by Tamara Hogan
“Be right there,” she called back. “I’ll talk to Mike and Paige now, and update everyone else after dinner tonight.”
The edges of his mouth tugged up reluctantly. “I think I heard you say you’re going to call a meeting.”
She didn’t smile back. “Are we done here?”
“Lorin…” Nathan called again.
She turned away without a word.
Gabe stared at her. Yeah, they were done, all right. Mission fucking accomplished.
***
“Nathan.” Lorin mentally counted to three. “If Ellenore wants to trade responsibilities with you, that’s okay with me. You two figure it out.” An eighteen-wheeler barreled by on her left, and her poor old truck shuddered in its wake. “I’m driving, Nathan. I’ve gotta go. Yeah. Yeah. Bye.” Disconnecting the call with an extra-hard punch of her thumb, she tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.
“Christ on a cracker.” Half the crew had called since she’d left the dig a little over two hours ago, either talking through minor problems she knew damn well they could solve for themselves, or saying they just wanted to keep her company as she drove.
She didn’t want company. She wanted to be alone. She desperately needed to be alone.
Was Gabe’s phone ringing off the hook? Was he as crabby about it as she was? Probably not. She wouldn’t recognize his ear if it didn’t have a phone clapped to it.
On the other hand, the endless phone conversations had kept her mind off how twitchy her body was getting, now that Gabe had ended their… whatever the hell their relationship was. First Rafe had called things off, and now Gabe.
Why couldn’t she be attracted to women? Men were nothing but trouble.
She turned off her mind, turned the radio to the ’80s station, and sang away the miles, the volume loud enough so she couldn’t hear the phone ringing if she wanted to. When Jon Bon Jovi started wailing about shots to the heart and who’s to blame, she snapped off the music with a curse—just in time to hear a clunk. Metal dragged against asphalt with an ungodly scraping noise. She looked in her rearview mirror.
She was spitting sparks.
Crap. Tailpipe? Muffler? Up ahead, like an oasis in the desert, she saw a green road sign: “Hinckley: One Mile.” Excellent. She’d stop at Tobies, do some emergency repairs, and then have a cinnamon roll to reward a job well done.
Okay, two cinnamon rolls.
Wincing, she muscled the truck up the exit ramp and turned into the parking lot. The last six months had been a steady succession of emergency repairs. It was probably time to permanently park her old truck up at the dig and buy a new one, and she was more than a little depressed at the prospect. She’d bought the truck used back when she was a teenager, and half a lifetime of memories lay in every spill soiling the carpet, and every crack in the dash. The windshield had been broken and replaced countless times, and she’d taken her first lover on the roomy bench seat. A couple of Buttercup’s doggy nose prints still smudged the back window, carefully framed by black electrical tape so she wouldn’t wipe them off by mistake.
Princess Buttercup, her beloved, snaggletoothed bulldog, had gone to the Great Doggy Beyond over five years ago. Maybe it was time to get another dog.
Lorin wove her way through the busy parking lot, past the cars, trucks, vans, and people, to the relative quiet of the nearly empty overflow lot. Now that she’d stopped, she couldn’t ignore the deep ache pulsing low in her abdomen. Examining the tree-rimmed lot with a critical eye, she considered running a few laps to bleed off some of the buildup.
Not that it would help much. Damn you, Gabe.
Stepping out of the truck, she stretched, then walked to the back of the truck and peered under the back quarter panel. Sure enough, the tailpipe was dragging, the back clamp rusted clean off. “I’ve got to have baling wire in here somewhere,” she muttered as she walked to the passenger side of the truck. Twine or electrical tape would do. Hell, she’d MacGyver something with spit and rubber bands as long as it meant not calling Gabe, who couldn’t be more than ten minutes ahead of her. Being that he’d barely said a word to her as their paths crossed loading their vehicles this morning, that trip would be pretty damn fun.
Not.
