“Are you criminally-minded just because you can plan the crime?”
Darius Masoud
Crystal was a delight. I spent the hour that Darius was gone trailing her around the museum as we whispered stories to each other about the art. Her imagination was enough like mine that we had a shorthand for our theories about why Isabella had hung certain pieces together, or what the placement of the different columns could mean.
She showed me her favorite corners, where she could stand and see into three completely different spaces, and I invented stories about the patrons who came through the rooms where she was supposed to be working.
“There are only really ten people in the world,” I said under my breath as I practiced staying out of the line of sight of the cameras in the room, even though Darius had said they weren’t manned. It was a habit – a game that I’d always played with myself. Spot the cameras, then avoid them, just because it’s what Honor would do.
“Okay,” she said, nodding to a patron who stood admiring the portrait of a beautiful redheaded woman who hung high on a wall of the Blue Room, “who’s that?”
The patron was a handsome middle-aged man, and his gaze up at the painting was thoughtful as he stood for several minutes, utterly still.
“King Arthur, the Clive Owen version from the movie. He accidentally stepped through a time travel portal in the Tapestry Room and has been wandering around the museum trying not to freak out, until he came in here and saw the portrait of Guinevere. And now he wonders if he’ll ever hold her in his arms again or if he’ll be stuck in this awful time for the rest of his life.”
Crystal tilted her head as she watched him for another moment before he finally moved on to Madame Auguste. “I can see that. And now he’s making sure that the witch he imprisoned in the painting will stay locked in there.”
I grinned at Crystal. “The subjects of the paintings walk the halls at night, don’t they?”
“Totally,” she said with utter conviction. “I would never want to work as a night guard, especially because—” she dropped her voice and looked around nervously, “because of the heist. I’m pretty sure the place is haunted now.”
“You think?”
“Sure. I mean the guy in Chez Tortoni,” she nodded toward the small empty frame that hung beneath Madame Auguste, “he flew out of the room without leaving a motion detector footprint behind.”
“But the thief left his frame on the museum director’s chair, right? That’s kind of a big F-you to the establishment and is a little more rebellious than your average ghost.” I said.
“Know a lot of ghosts, do you?” A voice came from behind me. His voice. Just hearing it brought back the sensory memory of his hands on me, his mouth kissing down my body. I shivered with it and met his eyes.
“Apparently, I do.”
He had an odd expression on his face as he looked at me, and I felt unequipped to decipher it. Then he turned to Crystal with a smile. “I hope we didn’t get you into trouble yesterday.”
She smiled in return. “It’s fine. They just don’t like us to dwell on the heist, even though it’s the thing that keeps the tourists coming in. Everyone wants to solve it, you know?”
Darius met my eyes for a brief, conspiratorial moment that I felt all the way down to my toes. “I admit to a degree of fascination with solving mysteries myself.” I tried to ignore the stress his words inspired as he chatted with Crystal for a few more minutes. I impulsively hugged Crystal goodbye, then headed to the door.
I stopped in the doorway and looked down at the motion sensor just inside the frame. “Do you think this was the type of sensor they used thirty years ago?” I asked Darius.
He studied it. “If not this, then something similar.”
“But the placement is right?” It was about set about seven inches above the floor.
“The sensor is aimed into the room. At that height, the average person wouldn’t be able to jump over it and land outside the sensor’s reach, so yes, it is adequately placed for the job.”
I stepped back and looked at the door from outside of the room. “Look at that,” I said, pointing to a decorative metal piece set above the door frame with a ring attached. I jumped up and grabbed it, ignoring Darius’s stunned expression when I hung from it for a moment before dropping back to the floor. “I’d run a rope through that ring, get a running jump, and swing into the room over the sensor. It would be tougher to come back across carrying a painting, but Chez Tortoni was small, so maybe the thief tucked it under his shirt.” I shrugged, then started down the hall toward the museum entrance and bag check.
When I realized Darius wasn’t next to me I stopped and turned to face him. “What?”
He was looking at me in a way I couldn’t interpret. Finally he shrugged and joined me. “Nothing,” he said.
I was silent for a while as we walked in the cool Boston afternoon to my crappy rental car. “How was your meeting?” I finally asked.
“It was … surprising,” he said in a voice that told me it was all I was going to get.
I took a breath and bit back the snarl that threatened.
I had spent the night before in a hotel room as crappy as my car, definitely not sleeping because I alternated between the sweats (from stress) and heat (from thoughts of him). I had used up my quota of cheerfulness playing imagination games with Crystal, which had allowed me to spend more time in close proximity to Madame Auguste, but hadn’t otherwise netted me new information. So I was tired.
“Feed me tacos, and I’ll tell you a story,” I said, in a bid to push tired and annoyed back into the closet.
I apparently surprised him, because it took him a minute to respond. “Have you ever had Iranian food?”
A little grumpiness fell off me and wriggled into the cracks in the sidewalk. “No. What is it?”
“Kebabs, stews, rice and vegetables. I don’t know if you remember your seventh grade social studies lessons, but Iran was the original bread basket of the world.”
“There are parkour schools in Iran just for women,” I said. “And Iranians used to be able to vote at fifteen.”
He smiled. “I actually knew that. Come,” he turned down a different street, “I scouted a restaurant today that looks like it has good food. And maybe while we’re eating, I’ll tell you a story too.”