Dead Secret dffi-3

by Beverly Connor

  “You really took me by surprise, setting a trap for me,” he said, “bringing in the bomb squad last night. How did you know? What tipped you off?”

  “Just my own paranoia. I never believed that Valentine and MacRae could gain access to the museum past your security system and have free run of the place without some inside help. The only question was, Who on the inside was helping them? When we were in the staff meeting discussing what to do, hearing you talk about shutting down the museum-that just didn’t sound like you. Your record is of a man of action and courage who would secure and protect, not someone who would take cover at the first sign of threat. And you introduced the prospect of an incendiary bomb, almost as if you were trying to scare the staff. I just thought to myself, If the museum is shut down, what an opportunity to destroy the evidence the two bunglers didn’t.”

  As Diane spoke, she tried to think of what to do. She hadn’t a clue.

  “How did you know about the museum security sweep last night?” she said.

  “One of my men told me. That kind of thing is hard to keep secret. I was trying to avoid your trap. If I came early tonight before the changeover of security, I just might get away with the evidence.”

  “Are you really going to kill me?”

  “This isn’t something I enjoy, but I’ll do what it takes. I have a museum van parked by the outside elevator. All I need to do is load the evidence into it and drive away. Your security people won’t stop a museum van. But then I discovered that you’ve moved all the evidence. Where is it? In your vault?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Were you in with Valentine and MacRae?”

  “No, you were wrong about that. I wasn’t even approached until after they failed. They’re buffoons. All they know is computers and electronics. It wasn’t me who helped them. But your paranoia served you well.”

  “Why are you doing this? You’ve always had a good record-an exemplary record. No one-including me, really-believed you’d do this.”

  “That’s a fair question. I want you to know: It’s for my family. I got a bad diagnosis from my last physical. I want to leave them something. A large bank account in the Cayman Islands is too good to pass up.”

  “How about leaving them a history of being a good man?”

  “One of the things I’ve discovered is that there’s no reward for being a good man. It’s never bothered me until recently, you know, goodness being its own reward and all, but this happened. . ”

  He tapped his abdomen as if that was where the offending illness was seated.

  “I had to take a good hard look at things-at what I had to leave my kids. No offense, but after all my years of hard, honest work in the military, I end up guarding a museum?”

  “A crime lab, actually. It’s something we value. That’s why we tried to get the best person we could for the job. And even if it were the museum, it’s something worth protecting. It’s history and learning, a repository of good things that should not be lost or destroyed.”

  “Please spare me. Are you trying to flatter me into believing that this job has some real merit?”

  “No. I suppose I’m trying to save you. Is this what you want your kids to remember you by?”

  That may not have been the right thing to say either. From the hardening of his face, she saw that she had hit a nerve.

  “I told you I’m doing it to help my children. They wouldn’t have known about this if you hadn’t figured out my plan.”

  “What, did you think you would steal the evidence, turn it over to the Taggarts, collect your money and it would all just be forgotten? We’d have figured it out sooner or later. It’s what we do.”

  “So you know who it is,” he said.

  Her suspicion had been confirmed again, but naming the Taggarts was probably a mistake, she thought.

  “They were right; they figured there might be something that points to them.”

  “They told you about their involvement in the murders?”

  “Not much. Just enough. They were probably confident that I would accept their offer. Desperation has a smell all its own.”

  I ought to be getting ripe then, thought Diane. If I keep him talking long enough, won’t someone eventually come looking for me? He’s not going to let me go.

  “Is there any way I can buy myself out of this? What if I paid you more than the Taggarts are paying you?”

  “They offered me”-he shook his head as if amazed by their offer-“a lot of money. I told them that they should offer the money to the museum, that you’d probably take it. I told them everyone knows you’re devoted to the museum.”

  “Really? What did they say?”

  Diane wondered if it would do any good to ease away in some direction. He would just track her with the gun and it would probably make him nervous. She didn’t want that-a nervous trigger finger. In the back of her mind she thought she knew that Glocks didn’t go off with a nervous shake; it took a deliberate action. But she didn’t really know that much about guns.

  Shit, what am I going to do? She couldn’t think of anything. She felt sweat running from her hairline down her forehead. Sweat stung her armpits. She had to concentrate to keep her breathing normal.

  “They said they sized you up at that old gal’s funeral and decided you wouldn’t go for it.”

  “Really,” Diane said again. “What was it they saw that caused them to make such a major decision in so short a time?”

  “I don’t know. Now, will you tell me where you moved the evidence? Is it your idea that you can keep me talking until help arrives? All your help is outside and, frankly, your crime scene people aren’t up to it.”

  She could see in his eyes and his body tension that he was approaching a decision point, and it didn’t look like a change of heart, but she kept trying. A man who loved his children must still have a soft spot somewhere inside. Maybe just soft enough to let her off the hook if she could offer him what he really wanted.

  “I was hoping to offer you more money. That way you could save your reputation, get rich, I’d keep my evidence and we’d all be happy.”

  “You don’t have that kind of money. We’re talking about a lot.”

