by Addison Fox
Of him?
He stilled the sweep of his thumb to look closer.
“Are you really okay?”
And when she nodded, he took an easy breath. She might fear what was happening around her, but she didn’t fear him.
The husky whisper of her voice coated his senses. “Why can’t I remember all of last night?”
He stepped back and put his hands on his hips. He had to get down to business and to do that, he needed distance from her. The longer she remembered, the harder it would be to make her un-remember. “Stress?”
She let out a bark of laughter, full of dark undertones and secrets. “Trust me. I’ve lived with stress my whole life.”
He filed that one away and volleyed a new one at her. “Muggers, then?”
“I didn’t have my purse. And I did something to that guy. The second one in the Hawaiian shirt. You told me to go after his neck and I did.”
Shit. She really, truly remembered last night.
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” Her hands bunched at her sides as she leaned in closer, her voice an angry hiss. “I killed someone!”
“No, you didn’t.”
“One minute he was there, struggling with you. Then you told me to step on his neck and the next minute he was gone.”
Shamelessly, he poured on his legendary Leo charm. It was a gift that didn’t require any mind erasing, just his trademark smile and standard, cocky attitude. “You only think that. You passed out. Remember?”
“Why’d I pass out?”
“Which takes me right back to door number one. Stress?”
He was oddly sorry when she didn’t take the bait. “I didn’t kill that guy?”
“No, you didn’t.” You couldn’t kill something that was already dead.
“And you let him get away?”
“I couldn’t leave you there alone.” When she didn’t say anything, he leaned forward and took her hand in his, a new idea taking root. If he could get her distracted, maybe he could get her out of the trip to London. “You took a nasty hit to the head. Are you sure you’re ready to fly?”
Her gaze caught with his, tangled as the moment stretched out between them. “Dr. Martin is insistent I go.”
“I’m sure we can—”
The ringing of her cell phone broke whatever was between them, pulling her attention back to the present. “Excuse me. It’s my assistant.”
He watched her walk across the room, her steps comfortable as she wove her way through construction debris and saw-horses. The curve of her cheek was the only part of her face visible as she turned away to take the call. Gods help him, he couldn’t look away, the soft sweep of her hair as it framed her jawline as enticing a sight as he’d ever seen.
“Thanks, Suzy. I’ll be right up.”
She closed the phone and turned back to him. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have some more questions, but our biggest contributor just arrived and I need to speak with her.”
“Can’t Martin handle her?”
Ava gave him a wry grin as she tucked her phone back into a cavernous gray sweater pocket. “Seeing as how the contributor is also my grandmother, I can’t avoid the summons. Suzy confirmed the car service to the airport will be here at five. I’ll see you then.”
“Ava, if you’re not up to it, you shouldn’t have to go. I can handle the retrieval and be back tomorrow.”
A small smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. “I’m actually a lot better than I was before.”
“What changed?”
“I’m not a murderer anymore.”
“No.” Brody shook his head. “You’re not.”
As he watched her walk away, he couldn’t stop the sense of foreboding. She might not be a killer, but she was a target.
The sounds of the TV greeted Lorna MacIntyre as she walked into her house. Hands full of mail, she dropped it all on the counter. “I’m home!”
She walked through the small kitchen nook into the family room to find her son’s day nurse, Sheila, with a soft smile and a finger to her lips as she pointed to Jason’s sleeping form on the couch.
Lorna nodded to show she understood as great waves of pain assaulted her. Her Jason. Her baby. He was so small—so little, curled there on the couch with his arms wrapped around his stuffed tiger. And it was so unfair.
So fucking unfair that he suffered like this.
Sheila stood and followed her into the kitchen.
“Good evening, Dr. MacIntyre, ma’am. Jason had a good day today.” These were the words Lorna desperately longed to hear each day.
“It was good? No coughing? None of the side effects we were watching for?”
“Yes, ma’am. He took all his medicine and felt pretty good. He fell asleep only about a half hour ago. The new medicine is working wonders so far. You are so blessed by the doctors you’re working with.”
Lorna questioned the blessings part, but didn’t dare tell that to Sheila, the devout-believer. “I’m so pleased the medicine is working.”
Sheila set an empty mug on the counter, its surface littered with medical equipment and pill vials. “I’d best be on my way. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, ma’am.”
“I’ll see you then.”
Lorna put the kettle on for tea and waited until the headlights of Sheila’s car had faded from view.
Only then did she pull out the letter that had been placed in its usual spot under her day planner along with the payment for resetting the security system.
Tomorrow is the day for action. You know what to do.
She read through the note several times, the knowledge of what she was partner to a sickening void in the pit of her stomach.
As the kettle boiled, she added water to her tea and left it to steep, moving into the family room.
As her gaze roved over her son, she thought about the note—thought about the expensive, illegal medicines it bought and thought about the opportunity it gave her for more time with her son.
