PROLOGUE
The morning was quiet along San Francisco's Financial District, the streets caught between the retreating fog and the first pale threads of dawn. James Rivera pulled his jacket tighter as he walked his route along Montgomery Street, his footsteps the only sound breaking the cathedral silence of empty sidewalks. At 5:47 in the morning, even the sound of his own footsteps often seemed foreign to James. It wastooquiet, like a completely different city from the one that would have been pulsing and screaming just four or five hours earlier.
It was a fitting scene as he made his way to the Meridian Gallery. The building occupied prime real estate on the corner of Montgomery and California, its modernist facade a study in understated elegance. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped around the building's corner, offering glimpses of the art within while maintaining an air of exclusivity. During business hours, those windows revealed carefully curated exhibitions that drew collectors from around the world. Now, in the pre-dawn gloom, they reflected only James's weathered face and the empty street beyond.
The exterior spoke of money and taste in equal measure. The building's concrete and steel frame had been softened with warm limestone accents, while subtle lighting highlighted the gallery's name etched in simple, modern lettering beside the main entrance. A small sculpture garden bordered the sidewalk, enclosed by a low wall that invited passersby to admire the pieces while maintaining clear boundaries. Even the morning shadows seemed deliberately composed here, as if the architect had choreographed the play of light and darkness.
James had been making this same circuit for three years, ever since taking the security contract for this block of galleriesand boutiques. He knew every doorway, every potential hiding spot, every shadow that might conceal trouble. He’d made a few arrests, had chased off a few suspicious characters, and had earned a good reputation among the people he worked for. The Meridian was always the first stop on his morning route—not because it was the most likely target, but because Rebecca Thornfield paid extra for the early morning check-in. She was particular about her gallery, protective of her inventory in ways that bordered on obsessive.
It didn’t hurt that Thornfield was a bit of a looker, and when she wore tight-fitting skirts or pants, it wasn’t too bad of a way to start off a long day.
James approached the main entrance and stopped short. The heavy glass door, which should have been locked tight behind its steel security grille, stood slightly ajar. The gap was barely visible—perhaps an inch of space between door and frame—but in James's line of work, details like this could mean the difference between a quiet morning and a call to the police.
He pulled out his phone and speed-dialed Thornfield's number, letting it ring while he examined the entrance more closely. Maybe she’d entered in a hurry and forgot to lock up behind her. He didn’t want to overreact. But he felt something was wrong here, especially when he saw that the security system's panel inside the door showed a steady green light, indicating it was disarmed. No signs of forced entry. No broken glass or damaged locks. Weird.
The call to Thornfield went to voicemail after six rings. "Ms. Thornfield, this is James from Peninsula Security. I'm at the gallery for the morning check, and your front door is unlocked. The alarm system is off and nothingseemsto be broken. Just wanted to make sure everything's okay before I go inside. Give me a call back."
James pocketed his phone and pushed the door open wider, stepping into the gallery's main exhibition space. The interior gleamed with polished concrete floors that reflected the subtle track lighting overhead. White walls stretched up to a soaring ceiling, broken by carefully placed columns that divided the space into intimate viewing areas. The silence here felt different from the street—deeper, more complete, as if the building itself was holding its breath.
"Ms. Thornfield?" James called out, his voice echoing slightly in the cavernous space. "It's James from security."
No response. She’d be the only one here for another half an hour or so. Expecting her voice to respond when there was only silence was a bit unnerving.
He moved deeper into the gallery, past a series of abstract paintings that seemed to shift and breathe in the dim light. His rubber-soled shoes made only the faintest whisper against the polished floor. The morning light filtering through the windows cast long rectangles across the art, creating a patchwork of illumination and shadow that would have been beautiful under different circumstances. He’d seen this sort of thing many times in the past and always felt privileged to witness the building and the art in this quiet, morning light. But not this morning…not at all. Something was really starting to feelverywrong.
The main exhibition space flowed seamlessly into smaller alcoves, each designed to showcase specific pieces or collections. James had walked this route dozens of times, but it felt off this morning. The air seemed thicker somehow, charged with an energy that made the hair on his arms stand up. He paused beside a towering sculpture of twisted metal and listened carefully. Still nothing.
"Ms. Thornfield, I'm going to check the back rooms," he called out, louder this time. His voice carried through the spaceand died against the walls without echo or answer. “If…well, if something is wrong, you just need to let me know, okay?”
Again, no answer. James carried on toward the back rooms, as promised. The gallery's storage and office areas lay behind an unmarked door at the rear of the main space. James had never been back there during his regular rounds—Thornfield was strict about keeping visitors and staff out of her private workspace. He tried the handle and found it unlocked, which deepened his unease. Rebecca Thornfield was many things, but careless wasn't one of them.
The door opened onto a narrow hallway lined with climate controlled storage rooms. Track lighting ran along the ceiling, but most of the fixtures were dark, leaving pools of shadow between the few illuminated sections. The air here smelled different—clinical and slightly metallic, with an underlying sweetness that James couldn't quite place.
"Ms. Thornfield?" he called again, moving down the hallway. His voice sounded smaller here, absorbed by the acoustic panels that lined the walls to protect the stored artwork from vibration and sound.
The first storage room was locked, as was the second. But the third door stood open, spilling artificial light into the hallway. James approached it carefully, every instinct telling him that something was wrong. The sweet smell grew stronger as he neared the doorway, now recognizable as something organic and disturbing.
He reached the threshold and looked inside.
The storage room contained floor-to-ceiling racks holding dozens of wrapped paintings and sculptures. He’d only been inside this room twice before and instantly felt out of place. Climate control equipment hummed quietly in the corner, maintaining perfect temperature and humidity for the valuable art.
But James barely registered these details, because his attention was completely captured by what lay in the center of the room.
Rebecca Thornfield was there…but shewasn'tthere. Not in any way that made sense to James's reeling mind.
She lay on her back atop a clear plastic tarp, her arms positioned at her sides, her legs straight and together. She was wearing what looked like the same black dress she'd worn to the gallery opening last week, but everything else about her was wrong. Her skin had been transformed into something that belonged in a museum case rather than a storage room. Every visible inch of her body gleamed with a rich, golden sheen that caught the overhead lights and threw them back in warm, metallic reflections. Her face, her hands, her throat—all covered in what appeared to be actual gold leaf, applied with painstaking care to create a perfect, inhuman finish.
James stood frozen in the doorway, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing. The golden figure looked like a statue, like some elaborate art installation that had been placed here as part of an exhibition. But this was Rebecca Thornfield, a woman he'd spoken with just three days ago about adjusting his security schedule. A woman who now lay motionless and gleaming on the floor, transformed into something beautiful and horrible.
The absurdity of it struck him first. The sheer impossibility of finding a human being covered in gold, arranged like a piece of art among the paintings and sculptures was surreal; it was like stepping into a fever dream or a scene from a movie that had nothing to do with real life.
But the horror followed quickly, creeping up from his stomach to his throat as the reality of what he was seeing began to sink in. Yes, she was dolled up in gold…but she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing.
This wasn't art. This was death, dressed up in gold and displayed like a treasure.
James fumbled for his phone, his hands shaking. The morning silence that had seemed so peaceful just minutes earlier now felt oppressive, weighted with secrets and violence. James backed away from the storage room but couldn't bring himself to leave the hallway. He slumped against the wall and willed his stupid hands to work, to call for help, trying not to think about what kind of person would not only kill someone, but then prepare them to look like a cold mockery of art.
CHAPTER ONE
