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Will watched her with curiosity, crossing his arms over his chest.
“But he warns that you are all in danger because of a psychotic human being, so he wants you to be careful,” Kat finished.
What the hell is she doing? Will wondered.
The ghost of Austin Miller was staring at Kat. “That’s not what I said, my dear. I told you—the mummy did it!”
She turned again to look straight at Austin Miller. “Someone here tonight knows what happened—what’s been happening,” Kat said.
Stewart Landry’s secretary suddenly gasped. “Oh! She sees him! She sees Austin’s ghost! I think…oh, there’s something there, Dirk, right by you!”
Dirk Manning twitched, turning with a frown.
Obviously, he saw nothing.
“He is! He is with us!” Samantha said, raising her arms to the night sky. “We have given this ceremony in his honor, and he has become like a living god!”
Andy Simonton started laughing. “Oh, please! What a crock of shit!” he exclaimed. “I’m going to honor old Austin, all right. I’m going to have a Scotch and toast to his honor. Join me inside!”
“Hell, I’ll join you!” Stewart Landry said. “We’ll honor the old fellow in the way he would’ve liked!”
He turned. Others, confused, turned to follow him, as well. People were ready to go back to the house.
Dirk Manning looked at Kat with tears in his eyes. “Why?” he asked her. “Why would you do such a thing, say such things—make a mockery of our ceremony?” he asked.
“Mr. Manning, I wasn’t mocking you, but I’ll admit I was using you tonight. Someone here does know what’s going on, and I’m hoping I managed to unnerve that person. I’m sorry if I hurt you. ” She inhaled a deep breath. “I used you, yes, but I do have a…way to hear the dead. ”
“Of course. You’re an M. E. ,” he said.
“That’s true, but I also have a strange sixth sense. ” She shook her head, smiling. “What I said about the pipe was true. Austin Miller loved you like a brother. He wants you to have his pipe and I’m sure you’ll find it where I said you would. ”
His expression was troubled. But whether he believed her or not, they would never know, because they suddenly heard shouts coming from the maze.
“Hey! Manning, how the hell do we get out of here?”
It was Andy Simonton calling to him.
“Here, Andy, follow my voice. I can get you out!”
That was Samantha, calling back.
But before anyone else could shout that they, too, were lost, there was a desperate scream and Sherry Bertelli began to sob.
“Help me, help me, oh, God, help me! It’s…it’s the mummy!”
12
Kat turned to stare at Will. He was already pulling his robe over his shoulders, yanking it off, ready to go in search of Sherry Bertelli.
Landry was shouting in desperation, calling her name over and over again.
Kat instantly got out of her own robe and asked Dirk Manning, “Which way? Which way would have gotten her lost?”
Manning pointed to one of the paths. Kat tore down it and crashed straight into Samantha, who looked at her with wide, terrified, eyes—speechless for once.
“Get back to the house!” Kat said, pushing her aside. People were shouting from all over the maze, and it was impossible to get a bearing on Sherry’s location. At last, she went silent.
Kat envisioned the worst, but she kept running through the darkness and the shadows, guided by the moonlight that filtered down and the occasional flash of a torch carried by one or other member of the group.
She made a hurried turn to the left—and practically tripped over Sherry. The woman was lying on the ground. Kat fell to her knees just as Will reached her, too.
“Oh, Lord!” he exclaimed, hunkering down beside her. “Is she—”
“She has a strong pulse and she’s breathing evenly. I think she just passed out,” Kat said, relieved.
“Let’s get her to the house. ” Will slipped his arms beneath the woman, cradling her before rising carefully to his feet. “Which way?”
“We came from that direction. ” Kat pointed behind them. “If we can just get to the altar…”
“Sherry, Sherry!” they heard Landry cry in anguish. “Where are you?”
“We have her! She’s all right!” Will shouted in reply.
They could hear Landry babbling his relief as they approached the altar. Dirk was still standing there, as if stunned. When he saw them, he came to life again. “This way. Follow me. ”
He led them out of the maze. Will carried Sherry past Landry, who tried to stop him and touch Sherry.
“Mr. Landry, let’s just get her inside. ”
“A doctor, we need a doctor!” Landry said.
“She probably scared herself after all that ridiculous ghost talk,” Andy Simonton muttered. “She needs a whiskey!”
