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Mike waved her hand around. “It’s like everything was staged for a showing. Like she’d already moved out.”
“Or she never moved in.” Nicholas walked to the big windows, undid the blinds. The view wasn’t spectacular, there was a building blocking much of it, but a sliver looked north to Central Park. He could see the dusting of snow, the blinking of lights from the occasional car driving toward them down Broadway.
Mike was thumbing through the file. “According to the rental agency, she leased the flat in June of last year, moved in July first. She was paying five thousand two hundred dollars a month.”
“What’s that—three thousand three hundred pounds, give or take.” He took another look around. “Seems underpriced.”
“You’re used to London prices. This is New York. For the size and location, it’s about right.” Mike shivered. The heat wasn’t on in the apartment, and it didn’t have double-paned windows. Cold night air seeped through, finding her neck under the collar of her leather jacket.
Nicholas said, “Isn’t five thousand two hundred dollars a month a lot of money in rent on a museum docent’s salary?”
“According to her personnel file, even once she was bumped up to curator, her annual take-home was sixty-two thousand dollars. So her salary didn’t even cover her rent, much less anything else.”
“It’s very possible the person who hired her is paying her way.” He leaned against the window. “And paying her a bucketload, you can be sure of that.”
“At least we know Anatoly isn’t the buyer.”
Mike joined him at the window, took a last glance at the city, cold and silent beneath her. She handed him a pair of nitrile gloves. “All right. Let’s take it apart.”
Mike started in the bedroom. She pulled out empty drawers and checked underneath. Nothing. No clothes in either the dresser or the closet. The bathroom cabinets and shower were empty, too. She tossed the rooms carefully and found exactly zip.
“Nicholas, are you finding anything?”
“No,” he called from the second bedroom. “This place is clean as a whistle.”
They met in the kitchen. Nicholas opened the refrigerator door. Cold inside, still running at maximum capacity, but empty, wiped clean.
“She knew she was taking off. Cleared everything out. The drawers are empty, bathroom’s spotless. Heat’s off. She thought of everything.”
Nicholas stood quietly, thinking. What would I do if I were Victoria Browning? If I needed to be completely undercover, off the grid? He said, “She never lived here.”
“But this was the address on her application; the leasing agent remembered getting her the place. And it matches the fake driver’s license she gave Tanya Hill.”
“She rented it, sure. But she never moved in. No one can keep a place this clean, not if they’re living here. It’s more proof the Fox is no zebra. She arranged a very precise identity, a full complete background—the works. We can run DNA in here, but we won’t find anything, at least that belongs to her. We know Victoria Browning is a false name. Why shouldn’t everything attached to her identity be false as well?”
Mike thought about it. “Do you think there’s a real Victoria Browning out there who’s an archaeologist? Who has no idea someone stole her name?”
“I’ll start running the name through all the databases while your team does a forensic sweep.”
“Knock, knock! Yoo-hoo!” Gillian Docherty was back, with three FBI crime scene techs. “I found them for you, Inspector Drummond.”
“Ah, Ms. Docherty. Brilliant. Thank you.”
Mike took her techs aside. “Find me something. This woman has already put two of our people in the hospital. If there’s DNA, fingerprints, anything, you pull it and call for me immediately.”
“Roger that, Mike. If there’s anything here, we’ll get it.”
“Thank you.”
She stepped back and watched them get to work. Nicholas was asking more questions of Gillian Docherty, but it was like trying to get blood from a stone. She didn’t know anything, was only playing along so she could flirt with the hot Brit.
Mike tuned everyone out, stood in the living room, looking out over the city, and ran through it again.
No zebra, Dad. What’s more, I’m missing something, something really big. If I were a master thief, how would I pull all this off?
A small tingle started in her back, at the base of her spine.
A big job like this, I’d plan it down to the very last detail, then I’d befriend someone who would help me. Someone on the inside I could use, then discard when the time was right.
