My main struggle with this chapter was keeping the momentum going. Lots of stories by great authors get slow in the middle. I know it takes a lot of work injecting suspense and drama. In my next story, I’ll take more time to hone these skills, learning how to best do that while keeping a consistent voice and sticking to the plot.
Prologue | Chapter I | Chapter II
CHAPTER III
Laila woke up frustrated the next morning. She was supposed to be focusing on the Kohinoor, but her mind kept returning to the photograph that all but destroyed her mother. The picture will be there forever—the diamond will be here in three days!
This left her even less time to work on strategy. Laila couldn’t wait until Tuesday to figure out what kind of security she was up against. I need mum to show me where the safe is today, and hopefully I can figure out how to crack it in the next day and a half. The Met Gala was in a week’s time, and the Royals would remove it from the safe sometime before then. After the team lead set it into the choker, the jewel would be shipped across the Atlantic. Laila would lose her chance at the Kohinoor forever.
Laila wasn’t too worried about the Museum’s security cameras after finding out the Kohinoor was to be stored in her mother’s office. She went in and out of there all the time, and nobody questioned Laila’s intentions—besides, of course, Dr. Croft herself. After looking at her mum’s calendar, she saw that Dr. Croft was up to her cheekbones in meetings this week: people would be going in and out of the office all the time. By the time the Royals realized the Kohinoor was a fake, the suspect list would be at least 50 people long: and Laila, the head curator’s daughter, was sure to be at the bottom of it.
Assuming she didn’t get caught, of course. If she did, Laila would end up locked in the Tower of London like the Kohinoor has been for the past couple centuries. Maybe they’d take her corpse out every once in a while and show it at the Museum: Traitors and Thieves, a Limited Time Exhibition. Her mother would have plenty of archival material to choose from.
After a long night of eating chocolate-espresso beans and running different plans by the demonic tabby, Laila devised a way to get her mother to reveal the safe’s location. When Laila was a child, her love for classic detective stories got her thinking about being an investigator. That is, until she turned thirteen and learned about paperwork and polyester police uniforms. But all throughout her adult life, she’d often reread the stories of Sherlock Holmes. It was his attention to detail and air-tight reasoning that made him a great detective. Laila found that similar thought processes are applicable to problem solving in any field, including fashion. And heist pulling.
For this particular plan, Laila took inspiration from “A Scandal in Bohemia”: Holmes faked a fire to get Irene Adler to reveal the location of some important papers. When threatened with fire, Holmes explained to Watson, we run to save what we value most. Laila’s flatmate, for example, would scramble to save her horrid cat. Laila would never admit it, but she’d let the tabby die and grab a pair of shoes or two instead. Her mother would, undoubtedly, throw her most valuable artifacts in the “fire-proof, bomb-proof, and idiot-proof” safe. Even though the Kohinoor wasn’t there yet, it was learning the location, make, and model of the safe that was important at this stage.
Laila was, of course, not going to set her mother’s office on fire. At least not until she repatriated all the stolen artifacts on its walls and shelves. Thankfully, she had something Sherlock Holmes didn’t: a fire alarm. She’d just have to make sure nobody saw her pulling it.
Laila drew the blinds in her office room and turned up some music so it was barely audible just outside the door. She didn’t think anyone would come looking for her, but it looked like she was busy working if anyone wanted to know her whereabouts. After checking that the coast was clear, Laila left the office in a completely new outfit: slacks, a white button down, and red tie that mirrored the Museum’s security guard uniform. She topped it off with a bald cap and the pièce de résistance: a mid-sized beard plastered on her cheeks and chin. These theatrics were, of course, unnecessary—a baseball cap would have probably sufficed—but you might as well go all-in when you’re stealing the most valuable diamond in the world.
