The Other Crowd

by Alex Archer

  Daniel nudged his nose alongside her ear, and whispered, “You’re a fine New York City woman, Annja.” He pressed his forehead to hers.

  She sensed the kiss had ended, and that there wasn’t going to be any more this evening. But she didn’t need it, because this kiss would last her awhile.

  “I’d try to convince you to take off your clothes for the doctor,” he said, “but I guess you’d be on to me with that one.”

  “You got it. I think sacrificial victim would kind of spoil the mood, too. What say you get me started on my walk back to Ballybeag?”

  “You in the mood for some wine?”

  “Are you trying to seduce me, Daniel?”

  “I was, until I mentioned wine. You probably don’t want to get me started talking about that.”

  “Eric mentioned the same thing. You like your wine?”

  “It’s a hobby.”

  “It is late. I was serious about keeping an eye on Eric.”

  “If he’s fortunate, he stopped at O’Shanley’s where Mary-Margaret filled him up with sausages and a bland ale. If he’s lucky, he wandered into O’Leary’s and well…perhaps you should hurry. If the Guinness doesn’t put him under the table, Lisa McGinley’s flirtations will. See you tomorrow, Annja.”

  She waved him off and picked up her pace.

  11

  He’d had the Manhattan penthouse only a short time, but he used it often. Garin Braden traveled extensively. It was more wanderlust than anything, though he did have varied business interests that saw him flying from country to country. Staying in one spot for more than a week was not something he managed well. And he’d only negotiated a forty-eight-hour stay in the country with the waiver, so this trip was par for the course.

  The first thing he did upon entering the penthouse was walk straight to the refrigerator. It was stocked with beer and bottled water. He took out a Faust, an elite Bavarian beer, twisted off the cap and tilted back half in one swallow.

  Next, he rummaged for a spare cell phone in his office. There was enough charge to make a quick call.

  “I had thought to hear from you sooner,” Roux said without the niceties of a greeting. “How did it go?”

  “Is today April 1?” Garin asked, only half joking. “I’ve had a hell of a day, which I won’t detail for you. Suffice, I did not get the painting.”

  “It wasn’t that difficult an assignment. You had plenty of time to make the auction. Don’t tell me you finished off with the woman before leaving?”

  “I won’t dignify that one with a reply. There was a delay at the airport. I arrived twenty minutes after the Fouquet went. But I have the buyer’s address. I intend to case the home this evening.”

  “Case it? Garin, do not, by any means, steal the thing.”

  “Since when are you so averse to acquiring things by any means necessary?”

  “Since this is a gift. A gift that will lose all meaning should it be obtained through nefarious means.”

  “That’s a big word, old man.”

  He did not like it when Roux went all responsible on him. Hadn’t he and the man shared more than a few adventures in acquiring over the centuries? He knew for a fact that some of Roux’s prized possessions had cost him no more than the seduction required to distract or the skills utilized to slip it out of view.

  “Listen, she won’t know how the painting was acquired,” Garin said. “So the point is moot.”

  “I’ll know,” Roux growled.

  “Do you even know where she is?”

  “You haven’t stopped by her loft to see if she’s home?”

  “Haven’t had time. I’ve been racing the clock. You think she’s in New York?” She could be. Or she could be trekking the world on some fantastic adventure. Which didn’t change the fact he had not gotten his hands on the painting. “I’ll give her a call.”

  “After you charm the buyer into selling you the painting,” Roux said.

  Garin opened the fridge again, not searching for food. His eye fell on the 9 mm pistol in the vegetable crisper. “Don’t press me, old man.”

  “You’re as old as I am. Can you have it in hand by tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Are you writing up party invitations? I thought this was going to be a small to-do?”

  “It is. I’m just…I want to make everything right.”

  The concern in Roux’s voice made Garin uneasy. Garin knew Roux had a weird sort of father-daughter relationship with Annja. He protected her when he could, and had taught her the fighting skills she now used brilliantly.

  “Since I’m doing all the legwork, then I’m sure you won’t mind funding this little venture.”

  “I’ll give you my credit card number.”

  Garin found a pen and wrote down the number. “That’ll work. I’ll call you back after I’ve acquired the thing without use of nefarious means.”

  He clicked off and slammed the fridge door. “I hope she appreciates this.”

  12

  “Wake up.”

  Annja expected to find a hungover young man buried beneath the sheets. Hell, Eric hadn’t had time for a hangover, he was probably still riding his drunk.

  Annja had stopped into O’Leary’s and the bartender confirmed feeding him supper, then serving him countless rounds of Guinness as she watched Eric cozy up to the flute player with curly blond ringlets.

  A tuft of red hair disappeared beneath the sheets. Annja pinched Eric’s shoulder.

  “Ouch. Ma, I’m sleeping.”

  “I am not your mother.”

  “Huh? Oh, Annja. Wh-what are you doing in my bedroom? Did we—” He lifted the sheet to inspect for missing clothing. “I thought I was with Bridget.”

  “Oh, please. Get dressed. We’re going out.”

