The workman nodded, ignoring his poor attitude. "Good." He turned on his heel and headed for the door as Calli strode in, carrying lunch in paper bags.
His stomach rumbled in anticipation. "Down boy." He patted his stomach.
As Calli strode past the workman, she turned to give him a second glance, her brows knitting together. When she reached Darrien, she handed him a bag and kept the other.
"I thought the window would be fixed long before now," she said. "Is there a problem?"
"The first bloke didn't even show. This one's been here all afternoon. Annoyingly so."
"Where's he going? I still see a whole in the wall."
Darrien dug his hand into the paper bag to retrieve his lunch. He ripped open the wrapper revealing a juicy hamburger. He took a generous bite and sat back in his seat with a sigh. Pure bliss, he thought as he chewed. Surely if he ever had takeout like this, he'd remember it. Once he swallowed, he answered Calli's question. "He has to cut the glass. He'll be back later."
Calli stared at him with concern, but he didn't care. His stomach still demanded attention and he indulged in another healthy bite. As he chewed, his gaze slid over Calli with appreciation. It appeared she not only took a nap, but she'd showered too. Her hair was damp at the ends, making her ginger colored strands appear a dark auburn. As for her attire… Gone were the formfitting black garments, replaced by jeans and a white blouse where her necklace lay nestled right above her modestly shown cleavage. Just enough to entice, but not too much to make it obvious what lay beneath the silk. Classy, he thought.
"Uh-hum," she cleared her throat and he inwardly cringed. "Whatcha staring at, Darrien?"
"Uh…your necklace," he told her. He wasn't really lying. He'd been admiring it too.
"Okay, we'll go with that." Her lips curved and he couldn't help but smile with her.
"It's an interesting piece," he said seriously. "Your necklace," he clarified and reached for a chip, or rather French fries. The word popped into his head as he shoved one in his mouth. "Mmm-hmm. These are good too."
"The necklace was a gift from my father," she told him.
"A talisman for protection," he said and reached for another fry, but ended up grabbing a handful instead.
"Yes," she said with surprise. "How'd you know that?"
"I like gems and stones, and not just the ones that are cursed." Then it dawned on him this was a true fact and not a fabricated one. He grabbed the pencil and jotted the info down in the appropriate column.
"What are you doing?" she asked and glanced at his list.
Heat spread over his neck and cheeks. "Just a list."
Her gaze met his with understanding. "Well then, you need to add a few things. May I?" She nodded toward the pencil and he handed it to her. She turned the paper toward her. Once she was finished, her hand slid it back his way again. He read her clear script. She'd written his name in the real column and hers below. His lips curved. He could become quite fond of this woman. He reached for the fry bag. There weren't many left.
"Here." She handed him her bag of fries with plenty to savor. "I've never seen someone enjoy French fries so much as you, or should I say chips?" She chuckled.
"It's odd, don't you think?"
"What is?" She joined him in sampling the fries.
"Why do I have a British accent, but the museum is stationed in the States?"
"You're cursed. Remember I told you Beastie Darrien said the museum moves every twenty years to a new location. You probably also spoke Greek at one time or another."
He was about to take another bite of his burger, but lowered his hand. "How I wish I could speak to him." He nodded toward the statue. "He's more informed than I seem to be."
"You have all the human traits to fit in with society if someone approaches you during operating hours. He's more…"
"Beastie?" he offered.
"Not entirely true, but I sense he's more prone to slip into beastie mode. So, what did you find out while I was gone?" She was all business now.
"I almost forgot." He took the last bite of his burger before he focused on the computer. "I found Professor Leander online. She was at a seminar discussing if Gryphons truly existed or not." He wiped his hands before he turned on the computer and found the piece for her.
She scooted closer to watch and her shoulder pressed against his. He could smell her perfume…jasmine…with a wee bit of vanilla. "Heavenly."
"What?" Calli asked with a start and he cleared his throat and shifted in his seat.
