“So we’ve been thinking in the right direction,” Micah said. “It was all a diversion to keep the police or any other authorities from discovering what really happened to Henry Tomlinson.”
“Yes, that’s what we believe on this end,” Wiley said. “Satima Mahmoud was found with a bullet in her back. We think it could’ve been fired by someone in a group with a different political view for the future—or, as I said, someone in her own group. Many people were arrested for taking part in the so-called uprising. Perhaps someone wanted revenge.”
“Still hard to understand,” Craig said. “The Amenmose find was worth a fortune.”
“Yes, there were priceless objects. And, yes, they might have wanted them for their monetary value to support their cause, whatever that was. Thing is, the black market is hard to navigate these days. And if you’re caught...not good. Cash—cold hard cash—is far better than even a priceless object. Someone gave Satima a lot of cold hard cash. At the moment, that’s all I know. If we get anything else...”
“Thank you, Wiley,” Micah said. “You’ve been a tremendous help. I’m sorry the woman is dead,” he added.
Egan finished up with Wiley, and they cut off the chat.
“Cold hard cash? Someone with access to a lot of it?” Egan mused. “That’s not your average grad student.”
“There’s Richter,” Craig said. “Or...well, some grad students come from family money. That’s how they manage to study forever and ever. We have background checks on everyone. I’ve skimmed all the files...”
“Morrow, Jensen Morrow. His father invented some kind of cleaning product. He’s got money,” Micah said. But it was true, too, that they’d just left the Richter house, which had to be worth millions.
Craig nodded. “Yeah. But to be fair, it could be Richter. He’d have the money. He was supposedly with his wife when everything was going on back in the Sahara. We know now that the two of them fight, although Vivian Richter swears that her husband is totally loving and good.”
“But the maid said differently,” Craig pointed out.
“The maid?” Egan asked.
Craig waved a hand in the air and said, “Sir, I think we may have to help that woman out when this is all over. She talked to Micah about Richter’s whereabouts.”
“Go and get Vivian Richter,” Egan said. “Bring her in. I think it’s time we had a conversation here in the office.”
“On our way!” Micah said.
They hurried back to the street where the car was waiting.
As they drove, Micah tried Harley’s number again.
“Still not answering,” he muttered to Craig.
“We’ll find her,” Craig promised. “Don’t forget,” he said, “she’s my cousin.”
There was a grim set to Craig Frasier’s mouth.
Micah was glad for it. That meant he wasn’t alone; they were going to find Harley, and they’d damned well find her fast—and she’d be all right.
* * *
IT WAS RIDICULOUS, it was horrible, and it was like something out of a horror movie by a master of the genre.
Harley had found the cat.
And the cat was sitting on the head of a man.
The man was dead. It was Richter. Ned Richter.
She couldn’t scream.
The last thing she should do was scream!
In fact, she was worried about having her flashlight on. But the whiff of gases or decay, some ghastly smell, that was coming to her made Harley think the man she was staring at had been dead for some time, probably at least twenty-four hours.
He hadn’t been wrapped in linen. He probably hadn’t died from any kind of poisoning.
Ned had been stabbed through the heart with an Egyptian dagger. He was shoved up against a wall; he’d probably died right there, she surmised, studying the pool of blood that surrounded him. Blood that had grown sticky.
He’d been killed yesterday. Either just before Arlo had succumbed to the linen wrappings and their nicotine, or just after.
If Arlo had tried to kill Ned Richter... Wait, that made no sense. Why stab Ned with an ancient Egyptian dagger, and then dress up in linen wrappings himself?
And who the hell had that been on the street, the person shorter than Arlo who’d approached her, touched her with the poison?
“Harley? Harley, where are you?”
Jensen?
Jensen was calling her now.
Sure, Jensen was taller than the figure who’d come up to her. But what if he was working with someone? What if he’d gone with her that night in the desert just to throw suspicion off himself? He hadn’t killed Henry Tomlinson; that would’ve been impossible. But he might have been in on it.
She forced herself to stay silent.
But to her great distress, the kitten took that moment to mew desperately for help once again—apparently deciding that help wasn’t going to come from Harley.
“Kitty! Aw, here, kitty, kitty!” Jensen said. “Who the hell would be keeping a cat down here?” he asked himself.
He was coming in her direction.
He didn’t sound like a killer.
To make matters even worse, Harley’s phone began to ring.
It was on vibrate, but even vibrate sounded shockingly loud to her!
She saw that it was Micah, and that he’d called several times. The calls hadn’t gone through. Suddenly, now—now!—they were.
She backed as close as she could against the wall. She almost let out an involuntary scream; she’d backed into the corpse. She was stepping in the sticky blood.
“Micah!” she whispered.
He was talking as she answered. She didn’t think he’d hear her, and she didn’t think he had any idea that she wasn’t in a good situation.
