The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series) (2 page)

It was almost dark when I got out of the taxi, sunset brought early by the dense metal-grey clouds that had settled over the city like a menacing swarm of alien spaceships. The building entrance was shadowy, lit only by a nearby streetlamp, and wind swept along the narrow road, carrying with it the threat of heavier rain. I ran up the steps into the lobby, past a few businessmen who were straggling out, briefcases in hand.

I’d been here many times and knew my way to Ethan’s office, but usually the building was bright and busy. This evening, silence coated it like a layer of dust. My heart thudded as I headed along a gloomy hallway lined with closed office doors. The old oak floor squeaked with every step.

I tapped on Ethan’s door and pushed it open. The room was empty, but the overhead lights blazed. The window was raised a few centimeters, letting in rain that puddled on the sill and dripped down the wall. When I rushed over to close it, wondering why Ethan had left it open, I noticed a wide crack across the bottom pane, which I couldn’t recall being there before. I peered out into the darkness, hearing the distant roar of traffic on the main road before I secured the window latch. The room fell quiet, the hush disturbed only by the hum of Ethan’s computer. His screensaver showed images of Egyptian pyramids.

When I noticed his briefcase open on the credenza, I breathed a little more easily. He must still be in the building. I dumped my shoulder bag on the floor while I twirled in Ethan’s swivel chair, looking at the framed photos on his desk. One featured Ethan as best man at my brother’s wedding. With unkempt hair and stylish glasses, Ethan stood six inches shorter than Leo— but then my brother was taller than most people, including me. They both grinned at the camera, handsome in morning coats and ties. They’d been best friends since they were kids. We’d all stayed in touch over the years so when Ethan moved back to London after a long stay in New York, he and I regularly met up for dinner or drinks.

The other frame held a photo of Ethan’s dad, who’d died in a car crash six weeks earlier. It had been a terrible shock. I was anxious to see Ethan this evening, to see how he was doing.

After another twirl in the chair, I checked my watch, wondering where he could be. I retrieved my phone from my bag and texted him again, but the message showed as Undelivered. That must mean he’d turned off his mobile. Or, knowing Ethan, he’d forgotten to charge it. He always complained about running out of power, as though a dead battery was an indignity imposed on him by some higher force. I took a quick look around the office, but couldn’t see his phone, so he must have it with him. I tried calling, but his voicemail clicked on. I left a message.

“Ethan, it’s Kate. Have you forgotten we’re having dinner this evening? Call me. Text me. I’m starving.”

A sudden gust of wind shook the window. A door slammed somewhere, making me jump. I was tired of waiting. When another squall rocked the old building I picked up my bag and headed for the door. Ben, Ethan’s assistant, might still be working, and he’d know where Ethan was. I walked a few steps along the hallway and stopped at Ben’s door, which hung ajar. Ben wasn’t inside, but the office lights were on, and so was his computer. Perhaps he and Ethan were in a meeting somewhere.

I’d check the conference room upstairs, I decided, and the kitchen. If I didn’t find Ethan in either place, I’d leave him a note and go to the pub to join Laura and the others. It was a short walk to the kitchen, which I found unlit and deserted. I retraced my steps to the front lobby, passing the men’s toilet on the way. On a whim, I pushed the door open and yelled Ethan’s name. There was no answer, only the sound of water dripping from a tap or cistern.

I tromped along the corridor, my irritation mounting with each step. It was almost seven thirty, the time of our dinner reservation. I’d been late, but now Ethan was even later. And he still wasn’t answering his phone. All my doubts came flooding back. Had that been Ethan getting into the taxi? And if it were, had I seen an aura over his head or just imagined it? The dusky light and drizzly rain had reduced visibility, and I’d been some distance away. On the other hand, I’d never once imagined an aura that wasn’t actually there. In fact, I often pretended they weren’t present when they were. My life ran so much more easily when I ignored them.

In the lobby I pressed the button for the lift. Then I changed my mind. It was irrational, but I hated using lifts in empty buildings. What if it broke down? I might have to spend the night in a dark, enclosed space. Instead, I took the stairs up three flights to the top floor. There, the hallway was still lit but the office doors were open to dark rooms. Rain rattled on a skylight and wind whistled through the eaves. When I reached the conference room, it was deserted. In the gloom, empty chairs circled a barren black table. The room felt abandoned, as though no one had visited it for years.