"Nothing. I…nothing." He ran a hand through his hair and tried not to melt into his seat with the way she stared at him, but she obviously wasn't going to let this go.
She turned his seat around so he was forced to face her, and he could feel the heat burn his cheeks. "I can't help it." He shrugged without being apologetic. "Do you have to be smart, interesting, and beautiful?" Her brows lifted and then he realized. "I said that out loud, didn't I?" He groaned and closed his eyes.
"You did." She reached for his glasses and his eyes opened wider as she removed them. She leaned forward and bloody well pressed her lips to his.
By the stars, he wasn't going to say no to that. He leaned forward and his hand went to her waist as he kissed her back. It felt liked he'd done this before, and not just when he'd fainted... Wait. He pulled back. "We've kissed."
"Yes," she said. "We were kissing…"
"Not now. I mean…" Her lips curved and he knew he was making a muck of this. "I mean to say, you've kissed him." He nodded toward the statue.
Still smiling, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "Relax. So I kissed Beastie Darrien. Well now, I've kissed you too." She turned toward the computer as if kissing him and his alter ego was no big deal. She turned up the volume on Professor Leander's lecture.
Stunned at her nonchalant admission to kissing his other half, his voice seemed to have solidified in his throat, leaving him speechless.
Chapter Fourteen
Calli purposely shifted mental gears. She didn't understand her attraction to Darrien... both Darriens. She didn't want to buy into the reincarnation thing. It was just too weird to think she'd been married and about to have a baby in another life. She'd barely dated in this one.
Nerdy Darien appeared just as confused as she was, leaving only Beastie Darrien with the smug upper hand with the attraction. Maybe curses sent out some kind of pheromone that made one attracted to them. Yeah, the whole bad boy thing to the limit.
"Could you turn up the volume?" she asked Darrien and he moved the mouse over the icon. Professor Leander did have a lot of information regarding Gryphons. It couldn't be a coincidence, which brought her back to the vision. Was Professor Leander and Isa one and the same? If so, she'd be ancient. She glanced at the statue then to the man sitting beside her. He would be as old as Isa, and he was still alive. Just how long did Gryphons live?
When the woman finished, another man took the podium thanking her for being the guest lecturer. Yadda, yadda, yadda… But then he went on to tell her how her findings were unfounded and he remained unconvinced, and that the strange looking beast – his exact words – could never have existed.
"Whoa, no way!" Calli couldn't help laughing. "He probably shouldn't have insulted her." She studied Professor Leander's reaction and— "Play it back," she told Darrien, waving her hand at the computer.
"All of it?" he asked in confusion as he sat forward to do as she asked.
"No, just the last few seconds."
He did.
"There. That's it," she said and couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice.
Darrien stared at her, obviously not getting it at all.
"Play it again, but concentrate on her eyes."
Darrien did as she requested. "I'll be damned," he said in awe.
"There's our proof," Calli said. "She's a friggin' Gryphon too." As she said the words, she realized what this meant. The vision she had was probably real also. She inhaled deeply as she let it all sink in. "Be
astie Darrien said Isa killed his wife." She stood and paced. "So if Professor Leander is truly Isa… He'd know." She pointed to the statue. "We'll have to wait until he wakes. He'll confirm if it's her. Even if she's not, she's a Gryphon."
Darrien continued to frown. "But what does she want? After all these years…centuries… Why now has she made herself known?"
"I don't know." That part remained a mystery.
The door to the museum opened and she turned to see the repairman who'd been there earlier with two guys flanking him.
"Where's the glass for the window?" Darrien murmured.
She had a bad feeling about this and went for the gun strapped beneath the pant leg of her jeans. Nice and slow, so not to alarm anyone. She heard Darrien's intake of breath as he caught sight of what she was doing, but she couldn't worry about him now. These men meant business, and she had a hunch it wasn't the glass business.
She whipped the gun out. "Don't come any closer," she warned, already deciding the one in the middle would get it first, if he even twitched the wrong way. He was the guy who had been there earlier and was most likely the leader of this soirée. She glanced at his nametag on his shirt that read Bert.
