Page 62 of Belgian Betrayal

Catya rolled her eyes and cupped her hands. He stepped into them, reached up to the lowest branch and pulled himself up. He quickly climbed to a branch that came within four feet of the balcony.

Fearghas leaped from the branch to the balcony, the toe of one foot catching between two wrought iron rails, his hands gripping the top rail.

Almost immediately, his toe slipped from its perch.

Fearghas fell, catching himself by hooking his arms over the rail. He swung his leg up over the top and rolled onto the balcony. He pushed to his hands and knees and stood, giving Catya a thumbs up.

She stared up at him with a hand pressed to her chest. “I won’t have to worry about someone killing you,” she said in a harsh whisper. “You’re going to do it all by yourself.”

Fearghas shook his head and tried the handle of one of the French doors. It was locked, but the lock between the two sides of the door was loose. He gripped both handles and gave them a sharp yank.

The doors opened without breaking the lock or the door.

He stepped into a sitting room with a modern white leather sofa, a glass-topped coffee table and two glass-topped end tables. The floor was a gray hardwood with a fluffy black shag area rug in front of the white sofa.

Fearghas tread lightly through the room in case Cassandra Miles didn’t live alone. Three doors led off the sitting room. The door to the right was open to a large bedroom with a huge bed in the center. The one to the left was an office with an ebony desk and a white leather office chair. He went on to the door directly across from the French doors, finding that it led to a landing that overlooked a living area on the floor below.

Fearghas entered the only other room on that floor to discover a guest bedroom decorated in seafoam green and white. The bed was neatly made as if ready for a guest to drop in at any time.

Knowing Catya would be impatiently waiting for him to let her in, Fearghas glanced over the landing railing to the living area below, searching for interior cameras.

When he didn’t see any, he descended the stairs to the main level, found a hallway to the rear of the townhouse and unlocked the back door.

“Took you long enough,” Catya groused. “Any cameras or a security system?”

Fearghas shook his head. “Surprisingly, no. Or at least not that I could tell.”

“Then let’s make this quick. I don’t want her housekeeper to arrive while we’re poking through her belongings.”

They went room by room on the ground level, starting with the laundry room, kitchen and then the living room with its two-story ceiling and sleek, stylish furniture. A short stack of mail was the only personal item lying around.

“Is it kind of sterile to you?” Catya asked.

Fearghas nodded. “That’s a good word for it. No photos of Cassandra or any family members, including the husband, who died several years ago. She has an office upstairs off the master suite. I ducked in, but not long enough to look around.”

They climbed the stairs and looked around the sitting room, studying a bookshelf against one wall filled with classic books and picture books of iconic places like Rome, Greece and Egypt.

Fearghas opened a few of the books to check for any items tucked inside.

When Catya wandered into the study, Fearghas followed.

A laptop lay on the desk.

Catya lifted it, inspecting the exterior first. She tapped the side, pointing at a specific port. “It has a place for a disk like the one we had.”

She opened the laptop.

The screen came up without requiring a password.

“No password?” Fearghas shook his head. “Anyone could get into it.”

Catya tapped several keys. “There should be someplace that shows the most recent files or documents opened.” After several more clicks, she found what she was looking for. “There.” She pointed to a line indicating a file had been opened from an external drive. “I bet that was the disk.”

Catya looked around the desk, opened drawers and practically stood on her head to look at the underside of the desk for any hidden compartments. “Unless she has a really good hiding place, it’s not here.”

Fearghas walked around the room, checking behind wall art for a secret safe, finding nothing. “If she didn’t want someone to break into her flat and steal it, she would have taken it with her and kept it on her person.”

“Or stored it in a safe deposit box in a bank,” Catya suggested.

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