The Lock Box, page 2
But a small handful of guys would approach it differently. Guys like Jeff Sitar in New Jersey, Dave LaBarge in upstate New York, Scott Gray in Toronto. Legends. Rock stars. All had won the Harry C. Miller contest, the world championship of safecracking. Hell, Sitar had won it eight times.
Those guys wouldn’t have cut this box. They were “manipulators,” professionals who cracked safes with their bare hands by feeling the way the tumblers spun behind the dial. Those guys would decipher the combination and open the door without so much as a scratch. Those guys—all guys, mind you—had their profiles written up in newspapers and magazines. Television shows timed them breaking into bank vaults. One online video tested Sitar to see if he could feel a Post-it note attached to a particular tumbler.
No female safecracker—and you could count all of those nationwide on two hands—had ever garnered that kind of attention. No woman had ever won the Harry C. Miller contest either.
Of course, Locke knew, that was because she’d never bothered to enter.
Contests, newspaper articles, even social media—she imagined they all helped generate a certain amount of business. For the rest of their lives, Sitar and LaBarge and Gray would have World Champion Safecracker emblazoned on their websites.
But Locke didn’t care about accolades like that. She’d learned early: when it came to cracking safes in LA, discretion mattered as much as skill.
When a Rodeo Drive jeweler accidentally reset its time lock on Oscar morning, trapping a ruby choker bound for the red carpet that night, they needed their rocks freed fast without word hitting the Hollywood Reporter. When a prominent producer’s children worried what kinds of pictures were lurking in his office safe after he passed, they wanted no questions asked. When the world’s most popular porn star planned to ditch her director husband, she couldn’t risk losing the videos they’d made together. Locke had helped them all.
Locke had cracked safes for cops, crooks, and corporations. She didn’t have a website; you couldn’t Google her. If you were important enough, you likely had an equally important friend who had her number. That was how she got business, and she preferred it that way.
This morning’s lawyer, a guy named Oscar Sakamoto, hadn’t mentioned how he’d found her. Frankly, that was fine. She liked lawyers because they said no more than necessary and paid up front. Sakamoto had wired her half her fee during the three minutes they’d talked on the phone.
Locke rolled the desk chair over to the safe, eased herself into it, and set the bag between her feet. Although it contained the crowbar, a stethoscope, and several other tools, all she extracted from it was a small notepad and a pen. The lawyer had said the combination contained three numbers—that meant three wheels behind the dial. Several turns to the right cleared the lock, then she placed the dial at 0. From there, she started spinning to the left, one turn, a second turn, a third. With each turn, she could feel another wheel engage until all were spinning behind the dial. Locke continued the turn until she felt the slightest change in pressure against the dial. That marked one edge of one notch on one wheel.
She made a note and returned to the start.
Over the course of five minutes, Locke’s fingers spun the dial several hundred times. This was what movies never showed about safecracking—the constant, back-and-forth testing of the wheels to learn where their notches started and stopped. There was no sound, no ticking. Just her fingertips against the dial, sensing how it spun.
Eventually, Locke had circled three numbers on her pad, 12, 48, and 97. Those were the components of the combination, she was convinced. She tried them lowest to highest, then highest to lowest. When she put 48 first, then 12, and finally 97, the three-pronged handle spun.
Jackpot.
Inside, the safe was divided into numerous compartments, but Locke only needed one item. Sakamoto had asked her to retrieve a small box from the lowest drawer. When she slid that open, a white wooden cube sat alone on the green velvet cushion. The size of a coffee mug and weight of a soda can, the only unique thing about the box was markings along its sides, Mandarin characters Locke couldn’t read.
Although a pang of curiosity echoed in her chest, Locke didn’t open the wooden box. Discretion—and besides, she had no idea how many cameras were watching her every move inside the house. Instead, she wedged the box down into her bag, resting the pad and pen on top. Then she closed the safe, spinning the dial several times to clear it, before replacing the painting and chair.
A glance back over the room from the doorway confirmed it looked identical to when she’d arrived.
Locke emerged from the office with more spring in her step than her Wolverines provided. She’d just manipulated a major-league lock in under ten minutes. Even if you counted her commute and the trip downtown to deliver the box to the lawyer, she’d still be pulling down eight grand for four hours’ work.
Not a bad day, quarantine or not.
Smiling, Locke paused on the balcony. She inhaled deeply, letting the trace of salt tickle her nostrils as she gazed out toward the ocean.
They said this virus took your sense of smell, your sense of taste. She considered for a moment how weird that must be, then pushed it from her mind. Thankfully, she was healthy. They said this thing didn’t affect younger people, or if it did, not as badly. Kids didn’t get it at all, apparently. All Locke needed to do was make it downtown for a five-minute meeting, then she could head back to Val Verde and ride this thing out.
Hell, if the lawyer Sakamoto paid the second half in cash, she wouldn’t need to visit the bank for weeks.
She turned for the stairs. As she took a step, her eyes dropped instinctively to the narrow balcony. Her footing was fine, but her peripheral vision ended up catching something else. Outside, a panel truck was easing up alongside her van. Painted white, with a toilet bowl and plunger painted on the side.
