Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 8

Edie Miller replaced the wireless headset in her ear.

She wasn’t going to run. She wasn’t going to hide.

She was going to play dumb.

“My safety and well-being? Um, gee, I have no idea what you’re t-talking about. I’m doing just fine.” Her voice noticeably warbled; bravado was slow in coming.

“Come now, Ms. Miller. Let’s not play games with one another,” the caller replied, seeing right through her ploy. “We both know that you were at the Hopkins Museum earlier today.”

Her hands began to shake as the Jeep swayed out of its lane.

Surrender, Dorothy. Now. Before the little winged monkeys get to you.

A UPS truck to the left of her laid on the horn, causing Edie to swerve back into the correct lane. Hitting the turn signal, she navigated the Jeep into the inner lane of Dupont Circle.

Back burner. That’s where she needed to put the sudden blast of fear.

“Of course I was at the museum,” she replied, the best lies being those fashioned from the truth. “I’m at the museum every Monday. It’s the only day of the week that I can take photos of the collection. But you already know that.” She dramatically sighed, hoping she sounded like a whipped and defeated cog. “Linda in payroll has been threatening for weeks to sic the auditor on me for not clocking out when I leave the museum. I know. I know. Really bad habit. Guess you guys in auditing finally caught up to me, huh?”

“Is it also your habit to exit the museum via the fire escape?”

“Oh, gosh . . . bus-ted.” She nervously laughed, the lies fast mounting. “All these smoke-free buildings make it hard for us addicts to get our nicotine fix.”

“And what of your purse? You left it on your desk. Is that also another of your bad habits?”

Edie braked to avoid hitting a ridiculously long stretch Hummer limo that hogged two lanes of traffic. “Yeah, well, what can I say? Absentminded is my middle name.”

“According to your driver’s license, your middle name is Darlene. Lovely picture, I might add. But then I’ve always had a weakness for curly-haired maidens.”

Edie racked her brain for a response, fast running out of lies.

Determined not to end up like Jonathan Padgham, she injected a big dose of faked incredulity into her voice. “You have my wallet? Thank God. I was wondering who—You will be a dear and return it, won’t you? It’d be such a pain to have to cancel all my cards.”

“No need to worry . . . I’ve already taken the liberty of canceling your credit cards. I’ve also cleaned out your checking and savings accounts. My, my, what a thrifty little miser you are. You’ve hoarded away nearly thirty thousand dollars.”

They’d cleaned out her accounts. How in God’s name did they get the security codes to—

The dirty cop. He would have access to God knows what records. Her cell phone number. Her social security number. Every Big Brother computerized database under the sun.

“I’d be happy to give you a reward for returning my purse,” she said, scrambling for a foothold, a limb, a scraggly root, anything she could hold on to. “I’d also appreciate if you didn’t let payroll know that I cut out of my shift a couple of hours early. I had a killer headache and—”

“‘Thou shall not lie!’” the caller barked into her ear. A half second later, as though he had just reined in his runaway temper, he calmly said, “Entertaining though they are, I’m beginning to grow weary of your lies, Ms. Miller.”

“Lies? What lies?” When that met with silence, she said, “Look, you’ve got me confused with another woman in the lineup.” When the silence lengthened, she said, “That was a joke.” As in, people with something to hide are not capable of cracking a joke.

“A mailman in the apartment building behind the museum, believing he was performing an act of civil defense, identified you from your D.C. driver’s-license photo. You see? We know everything about you, Ms. Miller. We also know that you were at the museum, on the fourth floor, when Dr. Padgham met his unfortunate end.”

Unfortunate end? Was he being for real? Jonathan Padgham’s brains were blown clear out of his head. Talk about wiping the toilet bowl clean.

“Who are you?”

“Who I am is unimportant.” Then the caller’s voice dropped a scary octave. “Perhaps at this juncture I should mention that you can run, but you cannot hide.”

Edie looked in the rearview mirror.

SUVs. Late-model sedans. Taxis and delivery trucks of every stripe.

But no Crown Vic.

And no D.C. police cruisers.

She decided to call his bluff.

“Word of warning, fella. When you’re trying to threaten a woman, overused clichés usually don’t inspire a whole lot of fear. As for threats, here’s one right back at you . . . call me again and I will not hesitate to go to the FBI. Normally, I’d call the cops, but I figure I wouldn’t get out of the precinct alive. I can just hear the news broadcast now. ‘Edie Miller, the victim of an unfortunate accident, slipped on a recently mopped floor at D.C. police headquarters, cracking her skull.’ What do you think? Does that sound about right?”

“I’m certain that the FBI is much too busy tracking jihadist terror cells to take your call, let alone give you the time of day.”

“Ah, but like you said, I’m the sole surviving witness to a brutal execution. One that involves a well-organized art ring,” she added, laying all her cards on the table. “I think the suits at the FBI will be only too happy to spare me a few minutes of their time.”

