One Grave Less

by Beverly Connor

  He turned onto the road that led to the museum. It was a nice drive usually, but she dreaded every minute of it now. She wasn’t satisfied with her plans. Mainly because they weren’t plans. They were possible ideas . . . if she got a chance . . . and if everything went right.

  He parked in her spot and they got out of the car, but not before he warned her again that he loved collateral damage. On the way up the steps they met Andie and Liam coming down.

  “Hey,” said Andie.

  “What are you doing here so late?” said Diane.

  “You didn’t tell me being director is so time-consuming. Kendel isn’t back yet and it’s just me and the support staff.” Andie seemed happy. “What are you doing back this late?” She looked at the guy and smiled.

  “I’m interviewing for a new security position,” said Diane. “We need to beef it up after what happened in the Mayan Room.”

  As she spoke she made eye contact with Liam. Everyone told her she had no poker face whatsoever; perhaps she could telegraph her peril. If she had, Liam gave no indication that he understood. Then again, he was probably a better poker player than she. He could also come up with a plan. Liam, she suspected, was a match for this guy. Please, Liam, understand. Read my mind.

  “Sounds to me like a good idea,” said Liam, smiling at the guy. “You need some stronger guards, from what Andie tells me. We’re going to get some ice cream. Would you like us to bring you some?”

  “No. I won’t be here long. I’m just going to talk to Chanell about a new position,” said Diane.

  “See you tomorrow,” said Andie.

  Diane hoped that was true. She watched a moment while Andie and Liam went to his car and got in. Damn. She didn’t think he got the message. But then, if he did, he couldn’t let her know. Still . . . Diane felt depressed. She walked up the steps with mega guy.

  “Good story,” he said. “Logical. You do need better security.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and really did try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  They entered the building. She waved to the security staff on duty and passed them, going through the Primate section to the bank of elevators midway between the east and west wings.

  “You didn’t tell that security guard why I’m here,” he said. “I don’t want them to get suspicious.”

  Diane stopped and looked at him. Mainly because she wanted to have any delay she could.

  “Andie is my assistant. I put her in charge until I could straighten this mess out. I share things like that with her. I rarely tell the staff why I come in the door, and they don’t expect me to.”

  He raised his eyebrows. Diane got the odd sensation that he respected that. Geez, what a relationship they had.

  Okay, what vault was she going to take him to? Geology. Mike Seeger was gone on one of his extremeophile trips and the people who worked for him wouldn’t be working late. She just hoped she didn’t run across anyone while she was here. This guy would kill them without a thought.

  “Why is it so dark in here?” he asked.

  “It’s the night lighting,” she said. “Many of the exhibits are harmed by constant exposure to light. We give them a break at night.”

  At the bank of elevators she pressed the up button and waited. Diane’s heart pounded against her ribs. Think, think, think.

  “What’s taking so long with the elevator?” he said.

  “It’s not taking long,” said Diane. “This is the way they work. Please be patient. I’m eager to give you the package you want. Surely you can see that no one here is a threat to you.”

  Diane punched the button again. The elevator was taking longer than usual.

  “Stairs,” he said. “This is taking too damn long.”

  “This way,” said Diane, and she led him through a door to the stairs located by the first-aid station.

  “It’s on the second floor,” she said.

  “The second floor? Why were we taking the fucking elevator anyway? No wonder you people are so out of shape.”

  They walked up the stairs to the second floor, coming out at the archaeology office. She hoped Jonas Briggs was home in bed and the custodial staff had finished with this part of the building.

  “The vault is in the geology lab,” she said.

  “This is the place where we retrieved our guy,” he said.

  “Yes, the Special Exhibit Room is on this floor,” she said. She looked at the hall door to Mike’s office. He always put a notice up when he was gone. She was glad he wasn’t there. He usually worked late, often very late. She didn’t want any more people hurt by this man. She walked around through the Geology Room to the door of the lab where the vault was housed.

  “Why did you put the package in the geology vault?” he said.

  “It has valuable gemstones in it. It’s one of our more secure vaults.” Not completely the truth. They did keep a fortune in gemstones in it, but all the vaults were secure.

  “What kind of gemstones?” he said.

  Going to do a little larceny while he collects the package , she thought. “Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, gold, silver, platinum . . . the usual. It’s the geology vault,” she said.

  “They are valuable?” he said.

  “Yes,” she answered, “very.”

  “I’ll take them with me,” he said.

  “You have something to carry them in?” she said.

  “Pockets,” he said.

  She looked at him. “Your pockets aren’t that big.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, as if she had just insulted a piece of his anatomy.

  “We have drawers and drawers of them. How much were you planning on taking?” she said.

  “Surely you have a sack around here somewhere. You can pick out the most valuable.”

  Diane shrugged. “I’m really not understanding why you guys didn’t know about the vaults,” she said. “It seems like a big oversight.”

  “You can believe I’m going to smack our guy around for it. Stupid pissant.”

  Guy, she thought. A guy who is still alive. Not Madge. But why was Madge in the mailroom snooping around? She wasn’t looking for a catalog.

  Diane’s hand shook as she keyed in the lock code to the geology lab. It didn’t unlock.

