Last Breath Part 29

"Don't," she told him. "Just...don't try to talk me out of this."

"I just want you to be sure that-"

"Shut up, Connor."

He laughed softly and joined her on the bed. His mouth sought hers, his tongue playing at the corners of her mouth. She parted her lips and teased his tongue with her own. He raised himself on one elbow and stroked her body with his free hand. She was barely aware of her legs wrapping around his hips to draw him closer and closer, or her fingers unb.u.t.toning her top to free herself for him. When his mouth closed over her breast, her brain turned itself off and her body went on autopilot. The last thing she remembered was Connor whispering her name over and over and over. Everything after that was lost, drowned in an intensity of emotion and sensation that took her breath away and left her feeling stunned.

Afterward she lay against his chest, listening to his beating heart. She felt as if she could stay right there in that moment forever-until his phone started to ring.

Connor groaned and rolled over, and searched through his clothes on the floor for his phone.

"This had better be d.a.m.ned important," he growled at the caller.

He sat up straight.

"When?" He listened for another minute, then said, "Save it. I'm on my way."

He closed the phone and turned to Daria. "I hate to do this to you, but that was Chief Thorpe. The kid just tried to hang himself with his T-shirt."

"Oh my G.o.d. He's not...?"

"No. The guard on duty stopped him, but they don't know if any serious damage has been done."

He took her by the hand.

"This isn't exactly the way I pictured this night ending, and I'm sorry."

"It's all right," she a.s.sured him. "I understand. I know you have to leave."

"We have to leave," he corrected her. "In the past week, you've been attacked, your head's been split open, and someone tried to break into the house. You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to leave you here alone for the rest of the night."

TWENTY-TWO.

"W hat's going to happen to him now?" Daria stared through the window at the boy in the hospital bed. Tubes were everywhere, and a machine was monitoring his vital signs.

"We're not sure what to do with him," Chief Thorpe told her. "We don't even know how old he is, so we don't know whether to send him to juvie or to the county prison. If he's too old for juvie and we send him there and he does something to another inmate, we're liable for putting that other kid at risk. If we send him to the county and he's set upon by the big boys, we're liable for having put him at risk. We're d.a.m.ned if we do, and we're d.a.m.ned of we don't."

"Well, as of today, he'll have been in your custody for forty-eight hours. You're going to have to decide what to do with him," Connor noted, "once he comes around."

"I'm calling the DA's office, see what they recommend. Besides sending him to Delaware and letting them deal with it."

"Shouldn't he be given an attorney?" Daria asked.

"Well, that's sort of a problem, too, since we're changing jurisdictions." He leaned on the gla.s.s and watched the boy's chest rise and fall. "Though I guess that's up in the air right now. Maybe I'll just see if we can get the court to appoint someone to represent him for as long as he's here."

"Has he been charged?" Connor asked.

Thorpe frowned. "I was leaving that till the last minute, too, thinking maybe he'd crack and give us something more than trespa.s.sing." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Guess I should talk to the New Castle detective. See what he has in mind. I don't know what the law is in Delaware, when it comes to things like this. It's all I can do to keep up with Pennsylvania."

The chief shook his head. "Would make it a whole lot easier if we knew who he was. We don't even have a starting point."

"If you get any information from him-anything at all-let me know and I'll have our guy at the Bureau see what he can dig up," Connor said.

"Won't his fingerprints help?" Daria asked.

"Only if they're already in the system," Thorpe told her. He turned to Connor. "That reminds me. We matched the kid's prints to one set of prints from the library. They didn't match the ones on your window, though. You'll never guess which ones were a match."

"My money's on the bas.e.m.e.nt door," Connor said.

"Good guess. How'd you figure it?"

"I don't see him for smashing the computer," Connor explained. "I don't believe he sent the e-mail messages to the collectors that were on the hit list, and I don't believe he killed Mrs. Weathers, so his prints wouldn't be on the railing in the stairwell going up to the second floor. That leaves the prints on the back door."

"Which tells us how the killer got into the library," the chief said. "He must have had a time prearranged to go downstairs and open the door. The alarm would go off, the real guard would come down to see what was going on, and the killer knocks him out. The kid leaves with the other students, no one's the wiser."

"Do you think the killer intended to kill Mrs. Weathers?" Daria wondered.

"I think she just got in his way," Connor told her. "She probably surprised him when she came down the stairs, and he took off after her."

"He didn't kill the guard, though. He only hit him over the head, right?" Daria asked.

"Right."

"Then why did he kill Mrs. Weathers and not the guard?"

"Good question," Connor nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe she saw his face when she came down the stairs. Maybe she recognized him. Maybe that's why he panicked and got careless, leaving his prints at the scene."

"Which means he could be someone connected with the school," Thorpe said. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could narrow the pool just a little?"

"Yesterday I gave a list of names to our computer whiz at the Bureau. We'll see if he came up with anything interesting." Connor turned back to the window and watched the boy for another minute. "I guess he didn't have any visitors while he was at the station."

"Not a one."

