Standing in the Shadows

by Shannon McKenna

  “Can I get started?” Her voice came out so sharp that Tonia and Mueller stopped their bantering and stared at her, startled.

  “Of course.” Mueller indicated a table at the far end of the room.

  The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can get out of this hellish place. Her mind repeated the thought like a mantra.

  Three items lay on the gleaming dark wood table. The folders of provenance papers lay beside them. She dug out her recorder, and grimly disposed her mind to concentrate. Grown-up. Professional.

  The first item was a bronze dagger and sheath. The provenance papers placed it as La Tene, 200 B.C.E., dredged out of a river in Wales in the 1890s, but the blade seemed much older to her. The guard, grip, and pommel had been made of some organic material that had rotted away, but the waspwaisted, leaf-shaped sweep of the blade was still beautiful. It had the reinforcing ridges, grooves, and finger notching that she had seen on many bronze Celtic swords from 1000 B.C.E.

  The next piece was a stone statuette, eighteen inches high, of a hideous beast holding out its arms. Huge, thick claws sank into the forehead of two severed heads. An arm dangled out of its fanged, gaping jaws. La Tarasque, very like the Gallo-Roman limestone statue she had studied in Avignon on her junior year abroad in France and Scotland.

  She flinched away from it. It was a rare and beautiful piece, but she felt too wretched to cope with bloodthirsty man-eating monsters, unprofessional or not. Later for that one.

  The third item was a bronze flagon, decorated in the vegetal swirls and spirals of late La Tene style. It was embossed with several mythical creatures, but the ones that caught her eye first were the two dragons.

  Fiery red garnet eyes glared at each other. They were symmetrical, a perfectly balanced pose of eternal mortal challenge. Like the torque. Serpentine tails coiled beneath them, blending into the intricate, flowering tendril design that decorated the whole piece.

  The realization crept up on her so slowly, the way a headache gathered force until it had to be acknowledged by the conscious mind. A puzzle she hadn’t known she was trying to solve slipped into place. The provenance papers cited the flagon as discovered near Salzburg in 1867 by a gentleman explorer and tomb raider from the nineteenth century, and subsequently sold in the 1950s to a rich Austrian industrialist.

  But this flagon was not from Salzburg. It was from the Wrothburn cemetery. As was the dragon torque. And the Silver Fork torques, too.

  She felt it in her skin. Her instincts were never wrong. Every hair on her body was on end. The wrongness deepened, widened.

  She forced the words out. “Mr. Mueller. I’m sorry to tell you this, but I believe that the provenance papers for this flagon are falsified.”

  The murmur of conversation from the other side of the room stopped. “I beg your pardon?” Mueller’s voice was gentle, puzzled.

  “The distinctive designs show it to be almost certainly from the grave mounds in Wrothburn, which were only discovered three years ago. I suspect that the dragon torques, and at least two of the torques I saw in Silver Fork, are from Wrothburn, too. These pieces were looted. They belong to the people of Scotland.”

  She didn’t have the courage to face him. Dread held her body in a paralyzing grip. She heard a dry, whispery chuckle, like a snake sliding through dead leaves. She knew. She turned, slowly.

  Mueller’s eyes were no longer electric blue. They were a luminous white-green, a cold, dead color. He lifted his hand and waggled his index and middle fingers. The blue discs of his colored contacts clung to the ends of them. “Congratulations, Erin.”

  “It’s you,” she whispered. “You’re Novak. Connor was right.”

  His smile widened. “Yes. He was. Poor, mad Connor.”

  She wondered how anything so alien could have masked itself as human for so long. Then she thought of Tonia, with a shock of guilt and horror. She had dragged poor, unsuspecting Tonia into a world of hurt.

  Her anguished eyes met Tonia’s—and her heart skipped a beat.

  Tonia was smiling. She reached into her white Prada bag, and leveled a small silver revolver at Erin with casual skill. “I’m sorry about this, Erin. I genuinely did like you. You seemed like such a priss when I met you at the clinic, but you’re actually smarter than I thought.” She shook her head. “But not quite smart enough.”

  Outrage held the creeping horror temporarily at bay. “You vicious, lying, heinous bitch!” Erin hissed.

