Is she a suspect or a target?
A year after the chilling death of her mentor, criminologist Harley Frasier is still rattled. Secretly she’s suspected murder all along. Now the unveiling of the Amenmose exhibit is triggering a series of unexplained attacks, and she has only one man to trust.
FBI special gent Micah Fox is used to charging into dangerous territory to solve a case. Working with a civilian is new ground, especially when she’s as irresistible as Harley. He can’t say no to her sharp instincts and sexy smile. And with a threat closing in, there’s no way in hell he’ll leave her unprotected.
The Finnegan Connection
Harley wondered how she could feel someone so completely when she wasn’t even touching that person.
“I have to go,” Micah said. He walked to the door. Harley followed, ready to lock up when he left. She stayed a short distance behind him. She felt as if her flesh and blood, muscle and bone, had come alive, as if neurons or atoms or other chemical entities were flashing through her system with tiny sparks of red-hot fire. He had to leave, otherwise she’d embarrass herself.
But she didn’t really care.
Still, he was right. They needed time. Just because they could hook up didn’t mean they should forget that there were consequences to any deed, even if neither had any expectations.
At the door, he turned to her.
She walked forward, her eyes on his, until she was touching him, and when she did, he backed into the door. At the same time, his arms came around her.
She let herself touch his face. Stroke his cheek, feel the power in his arms as he drew her close. She shuddered with delicious abandon as she felt the heat of his body, the texture and strength in his muscles. And then she felt his mouth, crushing hers, and she returned the kiss with equal passion.
SHADOWS IN
THE NIGHT
New York Times Bestselling Author
Heather Graham
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than a hundred novels. She’s a winner of the RWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Thriller Writers’ Silver Bullet. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. For more information, check out her website, theoriginalheathergraham.com, or find Heather on Facebook.
Books by Heather Graham
Harlequin Intrigue
Law and Disorder
Shadows in the Night
MIRA Books
Wicked Deeds
Dark Rites
Dying Breath
A Perfect Obsession
Darkest Journey
Deadly Fate
Haunted Destiny
Flawless
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
Harley Frasier—Criminology student on Tomlinson’s expedition to find the tomb of the Ancient Egyptian ruler Amenmose.
Micah Fox—FBI special agent on leave from the DC office. Was once a student of Henry’s.
Henry Tomlinson—Egyptologist, scholar, explorer, mentor.
Arlo Hampton—Young, eager Egyptologist with Alchemy.
Ned Richter—CEO of Alchemy, the private corporation sponsoring the expedition.
Vivian Richter—Eager Egyptologist and Ned’s wife.
Belinda Gray—Egyptology student with a military fiancé in the Middle East.
Roger Eastman—Tech-oriented grad student.
Joe Rosello—Egyptology grad student and major flirt.
Jensen Morrow—Grad student in Egyptology, good-looking, hardworking, close to Harley.
Satima Mahmoud—Local interpreter.
Yolanda Akeem—Egyptian government liaison.
Gordon Vincent—Director, New Museum of Antiquity.
McGrady and Rydell—NYPD detectives.
Richard Egan—Supervising director, New York City office of the FBI.
Craig Frasier—Harley’s cousin. FBI agent in the New York City office. Involved with Kieran.
Kieran Finnegan—Psychologist who consults for law enforcement. Co-owner of Finnegan’s pub.
Dear Reader,
I’ll never forget my “first” mummies. I think I was about five when we met.
My mom and her family immigrated here from Ireland when she was a teenager. She eventually married my dad, and while the two of them made the decision to move to Florida, my mom’s family stayed in the Chicago area. That included my great-grandmother and a lot of wonderful crazy Irish family.
Naturally, we traveled from Florida to Chicago frequently when I was a child.
And thus—among other great institutions!—I was taken to the Field Museum of Natural History with a bunch of inventive storytellers. One example: Nefer-hoho (a made-up name, yes) had been a dancer and a jester, but she had danced too close to a brazier and it had hit her on the head and…next up, mummification. Then there was the mummified cat, who was magical, of course, and came alive in the museum at night. You had to be very careful to be out of the museum before dark, I was told, because the pharaoh would awaken and take his sword and…
As a five-year-old, I was (as an uncle explained to my mother) a wee bit traumatized by all these stories. Nightmares abounded!
But a lifelong fascination was born.
Years ago, my husband, Dennis, and I were able to visit Egypt, to see the Great Pyramid of Giza, the museum in Cairo and learn more about the culture.
This is a long and roundabout way of explaining that much of the Egyptology in this novel is true—but then again, I did spend those days with Irish storytellers, so some of what you’re about to read is entirely made-up.
I could tell you which is which. But maybe you’ll want to explore—or maybe you know far more than I ever will about the subject. Anyway, it’s all part of a new story, and I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy it.