"Why would he have done this?" Daria asked. "Why would he have tried to kill himself?"

"Holding-cell suicides, or attempted suicides, aren't uncommon," Thorpe replied. "It could be that he realized he's really going to be doing some time as an accomplice to the Cross murder."

"Or he could be afraid he'll end up talking."

"What would make him more afraid of talking than dying?" Daria asked.

"Maybe someone who likes to cut off people's hands." Connor said. "Maybe someone who threatened him big time if he ever talked about what happened."

"Maybe when he comes to, he'll be more inclined to talk," Thorpe suggested. "Maybe we can convince him that the G.o.ds spared him so that he could tell the truth."

"The G.o.ddess," Daria corrected him. "There were no G.o.ds in Shandihar. Just the one G.o.ddess."

"Who do you suppose told him about her?" Connor thought aloud.

A nurse came by and they backed away from the door to let her enter the room.

Connor turned to Thorpe. "Will you give me a call if anything changes here?"

"I'm going to be moving out myself," the chief told him. "I'll leave one of the officers here to keep an eye on things. But sure, I'll let you know if there's a change in his condition."

Connor and Daria walked to the elevator with the chief.

"Chief, are you from this area?" Connor asked as the doors closed.

"Born and raised," Thorpe said.

"You know of any antiques dealers around Howeville who've been in business for a long time?"

"Not offhand, but my mother might. Want me to ask her?"

"Please do."

"I'll give her a call later." He glanced at his watch; it wasn't yet 7 A.M. "No way she's up now. Last night was her night out. She goes up to that new casino in Chester once a week with her friends. She gets pretty p.i.s.sy if you call her much before noon the morning after. But I'll be talking to her later, and I'll give you a call if she knows of anyone."

"I appreciate it." Connor nodded and stepped aside for Daria to exit the elevator when the doors slid open.

Thorpe stopped to talk to a uniformed officer in the lobby, and Connor and Daria continued on into the parking lot outside the emergency room.

"I hope the boy is going to be all right," Daria said. "He looks so young."

"It's a d.a.m.ned shame he's the one who's taking the brunt of this. I wish there was some way we could get him to talk." He took Daria's hand as they walked to the car. "He's obviously protecting someone. Maybe more than one someone."

"Maybe your friend at the FBI will have some information for you today."

"Yeah, we need a break." He opened the car door for her. "How about if we stop somewhere on the way back to Howe and get some breakfast? I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

"I could definitely eat," she said. When he got in behind the wheel, she asked, "Have you heard anything from Polly? Has she been able to determine if any of the artifacts in the galleries have been stolen?"

"I talked to her yesterday. So far, none of the galleries or museums appear to have been targeted."

"So whoever it is, is only going after private collectors."

"Because it's easier to break into a private home than an inst.i.tution." He thought it over for a minute. "But if you're trying to retrieve things that you believe are sacred, you're on a sort of holy mission, right?"

"I would think so, yes," she said, nodding.

"So if you're doing holy work, it shouldn't matter if the job is hard or easy, right? You just do it. You find a way to make it happen."

"I guess so, if you believe you're doing the work of the G.o.ddess. Especially this G.o.ddess, who is known to take no prisoners when she's p.i.s.sed off."

"Who would be giving the orders on behalf of the G.o.ddess? The priestess, right?"

Daria nodded.

"So we have to figure out who the priestess is," Connor said thoughtfully. "Obviously, it has to be someone who's familiar with the culture. And someone who knew the artifacts were missing before you did."

"The first murders were months ago. Someone had to had read the journals or seen the photos-or both-before the first murder," Daria said.

He put on his turn signal and made a left into the parking lot of a small country restaurant that advertised breakfasts served until noon. "There can't be too many people who have access to both. We just need to figure out who they are. But for now...first things first. I'm thinking coffee. Eggs. Bacon. Toast with marmalade..."

"Sounds wonderful."

"Hey, it's the least I can do, after dragging you away from a warm bed in the middle of the night."

"It was the dragging away from a warm man that I objected to."

He paused with his hand on the door handle.

"I will make that up to you."

She smiled and opened the pa.s.senger door. "I'm counting on it."

TWENTY-THREE.

T hey were almost finished breakfast when Will Fletcher called Connor's cell, but Connor had to go outside to take the call due to a bad connection.

He came back in a few minutes later and told Daria, "Nora Gannon checks out. There's nothing in her background that raises a red flag."

"One down. What about the others?"

"Will is still working on them. He'll get back to me as soon as he has something else." He looked at her empty plate. "Unless you're going to order seconds, let's go back to the house and take a look at those photos."

"Good idea. I have a meeting with Louise this morning. I'd like to be on time."

Twenty minutes later, they sat at the table in the kitchen at McGowan House, the stack of photographs between them.

"Still no golden griffins," she noted. "No large statue of the G.o.ddess. No golden necklace."

"Who had access to them? We keep coming back to the photos." He tapped his fingers on the tabletop.

"There's no way of knowing. Louise said that Vita found them in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the administration building, but there's no way of knowing if someone found them before she did."