  “I am impressed with you, my dear,” Novak said. “You exceeded my wildest hopes. Not only did you come to the right conclusion in record time, but your first impulse was to uphold the rules. You win the grand prize, Erin. Tamara, show her what she’s won.”

  There was no taunting glitter in Tamara’s eyes this time, no smile on her pale lips. She opened the library door. A tall, pale, hairless man stepped inside, grinning. Erin cried out before she could stop herself.

  Georg. She knew him, even shaven bald, with the missing teeth. His eye was distorted by the drooping lid. One side of his mouth was thickened and twisted. Crimson weals marred his pallid cheeks.

  He leered, his eyes dragging hungrily over her body. “Hello, Erin,” he said. “I am happy to see you. You look very pretty.”

  She backed away. The table bumped painfully hard into her hip. “It really was you in that SUV last Sunday, wasn’t it?”

  His grin widened, became triumphant. “Yes.”

  “Georg’s usefulness to me was much reduced by your lover’s beating,” Novak said. “He was once so beautiful, remember? And prison was very hard for Georg. He is very angry. Are you angry, Georg?”

  “Yes.” Georg’s good eye was bright with venomous hatred. “Very.”

  “He suffered permanent nerve damage to his face, you know,” Novak said. “In thanks for all of his pain and sacrifice, Georg shall be the one to execute my plans for you. He lives for this promise.”

  “No,” Erin said. She sidled along the table. “No.”

  Tonia clucked her tongue in warning. “Don’t move, please.”

  “It is a beautiful plan,” Novak said. “Prison gives one time for a great deal of reflection, you see. I’m sure your father finds it to be so.”

  “So this is all just to get back at Dad?” She hardly cared what he answered. Her words were just a desperate bid for time.

  He laughed. “No, Erin. I’m getting back at everyone. Tonia, did you do as you were told this morning?”

  “Yes, Mr. Mueller.” Her smile was smug. “Barbara Riggs is in a tizzy. Phones are buzzing about McCloud’s family history of mental illness, his delusions, his persecution complex. His obsessive pursuit and seduction, and let me add rape, of Erin Riggs—”

  “That’s ridiculous! No one will ever believe that! My mother saw me with him! She saw how he—”

  “When the video footage of last night’s tryst is found in his house, she may well take a different view,” Novak said. “McCloud couldn’t have behaved more perfectly for my purposes if I had given him orders. I loved it when he tore your dress and bent you over the table.”

  She covered her shaking mouth with her hand. “Video footage?”

  “Indeed. You both surprised me last night, my dear. I had no idea that McCloud could be so…raw.”

  “I had a conversation with your neighbor Mrs. Hathaway today.” Tonia was enjoying herself. “She can’t wait to tell what she saw last night in the stairwell. It’s common knowledge that McCloud killed Billy Vega. A massive manhunt is already underway.”

  “And they will find him,” Novak said. “They will find you, too, but alas, it will be too late. Let me explain the sad sequence of events for you, my dear. After McCloud killed Billy Vega, his mental imbalance escalated, faster than anyone could have anticipated. Brought on by mad jealousy, no doubt. Ah, love is a dangerous thing.”

  “But that’s ridiculous! No one would believe that Connor would kill Billy Vega. He had no reason to—”

  “Georg left no trace of himself at Billy�
��s house,” Novak said smugly. “But the forensics team have found the hairs from McCloud’s comb. The bloody cane is in McCloud’s basement. A clear sign that he wanted to be stopped. A subconscious cry for help, if you will. We mounted McCloud’s camera in your wall, we used tapes that were covered with his fingerprints. The camera was reported stolen months ago, so it will be obvious that he has been stalking you for some time. I’m sure the police will enjoy the spicy episodes from your affair. Maybe they will even turn up on the Internet. Like father, like daughter.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  “It was about time something happened in that wretched apartment of yours,” he said. “The people who monitored you almost expired from boredom. Georg, turn on the video monitor, if you please.”

  She hadn’t even noticed the wide-screen flat monitor mounted on the wall. The image that appeared on it made her knees turn to water.

