“He killed the professor.”
“I heard.”
“How did you…?” Allie asked.
“You have a lovely screaming voice. Piercing.” He took a final glance at Helms and then cocked his head. “We need to get moving. The gunshot will draw the cops pretty quickly.”
“Don’t you think we’ll sort of stick out, running down the street?”
“Who said anything about running? I got in through the garage. There’s a car in there.” He hesitated. “Did you touch anything in the house?”
“Just the front door handle.”
“Let’s wipe it down just to be safe.” He headed back to the entry, opened the door, and rubbed the handles on both sides with his shirt while Drake and Allie watched. When he was done, he pushed it closed with his foot. “That should do it.”
Spencer led them through the house to the garage, where a fifteen-year-old black BMW sedan in mint condition sat with a thin film of grime on it. “How are we going to get it started? Can you hot-wire it?” Allie asked.
Spencer held up a set of keys. “I could, but I figured these would be better. They were on a hook by the garage door. Snagged ’em on the way in.”
They climbed into the car, and the engine cranked over with a throaty growl. Spencer depressed a garage door remote attached to the sun visor and the door raised behind them. He reversed quickly and then reclosed the door.
“What about the gate?” Drake asked.
Spencer tried the other buttons and the gate slowly swung inward. He lowered his window while they waited and glanced at the gas gauge. “Sirens. This could be close. Let’s hope I can figure out how to drive on the wrong side of the road.”
“We can’t use the car for long, Spencer. They’ll put out a bulletin for it.”
“I know. But I bet if we leave it with the keys in it, things will take care of themselves.”
Spencer pulled out of the driveway and pressed down on the accelerator. The big engine responded instantly, surging ahead. At the next street he made a hard right and called out to Allie. “You got a map on your phone? I have a feeling there are a lot of dead ends in this neighborhood.”
She withdrew her cell from her purse and pulled up an image with GPS coordinates. Seconds passed as it acquired a fix, and then she leaned forward. “Fifty yards, make a left, then at the next street, a right, and that should let us out on a main avenue.”
“And from there?” Drake asked.
“From there, we find the first area with taxis and dump this with the engine running,” Spencer said, and sped toward the next turn, the high wail of sirens receding as they distanced themselves from the professor’s house.
Chapter 29
Ten minutes later Spencer left the car in the driveway of an electronics emporium with the keys in the ignition and the window down. He wiped the steering wheel, shifter, and door handles. There were still thousands of people on the street, so they had no problem blending into the pedestrian traffic as Allie checked her phone for possible hotels near the train stations. One, named after a popular American rock starlet, drew a smirk from Drake.
“That sounds perfect. A budget hotel with diva pretensions,” he said.
“There are a bunch more around there if we run into a problem,” Allie said, studying her phone map.
“So now all we have to do is cross town, and we’re home free.”
They continued walking, the balmy night soothing their nerves, and stopped outside of a nightclub that was just getting warmed up. After a short wait a taxi dropped off a couple, and they snagged it and gave the driver the name and address of the hotel. He twisted to look at Allie and scowled. “Are you sure? Not a very nice place. There are many better for the same price.”
“Near that one?”
“Oh, yes, I know of several you would prefer, if you saw the one… in question.”
“Fair enough. Take us to the least expensive.”
The establishment recommended by the driver turned out to be one slim level better than a barn, but in its favor, the reception clerk didn’t ask for anything but money when Spencer and Allie checked in. Drake waited a half hour and then entered and rented a room, receiving the identical lack of scrutiny, and used Spencer’s cell to call Allie once he was in his room.
“We’re in 211,” she said. “Door’s open.”
When he arrived, Allie was seated on the bed with her tablet and Spencer was watching the television news, waiting to see whether the professor’s murder would be reported. Allie looked up when Drake locked the door behind him and stared at the two beds. “I figured you and I could swap since this one has twins,” she said.
Any vision of Allie’s naked form next to him evaporated as Drake nodded. “Good idea.”
“You think Helms will live?” Allie asked Spencer.
“Maybe. I conked him pretty good, but his heart was still beating. The cops will deal with him — the murder weapon has his prints all over it, and he’s at the scene of the crime, so it should be open and shut.”
“They’ll probably want to know who hit him.”
“Any story he tells will be presumed to be a lie, judging by the way I was treated,” Spencer said.
“Still, it’s a fair question.”
“They might just assume that the professor did it as he was dying,” Drake said hopefully.
“Either way, it’s not likely that they spring into action looking for anyone else with him caught red-handed,” Spencer said.
“I wonder who he was working for,” Allie said. “He said ‘powerful interest,’ or something like that.”
“Which tells us why Indiana was scared witless,” observed Drake.
Spencer nodded. “Apparently whoever used to have it will do anything to get it back.”
“I’ve got photos of the flip side now, so it doesn’t matter. We don’t need the dagger anymore — which raises another obvious problem: we need to find someone who can translate the remainder of the script,” Allie said.
“Which puts us back at square one.”
Allie raised an eyebrow. “Maybe, maybe not. I have an idea, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“What is it?” Drake asked.
Spencer shushed them and turned up the volume on the news. An earnest woman was staring at the camera with a troubled expression, speaking in English.
“Hours earlier, a gunshot drew the police to a privileged enclave in one of New Delhi’s most expensive areas, where the body of Dr. Rakesh Sharma was found, murdered. Details are few at the moment, but our sources tell us that the police are actively pursuing leads to find the killer. Anyone with information is urged to call the hotline number on the screen. All tips will be kept confidential.”
Drake and Allie shook their heads. Spencer frowned. “Unbelievable,” he said.
“Maybe they haven’t told the reporters everything yet?” Allie ventured.
“Or he somehow got out before they showed up,” Drake said.
“Or worst case, whoever hired Helms has the clout to get charges dropped even with him at the crime scene. In which case, we’re in even more trouble than we thought,” Spencer said.
“If he’s on the loose, he knows we have the dagger… and he knows our names,” Allie pointed out.
“Which means even if we somehow manage to get out of this, we’ll be at constant risk,” Drake said.
“There’s an easy way to solve that. We can just donate the dagger to a museum or something and make it public knowledge. Then there’s no reason to.”
“It may not be so straightforward.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. Maybe the real value is whatever’s hidden in the script, and the dagger is just the messenger, so to speak. If that’s the case…” Spencer said, not needing to finish the thought.