by Merry Jones
OK, time to go. Harper got to her feet and turned, gazed into the passageway. Saw a well of total darkness. Damn. This time, she had no flashlight, would be completely blind. But Salih had a gun. She had no choice.
Harper plunged into blackness, her hands on the walls, feeling for the trail of X’s she’d carved with a nail. Hearing the clunk of the ladder against the opening, Salih’s heavy footsteps on the rungs. His panting as he climbed into the passageway. His voice calling, ‘Harper?’
She kept moving blindly, cautiously, testing the floor with her feet, following the wall with her fingers. Was that an X? Or just a random scratch? She traced the line, touched the intersection in the middle – yes, it was an X! She wouldn’t get lost if she stuck to the trail.
‘Harper, stop. You’ll get lost. Look, I’m a businessman; we can negotiate.’
Harper hurried away from the voice, deeper into the passageways, trying to remember the turns, the dead ends. Remembering with dismay that the X’s didn’t lead to an exit; they led to the spot where she’d found Chloe Manning. Following them was useless. Oh God, what if she got lost again, this time in the dark? Familiar panic bubbled in her belly. What a joke. After escaping against all odds, she’d come back to die here after all?
Shut up, she told herself. Stop whimpering and just go. Salih was not far behind; she could hear his steps. Imagined his bloody breath on her neck, his gun at her ribs. She hurried on, suddenly felt the air shift. Just ahead, her fingers felt empty air. A gap in the wall. Was this a turn in the passageway? She didn’t remember one so close to the rope ladder, but she’d been exhausted, half-delusional and dehydrated, might not have noticed. And the wall definitely had a gap. So the tunnel turned. Except, no – she felt gaps on both sides. So the tunnel divided left and right. She stepped forward, arms outstretched. Found no wall ahead either. She was at a crossroads, could go straight, left or right. She couldn’t take time to think; Salih was too close. Needed to choose and move. Oh God. Harper had no idea where she was. Taking a breath, she chose without a reason and turned right. Her hand skimmed the surface of the wall, feeling her way. Counting her steps in case she had to retrace them.
At the ninth step, Salih called again, his voice not as close. ‘Harper – there’s no point wandering. There’s no way out for you. Come back. We’ll have a bottle of wine and talk things out.’
A bottle of wine? Really? Harper kept moving. Counting steps, she turned and zigzagged blindly, feeling oddly calm. Gradually, Salih’s voice became more distant. After a while, she didn’t hear it at all.
She’d lost count of her steps somewhere after two hundred thirty. And she’d forgotten the sequence of her turns, even though she’d tried to make a marching song out of them: right, right, left, right, left. But she couldn’t remember them, wouldn’t be able to find her way back if she had to. Harper wandered lost, listening for Salih, not hearing him. But soon, she heard other voices.
‘Mrs Jennings?’ A man.
‘Hoppa!’ Hank?
And the barking of a dog.
A dog?
Harper stopped walking and shouted to them, but her voice was thin and hoarse. And using it, she began to cough again. Could they hear her? She waited until they called again, tried to identify their direction, to go towards them. Running, stumbling on the uneven floor, turning corners she wasn’t sure would take her closer, she called out as loudly and often as her throat would allow until, finally, she saw a glow of light ahead. Squinting, shading her eyes from the brightness of flashlights, Harper stopped walking and let herself sink to the tunnel floor.
A golden Lab pulled on his leash, dragging the officer behind him; when he reached Harper, he sat beside her. Panting. And Harper sat panting in unison.
‘Mrs Jennings?’ The officer aimed his flashlight at her face, blinding her. ‘It’s OK, Mrs Jennings. We’ve got you.’
‘Hoppa? Hoppa – OK?’
She couldn’t see him, but Hank’s winded voice came to her from somewhere behind the policeman. And then, as the officer talked into a radio, Hank was moving in front of him. And around the dog. And as he reached for her, Harper half jumped, half fell into his arms.
Hank handed her up through the hole in the wall to the EMTs who’d been waiting. He stood on Rick’s pile of broken crates and smashed relics. They’d set up lights down there, illuminating a whole section of the passageway, but Harper couldn’t bear to look. Didn’t want to see the wreckage of relics on the ground.