  Connor was tied spread-eagled on the bed, blindfolded.

  “He will wake up shortly.” Novak’s tone was gleeful. “Then the real entertainment begins. He will watch while Georg performs the dreadful acts for which he will bear the blame. Then he will apparently come to his senses, realize what he has done, and commit suicide with his own gun, in an agony of guilt and horror.”

  She stared into the monitor. Connor looked so still and vulnerable. “It will never work,” she said desperately. “Forensics—”

  “No, I promise, I have thought of everything. Is he awake, Tamara?”

  She peered into the monitor. “Could be. Hard to say.”

  “Tamara will see to it that the bodily fluids upon your ravaged body are the genetically correct ones. Tamara could extract bodily fluids from a stone statue, couldn’t you, my seductive beauty?”

  Tamara gave him a wide, empty smile. “Oh, yes, boss.”

  Novak clapped his hands together. For the first time, she noticed the prosthetic fingers. He followed her gaze and held them up, waggling them playfully. “You never checked, Erin. You were so convinced that the world behaves like you do. Now we shall watch Tamara and McCloud on the video monitor. Would you enjoy that?” He gave her an encouraging smile, as if offering a special treat to a child.

  “No,” Erin said.

  “What a poor sport,” he chided. “Making Riggs women watch their men with other women is something of a hobby of mine.”

  “Mom’s TV,” she whispered. “It was you.”

  “Oh, yes. I was sorry when McCloud put a stop to it. He spoiled my plans for Cindy, too. I had planned for your mother to commit suicide, you see, and for Cindy to begin the long slide into addiction. Those Riggs women just cannot choose good men. But no matter. Your death will finish them off nicely. Tamara, it’s time. See to it,” he ordered.

  Tamara left the room. There was a heavy silence. Everyone was looking at her, as if waiting for something.

  “It won’t work,” she said flatly. “Connor is a noble, honorable person. Too many people know this. But you couldn’t be expected to understand that. You’re just a squirming thing that feeds on death.”

  Georg pulled a pair of thick rubber gloves out of a box on the table, and put them on. He glanced at Novak. Novak nodded.

  Georg seized her by the hair and struck her in the face.

  Erin spun around, crashed against the wall, and slid down to the floor. There was blood in her mouth. No one had ever hit her in her entire life. Her mind reeled with pain and shock, fought to orient itself.

  “Georg must cover himself with plastic, of course, before he touches you,” Novak said, as if nothing had happened. He took a step closer, and chuckled as she shrank away. “Oh, I have no intention of hurting you,” he assured her. “I will only watch this time. Nothing must threaten my new identity. Only Connor’s blood and hair and semen will be found upon your ravaged body. His skin, beneath your fingernails.”

  “No one would believe that Connor could ever do such a thing. No one who knows him.” Her voice shook with furious conviction.

  “No? Picture it. He will be found dead, his pistol in his mouth, not far from your body. Half naked, scratched to ribbons. Once the sex tapes are found, the case will be closed, my dear. Everyone already thinks he has lost his grip. Everyone. Even you thought so, remember?”

  She pushed away the guilt and shame his words provoked, and struggled up onto her knees. “They will come looking for you.” She threw the words at him. “My mother knew that I was coming—”

  “But you never made it, Erin. I called your mother right before I buzzed you.” Tonia’s voice took on a taunting, singsong quality. “Mrs. Riggs, is Erin with you, by any chance? I had an appointment with her to go to Mueller’s, but she’s not home! How odd! It’s so unlike her!”

  Erin stared at her, stunned. “You are so incredibly cruel.”

  “Yes. And now that I am dead, no one will bother me,” Novak said smugly. “I should have arranged my own death years ago, but I was too attached to my raffish identity. Ego, you know. Gets you every time.”

  “How did you turn yourself into Mueller?” Erin demanded.

  “Tempting my ego? It’s difficult not to boast. I stole Claude’s life fourteen years ago, which is not so great a crime as you might think, since he wasn’t really living it anyway. I needed his live DNA to exchange for my own in the databanks, so I kept him in a drug induced coma. One last stint with the plastic surgeons and I can show myself to the world without a care. Perhaps I will give that donation to the Huppert after all, on the condition that they name the new wing after you. In memoriam. Wouldn’t that be touching?”

