Sunken Pyramid (Rogue Angel) (9 page)

“If they weren’t stolen. Heavy suckers for their size.”

“Edgar wouldn’t steal. Those are exceedingly valuable, given their age, condition and workmanship. They look perfect. But Edgar would not have stolen them.”

Manny considered that. “Good to know, but we’ll be double-checking before we hand over any of his effects from the hotel room.”

Annja pictured the image of the last gold circle she’d looked at and burned it into her memory. The detail on the gold was indeed incredible. And the image was definitely an elk. Annja doubted elk herds had ever stretched down into Mexico. They were northern beasts—Canada, Minnesota, Wisconsin.

“Mayans in Wisconsin,” she whispered. “I have to find out if Edgar was right.”

Chapter 15

The detective parked the Impala in an open spot in front of the Sweet Autumn Inn, a sprawling bed-and-breakfast that sat on an acre dotted with tall pines. The front-porch lights were ablaze, but with the cloud cover and towering trees, the place looked shadowy and haunted.

“This is where your Professor Schwartz and that Papadopolous fellow stayed a few nights before they both wound up dead.” Manny got out and stretched, worked a kink out of his neck and looked up at a sky that had finally stopped raining. “I’m going to chat with the manager. Then I’ll be down by the lake, a cabin called Copper Beach Cottage. It’s where the two of them stayed a few months back, and Dr. Schwartz rented it by himself twice before that. You can join me or—”

“I’ll take a stroll down by the lake, Manny. Catch up with you at that beach cottage.”

“Too small of a place to get lost in, this town,” he commented. “Just wish we would have gotten here earlier, when we had some light. I’m good for one, two hours here, tops. Then we’re going back. I’ve got an early meeting with the chief. Maybe I can get back out here tomorrow afternoon.”

Annja started down the street, signs pointing the way to the lake. It wasn’t pitch-dark yet, but it was getting there. Streetlights were on, looking haloed by damp mist. In the distance, toward the small downtown area, she saw the colorful lights of a carnival.

“Don’t get lost on me!” he hollered jokingly. “I’m your ride back.”

She waved, picked up the pace and tugged her cell phone out of her pocket. She’d turned it off, not wanting anything to interrupt her time with the detective. From the green glow on the tiny screen, she could read that she’d missed three calls, two of them from Rembert earlier in the afternoon, one from Private Caller, which didn’t reveal a number.

Instead of calling Rembert, she keyed in the number for the diver Edgar had noted on the fishing map; she’d memorized it. After a half-dozen rings, a man answered. It was a private residence at the western edge of Milwaukee, not a business, and he remembered doing more than one dive for Edgar.

“I’ll come out to the lake,” he told her. “Same price as I gave him. And yes, I’ll take you with me if you want, same places or different—your dime. You can dive? Good.” He told her about his available equipment and what he’d charge for her to rent it. “How tall are you? How much do you weigh? Shoe size? How is next Thursday?”

It took persuasion, an offer to pay him an extra five hundred for his trouble and relying on her celebrity. The diver had seen her program a few times. He would join her at the lake tomorrow morning at nine, giving her his only day off this week.

She’d ask him then what he’d found for Edgar—if anything—and what, exactly, Edgar had him looking for. Face-to-face she might get more information than over the phone, especially since she’d be paying him. Then she called Rembert; it went to his voice mail and she left a message saying she’d check in with him early in the morning. Hopefully, he’d gotten enough video for Doug’s promo pieces. She wouldn’t be attending the conference tomorrow, would be standing up that fringe panel the organizers had put her on. She’d leave the other speakers to carry the load. It might hurt her reputation, but she could survive it. She’d be spending the day on and under the surface of Rock Lake...perhaps in pursuit of her own piece of “fringe.”

It wasn’t what she’d originally planned, diving the lake. She’d intended to go back to the conference and attack the murder investigation head-on. But as she looked out over Rock Lake, choppy in the slight breeze cutting across it, she considered that this was the right thing to do.

“What’s down there, Edgar,” she mused, “that maybe got you and Dr. Papadopolous killed? And how was Mrs. Hapgood involved with this?”

It was all somehow connected, wasn’t it?