Her phone rang again as she rooted around in the toolbox tucked behind the passenger seat, and she snatched it up with a growl. If this was an indication of what the next five days were going to be like, she was going to—
She blinked at the display, but the numbers didn’t budge. Her mother? Lorin had received a text from her the day before yesterday, letting her know that she’d arrived in La Paz, but she hadn’t expected an actual phone call for, well, weeks yet. Unless something was wrong. “Mom? Are you okay?”
“Hello to you, too, dear.” Amusement colored her mother’s voice. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Lorin plugged her open ear with a forefinger to block out a nearby semi’s diesel whine. “Where are you?”
“I’m not precisely sure, dear. Let me ask the captain.”
Captain? Her mother must be in the air, calling from one of the Sebastiani Gulfstreams.
“We’re just north of Austin,” Alka finally said. “We ran into a permit problem, so rather than cooling my heels at the hotel for a week or two, I decided I’d rather fly home and watch you and Gabriel work.”
Great. Just great. Now her mother would have a front row seat to observe the wreckage of her working relationship with Gabe.
“When do you start? I saw that you’ll be working in the basement lab.”
“Tomorrow morning. I’m driving south from the site right now. I stopped at Tobies for some quick repairs and a cinnamon roll.”
“That old truck,” Alka said fretfully. “Lorin, when are you going to get a new car? I worry about you driving on those remote northern Minnesota roads, broken down—”
“—and fully able to fix the problem myself?” Lorin deadpanned. “Mom, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Gabe is less than ten minutes ahead of me, and I’ve got the phone.”
“Which you rarely use. Why aren’t you and Gabriel riding together? What a waste of gas.”
“It was a… business continuity decision.” Lorin strove for a lighthearted tone. “Put the two of us in a car together for almost five hours and only one of us is going to come out alive. You know it’s gonna be me.”
Alka’s disappointed sigh was audible. “I really hoped you’d be getting along better with Gabriel by now.”
Lorin fought back a wild laugh as she remembered Gabe pinning her to the grass with his tough, rangy body, feasting on her breasts like they were his last meal. “Don’t make such a big deal out of Gabe and me driving home separately, Mom,” she said. “We each wanted our own transportation back home, that’s all. And after I fix this tailpipe, I’ll be right back on the road.”
“I’ll let you go, then,” Alka said with a sigh. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the lab. Strictly in an observer capacity, of course.” She paused. “Lorin, I’m so, so proud of you.”
Lorin’s eyes stung. Tomorrow was soon enough to shatter her mother’s illusions. “Thanks, Mom. See you tomorrow.”
She hung up, tossed the phone on the passenger seat again, and pulled on her sweatshirt so she wouldn’t scuff her back on the asphalt. Snatching the baling wire, tin snips, and a pair of pliers out of the toolbox, she walked to the tailgate. After repairs, she’d clean up in the restaurant’s bathroom, get some cinnamon rolls, and—
Gabe.
Gabe was walking out of the restaurant juggling a tall cup of coffee and a white pastry bag with one hand, holding a phone to his ear with the other. Whoever he was talking to made him grin like a fool; she could see his white teeth flash from here. He wore familiar-looking khaki pants, but he’d paired them with soft leather loafers instead of steel-toed boots. His pale green oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the neck and casually rolled up at the sleeves, made her crave mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Gabe threw back his head and laughed, the late morning sun glinting off t
hose absurdly hot glasses. He looked relaxed. Happy. Edible, damn it. She wanted to drag him down to the nearest flat surface.
Who was he talking to? Who amused him so much? Not that it was any of her business. Not anymore.
Turning her back on him, she shimmied under the truck, pushing against the asphalt with the heels of her hiking boots, and unspooled a length of wire. Gabe probably had big plans for tonight now that he was returning to civilization. She should make some plans too. Going back to town opened up all sorts of options—for both of them. She could hit Underbelly with Andi Woolf and dance until dawn. With a single phone call, a shower, and a change of clothes, she could score a seat at Chadden’s downtown restaurant, be fed by the tempestuous chef himself, share his decadent bed—and work off this jones she had for a tight-assed, half-blind, calamine-covered werewolf with a vengeance.
“There.” With one last twist of the wrist, the tailpipe was solidly in place—not that it was actually connected to the muffler anymore. Scrabbling out from under the truck, she brushed tiny rocks off her shorts and bare legs. She returned her tools to the toolbox and eyed the phone.
