The Thirteenth Skull by Rick Yancey Read Free Book Online

baby face made it seem more natural somehow.
    â€œYou know,” I said. “I’m just guessing, but I think somebody’s trying to send me a message.”

11:05:29:08
    Meredith Black stepped into the room, closed the door, and without saying a word unsnapped the buckles holding my wrists and ankles. I sat up as she sat down.
    â€œI don’t have anything to say to you,” I told her.
    â€œThat’s fine,” she said. “I have something to say to you. Last fall two of my colleagues responded to a homicide in the Halls area just off Broadway. A security guard had been stabbed to death in his living room. There was an eyewitness: the victim’s fifteen-year-old nephew, who told them a very odd story about a man named Arthur Myers and a company called Tintagel International and a very valuable sword, which also turned out to be the murder weapon. The victim’s name was Farrell Kropp, and he worked for Samson Industries. For Bernard Samson.”
    She paused for a breath. I was rubbing my aching wrists and avoiding her eyes.
    â€œIt was an odd case. The manner of death, for example. Not too many people in Knoxville—or anywhere else, for that manner—meet their Maker by means of an antique broadsword. The witness’s story was odd, too. Secret chambers, saber-wielding monks, a sword that seemed to have a mind of its own. The two homicide detectives who responded to the call that night remember the case very well. They distinctly remember filing the report. Only now there is no report. There’s no record anywhere of a murder happening that night. Bernard Samson showed up at that apartment and after that the report vanished. And do you know what happened next? Both those detectives abruptly quit their jobs—one was about six months short of full retirement—and moved to the Caribbean. To an island that is owned by ... wanna guess? Samson Industries.”
    â€œI don’t know anything about that,” I said.
    She acted like she didn’t hear me. “Four months after the murder, the witness—you—vanished into thin air. As did the former head of security for Samson Industries, a man by the name of Benjamin Bedivere.”
    â€œI’m really tired,” I said. “It’s hard to sleep when you’re tied down, so maybe we could pick this up after I’ve had a nice little nap.”
    â€œA few days later, a supervisor with the border patrol files a report that two fugitives in a stolen Jaguar try to run the Canadian border.”
    â€œThat Jag wasn’t stolen,” I said. “Bennacio gave the guy a check for it.”
    â€œThe supervisor’s report, like the homicide report, later disappears as if it never existed. Three weeks pass, and the FBI issues an alert, adding this same kid to its Ten Most Wanted list for involvement in a plot to blow up Stonehenge. In another month, he will be removed from that list, with no explanation offered by the FBI.”
    â€œBecause I didn’t try to blow up anything.”
    â€œNow, the company called Tintagel International has not vanished, but there is no one—nor has there ever been anyone—named Arthur Myers affiliated with it. The actual CEO of that company is a man named Jourdain Garmot, and he’s quite alive and well. The name itself struck me as a little odd, so I looked it up. Tintagel is the supposed location of Camelot, King Arthur’s castle.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “What’s the point? What do you want from me?”
    She leaned forward. “You remember the SUV in front of the Towers that morning? The driver fled immediately afterward, but one of the guards got the tag number. It was a rental, charged to a corporate account.”
    â€œLet me guess. Tintagel International.”
    â€œActually, a company whose major stockholder is a subsidiary to a franchisee of Tintagel International.”
    â€œWhat’s that mean