  “I have access to a lot of resources. I know people with a lot of money. Isn’t your reputation worth at least thinking about it?”

  “You know, Dr. Fallon, I wish I believed you, because I would like to take you up on your offer. It does appeal to me, but there’s just no way that can work out. Once I leave here, all deals are off. I know that, and so do you.” He waved the gun at her. “Now quit stalling and tell me where you moved the evidence.”

  Diane said nothing.

  “Okay, let’s look in your vault. Open it up,” he said, advancing on her.

  Diane started for the vault. “Can we at least turn on the lights?”

  “I tried. They’re out.”

  “Out? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Quit stalling.”

  Diane was confused. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, so it wasn’t really a problem, but the night lighting shouldn’t be on at this time. She wondered if it was that way all over the museum. She wondered if it was a harbinger of a fire to come-someone tampering with the electricity. Diane punched the first three codes into the door security pad.

  “Don’t burn down the museum.” She felt her voice crack as she spoke. “You don’t have to do that.” Her voice sounded pleading to her ears. She wondered if she sounded weak and pathetic to him.

  “I hadn’t planned to.”

  “What’s the thing with the lights, then?”

  He was showing exasperation and impatience now. “I told you, I don’t have anything to do with the lights. Why are you going on-”

  Emery abruptly stopped speaking, and Diane looked at him. He stood motionless, holding the gun on her, looking bewildered. There was something familiar about the expression. As he dropped to the floor she saw the same expression on Emery’s face that she had seen on Mik
e’s when he was stabbed.

  Chapter 45

  Diane was paralyzed with confusion and fear. Her six-foot-four-inch head of crime lab security lay limp, facedown on the floor. There was a wet, dark stain on the back of his jacket. In his place stood a much smaller man. In his right hand was a long knife dripping with Emery’s blood. The bad aroma she’d detected earlier wafted through the air. Not for even a moment did she believe she had been rescued.

  A cold fear clutched at Diane’s heart, worse than what she’d felt with Emery. It was a primal fear that choked her in its grip. The thought passed through her mind that he wasn’t a man at all, but some demon rooted up from the bowels of the museum subbasement.

  He was dirty. She could see that and smell it, but it wasn’t just body odor. Another smell clung to his dark, mangy clothing. His coat, perhaps at one time a wool suit coat, too warm for their weather, had been on his body so long it had merged and transformed and become a part of him, like scales or a molting skin. But it wasn’t his odor, the filthy clothes or his short, ratty hair, but his eyes that frightened her the most. They were flat-black, almost dead eyes devoid of humanity-or any emotion found in the human world.

  She had once looked into the eyes of Ivan Santos, the man who slaughtered her daughter and her mission friends and hundreds of others during his horrific reign. In his eyes she thought she had seen the devil. But as she looked at this man, she realized that what she had seen in Santos’s eyes that one time was arrogant, self-centered hatred and anger. He was evil, but this man before her now was something different, something beyond that. Looking into his eyes was looking into a dull, black. . nothing.

  “Who are you?” Diane found a fragment of her voice. It was shaky, but audible.

  He kept staring for a long moment. Diane looked at the knife in his hand. His fingers. The tips of his fingers on his left hand were deformed, curved in some funny way, and the nails were thick and split, some of them missing. One finger on his right hand was severely deformed, and on that hand he wore a ring with a red stone.

  In a flash, Diane put it together, the thing that had been nagging at her that she couldn’t remember-the bloodred ring and injured finger of the man the Odells had seen at the graveside service, the impression in the clay from Neva’s break-in showing a deformed finger. The evidence had pointed to the same person, but she had missed it until now. He was the one who had wrecked Neva’s house. He was the one who had stabbed her and Mike at the cemetery. But who was he, and what possible motive could he have for the brutal and murderous things he was doing?

  Diane moved her fingers slowly to punch the remaining numbers to her vault, hoping to rush in, lock the vault door and call for help. He slashed out at her hand. She pulled back quickly, his blade just missing her fingers. She backed away, looking for a table to put between them. But the tables were too far away.

  “Who are you?” she repeated.

  Again he said nothing, just stared at her with his blank eyes, easing toward her with the knife tip pointed at her, making little jabbing motions. She saw his eyes dart to the tables, and a little smile crept onto his thin lips and he parted them slightly. His eyes lit up suddenly.

  What? she thought, but she dared not take her eyes off him. She tried to back up more quickly. If she could reach the table, at least she would have a barrier. She wanted to try for the Glock, but he was too close. Get to the table, and at least you’ll have time to think.

  “What do you want?” she asked, trying to pull his attention to her, away from the table.

  It startled her when he answered in a high-pitched voice, “Rabbits. I want rabbits.”

  Rabbits? He was the one who had been calling MacGregor and Mike.

  “What does that mean exactly?” said Diane. “Why did you stab me?”

  “It’s what you do with rabbits.”

  “And Mike. Is he a rabbit too?” If she could get him talking, maybe she could get some sense out of him.

  He frowned; his eyes went dark again. “Tried to steal my rabbits.”