Lost in thought, she stood and stared so long her legs ached from not moving. The moon came out from behind a cloud, reflecting against the tiny waves and making it look as if sequins had been scattered atop the lake’s surface. Lightning bugs appeared in the reeds along the shore, and the mist that she’d noticed near the bed-and-breakfast had crept to the edge of the water. There was a boat out there, not far away, small and with red and green bow and stern lights. From the shapes, it looked like father and son fishing, maybe for walleye, which fed primarily at night. This setting seemed wrongly tranquil and falsely placid, looking on one hand as if it could be displayed on a postcard, and on the other as if it could appear in the next top-grossing horror movie. “Come to Rock Lake,” Annja thought that postcard might read. “Enjoy the scenery and watch your step.” In her mind she saw Edgar’s body broken and twisted, lying at the bottom of the stairs.

A beam of light along the shore caught her attention. Someone with a flashlight, not tall enough to be Detective Rizzo. She couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman; the figure stood under the sweeping branches of a cedar that hung out at a sharp angle over the lake. The beam swung toward Annja, held on her and then went dark. In the moonlight, she could still see the figure, up against the trunk now, the mist wrapping around the person’s knees.

Maybe it was nothing...someone else visiting the lakeshore on this early-June evening. It was a little bit of a tourist town, and it was a Friday night. Maybe not much else to do here other than find a tavern or visit this lake.

Still... Annja peered into the shadows, trying to separate them and make out more of the figure’s features. Something prickling the back of her neck told her it wasn’t a tourist.

There was a splash and a yip. She didn’t turn her head, but she guessed that someone in the boat had caught a fish. Voices carried over the water.

“Reel it in, son!”

“I’m trying!”

A loon cried, melodic and poignant, a long note that was answered by another and another.

“Look, it’s a keeper, Dad!”

The figure didn’t move.

Annja took a step toward the tree, the lake on her left and a couple of dark cottages on her right. Her shoes sunk into the sand as she went.

“Hello?” she called softly, moving closer.

Still, the figure didn’t move.

Her cell phone chimed, startling her. Keeping her eyes on the figure, she reached into her pocket and brought it up, flipped it open and put it to her ear. It was Rembert.

“Where have you been?”

She quickly told him. “Do you have enough video for Doug?”

“Yeah, I guess. Why?”

She told him she would be in Rock Lake for likely all of tomorrow.

“Good,” he returned. “No reason for you to attend a conference you registered for, right? No reason for you to show up for your Saturday panel, right?”

“You can go back to New York if you want.”

“I think I’ll stay for another day at least,” he told her. “Room’s paid for through Monday morning. Still have some money on my expense account. I could use a few days away from the family.”

“Fine,” she said. Annja hadn’t intended to sound terse; she was just focused on the mysterious figure. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Maybe.”

The line went dead.

The loons sounded again.

“Hello?”

The figure said something, words, but foreign and a language she didn’t know. It was a husky voice, and so she guessed it was a man. Some part of her told her to leave, that she’d be coming back here tomorrow morning when the sun would be out and the shadows wouldn’t hide anything. But Annja was curious.

“Everything is connected.”

The voice came again, the incomprehensible words rushed and beautiful sounding. The figure stepped away from the trunk. Closer now, Annja saw more definition to the shape—a woman, either with hair very short or tied back. A very small woman.

“Hello.” Annja tried one more time.

The reply was clipped, and Annja sensed anger.

Leave, that part of her mind told her. Find Manny and get out of here. Instead she went ever nearer, until she was practically beneath the big cedar’s branches.

More words came that she couldn’t comprehend. But Annja clearly understood the slashing motion the woman made with a knife that had come out of nowhere.

What the hell is going on in Wisconsin?

Annja felt the sensation of her sword’s pommel against her hand as she called it, the blade looking like liquid silver in the moonlight that stretched down between a gap in the clouds. She thought the figure might run, but instead it crouched, as if to meet her, and made the slashing motion again.

Annja had no intention to fight, taking a defensive stance. But she did want to get a good look at the woman, find some way to communicate. Discover what—if anything—this woman’s presence might have to do with Edgar.

“Everything is connected.”

The woman—girl, Annja realized, probably a teenager—darted forward, slashing, hugging the shadow the tree provided. Annja backed up, calling to mind the three circles—not the gold coins, but fighting reach. The first circle was as far as her arm stretched out from her body. The second was how far her reach went with the sword in her hand. The third was how far that extended with one step. The woman’s weapon was a knife, and so her three circles were much smaller than Annja’s. The woman was forced to be quick, to dance in and out of Annja’s circles, slashing viciously and retreating.

