Private Demon

The bum yanked the knife out of his neck. "No." The steak knife fell from his hand onto Todd's chest.

"Come on and help me, then, man." Brackman hunted for the knife with his good hand. "I'm really hurting here." He curled his hand around the plastic handle. "Help me."

The big man hesitated, and then reached down for him.

"Shithead." Todd shoved the steak knife into his belly, once, twice, three times. "Now you freaking die."

"'Known, Connor." Beneath the tangled mess of dark hair, the bum's cracked lip parted, and something long and sharp glittered. "I'm already dead." He bent down.

At last Todd Brackman saw exactly what the bum was packing, and screamed.

"Ms. Shaw?" Thomas, the youngest of the security guards at the Shaw Museum, called out as he wheeled in a handtruck bearing a large wooden crate. He looked around the lab.

Jema Shaw put down the ancient double-handled jug she was dating and came around the worktable. "Right here, Tom.''

"Oh. Hey." The guard eased the crate into an upright position. "Man to see you. Want me to take him to the clean room or storage':'"

"Storage, please." She saw a small tear in the latex covering her palm and pulled it off to replace it with a fresh glove. "I'm not unpacking anyone new until I finish the Sogdies." She went back to the jug.

"Good thing he's dead, then, huh?" Thomas came to peer over Jema's hunched shoulder. The flannel-covered table held an assortment of soft-bristled brushes, picks, and testing vials.

A large lens clamped to an extending-arm vise magnified the dull orange of the clay jug. which was cracked but intact, but for a broken lip. "I thought the museum was for Greek stuff, not the Saudis."

"Sogdies, short for Sogdians," she corrected him. "They were rebel Greek tribes who occupied the mountains north of Afghanistan."' Jema used a small brush to remove some sand grains embedded in the pot's side etching. "Where Uzbekistan is now."

"Uzbekistan." Thomas frowned. "Right."

"One of the Sogdian rebel leaders, Oxyartes, held off an invasion force led by Alexander the Great. He couldn't be beaten and wouldn't surrender until Alexander agreed to marry his daughter. This might have belonged to Oxyartes's war master. His mark looked like this." She traced a fingertip in the air over the stylized animal figure etched into the side of the jug.

Thomas leaned closer, squinting. "That a wolf?"

"A wolf, or a large dog. It may also represent one of the war master's personal gods. I don't think he was a native. Sogdians were very tolerant about religions outside their own, too. An incredibly progressive culture, for their time." Jema gave the confused young guard a sideways look. She'd lost him at Uzbekistan. "Would you like to hear about life in the war master's garrison at Kurgan-Tepe? I've got a couple dozen spear shafts and arrowheads to date and catalog next."

His eyes widened and he shuffled back a step. "Wish I could, Ms. Shaw, but I gotta make my rounds." He adjusted the set of his belt over his skinny hips and nodded toward the clock above her workbench. "Kind of late for you to hang out here, isn't it?"

Jema glanced at the time, 6:57 p.m., which meant that the museum had been closed for three hours and dinner at Shaw House had been served fifty-seven minutes ago. Damn. Had her mother invited anyone important over tonight? "Yes." If she had, she'd have called by now to chew off my ear. "I'll finish up now."

"One more thing," he said, his young face serious, "you shouldn't stop at any drive-through ATMs on the way home."

It was such an odd request that Jema almost laughed. "Why not?"

"This mugger? Used a chainsaw to rob a lady when she stopped at an ATM." He named a bank two blocks from the museum. "She got away okay and all, but next one might not be so lucky."

Jema swallowed. Tom's warning conjured the image of a dark round face, beautiful hazel eyes, and a shy smile. Luisa Lopez, who had worked part-time on the museum's housekeeping staff, had been the victim of an equally brutal assault during a home invasion a year ago. Luisa had not been lucky enough to get away okay, and was still in the hospital, recovering from injuries that should have killed her.

Luisa didn't have a shy smile anymore, but the doctors were gradually replacing the skin that had been burned off her face. They would eventually get to perfecting her new lips.

Jema went to visit Luisa every week, but the young woman rarely spoke or acknowledged her presence. Bandages covered the hazel eyes while the new lids that had been grafted over them healed, but Luisa, blinded by the fire set to kill her, would never see anyone again.

"Have a good one," Thomas said. He wheeled the crate into the corridor leading to the antiquities storage area.

