“He quit?”
“Yeah. I’m his boss with the security firm. Tony Hawthorne. Robbie’s been working with us for a few years, and I would’ve expected that he’d at least say that he quit with two weeks’ notice.” He sighed and then ran his hand over his balding head. “But he didn’t show any respect at all. He sent me a message and said that he quit. A text message. Can you believe that? He only gave me five minutes notice before he walked out the door. What’s this generation come to? You look after a kid, teach him some skills, give him some work, and then he just gets up and leaves. This generation has no respect at all.”
“Did he give you a reason for the sudden exit?”
“The poor kid said he was too damaged after finding Anthony Waltz all shot up. He’s a sensitive soul, that Robbie. I told him to take a few weeks off, take a holiday, go to California and relax, but he said no, he wanted to quit. Said he didn’t want to do any of this anymore. He’d had enough.”
I stared at the surveillance screens. They were all working. I watched people come in and out of the foyer, people exiting the elevators, and people standing at the back entrance. The monitor for the rear entrance wasn’t working a few days ago but was now running smoothly.
“Robbie was organizing file footage from the cameras at the back door for me. He said he had to get them from the head office because the cameras were out, and he couldn’t retrieve them from here.”
“The cameras? They’ve never been out.” Tony tapped one of the monitors. “The live feed is coming straight through.”
“What about the history?”
“Well, that’s the thing, I can’t access any of the history. I’ve got a live feed, but nothing is being recorded. Talk about frustrating. Everything’s been wiped, and Robbie’s changed all the passwords. I can see what’s happening live, but nothing is being recorded. And I can’t access a thing.”
“You didn’t wipe the files?”
“Me? No. Why would I do that? It’s company procedure to keep any recordings for three months before they’re wiped. But it looks like Robbie has wiped everything from the Five-Five. Even the current footage isn’t being recorded. Talk about frustrating. Whatever he’s done has changed the way the computer records the footage.”
“Are you sure?”
“He must’ve written some sort of code to instantly wipe everything. I’m trying to decode it, but I’ve got nothing. He was good at coding computer systems, that Robbie. Always good at computers. He runs a couple of other websites in his spare time. I didn’t ask much about them, but it sounded like he made some money from them. I’ll miss having Robbie in the company. Right up until this morning, he was a reliable employee. Not that I can access his files.”
“Why not?”
“The code that he wrote to block the recording has also locked all the employee files. I can’t access any of them. I can’t even tell you Robbie’s date of birth.”
“Nothing?” I was perplexed. “Why would he do that?”
“I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine.” He shook his head. “Apart from coming to work, I don’t know much about Robbie. The only thing I can tell you about him is that he was working out at a different building before this one. He’d only been here five months. Perhaps he didn’t like this location?”
A thought caught in my head. I looked around the office. Robbie had left his pencil sketches on the walls. There were five pictures taped to the concrete wall at the furthest end of the room. They were all of his hero—D.O.A—swinging a sword and fighting off attacks from birds.
“Why did Robbie leave the other building?”
“Same thing. A guy killed himself and Robbie found the body. The guy he found was a lawyer, as well. I guess that’s the industry. It all gets to be a bit too much for them and they off themselves. Poor Robbie. Having to walk in on that twice. That’s got to take a toll on a boy.” He shrugged. “He asked to be moved buildings after that. Said he couldn’t keep coming to work in the same place as the death.”
“Did Robbie request to move to the Five-Five?”
“Ah,” he squinted. “Yeah. Yeah. I think he did. We’ve got twenty-five buildings under our security management, and I was happy to help him out after what he’d been through. You don’t want anyone to witness that sort of stuff.”
My mouth hung open for a moment. “Did he leave anything behind?”
“The only thing he left were these pictures. The guy was supposed to be watching the footage, but he spent half his time in here drawing.” Tony pointed to the walls. “I didn’t mind it when he was here, but now it just looks like he was lazy. I tell you—I’m not giving him a reference for his next job. No way. Not after leaving like that. You’ve got to show some respect.”
My attention turned to the pictures. There was a man with a sword in most of the pencil drawings. I’d noticed that the first time. The man was strong, had rippling muscles, and was wearing a black t-shirt.
But the first time I looked at the pictures, I didn’t realize who the man was fighting. I just thought they were birds. I thought it was strange at the time, but it meant nothing to me.
Now, I realized that the man with the sword was defeating the birds. There were also dead birds on the ground around the hero.
And they weren’t just birds—they were vultures.
Chapter 29
In a daze, I stood next to my truck on the sidewalk outside of Anthony Waltz’s apartment building, The
