Seductive Intent(4)
“Not that I’ve noticed, but I didn’t do an inventory against an insurance roster or some such thing.”
Brendan made a snap decision. “Forget it.” He didn’t relish telling anybody that a woman had held a gun to his head and then, what? He didn’t really know. He supposed she, or more probably an accomplice, had hit him with something. At least they didn’t shoot him. “I would like to know how she managed to get in, though. That was a little unsettling.”
“I know a man who may be able to help.”
Since Mandrake had notoriously bad taste in men—Exhibit A being the Italian boyfriend—Brendan hesitated.
“He’s a private investigator I met at a party a few years back. He’s good. He could evaluate your security measures.”
“He’s a friend of yours?”
“More like a friend of a friend kind of thing.”
“Okay. Give him a call. See if he can come over this morning.”
When the man, W.S. Kendon—Sam, he’d said to call him—showed up an hour later, he seemed competent enough. “They came in through the balcony,” he said after inspecting the apartment.
“They? Why do you think there was more than one of them?”
“Scuff marks up here.” He gestured to the outside of the building above the doorwall. “They climbed something, probably something as simple as a rope, back up to the roof. See those slight marks? Probably caused by scuffs of the toes of a shoe gaining purchase as they climbed. The distance between them suggests they were made by two climbers.”
Brendan looked down to Manhattan seventy stories below. “Everybody has balconies,” he grumbled.
“Yes, but it would be dangerous to climb from one to another. Really only the top one, the penthouse balcony, is safe enough to climb onto because you need to just be unseen the short distance down from the roof. That’s why a lot of penthouse apartments don’t have balconies.”
“They sold that as a plus.”
“Yeah, well, it is a plus. Most burglars these days don’t bother to climb into an expensive apartment like this. They’d figure the security precautions would keep them away.”
“Which, thanks for reminding me, they didn’t.”
“Disabled somehow, would be my guess. I can look at the control panel if you like.”
“No, never mind. I’ll just have an armed guard posted from now on.”
Kendon laughed. “It’s not as bad as all that. There are some things you can do.”
Not one to get into the details on most things, Brendan nodded. “Fine. Just go over them with Mandrake. Mandrake,” he addressed the butler, “give Sam here whatever he needs to assure me I don’t have to worry about this again.”
Mandrake, probably happy for something to do, nodded enthusiastically.
“You said they were looking for a safe,” Kendan said. “I take it you don’t have one?”
“No. Not here.”
“Do you know if they were looking for anything specific?”
“No idea. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to my sister’s wedding.”
* * * * *
Sophia put down her earphones and Arthur did the same. “That Kendon guy’ll find the bugs in no time.”
Arthur shrugged. “No big deal. They did their work. All I wanted to confirm is that he didn’t have a safe or hiding place there we somehow missed.”
“And that he didn’t know what we were looking for.”
Arthur nodded. “That too.”
“Which isn’t hard,” she added, “since I don’t know what we’re looking for.”
Arthur smiled his mild smile and ignored the hint.
“Go get your party clothes on, my dear. We’re going to a wedding.”
* * * * *
Aaron Winston, Virginia Beckett’s fiancé—soon to be husband—hadn’t wanted a bachelor’s party, so Brendan had very little to do as best man but make sure he didn’t lose the ring, which he managed not to do. He patted the pocket of his tux. As the only brother of the bride, he also got to walk her down the aisle since their parents had passed away years before. With five sisters, however, he wasn’t especially anxious to show up at Bransport—the Becketts’ Connecticut estate and the site of the wedding—too much in advance of the festivities, his aching head aside. He knew the house would be in a tizzy, as they say. Actually, his head was feeling better—it just felt as if he was getting a relapse when he sauntered into the bride’s bedroom ten minutes before the wedding was scheduled to start and registered the sound of five Beckett women, and a niece or two as well, all talking at the same time.