At last, we get to a display case with a couple dozen antique keys in it. I know the vault key isn’t among them, but my heart ratchets, anyway.
“Ta-da!” Giselle points at them, winking. “Your fetish objects.”
I smile back, snap a few pics with my phone and then take the time to scrutinize each key. Some have intricate shapes while others are plain and simple in design, each unique. Unfortunately, they’re all too big and cut in a style that’s too different from the other three keys to the impenetrable vault. None could be a match.
Giselle goes into detail about some of the keys—what kind of locks they opened, how they were used, and why they are so valuable today.
When she’s done, I ask if I could take a look at the uncatalogued keys she had mentioned.
“Sure,” she says, “just bear in mind that they aren’t as spectacular or valuable as these.”
“That’s all right.”
She beckons me to follow her, “Which is why they’re in a box in the reserve room rather than here, on display.”
“I’ll adjust my expectations.”
We pass through the rest of the showroom without stopping. Giselle unlocks a door to a back room that smells of musty paper and dust. She flicks on the lights and walks to a large cabinet, which she unlocks as well. I tread on her heels.
After a moment of nerve-racking silence, she spins around. “It’s gone.”
“What?” I ask like an idiot.
“The box with the extra keys. It should be here in this cabinet but it’s not.”
“Someone on your staff may have misplaced it,” I say.
“I’m the only one who has a key to this room and to this cabinet.”
This is not good.
A crease forms between her eyebrows. “My flat is two floors above. Last night, after I got home, I came down here and checked on all the keys, including the missing box, because you’d said you were into keys…”
We look at each other, no doubt, arriving at the same conclusion.
How?I ask myself.How did he know?
With all the precautions we took, how did Kurt Ozzi figure out that Giselle was the Key to the Key? Had his men managed to decipher the coded message I sent Von Dietz last night? But even if they had, it wasn’t terribly informative. All I’d written was that I’d secured an approach for this afternoon.
“There must’ve been a break-in during the night,” Giselle says, her frown deepening. “I just don’t get it… Nothing else is missing, including the more valuable items. The only thing they stole was that box.”
I do my darnedest to look as perplexed as she is. “You need to report the theft to the police.”
Except they’ll never find the culprits, because Kurt Ozzi’s men are too well trained to leave any evidence behind. And even with the evidence, so many police chiefs and prefects across Europe are on Kurt’s payroll that I wouldn’t expect results from any investigation that has to do with Kurt.
Concealing my despair as best I can, I ask, “Did you have any copies made?”
“No, not for those in the box.”
That’s it, then.Game over. The fourth key seeker will be the first one to botch up his mission and return home without a key. I failed my country and the Crown. I screwed up my chance to recover the d’Alenq honor.
Could the outcome of this quest have been any worse?
Too crushed to exit with a semblance of elegance, I tell Giselle to call the cops without delay, plead sudden fatigue, and leave.
The second shockwave hits me as I step into the inner courtyard.
Leo.