“How do you know we haven’t infiltrated the FBI?”

She didn’t. And the cocky bastard knew it.

“What do you want from me?”

“Merely to talk. To clarify the situation so as to alleviate your unwarranted fears. I have very deep pockets, Ms. Miller, and would be only too happy to triple the balance in your two bank accounts.”

Yeah, right. Something told her she’d never see a dime of the promised blood money.

Accelerating, she jerked the Jeep over one lane. Then another, exiting the traffic circle at Mass Avenue.

“You want to talk? Fine. Here’s the only thing I have to say to you—” Although it was hard, she dragged out the silence for several seconds. Then, her voice at screech level, she screamed, “Go to hell!’”

Pulling the wireless headset out of her ear, she flung it in the direction of the tote bag.

Shaking—not like one leaf, but a whole pile—she kept her eyes glued to the road, the familiar equestrian monuments passing in a blur as she drove around Scott Circle and under Thomas Circle. She then turned right on Eleventh, drove a few blocks and made a left-hand turn onto Pennsylvania. In the distance loomed the U.S. Capitol.

The snow started to fall a bit heavier. Driving on autopilot, she turned up the defrost.

At Fourth Street, she turned right; the East Building of the National Gallery of Art was on her left, the West Building on her right. Not bothering to signal, she made a sharp turn into the circular drive next to the museum, pulling the Jeep into the first available parking spot she could find, right behind a snow-covered Lexus. It was a primo parking spot, mere steps from the museum entrance. It also required an NGA-issued parking decal.

“So sue me,” she muttered. It was snowing and she didn’t have time to find a legal parking space; the Mall was crowded despite the foul weather.

Yanking the keys out of the ignition, she tossed them into her tote bag and got out of the Jeep. The National Gallery of Art was the most public place she could think of to hide. One of the largest marble buildings in the world, it exuded a sense of strength and security. Not to mention there were guards everywhere. Tons of ’em. As she rushed toward the oversized entry doors of the West Building, she tried not to think of the two dead guards back at the Hopkins.

Opening the glass door, she glanced at her watch. Two-thirty. The museum would be open for another two and a half hours. Enough time to figure out her next move. Hopefully, C. Aisquith had received her e-mail and was on his or her way to the museum.

At the front guard station, Edie opened her tote bag for inspection; the guard gave the contents only a cursory glance. If he noticed the box of spinach, he gave no indication. Edie slung the tote bag back on her shoulder, unimpressed with the museum’s post-9/11 security measures.

Well acquainted with the layout, having spent hours perusing the museum’s collection since first moving to D.C. nearly twenty years ago, Edie rode the escalator down one flight to the underground concourse that connected the two wings, east to west. Passing the Henry Moore sculpture at the base of the escalator, she headed into the museum gift shop. The muffled echo inside the concourse was nonstop. People chatting. People talking on cell phones. People waxing poetic about the beautiful boxed Christmas cards. The commingling of all those voices was a comforting sound, reassuring Edie that she was finally safe.

Reaching the Cascade Café, the museum’s version of a food court, she took up a position next to the gushing waterfall that gave the café its name. Enclosed behind a giant screen of glass, pumped water continuously flowed over a wall of corrugated granite. One story below ground, the protective glass wall was the only source of natural light in the concourse; Edie could see the wintry gray sky above.

For the next fifteen minutes, she carefully scrutinized every museum patron who entered the concourse. Teens garbed in Gap. Ladies-who-lunch garbed in Gucci. Museum staff garbed in drab gray. Everyone. And then she saw him: a tall redheaded man, fortyish, who had about him a discernible air of self-assurance. From the cut of the clothes—expensive navy wool jacket, cream-colored cable-knit sweater, black leather shoes paired with blue denim jeans—she pegged him for a European.

The redheaded man came to a stop in the middle of the crowded concourse. Turning his head, he glanced at her, held her gaze, then looked away.

Edie stepped away from her post and purposefully strode toward him. Having spent a summer selling timeshares in Florida, she wasn’t afraid of approaching strangers.

The redheaded man swerved his gaze back in her direction, a questioning look on his face.

“C Aisquith at lycos dot com?”

He nodded, blue eyes narrowing. “And you must be Edie one-oh-three at earthlink dot com. I would normally say ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ but given the dire content of your electronic missive, that may be a bit premature.” Like Jonathan Padgham, he had a cultured English accent. “I’m curious. How did you recognize me? There must be a hundred people milling about.”

“Lucky guess,” she replied, shrugging. “That and the fact that you have the same British ‘I’m so superior’ air about you that Dr. Padgham had.”

One side of the man’s mouth quirked upward. “Had? I can’t imagine old Padge has changed all that much.”

Edie swallowed, the moment of truth having arrived much too abruptly.

“I said ‘had’ for a reason . . . he’s dead. Jonathan Padgham was killed a little over an hour ago. And just my luck, I’m the only witness to the murder.”