Dead Waters - Anton Strout [76]
“Looks like you would have been going first anyway, kid,” Connor said, slapping me on the back. “You sure you can pick this? Looks kind of old . . .”
I dropped to my knees and started working on the tumblers with my assortment of picks and torsion wrenches. “I should be able to,” I said. “Pin locks go back almost four thousand years. The hardware has changed over the years, but not the theory or mechanics behind them. And you’d be surprised how many of the old art houses and antiques stores in Manhattan are still using those old locks. Made a lot of my old heists fairly easy.”
“I keep forgetting,” Jane said, mustering a false pride in her voice. “My boyfriend, the ex-thief.”
“Emphasis on the ex,” Connor added.
I went silent as I concentrated on the lock. With both my partner and my girlfriend watching, a little performance anxiety crept up on me, especially since I was using my old nefarious skills. Not being able to beat the lock would be more than embarrassing. Worse, it would give them something to bond over while picking on me.
I needn’t have worried. I expected the lock to give me some difficulty given the abandoned state of the lighthouse, and I was surprised when I heard it click open under my working it seconds later.
“You make it look so easy,” Jane said, giving me a silent golf clap.
“It was easy,” I said, still examining the mechanism itself. “I expected the hardest part of opening it would be due to corrosion given its age and with it being so close to the water, but someone’s been taking very good care of it.”
I slid my set of picks and torsion wrenches back up my sleeve before standing and took my bat back from Jane. I put my hand against the door. “Stay sharp, people,” I said and pushed it open. The door didn’t make a sound.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” I said.
“What is?” Jane asked.
“Where’s the creakiness from unoiled hinges? Maybe I watched too much Scooby-Doo as a kid, but I’m a bit disappointed that it didn’t squeak open like they always did on the show.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky and the Gator Ghoul will be waiting on the other side,” Connor added.
I gave him a thumbs-up for the reference, and then turned my attention back to the lighthouse as we entered.
The interior of the circular part of the lighthouse was open and led off to another part made up of the long rectangular section we had seen from outside. The cylindrical part of the room was ringed along the far wall with a spiral staircase built into the curvature of the building. I wasn’t sure what I had expected to find in here. Maybe some nautical equipment—a rain slicker that belonged to the Gorton’s fisherman, perhaps. Instead, the interior of the lighthouse was littered with film equipment. Old-school cameras set up on tripods, recording equipment. . . even a table scattered with an odd assortment of different microphones and tape reels. One wall had a makeshift film screen tacked up and an old film projection machine faced it. A thick black reel of film still sat in it, threaded through the machine like a snake caught in a trap.
“What is this place?” Jane whispered.
“From the look of it, I’d say it was the good professor’s home away from home,” Connor said. “Unless you know of any other bridge-obsessive film teachers around town.”
Jane laughed and I shushed her.
I headed for the stairs. “Let’s see if we have any Goldilocks lurking around here before we get too carried away,” I said.
As I started up into the lighthouse, I was thankful for the solid structural integrity of the building. Sturdy old-world stonework made up the walls, and the staircase itself was cast from black iron. I did my best to move silently, going up it without making a sound. Jane followed right behind me and Connor took the rear.
The farther I went up into it, the more my nerves were on end, but other than a shoddy old mattress on the second level up, there were no signs of habitation. It still gave me the creeps, despite the spectacular view at the top