"What are you doing?" Darrien demanded beneath his breath, but he figured it out soon enough.
Bert grinned and it wasn't an all nice and cozy kind of smile. In the next second, she knew why. His men came packing too, but with bigger guns.
"Put down your little toy," Bert ordered, referring to her weapon.
"You'll excuse me if I don't." She kept it locked on Bert with her finger on the trigger. "What do you want?"
He waved for his men to lower their weapons, but she wasn't fooled. In a moment's notice, they'd be ready to shoot.
"Only what was promised to Professor Leander," he said. "You did not deliver the artifact."
"I have until October 31st. I don't know what calendar you boys use, but I still have plenty of time."
His lips curved. "We'll take the item now, if you please." He held out his hand as if she'd just plop the stone in his palm and call it a day. "Professor Leander doesn't want you getting any ideas."
"And what ideas are those?" she asked. She didn't care to be backed into a corner and it looked like Professor Leander was pushy. Guess her phone call with her earlier gave the impression she was having those second thoughts.
"Just give it to him," Darrien said, loud enough for the thugs to hear.
"What?" she chanced a look at him then noticed his finger rested on a button beneath the desk. She didn't have time to contemplate what would happen when he pushed the button. He'd already made the decision for both of them. One second she faced three thugs, the next she was free falling beneath the museum on a slide, listening to Darrien curse behind her. If they lived through this, she was going to kill him.
As the slide came to an abrupt end, she flew through the air for a brief moment before she landed hard on her rump. She rolled away, and not an instant too soon, since Darrien landed in a heap where she'd been seconds before if the harrumph was any indication of where he'd landed. She couldn't see him as the lighting in the room proved non-existent.
She crawled to her feet, wondering where her gun went. She'd lost it in the fall. "Where are we?" she asked, wondering if they were in an underground cave.
She heard a click to the right of her then light illuminated around them. Once her eyesight adjusted, she realized they were in what appeared to be a storage room with cases of food, water, ammo, and other goodies one might need in a dystopian world. With the impending zombie threat – if Isa got her hands on the stone – this might come in handy.
"We're in an underground bunker," Darrien told her, as if having a bunker beneath a museum with an escape hatch was a normal thing. "I can add this to the real column," he said.
He hadn't been sure it was here before he pushed the button? They'd have to have a little talk about that. "So there's an escape route, but what about the guys topside? Huh? Do you think there just going to stand there and not try to find us? What's stopping them from taking a ride down the slide right now?"
"If you haven't noticed, my cape is at the cleaners." His words dripped with sarcasm as he glanced at his attire before meeting her gaze with meaning. "Those were three armed men, if you hadn't discerned, and we only had one itsy-bitsy revolver between us. Please, I dare say, do the math and tell me what you come up with."
When he put it that way… She rather liked uppity Darrien. "But now we're trapped," she spoke the obvious. "What about the slide?"
"The buttons will not work a second time unless reset and it has to be done from down here. Besides, we aren't trapped, but the thugs are." He strode over to a monitor bolted to the wall on the far corner. He activated it and the screen revealed the museum above them. Two things hung from the ceiling, swaying back and forth like pendulums. It took her a moment, but then she realized it was two of the thugs, hanging by their feet. "There are a few buttons beneath my desk," he clarified. "I activated the trap and pushed the button that took us down here.
"Where's the leader of the pack?" she asked with dread, not seeing him anywhere in sight.
He changed the screens on the monitor, activating other cameras in the room.
"I never noticed cameras in the museum," she said and stepped closer.
"You wouldn't have. Think of them as nanny cams strategically placed in each room. One is a tiny fly on a wall, another is a statue of Buddha, and yet another is a lion; the camera is located in its tail and the tail moves so I can see the entire room."
"Impressive, and I'd like to pick your brain on all this, but I'm worried where Bert is." She really didn't want the leader running back to Professor Leander and telling her what went down. Heck, he could be calling her on his cell phone as they sat down here admiring nanny cams. "We have to go topside."