The EMTs placed her on a stretcher. Began checking her out. Frowned at her face, her torso. Her throat. Conferred with each other then asked if someone had choked her. She started to nod, but the older one stopped her. ‘No, no – don’t move your head. Stay still.’
Harper kept still, but moved her eyes, searching for Hank. ‘How’d you know where—’ she started but her voice again broke, instigating a fit of coughing and alarming the EMTs.
‘Leslie,’ Hank said.
Leslie?
‘Called. Said you. Shown up. Not.’
What? Shown up where? Harper tried but couldn’t remember anything about Leslie. Couldn’t even recall how she’d gotten to Langston’s.
‘Thank goodness you’re all right, Mrs Jennings.’ Detective Rivers climbed out of the hole in the wall, talking as she strained to lift a German shepherd out and helped an officer climb after her. ‘We’ve been scared sick about you. Especially after we got to Mr Salim’s hotel and saw what was in his room.’
His room? Harper pictured it, the suite, its well-stocked bar. Wait. Her memories were resurfacing – she’d gone to Salih’s hotel to give him Zina’s bracelet, and he’d offered her a drink. ‘Just one,’ because she didn’t want to be late. Wait – late? Oh – late for Leslie! Yes, she’d had an appointment with Leslie, but hadn’t shown up.
Even so, why had Leslie called Hank? If Leslie had a concern, she should have called Harper. Except that maybe she had. Harper wouldn’t have answered her phone, didn’t even know where it was. And, given Harper’s role in the headlines of the last week, Leslie would have worried when Harper hadn’t shown up and wasn’t answering her phone. Which would explain why she’d called Hank.
Harper’s head hurt, resisted thinking. Something pierced her arm. She looked down, saw one of the EMTs – the younger one – inserting a butterfly needle into her arm. Damn. They were giving her an IV.
‘I don’t need that!’ She started to sit up, tried to push him away. Didn’t want to go to the hospital.
‘Lie back, ma’am. It’s just in case.’ He connected a saline bag to her arm while his partner strapped cold packs to her torso.
Detective Rivers was still talking.
‘ . . . your motorcycle outside and your leather bag in his room. But that wasn’t all.’ She folded her arms. ‘We found over a dozen relics in there, packaged and ready to go. Do you know anything about those?’
Harper tried to shake her head but couldn’t. They’d put something around her head and neck, immobilizing her. When had they done that? How, without her noticing? Cold fluids streamed into Harper’s arm. Breathing hurt. The detective talked on.
‘ . . . my untrained eye, Mrs Jennings, those relics look to be Pre-Columbian, and I suspect they might belong to the Langston collection. Given that Mr Salim’s sister used to work with the collection, and that her body was found at the Langston house, and that these relics might have been stolen from there, I thought I should stop over there and see what was going on.’
Harper was still confused. How had they known to search the passageway? Why would they think she was in there?
‘When we arrived, we saw a van parked outside that cave you showed us. We went inside, and, Mrs Jennings, there was a lot of blood in that cave.’
Blood? Wait. Not Wiggins’ body? The EMT was checking her blood pressure, distracting her.
‘Frankly, with so much blood, I feared the worst, but your husband – he’s a keen observer – he noticed something odd: the rope ladder to the passagewa
y had been pulled up. So we thought – we hoped – you’d skedaddled up and taken it up with you.’
‘Enough.’ Hank put a hand up, scolding. ‘Hoppa. Hurt. Talk later not more now.’
The older EMT nodded agreement. ‘We’re ready to roll.’ He rechecked the stabilizing equipment around her neck.
‘One minute.’ Rivers stopped them. She eyed Harper. ‘Mrs Jennings, please. If you know, tell me: where is Salih Salim?’
Harper pointed to the passageway, mouthed, ‘In there.’
‘In the passageway? He was with you?’
Harper tried, but couldn’t shake her head, managed to croak, ‘Following me.’ And then something else occurred to her. ‘Where’s Angus?’
Harper woke up, full of painkillers, staring at an IV pole and bag of fluids. In the hospital. Again, she saw the explosion at the checkpoint, her patrol blowing up. Felt the thud of landing on a burn-out car, her leg . . . She reached down, felt her leg. No bandages. What? She tried to turn her head to look around, but couldn’t move it. Wait – how come—?
