One Grave Less Read online

  The daytime lighting switched to night, startling her out of her thoughts. With only floor lights providing illumination, the facade was now bathed in long shadows, adding stark drama to the fake edifice. Diane shivered again.

  When she first heard the moan she thought it was her imagination, or maybe her own tortured voice escaping her in the dark. She stopped a moment and listened. There it was again . . . a soft moan, a whisper, a wheeze . . . a person.

  Diane called security on her cell and asked for the daytime lighting to be turned on again and for an officer to bring a first-aid kit to the Mayan exhibit, just in case. She listened as she walked through the short fake-stone-lined tunnel to the room beyond.

  The room was like a cave—dark, rocky-looking. The false rock and empty glass pedestals that would hold the artifacts stood like shadowy stalagmites. Suddenly the room lit up as the lights came back on, and the analogy was gone. Diane was standing, from all appearances, in a Mayan ruin. The exhibit designers had done an outstanding job.

  The thought popped into her head that the sounds might be of an amorous nature. If that were the case, there was going to be some embarrassment. Diane stood in the entryway looking and listening.

  “Is someone in here?” she called out.

  Quiet. No shuffling sounds of people scrambling for their clothes. Diane walked in, listening, looking behind the soon-to-be-filled pedestals. Maybe she had imagined it.

  But she heard it again—a soft plosive sound that she might not have heard if she had not been listening so intently. She followed the sound to the back of the exhibit room.

  “Is anyone there?” she asked again.

  A groan. Louder this time. Behind a display case. Diane hurried to the point of origin and peered behind the case.

  No lovers caught in flagrante delicto. A man was lying on his back on the floor. The entire front of his shirt was soaked in blood. There was blood splattered and smeared over much of his face. He was breathing through his mouth in short explosive puffs.

  Chapter 2

  Diane knelt beside the man just as she heard the sound of footfalls coming into the room. She stretched her neck to look through the glass of the display case and saw two museum security guards.

  “Over here,” she called out. “I need an ambulance.”

  While one guard called for paramedics, the other knelt beside Diane with the first-aid kit. He was Rufus Diggs, a ruddy-faced, brown-haired man newly hired. Diane had liked his résumé because of his extensive paramedical training.

  He opened the first-aid kit and quickly slipped on gloves, tossed a pair to Diane, and began to examine the man on the floor. The blood appeared to be coming from a wound in his abdomen. It soaked his shirt and was spreading in an ever-widening pool on the floor. Diane tried to avoid it, but it was nearly impossible if the man was to be attended to.

  Security officer Diggs worked quickly cutting open the shirt and examined the gash in the man’s stomach.

  “Knife wound,” he said.

  Diane nodded in agreement.

  “Losing a lot of blood. Hold this firmly in place,” he said, indicating a large square of gauze he was placing over the bleeding wound. “I need to check his back.”

  Diane placed both hands on the gauze and held it compressed over the source of the bleeding. It quickly soaked with blood and she put another on top of it as Diggs carefully rolled the unconscious man to his side and checked him for more injuries. There did not appear to be any visible injury to his back.

  The man’s cheek was bruised and his features were distorted from the smeared blood. Diane didn’t recognize him. He was young, in his thirties perhaps. It was hard to tell.

  How the hell did he get in here? she wondered.

  “An ambulance is on the way,” said the other security guard.

  Diane glanced his way and nodded. He was another of the new security personnel. One she hadn’t met. He was young. Diane thought he might be a student at Bartrum, the local university. His physique looked like he lifted weights in all his spare time. His gaze was traveling aimlessly around the room.

  “Wait outside for the ambulance,” she said. “Don’t touch anything. This room’s a crime scene now.”

  He glanced at her for a moment as if he hadn’t understood. “Oh, uh, yes, ma’am,” he said finally and went out the door.

  “New guy,” said Diggs. “Real nervous on the way over here. Hadn’t expected anything like this, I’m sure. I think he’s seen Night at the Museum too many times.”

  Diane pressed on the bandage. Blood was still squeezing up between her fingers. She put another layer of gauze on the wound and continued the pressure. Her gaze drifted around the room. She was mentally searching the crime scene. She noticed more blood on the floor several feet away, near the door to an adjoining lab and storage rooms.

  It was hard to see on the dark floor, but she thought there was a trail of drops leading to where the injured man lay collapsed. Was he coming from the adjoining rooms when he fell here? If so, then, the way he was hemorrhaging, why wasn’t there more blood along his path? There were only drops.

  Diane squinted her eyes as she examined the drops on the floor. It was all in the shape. The tails of the elongated drops pointed in the direction of travel. And they pointed toward the door, not away from it.

  “Hell,” said Diane.

  “What?” said Diggs.

  “We may have another victim in the lab through that door. Take over for me, can you?”

  Diggs nodded, momentarily taking his eyes off the patient, glancing at the door, then pressed his hands on the bandage as Diane took her hands away.