"Up there?" his voice rose and cracked.
"Do you have a better idea? We can't stay down here. It's only a matter of time before Bert figures out how to get to us. I want to have the advantage."
She whirled around in search of her gun and spotted it near the slide. She strode over to retrieve it then turned to face Darrien. He appeared none too pleased with her suggestion. "Listen, you can stay here," she told him. "I'll go up—"
"No, I'm coming with you." He stood up taller and inhaled deeply before letting his breath out in a whoosh. Glasses, cardigan, and attitude…check. He may not realize it yet, but he'd just donned that cape.
"Let's do it then," she told him, keeping her gun ready. She glanced at the slide then to Darrien, hoping he knew of another way out of here. She hadn't climbed up a slide since she was six years old and she had a hunch the attempt wouldn't be nearly as fun as she remembered. "Please tell me there's a door out of here?"
"Right," Darrien said and strode over to the opposite wall where a keypad was mounted. He entered a code then stood back. Clanking noises deafened the room as metal movements grinded against each other. The wall beside the keypad began to open, revealing a steel door with another keypad next to it. There were no buttons, but a smooth surface. Darrien strode over to it and used his thumb to activate this keypad. The lock mechanism clicked and the door slid open, revealing a narrow hallway and stairs leading up. Lights mounted on the wall flickered to life with a buzz and snap of electricity to reveal at the top of the steep incline a hatch with an exit sign nailed above it.
"The stairs lead to the outside where the carport is located," he told her and led the way.
Once Darrien pried the door open at the top, he stepped through then leaned down to give her a hand up.
"Well, well what do we have here?" the deep voice boomed from around the dusty vehicle parked in the carport.
Darrien screamed and wrapped his arms around Calli in a bear hug, but just as quickly, he released her. "Sorry," he apologized and stood beside her and straightened his cardigan, probably hoping to regain his dignity.
"You weren't going to leave witho
ut saying goodbye, were you?" Bert asked. "Too bad I was quicker than your traps inside the museum, huh?" He nodded with his head toward the building.
"Yeah, right. Too bad," Darrien murmured.
"Now drop your gun, Miss Angelis, or the nerd boy gets it."
She dropped it at her feet, which didn't please Bert in the least.
"Kick it toward me. Now!" he demanded.
She did what she was told and Bert hunkered down to retrieve it while still keeping his gun trained on them. Once he stood at his full height, he addressed her. "Now, I'll have the stone, Miss Angelis," he demanded with a wave of the gun, as if they could forget he could shoot them just for the heck of it.
"I don't have it on me," she told him.
His brows lifted. "Come now."
"No, it's true," she repeated. "Why would I carry the item on me and chance losing it? And look what happened today. The museum was held up by thugs." She gave him a cheesy grin then just as quickly pursed her lips.
He didn't appear pleased at her sarcasm. "You're a might cozy with the curator. Makes me wonder if you were cutting a deal with him."
"Him?" she said and jabbed her thumb in Darrien's direction. "He didn't even know I had the stone until now." She placed the back of her hand near her mouth and whispered, "Thanks for ratting me out." Truly, her mockery was lost on this guy. He only cared about the stone.
Bert glanced at Darrien who shrugged. "Don't look at me, mate. I don't know where it is."
"So why are you here then?" Bert demanded to know.
"Isn't it obvious?" she asked with a girly chuckle. "I wanted some alone time with Darrien. A girl gets lonely on the road, if you know what I mean." She winked at Bert. "We were about to take our meeting to a more private setting until you barged in."
"We were?" Darrien's gaze riveted to her as he pulled at his collar. If they made it out of this alive, she was going to remove his tie and burn it.
"Yes," she said with meaning as she turned to give him a wink that Bert couldn't see. She needed Darrien to play along with this.
"I don't care how you get your jollies, Miss Angelis," Bert sneered. "I just want the stone."
Gryphon and His Thief Page 10
