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“Do you notice something?” he asked Stamm.
The curator studied the images. “That boy’s neck is discolored.”
“Like a port wine stain.”
He knew what he had to do. “Keep watch out front and tell me if anyone comes. I’ve got some searching to do.”
He’d already noticed the lack of any family pictures. Usually a seasoned homestead like this would be littered with memories. So he decided to see if he could find any stored away.
He started checking the closets and hit pay dirt in the upstairs hallway, where he found a cardboard box filled with framed images tossed inside with no particular care. Most were of Breckinridge and his wife, but there were several that showed a boy, then a teenager, and finally a young man. Where visible, the neck was definitely discolored. Also in the closet he discovered another cardboard box that contained photo albums. He paged through, checking for anything on the son. Then he saw three high school annuals. He grabbed the most recent one, dated 1999, which would have placed the son at or near eighteen, considering his age in the Smithsonian picture downstairs. He found the senior class and went to the B’s.
And saw Grant Breckinridge.
Short hair, neck discolored, the same face—though younger—that he’d seen inside Fossil Hall.
He ripped out the page and headed downstairs.
“The son’s our killer,” he told Stamm, showing him what he’d found. “And that old man isn’t crazy.”
He saw the concern in Stamm’s eyes.
His gaze raked the parlor, his radar now on high alert. The same rolltop desk from earlier sat open, full of empty pigeonholes. An old-fashioned gramophone stood in one corner. He’d noticed it during his first visit. A plugless lead trailed from the bottom, its turntable long rusted to immobility. It seemed not worth keeping. So why had Breckinridge? He walked over, crouched down to the cabinet door, and tested it. Locked. He tried to pry it, but a steel bolt had been added for reinforcement.
Which was odd.
His cell phone vibrated.
He hoped to God it was Cassiopeia. He hadn’t heard from her, and his two calls had gone unanswered. But the display indicated it was Danny Daniels.
“Get me a knife from the kitchen,” he said to Stamm.
He answered the call.
“Your killer has changed his looks,” Daniels said.
And he listened to a new description.
“We also know his identity,” he told Daniels, explaining what he knew.
“Let’s get the no-good bastard.”
“I’m on it,” he said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
And he clicked off the phone.
Stamm returned with a butcher blade. Cotton attacked the old wood, digging out chunks and splinters until the lock fell away and the door swung open. A pile of obsolete records in torn paper sleeves lay inside, which certainly did not need the protection of a steel bolt. He slid them out, then noticed a size disparity between the inside and out. The inner shelf did not extend as far as it should. He tested the rear wall, tapping lightly, then tracing his fingers until he found metal.
Which he pushed.
“You’re observant,” Stamm said.
“Comes from years of people trying to kill you.”
A panel released, revealing a concealed compartment.
He saw a book.
Stamm reached in and removed it, cradling it in his open palms as if it were a piece of glass. Cotton understood the affection. This one seemed in excellent condition, its blue leather bindings nearly perfect, the edges gilded.
“Open it,” he said.
Stamm carefully hinged up the front cover to reveal a beautifully handwritten title page in an Edwardian script.
Notes & Observations
From An Expedition to the Newly Acquired
American Southwest
May 1854 to March 1856
As Authorized By The Board of Regents
of the
Smithsonian Institution
Submitted by Angus Adams
The Servant of Faith
“It’s Adams’ journal,” Stamm said.
His spine tingled as he realized that his namesake ancestor had both created and held the book.
“Our records indicated that it should have been returned to your family in 1952. Now we know what happened. Breckinridge took it.”
Your journal is safe. I hid it away.
“He told me when I was here that he hid it, but I didn’t pay the comment much attention. I just thought it was more of his delusions. Why is this journal so important?”
“I truly don’t know.”
“But Weston might?”
Stamm did not reply. He pointed to the last four words on the page. “The Servant of Faith. That’s straight from the Horse Stone. And did you notice the front cover?”
Embossed into the leather at the top and bottom right were a 4 and an 8. He checked. On the back cover, at the top and bottom left were N and P. “Those numbers and letters are from the Witch’s Stone.”
“That’s more than a coincidence,” Stamm said.
“You think? We passed coincidence a long time ago. Everything happening here is deliberate.”
“So how do we handle this?” Stamm asked.
“We don’t. Not now. First we have to get inside that tomb.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Grant was back inside the Castle, this time with his father. They’d slipped in a little before five thirty with the final few visitors of the day drifting around the ground-floor exhibits, easing their way into Schermer Hall, the same place from which he’d made his earlier escape.
“It’s different,” his father had said. “They’ve painted and remodeled.”
“You haven’t been back since the day you retired?”
“Never saw the need.”
The presence of cameras was different, too.
And Schermer Hall had its share.
He still carried Martin Thomas’ swipe card, but using it again would not be smart. The experience in Fossil Hall had taught him that people were watching. Which made him question why he and his father were even here, but his father had said they had no choice.
Inside Schermer Hall, twenty-five years ago, was where his father’s retirement ceremony had been held. That day it had been packed with well-wishers. Today the crowd was all tourists. Along the north wall, in a corner, stood the same arched doorway that had been there then. A sign affixed to its exterior warned DO NOT ENTER STAFF ONLY. Only a doorknob with a simple lock protected it. And he’d been surprised to see that his father held a key.
“That lock has been there since World War II,” his father had said. “Things like that don’t change often in this place. The Smithsonian is both a student of and a slave to history.”
“Why did you keep the key?”
“In case I had to return one day.”
Cameras watched the hall, but were all focused toward the center and the public display areas. None watched the corners. So they’d waited for the right moment, as people were streaming out toward the exits, then casually opened the door and entered. Which put them back at the spiral staircase that rose from the basement to the upper floors, the staircase he’d used last night to gain access to the rotunda. They climbed past the second floor and found refuge in one of the north tower rooms, where boarders had lived for free in the early days, young men who worked in the Castle cataloging exhibits and assisting the scientists.
There they’d settled down and waited for the building to clear.
“During the Civil War, Joseph Henry was arrested and taken to face Lincoln,” his father said. “The most learned man in the government’s employ, head of the Smithsonian Institution, accused as a spy.”
He hadn’t known that.
“The officer who made the arrest had been warning his superiors for months that Henry was a rebel. Now he had proof, having personally witnessed signals being flashed to the Confederate army from right
here, in the north tower, the night before. So the officer brought Henry before Lincoln. The president pointed a finger and said, ‘Now you’re caught. What have you to say, Professor Henry? Why should a sentence of death not be immediately pronounced on you.’ But all Henry did was smile. Lincoln then turned to the officer and explained that he, Henry, and two others had climbed the north tower the night before and flashed signals toward the hills around the city as an experiment. Case closed.”
He’d wondered about the story.
“That officer was wrong in more ways than one,” his father said. “Joseph Henry was not one of us.”
“You keep saying us. How many knights are there?”
