Chapter 14
JACE
I wait for about a minute, then slip out into the hall and immediately duck behind one of the many pillars in the building.
I know where every camera is, what area they cover, and where their weaknesses are, and after checking to make sure the coast is clear, I follow the narrow path where there’s no camera coverage, timing my movements to avoid the motion activated ones, and the ones that sweep and don’t just sit stationary, as I carefully make my way down the hall.
When I finally reach my target, a small closet with no cameras directed at it despite it being a major security weakness, I pull out the cigarette case and fish out the lock picks I stashed in there.
The lock is ridiculously easy to crack, and I get the door open in about ten seconds.
Instead of turning the overhead light on, I pull a penlight out of the hidden pocket in my pants and click it on. One side of the small space has a wall of shelves against it that’s stacked high cleaning supplies, and the other side has brooms, mops, and vacuums neatly lining it.
Bypassing everything in the room, I go straight to the back corner and run my hand across the underside of one of the shelves until I find the release button to pop open the hidden door behind the section of shelves.
Being careful not to knock any of the items off it, I pull the door open enough so I can slip into the tight corridor behind it, then gently close it behind me.
The corridor is more of a passageway that’s seen better days. It’s dusty and full of cobwebs and the air is stale as fuck, but I ignore all that and follow the many twists and turns as I head toward the back of the house.
I’ve only explored a small portion of the corridor in the few times I’ve had a chance to snoop around in King House over the years, but from what I’ve seen on the floor plans, the corridor snakes through the entire first floor, and most of the rooms have a hidden entrance to it.
I have no clue how often it’s used, if ever, but based on how neglected the space is, it’s unlikely that any of the current members use it.
When I finally reach my destination, I feel around until I find the door catch release and give it a little tug. A section of the wall just big enough to crawl through pops out, leading me into a small pantry.
Instead of closing the section completely, I leave it cracked open and carefully slip out of the pantry and into the staff kitchen.
Keeping out of view of the cameras, I make my way to the door at the far end of the kitchen and unlock it to let Jax in.
“Took you long enough.” He hands me a black backpack that’s identical to the one he’s wearing.
“My bad.” I dig my phone out of the front pocket of the bag, then sling the straps over my shoulders. “I’ll be sure to hurry up the next time so you don’t have to waste your time waiting while I’m sneaking around secret corridors and darting between cameras to let your ass in.”
“Are you done complaining so we can get this over with?” he asks as I pull up the floor plans for the house on my phone.
“Are you done bellyaching about how long it’s taking me to do all the actual work so we can get this over with?”
“Considering I just scaled a twenty-foot wall and played dodge the cameras with almost no cover to get here so I could wait for you, no, definitely not done bellyaching.”
“Come on.” I tuck my phone away. “And that wall is only nineteen and a half feet.”
“My mistake,” he says dryly as we retrace the route I took to get to him.
Once we’re back in the pantry, we slip into the corridor and follow the route I mapped out that takes us to a trapdoor in the ceiling that leads to the second floor.
“You sure that’s not going to make me pop up in someone’s room or another common space like a real-life game of whack-a-mole?” he asks, shining his flashlight on the trapdoor.
“Oh, ye of little faith. Have I ever steered you wrong?”
“Yes. Constantly. Usually on purpose.”
I grin. “Yeah, can’t argue that. But not this time. This will take you to a supply closet, and as long as you wait for me to get control of the cameras before you start your sleuthing, you’ll be fine.”
He presses on his earpiece to turn it on. “I’ll be waiting for your command.”
“You forgot to call me ‘Oh great one,’” I tell him as he pushes the trapdoor open.
He flips me off and boosts himself up. I watch as he disappears into the inky darkness and closes it behind him.
“All good?” I ask him through the earpiece. “No whack-a-mole danger?”
“All good,” he confirms. “Now hurry the fuck up.”
“So impatient.” I look back down at my phone to double-check my route. “It’ll take me about ninety seconds to get there.”
“Roger that.”
The line goes quiet as I hurry through the corridor, and this time, I exit into the electrical room for the house’s security system.
“I’m in,” I tell my brother and dig my burner laptop and some other supplies I need out of the backpack. “Now keep your pants on until I tell you it’s time.”