Jema set thoughts of Luisa back into memory as carefully as she repacked the Sogdian jug. She placed its box on her in-progress shelf before going to phone home and make the necessary excuses.

Originally Jema's office had served as a supply closet, and still held the lingering odor of floor wax and wet mops. At nine feet by seven feet, it was barely large enough to qualify as a prison cell, but it had enough space to accommodate her desk and shelves for her personal reference books. She didn't have to impress anyone with her office—no board members or visiting dignitaries came down here. That was her mother's job. Jema's territory was the lab, where she currently spent her time dating and cataloging the museum's acquisitions.

You're delicate, Meryl Shaw had said when Jema had suggested moving out of the underground level to help the museum staff with the exhibits and tours. You can't risk exposing yourself to the general public.

Jema switched on the small black-and-white TV she kept on her credenza and turned to the late edition of the news. She hated the loneliness of working in the museum's basement, but she did love her desk, a fussy little antique writing desk at which some Victorian lady had once penned invitations to teas and balls. Rather than facing the door, she had turned the desk around toward the wall. She had no window, but beneath a six-by-nine return air vent hung her diplomas, awards, and certifications, along with her favorite painting, framed in plain black wood.

On the television, a reporter was standing in front of a small bank building and finishing up his live report. "The body of the suspect, Todd Brackman, was found in the bank's Dumpster. Police are presently conducting a massive search of the area for an unidentified man who may have acted as Brackman's accomplice. Brackman's neighbor, Robert Pechowsky, an employee of O'Malley's Lawn and Tree Service, was also found stabbed to death earlier today. We'll bring you updates as this story develops. Spencer Holt, Channel Five News."

Jema turned off the set and rubbed her tired eyes, trying not to think of Luisa. As she turned back to her desk, she saw the receiver sitting on the blotter and groaned. She must have forgotten to hang it up after getting a call earlier from the events coordinator. I've got to stop doing that.

The tiny red voice-mail light on the telephone console blinked on and off, so she replaced the receiver, put the phone on speaker, and pressed in her retrieval code.

"Good evening. Shaw Museum com-mailbox user," the automated system's computer-generated voice said. "You have one new message from"—there was a pause for the caller identification, which a far colder voice gave as—"Jema, you're late." After a second pause, the automated system continued with. "To play the first mess—"

"That's okay." Jema punched the speaker button. "I'll hear it soon as I get home."

She finished tidying up the lab and stopped in the tiny lavatory to give herself an injection of insulin. She was glad she was able to take her shots at the same time every day; many diabetics didn't have a stable condition and were dependent on constant blood-sugar monitoring. Jema had been on insulin therapy since birth, so needles were no big deal, but she hated the thought of never knowing exactly when she would need one.

Jema walked upstairs and into the museum's main gallery. Although her father, James Shaw, had commissioned the Shaw Museum built to house artifacts recovered from a lifetime of overseas digs, Jema had never really liked the enormous building. The polished imported marble and towering Grecian columns were massively dignified, but they reminded her more of a mausoleum than a museum.

In a sense, the museum had killed her father shortly after Jema was born.

She stopped in front of the security guard office, where the night-shift supervisor was initiating the computerized security system from the main monitoring console. "Good night, Roy."

"Ms. Shaw." He swiveled around, startled. "I didn't know you were still here."

Did anyone, besides her mother? "See you tomorrow." She smiled before heading for the side exit.

"Let me walk you out." Roy's thirty extra pounds had him wheezing a little by the time he reached her. "You hear about the shi—ah, incident over on Grandview?"

"Tom mentioned it." She waited as he unlocked and held the door open for her. "That poor woman. She must have been terrified."

"She was lucky. Chicago's overrun with junkies and homeless." Roy trotted beside her down the short flight of steps to the employee parking lot. "Police should save our tax dollars and just shoot them instead of arresting them."

"You don't mean that," Jema chided.

"Good thing they don't let me carry a gun." Roy peered into the windows of Jema's Mercedes convertible before watching her unlock the door. "You head straight home, Ms. Shaw."

Did everyone think she was helpless? Jema thought of her mother and her temper ebbed. "I will, Roy, thank you."

The drive from the museum to Shaw House usually took twenty minutes, but Jema didn't rush. She needed to practice her excuses before she got home.

"Sorry I'm late, Mother," Jema told the steering wheel. No, that's too breezy. "'I'm so sorry I'm late. Late again. Forgive me, Mother. Forgive me for missing dinner."'