Then picked it up and dialed.
***
“Can you see the source?” Beddoe asked from the command chair.
“Yes, Sirrah.” Xantha Ta’al wiped her streaming eyes and coughed on acrid smoke. Lying on her stomach, her head and shoulders wedged under the science console, she found the tiny smoker she’d purposely dropped into the cabinet at the beginning of her shift. Pinching it off, she slid it under the wristband of her duty suit. “An overheating circuit, Captain. Shall I repair?”
“Please proceed.”
“Certainly, Sirrah.” Xantha took a shallow, careful breath to control her rocketing heart. Reaching behind her, she retrieved her ServiPak, then selected a tool she didn’t need and the blank chip she most emphatically did. She blinked as she waited for more smoke to clear.
Moving carefully and deliberately, the blank held between two fingers, she wedged her hand deep into the crevices of the control panel, working by touch. Bumps: screws, slots, circuits. So many of them, and all so small—
There. There it was.
Not giving herself time to question her instincts, she quickly popped a chip and replaced it with the blank.
She held her breath.
Nothing from Beddoe.
Slowly exhaling, she extracted her hand, tucking the purloined chip under her wristband next to the smoker.
If the Arkapaedis’s beacon blipped again, Beddoe would never know about it.
Her boss would be pleased.
Chapter 10
“Lorin! Hello!” Willem Lund stepped out from behind the U-shaped desk defending Elliott Sebastiani’s inner sanctum and hugged her.
“What? Am I late?” Lorin asked as she returned his embrace.
Willem stepped back, looking her up and down. “No, you’re right on time. I’m just happy to see you looking so…” He paused, as if searching for the right word.
“Clean?” Lorin looked down at her well-used denim jacket, khaki pants, and boots.
“Healthy and whole, thank the universe. That last Council meeting was… brutal. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thank you.” She gestured to Elliott Sebastiani’s closed office door. “Is he ready for us? And where’s Gabe?” Probably already in the office. Her temper spiked as she looked at the closed door. Who knew what Gabe was telling Elliott about their work so far? Damn it, she should have gotten here early.
“Gabe’s running late, so he’s all yours. Go on in.”
Declining Willem’s offer of coffee, Lorin tapped on the door with her knuckles, opening it when Elliott called, “Come.”
Elliott rose from his mahogany desk and walked toward her with his arms extended. “Lorin,” he said with a smile. “You look well.” Elliott kissed her on each cheek, and then enfolded her in a hug.
Why did everyone expect her to be at death’s door? Apparently she’d drastically underestimated the impact of her fuckup back here at home base.
“It’s good to be back,” she replied, “though I wasn’t too happy to see the mound of paperwork on my desk when I swung by there a couple of minutes ago.” Her office was a chaotic mess, but somehow Elliott’s work area always looked more like an elegant salon than the power center of one of the most successful privately held companies in the world. His desk was tidy, an expanse where no dust mote would dare land, and nary a piece of paper strayed from ruthless alignment. One of the vintage fountain pens he collected lay across an open leather-bound notebook, and on his sleek monitor, pictures of his extraordinary family scrolled by: His children grouped around their long-deceased mother, Dasha, who held a newborn Antonia. A casual headshot of Elliott and Claudette Fontaine embracing at their bonding ceremony, celebrating the romantic relationship they’d finally allowed themselves to have after years of platonic friendship. And there were the Sebastiani siblings and the Fontaine sisters together, with a laughing Claudette at the center of the action, a bottle of wine in her hand.
There was a tug in Lorin’s chest as she looked at the third picture. The changes since then. Annika Fontaine, snapped in mid-laugh, was no longer with them, leaving a horrible void. Lukas stared at Scarlett with a broody expression that would be painful to look at if you didn’t know how happily it had ended.
As Elliott escorted her to the furniture grouping, Lorin looked back to the door, still slightly ajar. “I thought Gabe was joining us?”
“Gabe has an appointment that’s running late.”
Gabe hadn’t mentioned that he had an appointment.