“Roger that.”
It takes another minute or so to hook into the system and get control of the cameras. When I do, I promptly set the ones around the private server room on a loop so they play the same thirty seconds of footage over and over again.
“I’m in,” I tell Jax.
“How does it look?”
I cycle through the cameras between where he is and where he needs to be. “Not a soul in sight. You good to get on the move?”
“Yep.”
“Okie dokie.” I set the camera outside of the room he’s still hiding in so it continuously re-records the past thirty seconds of footage while still letting me see the live feed. “First camera is clear.”
“Roger that.”
I watch as Jace slips out of the closet and silently creeps down the hall.
Keeping an eye on his progress, I cut and loop the recorded footage for each camera he passes to keep him out of sight, then turn it back to recording the live feed when he’s out of range.
The process is slow, but he manages to get up to the top floor of the house without incident.
“Want me to time you?” I ask as he kneels in front of one of the doors and pulls out his lock picks.
“Not particularly,” he says softly, his attention on the lock as he slips the picks into it.
“You sure? I bet you won’t beat my time when I was getting to the passageway.”
“Probably not because that lock is child’s play compared to the one I’m working with.”
“A convenient excuse if you ask me,” I say as I pack up my bag and sling the straps over my shoulder.
“Good thing nobody asked you.” He pulls the picks out of the lock and twists the knob.
“I’m headed to the server room,” I tell him when the door has closed behind him.
“Roger that.”
Using the map on my phone, I go back into the passage and make my way to another closet at the far end of the building.
Tapping into the device I left in the electrical room that gives me remote access to all of the cameras and door lock sensors, I bring up the camera feeds for the route I’m taking on my phone.
“On my way to the server room,” I tell Jax.
“Roger that.”
We’re silent as I creep down the hall and into the stairwell so I can get up to the top floor.
The server room is right next to the stairwell, and I tap Ben’s card on the sensor next to the door. There’s a soft click as it unlocks.
“Yahtzee,” I say quietly and slip into the small room.
“I take you’re in?” Jax says dryly.
“Yup. I take it you’re still sitting on your keister while I do all the work?”
“Not sitting, so you’re wrong twice.”
The server room is exactly what I expect—a row of tall cabinets full of electronic components that keep their closed system running.
“How long until you have control?”
“Shouldn’t be long,” I tell him as I search through a mess of wires for the one I need to hack into the system.
Jax keeps quiet as I hook my laptop up to the wire. Once I’m in, I do a quick check to make sure there are no hidden surprises or traps I need to worry about, then run the program I built to crack the access code and another to search out and copy any files that could be of interest to us.
“I’m in,” I tell him.
“Awesomesauce.”
Using the gift I left in the electrical room, I pull up the key log system and unlock Ben’s door.
“These morons have all the money in the world and can’t buy a working brain between them,” I tell Jax. “It’s laughable how easy it is to hack them. It’s like they want me to take over their system and make it my bitch.”
“You’re doing an awful lot of talking for someone who’s supposed to be getting me into Ben’s room,” he says in a flat tone.
“And you’re being awfully mouthy for someone who’s relying on me to get you into his room without getting caught,” I point out and bring up the camera feed in front of Ben’s room. “Give me a second to get this on a loop…and you’re good to go.”
I watch as Jax confidently walks across the hall and pushes the door to Ben’s room open.
“And that’s how it’s done.” I switch to the feed for the body cam he’s wearing since there are no security cams in the private rooms.
“It must be nice to be the one hiding in a server room while I take all the risk,” he says.
“I’d switch places with you, but it’s not my fault I gotta be the one behind the scenes keeping your ass safe.”
He snort-laughs. “Only because you won’t let me into your system so I can play Oracle.”
“Does a master artist let his assistant use his finished canvases to make their own attempts at art?” I ask innocently. “Does a Michelin-star chef let a busboy plate his masterpiece before serving it to his adoring public? Does a—”
“Are you about done singing your own praises so you can maybe focus on the job at hand?” he asks dryly.
“Never done singing my praises,” I tell him. “Who’s gonna toot my horn if I don’t?”
“So many jokes.”
“So, if I were the key to a secret safe hidden in a secret room, where would I be hiding?” I ask as I check the feed from the party again.