strewn around the makeshift cavern giving testimony to the idea that the mummy had once been clothed at all. Whoever it was must have been there for years.
Greg's trek through the desert had taken a couple of hours, following landmark after landmark. As opposed to the city streets, out here not much had changed – or, to be more precise, the author of the directions, who was presumably Troy Cameron, had noted landscape features that wouldn't change instead of plants that might have grown taller or withered and died in the intervening years.
For the last twenty minutes or so. he had seen a pair of turkey vultures wheeling overhead, then a trio, like ragged black shadows against the bright blue sky. He had been starting to wonder how much longer this would take, worrying that he hadn't brought enough water after all. The number of landmarks listed didn't help him gauge his progress, because some were close together while there were great distances between others, even though each was within line of sight of the one before. He was out in the desert with no company but a line of footprints, the carrion birds, din, rocks, and the long-enduring desert plants, the creosote bushes and yuccas and mesquites.
The earth appeared too hard, dry, and unforgiving to be susceptible to the fragile charms of wild-flowers. But there they were, broad yellow blooms and brushlike red ones and lavender blossoms growing close to the ground like a lace handkerchief someone had dropped. And this was late in the season; early in March, the desert would have been carpeted in places by flowers coaxed from the rocky soil by winter rains.
Flowers were only one aspect of desert life that seemed to defy scientific reason. Mesquite could push a taproot down a hundred and fifty feet, through hardpan and caliche and maybe even limestone, looking for water, but most of its root structure was within three feet of the surface. They were hardy trees, almost unkillable, and chances were good that some of the ones Greg passed had been there, albeit smaller, in Troy's day. He thought there was a lesson to be learned from them, something about survival and resilience and the willingness to do whatever it took to make it until the next rain, but he was too distracted by his list of landmarks and growing uneasiness about his task to dwell on it.
He had pressed on, heartened by the fact that three of the landmarks near the end of his list were almost right on top of one another. Finally, he spent some time wandering around a broad cliff face, the rocky patina smoothed by wind and weather. Dark, uneven vertical streaks were probably rust stains from the iron in the rock leaching out to the surface. He was certain he was in the right general vicinity but didn't know exactly what he was looking for. He guessed that Troy Cameron had known his own starting point, so he didn't bother writing it down with the precision he had used on the other notations. All he had written was 'Bleeding rock,' and the cliff face certainly gave that impression.
The other person who had come this way had encountered the same problem, so following those prints (
Finally, he had found a rock shelf, sheltered by the cliff face. On the face itself, someone had marked a crude X, as high as a tall man could reach, above the shelf. The mark might have been an ancient pictograph, except that it was alone, and it had been inscribed there with no particular grace or skill. Someone had simply taken a harder rock and scratched it there, marking the cliff like a treasure spot on a pirate map.
The shelf was jammed with rocks, so it looked less like an open space than a jumble of fallen stone. But there were some on the ground in front of the shelf, and they looked to have been placed there recently, as they weren't covered with the film of dirt that coated everything else. Looking more closely, Greg saw that others had been removed and then put back, as if by someone trying to ensure that whatever was behind them stayed hidden. The hole that was left was almost wide enough for him to squeeze through but not quite. Behind it was a dark, open space, but he couldn't tell how big it was or if there was anything in it until he could get at least his shoulders inside.
The other footprints were all around there. Whoever had preceded him into the desert had been the one who had taken the rocks out, then replaced some. Why?
He took a few pictures of the rocks as he had found them, then slipped on three layers of latex gloves – knowing that handling the rocks would tear through at least one or two – and started pulling them away, setting them carefully on the ground behind him. Within a short time, he had cleared enough rocks to give him limited access. He took a flashlight from his backpack. Maybe he should have brought his whole crime-scene kit, but not knowing how far he'd have to walk, he hadn't wanted to risk carrying the extra weight, not to mention the weight of the additional water he would have needed had he done so.
He beamed the light into the opening, turning it this way and that until he saw the dried, shriveled form inside. It didn't look human at first, but then he spotted the hair, and with that as a starting point, he was able to make out the basic shape, the shoulders collapsed and curled slightly in toward the chest, knees drawn up, feet together. It looked more like some dark, carved wood than human flesh.
Greg knew that dry desert air could do that to a person. The aridity sucked the moisture from a body, and the rock wall that had been built in front of this one would have protected it from animals. Every schoolkid knew about the carefully embalmed and wrapped mummies of Egypt, but the fact was that anyplace dry enough or cold enough could mummify corpses, as could immersion in such natural preserving substances as peat bogs.
He took a few additional pictures before dislodging any more rocks and regretted once again the decision not to bring his crime-scene kit. Not that there would be much physical evidence left after ten years, but there might be some. And if there was, he wanted to find it.
Considering who had written the directions and saved them for so long, he had a feeling he was looking at the corpse of long-missing casino mogul Bix Cameron.
Since the space was now wide enough for him to wriggle through without worrying about dislodging any more of the rocks, Greg stuck his head and shoulders in. He expected to encounter the close, dry smell of a desert cave, but there was something else in the air. something unexpected. He took another whiff.
It was sweat. Human sweat, mixed with something else, something with a little of the bite of alcohol, leavened with a floral scent. He smelled himself. Not exactly fragrant but different from the smell in the air inside the cave. The body on the floor hadn't been sweaty for a very long time, nor had it worn any perfume, so the smell didn't come from him.
Greg tried to picture the footprints, to remember, without climbing back out of the tight space, if any of them had led away from there. He couldn't envision any, but they had strayed all over the place, as his own certainly did, since the other person had seemingly had just as much trouble as Greg finding the exact spot he or she was looking for.
Instead of turning around to look, he pushed forward. The floor of the rock shelf was dusty, and there were bug carcasses and bits of rodent feces scattered about – he checked his hands, pleased to see that the gloves were holding so far – but the piled rocks had kept the interior relatively clean. He saw scuff marks in the caked-on dust, though, leading past the mummified body. Aiming the flashlight that way, he saw that the cave curved around, and he couldn't see its endpoint from there.
'Hello!' he called. 'Las Vegas Police! Is there somebody in here?'
He might have heard a faint intake of breath, but he couldn't be sure. He continued past the body, careful not to touch it, moving on hands and knees and trying to keep the flashlight pointed ahead at all times.
No way of telling what's around that comer, he thought. The cave might continue on for five feet or a hundred or more. There might be someone waiting to ambush him with a gun. The idea made his heart pound in his throat, but there was no way around it. He had to see what was there. And if the mummy was indeed Bix Cameron, he couldn't risk going for backup and letting someone dispose of or damage the body. The casino magnate had been missing long enough.
'Las Vegas Police Department!' he announced again as he neared the corner. Then he shoved the flashlight around and beamed it into the darkness. No one shot at it, so he risked following it with his head.
No one would be doing any shooting in that cave, not that day.
The cave spur reached back only about seven feet. Lying on her side, against the back wall, was someone Greg recognized from photographs as Daria Cameron.
As Catherine had suggested, there was an orange cast to the young woman's skin. Moving closer, he saw white streaks on her broken fingernails. She wasn't moving, but as Greg crawled nearer still, he saw that her