“I wanted to speak with you privately anyway.”
Ah, hell, here it comes. Lorin sat up straighter in the slouchy leather chair. If she was going to be chewed out, she’d take it on the chin.
“How are things going?”
Elliott’s gentle question took the wind out of her sails and yet at the same time set all her internal alerts shrieking. She knew what he was really asking: How were she and Gabe getting along? “Fine.” She locked eyes with him. “All the tests came back clear, right?”
Exasperation flitted across his hawk-like face, there then gone. “Yes, you’re fine, as far as we know. As a scientist, you’re aware we can’t test for things we don’t have tests for.” He leaned back in his own chair, watching her with eyes that, depending on the task at hand, could glow warmly, or slice with the blowtorch of his intelligence. “How many times over the years have you or a member of the crew run a metal detector over the very spot where you found the command box? Dozens? And yet it was there.” Elliott spread his hands. “We don’t know what we don’t know—and if that box is what we think it could be, what we don’t know is, unfortunately, a lot.” Elliott’s multiline phone chirped, barely audible, but he ignored it. “You were extremely fortunate that there was nothing biohazardous in that box, Lorin.”
“It opened by accident, Elliott,” she said defensively. “Worst-case scenario, I was breathing thousand-year-old air.”
“It would have been fascinating to test its atmospheric composition.”
But that opportunity is forever lost. Though Elliott was too polite to say it, she easily read it on his face. “Where’s the box now?”
“Wyland is transporting it from archives as we speak. I really want Gabe’s take on that metal.”
“It does seem to have some unusual properties. The color is extraordinary, and the dirt flowed off of it like—”
The heavy door opened, and Gabe strode in. “Sorry I’m late.”
Lorin hadn’t seen Gabe since yesterday, in Tobies’ parking lot. Dressed in a pair of tailored black suit pants, a bronze oxford unbuttoned at the neck, and carrying the matching jacket, his metamorphosis back to “city Gabe” was pretty much complete. His hair had a subtle, lustrous sheen that bespoke hair product of some type, and as he approached and sat in the chair next to hers, a hint of delicious, civilized scent wafted her way. She looked down
at her own rumpled khakis and denim jacket—a definite step up for her—and sighed.
The men seemed to be having a nonverbal conversation of some type: a questioning eyebrow from Elliott, followed by a fatalistic shrug from Gabe.
Lorin waved her hand, breaking their sight line. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.” Gabe reached into the side pocket of his computer bag, extracted a file folder, and flipped it open. “I’d like to quickly review the latest work plan before we go down to the lab.”
Elliott Sebastiani’s nostrils were working overtime—and his attention was entirely focused on Gabe.
Nothing was up? Bullshit.
What the hell was going on?
***
“What a clusterfuck,” Lorin muttered, nudging past Lukas so she could better survey the activity below. “Who are all these people?”
Standing on the open gantry overlooking the subterranean lab space, she watched far too many people swarm as industriously as ants at a picnic, carrying the last pieces of equipment from other labs to their temporary quarters. Bailey Brown lay on her stomach under the table running the length of the east wall. Gabe, stepping over her legs, gave instructions to people she vaguely recognized as working in geology and metallurgy. His minions hung on his every word, anxious to do his bidding, scuttling pieces of equipment down one of the many hallways branching off the main room to other areas of the subterranean lab. Julianna Benton was simply everywhere, pointing, directing, coordinating—and trying to smooth the very ruffled feathers of Dr. Anna Mae Whitman, the crabby genius of a woman who managed Sebastiani Labs’ lab facilities with her tiny iron fist. Dr. Whitman was being relocated to temporary quarters and wasn’t at all happy about it.
Her mother was having a quiet but animated conversation with Elliott on the other side of the control room, her signature jade and bone bracelet clacking with each gesture she made.
The subtle sound ground on Lorin’s last remaining nerve.
All told, over a dozen people bustled in the lab below, and though the workers were too well-trained to ask unnecessary questions, the presence of Elliott Sebastiani and a good chunk of the Underworld Council was a huge tip-off that something big was going down.