  “You know, fella,” said Diane, “you aren’t making a lot of sense.”

  “You don’t have to make sense to a rabbit.”

  “For the sake of argument, pretend for a moment that I’m not a rabbit. What the hell are you talking about?”

  She made a dash for the nearest table and stood at one end. To her good luck, the brakes were off and it rolled easily. She held on to it as if it were a weapon.

  He crouched and began easing around the table. She moved so that it stayed between the two of them. She backed up then and ran at him, pushing the table into him, knocking him onto his back on the slick floor. His knife bounced into the corner.

  She ran for Emery’s gun, but the man jumped to his feet with an inhuman swiftness and ran at her, screaming. She tried to get away, but he knocked her sprawling against a table, overturning it with a bang. The table just missed falling on her. She tried to scramble up, but he caught her foot and dragged her to him. She kicked and he twisted her foot. She cried out in pain.

  “Gotcha, rabbit.”

  She looked for any kind of weapon, but there was nothing. She tried to scramble away from him, grabbing at the table for leverage, something to hold on to to keep from sliding in his direction. She kicked as she scrambled, freed herself and almost made it to her feet before he caught her legs again and pulled her toward him. Damn, he was strong.

  He hit her across the jaw, stunned her and picked up his knife from the floor.

  “You’ll mind what I tell you,” he hissed. “Get on the table.”

  “The hell I will.” Diane punched him in the throat with her fist.

  He squealed and raised his knife over his head.

  The shot was deafening in the enclosed room. The specter paused, knife in midair. Diane didn’t wait to scramble away from him. He fell forward.

  She looked over to see Emery half propped up with his gun aimed in her direction.

  “I hope you don’t intend to shoot me after all this,” she said.

  He lowered the gun. Diane went to him. He collapsed again into a pool of his own blood on the floor.

  “Don’t tell my family, please. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll tell them you’re a hero,” said Diane.

  He closed his eyes and Diane ran for the phone. It had been pulled out of the wall. She ran to her office phone. It was dead. She opened the vault. The phone in there was working. She dialed 911.

  When she came out of her office, she expected to see the wild man gone, vanished the way demons did. But he lay on his face still, his blood spilling into an expanding puddle.

  She felt for a pulse in Emery. There was none. His life had been shorter than he thought. In some odd way, his fall from grace may have saved her life. If Emery hadn’t been there, the madman would have killed her. She shivered at the thought. The smell that clung to her clothes sickened her. She went to the sink and threw up.

  Her crew, including Mike and Korey, came in with the paramedics. They stood in the doorway like a startled Greek chorus and stared at Diane and the bloody scene. Garnett appeared soon after, looking equally as baffled.

  “What happened here?” He went over to look at Emery, then at the stranger. “Who is he?”

  “I have no idea. Emery saved my life. The other man was trying to kill me.”

  Garnett looked at her and they locked gazes for several moments. “Okay, that works for me,” he whispered. “You have no idea who this other man is?”

  “He’s the one who stabbed me and Mike.”

  “Him?” said Mike, and started to walk toward the body. A policeman held him back. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He babbled something about you trying to steal his rabbits.”

  Neva slid her arm around Mike’s waist and he put his arm around her. Anchoring each other from evil, it seemed to Diane.

  “That’s him too?” said Mike. “Who is he? Damn. What is he?”

  “A demon from hell, as near
as I can tell,” said Diane.

  “We now know where that strange smell came from,” said David.

  Neva’s face blanched. “How long do you think he’s been in the museum?”

  “And why didn’t someone see him?” asked Garnett. “Guess we’ll never know the answer to that.”

  Neva was staring at Diane. She said, “Should you go to the doctor? Your face.”

  Diane found a mirror and looked into it. A large bruise spread across her jaw, and her lip was split and bleeding. One of the paramedics came to look at it.

  “Can you move it? Does this hurt?”

  “It’s fine. Just a little sore,” she said.

  He pronounced her jaw unbroken, but told her to put ice on it. She nodded absently.

  “Neva, he’s also the one who trashed your house. If you look at his hands, you’ll see they fit the mold you made. And David, you know that thing we couldn’t think of?”

  “The Odells,” he said, and Diane nodded. “They saw him at the funeral.”

  “I’m not sure why you guys didn’t smell him,” said Jin, waving his hand in front of his face. “This guy was rotting before he even died.”

  “He’s putrid,” said Diane. “David, Jin, will you two process my clothes, please? I’ve got to get out of them and get a shower before I die from nausea.”

  “Of course,” said David. “Let’s take you into the conference room, so as not to contaminate this crime scene.”

  “When you’re done, get some rest,” said Garnett. “I’ll do a report later. Do put some ice on that jaw. It looks terrible.”

  Diane sat in her museum office in clean jogging clothes with an ice pack on her jaw and her feet up on a chair, her hair still wet from the shower. A crime scene cleanup crew was working in her lab removing the residue of the human carnage that had occurred there. Chanell was overseeing the installation of a new and better surveillance system that had arrived to replace the one sabotaged by Valentine and MacRae. Korey was still working on the diaries.