Laila sprinted up four flights of stairs and made a mental note to start jogging before her next big heist. Laila wedged the door open and poked her head out, making sure the coast was clear. She chose an administrative floor that was far from the archives, fairly quiet, and free of Museum guests. Everyone here was either too focused or tired to notice her emerge from the stairwell. She briskly walked to the (empty) break room around the corner. From her pocket, Laila removed a hollowed-out, burnt potato with a smoke grenade hidden inside. She lit the grenade and tossed the potato in the toaster oven. After turning the oven on 240oC, she slowly backed away. The journey back to the stairwell door felt like an eternity, but nobody looked up from their desks.
The fire alarm was right near the emergency exit door—someone was clearly planning ahead. With a gloved hand, Laila pulled the alarm, sprinted back down the stairs, and ducked back into the office. The alarm was blaring at full force as Laila ripped off her disguise, peeled off her cap and beard, and stuffed it all in a rubbish bin under a heap of discarded paper. She hears the shuffle of people exiting the archives and joins them, all heading upstairs in a single file line.
Three hours later, Laila is sitting in her flat. She just finished speaking with her mum, who had to do some damage control with the fire department. The cause of smoke was attributed to a faulty microwave (the grenade’s remains were entirely obscured within the body of the potato). In light of recent events, the Museum was forced to schedule a mandatory fire safety training for all employees and have bi-annual emergency preparedness drills.
Laila rewound the camera’s feed to that afternoon’s footage, about 10 minutes before she pulled the fire alarm. Her mum was meeting with three eggheads in tweed. They seemed to be arguing about some ancient runes etched on a few pieces of rock. The meeting ends, and her mum begins examining the rubbish of interest with a comically large magnifying glass. Suddenly, the alarm starts to blare, and Dr. Croft arises with a start. She rests her hand on the door handle, testing it for warmth. Dr. Croft determines she has some time to save a few objects and turns back to her collection.
Lara’s mum grabs a huge sheaf of papers from inside her desk, an antique sword from a shelf behind her, and detaches the skull from the skeleton hanging in the corner. She then crouches on the floor (in her heels), setting everything down beside her neatly. Her hands graze the hardwood floor and press a panel firmly. A door pops open (Laila’s mum was also an avid reader of mystery novels)—a trapdoor safe! Laila looked closer at the screen: from where her camera was positioned, she couldn’t see what the safe looked like. But Laila did see her mum entering some sort of combination. And no retina scanner—thank god.
Dr. Croft places everything in the safe and is about to lock it up when she jumps up (gracefully, still in her heels) and rushes in front of the mask where Laila hid her camera. But, like before, she has no interest in the mask: only the thick, dusty volume shelved next to it. She’s about to take the book back to the safe when suddenly, the alarm stops.
Everything is fine. For now. Her mum exhales and places the book back on the shelf. Hands on her hips, she runs her fingers through her hair. Laila fast forwards the video so it’s a live feed: her mum is still in the office and probably will be for a few more hours. She’d have to wait until tomorrow to gain more intel about the safe.
Part II
The next morning, Laila wakes up and groans. Only two more days until I fail my ancestors. Today she will figure out how to crack the safe. Working in museums and the luxury goods industry made her pretty experienced with safes of all sorts. She was sure whatever model her mum chose would be a cut above anything she’s used to: but having access to manuals and a strong grasp on safe fundamentals would come in handy.
Laila glanced at her mother’s calendar: she was at the V&A all morning for some sort of charity event. Reading the event description, Laila smiled. It was a brunch celebrating a recent acquisition of butterflies (stolen) from the Amazon. Her mother hated these formal affairs, forced to socialize with those more interested in people funding the galleries than the priceless specimens that decked their walls.
Without her mother in the office, the job is easy: Laila walks right in. She was pretty sure nobody saw her enter, and if they did, she could always make up some rubbish excuse. Her mum would be pearls-deep in sad finger sandwiches and an even sadder conversation about the sorry state of said sandwiches. Laila glanced at her watch. She had at least another hour before the event was supposed to end—plenty of time to get the specs of the safe, find the mystery photograph, and get the hell out of there.