  She slipped off the gloves, grabbed a new pair, and slipped them on. She still wore her running shoes from her earlier jog around the museum’s nature trails. She slipped them off, put them on top of the glass display case and carefully walked toward the lab, watching the floor to avoid the drops of blood. She slowly opened the lab door. It was dark inside. She flipped on the light, hoping she was not making herself a target for some maniac. She should have called security for more help.

  Nothing happened. No gunfire. No knives hurled at her.

  The room showed signs of a struggle. Things were in disarray. A chair lay overturned. Several boxes of supplies had been knocked about.

  It was there that Diane saw a shoe attached to a foot sticking out from behind the boxes. She hurried over. A woman in khaki slacks and a yellow shirt lay on the floor, her face turned away from Diane, one arm across her abdomen. Her other arm was to her side. She had short dark blond hair.

  Diane knelt beside her and felt for the pulse in her neck. It was faint, but she was still alive. She slid the boxes away from the woman and moved around to look at her face. Diane was startled. She knew her—Simone Brooks—one of the team who worked with her in South America at World Accord International.

  Simone had been an interviewer, a very good one. She met her fiancé, Oliver, in WAI. He was killed in the massacre along with Diane’s daughter, Ariel, and many of their friends. His was one of the few bodies that was found.

  They told Diane afterward that when Simone found Oliver—clearly dead, clearly slaughtered—she held on to him and refused to let go of him. They had to drag her away. Diane had been barely aware of it. She had her own devastating grief to deal with. She also had to be dragged away from her search for Ariel, dragged away from her hopes that Ariel was still alive and that the bloody little shoes didn’t mean she was dead.

  Diane had heard that Simone eventually went to work for a detective agency somewhere. What was she doing here?

  “Simone?” said Diane. “Can you hear me?”

  Simone groaned and turned her head. After a moment she opened her eyes and closed them again.

  There was a little blood, but without a closer look Diane couldn’t determine where it had come from. She hurriedly examined Simone for wounds and discovered that her hand was cut severely across the palm. Diane had seen that type of wound many tim
es. It happens when you stab someone and your hand slips from the handle onto the blade.

  “What the hell?” Diane whispered. Had Simone stabbed the victim in the other room?

  Simone groaned again, opened her eyes, and fixed them on Diane’s face. She appeared sluggish.

  The cut was the only open wound Diane could find. She gently felt Simone’s scalp. On her right parietal was a knot. The skin wasn’t broken, but Simone flinched when Diane touched it. The knot and her lethargic manner suggested she was suffering from a concussion.

  “It’s me, Diane, Simone. Lie still. Help is coming.”

  Simone looked confused and tried to speak. Nothing came out.

  “Just lie still,” said Diane.

  Diane reached for her phone to call for help. Suddenly, Simone’s bloody hand was on Diane’s arm.

  “Us . . . ,” Simone whispered.

  “What?” said Diane, leaning closer, trying to hear what she said.

  “One of us . . . It was one of us . . . ,” she whispered.

  “What was one of us?” Diane said. But Simone had lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  Diane punched in 911 on her cell phone and announced who and where she was. As she spoke she heard the EMT paramedics who had been called arriving next door in the exhibit room.

  “I need another ambulance,” she said into the phone. “We have another victim.”

  “Another ambulance? This is the first call we’ve received from the museum,” said the calm female voice. “You have two people injured and need help. Is that correct?”

  Diane was silent for a moment, confused.

  “Yes, that is correct, but my security people also called about ten minutes ago.”

  “We have no record of another call. No ambulance has been dispatched to your location.”

  “But the paramedics are here,” Diane said.

  Just as she spoke she heard a commotion in the other room. By the time she stood up and started in that direction, she smelled something burning and saw smoke coming under the door.

  Chapter 3

  Ariel Fallon. Diane Fallon’s adopted daughter. The prisoner knew Diane Fallon in passing. They had presented papers at the same professional conferences in forensic anthropology. She had heard about Fallon’s terrible loss, but not all the details. She knew of the daughter murdered by renegades. Everyone in the small community of forensic anthropologists had heard some version of the story. If the two of them could get out of this jungle alive, Diane Fallon was in for one of the greatest shocks—and joys—of her life.

  So this was Ariel Fallon, in the flesh. Ariel wore different clothes from earlier in the day—long pants, long shirt, and the little boots that still looked too big for her. She was a pretty little thing even in the dark and covered by dirt and grime. But the most notable thing about her was her intelligent eyes. They weren’t little girl eyes. They were eyes that had probably seen too much of the worst in humanity. And there was desperation in them.

  The prisoner didn’t hesitate to accept Ariel’s offer, as strange as it was, coming from a child less than four feet tall. The kid had come prepared. She took a key she had secreted in the pocket of her pants and worked it into the large rusty lock on the chain holding the door to the cage closed.

  The cage itself was about six by six feet and provided a full 360-degree view around the compound and into the jungle. A small hole cut in the sapling floor was the bathroom. The prisoner had used it only at night to avoid being seen exposed, which would result, she feared, in a host of other dreadful problems. She was almost faint with relief at the prospect of leaving, and her heart beat loud enough to wake the village. But her relief was companioned by terror. If they were caught, what would happen to them? What would happen to this little girl?

