“Sorry,” Harley murmured.
“No, you were in the right,” Micah assured her. “Someone find me a blueprint of this place. Let’s get on it. Every room, every display, every office. It’s going to be a long day, folks. We’re going to have to get down to the basement and below. Search everywhere.”
A man in one of the crime scene jumpsuits approached Micah and Craig; they spoke for several minutes, and then a group of people in crime scene jumpsuits began to emerge from various corners of the exhibit. They were given instructions and dispersed, everyone going in a different direction.
“Micah?” Harley asked. “May I go to the museum lab? I’d like to see what’s been going on there. I swear to you, I’m not sure how I know, but I’m convinced that the mummy who confronted me in the street didn’t look the same as those pictures of Arlo. Maybe I can find something in the lab.”
“I’ll keep her company,” Kieran volunteered.
“All right. I’ll inform the crime scene people,” Micah told them. “I’m going down below. Arlo was the one who showed us all the basement tunnels and entrances and exits.” He watched Harley as he spoke. She wondered if he believed her; he’d stood with her against McGrady, who was being such a jerk, but she had to wonder...
Just how many mummies could there be running around?
Living mummies, rather than the dead ones.
Micah turned away and spoke with the crime scene people again. She noticed that Detective Rydell hadn’t gone with his partner; he was awaiting a discussion with Craig and Micah.
“Come on through. We’re going to be searching the offices,” one of the crime scene women told Harley and Kieran. “Just follow us.”
As they left the exhibit space behind and came into an employee hallway, Harley saw that Gordon Vincent, director of the museum, was arguing with the crime scene people. He looked at Harley with annoyance and then pointed at her. “This whole exhibit has turned into a disaster.”
Harley looked back at him, startled. “Mr. Vincent, I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t think the exhibit can be blamed for what this person’s doing. The artifacts that were discovered are amazing, sir, and law enforcement will get to the bottom of this.”
Kieran stepped forward, offering Vincent a hand, “How do you do, sir? We haven’t actually met. I’m Kieran Finnegan, a psychologist with the offices of Fuller and Mira. They’re psychiatrists who spend a great deal of time working with law enforcement. From my field of study, I’d guess that—sad though it is—these horrible events won’t hurt your museum. On the contrary—this will cause an influx of membership and tourism. People love mummies...and mysteries. You’re receiving unbelievable media attention, and while these days may be hard to weather, I believe that in the end you’ll find that the museum itself is in an excellent position, no matter how discouraging a comment that might be on humanity.”
Vincent turned to Kieran, blinking. “Fine. It’s all closed for the day. Make sure the powers that be within the FBI and NYPD let me know if I can or cannot open my museum in all or part tomorrow!”
He strode on by them.
Harley looked at Kieran and laughed. “I’m not even sure what you said myself!”
“It worked, though. I guess that’s what matters.”
“You were excellent.”
“You can be more excellent in this situation. You’re so involved. You need to really think about the people who are connected to the exhibit, and how and why they might be acting a certain way. You know all the players, Harley, and you have to think about every one of them.”
“Well,” Harley said, “I guess we can let Joe Rosello off the hook. I’m almost positive that he was the intended victim today. But then I happened to be there. And who knows what was really planned, since—”
“Harley, are you absolutely sure that Arlo Hampton wasn’t the ‘mummy’ who came up to you at the zombie walk?”
“Kieran, I’m telling you, it wasn’t him. And remember, Vivian Richter said a mummy came to her, and then, apparently, that mummy dressed her up as a mummy, too, in poisoned linen.”
“I know,” Kieran said. “But—”
“But that’s the point, right? Vivian Richter was working in her office. A mummy came in and suddenly she’s a mummy. Isn’t it possible that the same thing happened today?”
“Of course,” Kieran said. “But everyone’s been searching...and they haven’t found the stash of nicotine that’s being used.”
They reached the lab and walked through the outer entry; there were paper gowns and caps and booties to be worn inside the room.
“Really? Do we have to do all this?” Kieran muttered.
Harley laughed. “Yes! It helps prevent the spread of anything, any bacteria, that might be on antique, long-buried objects from getting out into the world. And it keeps us from bringing in anything that might be harmful to very old stuff.”
“Okay, makes sense,” Kieran said grudgingly.
“What I really want to do is get to Arlo’s desk over there. The small one. See?”
Kieran nodded and followed Harley’s actions as she suited up, donned gloves and booties, and then headed into the actual lab.
“What bothers me about this is the lack of clear motive,” Kieran said. “It should be obvious, right in front of our faces. These people are dedicated to their work. It means as much to them as anything else in their lives. Maybe more. Most of us live for our mate, spouse, and so on, first—or our children. The instinct to protect a child is strong, except when you’re talking about a person who’s truly mentally impaired. But in our type of science, in psychiatry and criminology, you come across people who are more devoted to their work than to family or friends.”