“Mr. Landry, I am a doctor,” Kat said.
“Hell, yeah! A doctor for the dead!” Simonton snorted.
“I assure you, I finished my residency in a hospital working with the living,” Kat told him. “Ms. Bertelli will be fine. ”
Will wasn’t a man to be stopped easily; he’d barely slowed when Landry accosted him and he continued his long strides, carrying Sherry back to the house. He brought her to the parlor, where he placed her on the sofa. Her eyes were already opening as he did.
“Oh!” she gasped, her lashes fluttering.
“Sherry, Sherry!” Landry rushed to her side and fell to his knees, taking her hand. He smoothed her hair. “Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt. I’m not hurt. I’m fine, Stewart. I’m just scared and shaken and—” She broke off. By then, everyone had come in and they were all staring at her. Her voice was tremulous. “I swear to you, there was a mummy in the maze. It walked toward me. It was terrifying!”
“I’m going for the whiskey!” Simonton said.
“They need to stop. They need to stop right now,” Samantha exclaimed. “Honestly, someone should make them throw that mummy back in the lake and forget the Jerry McGuen was ever found. Three people are dead and one more may be dying…because there’s a curse. Such things can exist. ”
“I’m afraid,” Will said, “that once a discovery is made—it’s made. I sincerely doubt the mummy will be cast out to sea. And surely you know there’s no curse. ”
“But there was a mummy in the maze,” Sherry insisted.
“Then we’ll search the maze,” Will said quietly. “Whoever might’ve been there is probably long gone. Sherry might even have been startled by running into one of us in the darkness. Still, we’ll search the entire maze. ”
“Oh, hell, no! We’re not going back out there,” Landry said.
“I wasn’t expecting you to, Mr. Landry. We’ll have the authorities do the search,” Will told him.
Andy Simonton grinned. “I thought you were the authorities. ”
“We are,” Kat said in an aloof voice. She pulled out her cell phone. “And we will investigate the maze. ”
“You…you can’t. You…can’t!” Sherry cried. “There was a curse. It was written on Amun Mopat’s tomb. Just because it was unspoken doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!”
Simonton shook his head and laughed. “Unspoken? It’s all anyone talks about, writes about or puts on the news. And Ms. Bertelli, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be cruel, but there is no mummy in that maze. We all scared ourselves—she scared us!” he said, pointing at Kat. He walked over to her. “You may be all kinds of gorgeous, honey, but you’re a freak!”
Kat could feel Will’s tension; it would have made her smile if she hadn’t been afraid he was ready to deck Andy Simonton.
She rose swiftly to her own defense. “It’s Special Agent Sokolov, not honey, Mr. Simonton. Or Dr. Sokolov, if you prefer. I’ll be happy to answer
to either. And I wasn’t creating an illusion or a freak show. Dirk, would you be so good as to find out if I’m right or not?”
Manning hurried to the closet. It was a big walk-in closet and it took him a few minutes to rummage through the many jackets there.
He stepped out of the closet and stared at Kat in utter disbelief.
“Well?” Simonton demanded.
Dirk produced the exquisitely carved meerschaum pipe.
There was an audible gasp.
“She planted it there,” Simonton said.
“No, she didn’t. ” The whisper of incredulity in Dirk’s voice made those around him fall silent.
Kat looked around the room, letting her eyes settle on Stewart Landry first, and then on Andy Simonton. “The dead do speak to me,” she said quietly. “And someday soon, one of the dead will tell us who was behind all this. ”
“What?” Sherry gasped.
Simonton scowled at her. “She’s pretending she talks to ghosts!” he said.
Kat smiled. “Actually, I was referring primarily to the fact that I’m a medical examiner. And the dead speak through their remains. They speak to me,” she said again. “There isn’t a killer out there who doesn’t make a mistake, and a dead body will eventually tell us just what that mistake was. There’s so much we can learn. ” Of course, they hadn’t learned much on the scientific front yet, not from Austin or Amanda, but none of these people knew that.
Sherry let out a little sob. “Please, Stewy, I want to go home now!” she said.
Her words began the exodus. Most of the crowd looked warily at Kat as if they were more than a little afraid of her, but no one approached her or said a word.
The fact that Will was standing behind her—tall, broad-shouldered and fierce—might have had something to do with that.
At last they were alone with Dirk Manning.