Greywalker - Kat Richardson [28]
He pointed at the underside of my desktop. “See this red LED I installed under the lip? It will flash slowly at you if something disturbs the motion detectors, like someone trying to sneak up on you. You’ll get the nine-nine-nine code on your pager if any of the sensors are set off when the active system is armed. There’s also a passive component to the system and a panic button. When you enter the remote panic code, or hit the button, here”—he pointed at another thing under the desk—“all hell will break loose. You can also call your computer and look at the office via that remote fiber-optic camera I installed over the door. And there’s a reed switch on your safe door that will let you know if anyone has opened it. You like?”
“Oh, yes. I like very much. What do I owe you?”
He waved that off. “I don’t have my bill printed up yet. I’ll drop it off another time, OK?”
“All right. Now I’ve got to run. Can I drop you off anywhere?”
“No, thanks. I thought I’d catch a movie or something. Would you . . . ?” He raised his eyebrows.
I was already gathering my stuff and heading for the door. “Can’t tonight, thanks. I’ll see you when you drop off the bill, though.”
He hesitated, then grabbed his pack and came through the door in a rush. “No problem. You can always try the library if you need me.” He shouldered his backpack and sauntered off.
I stopped and watched him go. I just didn’t get him. Sometimes he seemed like a friend I’d known for years; then he flipped right back into being a stranger. It bugged me, but not enough to keep worrying at. I had to get moving; I was going to find out what had happened to Ingstrom Shipwrights and Sergeyev’s heirloom. I hoped.
NINE
I drove up around Lake Union and found the Ingstrom Shipwrights warehouse on the north end of the lake, east of Gasworks Park. I had to cruise for a parking space. The small, graveled parking lot was full, and a misty rain was starting to patter harder as I circled. A generic sedan was also hunting for a parking space. I pulled into a tight spot and ran for the warehouse doors, huddling my leather jacket closer around me. I wished I’d had the foresight to wear my raincoat instead.
I skittered into the warehouse and shook myself off like a dog. A teenage boy stared at me from his post behind a laptop computer on top of a long, collapsible table.
“Hi,” I said. “I’d like to talk to Will or Brandon.”
He perked up. “You’re the lady who called, aren’t you? Brandon took off. But Will’s in the office with the family. He’ll be out soon. You want to walk around and see if you spot the furniture?”
“Sure, though I’d think it would be pretty obvious. . . .” I looked out at the packed stacks of goods and crates under cones of dusty light. The masts of a wooden sail-boat reached for the ceiling near the back. “Or maybe not. That’s a lot of stuff. You don’t know if there’s a parlor organ in this mess, do you?”
He shook his head. “You’d have to talk to Will. There’s a lot of cool stuff, though—there’s even a whole boat! Want to register to bid?”
He must have seen the auction-junkie gleam in my eye. I like getting neat old stuff cheap, like my Rover. My reaction against my mother’s insistence on all-new everything, maybe. I prefer good, solid, old things, even if I have to fix them up myself. That kid knew he was looking at a sucker the moment I came in.
“Sure,” I said.
He entered my name and office phone number into the database and gave me a printed catalog and a cardboard paddle with a number on it.
“Don’t lose your paddle or I’ll have to register you again,” he warned.
I tucked it into my bag. “I won’t. Now, how can I catch up to Will?”
“Oh, just wait and watch for him. He’ll be out in a minute and he usually does a walk-through before we close up in a place like this. You can’t miss him. He’s tall and he has white hair. I’ll point him in your direction.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
The kid nodded and went back to something on his computer. I strolled off into the aisles of stuff.