When the Walls Come Down

Tarquin Henderson-Lee (supposedly of the Lees, although that claim was as tenuous as Dalton’s to his title) had decided to circle the wagons. Perched on the hill that rose up behind the banker’s house, Will watched as a patrol moved through the grounds - the two legged kind accompanied by the more problematic four legged sort. After Lex had become trapped in the faraday cage at the canny son of a bitch’s mansion, word seemed to have gone out across the local network of high society reprobates. Warnings whispered in wannabe aristocratic ears had brought the shutters down on the homes of most of them, not that they were going to keep him out – Lex wouldn’t let them.

Will tapped the earpiece he’d slipped in as he’d left his car two miles away, hearing the reassuring little pop of static. He could’ve left it off and travelled in entirely alone, but the silence probably would have just driven Lex into trying to join him. Henderson-Lee had a soft spot in his security, a window through all the new measures he’d watched the man put into place, but Will doubted it was one big enough for both of them to slip through. If Bruning had figured out just how his giant electrical mousetrap had been triggered, there was a chance something similar would be waiting for him inside, ready to close down around the basement the moment he was inside.

If he was lucky, that would be within five minutes, the soft spot he’d identified from surveillance he’d performed over the last couple of weeks – with Lex’s help – between the change in guard shifts would give him enough time to get to the old coal hatch and into the basement. Mentally filtering Lex’s chatter down to just the countdown of the guard’s progress across the wide expanse of autumn leave dusted yard, Will picked his way down the hill. The handful of blind spots on the network of cameras – the ones carefully created by Lex’s incursions into the system – had been narrowed down to one. As the count hit zero Will boosted himself over the wall and landed lightly in the scrubby cover of rose bushes that lined the wall. Without the whisper of a spell off of his lips that parted them enough for him to land clear, they’d likely have drawn blood. Unfortunately for Henderson-Lee his tricks had all been noted, ways to defeat them planned meticulously.

A clear path to the door, traced through the blind spot. His back pressed to the warm stone of the castle like mansion (another ridiculous affectation that reeked of more money than sense), the drop to one knee to work his lock picks into the heavy cellar doors. Oil trailed over the hinges in case and their silent glide open. Ten seconds to go until the next guard came around the corner of the house and he was rushing down the concrete stairs, carefully easing the doors down behind him. In the darkness beneath them, Will waited for them man to pass, the part of his mind that always suggested the worse case scenario expecting the doors to reopen at any moment. Finally the silence stretched out long enough that he had to have been on the east side of the house, out of sight and earshot. ”I’m in,” he breathed, knowing that Lex was probably tracking him down to the inch with the earpiece.

At the rate he was going, there was a chance he’d be back in time to make dinner for Zoey, instead of retrieving something from the freezer to reheat. She’d still been at the station when he’d slipped out two hours early, supposedly to meet with a witness in one of his current cases. A second interview to see if anything new had come to the woman about a burglary that had occurred in her neighbour’s apartment – a thief that had slipped in from a fire escape while the residents had been home, stealing the car keys from the hallway before they’d made off with their imported Range Rover SV, all $150,000 of it. A lie that had tripped too easily off of his tongue.

Feeling the burn of it in his throat, Will crept through the basement store room. He listened at the door beyond for a long minute before he spelled the newly installed locks and slipped through into the main part of the basement. The store room had looked barely finished but the rest had been turned into a rich man’s playground with wood panelling on the walls and shelves upon shelves of curios that would have looked at home in a Victorian politician’s country manor. Art littered the walls, some of the pieces he identified, although they weren’t what he’d come here looking for. That sat in the next room – a Victorian safe that was said to be almost unbreakable. Henderson-Lee had purchased the piece from an antiques dealer who had happened to list the safe and it’s supposed contents in an email to a friend – a fellow art dealer who might be interested in convincing Henderson-Lee to part with one of the pieces of the supposedly destroyed transport full of art being moved to the castle at Königstein.

”I’m at the inner doorway. Prepare to shut down the alarm if it sounds.” Will’s hand hovered over the locks, the spell that he’d used to get Lex out of the cell the study had become repeated. It worked as it had done before, but three feet into the room and the space lit up with red flashing lights. A whoop began to cut through the air, the sound rising in volume until it cut off abruptly. Will span around, intending to get the hell of here before the guards descended on the room, but he heard footsteps in the hallway that led to the main basement stairs, hurrying towards him.

Stepping away from the door, Will looked around for somewhere to hide, but found nowhere before the door opened and a slender figure stood there. Out of place, looking like a goddess arriving to mete out his punishment for every crime he’d committed in his marriage and beyond. ”Zoey,” he croaked. Another step towards her and there was a thud, a metal skin coming down too fast in the doorway she stood in. Reaching out, he grabbed her arm, pulling her into him as the security barrier slammed down where she’d stood. Will held his place, his arms around her, his heart racing in his chest, feeling the pieces of his life slam down around him just as viciously as the defences had.

Tagged: ZOEY WASHINGTON * Word Count: 1110