  “Out?” He sat up. The room was dark but Annja saw him pat his chest as if checking to see if he wore clothes. The boy could only dream. “What time is it?”

  “Two in the morning. You wanted to film exciting scenes for the show?”

  “Heck, yeah. Oh, man, my head.”

  “Take a couple of aspirin and splash your face with cold water. You did bring your night-vision lens, yes?”

  “I did. Two in the morning? Is this normal? I don’t recall seeing any episodes that featured you all bleary-eyed and whispering in the dark.”

  “You must not have seen the Transylvanian episode. We spent a lot of time lurking around graveyards and dark castles for that one. You want to come along or sleep off that drunk?”

  His feet hit the floor. His body swayed, but he maintained equilibrium. He redirected the tousle of hair hanging in his eyes. “Give me five minutes.”

  “I’ll meet you out front. Dress for a hike and sneaking about.”

  “Cool. Stealth filming in the wilds of Ireland.”

  TO HIS CREDIT, Eric was ready and dressed all in black in four minutes flat. Camera in hand, he tugged down his misbuttoned shirt and gave Annja a thumbs-up and a wink.

  Men had it easy. Just tug on any old wrinkled bit of clothing and they were good to go.

  Annja couldn’t complain. She’d tugged her hair into a ponytail, donned jeans and a T-shirt and never worried about makeup. It wasn’t something she used during a dig, just a bit for filming. But filming at night would make her face too eerie. Makeup would just increase the horror level.

  “We headed to the dig?” Eric asked as he strode alongside her in the quiet darkness. His running shoes crunched the loose gravel. He hadn’t complained about his aching head, nor had he slurred his speech. It was always the young males who could hold their liquor the best.

  “Yep. I want to take a look at Slater’s dig.”

  “So that’s why the sneak. Annja, you do the dare.”

  “We won’t get any opportunity to look around during the day if Slater is ambling around with a pistol. Who knows how many guards he has posted. And why is that? Since when is muscle needed to protect a dig site from fellow archaeologists?”

  “You tell me. I
’m just the guy with the camera.”

  “There’s something weird going on at the site, and I want to dig deeper.”

  “Dig deeper.” Eric laughed. “Good one.”

  Annja rolled her eyes and headed off the main road and toward the dig, which was about five kilometers away. The hike was pleasant. The clear black sky twinkled with bright stars. The air smelled so fresh she wanted to bottle it and sneak it back home with her.

  Crickets chirruped loudly in the long grasses. Annja didn’t care for crickets after having to eat them in the wilds of the Serengeti to survive a night without supplies. They were too crunchy and the hind legs tended to get stuck in her teeth.

  “I can’t see the site,” Eric said.

  “It’s a couple kilometers ahead. And so you know, when we get closer, we’re doing stealth tonight. Sneaky quiet, don’tlet-anyone-hear-us kind of work, okay?”

  “Cool.”

  “Whatever you do, no matter what you see, keep your mouth shut, got it?”

  “Chill, Annja, I can do the stealth.”

  That had yet to be determined—and only too late—Annja felt sure.

  “You feeling better?”

  “I only had four or five pints. I am so good, Annja.”

  “Are your parents aware you drink?”

  “Annja, you are so not with the program.”

  She suspected more young people drank than their parents were aware. And he was a college guy, so it should come with the territory.

  “My mom’s dead. Three years ago. Breast cancer,” he said. “And dad doesn’t care much as long as I don’t do something to embarrass him and his company.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is it just you and your dad, then? Any brothers or sisters?”

  “No siblings. Can’t you tell I’m a spoiled-rotten only child? What about you?”

  “No family,” she said, and quickly dismissed the burgeoning conversation.

  THE DIG SITE WAS DARK. No artificial lighting was strung along the camp tents. There was one small tent, which could be the director’s office, and a larger tent that must be the central cache for finds and perhaps to keep tools.

  It didn’t appear as though anyone was about, but Annja knew better. If Slater had been packing a gun yesterday, there had to be a reason. She wasn’t about to let down her guard.

  Annja was only half as curious about the actual dig area as she was about the truck parked behind the main tent. It was likely the supply truck that had driven in the tents and work equipment, but she could have sworn it was smaller and white the day she’d first arrived.

  Positioned behind a thick fence post that must have been dug in at the demarcation where peat stopped and dirt began, she tugged Eric’s sleeve so the kid would not step out into the open and reveal their presence.

  “Stay behind me,” she warned. “You got your camera rolling?”

  “Sure, but what are we looking for in the night?”

  “Anything suspicious. You want faeries?”

  He nodded eagerly.

  “It’s not going to happen. There’s something real and very likely human kidnapping people from the dig, and we’re going to find out who that is.”

  “You think someone from this camp—”

  “Haven’t a clue. I wanted to talk to Beth earlier but she was distraught.”

  “I would be, too, if I’d escaped from people with wings.”

  “Eric.” She gritted her teeth. “Do you know it’s not wise to talk about them or to name them with anything other than a euphemism? They can hear you. And they don’t like it.”

