by Lee, Rachel
Anna struggled up the stairs, feeling as if each one were a mountain. She heard Lance behind her, dragging his foot, groaning, but moving steadily toward her.
She didn’t dare look back.
Another step, and another, and finally she reached the exit door. It was closed, locked for the night, and for a few moments she thought the panic bar wouldn’t work.
Shoving with all her strength, she at last heard the lock snap open, and the door yielded.
And only a few feet behind her, she heard Lance mumbling, “I’m gonna get you, bitch.”
She shoved through the door, staggering into the exit chamber with its seats and guest book. Behind her, she heard the door close on Lance, heard his hmmph as it hit him. Then heard it open again as he came through.
He was moving faster, she realized, but she wasn’t moving any faster at all. The floor kept trying to reach up for her, and again and again she had to steady herself to keep from tumbling over.
Go! Keep going. Get the dagger away from him. Go.
He was closing on her again as she rounded the corner and burst onto the mezzanine. On the back of her neck she could almost feel his hot breath.
Vertigo grabbed her unexpectedly as her eyes saw the end of the mezzanine and the far-below cavern of the lobby. She wanted to turn away, but she was unsteady and…
He grabbed her. She felt him grab her injured arm.
A squeal of pain escaped her, and the dagger clattered to the floor as she fell.
Panting wildly, panicking, she began to crawl as best she could with one arm and disobedient legs. Keep going. She had to keep going.
She reached the railing, planning to use it to pull herself back to her feet. But as she turned over to grab it with her one good hand, she saw her nightmare vision.
Lance stood over her, with the dagger in his hands. Raising it. Letting it glitter cruelly in the light.
Gil nearly tumbled down the steps into the burial chamber. It was empty, except for one of the sisters. His heart skipped a beat and he hurried over to her. Nancy.
“Nancy!” He shook her. She groaned and curled up into a ball. No blood. Thank God.
But Anna…
Even in the dim light he could see the dark wet trail leading up the exit stairs. Leaving Nancy, he headed for it, praying he wasn’t too late.
Tebbins’s car slammed to a halt in front of the museum. The seat belt hurt the incision on his chest, for an instant making everything swim.
Other cars were coming. He could hear them. But he couldn’t wait.
Reaching across with his good hand, ignoring the shriek of his wound, he unbuckled the belt. “Let’s go.”
The front door was locked. No one was visible inside except a cop who appeared to be sleeping at the security console.
Then he saw movement up on the mezzanine.
“Shoot the lock out,” he told the patrolman beside him. “Now!
The young man obliged, taking it out with two shots. Then the officer shoved the door open, and went in ahead of Tebbins.
Lance Barro stood on the mezzanine, looking down at them, the dagger raised high in his hands.
“Shoot him,” Tebbins ordered.
Gil burst through the exhibit exit doors to see Barro standing over Anna, the dagger clutched high above him. Sideways. For an instant Gil doubted his ability to shoot him.
But then there was a shout from below, and a gunshot. Gil heard the ricochet as the bullet struck the steel railing. Barro turned toward Gil.
And Gil, his head suddenly clear, took aim and squeezed the trigger.
His bullet went wide. He was still too unsteady. Barro started to smile.
Gil dropped to one knee, resting his elbow on his thigh to steady his aim.
“You see?” said Barro. “You can’t shoot me. The jaguar’s protecting me.” He lifted the dagger high again.
“Bet on it, you son of a bitch.” Gil squeezed the trigger again.
Barro’s arms wheeled and he staggered toward the railing. An instant later, he fell over it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ignoring everything else, Gil rushed to Anna’s side. Her face was tightened in a grimace of pain, and there was blood on her chin.
“Anna? Anna are you all right?”
“I’m fine… I’m fine… Nancy?”
“She’s okay. Sleeping, but okay.”
“Oh, God, I bit him. Like some kind of animal….” She rolled onto her good arm and retched with dry heaves.
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing her back. “Baby, it’s okay. You did what you had to.”
Then, leaning closer to the railing, he looked down. Tebbins and the cop were standing on either side of Barro’s sprawled body. “Is he gone?”
“Gone,” Tebbins said. “Most definitely gone.”
Anna caught her breath. “I need to see. I have to see him, Gil. To know…”
He understood. Gently, aware of his own lingering unsteadiness, he helped her to her feet. Slowly, like a pair of drunks, they made their way down the ramp to the floor below. A group of other cops burst in through the front doors, but Gil and Tebbins ignored them.
Tebbins pointed to the body. The tip of the dagger protruded from the center of Barro’s back like a bloody jade obelisk.
“Hoist on his own petard,” Tebbins said. “Right through the heart.” He looked up. “Anna, it seems the gods were looking out for you after all.”
One week later, Gil, Anna, and Nancy paced the museum lobby. A discreet sign near the door asked patrons to be patient with repairs. A square of bare floor showed beneath the mezzanine, where the bloodstained carpet had been taken away. Fresh, unpainted spackle covered a bullet hole, high in the wall. The security-booth door had been replaced, but the front doors still bore signs of the violence. The press coverage had been extensive, and a line was already forming outside, ready for the exhibit’s reopening.
Anna almost didn’t recognize Tebbins when he shambled through the front door. He actually shambled. Gone were the dapper suit and bowler. His hair was artfully disheveled, and an oversize, rumpled raincoat hung over a plain brown suit. His teeth clenched an unlit cigar.
“Tebbins?” she asked. “Is that you?”
Gil was already laughing, shaking his head, even before Tebbins answered.