‘You up, Hoppa.’ Hank stood above her, taking her hand. ‘Feel how?’ He leaned over, kissed her.
Harper closed her eyes, her memory spotty. ‘I’m in the hospital.’
He explained that, yes, she was. And had been for two days under heavy doses of pain medicine. She’d been X-rayed, MRI’d, examined all over. Tests had shown that her neck was sprained, her larynx bruised, a couple of vertebrae dislocated. Her ribs were bruised, her hands raw from rope burn. From head to toe, she was banged up and scraped. While she’d been running from Salih, adrenalin had probably masked the pain of these injuries, but once she was safe, it had erupted hot and fierce. The pain medications had made her groggy, and, when she’d been awake, she’d had flashbacks of being injured in Iraq, of the explosion that had killed most of her patrol and nearly taken her left leg. She’d cried out, she’d fought. And then she’d slept again.
Hank held her hand. ‘Hungry?’
Harper couldn’t see the tray, but she smelled something sweet. Trying to sit, she reached for the control, couldn’t find it. Hank pushed the button and raised the bed for her; sitting up, she regarded the tray in front of her. Hospital pancakes. A scrambled egg. Some kind of pink meat. Apple juice. Jello. Jello?
Hank pulled the tray over, cut the pancakes for her. Harper couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. Wasn’t sure if she wanted food. But Hank held a syrupy blob to her mouth, and she ate.
‘Good,’ Hank beamed as if she’d finished a marathon. ‘Good eating, Hoppa.’
She chewed in a haze. Felt grimy, wanted a shower.
‘Mother your called.’ Hank shoveled more pancake.
Oh God.
‘Wants come out here.’
Harper almost choked. Her mother? ‘Uh uh.’ Her mouth was full, and her voice unaccustomed to talking. ‘No.’ Harper’s mother meant well, but required too much attention. Harper always took care of her, not the other way.
‘Told her. Visit later. Better.’
Harper let out a breath, swallowed. On her own, she lifted the juice, pulled the top off with shaky hands. Lord, she was weak.
‘Help you?’
‘I got it.’ Almost. She pulled, finally lifted the foil top from the plastic cup, took a drink. All without moving her head and neck, which were still stabilized in the brace. ‘Can they take this thing off?’
‘Soon.’ Hank took the empty cup. Cut another slab of pancake.
Harper was still chewing when Detective Rivers came in. And that’s when breakfast stopped.
‘She better today? Think she’s coherent?’ Rivers addressed Hank.
‘Eating.’ Hank stood bear-like, blocking the detective. Protective.
‘Good. So she can keep on eating. I won’t stay long.’
‘Not strong.’
Harper sat chewing, listening to them discuss her as if she weren’t there.
‘I’m not going to give her a workout, Mr Jennings. I’m just going to talk.’
‘It’s OK, Hank. Good morning, Detective.’ She had a few questions for Rivers, was eager for the chance to ask them.
Rivers came around the bed, took a seat opposite Hank, beside the window. ‘You look better.’
Harper hadn’t considered how she looked. Knew it couldn’t be good.
‘You up for talking a bit?’
Harper swallowed. ‘Sure.’
‘Because you might have some insights about what’s happened. After we sent you off in the ambulance, we found another body.’
Harper couldn’t turn her head. Her eyes moved from side to side, Rivers to Hank. Hank to Rivers. Waiting. Whose body? Rick’s? Salih’s?
‘Turns out he was a professor of Archeology. Frederick Charles Wiggins. He had deep scratches on his arms and face, bruises on his sides as if he’d been beaten up. And two knife wounds – one that pierced the heart.’
Made sense; Harper had fought him pretty hard.
‘And he was posed, just like Zina. Leaning against a tree outside, right where she was.’
Against a tree? How had he gotten there? Maybe Angus moved him? He must have. He was the only one—
‘He was dressed in some kind of costume. Feathers . . .’
‘He wanted to be a shape-shifter. Recreating Pre-Columbian rituals.’ Harper’s voice was weak, still hoarse.
Rivers tilted her head. ‘Mrs Jennings, did those rituals involve taking out people’s hearts?’
Harper stiffened.
‘If they did, he wasn’t the only one recreating them. Because someone took his.’
Someone took Wiggins’ heart? But who? And why? Wiggins was the guy trying to become a Nahual. He’d been the only one with even a remote reason to take hearts.
