Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [41]
“I’m sure,” he said.
And he was. He could feel the horror leaching out of him into the clammy cold of the pit. He wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his bare hand.
Lyneea’s expression changed, mirroring his recovery. “Yes, I guess you are.”
Reluctantly he relinquished his friend to the darkness for a moment and beam-searched the rest of the hole. After all, their work wasn’t finished. They had found Teller, but not the seal.
Never mind what you’re feeling, he told himself. You’ve got a job to do.
Meanwhile, Lyneea crept past him. She knelt down next to the body to get a better look—to determine, as best she could, a cause of death. They needed clues; she would do whatever was necessary to find them.
The pit wasn’t big, but it was the most confusing space he’d seen yet. There were lots of little niches where something the size of Fortune’s Light could have been tucked away. Lots of places that might be the beginnings of tunnels leading, perhaps, to other pits—places that would have to be scoured out with light before they could be dismissed as dead ends.
It took a while before he could be certain that the seal wasn’t there. By that time Lyneea had completed her search as well.
He looked at her. “Well?”
“A knife,” she told him. “Once—in the heart. Clean and quick.”
It was small consolation, but it was something. He clung to it.
“Unfortunately,” Lyneea went on, “his pockets are empty. Not even so much as a chit.” She shook her head. “Your luck was no better, I take it.”
“No sign of the seal,” he confirmed. “Either the killer took it out with him or it wasn’t here in the first place.”
“Probably the latter,” she said. “My guess is that Conlon never saw this hole. He was probably murdered up above somewhere and then dumped here to conceal the fact.”
Riker grunted. “But the murderer didn’t just stumble on him here in the maze, recognize the seal, and decide to kill him for it.”
Lyneea agreed. “The murderer had to know Conlon’s whereabouts in advance. Odds are, they were partners in this, one way or the other.”
“Maybe the bastard planned it this way from the start. To let Teller steal Fortune’s Light and then to lift it from him afterward. Less risk that way.”
“And no one to split the profits with,” Lyneea concluded.
Riker no longer argued the question of his friend’s guilt, not even within himself. Innocent people didn’t get stabbed and left in places like this one.
“So we’re back where we started,” he said. “No—even farther back than that. Before, we at least knew whom we were looking for. Now it could be anyone.”
His partner’s face twisted in a scowl. “And the seal could be anywhere. Still in the maze—assuming it ever was in the maze—or wherever Conlon’s killer decided to stash it.” She glanced meaningfully at the opening above them. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He looked at her. “What about Teller?”
Lyneea didn’t look entirely unsympathetic. “We leave him here,” she said, in a softer tone than the one she usually used. “It’s not as if we have much of a choice. Even if we could get him out without attracting attention, where would we take him?” She got up, stretched. “And there’s the killer to think about as well. If he comes back and the body’s gone, he’ll know there’s someone on his trail—and he’ll be twice as careful to hide his tracks.”
It made sense. Riker had to admit that. And yet, the thought of leaving Teller here in this godforsaken hole… .
“Just give me a minute,” he told Lyneea. “Alone—all right?”
She regarded him. “Sure.” And with an effort, she scrambled up the little slope. Riker didn’t see her leave; he just heard the scrape of her boots on some rocks as she kicked herself up through the opening.
He sighed, played the light on Teller’s face again, and forced himself to study each feature individually, as if that might make the totality somehow more palatable. Memories came, lots of them—all maudlin, all the stuff of melodrama. He pushed them aside, did his best to dredge up