Made sense for the owners: get all the maintenance done while you were away. Especially these days, when you had no idea who might be sick. In the back of her mind, Locke wondered if the plumber had gotten half his fee up front. Probably not—they charged by the hour.
A driver slid down from the cab. Young guy. Taking his quarantine seriously, as he wore both a plain white face mask and rubber gloves. Even in baggy coveralls, though, you could tell he was a bruiser.
Then she noticed a second guy. Equally buff, circling round the back of the panel truck from the passenger’s side.
She supposed a mansion this size must be a big job. Bring two guys, finish in half the time.
When they opened the truck’s rear doors, though, two more guys hopped out. All similarly dressed, all Asian.
Locke had never seen a team of four plumbers before.
That was when they took out the guns.
CHAPTER
2
SEEING THE GUNS changed everything.
The mansion, so open and airy, seemed to shrink around Locke’s shoulders. The balcony might as well have been a balance beam. Although a million thoughts collided in her head, including whether the gunmen had already seen her through the glass, her overriding concern was that she was cornered. To have any chance of escaping—to have any options at all—she needed to get back downstairs.
Her rubber soles gripped the stone floor tightly as she took off in a dead sprint.
After three steps, though, she heard the front door’s familiar beep-and-swish. At the noise, Locke dropped to the floor.
It had been a long time since she’d practiced a combat fall. Her drill sergeants from basic would not have been pleased at the result. The hard stuff in her bag—the crowbar, the other tools—hit first. Not only did they make a hefty clunk, but her ribs and stomach came crashing down on top of them.
Locke bit her lip to stifle a groan from the impact.
A tiny sound leaked out.
Had the gunmen heard?
As seconds ticked by and no one sprayed bullets in her direction, it seemed maybe they hadn’t.
The arch at the end of the balcony loomed a couple of feet away. Close enough Locke could reach out, curl her fingers around the corner of the wall, and pull herself to it. But while part of her wanted to do just that, a voice inside warned to check the door first.
Locke hauled herself up onto her elbows and combat crawled to the base of the railing. Below, the four gunmen had fanned into a semicircle. Communicating with hand signals, they were advancing steadily into the house, the nearest ones passing under the balcony and out of view.
Her head whipped back toward the stairs. Although they seemed tantalizingly close, she knew she couldn’t make it.
She needed someplace to hide. Fast.
Her eyes slid to the double doors she’d bypassed earlier. Like all the others in the house, they were wood framed, with a frosted glass panel in the middle. In her mind, Locke imagined a sprawling king-size bed and huge walk-in closet inside. But the truth was, she had no idea what lay behind the darkened glass, whether that room would provide any kind of shelter at all.
Worse, it stood alone at the top of the stairs.
The first place the gunmen would check.
And a complete dead end.
Locke gathered her feet beneath her, then spun back toward the office. With the gunmen below, she didn’t run, exactly—she couldn’t risk her boots clonking against the balcony. Instead, she rose up on the balls of her feet and used long, slow strides to cover as much ground as possible.
Avoiding the office, she made for the rooms she’d seen farther down the balcony. Now that she focused on them, she counted three doors, two singles on the left and a double set at the very end on the right.
She stopped at the first single door. Although no one should have been inside, she caught herself checking the glass inset anyway.
Dark and still.
As Locke reached for the handle, she cocked an ear back over her shoulder. Not a peep from below. These guys were dead quiet—more noise came from her chest, where her heart was pounding, than from downstairs.
Locke put steady pressure on the handle bar until it started to turn. The clock in her head screamed that she’d already taken too long, that the gunmen would be sneaking up behind her any second. Out of nowhere, though, one of the Mule’s sayings from high school echoed in her ears: Go quickly, but don’t hurry.
Once she felt the latch release from the frame, she eased the door inward. Slowly, smoothly—she couldn’t afford any creaks or groans. After slipping through the opening, she eased it back closed.
The interior handle included a simple twist lock, and she considered turning it to slow down the gunmen.
But a locked door in an otherwise empty house would be a dead giveaway. Emphasis on dead. These guys would simply shoot out the glass, unlock the door, and finish her off, if one of their bullets hadn’t done the job already.
Imagining a burst of hot metal spraying toward her, Locke retreated a step. Thankfully, the room was dark—no skylight here—and she didn’t cast a shadow on the door’s glass inset. When she turned into the heart of the room, she found it filled with fancy white furniture: a four-poster bed, a desk, and a dresser.
The bed seemed to be her best hope, but a quick flip of the skirt showed its frame was solid all the way to the floor. No hiding underneath.
Locke’s eyes flew to the periwinkle walls. The spaces over the desk and the dresser were covered in pictures—concert posters, candids of a redheaded teenager laughing with her friends, a couple of posed shots with her parents. The final wall displayed a series of artfully arranged shots of the same girl in an equestrian outfit, riding a horse. Bracketing these pictures were doors, one a set of mirrored closet sliders, the other solid wood.