  Don’t think about that.

  The two of them quietly pushed and pulled the door open. The prisoner jumped out onto the ground and Ariel picked up a bundle of rags she had brought and tossed them inside in a heap, closed the door, and locked the chain back in place. At a distance and without close examination, it appeared that the prisoner was curled up asleep on the floor of the cage.

  Off to one side sat a ragged backpack. Ariel picked it up in one hand and grabbed the woman’s arm with the other and pulled at her. As the woman turned her back to her prison, she grabbed a large bat-sized stick that she’d been eyeing from her cage—the only part of an escape plan she had come up with . . . If she got out, grab that stick as a weapon.

  Ariel walked quietly and quickly ahead of her and tugged at her until they were out of the moonlight of the village clearing and covered with the darkness of jungle. Very little moonlight filtered through the thick canopy. In the dark the dense foliage had a bluish black cast. Already the woman was lost. She was good at woodcraft, but in the kind of woods that grew in Kentucky and Georgia. Not here. Here all the signposts were different.

  The sounds were muted at night in comparison to the daytime—sounds of night birds, insects, frogs, occasionally the call of a higher food chain creature. The sounds would be appealing were she not at the mercy of the creatures that made them—and at the bottom of that food chain. It was terrifying, but did not trump the fear produced by the men who had kidnapped her.

  Ariel grabbed her hand and whispered, “This way.” She pulled her along until they were out of sight of that part of the village. Ariel seemed to know the path by heart . . . or she had incredible night vision. She stopped abruptly. She looked like a shadow amid the dark foliage.

  “We have to be careful. Not just of the men, but of the jungle.”

  The woman nodded and tried to whisper. “Ariel, my name is . . .”

  “Maria,” Ariel said quickly. “And mine is Rosetta. You are my mother. We must have a story until we get to a place where you can contact people you know who can get us to America. Until then, it’s best if people don’t know who we really are. Julio has many friends around here for a long way. Remember that. You are Maria.”

  The woman had the impression that Ariel feared she was an idiot. She supposed she looked like one. She had never been filthier in her entire life. Okay, she thought. Maria it is. I am Maria, Maria, Maria. I am the girl named Maria.

  “That’s a big pack you have. Let me carry it,” the newly christened Maria said.

  Ariel—or rather, Rosetta—reluctantly relinquished the bag, and Maria shouldered it.

  They stepped quickly down a path, trying to avoid protruding roots, logs, or any one of other abundant hazards. Walking through the jungle at night was dangerous, but both were far more frightened of her captors.

  Rosetta stopped just before the thick jungle flora met the openness of the giant kapok trees, the tall signature rain-forest trees that supported an entire ecosystem in their canopy. They would be leaving the overgrown part of the forest. That in itself was a relief. The jungle was thicker near the river where they had been and their proximity to the village still was not safe. The woman, Maria, shivered thinking of the dangers.

  The human smells of the village—and the cage—had disappeared behind them. Now there was only the fresher scent of the jungle. Maria took a deep breath.

  “We need to talk about your plan, Ariel—I mean Rosetta.”

  “First, we must get out of this territory of Julio—he’s the man who kidnapped you, the one who came with his girlfriend yesterday to talk to you.”

  “They think I’m Diane Fallon?”

  “Yes. Patia doesn’t speak good English. She heard them talking and she knew that you are a forensic anthropologist and are from Georgia.”

  “She understood the words forensic anthropologist?”

  “Julio was told to look for a woman named Diane Fallon, a forensic anthropologist from Georgia looking for”—she shrugged—“bones or skins or feathers. I don’t know why. Julio calls himself alambre de atropellada.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She shrugged again. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s a wire you run over.”
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  Maria wrinkled her forehead. “Trip wire,” she said. “His job was to look out for someone investigating something specific. But don’t they know you are Diane’s daughter? Wouldn’t they try to use that?”

  She shook her head. “I’m Rosetta, as far as they know. It’s a long story. Too long for now. We must go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I told you—out of this territory.”

  “What’s in your backpack?”

  “Supplies. Some food. Clothes. A map. Can you read a map?”

  “Yes, I can. How old are you?”

  “Almost nine.”

  Eight years old, the woman thought. Growing up too fast.

  “Is there a place we can stop and take stock of our situation?”

  They first heard a crack and a rustle.

  “¿Qué tenemos aquí? Two little fishes out for a walk, eh? Who let you out, woman? Not the little one here?”

  Both were startled. Ariel stood still. The two of them watched a man approach. The woman didn’t recognize him, but he wore the ragged pseudo-uniform of Julio and his men and he knew she was a captive.

  “Looks like you need the protection of a man, out here alone.”

  He walked toward them, grinning, cupping his crotch and flourishing a large knife that he pulled from his belt.

  “Eh, woman. You like what you see? You nice, maybe I don’t cut—”

  Whack!

  Ariel jumped.

  The man fell to the ground, blood running from the side of his head.

  The woman approached him with the bloody stick in her hand. She knew it had been a good plan to take it.