If you’d like to comment on the story (I love to hear from readers!) or learn about upcoming books, contests, etc., please visit my website, theoriginalheathergraham.com. Thank you so much for being a reader!
Heather
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Excerpt from Colton K-9 Cop by Addison Fox
Prologue
The Mummy
A Year Ago
“Sir!”
The word was spoken softly and with respect.
Dr. Henry Tomlinson, renowned Egyptologist, turned. One of the grad students had just slipped through the inner flap of the air-controlled prep tent and was smiling benignly, awaiting his attention.
He hadn’t actually taught in about five years, but he still loved it—and working with students. He’d retired to spend all his time in the field, and he’d recently been hired by Alchemy, an Anglo-American sponsoring company, to head this dig. Alchemy was into all kinds of tech and had become a Fortune 500 company. Every year, they sponsored an exceptional archeological event,
followed by a public exhibit. Recent ones had been centered around the Amazon River, central China—and now ancient Egypt. Their resources were phenomenal and Henry still couldn’t believe his good fortune. But no matter what monetary resources had been offered, he was thrilled about having grad students involved.
This one was Harley Frasier. Just twenty-six, she was tall, shapely, honey blonde, with a face crafted in perfect classic symmetry and enormous green eyes that seemed to take in everything. She was serious and brilliant and could nail the crux of information with laser-like acuity. She also had a sense of humor and the most delightful laugh he had ever heard.
Of the five specialty graduate candidates, she was, beyond a doubt, his favorite. He often felt like a grandfatherly mentor to her—and the idea made him happy. He’d had no children of his own. He’d never even had a wife. No time for a family. He hadn’t intended it be that way forever, but there was always so much to do. If he’d had the chance to be a father, he would’ve been pleased and proud to have had Harley as a granddaughter. She seemed to feel the same closeness to him.
Perhaps their bond was odd since, of the five grad students, she was the one who was different, the only one not majoring in Egyptology—though she was minoring in it. She had no plan to go into Egyptology or even archeology or history for her life’s vocation.
Harley was with him, first of all, because of her knowledge regarding the field and her love for it. But she was also there because her work was going to be in criminal psychology and forensic science. Henry had been baffled when he was approached by her university. Professors at the Maryland college Harley was attending—which was arguably the top school for criminology and it also offered majors and minors in Egyptology and archeology—had explained to him the importance of having a student like Harley on this expedition. He had been on the hunt for the tomb of Amenmose for nearly a decade; for that entire decade, he’d been finding more and more clues about the location—and, of course, with the permission and blessing of the Egyptian government—finding other ancient tombs and treasures in the process. This allowed for his continued excavations. But the discovery of the tomb of Amenmose was the main focus of his work.
Many others had searched.
Some of them had died or disappeared in that effort.
History suggested that Amenmose had been murdered. As a criminology student, Harley was to be in on the discovery and would seek and find whatever evidence those who had managed his secret burial might have left behind.
Not that, to Henry’s mind, Amenmose hadn’t deserved murder. He had usurped power every step of the way. He’d abused officials below him. It had even been intimated that he had attempted to kill those in power above him.
“I think we’ve gotten all the manual labor done for the evening and we’re going to pack it in, maybe drive to that little town for some dinner. Want to come with us? You should. You’d enjoy it. Or shall we bring you back something?” Harley asked him.
“Next time, Harley, I’ll come with you all,” he promised. “There’s so much in here! I’m not going to go touching anything until we’ve had a chance to work with the preservation measures, but I do intend to look at everything.”
Earlier that week, they had finally discovered the secret site of the tomb of Amenmose. And, of course, since then, Henry Tomlinson had been on cloud nine. This was a dream come true, a fantasy realized, the culmination of a lifetime of love and dedication.
Harley laughed softly. “Yes! You did it, Dr. Tomlinson.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
The Amenmose find was among the most important ancient Egyptian discoveries of the past few years; he couldn’t have been more excited about being a major player in that discovery. And even now, at the end of an exhausting day—and even though he truly enjoyed the young people working with him—he was far too fascinated to leave. There were a dozen or so coffins to be studied, one of them presumably that of Amenmose; the group wouldn’t consider opening them until everyone was back at the museum in Cairo. But he could study the canopic jars they’d found thus far. There were also other artifacts that had been carefully moved into the prep tent. So much to observe and to describe! And there were the broken coffins, which had probably been as meticulously set as any of the others, but had been in the section where a partial cave-in had taken place. Several of those outer and inner coffins had split and exposed their mummies. Henry Tomlinson was fascinated to see what study was possible before the mummies were packed and crated and prepared for the trip to Cairo, where options for preservation were far more sophisticated, and where the mummies could be X-rayed and DNA could be tested.
Oh! It was all so monumental.