I’d had enough. Clutching my bag to my side, I moved back down the stairs as fast as I could without breaking into a run. On the second flight down, I heard the rumble of a vacuum cleaner, a surprisingly soothing sound. When I reached the lobby, a middle-aged man in overalls was pushing a cleaner around. He didn’t hear me walk past, but I felt better for seeing him. His presence relieved the tomb-like feeling of the deserted building.

On the front steps I paused, looking up and down the street. Was it Ethan I’d seen getting into the taxi? It must have been, as he didn’t appear to be in the building. But then I thought back to his empty office, with the lights still on, the open window, and his briefcase open on the credenza. None of it made any sense.

Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. At last it was a message from Ethan. But it only added to the mystery. I didn’t understand it.

“Safe in library, bring contents to restaurant.”

I quickly typed a message back to Ethan. “Where are you?”

After waiting for what seemed like a long time, I sent it again, but there was no answer. I reread Ethan’s odd text several times. He said to bring something to the restaurant, Le Papillon, where we had a reservation. The first part of the message, however, was a puzzle. “Safe in library…” Did he mean
he
was safe in a library? What library and where?

The only person who might know what to make of this was my brother, Ethan’s best friend. I went back inside and crossed the lobby to sit on the bottom tread of the staircase. The janitor had moved on, whirring his way up the ground floor corridor.

Leo picked up as soon as his phone rang.

“It’s Kate,” I said. “Are you busy? I need your help with something.”

“No, just marking papers,” he said. “Which is a bit grim for a Friday evening, but it has to be done.” Leo taught mathematics at Oxford University and seemed to work the same crazy hours as his students.

“That’s no fun,” I said.

“Yeah well, Olivia’s taken the boys to see a superhero film that I really couldn’t face. What do you need help with?”

“I’m worried about Ethan. He missed our date, he isn’t in his office, and he sent me a weird text. I don’t know what it means.”

I didn’t mention the aura. Leo knew about my bizarre ability to see them. He’d taken a while to acclimatize to the idea, and I knew he hoped my ‘gift’ would go away as suddenly as it had arrived. For now, there was no point in complicating the story.

“What was the message?” Leo asked.

I read it out. “Safe in library. Take contents to restaurant.”

“What restaurant?” Leo asked.

“Le Papillon, the French restaurant where we were planning to eat this evening. That part I get. But who is safe in a library? And where?”

I waited impatiently as Leo hummed
Stairway to Heaven
. He always hummed seventies tunes when he was thinking something through.

“I have an idea,” he said. “Ethan told me recently that his company is overhauling all its security systems, their computers mostly, but also adding physical protection on site. I suppose they work with a lot of confidential political and financial information. Anyway, Ethan said the company had installed a safe at work to store his important papers and research materials. It’s in the book cupboard.”

“Oh, that library,” I said. Ethan’s office adjoined a walk-in cupboard that he’d fitted out with shelves to hold all his work-related books and magazines. He jokingly called it his Library with a capital L.

“So there’s something in the safe… but how do I get into it?”

“Well, I’d bet his passcode is his date of birth.”

“Really? What makes you say that? It could be anything.”

“He had a safe put in at his house as well. All that security stuff must have got to him. Do you remember when we went to his house for the wake after his father’s funeral? He showed it to me then. Personally, I think it’s overkill. I keep my valuables in my underwear drawer.”

“You don’t own any valuables, Leo.”

“Good point. Anyway, when he showed it to me, he keyed in his birthdate. 30-07-83.”

“Well, it’s worth a try. I’ll ring you back later to let you know what I find out.”

Walking back up the hallway to Ethan’s office, I passed the janitor, who smiled and moved his vacuum cleaner to one side to let me pass. The machine smelled of dust and warm metal.