With careful movements so as not to wake him, she lay down on the couch, wrapping Jason’s frail body up in her arms.
And as she lay listening to her child’s even breathing, she knew she was doing only what had to be done.
She was fighting for her child’s life. And she’d do anything—anything—if it meant keeping Jason alive.
Chapter Six
Ava hit Send on her last e-mail of the afternoon, comfortable, if not completely satisfied, that preparations would continue moving ahead with the exhibit.
Grandmother’s visit certainly hadn’t helped.
“Ava Marie, why are they sending you to London like a common worker?”
“Do you really think the exhibit will be ready in two weeks, Ava? There is so much still to be done without your flitting off to London.”
“I’ve told all my friends about this exhibit, Ava, and if you don’t deliver on this and honor your father and the Harrison name properly, I don’t know what I will do.”
Ava rubbed her stomach around the sick ball of fear that lodged there. And she thought the possibility of being a murderer was bad?
Ava leaned forward, and laid her head in her hands. Did she actually think she could do this? Pull it off? How was she going to go to London? And Paris? And Sydney and Alexandria?
To actually touch the stones?
Retrieve them and carry them back home?
She could barely walk the museum corridors to look at the New York stone, she was so sick with fear.
She supposed there was an odd, fitting sort of justice to it all. She hated the stones, but she saw them as her father’s legacy. So she’d studied them; she had made herself an expert on them.
Even though she’d never even laid eyes on the other four.
Way to keep that one to yourself, Ava Marie. Think Dr. Martin would have even considered you for the exhibit if he knew you’d never studied the stones face-to-face?
The stone she had seen, she kept at a
very comfortable distance—like across the room or from another room entirely where she could look at photographs of it. Her books and her father’s notes had provided far more information and knowledge than studying it in person.
Or that’s what she’d told herself.
At the same time, she’d begged Dr. Martin for years to put her in charge of an exhibit. And now the joke was on her, her first major exhibit being for a museum piece she’d always hated with a passion.
And to think the New York stone had four pieces that matched it—four other pieces that matched the seething rock of evil nestled in velvet and pulsing in a case in this very museum.
Oh God, how had she gotten herself into this one? And vastly more important, how was she going to get herself out?
Not for the first time she wondered why she was so compelled to bring her father’s greatest success to life—the very accomplishment that had served to get him murdered.
Because it venerates his status as a great contributor to the world’s collection of archeological finds.
And because maybe if you do this, you can finally— finally—lay his ghost to rest.
Unbidden, images of those quiet moments with Dr. Talbot—Brody—came back to her. She reached up to touch her neck, to trace her fingers over the line of her jaw, where he’d caressed her and stroked her skin with the most delicate care. Even now, a few hours later, her pulse still fluttered under the skin of her neckline as she remembered.
Had she ever been looked at like that before? As if she were . . . precious? Special?
Desired?
Determination came back to her in a rush. Damn her grandmother and her undermining, biting ways.
She could do this.
With a quiet sigh, Ava left her office and headed for the one place in the museum she usually avoided like the very plague. With a smile, she passed Joe, one of their longest-employed members of the security team. His ready smile and warm, rheumy brown eyes boosted her spirits.
“Afternoon, Dr. Harrison. Museum’s quiet today.”
Ava wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Fewer people meant fewer potential witnesses should she have a melt-down. On the other hand, she always felt safer with others around.
Less alone.
“Enjoy it while you can. The holidays and kids’ vacations will be here sooner than you think, Joe. You’ll have so many people in here, you’ll be wishing for a quiet day.”
The older man chuckled good-naturedly, his still-straight back shaking with laughter. “True enough, Doc. True enough.”
Ava saw it the moment she crossed the threshold. The stone was one of the centerpieces of the museum’s collection and the lighting had been rigged for dramatic effect.
An oversized glass case with viewing capabilities on all four sides; muted lighting around the room’s perimeter so that the key lighting on the case stood out; a crushed-velvet resting place to hold the stone.
She risked a head-on glance at the stone and marveled that no one else ever seemed to notice how evil it was. The moment she got within five feet of it, the stone was all she could notice.
Smooth and round, a little larger than the size of her fist, the indigo blue stone lay nestled against a bed of velvet. She knew it was an inanimate object—understood it really couldn’t move—but God help her if she believed that.
During college, she’d attended a medical lecture and the speaker had held up a jar with a preserved heart in it. The image of that heart had immediately made her think of the stone and now, as she stood before it, she couldn’t stop thinking of how creepy that disembodied heart had looked, preserved in a jar of formaldehyde.
As if it just waited to beat again.
Ava swallowed hard, more of the inadequacy her grandmother had heaped on earlier rearing up. Nasty tentacles of self-doubt that worked to squash any sense of accomplishment she strove so hard for—fought for, really—on a daily basis, reached out.