“They took away my moustache,” he said with a shrug. “Can’t do Poirot without the moustache.”
“So now you’re Columbo,” Gil said.
Tebbins patted each pocket of his raincoat before finally fishing around and withdrawing an object wrapped in a wrinkled handkerchief. He pulled back one corner to reveal Pocal’s dagger. “You’ll be wanting this back, Anna. But not quite yet. It’s just procedure, you know. A couple of details are still bothering me.” He offered a slightly hunched bow. “Could we look at the crime scene again, ma’am?”
He was playing this new role to the hilt, Anna realized. She smiled. “Sure, Tebbins. Let’s go on down.”
“It kept nagging at me,” Tebbins said as they walked through the exhibit. “How did he get the dagger out of that case? With the vacuum seal and all.”
Anna shuddered as they entered the sarcophagus area.
“Are you okay?” Gil answered.
“Fine,” she said, hoping her voice carried more conviction than she felt. “I just haven’t been back down here since. But I need to get used to it. This is my exhibit. Not Lance Barro’s.”
“I’m sorry about this, ma’am,” Tebbins said. “But these details… I like to tie up all the loose strings.”
“You want to show off,” Gil said with a wry smile. “You’ve figured out how he did it.”
Tebbins opened the glass case. “I woke yesterday scratching at my arm. From where they had the IV in me.” He took the cigar from his mouth and touched his fingertips to his forehead. “And that’s when it hit me. That’s how he did it.”
“I don’t understand,” Nancy said. Anna nodded agreement.
Tebbins squat
ted and pointed beneath the case. “This vacuum alarm. He had to fool the sensor into thinking the pressure hadn’t changed. So he had to keep a vacuum right next to the sensor itself.” He looked at the bottom of the case for a moment, then straightened and examined the top surface. “Right here. See it?”
Anna stepped closer. Tebbins’s fingertip pointed to the small round hole where the sensor fit into the case. “I don’t see anything.”
“You gotta look real close,” Tebbins said. “It’s just a tiny pinprick. Right… there.”
“Yeah,” Gil said. “But that’s barely big enough for a needle.”
Tebbins brought his hands together in a slow-motion clap. “Exactly. A needle. Like I said, it was the IV that got me to thinking. If he made a small enough hole, the pressure wouldn’t drop enough to trip the alarm because the pump kicks in for small changes. Now look at the sensor opening. See how it looks a little wet? Shiny?”
Anna nodded. “Condensation?”
He shook his head. “Silicone. He took a hypodermic syringe and filled it with silicone. Then he drilled that tiny hole, right next to the sensor. And he injected a bubble of silicone, over the opening. That formed an airtight seal.” He looked up. “So the alarm didn’t trip when he opened the case. There was still a vacuum next to the sensor.”
“But how about the pressure switch?” Gil asked. “How did he take the dagger away without tripping that?”
“Very carefully,” Tebbins said. “Like this.”
He laid the real dagger so that its blade rested atop the blade of the glass replica, which was still in its place. Then he slowly slid the two daggers over, until the real dagger lay over the switch.
“The pressure on the switch never changed,” Tebbins said. “That pressure alarm’s on now. He just had to be careful to keep the daggers overlapping, so the weight over the switch at any given moment was the same.”
Pocal’s dagger now rested exactly where it had been when the exhibit first opened. Tebbins wrapped the other dagger in his handkerchief and looked at Anna. “May I keep this? As a souvenir.”
“I certainly don’t want it,” Anna said.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Tebbins said. He looked back at the case and gave a small nod. Next he replaced the glass cover and switched on the vacuum pump. He nodded again.
“Case closed.” Tebbins smiled.
“He really was clever,” Nancy said.
“Well, you’ve got your dagger back,” Tebbins said. “I guess I’ll be getting back to work.” He shuffled toward the exit, paused, and turned. “Oh. Just one more thing.”
Now even Anna laughed. He’d obviously been rehearsing that moment.
Tebbins put his fingers to his forehead and looked at Gil. “I’m curious. How soon are you transferring to the Tampa PD?”
“Me? Why would I want to do that?”
Anna smiled at him, lifting her brows. “I’m in Tampa.”
“Good point,” Gil said, his cheeks coloring.
Nancy grinned. “You go, girl.”
RACHEL LEE, winner of numerous awards for her best-selling romantic fiction, is the author of Silhouette’s #1 miniseries, Conard County. She also writes lighthearted contemporary romances as Sue Civil-Brown. But suspense fiction that zings like a high-tension wire with excitement and passion has become her signature style—and has made her previous Warner book Before I Sleep one of the best romantic reads of the year! As Romantic Times says, Rachel Lee is “an author to treasure.”
“RACHEL LEE DESERVES MUCH ACCLAIM FOR HER EXCITING TALES OF ROMANTIC SUSPENSE.”—Midwest Book Review
It’s a night of triumph for museum curator Anna Lundgren, the opening of her first exhibition. But the acclaim quickly ends when a guard is murdered in the theft of a supposedly cursed jade dagger—and suspicion falls on Anna. Determined to prove her innocence, desperate to find the killer, Anna has nowhere to turn to for help…except to the man leading the police investigation. Cool-headed and street savvy, Detective Gil Garcia has seen all the incriminating evidence against Anna, yet instinct tells him she’s innocent. If he’s wrong, his career could be on the line. If he’s right, men someone is orchestrating a sinister game of lies, manipulation, and death… and Anna may be the next to die.
“TERRIFICAUTHOR RACHELLEE DOES A MASTERFULJOB TURNING ON THETENSION AND SUSPENSE.”—Romantic Times