  “You are a demon,” she said.

  He looked hurt. “Not at all. I have a very tender heart. I used to visit Claude from time to time, back when my life was less complicated. I would hold his hand, tell him of my various doings. They say comatose people understand on some deep level. But you know that already.”

  She struggled up into a sitting position. “You’ve been watching me ever since Connor was in the clinic. All this time.”

  “Your devotion gave me the idea,” Novak said. “McCloud gave me another when he brutalized Georg. The two of you were destined to destroy each other. Your mother—pah, too easy. Cindy, too. Like your father. But you, Erin. You are the key to that whole family. All that moral fiber and self-control. All that rigorous effort.”

  She had slipped into a state of surreal calm. “So this is to punish Dad, for failing you, and the McClouds for catching you? That’s all?

  “Ah, yes, the McCloud brothers. Connor’s death and disgrace will set them on the road to ruin, and I will pick them off at my leisure. There are Seth Mackey and his bride to think of, too, but no hurry. Everyone who has dared to affront me will be punished. And not a trace will lead back to me, because I no longer exist. I am transfigured.”

  “So you have nothing against me personally,” she persisted.

  “No,” he said. “You couldn’t cross me. It’s not in your nature.”

  “My nature is changing.” Erin struggled up onto wobbling legs, supporting herself against the wall. “I’ve loosened up quite a bit. I’ve been leaving my bed unmade, the dishes unwashed. Losing my temper. Using swear words. My tolerance for chaos has risen sharply lately.”

  Novak laughed at her. “Bravado in the face of doom. It almost moves me to pity.” His eyes flicked to Georg. “Almost.”

  Erin’s mind was strangely lucid. Novak was the embodiment of her nightmares, the goad behind her ceaseless efforts to control her world and keep chaos at bay. And all her struggles had led her straight here, into this monster’s grasp.

  The fear of chaos had controlled her all her life. She may have just a few minutes left to live, but she would be free in them. She would create her own reality for as long as she had the power. She drew herself up as tall as possible. “Your plan is inherently flawed,” she said.

  Novak looked slightly startled, as if a doll had come to life and criticized him. He gestured politely for her to explain herself.
/>
  “You studied everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, but you forgot one thing,” she said. “Real people grow. They change. But for you, everything is already dead. Inanimate objects for you to move around. Because you’re dead inside, Novak. You can’t grow. That’s why you hate us all so much. If I were a saint, maybe I would pity you, but I’m not. You miserable, twisted, dead thing.”

  Novak blinked. He looked at Georg. “Hit her again.”

  Georg lifted his arm. Erin cringed against the table and braced herself.

  The lamps flicked off. The image of Connor on the video screen collapsed into a pinpoint of light and vanished into a flat gray void.

  Chapter

  25

  Someone was slapping him. Saying something urgent. Yelling. He wanted to tell them to stop, but his tongue and lips and teeth couldn’t figure out the choreography of speech. A haze of black and red and white swam in his vision. It coalesced into a white oval. A face. Emerald eyes. Lips, teeth, moving soundlessly.

  Slap, slap. The green-eyed bitch wouldn’t leave him alone.

  Icy water splashed his face. He gasped into wakefulness. “What?”

  “Wake up, you idiot! We don’t have much time. Once they get the power back on, they’ll be on to me.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them. “What the fuck—”

  “It’s Tamara. You’re Connor McCloud. Novak’s got you tied to a bed, and Erin at gunpoint. Does that ring a bell?”

  “Erin? Novak?” He surged up, and was jerked back by the duct tape that held him to the bed. “Where is Erin?”

  “Excellent. Much better,” Tamara said. “Now listen carefully. We don’t have much time. I’m going to untie you, and give you a weapon. Then you are going to help me kill Kurt Novak. Are you up for it?”

  He nodded, bemused, as she pulled a knife out of a seam in her skirt and set to work on the tape that bound him. One arm came loose, then the other, numb from being pulled so tightly. Her full skirt rustled as she hurried around the bed and started on his feet.