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He turned. He hadn’t expected to know many people here tonight. His name had been softly voiced by one of the few people he did know, and he knew her fairly well.
Simone Bixby, Henry Tomlinson’s niece.
Simone was in her midthirties, a sandy-haired woman who looked eternally like a girl. She was small and slim and wide-eyed. She was accompanied by her husband, Jerry, a banker, who was equally slim and wide-eyed.
Micah greeted them both.
“Thank you for coming. And thank you for caring so much,” Simone said. “It’s still so hard to accept what they say.”
“Yes, it is,” Micah agreed.
“But tonight,” Jerry said brightly, “tonight we honor his body of work.”
“Yes. An incredible body of work,” Micah said. “How are the girls?”
“Getting big!” Simone answered. “Ten, eight and five now.”
He nodded. “I’ve seen pictures. They’re beautiful.”
“They are. Thank you. They loved their uncle Henry, too,” Simone said.
“We all miss him.”
“Oh, look—there’s Arlo Hampton,” Jerry said. “Micah, we’ll talk later? Simone, we need to find out what he wants us to do when he speaks.”
“Excuse us,” Simone said.
“Of course!” Micah told them. They moved on.
He continued to survey the room.
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. Grad students. Administration staff. Egyptologists. City officials. Museum people. And there...
An exotic woman with dark skin and almost inky black hair was speaking with Simone and her family. Arlo stood beside them.
Yolanda Akeem. They’d met briefly—very briefly—in Cairo. She was the Egyptian liaison with the Department of Antiquities. Naturally, she’d be here tonight.
She saw him looking at her. She elegantly lifted her glass a few inches in acknowledgment.
She’d given him whatever information she’d had in Cairo; it hadn’t been much. A two-second autopsy report and a lecture on the dangers of the Middle East. He didn’t listen to much of it. Henry’s body was gone by then and the members of the expedition had been shuttled off. He’d been ready to follow them as quickly as possible when they’d been in Egypt—and through their escape from the trouble that had befallen the expedition that night.
Tonight, they were all here.
And there was Harley Frasier. She had a smile on her face as she spoke with Gordon Vincent, director at large for the museum. Her smile was forced. Jensen was with her, smiling and chatting, as well. He seemed to be putting a little too much effort into being charming.
Which didn’t seem necessary, since he was already employed by the museum.
Harley didn’t; she worked for Fillmore Investigations, a large security and investigation company that served the civilian market, but was known for its close affiliation with the New York City PD and other law enforcement agencies. The founder of the company, Edward Fillmore, had barely survived a kidnap-for-ransom scheme as a child. He had founded his company on the premise that all agencies, public or private, should work together for the benefit of victims. Since Micah’s job with the FBI had come about because of similar circumstances, he liked the man without even knowing him. Micah was pleased that Harley Frasier had chosen such a reputable company. None of his business, of course. But...
He’d felt something for her, just from hearing her voice over the phone a year ago.
And now...he’d seen her.
Anyone awake and breathing would find her attractive and charming.
He was certainly charmed by her and impressed by her—and so much more.
Even though he hardly knew her...
He forced himself to look away from Harley and objectively observe the other people in the room.
He was standing back, watching, when he became aware that a friend had arrived.
“I have to admit I was definitely expecting you to be here,” Craig Frasier told him.
Micah smiled without glancing over. “And I guess I’m not surprised that you’re here,” he said.
“I can’t let you get into too much trouble,” Craig murmured.
“I’m just here to honor an old friend,” Micah said.
“Like hell.” Craig smiled grimly, studying the crowd milling in the foyer. “But I don’t know what you think you can discover at this late date.”
Micah turned to face Craig at last, a rueful half smile on his face. “Right. Well, it would help if someone suddenly had a guilt attack and admitted going crazy—from the bacteria in the wrappings, of course—and murdering Henry.”
“Not going to happen.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to harass your cousin,” Micah said.
“I’m not worried. I think you two can actually do each other some good it you get a chance to really talk. Maybe you can figure something out, late as it might be. There was so much done so quickly and so politically. State Department, international bull. A cover-up. Yeah, it’ll be good for the two of you to talk.”
“You say that as if you doubt the official line, too,” Micah said quietly.
“Because I do. I believe it was a cover-up.”
“Not by the government,” Micah said.
“By?”
Micah looked at him and said, “By Alchemy.”
Craig didn’t get a chance to respond.
Arlo Hampton took the microphone on a small portable dais set in the center of the foyer. He cleared his throat, then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, friends of the museum, friends of science and exploration, and friends of the City of New York!”
It took a moment for everyone to stop talking and start listening. Someone tapped a champagne flute with a fork or spoon. Then the room fell silent.
“We welcome you to our amazing new exhibit, brought to us through the genius of the man—the brilliant, kind, ever-giving man—whose name will now grace our museum walls, Dr. Henry Tomlinson. Those who knew Henry loved him. He was a scholar, but he was also a very human man who loved his family and friends. No one knew Egyptology the way Henry did...”
A sudden gasp from the crowd silenced him. Everyone turned.
