I walked down the concrete stairs into the basement staff locker room. The room was empty. The rest of the cleaning crew had already clocked out and taken the shuttle bus into town.
I walked over to locker number 42 and dialed my combination into the metal padlock.
The lock clicked open. I pulled the metal door back.
Sitting on the bottom shelf was my worn canvas duffel bag. I reached in to grab it, planning to swing by the hospital to see Leo before my weekend office-cleaning shifts began.
As I lifted the bag by its canvas straps, my shoulder wrenched painfully.
The bag weighed at least thirty pounds.
I dropped it onto the wooden bench in front of the lockers, my heart suddenly hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I hadn't packed anything heavier than a pair of running shoes, a spare uniform, and a paperback book.
My hands trembled as I gripped the brass zipper. I pulled it open slowly.
Lying at the bottom of my bag, wrapped haphazardly in my spare white apron, was a massive piece of heavy, dark metal. I pulled the fabric back.
It was one of the Renaissance bronze statuettes from the west gallery.
I stared at the ten-thousand-dollar piece of stolen art sitting inside my personal belongings.
My breath caught in my throat. I looked up at the corner of the locker room ceiling. The small red light of the digital security camera was blinking steadily, pointed directly at me, recording my face as I stood over the stolen merchandise.
Someone wasn't just moving art. They were building a cage perfectly sized for me.
I stood frozen in the basement locker room, staring at the cold, unblinking red light of the security camera mounted in the upper corner.
My hands were shaking violently as I looked back down at the heavy bronze statuette sitting inside my duffel bag.
If I walked out the staff exit with this bag, the perimeter scanners would trigger an alarm. Victor would be waiting at the checkpoint. They would search my bag, find the ten-thousand-dollar piece of stolen art, and I would be handcuffed to a metal bench in the local precinct before midnight.
If I went to the police right now, it would be my word against Gerald Thorne, a man who regularly played golf with the county judges and the chief of police. The camera footage would show me holding the statue. The digital logs would show my keycard accessing the restricted areas. I had the motive of a desperate girl drowning in sixty thousand dollars a month of medical debt.
I would go to federal prison for grand larceny. And Leo would die in that hospital bed alone, evicted from his treatment program the moment my paycheck stopped.
I had to move. Now.
I grabbed the heavy bronze statue, wrapping it tightly in my spare apron so my fingerprints wouldn't touch the metal. I shoved it aggressively into the very back of my locker, piling my running shoes and a heavy winter coat over it until it was completely concealed in the shadows. I zipped my empty duffel bag shut, slung it over my shoulder, and slammed the metal locker door closed. I spun the combination dial wildly to lock it.
I needed to figure out exactly what Gerald and Victor were doing before I made my next move. I couldn't confront them, and I couldn't run.
Instead of heading for the staff exit, I slipped out of the locker room and moved quietly down the subterranean maintenance hallway. The concrete corridors beneath Whitmore House were a labyrinth designed for service workers, entirely separate from the opulent living spaces above.
As I neared the heavy steel doors of the subterranean delivery bay, I heard voices echoing through the thick concrete.
I pressed my back against the damp cinderblock wall, edging closer to the slightly cracked door. I held my breath, listening intensely.
"—Did you take care of the vagrant at the main gate this morning, Victor?"
It was Gerald’s voice. Smooth, arrogant, completely relaxed.
"Grace gave him some fruit and her lunch," Victor scoffed, his boots pacing across the concrete floor of the delivery bay. "I told her she was playing with fire. The girl is too soft. She thinks this place is a charity mission."