bedroom wall here in the security

He read the message from the top: FRIC IS MAKING HIMSELF A HIDEY-HOLE IN THE CONSERVATORY—Much of Yorn’s complaint meant nothing to Corky, but the stuff about the hidey-hole definitely interested him. With his two targets roving beyond Corky’s ken, he needed to get to another Crestron panel, and fast. One was inlaid in the bedroom wall here in the security chief’s apartment, but Truman might return at any moment, while Corky was distracted in the other room. He saw something on the floor, near the sofa. A cell phone. As if it had been not dropped but flung aside. Cautiously he returned to the west hall. He followed it to the door of the McBees’ apartment. The blueprints had specified a Crestron panel in their living room. Happily, they were in Santa Barbara. According to Ned Hokenberry, in order to facilitate cleaning and other household services, the live-in staff seldom locked the doors to their private quarters other than when they were in residence. Good old dead Hokenberry, the freak, proved to be as reliable as the blueprints. Corky entered the McBee apartment and closed the door behind him. Next to the front door, the Crestron panel brightened at his touch. He didn’t bother with a lamp. A quick motion-detector scan through the ground floor showed no blip except Corky’s, here in the McBee living room. On the second floor, someone turned out of the west hall into the long north wing, proceeding in the direction of the library. Perhaps Truman. Perhaps the young Manheim. Whichever, he appeared to be hurrying. No movement or detectable body heat on the third floor. He surveyed the two subterranean levels. Nothing. [564] The figure on the second floor had reached the library. The blip had to be Ethan Truman. He must have gone up there by the back stairs in the west wing. Where was the boy? Undetected. Not moving. Not producing any heat within range of the sensors. The kid could be in his bedroom or a bathroom. No sensors in those areas. Or he might be hunkered in his hidey-hole in the conservatory.