“Yes, and we think someone was terribly jealous of Henry—which is why he was killed. Now it seems that someone is trying to kill Vivian and Arlo—who are also hardworking and respected members of the Egyptology community. But...”
“But what?”
“I know I keep saying this, but I don’t believe that Arlo and the mummy on the street were the same person. I just don’t believe it. And Arlo was the one to walk Micah and me all around this place the other day. Do you think...?”
“Think what?”
“There’s another motive? There’s something we’re missing?”
“Of course. That’s always possible.”
“Love, hate, greed, jealousy. Vengeance,” Harley murmured.
“Ah, vengeance. For what? And against whom?”
Harley made her way to the small aluminum desk in the far corner of the room. It was made so it could be constantly sterilized, but still allow for a notepad, pens, tablet, computer or whatever else the scientists and lab techs might need to accurately notate their work.
She opened the first drawer, which held a large plastic container of sanitary wipes.
She opened the second drawer. There was an unused notepad and a case of pencils.
There should’ve been a computer somewhere. A tablet. Even a voice recorder.
There was not.
Harley opened the third drawer. And there she saw, shoved against the back, a small, almost archaic, flip phone.
She pulled it out and studied it carefully. It had the look of a phone that might be bought at any convenience or drug store—pay as you go. She hit key after key; nothing on it denoted ownership. She went to contacts.
Her own number was there, along with the numbers of others who’d been on the expedition.
“Kieran,” she said slowly.
“You found something?”
Harley looked up at her. “Maybe. I think I may just have found a way to reach our liaison, Yolanda, who hasn’t been seen since the night of the party. And I think we might have a connection to our long-missing interpreter, Satima Mahmoud.”
/>
* * *
“IN 1524, NEW YORK was called New Angoulême by the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano,” Micah said to Craig as they traveled deep into the underbelly of the museum. “The first recorded exploration by the Dutch was in 1609. In 1664, English frigates arrived and demanded the surrender of the city. Peter Stuyvesant sent lawyers to arrange the capitulation—the Dutch and the English liked to go at it in those days. Well, come to think of it, over the years most European powers went after one another. Anyway, it was in 1665 that the city became New York under English rule.”
“A lecture on New York history while we’re looking for mummies—which happen to be a good bit older than the city,” Craig said.
“True, but my point is that although it’s not old in comparison with some cities in Africa, the Middle East, the Far East and Europe, New York is old. And while it all started downtown—Wall Street, Broad Street and so on—it’s been many years since people came up to this area by subway. And down here in these tunnels, especially with so many routes now abandoned, it’s just a jungle.”
“Yep. And hey, love my city and all...but you just gave away the fact that you were some mean historian before you were a special agent.”
“Actually, I’m complaining. This is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Micah said, and he sighed, leaning back against a wall to catch his breath.
He nearly fell backward.
“What the hell?”
“Hey!”
Craig made a grab for Micah’s arm; Micah caught hold of him just in time to keep from plunging through a decayed section of wall.
They both half fell and half stumbled into the remains of an old subway tunnel.
The posters on the walls were peeling, but they were magnificent; they advertised Broadway shows opening in the 1930s. There were stairways to nowhere crafted of wrought iron and beautifully designed.
“There!” Micah said, gesturing with one hand at something extremely modern that marred the time-travel look of the place.
In a corner where plaster and paneling had decayed with time, there was a pile of insecticide containers.
At least fifty of them.
Enough poison to kill... God alone knew how many people.
* * *
“THERE HAS TO be some evidence there, right? Something?” Harley asked anxiously.
She was seated at a corner table at Finnegan’s, along with Micah, Craig and Kieran. Crime scene crews had gone into the offshoot of the abandoned subway station, and they were studying every piece of evidence—primarily the containers of insecticide—with every technique available to them to find out who had used them. Or at least where and when they’d been purchased.
No one had answered when they’d tried to reach Yolanda Akeem or Satima Mahmoud; Egan had people working the phones as well, trying to find a way to pin down the locations of the women’s phones via the contact information.
Now it was a matter of waiting.
And it was still Sunday. Although it was late, they had friends in the kitchen, so they were able to enjoy Sunday’s traditional roast.
“Here’s the thing. We’ve known that Yolanda Akeem was here in New York. She was at the museum when everything happened with Vivian,” Harley said. “And after they questioned her briefly, she left.”
“She was visible on security footage,” Micah reminded her.
“I think we definitely have a problem, and everyone’s part of it—the museum and the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, as well as our government and their government,” Craig said. “The truth was left to slide.”
“Murder is ugly. No one wants a part of it,” Micah murmured to Harley.
“Were any artifacts stolen?” Kieran asked.
“No. Not that I know of,” Harley replied. “And what about the motives for any of this? Jealousy, as we already discussed? I keep thinking that a longing for glory seems obvious. Too obvious? The people who would’ve been jealous of Henry were Arlo and Vivian—and they were the ones who were attacked.”