Laila kneeled down to where she thought her mother did yesterday, pressing around haphazardly for the spot. When the door finally popped open, Laila was met with a contraption that looked like it was designed by Apple: smooth and white, with the words MINERVA 2400 printed in small block letters on the bottom-right corner. She was surprised to find that the only thing that would protect the Kohinoor was an old-fashioned numeric code. If mum wanted simple, she’d done it—it doesn’t get any more elementary than this.
Granted, Laila didn’t know how many numbers the code was, what order they were in, or any idea what the digits could be. She pulled on some gloves and dusted for prints, enjoying the detective-like feeling. After she finished applying the powder, Laila saw that her mum only pressed seven keys: 1, 4, 8, 9, 0 and one marked “Open”.
And then, Laila heard it: the clicking. The unmistakable sound of her mother’s patent heels hitting the tile floor. Laila panicked, looked at her watch again, and started to sweat. She’s not supposed to be back for another 45 minutes—at least. She quickly wiped the safe clean of dust, closed the compartment, and leapt to the other side of the room, trying to find something to occupy herself.
When the door opened, Laila’s mother caught her daughter with her hands feeling the skeleton’s back teeth.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” her mother asked coldly. Laila turned abruptly, the bones of the skeleton rattling behind her.
“I was just trying to figure out if it was male or female”
“Female,” her mother said, slipping off her heels and sitting at her desk. “You can tell by the hips.”
“Right,” Laila said, trying to figure out why her mother was home well ahead of schedule. She probably got tired, was all. Even so, Laila expected that her mum would stay at the V&A bit longer, even if it was to steal away and just enjoy the exhibits alone.
“Will that be all?”
“No, I just—“ Laila was interrupted by a knock at the door. Her heartbeat quickened. Dad? She hadn’t seen him since that first day—it seemed like he wasn’t allowed on the premises unless absolutely necessary. Her mother’s assistant peeked in the door.
“Dr. Croft,” a voice said plainly, “I have an earl on the phone asking why you prematurely departed the V&A.” Laila raised her eyebrows. “And it seems that your—er—ex has somehow weaseled his way in and is asking about you.” Laila saw her mum’s lips press tightly together, a sign to those well-acquainted with Dr. Croft that the temperature of her blood in this instant could boil a mean cup of tea.
“Tell the Earl that I have some urgent business to attend to here.” A pause. “And then, quickly, help me come up with some sort of situation.” As she rushed out of the door, Dr. Croft took one glance back at her daughter. “I suppose you can stay if you like, but just remember—“
“Every one of these objects has a greater historical significance than both our lives put together,” Laila recited with mock acquiescence. “Yeah, I got it. Same rules since I was five.”
The door shut behind Laila’s mother, and just like that, Laila was alone again, in the office. No more surprises. I need a better place to stash the camera. Ideally, the new angle would have a clear view of the safe, so she could see her mother entering the combination. After experimenting with a few places, she couldn’t find a good hiding place with a clear enough shot. She settled on moving the camera into a potted plant directly above the secret compartment—she’d just have to zoom into the footage and hope that it wasn’t too grainy.
As a last resort, Laila did a quick sweep of her mother’s desk. I wonder if she kept the safe code written down somewhere. Mum’s pretty smart, but lots of older people have trouble with passwords, especially the long ones. The search turned up empty. Of course she bloody didn’t leave it lying around—if anything, it’s in another secret hidden compartment. Laila mentally prepared herself for a long night of studying the Minerva’s specifications.
On her way out, Laila grabbed the thickest, oldest volume off the shelf. She carefully opened the book and snapped a picture of the photograph that was wedged in the middle. She didn’t stop crying for an hour after she left the Museum.
This Week’s Top 3
- Radio 📟 – Chill bar in Oakland. Fun music, strange red lights—it’s all there.
- Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt 🌳 – hidden gem, only open afternoon (senior citizen) hours
- Mirzapur 📺 – seasons 1 & 2 on Amazon Prime. Godfather-ish plot meets Bollywood aesthetic meets Game of Thrones energy