She knew she was better than that. She knew she could do it. But like the preserved heart, the sense of impending doom weighed down on her.
You seriously think you’re going to be able to fly all over the world. With these stones. With the delectable archaeologist?
Yeah, right.
She risked another glance at the glass case, but still, she held back. The few stragglers at the museum on a random Tuesday morning had other exhibits to see. Excited talk of dinosaurs hovered over them as they left the room.
The stones were shrouded in mystery. What was their purpose? How was it they were perfectly intact—with absolutely no visible wear or tear—upon their discovery? Unlike other Egyptian antiquities discovered in the last century, nothing like this had ever been seen.
Add to it the perceived curse of the stones that began to circulate upon the death of her father, and the public’s fascination stayed strong. In fact, now that there was so much information available online—along with about two hundred different conspiracy theories—the stone had experienced a resurgence in popularity and public attention.
Rumor around the museum was that the relief discovered in the tomb and going up on display with the Mysterious Jewels exhibit would explain it all, but the scholars working on the translation hadn’t completed it yet. Their working assumption was the relief provided some explanation or definition related to the stones.
Sighing, she added that to her running checklist of things she still needed to complete before the exhibit went live. Talk to Egyptian scholar to get full definition.
Ava pulled her attention from her mental to-do list and looked at the descriptions of the stones from the various reliefs posted around the exhibit room. The posters talked about her father’s discovery, that there were five stones, how they were excavated and where they were all housed.
When she couldn’t put it off any longer, she pulled her attention from the last poster she’d reread three times and turned toward the glass.
She could do this.
She would do this.
She—
Snakes with bared fangs danced before her eyes and heavy drumbeats stuck in her ears. A pit of fire held writhing people, screaming as they fought the pull of death, as even more snakes rained down on their bodies. A sweet, metallic scent hit her nose as she saw blood drip down the glass panes of the case.
A wave of nausea flooded her stomach as her mouth began to water with sickness.
Pushing away, she clutched at her stomach as she drew deep breaths into her lungs. Frantic, she turned to call for help, when the reality of the situation hit her.
The room was just as it had been moments before. No blood. No snakes. Nothing.
Nothing except a raging headache and a desperate sense of loneliness. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself she could do this—could handle the stone—she couldn’t. There was something wrong with her. Something so deeply broken, she didn’t even know what it was to be right.
To be whole.
Pushing through a new group of museum-goers who had entered the room, she nearly stumbled over a young mother with a baby stroller.
The tension lessened as she escaped the room, but a vague sense of disorientation filled her as she moved through the museum. Avoiding another group of people milling around at the elevators, she took a back set of stairs that brought her right back to her office.
With a deep breath, she walked into the center of the room and took a seat behind her desk, the familiar surroundings soothing her nerves. Safe. Secure.
What a joke.
Brody buckled his seat belt and marveled at the various rituals going on around him. Several people dithered with their bags, above the head, below the feet, on the seat next to them, back into the overhead. Others played with iPods. Still a few more fiddled on BlackBerrys. No matter what the action, everyone prepared themselves to sit in a large metal tube and be propelled across the Atlantic Ocean.
A strange panic filled his chest and he felt the unpleasant urge to shove his head between his knees.
Nope. That one wouldn’t work. And these seats had way more legroom than the ones behind them. He’d already eyed the seats in the back of the plane as he’d done some recognizance.
How the hell did people sit in those?
He and his Warrior brothers might be tasked to protect humanity, but if Themis really cared about humans, she’d do something about airplanes. This was barbaric.
Ava turned toward him, the quizzical look in her eyes adding to his need to fidget. “Are you okay?”
“Sure. Why?”
“You look nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Have you flown before?”
Brody feigned annoyance and bit back the odd slither of embarrassment that worked its way under his skin. “Of course I have. I’ve worked on digs all over the world.” And I’ve flown to them, in a sense, if having your body flung into the time-space continuum after disintegrating to a molecular level counts as flying.
“Of course. I’m being silly.” Ava laid her head back against the seat, giving him a chance to really look at her. It had the added benefit of taking his mind off their impending hurtle through the atmosphere.
In a large metal tube. Powered by explosive chemicals.
Dark circles framed the undersides of her eyes, circles that hadn’t been quite as prominent earlier. The paper-thin skin of her eyelids was pale, the blue of her veins standing out in sharp relief.
Clearly, something had happened since she’d walked away from him in the exhibit hall.
And even more clearly, it had taken its toll.
Brody started to wake her when the captain’s voice filled the cabin yet again, his British accent instructing them on flying time and their expected altitude. The odd, stick-thin woman in front of him got up to get something from her carry-on bag for the fifth time since they’d boarded, and a semidrunk businessman stumbled out of the lavatory and to his seat.
And then the whole show got under way.
