Page 16 of Arrivals & Assets

“Ok. I’ll find you for the final sign-off when we’re ready.”

“Ok.”

I wandered back out and into the lobby. Gallery lights pointed at where fine art prints had hung, but now only illuminated the old brick. The curved granite reception desk that Ellie had sat at was cold and empty.

I walked over and pushed in her chair. It didn’t look right pushed back—as if she had just stepped away to use the ladies’ room.

Expensive fake plants and pricey couches made the space look inviting—luxury items that were cheaper to write off than to ship.

I took the old wrought-iron stairs to the second floor, then I started pushing chairs against tables and desks again. The office chairs were top-of-the-line, retailing for over a grand and still fetching good prices on the secondary market. But they were a pain to ship, so were left alongside the long wood coworking tables.

My footsteps bounced from the white walls of the appraisal room. It was one of the few rooms that had been almost entirely stripped. It was climate-controlled, but served a different purpose than the vault. At one point, appraisal tables had dominated the space, specifically designed to support paintings for exhaustive examination. Neutral walls and warm lighting ensured that colors were truer than under the harsh blue tint of the vault lights.

Now the appraisal tables were gone—valuable equipment that the company wanted to keep.

High-end tables and digital whiteboards remained in conference rooms, while the heavy-duty easels that had been a mainstay were absent.

The box of lint-free gloves used to handle paintings or aging records was gone, along with the specialty scanner that didn’t damage important documents. But the cheap document scanner we used for modern receipts sat on the floor with its cord wrapped around it.

The bookshelves in the research room had been stripped of the books that allowed us to track the provenance of a piece via old auction catalogs, but a stack of gallery mailers featuring the newest pieces of the previous season sat in their place.

I chuckled, wondering if people in a hundred years would treat those mailers with the same reverence that we gave the books.

The contents of the flat files were gone, but the metal cabinets themselves had been deemed too heavy to move.

It was like a movie set or a car with no engine. At first glance—because so much had been left—it appeared that we could alljust sit down and resume work. But the tools of the job were all gone.

My watch beeped, and I saw that it was time for the broker.

I looked around, strangely satisfied that I’d tidied the space, and went back downstairs to greet him.

Chapter 5 - Dylan

Icould make out the name of a national bank by the way the bricks had faded around the sign that was once there.

The broker, Connie, seemed excited—probably thinking she’d landed somebody with enough backing to make the renovations and take it off her list.

I, on the other hand, was trying to keep my face from showing my disappointment. I didn’t need to go inside to know that it probably wasn’t going to work. Unfortunately… I had to look and give it serious consideration.

Alan had warned me that the real estate market was tight. But I’d learned just how bad it was when Connie had informed me that she only had a handful of spaces for me to tour—because they were the only available buildings that met our square footage requirements.

She didn’t know when more locations might enter the market, though she’d put out feelers to see if anybody had heard of anything through the grapevine.

Stale air hit me as soon as she opened the door. We walked in, and our footsteps nearly thundered with how they bounced.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she chirped. “High ceilings and terrazzo floors. The downstairs is perfect for that collaborative workspace you’re looking for. The loan offices were all glass-fronted, so your mentors can look out and see what’s going on. And there’s more office space for admin positions upstairs.”

I shuddered when her back was turned. I could already imagine the interns feeling like they were constantly being watched from the offices.

“Now, here comes the best part,” she continued as she led me through a propped door behind the line of teller stations. “Your bosses said they wanted an area of the building that could be secured…”

She grinned at me as she opened the heavy door of the bank vault. “This is the main vault, but there’s also the smaller safety-deposit vault around the corner.”

I forced a smile that I hoped was at least polite… and not a grimace.

Renovation costs were already mounting in my head. The vaults would need to be ripped out… if they even could be. There was no good way to convert them into server storage. The line of teller stations would have to go, and something would need to be done about the floor.

We hadn’t even gotten upstairs to the other offices, and I still had no idea what kind of internet connection came into the building, but I couldn’t imagine the other locations being worse.