Page 19 of Nothing Hiding

He could not have committed the crime.

Then a day that was already going bad got worse as her cellphone rang.

It was Sierra. And she sounded anxious.

"I thought I'd better tell you," she said. "The police here have just told me about something weird. There's this pop-up museum exhibition in central London, and someone's just found a body dressed up to look like a waxwork. It's Daisy McKay."

***

Shock was still resounding through Juliette as she and Wyatt sped to the scene, which was only a couple of miles from where they were. Her hands gripped the wheel.

Disaster, a dead body. Not a kidnapped woman, not someone being held. A corpse.

This case had just turned so, so bad.

"It's the worst case," Wyatt muttered. "Dead? And in such a way?"

"It couldn't be worse," Juliette admitted. She'd been hoping that there would be a ransom demand, that Daisy had been held somewhere in a revenge move, or even that she'd run away and was laying low to escape her parental domination.

Now, she was dead.

Encased in wax.

As they arrived at the museum, Juliette and Wyatt quickly flashed their badges to the police officer guarding the entrance and rushed inside. The museum was in chaos, with people running around, shouting orders, and trying to keep the curious public at bay. Police were busy evacuating the area, with some difficulty, because families, au pairs, visitors, and tourists were all milling around. In this pop-up exhibit, held in a London hall, there was clearly no good contingency plan for what had occurred.

“Please leave the hall quietly and in an orderly fashion,” a woman’s wavering voice was announcing over the PA system, with the milling crowds paying not the slightest attention.

"We're FBI," she asked the policeman at the door. "Can you take us to the scene? What happened?"

"I'll take you there," the tall, mustached man answered, the ginger tips of his facial hair quivering with stress.

As they made their way through the exhibit, he explained the background. "An au pair came into one of the side rooms, looking for her kids. She knocked the body over by accident as she left. It had been posed on a pedestal, and the door had been partially closed. She then realized it was a corpse. She left the room immediately, grabbed the kids, called the police, and notified the organizers."

"Sounds like she did everything right," Juliette said.

"Yes. I think she did her best. We took a statement from her, but with three kids to look after, and not wanting them to know what had happened, we allowed her to leave."

"Absolutely," Juliette said. It was what she would have done too.

Heading into the exhibition, the crowds were thinning as the evacuation got under way, and it was quiet by the time they finally reached the section that had been sealed off by the police. It was a small room, dimly lit and set up like a Victorian era living room, complete with velvet chairs, an ornate fireplace, and a tea tray.

And in the middle of the room, next to a pedestal, was the slumped figure of a woman. Peering inside, she saw the coroner had just arrived and was at work. But Juliette couldn't wait for him to work. She needed to see what was there.

"May I go in, if I take precautions?" she asked the policeman standing guard at the door, while showing her badge.

"Yes, Agent. Please, gloves, head covers, foot covers. We need whatever we can get here."

Juliette quickly put on the protective gear and stepped into the room. As she walked around the body, her heart sank.

She'd seen numerous photos of Daisy McKay in the case file. The woman's features had been etched in her mind. She'd hoped to find her alive, not dead. Not dressed in a Victorian gown, with a light coating of wax over her face, giving her skin a weirdly lifelike glow, and her lips a lively blush. The only weird part of this make-up was that thick eyeshadow which covered her eyes to the brow, almost like a gray mask.

But it was her. Without a doubt. There was no room for error.

Daisy McKay had been murdered in the most bizarre and ritualistic way.

This was now a disaster.

And, as she stared down in consternation, thoughts racing through her mind, Juliette knew there was one thing she must do immediately. One vital piece of evidence that might just prove to be a link.

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