Amenmose had been a priest in the days when another priest, Ay, had ruled Egypt as regent. Ay had done so for a well-known pharaoh, the boy king, Tutankhamen. As regent, Ay had wielded immense power. He’d gone on to become pharaoh in his own right—after the death of Tut at the age of nineteen.
Amenmose, according to ancient texts, had tried to usurp some of that power. And he’d had his own followers in the court, making him a dangerous man. Because of this he had feared for his immortal life—and his wife had kept his burial plans a complete secret, shared only with members of his family. Naturally, legend had it that many of his most loyal followers—rather than give away any secrets—had been willing to die with him, sealed alive in a grave for eternity.
“Dr. Tomlinson, you worked so hard. And wow! You triumphed. You should celebrate. Come out with us. Is there nothing I can do to convince you?” Harley asked. She still had that wonderful smile, as if she were the one who was far older and wiser. “Nothing’s going to disappear. We’ll go have some dinner and drinks and come on back. There are plenty of men on guard here. And,” she added, “you really deserve a little celebration with us. Think of it—you researched and imagined and looked into the ancient Egyptian mind and you made the discovery. It’s your shining moment. You’re another Carter with his Tutankhamen, Dr. Tomlinson. Do you realize that?”
“Oh, no, no,” Henry demurred. He shook his head firmly. “A celebration is tempting, but I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t. I do promise that I’ll come with all of you on another day. Harley! Look at this! I feel like, as the song says, I have treasures untold.”
Harley laughed. “You saw The Little Mermaid?” she asked.
He stared at her, feeling a bit chagrined. “Oh! Yes, I get it, you wouldn’t think that I’d see a children’s movie...” He laughed, too. “Remember, I do have great nieces and nephews! Anyway...”
He started walking as he spoke. “Harley, these are such treasures! This broken coffin.” He gestured at it. “Damaged by time and by that cave-in, however many centuries ago. And this fellow, Harley. It almost looks as if he was buried alive. Wrapped up alive and screaming.”
“I don’t think you can embalm anyone and have that person come out of the process alive,” Harley reminded him, amused. “That’s only in fiction. We both know what was involved in Egyptian embalming, and just how many factors could’ve had an effect on the mummy’s appearance. Screaming mummies belong to B movies, right? And when you think about it, weird mummies are all the more reason you should come with us.”
“Why is that?”
Harley didn’t answer. The flap opened again and Jensen Morrow, another of the students, poked his head in to answer.
He’d obviously heard the question.
“Ooh! ’Cause you shouldn’t be alone with scary old stuff when you have cool kids like us to hang out with!” Jensen said.
They all laughed. Jensen was a good-looking, dark-haired young man who loved the study he was involved in, and Dr. Henry Tomlinson liked him very much, as well. Jensen played hard, but he worked harder. He came from money; his father was an inventor who’d come up with a special cleaning product. And yet Jensen never acted like money, never acted pretentious o
r entitled the way some rich kids did.
“Tempting, tempting, tempting,” Henry said again. “But I’m going to stay.”
Jensen raised his eyebrows at Harley. “Hey, girl, then it’s you and me heading out. The old man here isn’t coming. That’s okay. We’re bringing back the goods. Just the two of us, since Belinda Gray is waiting for a video chat with her fiancé—military, as we know!—in Iraq. Roger Eastman agreed to help one of the tech guys investigate some computer info they’re picking up. I hate to say it, but we’re getting chatter about an insurgent group starting up. And Joe Rosello said he wants to learn more about the excavation equipment. He’s working with that pretty Egyptian girl, our translator, and learning about hoists.”
“Hoists? Yeah, right!” Harley said. “Satima. She is pretty, and thank goodness we have her. I’m just grateful she filled in at the last minute when the older gentleman we’d hired wound up ill. If I know our friend Joe at all, I know he’s very happy!” she said to Henry. “We won’t go far, since we seem to be feeling a wee bit nervous! And we won’t be late. We’ll bring you something to eat and see if you want to be social when we get back, okay? If, and only if, you’re absolutely positive you don’t want to take a ride with this handsome, if ridiculous, guy and me?”
Henry laughed. “Oh, Harley, you’re a sweetheart, but give it up. You know I’m not coming.”
She grimaced, a delightful movement of her face. “Yes, I do,” she admitted. “But we—your devoted students—have to try. I’ll bring you a special treat for dinner.”
“Don’t worry about me, guys. I’ll be fine.”
“Sorry, we will worry about you. At least we can make sure you eat. I’m willing to bet you’re going to be up all night—and you won’t even notice that you haven’t slept,” Harley said.
He smiled and made a shooing motion with his hands. “Go! Get on out with you. Be young and have fun and don’t become an obsessive old curmudgeon like me. Jensen, get her out of here!”