“Harley, you’re at the museum, right? Kieran’s coming there to get you. Leave. Leave with her. Wiley, the agent in Cairo told us Satima Mahmoud’s body was found. She was killed either by a rival political group or by her own friends, they don’t really know. But here’s what’s important—there was no insurrection. It was staged to cover up Henry’s murder. The killer could be Ned Richter or possibly Jensen Morrow,” Micah said. “You need to get out of there—”
“It’s not Ned Richter,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“How do you know?”
“I’m looking at him. He’s dead. Dagger to the heart,” Harley said.
“Where are you?”
“Subbasement, I think. Near the old subway station.”
“What are you doing down there, Harley? Never mind, never mind. We’re on our way. You need to get out!”
“Yes, but—”
“Get the hell out of there now! It could be Jensen. Get out, Harley!”
“I can’t!” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Jensen is down here, coming right at me.”
Chapter Ten
There were a number of hallways and tunnels, entrances and exits down here.
Harley knew that because Arlo had shown her and Micah around the basement and subbasement levels. She had to think; she had to remember everything they’d learned that day. She needed to...
Find a way out.
The kitten was continuing to cry. He had jumped off the body of Ned Richter and was coming to Harley at last, trying to wrap around her ankles.
Harley swept up the kitten.
Poor little thing was sticky with blood; so was she.
Ned Richter’s blood. Ned hadn’t done any of this. He was innocent—and he was dead. It was almost as if they’d all been victims of a pharaoh’s curse.
“Hey, kitty, kitty! Where are you?” Jensen called. “Harley? Damn it. Where are you, girl? Why haven’t the police gotten these d
amned tunnels closed yet?” he muttered to himself. “Harley? Hey, anybody down here?”
He was coming closer and closer.
A weapon. She needed a weapon!
There was a dead man right next to her. A dead man with a dagger protruding from his chest.
She carefully put down the kitten and crept toward Ned to get the dagger.
It wouldn’t move! It was stuck deep in his chest, as if the man’s body, his flesh and blood and bone, refused to give up what had brought about its demise!
She would’ve sworn out loud except that Jensen was coming closer and closer.
Micah and Craig were on their way. They’d be here soon. Kieran was up in the museum somewhere, and it was crawling with police. Kieran wouldn’t wait long when she couldn’t find Harley; she’d insist that the police start searching the place, tearing it apart.
“Harley?”
Jensen couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-five feet from her.
“Jensen Morrow! Stop right where you are!” a male voice thundered.
Harley knew the voice—it was McGrady. Detective McGrady. He’d followed Jensen down here. She hadn’t even seen him, hadn’t known he was at the museum.
Harley switched off her penlight.
The darkness seemed overwhelming, except...
She could see Jensen. He had his own light. “McGrady, what the hell is the matter with you? I’m trying to find Harley. You can help me. Harley, where are you and what the hell... Jeez! What’s that smell? Is it cat poop? If so, it’s the worst damn cat poop I’ve ever smelled.”
He was talking about cat poop. He didn’t know he was smelling a dead man. But if he’d killed Ned Richter, he would know.
“Stop, Morrow, or I’ll shoot you, you murdering bastard!” McGrady called out.
“What?” Jensen demanded, obviously thrown. “I stopped! I’m right here.”
Harley straightened in the dark, letting out a breath. McGrady was here. He was a cop. He had a gun.
But Jensen wasn’t guilty. He was just looking for her. Looking for a cat. She believed it with her whole heart.
Harley held her breath for a minute, afraid to speak, to cry out—to warn Jensen and the cop—and afraid not to.
She had solved one mystery that afternoon. The mystery of Amenmose’s death. His wife, Skrit, had ordered him killed. She had hired the assassins. She hadn’t hated him—well, maybe she had. But despite wanting him dead, she hadn’t wanted him deprived of an afterlife. She’d seen to it that he’d died; she had done so to protect herself and their children from the growing power of Ay. She’d been no threat to Ay’s position, but her husband had. Still, she hadn’t denied him their form of heaven.
And now...
“Harley!” Jensen called, sounding desperate.
She stepped into the darkness of the hall, ready to call his name.
But just as she did, she saw a dark figure streak out from behind Jensen, coming straight at him.
“Jensen! Watch out!”
Harley screamed the warning just in time. He spun around, avoiding a lethal blow from Vivian Richter, who was wielding a jewel-encrusted pike. But Vivian was quick to double back, hitting him hard on the head with the end of her weapon.
Jensen went down. And as he did, his light went out.
“What the hell?” McGrady roared. “Mrs. Richter, are you all right? Are you all right?”
Something flew through the tunnel—heading directly for the cop. Harley cried out his name. “McGrady! Get down!” she shrieked.
She couldn’t see what happened next.
Jensen’s light was gone; McGrady’s was, too.
Harley and Vivian Richter were both suddenly left in absolute, subterranean darkness.
* * *
CRAIG AND MICAH arrived at the museum just in time to find Kieran telling a policeman that she was going down to the basement, with or without him, but if he valued his employment, he would be accompanying her.
The policeman was telling her that an officer had already gone down, following Jensen Morrow.
“Detective McGrady is down there. He said there’s no good reason for any of those science people to be running around in the basement.”