‘I don’t get it – Wiggins was the one taking the hearts.’
Rivers squinted. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I heard them talking about what he’d done to Zina.’ She hesitated. ‘And because he tried to take mine.’
Hank’s mouth opened. ‘Hoppa.’ He took her hand, turned to Rivers. ‘Upset now. Enough.’
‘Just a few more things.’ Rivers leaned forward so Harper could see her more easily. ‘It’s interesting what you’ve just said, Mrs Jennings. Because it’s consistent with our findings. Wiggins’s heart was removed, but not the way Zina’s was. Zina’s body had minimal damage. The cuts were neat and skilful. The breastbone opened with almost surgical precision.’
Or with the care of a Nahual.
‘This one was ripped open, mangled. Looked like it got hacked with an axe. Clearly, not the work of the same guy.’ She paused. ‘So do you have any idea who could have done it?’
Maybe. ‘Angus Langston was the only other person there.’ But she couldn’t figure out why Angus would mess with Wiggins’ body, let alone take his heart.
‘Interesting. Because Angus took off. He tried to split.’
Tried?
‘We picked him up for a DUI yesterday. He was speeding out of town.’
Had Angus taken the time to cut out Wiggins’ heart before he ran? Harper couldn’t picture it. Didn’t want to.
‘That it?’ Hank asked.
‘It’ll do for now. It’s good to see you getting better, Mrs Jennings.’ Rivers stood, started for the door. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
As she was leaving, Harper remembered what she’d wanted to ask. ‘Detective – wait. Have you found Rick Owens? And what about Salih?’
Neither had been found.
The police had looked for Salih in the passageway, had watched the house and the ramp exit to make sure he couldn’t leave. They’d scoured the tunnels with dogs. But the dogs ran into dead ends or seemed to lose the scent. Two days after he’d entered them, Salih hadn’t emerged from the passageways. Harper wasn’t surprised. Chloe Manning’s body had gone undiscovered for almost a hundred years. The secret corridors were too twisted and gnarled to be untangled so quickly by a few men and dogs.
Har
per came home the next day with a cervical collar and pain pills that made her mind foggy. She disliked dozing off, disliked more the shuddering pain that radiated through her body without them. Despite her loopiness, Harper played hostess to a stream of visitors. Detective Rivers and her sometime partner, Detective Boschi, checked in, reporting that Angus had confessed to stealing relics, but vehemently denied having anything to do with killing Wiggins, whom he called Digger, or anyone else. He admitted that he had information about other crimes, but, hoping to make a deal, he refused to give details until he could negotiate.
Vicki and Trent came with flowers, balloons, bonbons and Scotch. The Archeology Department sent a fruit basket. Professor Schmerling and Dean Van Arsdale came by with chocolates, awkwardly apologizing for Professor Wiggins, muttering that they’d known he’d been eccentric but had never dreamed he’d been so disturbed. Phil and Stacey arrived with questions and a huge tin of candy corn. The press called often; Harper’s mom called even more often, still wanting to fly out, refusing to believe that Harper was ‘fine’ as she claimed. Hank stayed steadfastly by Harper’s side, answering the phone, limiting the number and length of visits. He seemed to relish his role of caretaker, making decisions, taking control.
Harper’s throat began to heal, but she still didn’t speak much. Found herself listening more, thinking that most of what people – even her friends and professors – said was blither. She wondered if Hank, unable to converse well, felt the same distance as she did from others. She thought of them as ‘talkers’. Of herself and Hank as ‘watchers’ and ‘listeners’.
The first few days home passed in a haze of medication. Harper saw the news reports about the murder at Langston’s, heard reporters’ references to the election held earlier in the week. Even with the references, she didn’t think of Colonel Baxter right away, and she didn’t remember Burke’s letter. She didn’t think of the letter even when she watched a feature about the landslide victory of an Iraqi war veteran, a former army colonel elected to Senate from the state of Tennessee. That news upset Harper, but it wasn’t until Friday, walking past the front door, that she actually saw Burke’s envelope under a paperweight on the foyer table. That was when she remembered the list of shipment dates and serial numbers. And it was when, with Hank hovering and telling her not to lift her heavy leather bag by herself, she went to get her phone.
