Scott Katzer knew what happened next. "You had him do your dirty work, retrieve the cache from the caves, ship it to the States, and then you double-crossed him."
"No. He double-crossed me. I caught him making entries in the journal about Wolfgang and his history. And about me."
"So you went after him and tried to kill him. In a way, you did kill him."
She stared at him and he knew what she was thinking. How could he question her judgment? But he'd had enough of his mother's commands. He would take over now.
He looked at the woman on the porcelain embalming table, struggling to take each breath. The woman so sick she would probably die even if he took her to a hospital. The quest for the journal had turned him into a criminal to satisfy his mother's desires. He was already implicated in the death of Samantha Connors. Now this woman was certainly going to be another victim as well.
He looked at his mother and could tell her thoughts had drifted again to another time. "You were wise to keep this a secret."
Heidi Katzer's head snapped around. Her eyes penetrated him. "You must never breathe a word of this to anyone. Do I make myself clear?"
He never got the chance to object to her tone.
Without warning, a man walked into the embalming room. He looked vaguely familiar but Katzer couldn't place him.
"And that is something," the intruder said. "I am here to ensure."
42
Francesca Catanzaro waited across the street from Katzer Funeral Home. There had been no activity since Katzer and the old woman transported the casket from the van into the building. She speculated that Abigail Love must be inside. There was no way to know if Love was dead or alive. The last time she'd seen Love was in Butler. She was alive but had trouble walking. At first she thought Love was just exhausted from her run-in with Jake in Watauga Lake until Jake told her about the possibility of Love having decompression sickness.
It had been over an hour since Jake called in with Wiley's plan. She kept surveillance over the funeral home as he instructed. He'd relieve her when he got to Nashville. In the meantime it was her job to watch the building in case Katzer decided to leave. If he did, or Abigail Love appeared, she was to call him immediately.
Earlier Jake had informed her he was on Interstate 40 passing Crossville, Tennessee and would be there in an hour and a half. She checked the time, if Jake was right, then he should be arriving within the next fifteen minutes.
She was getting antsy. She'd been staking out the funeral home for almost three hours. She was hungry, thirsty, but mostly, she needed a restroom break.
She was about to get out to relieve herself when she noticed a dark figure in the shadows walking up the driveway toward the funeral home. She pulled her compact spotting scope to her eye and toggled it to infrared. In the dark green glow the man wore light colored pants and a jacket. From the back he looked like he had light colored hair.
The man walked up to the van, opened the door, and looked inside. He pulled back and walked to the side door and stopped.
She zoomed in as far as her spotting scope would allow her. The man turned and faced her, almost as if he knew she was there. Wanting her to see his face. The man raised his chin slightly, pushed his wire-rim glasses up on his nose and ran both hands through his hair. One hand behind the other. Then he disappeared into the building.
"Oh my God."
Elmore Wiley.
Jake answered his cell phone and listened to Francesca's frantic message.
"Jake. Wiley just went into the funeral home. I thought we were going in tomorrow morning. What do you want me to do?"
"I had a hunch that sneaky bastard was up to something. His plan sounded contrived from the get-go. Maybe he thinks he can handle this alone. For some reason, it's personal. I think he's too close and has lost his objectivity." Jake punched a button on the device. "According to Fontaine's GPS, I'm passing the airport now and should be there in six minutes. Stay put. If you see any movement, let me know."
"Hurry, Jake. I've got a bad feeling about this."
She wasn't the only one who had a bad feeling about it. Wiley's impromptu intrusion added an unexpected element to the scenario. "Francesca, where are you?"
"Across the street from the funeral home…in the Mt. Olivet Cemetery. There is a cul-de-sac at the mausoleum. You'll see it on the right of the entrance when you get here. I have a bird's eye view of Katzer Funeral Home. She said. "Jake, he looked right at me. Like he knew I was here."
"He did. I told him you were watching. He wanted you to see him. He knew you'd call me. He's counting on us as backup…or for the end game."
Jake turned on Lebanon Pike from Spence Lane and drove west. One minute later he turned into the entrance to Mt. Olivet Cemetery.
"Jake? Is that you in the white SUV? Or am I going to have to shoot somebody?"
"Don't shoot. It's me. I'll be there in thirty seconds."
Jake parked next to her at the top of the hill. He and Francesca waited in his Tahoe while they discussed their options and devised a plan.
"Are you ready?"
Jake looked at his watch. "Nope. Ten more minutes."
"Ten more minutes? Why ten minutes? We need to move and move now."
"No," he said. "It's not time."
"Time for what? Wiley has been in there too long. Something could have happened to him."
"Wiley knew what he was doing when he went in there. And if I'm right, I know why."
"What if you're wrong?" Francesca looked worried.
"Then Wiley's already dead."
George Fontaine spent all day in his computer complex and it looked like he might very well have to spend all night. The computer he'd been tracking had not been back online in hours and, other than the scanned journal pages he'd viewed so far; most of what he'd downloaded was incomplete and unusable. The last time the computer was online was in Charlotte, North Carolina, which he couldn't connect to any information he'd collected thus far.
He hadn't had a chance to catch the news today so he decided to take a break and use the opportunity to read the USA Today on his iPad. He opened the app and noticed President Rebecca Rudd's emergency summit meeting in Indianapolis was the fifth article in importance out of the top stories. Top billing went to another bombing by Afghan insurgents. Wildfires in the West, the reappearances of several pieces of lost art, and tropical storm flooding in Galveston, Texas rounded out the top five.
Fontaine scanned through each article in his typical manner, only absorbing the highlights. The article that intrigued him the most was the sudden reappearance of famous paintings that disappeared during World War II. All recovered artwork was believed stolen by Hitler's Third Reich.
Although the article stated two priceless paintings suddenly appeared in the Hermitage Museum in 1995, Place De La Concorde by Edgar Degas and White House at Night by Vincent Van Gogh, what Fontaine found most intriguing was the recent recovery of two new pieces by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Painter On The Road To Tarascon by Vincent Van Gogh was believed destroyed during World War II but had reappeared along with Portrait Of A Young Man by Raphael. The museum refused to disclose the manner of recovery, only that they were confident the items would be verified authentic works of art.