She got up weakly and crossed over to a bombé chest that held a telephone. When she picked up the receiver to dial 911, she noticed an envelope underneath the base of the phone. It had been hand-addressed. All she could see was the initial letter C. Putting the receiver down, she slid the packet out from its hiding place. In Sybil’s script, the letters C-A-S-S-I-E were scrawled across the front. Her hands were trembling as she ripped the envelope open.
***
Erik could hear footsteps ahead of him at the bottom of the stairwell. He waited until the man had gotten to the ground floor before he moved forward. He didn’t want Cowboy to know he was being followed.
Once the exit door slammed shut, he raced forward. Outside he saw Cowboy climbing into a red pickup parked across the street from the high rise. It tore away from the curb, heading north. Erik noted the license plate number. Shouldn’t be too hard to follow. He jumped into his car and tailed the thief, careful to keep several vehicles between them. With all the early evening traffic on the roads, he didn’t think he’d been spotted. Cowboy got on the northbound expressway. He drove past the looming shadows of downtown high rises, past the suburban bedroom communities, past the overcrowded shopping malls, past the point where any expressway lights remained to illuminate the road. It was almost an hour before the pickup took a westbound exit that led to nothing but farm land. Erik knew it would be harder to keep from being noticed out in the middle of nowhere. He got behind a semi-trailer that was going in the same direction. Cowboy drove on for another half hour through pitch black countryside then turned right onto a side road marked with a yellow Dead End sign. Erik couldn’t follow him in there. It would be too obvious.
He pulled his car off to the shoulder and got out, hoping he wouldn’t find one of those “Do Not Park Here” stickers plastered on his windshield when he got back. He started walking. Fortunately, lights appeared in the distance almost immediately. The road turned out to be a very, very long driveway. The building at the end of it couldn’t be more than a quarter mile away. Erik kept to the shoulder, in the shadows.
The road ended in front of a pair of iron gates about ten feet high. Each of the gates was decorated with a capital letter P with an X through the middle of it. Erik didn’t know anyone with that monogram. He noticed a guard shack with security cameras mounted on either side of the gates and quickly ducked farther into the shadows. A ten-foot chain link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the property. Company was clearly not welcome in this place.
He couldn’t be sure how long the fence was, but he could guess it stretched around several acres. Beyond the gate at the far end of the gravel drive, Erik could see Cowboy’s car. Somebody had been expecting his visit.
Erik headed for the trees that bordered the fence to the east where more of the layout was visible. He focused his attention on the house if you could call it that. The building was as big as a castle, or maybe “fortress” would be a better word. It looked as if it could withstand a siege. The design was squat and square with a flat roof, like a massive cinderblock. Towers flanked the front of the building on either end. Erik guessed there might be two on the back end as well. The fortress was studded with tall narrow windows recessed deep into the walls. Light glowed through drawn curtains making it impossible to tell how many people were inside. Floodlights bleached the limestone façade to a blinding whiteness.
Aside from the main building, Erik counted at least eight other structures around the perimeter—smaller replicas of the main house. Then he noticed an odd assortment of sheds, garages, and trailers that must have been used for storage. A compound. He smiled to himself. It had to be them. Nobody else would live like this. Now he knew for certain who had hired Cowboy to steal Sybil’s find. The only thing he still couldn’t figure out was why.
Chapter 7 – Key Issues
Leroy pressed the doorbell several times before the oak double doors swung open to reveal a clean-cut teenager in a suit.
The young man blinked once. He didn’t ask Leroy’s name. He simply motioned the visitor inside. “Come in, Mr. Hunt. Father has been expecting you for some time now.”
The youth stepped aside to allow Leroy to enter the foyer. It was two stories high, with a single pendant light suspended from the ceiling. The only furniture the room contained was a pair of deacon’s benches facing each other from opposite whitewashed plaster walls. The effect was simple and austere. Like a monastery.
Hunt followed his guide down a long, uncarpeted corridor. Doors on either side were shut. Other than the sound of their footsteps echoing on the stone floor, everything was silent. Eventually, the pair turned right at a hallway that intersected the corridor. It too contained row upon row of shut doors. The doors were plain slabs of dark wood with no carving of any kind. They stretched off into the distance with absolute uniformity. It was disorienting, like walking through a hall of mirrors.
“A feller could get lost easy in a place like this,” Leroy observed to his guide.
The teenager smiled stiffly but made no comment.
Finally, they paused in front of another set of double
