Now Peabody hunkered down beside her. “Dad and Zeke have made some nice bars—fully outfitted, custom. One this size . . . Seems like the ice deal wouldn’t need that much depth.”
Eve closed the door again, wiggled her fingers for the goggles. With them on, she began to scan inch by inch.
“This one.” Eyes huge behind the goggles, Peabody gripped a cherub butt between her fingers. It turned fractionally.
“Why does it turn and not open any damn thing?”
“A code or a pattern,” Peabody muttered, “like a puzzle. Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen this kind of thing. We have to figure out which ones to turn, in what order. It’s pretty damn clever. It’s really good work.”
“I’m getting a hammer.”
“No!” Sincerely appalled, Peabody scooted over. “I can figure it out. Give me a little room. You can’t bust up this kind of work.”
“It’s fucking ugly.”
“It’s still art. Here! Here’s another. I bet there’s three. A combo of three. We’ve got this.”
Eve would’ve preferred the hammer, but since she didn’t have one handy, she let Peabody tap and twist and rub cherubs.
“Hey, Dallas?” McNab stepped to the doorway. “I’ve got a transmission from Marshall Easterday, unanswered. It came in today, at eight-fifty-two.”
“Right after we talked to him,” Eve said. “About the time he went upstairs ‘to rest.’”
“He doesn’t sound restful. He says it’s urgent they speak, and says he’s tried his personal ’link, tried the office. Guy’s sweating scared, LT.”
“He should be.” Eve started to push up, to listen for herself, when something clicked and Peabody let out a “Woo!” When she opened the door, the shelves holding the ice machine and friggie slowly swung open.
“Frosted,” McNab said, coming in to hunker down with them.
As they were hip to hip, Eve caught his scent and thought of cherry lollipops.
A small silver box sat in the hidden compartment. Eve pulled it out, stood, set it on the bar top.
“That’s old,” Peabody said. “Like antique old. I know it’s locked, Dallas, but you can’t just smash it.”
“McNab, get my field kit, would you?”
“Sure.” He rose, turned, grinned. “Hey, Captain, my girl found a secret compartment in the john bar, and we got ourselves an antique box.”
“What kind of sick fun house is this?” Feeney wondered as he looked around. Curious, he poked at a power pad. The black tiles shimmered into mirrors. “Oh, hell no,” he said and deactivated. “Dug out an e-mail from Marshall Easterday on the office comp.”
“From this morning,” Eve said.
“Yeah. Copied to an Ethan MacNamee. Marked urgent. ‘My brothers,’” he quoted, “‘beware. Contact me immediately. Seek safety. Come home.’”
“‘Come home,’” Eve murmured.
“Got your field kit.” McNab brought it in, set it beside the box. “We could scan that thing and work on getting it open back at Central.”
“Give me a minute.”
From the field kit, Eve took a small leather wallet (a gift from Roarke), opened it, and selected lock picks.
“Extra frosted,” was McNab’s opinion.
“We’ll see about that.” She went to work and, as Roarke had taught her, used her ears, her instincts as much as the feel.
“Step back.” Annoyed, she rolled her shoulders. “You’re crowding me. Just stop breathing all over me.”
Maybe Roarke would have had it open in a finger snap, but she felt enormous satisfaction when after three struggling minutes, the lock fell.
“New skills,” Peabody said.
“I’ve been practicing.” Eve opened the lid, looked at the two large, old-fashioned keys and the two twenty-first-century key swipes resting on dark blue velvet.
“Little hidey-hole to hold the keys to bigger ones. Old doors,” Eve decided. “Those are too big for anything but doors—I think. And new doors.”
She used tweezers to pick up one of the swipes, turned it. “No logo, no name or code. Probably a code buried in it, right? Can you get that out, Feeney?”
“I’d have to turn in my bars if I couldn’t.”
McNab pulled a scanner out of one of the dozen pockets in his neon orange baggies, offered it to Feeney.
“Let’s have a look.”
Feeney ran it, frowned. “Got a shield, and we can break that down. This kind of code and protection? It’s probably a bank box or a secured area. He’s a chem guy, right? So maybe a secured area, lab deal. Let’s see the other.”
He repeated the process. “Shielded, but thinner—this isn’t the high-security level.”
He did something to McNab’s scanner that made it whine, picked up and put on Eve’s goggles. He scanned the first swipe again.
“Security code for the swiper. And . . . Can just make it out. LNB. FKB. Ah . . . 842.”
“FKB—Franklin Kyle Betz. LNB. That’s not the name of his company. Maybe a bank?”
Feeney nodded. “More likely. Too simple below the shield for a high security area. So, bank box, I’m thinking. Liberty National’s my best guess. They got branches everywhere.”
