Another ten seconds had passed.

Breathing a little heavily, the man watched as the body sank out of sight, weighed down by the chain and scooter. Then he walked back to the bench, carefully transferred the wrapped object from the backpack to his Gladstone bag, and closed them both. He paused to straighten his tie and smooth down his suit jacket. Then he started briskly down the walkway, up the stone staircase, and past the bicycle, dropping the backpack in a nearby trash bin as he went.

He lit another Gauloise and readjusted his grip on the bag before flagging down a cab at the Place Saint-Michel.

2

One hour later

CLIVE BENTON SLOWED his vintage Ford Falcon to the side of Wild Irish Road, pulled into a turnoff, and eased the car along a dusty track until it was no longer visible from the thoroughfare. He got out of the Falcon, put up the top, and hoisted a small day pack onto his shoulders. Taking out his phone, he loaded a hiking app and located his position, found a bearing, and set off through the forest. The tall fir trees and lodgepole pines were widely spaced, providing an open forest floor that made walking easy. Despite the season, there wasn’t even a nip of cold: the air was still deceptively heavy with a drowsy kind of warmth. Looking eastward from between the trees, Benton could see the foothills rising to the distant peaks of the Sierra Nevada, gray teeth against blue. They would soon be covered in snow.

Benton was a historian, and he knew as much about the history of this area as any man alive. It had been the heart of California ’49er territory—placer gold country. He could see where hydraulic mining had once scarred the hills with cuts and hollows, the terrain blasted away by gigantic jets of water, which ran the gravel through enormous sluice boxes to capture flakes of gold. But those days were long gone, and these foothills at the western edge of the Sierras, some forty-five miles outside of Sacramento, were mostly depopulated. The scattering of old mining towns—with names like Dutch Flat, Gold Run, Monte Vista, You Bet, and Red Dog—had fallen on hard times. Some had vanished completely, while in a few others, intrepid folk had restored the mining shacks and battenboard hotels as tourist attractions or summer cottages. And the area was in fact beginning to draw a stream of tourists, hikers, and those seeking vacation homes. A development boom had been predicted for years, and now, finally, it seemed to be coming to pass.

Those Gold Rush mansions of the lucky few to have struck it rich could still be found here and there, tucked away in valleys and flats, shuttered and decaying. Benton paused, checking his direction. He was approaching one of those ruined mansions—one that held special meaning for him. The GPS told him it lay a thousand yards to the east of his position, over a low ridge. It was called the Donner House, as it had once belonged to the daughter of Jacob Donner—of the infamous Donner Party.

Benton proceeded carefully, silently, keeping to the shadowy parts of the forest. As he climbed the ridge, he slowed. Through the trees he saw bits of orange and yellow, along with a flash of metal, which he knew were two big bulldozers lined up on an old mining road, ready to descend upon the Donner House and turn it into a heap of brick, stucco, and splintered wood beams, making way for a new golf course and condo development along the Bear River.

As he approached, the outlines of the dozers and the truck that had transported them began to materialize. The truck was idling, and he could smell diesel fumes from its engine, mingled with the scent of cigarette smoke and the murmur of workmen. He made a wide detour around them, hurrying across the road at a point where he couldn’t be seen. Moving down the ridge, he could now make out the old house: an early example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style. He came to a low wall at the edge of the forest, which marked the property’s boundary. Crouching behind it, he inspected the house carefully. It had once been striking, with a long, low whitewashed portal along one side, above which stood a Moorish dome and belfry. But the red-tiled roofs had caved in; the windows were gone, leaving gaping dark holes; and the extensive gardens and arboretum had grown into a wild and almost impassable jungle of weeds, dead bushes, and specimen trees suffocated by creepers. The building itself was choked in ivy growing up its walls and erupting from holes in its roof. It was a tangible example, Benton thought, of the ephemeral nature of the world: sic transit gloria mundi. What a crime that by this time tomorrow it would all be gone, bulldozed into a smoking pile of bricks and plaster. Preservationists had tried mightily to save the old wreck, but the numerous descendants who had been arguing over the property for fifty years could find only one solution—its demolition and sale—and the developer’s dollars trumped the preservationists’ pleas.

He glanced back up at the ridge. The workmen had finished unloading the dozers and the truck was revving up, belching a cloud of black diesel, starting to pull out. The workmen—four that he could make out—and their personal vehicles were parked down the road, but they were making no move to leave. In fact, it looked like they might be getting ready to make a final recon of the house.

Damn, he’d better get moving. What he was doing was technically breaking and entering, but he assured himself it was in service to a higher ideal. And could you really break and enter into a house that was about to be torn down, anyway?

Benton leaped the wall and scurried through the overgrown garden, taking refuge on the ruined porch. When all looked clear, he ducked through an open doorway, finding himself in a spare, cool reception hall smelling of dust and old wood. The place had been cleared of valuables, but some worthless broken-down furniture remained. He did a quick search of the downstairs—the salon, kitchen, courtyard, dining room, servants’ quarters, pantries, and closets—and found nothing. He was not concerned by that; he did not expect what he was searching for would be there.

He quickly mounted the decaying stone staircase to the second floor. He paused to look out the window and was dismayed to see the four workmen bulling their way down through the shrubbery to the house. He should have come earlier. It was five o’clock, and he’d assumed they would have gone home for the day by now.

A search of the second floor revealed nothing of interest, either. The old chests that remained fell apart in his hands, the closets were empty, and a few rotting bureaus held nothing more than blankets and clothes chewed up into rats’ nests. A few chromolithographs adorned the walls or lay broken on the floor, stained and foxed.

He knew an attic sat under the Moorish dome, but he couldn’t seem to find the stairs up to it. As he moved about, he suddenly heard voices echoing downstairs, accompanied by coarse laughter.

Would the workmen come upstairs? Of course they would. They would have been told to make a final sweep of the house, looking for anything of value and making sure no squatters were living inside. Which meant they’d look everywhere.

He moved into the center corridor of the second floor, walking slowly, examining the walls. These old haciendas often had hidden doorways. And there it was: a recessed bookcase, holding just a handful of wormy books. Its empty state made the seam along its outer edge all the more obvious. He gave a heave on the side of the case with his shoulder, and as he hoped, it pivoted out, exposing a staircase leading upward. He slipped through and carefully turned the bookcase back into place, hoping—expecting—that the workmen would not notice it. Surely they wouldn’t realize the dome held an attic room…would they?