Micah didn’t wait; he had to get down to the subterranean levels.
Craig went to explain to the officer that they were FBI and to get Kieran, from where she had been speaking with the cop.
Micah ran, ran hard. He reached the stairs Arlo Hampton had so recently shown him. He stumbled down them, afraid to use his penlight.
When he got to the bottom, he paused.
He began to move slowly, feeling his way.
Then he smelled death.
Yes, as Harley had told him, Ned Richter was down here. And he was dead.
Had Jensen Morrow killed him?
“Help! Oh, my God, help me!”
He heard the cry. It came from ahead, down the long hallway before him. It was coming, he thought, from the abandoned subway section where they’d found the stash of insecticide. The nicotine poison.
The voice belonged to Vivian Richter.
“I’m coming!” he called. “Are you okay? Are you in distress?”
“No...he’s going to kill me. Agent Fox? It’s Jensen. He’s going to kill me. He and Arlo...they killed Henry. The two of them. They tried to kill me. Jensen tried to kill Arlo because he had to make it look like Arlo had worked alone... Oh, my God! He killed my husband. Jensen killed Ned, my poor Ned!”
“Where are you?” Micah asked.
He was moving very slowly and very carefully, determined not to give away his position. But as he spoke, he ran into something with his foot.
Something hard—and soft at the same time.
He stooped down, his heart in his throat. A body.
Harley?
It wasn’t Harley. He quickly realized it was a man.
Ned Richter? Jensen Morrow?
It couldn’t be Ned Richter; he wouldn’t be warm.
He wouldn’t be...breathing.
“So that’s it!” he said loudly, checking for Jensen’s pulse. It was weak, but it was there. The man would need help, though, and fast.
“Vivian, where are you? You poor woman, attacked... Thank God Arlo was still so new at it. He ended up killing himself, but you’re all right, barely touched! And Ned—killed by Jensen! Where are you? Let me help.”
They were both playing a game, pretending they believed what the other claimed as truth.
Harley. Where the hell was Harley? Was the woman holding her somewhere? Was she down on the ground, dying...bleeding?
He heard a scream of rage.
Light suddenly filled the dank, dark space.
And he saw Vivian. She was bursting out of the old subway tunnel, a lantern in one hand, a dagger held high in the other.
She was coming right at him.
He stepped out of the way; she would catapult into the wall.
But she didn’t.
Because there was another cry of rage that tore through the darkness and death and decay of the tunnel.
It was Harley. And she’d found a weapon of her own—an old paving brick. She flew at Vivian, encountering her before Vivian could close in on Micah.
Both women went flying down to the floor. Vivian’s lantern rolled away as they fell, casting light and shadow everywhere.
Micah reached down, catching Vivian’s arm, grasping it hard.
Vivian screamed and released the antique dagger from the painful pressure he’d placed on her arm. He kicked it far from her.
Footsteps pounded down the length of the tunnel hall. Craig was there, Kieran right behind him.
Micah walked away from Vivian and drew Harley to her
feet and into his arms. He held her; he wanted to hold her forever in the strange darkness and shadows, keep her from the horrors.
But of course, he couldn’t.
Time meant everything just now.
“We need an ambulance for Jensen,” he said. “And...”
“McGrady’s here, too. I don’t know how badly he’s hurt. He’s here somewhere!”
“Here! Here I am!”
They saw a form stumble toward them. And as it did, the tunnel blazed with light. Police officers, all carrying lights, came surging toward them.
“It was her!” McGrady said, swallowing hard, shaking his head. “Her! The woman poisoned herself to throw off any suspicion. She killed Henry, and she killed her husband. Yeah?”
Craig had Vivian Richter up by then. She was in handcuffs—and spitting mad. “I shouldn’t have had to kill the bastard! Don’t you get it? That mealymouthed little snake, Arlo Hampton—he was supposed to kill Ned. I did away with Henry Tomlinson, and Arlo was supposed to kill Ned. He said he couldn’t do it! But I got him...oh yeah, I got both of them!”
“Who the hell would have suspected this!” McGrady said.
Micah looked at Harley, and his eyes darkened with concern.
“There’s blood on you!” he murmured.
“Not mine,” Harley said.
“Thank God.” Micah looked toward McGrady. “Then we’re ready for the next step.”
Harley smiled and nodded.
“McGrady, go ahead, do the honors. Bring Mrs. Richter in. We’ll handle things down here. We’ll get the medical examiner and the techs for Mr. Richter,” Micah said.
“And an ambulance for Jensen. She got him pretty good,” Harley said.
“Why don’t you and Kieran go to the hospital with him?” Micah suggested.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
They stared at each other for another long moment.
Then Harley turned away, bending down to Jensen. The EMTs arrived, followed by the medical examiner and the crime scene people.
And the night went on.
* * *
LIGHT CONTINUED TO blaze through the tunnels and the abandoned subway station as day turned to night, as the medical examiner came, as the body of Ned Richter was taken at last to the morgue.