Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

“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 Mike’s when he was stabbed.

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.”