  Well, shit, she thought. Did Mike change it? More likely I got it wrong.

  “What’s the matter? You better not be pulling something.”

  “Look, I just want to survive the night, okay? I’m not pulling anything. I’m just nervous, though I don’t know why I should be.”

  She keyed in the code again. This time the lock disengaged.

  “Try being more careful.”

  Diane had a thousand retorts, but she let them die on her tongue. No use antagonizing any more than he was already. She looked around the lab. Scrupulously clean. Mike hated a mess. Still, his staff could have left a geology pick or two lying around. The only thing she saw was big rocks.

  “What are you looking for? It had better not be a weapon.”

  “A sack,” said Diane. “You said you want to take some of the gemstones.”

  “Get the package first. Is this the vault over here?” He pointed to a steel door.

  “That’s it,” she said. She walked over to it, wondering if she had time to jump in after she opened it and close the door before he could do anything about it. Probably not. But she was going to try.

  She keyed in a code.

  “How do you remember all these combinations?” he asked.

  Diane shrugged. “I just do. I know everything about the museum. It’s my job.”

  “I appreciate a person who knows how to do their job,” he said, as if they could be friends after all.

  My job also is to protect the museum and the people in it, she thought, as the first of the locks released.

  “This is a four-part process,” she said. Be patient.

  She keyed in another sequence of code, and another lock released. She repeated the process another two t
imes and the vault clicked open.

  She moved around the door to enter. He was right behind her, stuck like glue, holding the back of her neck. She tried to shrug him off.

  “Will you stop that? I’m nervous enough the way it is,” she said.

  “Don’t try anything.”

  “What the hell would I try?”

  She flipped on the light and the vault lit up. It was a medium-sized room lined floor to ceiling with shallow drawers.

  “I see what you mean,” he said. “These are a lot of drawers. Are all of them filled with diamonds and emeralds?”

  “Yes, there’s quite a lot of precious and semiprecious stones here,” she said.

  She wondered if she could get him interested in them enough to delay him. Maybe with enough time, she could think of some kind of damn plan.

  She pulled out a drawer between the two of them. An array of glittering cut and uncut rubies lay on cotton batting.

  “Not all of them are cut,” she said. “Some, like this one, are just like they were found in the ground.”

  “How much are they worth?”

  Diane shrugged again. She picked up a cut stone the size of a kidney bean.

  “This one is valued at thirty thousand dollars.”

  “I’ll take it.” He grabbed it from her hand and put it in one of his many pockets.

  “Be careful with it,” she said. “The stones are hard, but they are also brittle. They will shatter.”

  She pulled out the drawer above that one. It was filled with vivid green emeralds. His eyes grew wide.

  Diane ducked and shoved into his legs with her shoulder. He fell into the drawers, knocking the flats out of their slots, gems scattered over the floor.

  She ran for the exit, pushing at the massive steel door. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her down.

  “Now you’ve done it,” he said.

  Chapter 51

  Diane kicked furiously at the hand that had her ankle, kicked at the man himself as he pulled her to him. He swung his arm, trying to untangle himself from the drawers on top of him. They were little more than an annoyance, but she had an opening to give one good kick to his face. The corner of her heel caught the edge of his eye. He jerked his head, but didn’t back off.

  “Like you said, what’s the hurry?” he said. “I told you if you tried anything I would hurt you. And I was just beginning to like you. I still like you.”

  Diane continued to kick with all her strength. She reached with her arms, feeling the floor for any kind of weapon. But what kind of weapon would Mike have on the floor or in the ruby and emerald drawers? Her hand grasped one of the stones. She saw a flash of red in her hand. Rubies, raw, embedded in whatever rock they form in, she couldn’t remember. But she did remember that a ruby was a nine on the scale of hardness, harder than a pocketknife blade. The rock was about the size of her palm.

  She levered herself up when he had both hands on her legs and slashed at his forehead. The cuts weren’t deep, but the forehead has lots of blood vessels and bleeds like hell when cut. Blood ran into his eyes. He lashed out with his hand and knocked the rock away.

  “This is going to be so fucking bad for you,” he said. He kicked at the long drawers that were now on the floor but still in his way, breaking one to splinters.

  He struck at her with his fist, she dodged and he hit her shoulder. It was the same shoulder where one of them had shot her, probably him, she thought. A wave of pain arced through her, turning quickly to nausea. She was already sick with pain and he hadn’t even started. She had lost her shoes with all the kicking and she didn’t even have them as a weapon. Teeth, she had teeth. If he got close enough, at least she could wield a force of about a hundred and twenty pounds per square inch on some part of his anatomy. Of course, so could he.

  He stood up, still holding one leg. Diane grabbed at the floor, still kicking at him. She snaked her torso around near his legs, and grabbed one of them, pulling. Nothing happened, at least nothing good, but she held on even as he was raising his hand to slap her.

  The lights went out. He dropped her leg.

  Hands were on her, pulling her out the door and pushing her somewhere. It happened so quick, she didn’t have time to react, other than to kick, which was all she seemed able to do.

