Having finally returned from his trip to Connecticut, Theo decided to swing by Lila’s apartment and surprise her with some flowers and a pizza. While Theo hasn’t actually done anything wrong he has felt a bit bad about not being able to spend the time with Lila that he would like to. Of course Lila being the selfless person that she is has said nothing about the dramatic decrease in time spent with each other, at least, not to Theo.

As soon as he landed Theo gave Lila a call to let her know that he was back in town and that if she wanted he would love to stop by. She did and so after picking up the flowers and pizza, extra cheese with bacon, her favorite Theo showed up to the apartment some 35 minutes after hanging up the phone with his girlfriend. Two knocks later and Lila came to the door, wearing a white tank top, shorts and a towel on her head. Obviously she took the time to shower and freshen up while Theo was on his way over. A good sign if there ever was one.

After 30 minutes of eating, some chit chat and a kiss or two they made the join decision to leave Lila’s apartment and make the trip over to Theo’s for a movie and a night cap. On the way they stopped for some coffee. Theo was suffering from a little jet lag and needed the infusion of caffeine. What he would have given for a bump or two of his old love, the Peruvian Flake. But that was a different time, a different, Theo. And Theo is pretty certain that Lila would be none too pleased if she found Theo in his office doing rails of coke of a stripper’s bare buttocks as he has been known to do.

As Theo pulled up the drive way the motion sensors are activated and illuminate not only the top of the drive way but the main entrance to Theo’s home. The two make their way into the home and then down the main hallway and into the family room. That is until Theo does an about face and walks back into the hallway and just stares at the wall until Lila comes looking for him.


“Theo what’s the matter? I was talking to you thinking you were still right behind me but when I turned around you were gone.”

…….

“Is everything ok? Why are you staring at a blank wall?”

“Because it’s not a blank wall…or at least, it’s not supposed to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is supposed to be a painting hanging from here, an extremely expensive painting.”

“Are you saying that you were robbed?”

“Yes I believe I am.”

“Should we call the police?”

“What? No. This house has a state of the art security system, if the painting was stolen, it will have been caught on camera.”

“Well, and pardon me if this comes out wrong, but if your security system is state of the art then why is your painting missing?”

“No, that came out perfectly fine. But it did sting a little.”


Theo turns around and walks down a flight of stairs that were located about 15 feet from where they were presently standing. Having been given no indication if Theo wanted her to follow or not she pauses for a few seconds to weigh her options and then decides that curiosity has won out and down the steps she goes.

Having only been in Theo’s home a handful of times, and never down into the basement she was not sure where to go next as the steps end at the mouth of a long hallway with various doors off to each side. Out into the distance Lila hears Theo yelling…


“Down the hall, third door on your right.”


With a lack of other options Lila walks down the hall and sure enough there sits Theo, in front of a bank of computer screens. There are 3 in front of him and another 6 mounted to the wall. On the wall to Lila’s right is a black metal case attached to the wall, the contents of which appear to be 6 shotguns. As Lila approaches Theo she can tell that what he is watching on the screens in front of him are camera feeds that contain footage of the interior and exterior of his home. Each of the 3 screens in front of him is broken into 4 squares, each of them containing views from a different camera.


“What is this? You have camera’s in every room? Including your bedroom? You have filmed us…”

“Well yes and no. Yes, I have cameras in every room, as well as covering every square inch of my property. Yes, what we have done has been on camera but no one sees this footage but me.”

“So what, it’s still on film. That’s a total violation of my privacy.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. Tell you what, when I am done here I will gladly give you all the tapes since we have been dating and you can do whatever you want with them. I am sorry I didn’t think to mention this to you. To be honest I very rarely ever come down here so it pretty much just skipped my mind. This is actually the first time since I have lived here that I have had to view these recordings.”

“Well I appreciate that you will give me the tapes but I would rather you just destroy them here, rather than risk them getting out to the public.”

“That’s fair. I can’t imagine your father would be pleased to see you on the newest episode of “To Bang A Billionaire.”

“No I suspect he wouldn’t. So tell me, what are you looking for here?”

“Well I haven’t been here at all in the last few days as far as I can remember the painting was here when I left. So what I am looking for is who and or when the painting went missing. Right now I am just rewinding through the last few days to see what comes up.”

“And you are confident that your camera’s caught whatever happened?”

“For what I pay for this security system they damn well better have.”

“Well that brings up a good point, if your security system is so great, how did someone get in here in the first place?”

“Also something I hope to answer with these tapes.”

“Did anyone have access to your home over the last few days?”

“Are you a Private Investigator now?”

“What if I was?”

“Then I would ask you why you still went to 8 am classes?”

“Touche.”

“To answer your question Dick Tracy, the only two people who had access to my home over the last few days are the cleaning lady, whom I trust implicitly, she has been used by my family for decades. And Eric, the kid down the road who comes and let’s Apollo out.”

“I don’t remember you ever mentioning Eric before. And speaking of which, where is Apollo at anyway?”

“With my sister. As for Eric, he’s just some high school kid from down the street who I pay to let the dog out. Before I started working in the XWF and met Luca Arzegotti and then Michael McBride, Eric was the kid who sold me drugs.”

“You bought drugs from a kid?”

“What? He’s industrious…who am I to deny his right to make a buck? It's the American Dream.”

“Do you actually believe the things that you say?”

“Sometimes. Ahhh, here we go.”

“What is it?”

“You see there on the left screen? Bottom quadrant.”

“It’s a bit small, what am I looking at?”

“I bet that’s not the first time you have ever said that to a guy.”


Smack!


“I suppose I deserved that. Here I am going to put it on the big screen so we can both see it.”


Theo presses a few buttons and within seconds the small image that was previously on one of the screens in front of him is now on the big screen 65 inch screen mounted to the wall.


“You see that? According to the time stamp at the bottom right at 1:04 AM someone came into my home and then proceeded to detach the painting from the wall and then literally walk right out the front door.”

“So much for that state of the art security system you were just bragging about. And by the way I don’t recall you deactivating it when we got here.”

“You know something, you are absolutely right. What the hell is going on?”


Theo presses a few buttons on his keyboard and then starts reading over what has now appeared on the screen to his right.


“Son of a bitch.”

“What is it?”

“Well apparently Eric has not been turning my security system on and off when he enters and or exits the place. So this person, whoever he or she is either knew that, or got really lucky and broke into a heavily secured home that happened to have all of its security features turned off.”

“Has Eric done this before? Been so forgetful I mean?”

“Who knows? Even if he was the cleaning lady comes and goes and I know she turns the system on and off. So it’s very possible that she was covering up for him without even realizing it. And this is why you never trust a pot head.”

“So can you zoom in on that image and see who it was that stole the painting?”

“Yes I can but the best angle to get any type of identification would be from the camera that hangs directly over the front door and pointing down into the main foyer.”


A few more key strokes and…


“Bam. There’s the guy.”






To Be Continued