vestibule floors were white marble. Bad for noise suppression.
Milo unholstered his Glock and tiptoed out into the vestibule. Binchy armed himself and followed. Then me. Function unclear.
Long narrow vestibule, nothing but the mirror relieving the starkness. A white door to the left was designated PH1 by blocky, steel characters. Same for PH2 to the right, where an unopened package sat near the threshold.
Gun in hand, Milo tiptoed to the left, pressed his ear to the door, waited, pressed again, then made a zero-sign with thumb and forefinger. Looking down at his gun for a moment, he breathed in and slid the larger key into the bolt, turning slowly.
Slight creak, then silence.
He waited, shoulders bunched, before toeing the door open an inch, waited some more before peering through. His eyebrows arced as he nudged the gap another couple of inches. Another brief inspection. Head shake. Half a dozen more inches. Finally, he created enough space to slip through, gun-arm extended.
Binchy followed, motioning me to hang back.
I stood there until he stuck his head out and nodded. Joined the two of them in a vacant ten-by-ten foyer.
The same white marble flooring, noise mercifully cushioned by a high-pile, black-and-gold Chinese rug.
Snarling dragons and chimeras, fanged mouths agape, serpentine tails intertwined.
Beyond the foyer was five hundred square feet of space meant to be a living room.
No living here; not a stick of furniture, no windows, just three walls of floor-to-ceiling ebony bookshelves. Every inch filled with volumes but for a scarlet door notched into the broad rear unit.
Thousands of books. Not the bland-jacketed texts Susie Koster had hoarded. Every one of these was covered in gilt-trimmed, tooled leather, the bookbinder’s art displayed in a riot of colors and textures.
I stepped closer and read a few spines.
WORDHAM’S MUSINGS ON THEOSOPHY. VOLUMES I THROUGH IX
The Collected Verse of Mrs. Aphra Sleete
Price & Worthington’s Annual Autumnal Survey of Sedges and Other Marsh Vegetations
Von Boffingmuell: The Man, The Plan
Yorkshire Fancies, Possibilities, and Various Other Indulgences
Milo and Binchy were reading, too. Milo looked angry, Binchy puzzled.
Milo edged over to the scarlet door. More leather, pebbled; oval red-lacquer doorknob.
No key-slot, no bolt.
He repeated the ear-press, retreated several steps, and repeated again, footsteps on the cushy rug no more than puffs.
I became aware of the utter lack of sound.
Not a serene silence. This was cold, blank, negative air, rife with bad possibilities. The kind of clogged silence that promises malignant surprise.
Milo placed his hand on the red knob. Rotated. Sprang back.
The scarlet door swung out smoothly on hidden hinges. Milo inched forward, allowing his Glock to lead the way.
He hazarded a peek. Then a longer look.
Nodding, he stepped through.
Same drill: Binchy leaving me to wait, followed by the go-ahead.
Now we stood in an even larger space, this one floored in black granite as glossy as an oil spill.
To the left was a white kitchen that looked as if it had never been used.
Finally the taming of the silence: a faint hum, courtesy the electronic veins, arteries, and capillaries that run through every high-end building.
Good insulation, those books.
In this room, two walls of glass offered jaw-loosening western and northern views. Dead-center on the granite, a pair of black leather Eames chairs flanked a silver six-foot cube aspiring to be a coffee table.
Atop the cube: a plastic packet of orange-tipped hypodermic syringes and a small baggie empty but for bits of white grit toward the bottom.
Behind the cube, an open doorway.
No sound but the electronic hum.
Sidling as far from the opening as possible, Milo advanced, Binchy close behind.
No permission for me to enter but I followed. Heard music rising above the hum, faint but unmistakable.
Lilting, trebly, reedy—some sort of flute, a chiffon of notes rising in pitch then returning to base.
The same arpeggio, over and over.
The kind of New Agey stuff looped in strip-mall day spas, designed to relax.
It stiffened both detectives’ gun-hands and prickled the short hairs on the nape of my neck.
They advanced. Again, neither of them held me back so I walked through the opening after they did.
Dim bedroom. Sparse but massive, likely created by combining two sleeping chambers.
This floor was cushioned by a snowdrift of white flokati rug. A black leather base held a bed wider than a king, draped tautly in silver silk. Pillows in hues that recalled the books out front were scattered on the bed and the rug. A doorless entry to the right revealed a slate, walnut, and smoked-glass bathroom.
Milo pointed to the wall facing the bed.
Covered by