“And you don’t think I was an intended victim?” Joe Rosello asked. “Rather than you?”
Harley looked up and smiled. Joe and Kevin had arrived together, all cleaned up and out of their zombie makeup.
Micah and Craig had risen; Kevin brought a couple of extra chairs to draw up to their table and then left telling Joe he was going to arrange for two more meals.
“You were an intended victim,” Micah told Joe flatly. “Had to be. The culprit couldn’t have known that Harley was going to be there. Harley didn’t know it herself until she talked to Kieran and found out about the zombie walk and that you’d be there.”
“But...we should be safe, shouldn’t we? I heard Arlo was the culprit and that he’s in the hospital—and they don’t know if they can save him or not.”
“It’s true that Arlo is in the hospital. And many people believe he was the mummy and that he was guilty of trying to kill Vivian. She did, after all, say that a mummy had come to her.”
“Was there time for the mummy to have reached the museum and attacked someone else to create a new mummy?” Kieran asked.
“You did say that you were right behind him, getting to the museum,” Harley said.
“I’m afraid that yes, there was time. I followed the mummy, but I was still some distance away when I saw him go down to the basement area of the museum. Then, of course, I stumbled around down there myself for a while. They need to wall all of that off, because if they don’t, they’re going to lose some curious fifth-grader down there one day.”
“I’m taking a leave from my job,” Joe said. “I’m getting out of here tomorrow morning. When this is all over, I’ll come back. I called the museum I’m working at and they understood.”
“That might be your best move,” Micah told him.
Joe let out a long sigh. “Thank God! I thought you were going to tell me I wasn’t allowed to leave town.”
“We’ll need your contact information. However, you were in full sight of thousands of people most of the day. It would be very hard to prove you had any involvement,” Craig said.
“Thank God,” he muttered again.
Kevin Finnegan returned to the table. The talk shifted back and forth between the zombie walk and the situation at the museum.
Suddenly they all seemed to realize it had grown very late.
“I’m going home so I can get out of here in the morning,” Joe said. “You all take care.”
“We need to know where you’ll be and how to reach you,” Craig said.
“You bet. Just no sharing anything that’s gone on,” Joe said.
“No sharing,” they all swore at once.
“I take it you’re getting Harley home?” Craig asked Micah.
Kieran looked at Harley—who refused to look back at her.
She didn’t know. Was he seeing her home? She’d thrown herself at him last night; maybe he’d changed his mind about her during the very long day.
“Yes, I’ll make sure she gets home safely,” Micah said. He managed to keep a straight face. Harley was surprised that he could.
Actually, she was surprised that she didn’t flush. She just smiled sweetly at Kieran, who was obviously amused, intrigued and, Harley hoped, glad that she and Micah seemed to be getting on very well, indeed.
As he drove her home, there was so much to say; so much speculation in which they could indulge.
But they didn’t talk at all.
The minute they reached Harley’s place and closed the door to her apartment, they were in each other’s arms. Micah impatiently shed his Glock first; Harley shrugged out of her jacket, grabbing for his shirt as she tore at her own buttons.
Micah drew the shirt over her head before she could get to the last of the butto
ns. She had her hands on his waistband and his belt buckle, while their lips merged in a deep and fiery kiss that was also sweet and breathless and filled with laughter.
There was a fair amount of awkwardness that went along with stripping so quickly, with wanting nothing more than to touch, to feel, to kiss...
Clothing wound up strewn all over the floor.
Harley hoped there was no one on the street as she raced past the windows and headed for the stairway.
Micah caught up with her. He swept her into his arms.
“Oh, no! You can’t...they’re winding stairs. We’ll end up—”
“I can do it this way!” he assured her, tossing her over his shoulder.
And he could. He made it up the winding stairway. Dropped her naked on the bed and fell beside her. Still panting, he raised himself on one elbow.
Harley pushed him back down.
She rained kisses over his naked body, reaching all around, taking him into her mouth.
He lifted her up, pulled her to him, rolled with her, kissed and teased and took his kisses everywhere until she cried out. They kissed and laughed in the tangled sheets, and then they were locked together again and the laughter was gone. They were too breathless, too desperate...
This was new. So new. It had been a long time since she’d chanced a relationship with anyone. It was wonderful because...
Because it was wonderful.
She knew with an indefinable certainty that it would always be good with him. They were so easy together. They could laugh, even do silly things, and those things somehow became erotic. She wanted to forget the world and curl up next to him forever, except that one could never really forget the world.
And, of course, that was it.
She could be with him—as if he were an oasis—and still talk about the burning sands and the desert around them. She could make love, hot and wickedly wet and exciting—and she could still tell him what she was thinking. They could share confidences and exchange opinions without any risk of betrayal.
She was in lust...and maybe falling in love.
“She knows something,” Micah was saying. “I’m sure she does.”