There were no windows on this side except for one, high up and near the northeast corner about where Molly’s loft sanctuary should be. It was a multi-paned casement window with hinges on the left, open a few inches. The wall was smooth blockwork but there was a metal pipe that ran up through the roof near my feet, continued to about where the floor of the loft would be, made a ninety degree bend, and poked through the wall. It was probably carrying a fiber internet connection up to his work area. Fiber was often run through heavy duty steel conduit because it was expensive to fix if cut or chewed through by mice looking for nest material. The pipe was attached to the building every few feet with metal harnesses. I was pretty sure it would hold my weight but getting from the pipe to the window ledge would be difficult. I would have to wedge a toe between the pipe and the wall, essentially standing on the topmost harness, then push myself up to the left and get my hands on the window ledge. My Stan Smiths would probably get scuffed. I looked up at the window for a moment longer, gauging distances and considering best options. If I was going to do it I needed to do it then, before someone else wandered around the building or Molly decided to take a break in his sanctuary. I looked over the edge. Two stories down, the roof of the neighboring building stretched away, fading into the fog. If I screwed up, that was where I would land. If he had Wolhardt’s notes they had to be up there. Where else would he keep them? His house had only two places where he could have any privacy. I doubted he would keep them in his rolling bed pod. I shrugged, grasped the pipe, and started climbing, leaning out with my feet against the wall, hand over hand. I reached the top quickly, placed my toe on the harness I had scoped out, and pushed off, straightening my leg and reaching for the window sill. My fingers wrapped around it and I hung for a moment, then let go with my left hand and quickly pulled the window open wide enough to get my body through. Hand back on the sill, I hung for another moment, then pulled up, reached in, got one foot up on the sill then the other, and crouched in the opening, hands bracing me on either side, breathing heavily.
The loft was dark inside except for a lot of glowing LEDs. I fished my keys out of my jacket pocket and turned on the tiny flashlight I kept on the ring. The beam illuminated a room maybe twelve feet wide by eight deep. A counter height workbench ran the whole width of the loft. Beyond that, a short section of varnished plywood floor, then built in shelves on the far wall. I hopped off the sill, clearing the workbench and landing softly on the plywood. Not wanting to waste time, I began to search quickly and systematically. There was a lot of equipment under the workbench and on top of it—computers, laptops, two giant monitors on movable wall mounted arms, soldering iron, 3D printer, laser cutter, a few technical manuals, but nothing that looked like Wolhardt’s notes. I turned to the shelves. They were almost completely taken up with a vast collection of vinyl, CDs, and DVDs. On the floor below the shelves were three plastic file bins. I flipped through the neatly organized files—phone bills, bank statements, taxes, correspondence, investment accounts. At the right edge of the shelves was a small section devoted to books. There were several on cryptography, a biography of Edward Elgar, some programming language references, a dictionary. I did another search around the room and found a safe I had missed earlier. It was under the workbench and had several old, partly disassembled laptops stacked on top of it. The door hung partly open. I had stopped being surprised by safes left open or unlocked long ago. People with safes often left them open, only locking them when they would be gone for an extended period. Inside, I found two big kilo bags full of off white powder, a lot of smaller Ziploc bags, a .45 caliber handgun, a tidy stack of cash, passport, and a file folder containing Molly’s birth certificate and social security card. The powder, I guessed from his nickname, was probably ecstasy. Unfortunately, I was not interested in stealing his identity or becoming a drug dealer. Why, though, was he dealing drugs on this level if he was a dot com millionaire? The answer was probably in his bank and investment statements if I wanted to hang around and look. He had probably blown all his money. I emphatically did not want to hang around though. The never-ending party made a lot of sense now. It brought with it a never-ending supply of customers. Molly had an interesting game going on, one I wanted nothing to do with.
I went back to the window, checked to make sure no one was below, then climbed out and lowered myself, grasping the sill and dangling. One handed, I pushed the window back where it had been then let go, rotating as I fell. It was about a six or seven foot drop. I felt a jolt of pain in my knees when my feet hit the roof but I rolled through, somersaulting and coming back up to standing. I shook my legs out then started back along the walkway, heart rate slowing. Halfway around, I met Molly coming fast toward me.
“What are
