"I took care of the matter. No one took any notice of me in the hospital. Everyone assumed I was there to handle the insurance paperwork. Even Patterson believed that Jenner's death was from natural causes. I saw no reason to tell him the truth. He might have used the information against me."
"No one pays any attention to the accountant," she said quietly.
"And that is just the way I like it, Ms. McIntyre." He motioned with the gun again. "Open the door and go inside. Hurry. I'm on my lunch hour."
"What a coincidence. So am I. Guess this means that neither of us will be dining at the Amber Club today."
"Open the door."
There was a dangerous instability in Harlan's voice now. It occurred to her that he was almost as nervous as she. Sure, he had already murdered one person, but shooting a woman in cold blood was a little different from introducing a dose of poison into an IV. Harlan was an accountant, after all, not a professional hit man.
Maybe that was the good news, she thought. If he wasn't a pro, he might not be a good shot.
She took one last look around, but she knew it was futile to expect rescue. The alley was empty. She twisted the knob, pushed open the door, and moved into what looked like the back room of an old shop. No one had cleaned for years. Grime covered the windows. A dank, musty smell rolled toward her out of the darkness.
"The door to your right," Harlan said quickly. "There's a staircase that leads down to a hole-in-the-wall."
He wasn't planning to shoot her. Definitely a good news-bad news sort of day. She tightened her grip on her purse.
"You're going to abandon me in the catacombs?" she asked.
"Yes, Ms. McIntyre, you will disappear underground like so many other unfortunates. Sadly, that sort of thing happens when a person goes down below without tuned amber. A few steps into the maze, and you will be lost forever."
She opened the door of what looked like a storage closet and saw a well of darkness. The cloak of claustrophobia closed around her, threatening to choke her. This is your only chance. If you balk, he'll shoot you right here. Intuitively she knew that the tunnels were her best hope.
"Here, take this flashlight," Harlan said. He removed the device from his pocket and tossed it toward her.
She managed to catch it. It wasn't easy, because her hands were shaking, and she was trying to juggle her purse at the same time. She got the flashlight rezzed and aimed the narrow beam into the darkness.
The old metal staircase was a spiral design. It twisted down into endless night. She descended cautiously, one hand clutching the railing. Harlan followed.
"Hurry," he snapped. "We don't have much time."
"Yes, I know, you're on your lunch hour. Tell me, do you really believe that Fontana won't figure out that you're responsible for my disappearance?"
"As I explained a few minutes ago, he trusts me. He even turns a lot of his personal business over to me."
Understanding sliced through her.
"Oh, damn," she whispered. "Of course. You handled the purchase of the mansion for him, didn't you? That was when you discovered the journal in the gallery and found the chart for that sector of the tunnels."
"I did a very thorough inspection before I recommended to Fontana that he should go through with the deal," Harlan said. Pride reverberated in his voice. "Due diligence and all that. Yes, I found the hidden wall safe."
"How did you get it open?"
He chuckled. "That wasn't difficult. The former owner had grown quite senile. As an aid to his failing memory, he had written out the combination on a piece of paper and tucked it into a little space between the wall and the safe."
"You were already thinking about how to get rid of Fontana, weren't you? You never intended that he would be the boss for long. When you found the sector chart, you started to make your plans."
"Patterson and I knew that we couldn't afford to let Fontana remain in the executive suite. He was too smart and too set on cleaning up the organization. It was only a matter of time before he uncovered our juice operation. The plan was to wait a few months before we made our move, however. We thought we had time, you see. We assumed that it would take a while before he became suspicious of certain matters."
"Not to mention that the deaths of two Guild bosses in quick succession here in Crystal would have caught the attention of the other chiefs and the Chamber."
"Precisely."
"You must have been a trifle upset when you realized that not only did Fontana hit the ground running, he took my investigative reporting seriously."
"Upset?" Harlan's voice rose. "I was stunned. Horrified. No one ever pays any attention to the Curtain. When I realized he had invited you to do an interview, I notified Patterson at once. We met in the Guild parking garage. He tried to take care of you before you even got to the office that day."
"The car that almost ran me down."
"Yes. Sadly, he missed you."
"The next thing you knew, I was marrying Fontana."
"He thought he could throw the mantle of the Chamber around you and provide you with some protection. He was right. If there had been even an ounce of suspicion that you had been killed by someone in the Crystal Guild, the Chamber would have torn the organization apart."
"So when you decided to get rid of both Fontana and me, you had the Riders carry out the operation."
"The gang does have its uses."
"Because it has no obvious links to the Guild."
"This is your own fault, you know," Harlan hissed. "I didn't think it would be necessary to get rid of you at first. With Patterson removed and unable to talk, I hoped that Fontana would be satisfied. But his latest plan is simply too much. My patience is exhausted. I am forced to act."
"What are you talking about? What plan?"
"Fontana made it clear that he intends to put you in charge of the Foundation."
Sierra's intuition kicked in again. "You've been skimming money from the Foundation, haven't you?"
"I have always looked upon the Foundation's assets as my private retirement fund. So much more lucrative than the usual Guild benefits. I knew that as soon as you took over, it would be only a matter of time before you discovered that someone had been embezzling for years."
"Namely you."
"It was just too much. I felt something snap inside me. All I could think of was getting rid of you."
"Something snapped, all right. This is a really stupid plan. Fontana will figure out what you've done."
"You said it, yourself, Miss McIntyre. No one ever suspects an accountant. Or an executive assistant, for that matter."
She felt a little rush of psi. A few steps farther down she saw the faint green glow that marked one of the jagged tears in the tunnel walls. She knew very little about mag-rez guns, but the one thing she did know was that they did not function properly in the tunnels. Once she was through the hole in the quartz she would make a run for it.
When she reached the bottom of the stairwell, she stepped out on a floor of packed earth and moved toward the glowing opening.
"Stop," Harlan ordered.
She halted a couple of feet away from the entrance.
"What now?" she asked.
"The mag-rez is useless with all the psi inside the tunnels." He put the gun into his pocket.
Oh, yes, please. This was it, the chance she had been hoping for.
She took a step back, preparing to leap through the opening into the catacombs.
"From now on, I'll use this, instead," Harlan said.
There was a flash of ultraviolet ghost light. A three-foot-wide beam of energy shimmered into existence directly in front of her. It was so close that the storm of psi stirred her hair. She moved back hurriedly.
"The sixth generator," she said. "You had it all along."