"Since we opened two years ago.”
"How long have the guards worked for you?"
"James has been here that whole time. Cody is new. He's been here for about six months."
"Do you have any concerns about either of them?”
Confusion wrinkled his brow. "What do you mean?”
I gave a suspicious shrug.
"You think this could have been an inside job?" Charles asked in a hushed tone, looking over his shoulder.
Cody hovered nearby, talking to another deputy.
After a moment of thought, Charles shook his head. "No. Cody's a solid kid. Hard worker. I've never had a problem with him.”
"It seemed like the perps knew this place pretty well. They were able to bypass the biometric security without a problem.”
Charles considered it. "My biometrics are in the system, and I have master access to the vault area, but not the vaults. My biometrics should not have been able to open Vault Seven. Someone had to hack the database and manipulate authorizations. That is beyond my pay grade. I don't know how the system is programmed. We contract out with an IT security firm for that.”
"I need the name and number of that firm as well as your point of contact there," I said.
"Certainly," Charles replied.
I dug into my pocket and gave him a card. He took it with bloody hands and texted me the information a moment later.
“I’ll need to see the security footage,” I said, nodding to the camera on the ceiling.
“Of course.” He moved behind the desk and tapped a few keys on the computer terminal. Confusion wrinkled his brow as he scrubbed through the timeline. “I don’t understand. There is no footage.”
“No footage?“
“The cameras just stopped recording prior to the incident.”
We moved behind the counter and looked at the computer screen. The cameras had been disabled.
Charles scrubbed back through the timeline just to be sure. “I don’t understand how this could have happened.”
“Someone hacked your system.”
I shared a glance with the sheriff, then we moved on to interview Cody.
3
“Like I was telling the other deputy,” Cody said, “I let these guys in. I thought they were legit. Then everything went to shit. Pardon my French.”
Cody was late 20s with an innocent face, boyish charm, and a pleasant demeanor. He stood about 6’1” and had a muscular build. A trimmed mustache and goatee were his attempt to look a little older. He had brooding brown eyes and fair skin.
"Tell me about the call to the HVAC company," I said.
Cody shrugged. "I dialed the number that Charles told me to call. I told them we were having an emergency. They said they'd send people out right away. I guess we're on some kind of high-priority list.”
"What's the number you called?"
"I don't know. The number that's on the Post-it.”
"Are you sure you spoke to someone at the HVAC company?” I asked, growing skeptical.