  She stayed where she was in the dark, feeling around her. She felt something like a table leg. The room was quiet. Really quiet—nothing but the ambient sounds of the museum. She stayed still, barely breathing.

  Suddenly after all the quiet, all hell broke loose.

  The lights came. Her first sight was Liam knocking the gun from the kidnapper’s hand as Liam shot him, hitting the man in the arm. The man barely flinched. He struck out at Liam, and Liam’s gun flew across the room. Then they fought.

  There was no fancy kicking, turning, or acrobatics; it was all arms and fists, and evasion. And it was so fast. Diane realized that she never stood a chance—not that that was a big revelation, but the realization that he had been trying not to kill her, toying with her so he could draw it out, frightened her.

  She watched them fight, neither getting the upper hand, and it dawned on her that Liam was just waiting. He didn’t have to win, but her kidnapper did. A noise by the door brought her attention around.

  It was the police and her security. They had guns trained on the kidnapper. But he kept fighting. Liam backed off and started for his gun. Kidnapper guy followed him with his gaze. Liam stopped.

  “On the ground,” said a police officer.

  Diane recognized Pendleton and his partner, Gracey. Diane had had a run-in with them before. She wasn’t their favorite person, but they would do their job.

  Kidnapper guy stood still for a fraction of a second.

  “Watch him.”

  Liam’s warning came too late.

  Diane barely tracked the kidnapper’s movement. He had a knife out and threw it at Pendleton and charged Gracey, taking Gracey’s gun and shooting Pendleton in the leg. The knife had bounced off Pendleton’s vest, but the leg wound looked serious.

  Liam had his gun now and before the kidnapper could turn, Liam fired twice, hitting him once in each leg. It had to break bone, thought Diane. The man started to put weight on one of his legs and he fell to his knees. Liam was aiming his gun at Superguy’s head.

  “Live to fight another day,” said Liam.

  The man put his hands on his head. Her security guards were also aiming their guns at the kidnapper. Gracey started to retrieve his gun.

  “Leave it,” said Liam. “Don’t get close to him. It won’t have a good end, and I don’t want to have to shoot him.”

  Gracey looked at Liam with resentment in his eyes. Liam never took his eyes off Megaguy.

  Blood was starting to cake around the kidnapper’s eyes, making it look like he had on a mask, and the wounds in his arm and legs didn’t seem to bother him much. Stoic guy. Diane would be on the floor in a fetal position. Not much different from where she was now, in fact. She slowly moved out from under the table.

  Her security people looked over at her.

  “Don’t take your eyes off him,” warned Liam. “You guys need to take this seriously. Diane’s all right. Right now, we need to defuse this. The ambulance should be here in a moment.”

  “Come on,” said Gracey, “the guy’s not Superman.”

  “He doesn’t have to be Superman,” said Liam. “He just has to be what he is. And that’s someone who just kicked your ass and took your weapon while you and your partner had your guns on him. Now pay attention, people.”

  Gracey glared at Liam a moment, then focused on Pendleton, putting pressure on Pendleton’s leg wound.

  “He looks like he’s asleep,” said Chanell, Diane’s head of security, pointing her gun at the kidnapper.

  “He’s meditating,” said Liam.

  “He’s what?” said Chanell, frowning at the kidnapper; her expression suggested she might be looking at an alien.

  “Meditating. He’s keepin
g his heart rate down to staunch the flow of blood from his body.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Is he some kind of ninja?” said the other security guard.

  “No, he’s just a very well trained and very expensive problem solver,” said Liam. “Diane apparently pissed off someone with a ton of money to spend.”

  “She’s like that,” muttered Pendleton, mostly under his breath.

  “You know him?” asked Chanell.

  “I know his type, recognize his moves,” said Liam. “Now, less chatter and more watching. He’s still armed to the teeth. The only thing stopping him is knowing that at least one of us will take a kill shot.”

  Gracey stood up with Pendleton’s gun.

  “Look, you son of a bitch, slide all your weapons . . .”

  “No,” said Liam. “We don’t want him putting his hands on his weapons. Wait for the ambulance guys.”

  “What the hell are they going to do? They aren’t secret ninja busters,” said Gracey.

  Diane was losing patience. Oddly, Liam didn’t seem like he was. At this point she would be tempted to shoot Gracey. She thought she knew what Liam was waiting for—a sedative. He was treating kidnapper guy like a rogue tiger. Which, she supposed, he was.

  The paramedics came through the door with a stretcher and stopped at the scene before them.

  “Officer Pendleton,” said Liam, without taking his eyes off superlative guy, “normally, I would say they take care of you first and leave this guy to wait. But we need to defuse this. Are you in a position to wait?”

  “Sure,” said Pendleton. “I’m fine. Just a flesh wound. Do whatever it is you’re going to do with that asshole. I want to watch anyway.”

  Diane was impressed with Liam’s diplomatic skills. He let Pendleton make the decision, and set it up so he would look tough for waiting.

  “Okay,” said Liam, “this is the tricky part.”

  The kidnapper looked over at him and smiled.

  Chapter 52

  Maria and Straw Fedora were sitting at one of the brightly adorned tables in the lobby of the hotel.