Nothing in Common, Except ...

Chapter 1-3

“What do we have?” Kyle Grayson asked John Tagert, the museum’s head of security.

He’d arrived less than ten minutes after the police, flashed a badge that proved he was a member of the Art Crime team, and had taken over the investigation. The fact that the officers presumed that meant he was FBI was neither here nor there, as far as he was concerned. As always, he wasn’t about to disabuse them of that idea.

“We have the impossible, Mr. Grayson,” Tagert replied dourly. “One missing historical revolver, with no explanation on how it disappeared.” He gestured toward the display case.

Kyle saw the empty space where the revolver should have been. “How do you get in there to change exhibits?”

“From the back. The problem is, the door wasn’t opened. Come on. I’ll show you.” Tagert led the way to the hallway behind the cases. “You need the proper code to access each case. Each code is different and when a door is opened, it’s recorded in the system. We have motion detectors for each case, and saturation ones on each hallway. We also have a CCTV system that monitors every area of the museum, day and night.”

“I take it none of the motion detectors went off, and nothing showed up on the monitors.”

“Wrong. The detectors did go off, but when the guards arrived, which only took a couple of minutes at best, no one was here, or anywhere close by.” Tagert shook his head. “No one could have gotten the door open, removed the revolver, and escaped in that timeframe, even if they had the access code. And, the system didn’t show that the door to this case had been opened.”

“Did anything show up on the CCTV monitors?” Kyle asked.

“Yes, but…”

“But?”

“Let’s go to the security office so you can see for yourself.”

When they got there, Tagert had one of the men bring up the video from the time of the robbery. “There. See?”

Kyle saw. One frame showed a figure dressed in black standing in front of the case. In the next one, he was inside it, removing the revolver from its display board. Then, he was gone. “Are you certain no one tampered with the video?” Kyle asked.

“There wouldn’t have been time to.”

“Even if there was an inside accomplice?”

“Well.” Tagert hesitated. “Possible, I suppose, but he’d have had only ten minutes at most to do it. Besides which, all of our people are thoroughly vetted before we hire them.”

“Money talks,” Kyle replied dryly. “If it was enough, it could have bought the thief the access code as well. If he knew what he was doing, he could have disarmed the motion sensors before going into the hallway, then armed them when he left.”

“I guess.” Tagert replied, obviously upset by that idea. He frowned, asking, “If someone did tamper with the tape, why leave those two frames? Why not delete the whole section showing his accomplice stealing the revolver?”

“Good question.”

Kyle was certain none of what he’d suggested had been what happened, and that the tape hadn’t been tampered with. This was the third such museum theft in the last six months. As far as he could determine, all of them had been accomplished in a matter of minutes. This was the first time a museum’s security cameras had caught anything. It was enough to reinforce for Kyle what he’d begun to suspect. The thief was not human. Not that he would tell the security officer he was talking to, or the police officers who’d first caught the case. Shifters didn’t need to be hunted down like rabid dogs by men who knew what they were doing, and he had no doubt that could happen. Too many humans were afraid of anything they didn’t understand.

“I’ll need to talk to everyone who was working last night,” Kyle told Tagert. “Someone might have noticed something, or someone, that will help my investigation.” He was certain that wouldn’t happen, but he’d be remiss if he didn’t question them, since there was a good possibility that the thief had cased the display sometime before he’d made his move to steal the revolver.

It turned out, he was correct. No one had seen anything, or remembered anyone who had seemed overly interested in the display.

He thanked Tagert for his help and took off, passing two men in suits heading toward Tagert’s office that he knew instantly were Feds. “Beat you,” he said under his breath before his thoughts returned to the thief.

So who are you? Have you been hired to steal the items, or are you a private collector? And how the hell will I find out one way or the other, since there’s no rhyme or reason to what you’ve taken, other than it’s all been from museums? Or…has it?