Free Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Page B

Dance
    Chapter 14
     
    Caitlyn Kidd nosed her car into a bus–only zone across the street from the New York Museum of Natural History. Before getting out, she draped a copy of yesterday's West Sider — with the headline and her byline prominently displayed — on the dash. That, along with her press plates, just might help her avoid a second parking ticket in as many days.
    She walked briskly across Museum Drive, inhaling the frosty fall air. It was quarter to five, and as she suspected a number of people were exiting purposefully from an unmarked door set into the ground floor of the vast structure. They carried bags and briefcases — employees, not visitors. She threaded her way through them toward the door.
    Beyond the door lay a narrow corridor, leading to a security station. A few people were showing their museum IDs and being waved past the station by a pair of bored–looking guards. Caitlyn rummaged in her bag, plucked out her press ID.
    She stepped up and showed the pass to the guard. "Staff only," he said.
    "I'm with the West Sider," she replied. "I'm doing a story on the museum."
    "Got an appointment?"
    "I've got an interview set up with …" She glanced at the badge of a curator just passing the little guard station. It would be at least a few minutes before he reached his office. "Dr. Prine."
    "Moment." The guard checked a phone book, lifted the phone, dialed a number, let it ring a few times. Then he raised his sleepy eyes to her. "He ain't in. You'll have to wait here."
    "May I sit down?" She indicated a bench a dozen yards off.
    The guard hesitated.
    "I'm pregnant. I'm not supposed to be on my feet."
    "Go ahead."
    She sat down, crossed her legs, opened a book, keeping an eye on the guard station. A knot of employees arrived and began piling up around the entrance — janitors by the look of them, arriving for the night shift. As the guards became fully engrossed in checking IDs and ticking off names, Caitlyn quickly rose and joined the stream of employees already through the security checkpoint.
    The room she was looking for was in the basement — a five–minute search on the Internet had secured an employee directory and layout of the museum — but the place was a rabbit warren of intersecting passages and endless, unmarked corridors. Nobody challenged her access or even seemed to notice her, however, and a few well–placed queries finally led her to a long, dimly lit hallway, opposing walls punctuated every twenty feet by doors with frosted windows set into them. Caitlyn made her way slowly down the corridor, glancing at the names on the doors. A smell lingered in the air, faintly unpleasant, that she couldn't identify. Some of the doors were open, and beyond she could see laboratory setups, cluttered offices, and — bizarrely — jars of pickled animals and fierce–looking beasts, stuffed and mounted.
    She paused outside a door labeled kelly, n. The door was ajar, and Caitlyn heard voices within. One voice, she realized: Nora Kelly was on the phone.
    She edged forward, listening.
    "Skip, I can't," the voice was saying. "I just can't come home now."
    There was a pause. "No, it's not that. If I went back to Santa Fe right now, I might never return to New York. Don't you understand? Besides, it's vital for me to find out what really happened, track down Bill's killer. That's the only thing keeping me going right now."
    This was too personal. Caitlyn pushed the door wider, clearing her throat as she did so. The lab beyond was cramped yet orderly. Half a dozen pottery fragments lay on a worktable beside a laptop computer. In one corner, a woman on the telephone looked up at her. She was slim, attractive, with bronze–colored hair spilling down over her shoulders, a haunted look in her hazel eyes.
    "Skip," the woman said. "I'm going to have to call you back. Yes. Okay, tonight." She hung up, stood up from the desk. "Can I help you?"
    Caitlyn took a deep breath. "Nora Kelly?"
    "That's right."
    Caitlyn