Annja made no move against her, other than to defend herself. She turned her sword so the flat of it caught the woman’s knife, the long blade flexible and absorbing the impact. “Never meet edge with edge,” she remembered Roux telling her. “Edges are not so flexible, and they are easy to chip and break.” But once broken and re-formed, would Joan of Arc’s sword break again? Annja parried blow after blow, inching back and trying to draw the woman out so she could get a look at her under the moonlight.

Finally, she was successful, and the appearance of her opponent surprised her.

The term
teenager
was generous. In her midteens, at best, Annja guessed. Very young—too young to be knife fighting. Her hair was like ink, shiny and looking as if it was pulled back so tight it was painful. Her eyes were dark, wide and angry, the pupils big. Maybe on drugs, Annja considered; it could explain the wild behavior and the babbling that she had at first took to be a language.

The girl was dressed in cutoff jeans and a T-shirt that would have been baggy had it not been tied in a knot just above her waist, exposing a pierced navel. The writing on the T-shirt was faded.

“We don’t have to do this,” Annja said, meeting another blow. The girl was not as skilled as she, but was fast and agile.

“Yes, we do,” the girl returned. The words were thick, making Annja wonder if she was indeed on drugs.

“I didn’t mean to trespass.” Annja wanted to keep the girl talking, get her farther away from the tree. “If I was on your property...” But she suspected from the sign it was a city-owned beach. “If I upset you—”

The girl had no answer to that; she just sprang in close and made a slash that cut Annja’s waist. The knife went through her blouse as if it was paper and drew blood. It could have been worse had Annja not stepped away. The girl had meant to kill her.

That changed things, though Annja still had no desire to hurt the teen. She brought her sword down and around in an arc, the tip extending her third circle and forcing the girl back. She followed it with another swing, up and around and hitting the knife, trying to knock it from the girl’s grip.

More unintelligible words came from the teen’s mouth. It was a language, a Native American dialect perhaps; the girl had a tan complexion. Annja tried to remember pieces of it, a word or two she could repeat later in front of someone who might identify the language.

Annja stepped in, swept shoulder high, turning the sword so the flat side would catch the girl in the arm...hurting but not cutting. If she could get the girl to drop the knife, she could dismiss the sword and tackle her, reason with her.

“You must die!” The girl caught the blow and stayed upright, kept her hands on the knife. “Die now!” She spun and dropped into a crouch, grabbing up a handful of sand. She flung it at Annja.

The grit filled Annja’s vision and settled in her eyes, stinging like hornets. She hadn’t been prepared for that, was concentrating too hard on not hurting her opponent. Annja had underestimated the girl and was paying for it.

The girl dashed forward, circling, coming at Annja from the side and jabbing. The knife tip went into her side, stopping at a rib. Annja clamped her mouth shut and didn’t cry out.

“Hey! What’s going on?” It was Manny’s voice.

Annja blinked furiously and through her clouded gaze saw the girl race madly away. Annja would have chased her if the detective hadn’t shown up, would have run her into the ground and fought against the sand in her eyes with every step. She would have gotten answers.

Now all she had was more questions.

She dismissed the sword to the otherwhere and dropped to her knees, bringing her arm in close to her injured side, one hand pressed to her waist where she’d been cut the first time.

“Annja!” The detective’s feet thumped across the sand, his breath ragged. He stopped in front of Annja, gulping in air. “Was someone swinging a sword at you?”

Small favors, she thought. Manny hadn’t seen just who had the sword.

“I think it was a big knife.”

“Damn big knife.” The detective looked in the direction the girl had run. “Don’t see him. Fast sucker.” He knelt in front of Annja. “We have to get you to a hospital. This place is too small, probably doesn’t even have a clinic open this late. Want me to call an ambulance? I can take you in my car just as fast. Sirens and lights and—”

Annja gave a furious shake of her head. “I’m not hurt that bad.” It was a lie, but she always healed quickly. “Got a first-aid kit in your car?”

He stood with some effort, then helped her up. “I dunno, Annja, that’s a good amount of blood. I think I’m going to—”

“—show me that first-aid kit.”

He escorted her from the beach. He’d parked about a block away at an empty spot near Copper Beach Cottage. She sat in the passenger seat, door wide open, feet on the gravel drive. He fumbled in the trunk and brought out a first-aid kit the size of a large tackle box.