I ran my fingers across the paneling, which was painted a slightly different shade than the green in Jonathan’s apartment, and noticed a slight divot. Curling my nails into it, I pulled the paneling out of place. Behind it, a narrow passageway, just wide enough to squeeze down sideways, led between the two suites.
“What the fresh hell is this?” I murmured.
I slid into the secret hallway and inched forward. The passage wasn’t very long, maybe ten feet or so, then it ended in what appeared to be a dead end. I didn’t buy it. Once more, I examined the walls using the pads of my fingers, slid a hidden panel out of place, and stepped through to the other side.
I emerged in a small room, no larger than six by eight feet. There were no windows and no doors, other than the passage I’d come from. The room was undecorated. No furniture or art work. A thick layer of foam padding covered the walls. When I pressed against it, the foam held its shape for a moment before inflating again.
“Hello?” I said.
The wall padding absorbed my voice. When I clapped my hands together, the sound didn’t go anywhere. It died quickly and quietly. It was like standing in a void.
Soundproof.
With my phone, I took a picture of the room from every angle, making sure to get a clear shot of the secret entryway. Then I wormed my way back to the penthouse suites.
Today, there was something uncomfortably clinical about Wolf’s apartment. It smelled like the disinfectant they used in hospitals, and it was terribly cold—cold enough to keep a body from decomposing at a normal rate.
I began my search in the living room and kitchen. My most notable find came in the form of an entire cabinet devoted to Wolf’s prescriptions. He had bottles and bottles of various painkillers, sedatives, and blood pressure medication, along with enough ibuprofen to cure the headaches of a small army. When I checked the back of the cabinet, the dates were from four or five years ago, as if Wolf had been hoarding his unused medication.
I took pictures of the cabinet and moved on to Wolf’s personal office. It was the only room that did not adhere to the all-white theme. Rather, it seemed to reflect the chaos inside Wolf’s head: books strewn across the patterned carpet, clothes hanging from the desk chair, a wildly colorful screensaver bouncing across the computer screen. Here was more evidence of Wolf’s disability. A stack of medical bills sat on the corner of his desk. A walker and other assistive devices cluttered the far corner. I resisted the urge to back out of the room, feeling too much like an intruder.
But a glint of gold caught my attention. On the desk sat a fat, ugly ring, similar to the one Wolf used to access his secret elevator behind the Hamlet statue. The gold setting framed a purple gem. Experimentally, I slid the ring onto my middle finger.
Right away, I noticed something odd about the piece of jewelry; it was made of two concentric rings. The inner ring remained still against my finger, but if I fiddled with the outer ring—the one with the jewel—I could rotate it all the way around. Curious, I pulled off the ring and lifted it to my eyes.
Two sets of tiny letters were inscribed on the side of the ring. When I rotated the ring, the first set of letters lined up differently with the next set of letters. Before the full realization of what I held in my hands hit me, a grunt echoed from the main room.
My heart stopped when I heard footsteps.
Slipping the ring into my pocket, I frantically scanned the office for a place to hide. With no better options, I dove beneath Wolf’s massive desk and tucked my knees into my chest. I checked the time. It hadn’t been more than twenty minutes since I first entered the penthouse. Was Wolf really back so soon? I hadn’t heard the front door open.
I listened closely as the footsteps crossed the main room. It wasn’t Wolf. I didn’t hear the tap of his cane against the floor, and whoever was out there had a steady, even gait. As they moved closer to the office, I held my breath.
The intruder took heavy, slow steps. A man, I guessed, wearing workman’s or snow boots. I confirmed it as the boots rounded the office and wandered into my eyesight. Smaller shoe size than I was expecting. Taking a chance, I peeked out from beneath the desk.
“Luis?”
He yelped and stepped back, knocking over the marble bust of an unknown woman. The bust wobbled on its pedestal. Luis made a frantic grab for it, but the slippery stone head escaped his fingers and hit the floor. The woman’s nose cracked.
“What are you doing here?” Luis hissed, rescuing the bust and the broken nose from the floor.
“Funny.” I slid out from beneath the desk and stood up. “I could ask you the same question.”
“I was… fixing the air conditioner.”
“It’s winter.”
“I mean the heater.”
I crossed my arms and stared him down. “Where are your tools then?”
“I—uh—” Luis tapped the broken nose against the stone face, as if hoping it might magically reattach itself. Finally, he set the bust on its pedestal and placed the nose behind it. “Fine. I’m not fixing anything.”
“You broke in.”
“So did you!” he shot back.
I lifted the keycard. “I have a key. Besides, I’m a friend of Wolf’s.”
“Then why were you hiding under the desk?” Luis asked.
“Because I thought someone had broken in,” I reiterated. “How did you get in here anyway? You need a special keycard to get access. Did Janine get you one?”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she likes you.”
Whatever reason Luis had for entering the penthouse flew from his head as he received this news. His worry vanished, replaced with solid hope. “She likes me?
