The still unidentified man found in Sterling’s storage locker had died early on Sunday morning. Andreas prayed Fernando had saved the photo of them taken outside the Hotel at three before Andreas deleted it from the chat for them both. Although if he got the photo, he might as well turn in his badge along with it. Save his chief the paperwork of firing him for unprofessional conduct. And now his messages to Sterling weren’t going through, blocked by Fernando or perhaps the stubborn walls of the Orient.
Alter Schwede.If Sterling were like any other modern woman, tethered to her smartphone, he could have texted. Emailed even. But the vintage vixen twisted time around her finger like a lock ofred hair, until you couldn’t remember what year it was, or why you now spent every minute thinking about her.
He opened an incognito window on his browser and searched forhandy. Which wasn’t as scandalous as it sounded, merely the Austrian word formobile phone. Time to invite the Concierge into the twenty-first century. His cursor was hovering over the Buy Now button for a sleek smartphone when Beate walked in. He slapped the laptop shut.
She shot him a probing look. “What was that?”
“Pornography.”
“Searching for videos of curvy redheads?” she said, dropping a freshly bakedTopfengolatschepastry onto his desk.
His mouth watered, but he held back. He hadn’t done enough cardio this week. Unless you counted sweating over this case. “Are we celebrating something?” he asked.
“Judge ordered immediate release of Goldfinch’s financials and signed a warrant to search the offices of David’s company, Glass House. Looks like Mommy and Daddy bought him the entire Anker building,” said Beate.
“Oida. That’s expensive, even for them.”
“Come on, let’s go.”
To reach the Anker building, they had to weave through the permanent crowd on Hoher Markt Square. The area was a favorite of local petty thieves, since tourists crowding the street were distracted, gawking up at the Ankeruhr, a gargantuan clock that formed a bridge between two buildings. It was gorgeous. Brass, gold, and sage green of oxidized copper. One at a time, twelve life-size figures, royals and religious men, moved past the face, one appearing every hour.At noon, it played a Haydn song as the composer rolled into view. It was barely eleven thirty now, and dozens had already gathered.
The detectives pushed through the crowd into the building. The floor, usually polished to a diamond shine in this sort of high-end office, was scuffed with a wide trail of footprints that started at the elevators, skipped over the security gates, and continued out the door. Like a stampede had just run out, jumping the turnstile in their haste.
Andreas and Beate showed their police badges to the guard at the desk, whose long face frowned behind a placard ordering all visitors to be photographed for temporary security passes.
Andreas requested passes and directions to Glass House’s accounting office.
The guard laughed, unpinned his security badge, and handed it to Andreas, who was taken aback. Nothing good came easy in this job.
“Go right ahead. But you won’t find anyone from the company here,” said the guard.
Beate widened her stance. “Glass House’s registered address is here. Yes?”
“Whole place was theirs, until this morning,” said the guard, shaking his head in disbelief as he dumped aWorld’s Best Dadmug full of Glass House–branded stylus pens into a waste bin behind his desk. He set the mug in the cardboard box in front of him alongside his other belongings.
“It appears we were expected,” said Andreas.
Beate concurred. She unbuttoned her coat, hand hovering by her holster. “What happened here?” she asked.
“Hell if I know. They asked me to hold down the fort, then called and fired me thirty minutes ago. Right before my work cell was disconnected. Guess I have to escortmyselfout,” he said, laughingsarcastically as he lifted the box. Inside, beside the mug, was a photo of a young girl whose toothy grin matched the smile in the photo on the guard’s badge in Andreas’s hand. The guard wasn’t smiling now.
He marched past them, box in his arms, and turned to push the heavy door open with his back. Before he slipped out, he tossed them the keys and called, “Alarm code’s oh-five-one-nine-two-six. Lock up after yourself. Or don’t. I don’t care.”
The door suctioned itself shut behind him, silencing the murmurs of the crowd outside. They scanned themselves through security. After the hall lights blinked out, they opted for the stairs rather than the elevator and ascended to Glass House’s fourth-floor accounting offices.
Their footsteps were quiet on anti-static carpet as they entered, guns at the ready. The offices were abandoned. Glass desks in futuristic conference rooms were cleared of computers, chairs overturned. The air smelled like sweat and shredded paper. A few cords remained where monitors had been yanked away. Wheel tracks snaked along the carpet, leading to a barren server room, still hot from machines that had recently been rolled out.
“They managed this in a few hours? Judge only signed the warrant for the Goldfinch financials this morning,” said Beate.
Andreas pressed a button on the coffee machine, which displayed how much time had passed since coffee was last brewed. “Looks like they arrived just after midnight. They were warned.”
Overhead, machinery thunked, and air vents cut out, whirring into sterile silence.
Beate started, “Maybe Frau Dok—”
Andreas shushed her, then pointed from his ear to the next room, where faint music pounded. Beate followed him through the open-plan office, tracing the noise to a small door at the far end. An accesshatch for the back of the Ankeruhr, which occupied the covered skybridge to the building opposite. Locked. He pressed his ear to it. Inside, clock gears creaked, techno thudded, and a soft, feminine voice whimpered.
Weapon drawn, he breached the brass-cogged belly of the masterpiece with a swift kick. An ornate track encircled the breezeway, metal figures rolling around it, moved by clock gears. It was a far cry from his state-of-the-art smartwatch but had a certain undeniable charm.