Someone had come up from the basement steps, and was now staggering through the crowd.
Someone grotesquely dressed up in a mummy’s linen bindings, staggering out as if acting in a very bad mummy movie.
A performance for the evening?
No.
Because Arlo grunted an angry “Excuse me!” and exited the dais, walking toward the “mummy” now careening toward him.
“What the hell?” Micah and Craig were close enough to hear Arlo’s words. “Richter, is that you? You idiot! Is that you?”
It wasn’t Richter; Micah knew that right away. Richter was far too big a man to be the slight, lean person now dressed up.
Or at least Ned Richter was!
Micah burst forward, phone out and in his hand. As he neared the mummy, he was already dialing 9-1-1.
“Get those bindings off her! Get them off her fast!” he commanded.
The mummy collapsed.
Micah barely managed to catch the wrapped body sagging to the floor.
As quickly as he could, he began to remove the wrappings.
He heard the sound of a siren.
Then Vivian Richter looked up at him, shuddered and closed her eyes.
The wrappings, Micah knew, had been doused in some kind of poison.
Chapter Two (#u897dea75-6954-58de-9bfb-b5fbc838cea1)
Chaos reigned.
Harley was stunned and horrified that Vivian Richter was so badly hurt—so close to death.
She was wrapped tightly. The outer wrappings were decayed and falling apart; they’d come from a historic mummy. The inner wrappings were contemporary linen, the kind the museum used in its demonstrations, made to look like the real deal.
Vivian was gasping and crying, completely incoherent. One woman in the room was a doctor—a podiatrist, but hey, she’d been to medical school. She was kneeling by Vivian, calling the shots, talking on the phone to the med techs who were on their way.
Special Agent Fox had already taken control of the room. No one was to leave; they were all in a lockdown.
She was incredibly glad that Craig was there. And, of course, he was with his girlfriend or fiancée—Harley wasn’t sure what Craig and Kieran called each other, but she was sure they were together for life. Kieran was standing near Harley, ready to comfort her, as the slightly older and very protective almost cousin-in-law. Harley appreciated that, even though she didn’t really need it. She worked with criminals all the time, as well as people who weren’t so bad but still wound up in the criminal justice system. She was calm and stoic; Micah and Craig were questioning people, grouping them, speaking to them, both digging for answers and assuring them all that they were safe.
“She’s going to die! She’s going to die!” Simone Bixby, Henry Tomlinson’s niece, cried out. Harley saw that Micah Fox hurried over to her, placed a comforting arm around her shoulders and led her to a chair.
By then, of course, museum security had arrived. So had the police—New York City and state police.
People were talking everywhere. Micah and Craig had herded everyone into groups, depending on their relationship to the museum. Some were employees of the museum; some were special guests. The people who’d been on the expedition were in a corner. Harley was with Belinda Gray, Joe Rosello, Roger Eastman and Jensen Morrow, as well as the Alchemy Egyptologist, Arlo Hampton.
Ned Richter was crouched on the floor, at his wife’s side.
All of this seemed to go on for a long time, yet it was a matter of minutes before more sirens screamed in the night and the EMTs were rushing in. Ned Richter was allowed to go with his wife; Arlo Hampton and others more closely associated with the exhibit were now gathered together in a new group. Guests who’d only recently made it through the doors were questioned and cleared.
Anyone who had anything to do with prep for the evening was in another group; every single person would be questioned before being permitted to leave for the night.
Officers and crime scene techs were crowding through the museum, heading to the Amenmose section—and to the staff office and prep chambers beyond.
“Too bad we couldn’t continue the celebration,” Joe said, hands locked behind his back, a look of disappointment on his face. “What a waste of great food and wine.”
“Joe! What’s the matter with you?” Belinda chastised.
“Come on! Vivian Richter’s a drama queen,” Joe said.
“She might die,” Roger said very softly.
“You mark my words. She will not die,” Joe insisted.
“They’re saying it’s poison,” Roger pointed out. “Some kind of poison on the wrappings.”
“She’s going to be very, very sick,” Jensen said. “Those wrappings decaying and falling all around her... Who the hell knows where they came from—or what might be on them?”
“Or if something was put on them,” Roger said. “That’s how she would have been poisoned.”
They were all silent for a minute.
“And then dead—like Henry Tomlinson,” Belinda said.
Again, they were silent.
“Great. But at least now, maybe someone besides me will start fighting to figure out what happened to Henry,” Harley said quietly.
She’d actually discovered that night that someone was on her side. The agent with the great voice. Craig’s friend. Micah Fox.
“Okay, okay,” Belinda said. “I didn’t push it a lot at the time. I mean, it didn’t make any difference, did it? The cause of death—two medical examiners said—was the fact that bacteria made him crazy and he killed himself.”
The reaction to her comment was yet another bout of silence.
“What were we going to do?” Belinda wailed. “We had no power. Insurgents were bearing down on the camp, and everyone wanted us out! So, what could we do? Henry was dead,” Belinda said.
“And back then, none of us believed he killed himself,” Jensen said at last.
