“Yeah, yeah, a billion times,” she interrupted. “The same number of times you’ve told me that joke. Damn it, where’s the switch?” She yelped as a spark split the darkness, followed by the feeble glow of bulbs trailing down the staircase like luminous bread crumbs.
I’d expected the subtreasury to be brightly lit by the work lights, but it wasn’t. Miranda looked worried as we stepped into the gloom. “Stefan?” No answer. “Stefan, are you in here?” Silence. “Come on, Stefan, this isn’t funny. If you’re in here, come on out. You’re creeping me out.” The only sound I heard was Miranda’s breathing, which had turned fast and ragged.
“Let’s turn on the work lights,” I suggested, as much to distract Miranda as anything else. “Can you find the switches for those?”
She opened her cell phone again and disappeared behind one of the support pillars; a moment later, my eyelids and pupils clamped down against the glare of the halogen bulbs.
The lights only underscored the emptiness of the room. Miranda looked at me; wordlessly, we headed for the blue tarp that curtained off the excavation area. I ducked around one end of the tarp, Miranda around the other. Our eyes automatically swiveled to the same spot. The table was empty; the bones were gone.
“I feel sick,” Miranda said. “Whatever’s going on, it’s not good.”
“Maybe not,” I conceded, “but let’s try not to panic. Let’s look around a little more, then go outside and try to reach Stefan again.” She nodded, chewing her lip.
I studied the table where we’d laid out the bones in anatomical order. The white sheet was still in place; a few small smudges and stains confirmed that yes, this was where the bones had lain. I lifted the fabric that overhung the table and stooped to peer beneath it. “The ossuary’s gone, too,” she predicted, and she was right. “Goddamn it,” she said, but there was no heat behind the curse, just weariness. “I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“Known better. Known something would go wrong. Known that Stefan was working an angle. Known that he was still the same guy who cheats on his wife, shafts his colleagues, or does some other damn selfish thing that’s gonna blow up in our faces and make us the collateral damage, the civilian casualties, the friendly-fire deaths.” I considered trotting out my exaggeration joke yet again, but it dawned on me that Miranda might not be exaggerating this time. “He’s taken the bones and skipped town,” she said. “I just know it. They’re probably on eBay right now.”
“They won’t be on eBay,” I said, “but they sure aren’t here, and I don’t see a helpful note explaining why. Let’s lock up and see if we can find out what the hell’s going on.”
We switched off the work lights, climbed the stairs, and switched off the dim string of bulbs in the stairwell. By the faint light of Miranda’s phone, I wrestled the heavy gate shut, then hit a problem. “I don’t see the lock,” I told Miranda.
She brought the phone closer, playing its bluish-white glow over the hasp and then the nearby bars. “Hmm.” She widened her search, sweeping the light horizontally across the entire gate at waist height, then in progressively lower tracks at each horizontal crossbar. When she reached the level of the floor, she grunted, then said softly, “Oh, shit.” I bent to look at whatever she’d seen.
The padlock—the industrial-strength lock with the inch-thick shackle of hardened steel—had been cut in half.
“NOW WHAT?” ASKED MIRANDA.
We’d voiced our concerns to the ranking security officer at the palace; he took notes and promised to investigate, but he didn’t seem nearly as worried as Miranda and I were. After that, we’d gone to the police station, but the entrance was locked. A notice taped to the glass door announced FERMé—JOUR FéRIé. OUVERT LUNDI. “Damn,” said Miranda. “Closed. Religious holiday. Open Monday.”
“Swell,” I said. “It’d be a great day to rob a bank, if we weren’t otherwise occupied.” I hesitated. “Do you…happen to have a key to Stefan’s apartment?”
She punched me in the shoulder. “No, I don’t happen to have a key to his apartment, but thanks for the vote of confidence. I came to work, not to get laid.” She drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Sorry; my issue, not yours. It was a reasonable question. But the answer’s still no. I don’t have a key.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“What, the key?”
“No, Einstein, the apartment,” I said.