Chapter 24: Unit 114

"Then tell them," I said. "Be there at one."

At twelve fifty-five on the first Saturday in December, she wasn't.

The second floor of my warehouse had never held so many people.

The regulars stood in their usual spots with their flashlights and coffee.

Behind them were three of Brantley's investors in good overcoats, the reporter with her cameraman, and half the women from the foundation board.

Opaline sat on a folding chair someone had carried up for her, in dove-gray wool and her pearls.

She looked like she'd come to a recital.

Brantley stood at the back by the freight elevator with his lawyer.

Out on bail, freshly shaved, his hands in his coat pockets.

He didn't look at the door of 114. He looked at Jubal.

The detective leaned against the stairwell wall in her tan raincoat.

My crew lined the hall in their red shirts, the way they had at the council.

Jubal's daughter stood on her bucket beside Wilma with her red clipboard, pencil ready.

Wilma checked her watch.

"One o'clock," she said. "Kitt Moving & Storage, public lien sale. Unit 114."

She fitted her key into the red KITT lock, the one with Brantley's half-inch bite in the shackle.

It opened. She handed it to me.

The locksmith we'd hired cut Brantley's brass disc lock with one clean snap.

The sound went down the whole hall.

Wilma put both hands on the handle and rolled the door up.

Nobody breathed.

Six paintings leaned against the back wall in a row, wrapped in gray moving blankets.

One blanket had slipped. A gold frame showed, and a corner of dark green field under a stormy sky.

In front of them, alone on a metal shelf, sat one gray file box with its lid taped down.

That was all.

Seven months of two in the morning, and that was all.

"Inventory," Jubal's daughter whispered, and started writing.

"Bidders stay behind the line," Wilma said. "Nobody steps in. Opening bid, five hundred."

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