Locke beelined to the closet, thankful the thick carpeting absorbed her footsteps. As she was reaching for the slider’s handle, though, two thoughts struck her. First, the memory of her own teenage closet—a tangled mess of clothes and shoes and every other thing she could stuff inside to convince her mom that she’d cleaned.
Second, the way those sliders rumbled across their tracks. Everyone in the house would hear.
She diverted to the solid wooden door. Inching it open, she saw a tile vanity and mirror, then a pair of sinks, finally another door at the far end.
Locke recalled the balcony layout and decided this must be one of those jack-and-jill jobs, connecting two bedrooms.
That gave her an idea.
Stepping into the bathroom, Locke drew the door closed enough to conceal all but her head, which she poked out through the narrow opening. She also fished into her bag and pulled out the crowbar. It wouldn’t be much help against those guns, but it was better than nothing.
Then she waited.
What she really needed now was noise. Footsteps, gunshots—some kind of sign of where the four mystery men were. Anything to drown out the sound of her own breathing, and the pulse racing in her ears.
With nothing coming, though, Locke trained her eyes across the bedroom on the door handle and glass inset. If she was going to get any warning before the gunmen burst in, that’s where she’d find it.
Seconds ticked by.
Still nothing.
Locke breathed through her nose. Hoping it was quieter, praying it would slow down her heart rate.
She was certain a minute had passed since she’d entered the bedroom.
At least a minute. Maybe two.
She imagined the men, moving through the downstairs. How long could that really take? Although she wanted to close her eyes to picture it, she didn’t dare. She stayed locked on the bedroom door.
Gradually, the tension in Locke’s jaw started to fade. She eased down onto her heels. As improbable as it seemed, the thought crept into her mind: maybe the gunmen had left.
Maybe they weren’t after her, or the box, after all.
Locke released a long, deep breath through her nose.
Then she saw a flash.
At the glass. Nothing solid, nothing sustained.
Just a quick change in light, as if something had passed by.
Locke tensed again.
The door handle started to move.
Almost imperceptibly at first. But it kept going, rotating toward the floor.
Locke retreated into the bathroom and pushed the door closed. Three quick steps across the jack-and-jill and she slipped through a door on that side, shutting it behind her.
Another bedroom. Navy walls with white stars and rockets stenciled all over them. Bunk beds. Messier than the last one, but Locke paid little attention as she stepped through the clothes strewn across the floor.
Her eyes were on the glass inset of this bedroom’s door. Watching for flashes, watching the knob.
Seeing no movement, she crossed to it quickly, staying an arm’s length away to keep her own shadow off the glass. She gave a quick glance behind her, then stretched out her arm, curling her fingers around the door handle.
In one, smooth motion, Locke turned the handle and pulled it open.
The area outside the door was empty. As much of it as she could see.
She stuck a toe out, as if testing cold water.
No sound, no reaction.
Locke shifted her weight onto that front foot, drawing herself out of the bedroom.
Directly across the hallway were the double doors she’d seen earlier. Looking back down the balcony, she saw the bedroom door she’d entered, now ajar. Even farther down, the office door remained open, bright light spilling out.
Nothing stood between Locke and the far end of the balcony.
Fifty feet—maybe sixty—to freedom.
If she could make the stairs …
She took one, silent step in that direction.
That’s when one of the gunmen stepped out from the office.
Locke saw him first. He was looking straight ahead—out over the balcony, across to the windows and the ocean view beyond them.
Not knowing if the bunk bed room was clear, Locke turned toward the double doors. She reached for the closer of the two handles, praying, Don’t be locked, don’t be locked.
Her hand slapped down on the metal, turning it and pushing inward simultaneously.
Don’t look back, don’t look back.
The door opened an inch. Then two.
Locke was thinking she just might make it when a voice shouted from behind her.
She didn’t stop.
A roar ripped across the balcony. The sound of shots echoed through the cavernous space, but she ignored the noise and the heat and the worry whether some supersonic shard of metal might slice through her.
Her only thought was to get inside the room.
As soon as she’d cleared the door, Locke spun back to slam it shut. When she did, she caught the face of a gunman in the bunk bed room across the hall.
The mask obscured his mouth and nose, but the rage in his eyes was clear.
Thankfully, the gunfire from the office had him pinned. Before he could start shooting too, Locke slammed the door, flipped the lock, and sidestepped against the wall.
Several more shots rang out. One shattered the glass while others ripped into the wood frame.
She only had seconds.
But when Locke checked her surroundings, her heart sank.
This, not the double doors at the top of the stairs, was the master bedroom. Other than the largest bed she’d ever seen, the chamber stood completely devoid of furniture. No nightstands. No dresser. Only a giant portrait over the bed of the same old, white-haired couple from the teenager’s photographs.
Even worse, no obvious doors. No closet, no bathroom.
They had to be here somewhere, but two whole walls were glass, while the others were paneled in reflective black stone with no obvious outlines.
More gunshots pushed Locke off the wall and farther into the room. Her head swiveled, looking for something, anything she could use.
The windows.
Outside, bent around the corner of the house, was a waist-high wall and railing.
Another balcony!
But how to get out there?
