Conspiracy to Murder

by Heather Graham

  “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 damned 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.

  Micah and Craig worked the tie-up in the tunnels. Long hours, a lot of waiting, a lot of speculating and figuring.

  Meanwhile, Vivian had been questioned at the station—and confessed to everything, despite her attorney’s cautions.

  “The whole thing sounds like Hitchcock,” Micah told Craig. “In a sick and twisted way. Strangers on a Train, except they weren’t strangers. Vivian Richter was working with Arlo Hampton. Arlo wanted Henry’s place as lead of the expedition. And Vivian was willing to kill Henry. It was an easy trade, or so it seemed. She’d kill Henry and Arlo would kill Ned. And, of course, she was willing to pay so that Satima Mahmoud would get her political group of disenfranchised students to fake an insurgency to cover up the murder. But as I said, in return for Henry being killed, Arlo was supposed to kill Ned. He screwed up. Vivian was afraid that Joe Rosello might figure out that Satima Mahmoud had been paid, so she decided she should poison him, which was why she showed up at the parade. And it was how Harley knew it wasn’t the same mummy. Vivian is nowhere near as tall as Arlo. But Arlo didn’t follow through on his part of the bargain. And Vivian lost control. When she saw Harley, I guess she wanted to do her in. But she hated Arlo for leaving her in the lurch. She was ready to kill Ned without blinking—and poison Arlo.”

  “Yeah, so all that ‘beloved husband’ stuff was just an act. For our benefit,” Craig muttered.

  “In Vivian’s mind, her husband never gave her the respect she deserved. She was bitter, says he constantly claimed that she only had a job because of him. I guess she grew to hate him. If Arlo had played his part properly, he would’ve been the big cheese and she would’ve held the second position. But Arlo failed her, so she poisoned him. Otherwise, what was he going to do? Blame her.”

  “So if Arlo does make it, he’ll be under arrest. Conspiracy to commit murder—even if he chickened out on it,” Craig said.

  “Yeah,” Micah agreed. “But…”

  “But?”

  “I’m glad that Jensen Morrow and the other grad students have been proven innocent. They’re Harley’s friends. For her, I’m happy.”

  “Yep. I’m going topside for a while. I’ll try to find out about Jensen’s condition,” Craig told Micah. “I’ll let you know.”

  Micah nodded. He hoped Jensen Morrow was going to be okay.

  He was, Craig reported a short time later, upon returning to the tunnels. Jensen had a concussion, and they’d watch him at the hospital for a few days. After that, he’d be as good as new, according to the doctors.

  Finally, just as dawn was breaking, they finished in the tunnels.

  He and Craig left.

  Craig didn’t ask where he wanted to go. He dropped him off at Harley’s.

  “I should’ve called her, I guess,” Micah said.

  “She’ll be waiting for you,” Craig told him.

  And she was.

  The night security guard waved him in. He had no idea how Harley knew exactly when he’d reach her door, but somehow she did.

  The door opened, and she hurried into his arms.

  He held her tight. She was bathed and sweet and fresh, and the scent of her hair was intoxicating; he kissed her, a long and lovely kiss, then pulled away.

  “The tunnels,” he said with a shudder.

  And the blood of a dead man and the rot of millennia, he might have said.

  He didn’t need to.

  She drew him in and up the stairs, to the bedroom, where he tossed his gun and holster on t
he table, and undressed quickly with her help. In minutes, she got into the shower behind him, forgetting to shed whatever silky thing she was wearing.

  The water was hot and wonderful. Sensual, erotic and yet comforting.

  He wasn’t sure when they left the shower; he wasn’t sure when she shed the wet silky thing. He knew they were still damp when they fell onto her bed. The room was in shadows, dawn was breaking with a spectacular light, and nothing seemed to matter except that they were together, touching each other.

  They licked, teased, breathed each other.

  Made love.

  And made love again.

  And then they slept for hours and hours and finally awoke.

  Just for good measure, they made love yet again.

  Later, when another day was almost gone, Micah looked through the great windows at the beauty of the church beyond.

  “We’re going to get married there,” he said.

  And then, of course, he remembered that they’d really only known each other for less than a week.

  “One day,” he added. “Somewhere along the line.”

  “What a proposal,” she said lightly. “So romantic!” But she smiled. “One day… Yes, I like it. I like it very much!”

  As she replied, he suddenly heard a mewling sound. He looked at her with surprise.

  “Oh!” she murmured.

  She hurried away and returned with a little ball of gray fluff in her arms.

  “Um, we have a kitten. I hope that’s okay?”

  He laughed. “How did you…?”

  “I found him in the tunnel. With… Ned’s body. I think he helped us, really. He…he needs a home.”

  “So where has the little guy been?”

  “I guess he went into hiding while we were all down there.”

  “And then?”

  “He followed me up to the ground floor, and one of the officers took him for me until I got back from seeing Jensen at the hospital,” she said. “I was thinking of calling him Lucky.”

  “Lucky it is,” he said, and he took her—and the ball of fluff—back into his arms.

  Lucky.