Curious Minds by Janet Evanovich

Author:Janet Evanovich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

Larry steered his Honda Civic down a back road that ran parallel with Rock Creek Park and turned in to an isolated cemetery. It was a boneyard straight out of an old black-and-white horror movie, filled with mausoleums, tombstones, and weird statues. It was built on a slope that dipped down into the wilderness of the park, and Larry drove down the rutted, bumpy road to the furthest edge of the burial ground.

They stopped in front of an old, lichen-covered monument that read KNIGHT in bold letters.

“Holy moly, it’s a family crypt,” Riley said.

“Yes, but I don’t plan to be buried here,” Emerson said, getting out of the car. “I’m going to be stuffed and put on display in my parlor.”

“You’re joking this time, right?”

“Maybe.”

Emerson walked to the Knight memorial and knelt at the foot of a statue of a shrouded woman dressed in flowing robes, her face turned down in sorrow. Riley got out of the Civic and took a closer look at the statue. It was haunting and oddly erotic at the same time. A cold breeze rattled the leaves of a nearby oak tree, and Riley zipped her sweatshirt up to her neck.

“She’s beautiful,” Riley said, looking at the statue.

“Yes, that’s my great-great-grandfather’s mistress. Lamont senior commissioned this statue of her. He wanted it to be so beautiful that his wife would never visit his grave. That way, he said, he’d have peace in the hereafter even if he couldn’t have it in this life.”

“Maybe his wife would have been nicer to him if he didn’t cheat on her with this sad lady here.”

Emerson brushed some moss from the edge of a large flat piece of marble at the base of the monument. “I need to move this stone,” he said.

Larry took one end and Emerson took the other. After a few moments of straining and pulling they were able to inch the stone back and expose a metal ring. Emerson tugged on the ring and the base of the monument dropped out, revealing a small fissure just large enough for a man to pass through.

“Meet us at the designated spot,” Emerson said to Larry.

“I’ll be there,” Larry said. “You can count on me. And I’ll put everything back in place here before I leave.”

Emerson hung his rucksack on one shoulder, pulled a penlight out of his pocket, and pointed it at a dark stone staircase that disappeared under the monument. “Follow me.”

“Down?”

“Of course.”

“No way! Are you insane? God knows what’s down there. Worms and spiders and dead people.”

“And?”

“And I don’t like any of those things.”

“Pity. They’re all rather interesting.”

“Not to me,” Riley said. “I’m staying aboveground.”

“ ‘Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.’ ”

“That’s Shakespeare, right?”

“So they would have you believe. My great-grandfather Lamont junior didn’t, however. He spent a good deal of the fortune he inherited trying to prove that Edward de Vere was the real author of those plays. That and alcoholism were Lamont junior’s main hobbies. He was an early version of what we would now call a conspiracy enthusiast.

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