ran toward it.