The Hidden

Now the others were gone and it was just the two of them. He wanted to hear everything from her point of view, starting with the pictures that had mysteriously appeared on her camera and then going on to cover her experience at the police station and anything else that might be relevant. So now they were up in the apartment, at the little table in the kitchen. She’d brewed more coffee and was sitting opposite him, much as she’d sat opposite Lieutenant Gray the night before. She kept noticing his hands. His fingers were long, his nails clipped and clean. She’d always loved his hands; they looked like a pianist’s hands. Actually, he did play, but only for pleasure. He claimed he was awful, but in fact he was anything but.

She looked away, avoiding his eyes. She’d been anxious to be alone with him so she could tell him about the mannequin. But now that the moment was here, she was afraid he was going to think she was an idiot. He dealt with true evil every day. How was she going to explain her terror of a mannequin in a way that didn’t sound ridiculous?

Then again, how the hell had the damned thing wound up at the foot of her bed?

Apparently he could still read her better than anyone else could, because he immediately asked, “What is it? Please, Scarlet, two people have been murdered. Tell me what you didn’t want to say in front of everyone else.”

She couldn’t say it. Too silly. Or maybe not. There was still the possibility that someone made of flesh and blood, and in possession of a key, had moved it to terrify her.

“A mannequin moved,” she blurted out.

She’d expected skepticism—perhaps polite, nearly hidden skepticism, but skepticism nevertheless.

“Okay, I saw a bunch of mannequins down in the museum,” he said. “But which one, and how did it move?”

She let out a long breath. “Nathan Kendall—and he’s not downstairs. He’s in my living room about fifteen feet away from us. Yesterday he fell over on his own.” She hesitated, then went on. “And when I woke up this morning, he was standing at the foot of my bed.”

To her amazement, he didn’t look at her with sympathy, as if the thin mountain air was affecting her brain.

He simply asked, “Who has keys to this place, Scarlet? The first thing, always, is to look for the simplest and most likely possibility.”

“To the best of my knowledge, only Ben, Trisha and myself. And I just can’t believe that either one of them would try to scare me that way.” She met his eyes as if begging him to understand. “Diego, I was never afraid to be here. I loved this place from the moment I arrived. But I swear to you, I’m not crazy. The statue was on its pedestal at the bottom of the stairs when I went to bed after we finally got back from the police station. Ben and Trisha went with me to make sure the museum and the apartment were safe. I went back down with them and locked the door once they left. I woke up in the middle of the night, but I had a cup of tea and went back to bed. I’d had the feeling the whole time that I was being watched, though. When I woke up in the morning, Nathan Kendall was standing at the foot of my bed. Do you think someone got in and put him there without me hearing a thing?”

“First, thank God you’re all right. And second, maybe. That’s certainly the logical explanation, and we always look for the logical explanation first.”

“I don’t know which is scarier—the concept that a mannequin moved on its own, or that someone was in here and put it at the foot of my bed to scare me to death. You know me, Diego—I don’t get spooked easily. I’ve studied mummies and excavated grave sites—you name it. But that mannequin...and those pictures... Ben and I both saw them, but I have no idea how they got there and no idea how they disappeared.”

“The cops have the camera now, right?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll be able to get our hands on it. I mean, I’m sure the cops here are great, but the Bureau has the best techs in the world, and from what I hear, the unit can get anything expedited.”

“From what you hear?”

“They asked Brett to join and annexed me to the invitation. I just accepted yesterday. After you called.”

“After I called? So you accepted because of me?” she asked.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but when you called...” he said.