Even with the janitor close by, I didn’t like being in Ethan’s empty office. My skin prickled with goosebumps and my stomach was doing flips. The sooner I found whatever was in the safe and got out of there, the better. I pushed open the door to the book cupboard, fumbling around for a light switch. When the overhead lights came on, I saw neatly arranged bookshelves along two walls. There was no obvious sign of a safe so, starting at the top, I pulled out a few books at random along the length of each shelf. Finally, I found the safe hidden behind a series of heavy hardback volumes with titles like
Analysis of the European Financial Stability Mechanism.
Fun reading no doubt.

The beige steel door was closed and a red light blinked to show that the safe was locked. Fingers shaking, I worked on Leo’s assumption that the code would be Ethan’s date of birth, and keyed it in, hoping the format was
ddmmyy.
It worked. The lock clicked and a green indicator light flashed. My heart beat fast in anticipation as I reached in to withdraw the contents.

The only item was a large book that fit so tightly in the small metal interior of the safe I had to use two hands to pull it clear. It was a leather-bound volume with gold letters tooled on the cover. But I didn’t have time to examine it because a noise in Ethan’s office startled me. Sliding the book into my shoulder bag, I peeked out, relieved to see it was the cleaner, dragging his vacuum into the office. I pushed the safe door closed and rearranged the books in front of it. Then I coughed loudly as I turned off the light, so that I wouldn’t scare the janitor when I appeared at the door of the cupboard. Enveloped in the roar of the vacuum, he gave me a cheery wave when he saw me. I paused, trying to decide whether to bring Ethan’s briefcase with me. But he hadn’t requested it, so I left it on the credenza and went out into the hallway.

I checked my watch. It was just after eight. The restaurant where I was supposed to meet Ethan was a ten-minute walk away, so I sped up, anxious to get there and find out what Ethan was up to. His text was very mysterious.

The rain had stopped, and the streets were busy with Friday night revelers piling into pubs and restaurants. My stomach growled. I already knew what I was going to order at Le Papillon. The cassoulet was excellent.

When I got there, I waited while the maitre d’ turned away a couple in front of me, wrinkling his nose when they explained they hadn’t reserved. He smiled when he recognized me, however, and led me straight to a table for two in a quiet corner of the busy restaurant. Ethan wasn’t there, but I sat down anyway, hoping he wouldn’t be long.

“Would you care for a drink?” the waiter asked. I ordered a glass of Sancerre. Gradually, my shoulders relaxed and my heart slowed down. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I’d find out soon enough.

Fifteen minutes later, I was none the wiser. Ethan still hadn’t arrived. And he wasn’t answering my texts. The maitre d’ had started casting sour looks in my direction. After another thirty minutes of waiting, I paid for my wine and hurried out of the restaurant.

Out on the pavement, I stood, indecisive. I was hungry and confused. It seemed best to go home. I’d keep trying to reach Ethan from there.

I walked slowly through a misty drizzle to the Westminster Tube station and took the circle line towards Bayswater. The carriage was full, so I had to stand, gripping a handrail, trying not to imagine the layers of germs left there by other sweaty palms.

When the train stopped at Gloucester Road, I had an idea and jumped off. It was only a two-minute walk from there to Ethan’s house. Although it seemed unlikely that he’d be home, I’d check to be sure. His behavior this evening had been so mystifying that I’d be happy to pick up any clue as to what was happening.

He lived in Kensington on a quiet side street near Cromwell Road. Having been there many times, I knew my way around his flat on the ground floor of a converted Georgian house. And I had a key, courtesy of the time he’d picked up a stray cat and then left for a conference in Switzerland two days later. He’d persuaded me to go over to feed the poor thing for the week he was away. His landlady, Joyce, deciding that the kitty needed more— or better— company than Ethan could provide, had since adopted it as her own.

She lived in the flat upstairs from Ethan’s, but kept an eagle eye out for the comings and goings of her tenant. I hoped she’d be asleep when I got there, so I could get in and out without having to explain what I was doing. She’d be worried sick if she found out Ethan was missing.

The door into the building wasn’t locked, which made me hesitate, but I pushed it open to find the hall empty, lit by a nightlight. I slipped in and closed the door behind me just as the main hall light came on, revealing Joyce, standing at the top of the stairs, resplendent in a pink dressing gown and matching slippers. Her silvery hair was tied neatly in a bun and she wore reading glasses on a chain around her neck.