At my nod, Marlin gives me a bemused expression.
“Me, of course.”
Of course.
Snickering to myself, I don’t have to ask to know what state he left her in.
“Nothing more a girl could ask for.”
“Precisely.”
He smiles, a genuine smile that softens the wicked edges of his features.
“Did you see that?”
Marlin suddenly leans forward, drawing my attention back to the monitor. He freezes the frame and quickly rewinds it.
I watch Christopher retrace his steps and drop onto a sewer pipe. He shimmies along and does the same thing for the next one.
“He went around.”
“What?”
“Those pipes are blocking our view, but there’s a grated bridge that runs behind there.” Tapping the screen, Marlin traces a different path, “It leads straight to the aquarium.”
I tilt my head, studying the playback of the recording.
Nothing about Christopher’s movements scream hesitant or nervous as he travels from vessel to vessel. He presses onward, bypassing each new physical obstacle without any sign of constraint or exhaustion.
“Maybe he didn’t see it.”
“Or he saw it and chose to go another way. Why?”
Tilting my head, I watch the playback again. The same sequence of events repeats itself, the same look of determination etched across Christopher’s face.
“He must have thought it was a trap.” I muse the thought out loud, “Assumed if you were going to rig a path, it would be the easiest one.”
Marlin nods slowly, his eyes glued to the thief running across the screen.
“A viable option, for certain.”
“But?”
I prod him, knowing the look on Marlin’s face has nothing to do with a simple misassumption.
“But a thief as experienced as this one would know that getting in is never the difficult part.” Anticipation seeps through his expression, widening the curve of his smile, “It’s figuring out how to get out.”
The recording merges with the live stream, displaying the final stage of Christopher’s test.
“Did you say the prize was waitingbeneathyour mother’s aquarium?”
Humour fills my voice as I watch Christopher take a step towards the glass, his panic clear even from our grainy viewpoint.
“Did I say beneath? Must have been a slip of the tongue.”
Laughter rips from my chest, the cleverness of the situation far too delightful for anything else.
Marlin listens to my cackle with a smile, his own enjoyment increasing with every decimal that drops from the oxygen tank straped to Finley’s chest.
