The room shifted. Laughing was over. Business faces on.
“You need us to come?” Mekhi asked, already standing.
“Nah, I got it. It’s probably nothing.” But I was already thinking about the camera I’d left installed in the penthouse—the one that Lyric and Camille didn’t know about. The one that recorded everything that happened in the living room and the front entrance twenty-four hours a day to a cloud server that only I had access to.
If somebody really robbed my penthouse, I’d know who did it within the hour.
And if somebody didn’t really rob my penthouse, I’d know that too.
34
QUEST
I didn’t go upstairs right away.
I sat in the whip in the parking garage and pulled up the camera feed on my phone. The app connected to a cloud server that recorded everything in the penthouse’s living room and front entrance. Twenty-four hours a day. Lyric and Camille had no idea it existed.
I scrubbed back to two hours ago and watched.
Camille was on the couch eating Chinese food. Lyric was next to her scrolling her phone. Normal evening. Then a man walked in through the front door. No mask. No gloves. Just some nigga in jeans and a hoodie who moved through the apartment like he’d been there before. Camille stood up and hugged him. It was her brother. I recognized him from the few times he’d visited. He was a stocky nigga, mid-twenties, always looking at my shit like he was pricing it.
The three of them talked for a few minutes. No audio on the feed but the body language was clear. Lyric was animated, pointing around the apartment, directing traffic. Camille looked hesitant at first but went along. The brother started filling a duffel bag with electronics. The PlayStation. The speaker. Alaptop I’d left behind. Lyric opened the jewelry box on the console table and started scooping pieces into a smaller bag.
Then the brother tied them up. Wrists in front with what looked like silk scarves. Loose enough that either of them could’ve slipped out in ten seconds. He knocked over the coffee table, swept a lamp off the end table, tossed a few cushions on the floor. Lyric pointed at something and he adjusted the scene like a stage director. Then he took the duffel bag and walked out the front door.
Two minutes later, Camille called 911.
I put my phone in my pocket and took the elevator up.
The hallway outside the penthouse had two uniformed officers and a detective I didn’t recognize. One of the officers was finishing up his notes. The detective was standing near the door with his arms crossed and an expression that said he’d been doing this long enough to smell bullshit through a wall.
“Mr. Banks?” The detective extended his hand. “Detective Warren. We responded to the call about an hour ago.”
“What’s the situation?”
“The two women inside reported a home invasion. Said two masked men entered the unit, held them at gunpoint, restrained them, and took valuables.” He paused. Looked at me. Looked at the door. Looked back at me. “The restraints were silk scarves tied in front with enough slack to reach a phone and dial 911. There’s no sign of forced entry. The building’s security footage shows nobody entering or leaving the unit in the last six hours except the two residents.”
He didn’t say what we both knew. He didn’t have to. We looked at each other for about three seconds and an entire conversation happened without a word.
“I’ll handle it from here,” I said.
“You sure? Because filing a false police report is a crime and I’ve got half a mind to?—”
“I’ll handle it.”
He studied me for a second, then nodded. Closed his notepad. Signaled to the officers. “Let’s go. We’re done here.”
On his way past me he said, low enough that only I could hear, “Good luck with that, brother.”
I walked into the penthouse.
The living room looked like a set from a bad crime show. Furniture tipped over but not broken. Drawers pulled open but nothing actually missing from them. The jewelry box was empty but I could see the duffel bag sitting behind the couch where they’d stashed it, not even hidden well. And there were Camille and Lyric, sitting on the floor with their scarves untied now, mascara running, tissues everywhere, performing grief like they were auditioning for a Tyler Perry movie and didn’t get a callback.
“Quest, thank God you’re here,” Camille started, standing up slowly with her hand on her belly. “It was so scary, they had guns and?—”
“Sit down.”
Something in my voice made her sit back down immediately.
