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Slowly she stood. 'Why do I have to disappear?'

'Because you have been a great nuisance, and you are poised to become even more of a problem. I have no choice but to get rid of you. You have destroyed one of my enterprises. I will not allow you to destroy the other.'

Shocked, she could only stare at him. 'You were involved with the ghost juice business?'

'Yes, of course.' He motioned her toward the entrance of a nearby building. 'There were three of us all along. Jenner, Patterson, and myself.' He motioned her forward with the nose of the gun. 'But the other two were thick-headed hunters. They knew nothing about how to set up a profitable business enterprise. I was the one who was responsible for the pricing and marketing strategy. I'm the one who suggested we partner with the Riders to handle distribution and transportation. Jenner and Patterson took all the credit, but the truth is, they would have been nowhere without my genius.'

'You built your business on slave labor.'

'The least expensive kind.' He herded her toward the entrance of a nearby building. 'Jenner and Patterson needed me, but they never made me an equal partner.'

'You mean they didn't give you your fair share?'

'Exactly.' Rage bubbled in the word. 'They said that I was just their accountant. They said they were the ones taking all the risks. I only got a fraction of what I was worth, not the full one-third partnership I deserved.'

'That all changed when Fontana and the other members of the Council decided to force Jenner to retire, didn't it?'

'I saw my opportunity at last. Patterson was equally happy to get rid of Jenner. We both knew that he had become a liability.'

'Who murdered Jenner? You or Patterson?'

'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.'