Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

just like killing the archaeology students. I’m going to enjoy killing you because you betrayed me. I cared for you, Faye. And all the time you were seeing me, you were carrying on with the young Indian, stealing from Abby, disturbing her rest, disturbing my mother.”
    Oh, Jesus, the garroting was just for fun. There was a bulge in the pocket of his khakis and he was going for it. Faye rammed the porch floor with her feet and achieved liftoff. The swing flipped backward, just as it had ever since she was a little girl. Faye hit the ground in a shoulder roll, just as she had done ever since she was a little girl. The Senator fell in a heap.

    Joe led Douglass up the path to Faye’s house. It was, as always, a faint trail through Joyeuse’s lush undergrowth, but Faye liked it that way. She said it kept the paparazzi away, but she just laughed when he asked her what paparazzi were.
    There was an odd rustling in the bushes to either side of the path, as if all the mammals on the island—squirrels, rabbits, rats, and more—were seeking cover at once. The birds and insects had been dead silent. Now, suddenly, they were making noise as loud and random as city traffic.
    Joe stepped off the path, pushing vines aside and stepping under them. Something was bothering the animals. Perhaps it was just the weather, because the weather was certainly bothering Joe. But perhaps it was something more, and Joe wanted to know what it was. He pushed further into the tangled bushes, letting Douglass move ahead of him on the path, alone.

    Douglass worked his way down an overgrown trail that Joe claimed led to Faye’s house, shuddering to think what kind of tumbledown, vermin-infested cabin might lie at the end of such a path. He had known that Faye’s monetary problems were mighty—that fact had been obvious in their every business transaction—but if he’d known she was virtually homeless, he would have adopted her and taken her home with him.
    Joe turned aside, presumably to answer the call of nature. Not wanting to hover too close while the poor guy peed, Douglass plunged ahead. The path was faint, but it was clearly there. How lost could he get?
    The trail ended in a clearing that was far too small for the building it enclosed. Faye assuredly did not live in a cabin. Her house might be tumbledown and it might be vermin-infested, but it was not a cabin. It had once been a mansion.
    Massive columns supported a massive roof on all sides, their white paint fading to silver. A sweeping staircase rose a full story to a double door flanked with sidelights and topped with a graceful Palladian window that was miraculously unbroken. Sadly, many of the other windows had not been so lucky. The great house’s decline was most evident in the corroding tin roof that capped its glorious bulk. No wonder Faye never had any cash. She lived in a money sink.
    The house was too big to take in at a single glance. As he swept his gaze to the far right end of the main floor gallery, he saw color and motion. Faye was rising to her feet and somebody else was lying beside her with his arm upraised. As she bounded over the gallery railing, Douglass shouted, “Faye, no!” because she was headed for a twelve-foot drop. She hit the ground and scuttled on all fours into the open breezeway that divided the ground floor into two parts.
    Her assailant was running down the staircase, which was wise. He would have been foolish at his age to take the fall Faye just took. Bones grow brittle with time. Besides, no one in their right mind would take such a risk while carrying a handgun.
    Douglass stepped backward toward the well-camouflaged footpath, trying to reach cover before the gunman saw him, but he never had a chance. The man looked him bold in the eyes and Douglass recognized the face of his blackmailer, who coolly aimed and fired.
    The bullet’s momentum threw him to the ground. It had struck him somewhere in the chest. Shock blocked the pain, but he could tell that much. The shooter was coming toward him, coming to finish him off. Lord, he didn’t want to take another bullet, but he’d been dying by degrees for forty years.
    His vision was fading but he could see Faye hiding behind the house, peeking through the breezeway. His hearing was fading, too, but he heard what she did for him.
    She cried, “Hey, Senator, you lousy son-of-a-bitch. I’m the one you’re going to enjoy killing. Leave him to bleed to death, because you’re going to have a