If it had not been horribly obvious that Chester Brady was already dead, Lydia Smith might have strangled him herself.

Her first assumption when she rounded the corner into the shadowy Dead City Tomb wing of Shrimpton's House of Ancient Horrors was that Chester was pulling another scam. It had to be some bizarre con tactic designed to steal her new client prospect right out from under her nose before she could get his name on a contract.

It was so typical of the little sneak. And after all she'd done for him.

She came to a halt and stared at the leg and arm hanging limply over the side of the ancient sarcophagus. Maybe it was just a weird gag this time. After all, Chester's sense of humor did lean toward childish pranks.

But there was something a little too realistic about the way he was slumped in the not-quite-human-shaped coffin.

"Maybe he just fainted or something," she said, without much hope.

"Don't think so." Emmett London glided around her and walked forward to gaze down into the green quartz burial box. "He's very dead. You'd better call the authorities."

She took another cautious step forward and saw the blood. It had drained from Chester's throat into the bottom of the coffin.

The reality of what she was staring at hit her with a numbing jolt. She could not believe it. Not Chester. He was a thief and a con artist, the kind of shady character who gave a bad name to all legitimate antiquities dealers and respectable para-archaeologists, but he was a friend too. Sort of.

She swallowed heavily. "An ambulance?"

Emmett looked at her. Something about his gaze made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was the eerie gold-green hue. It was a little too close to the color of her pet dust-bunny's second pair of eyes, the ones it used for hunting.