  “Really?” His eyes searched the darkness.

  Annja felt sure that would not nip his determination to find the fair folk in the bud.

  “You going to talk to Beth tomorrow?”

  “First thing in the morning. Now come on, let’s look around. Keep to the camp perimeter. Don’t step out into the open—your silhouette might be seen against the sky. And stay low.”

  “You’re very good at this, Annja.”

  “This is my signal for you to film.” She made a V of her first two fingers, then pointed downward. “I’ll point toward what I want filmed. Got it?”

  She put a finger to her lips before Eric could reply, then whispered, “Stealth mode from here on. No talking.”

  Annja knew it wasn’t wise taking an inexperienced man into the field. And if there was something illegal going on in this camp, they would have night security, and she felt positive Eric would not react as she hoped—calmly and quietly.

  This would be a quick, in-and-out reconnaissance. But she did want to get anything curious on film for later study. Her eyes would miss a lot in the darkness that a camera could record.

  Bending low and scampering across the grass, she headed for a mound of dirt dug up from the dig square. The spoil heap, which would eventually be sifted and sorted through before using it to backfill the site. The rich peat combined with abundant heather growing around the camp perimeter stirred a gorgeous perfume in the air.

  To his credit, Eric followed silently. He scanned the camera across the grounds.

  That gave her an idea.

  Kneeling behind the spoil heap, Annja held out her hand. “Let me take a look with that, will you?”

  He handed her the camera, and she scanned it across the site, noting the corded-off area where the diggers had cleared a surprising amount of turf and soil for the four weeks they had been there. They were using a grid to dig, unlike the other camp’s open square. Interesting.

  Across the way, the camera marked out the tents and a makeshift trestle table with various shovels and brushes and a few artifacts scattered on it. There was no movement in any of the tents, but she felt sure someone slept inside. Whether security, or Michael Slater, she couldn’t know.

  The truck was parked beyond the tent. It was about the size of a delivery truck, but had no company name or discernible markings on the sides. A small flashing green light inside the cab caught her attention.

  Annja moved the camera from her eyes and squinted to see it was actually a red LED light. Must be on a stereo or GPS system. Another look through the camera found no movement in the cab. A scan along the bottom of the truck bed didn’t spy any boots casing the perimeter.

  The camp was locked down for the night. And her scan didn’t spot any hidden cameras. Not that she would find something that had been cleverly hidden.

  She handed the camera to Eric and gestured that they should creep over the spoil heap. She landed in the dig area beside the taut cord line that marked off one side.

  Eric slid down the dirt and with a muffled grunt he stumbled deeper.

  Annja clasped his wrist as he let out an abbreviated exhale. “Got you,” she whispered.

  She held all his weight. He hung over a tarped-off section. If she let him go, he’d slide onto the tarp, make a lot of noise and possibly damage whatever find had been protected beneath the tarp.

  In the dark her sense of depth didn’t exist. Annja felt about with the heel of her boot for leverage, found a sure footing, then leaned back to pull Eric up. He stumbled not so gracefully across her body and rolled onto his back, without making a sound. The camera he held above him, which had remarkably been spared.

  Points for him for not sprawling on top of her. But she was worried they were destroying the site, and didn’t want to leave evidence they’d been here.

  Grabbing the camera from his fierce clutch, she swung it toward where he had just been. Leaning forward, Annja lifted the tarp and scanned the grounds. “Nice.”

  “There’s something in there?”

  She handed the camera to Eric and gestured for him to film. She knelt before the artifact and dug in her pocket for her Maglite. Cautious to keep the tarp over the find, but lifting it so she could look inside and shine the light without the beam being noticed, she looked over the skeleton.

  It had been dug out completely. It was likely the team would lift it from the ground and begin t
o label and mark the bones in the morning. It looked complete, sprawled on her side—yes, a female, for the flatter and proportionately larger pelvic bone. One arm had disconnected and lay a foot away, above the skull. Earth erosion tended to move skeletons all over the place. This one was remarkably well preserved and intact. She knew they could attribute that to the humid conditions of the peat bog.

  Anna switched off the light. With a glance toward the tents to confirm no movement, she then turned it back on and flashed the beam across the wall of the square to survey the strata. It appeared to be about as far down as Wesley’s camp, which would put this skeleton mid-nineteenth century.

  It was a guess. It could be older, having been pushed up by erosion, or much younger even, having been buried in a shallow grave. Unless she could study the bones under good light it was all a guessing game.

  Much as she wanted to investigate further, Annja couldn’t risk spending too much time bent over the dirt when she hadn’t secured the area.

  She felt Eric move beside her, and pressed a hand to his knee to stay him.

  “Thanks,” he murmured.

  She made the signal to film and lifted the tarp. As he carefully leaned forward, she hooked her fingers through a belt loop on his jeans. He understood what she was doing and dared to lean farther.

  Annja held firmly while Eric filmed, starting from the foot bones and all the way up and along the extended arm. When he slapped her ankle, she tugged him back.

  She should have brought along a plastic bag to collect a soil sample, but this had been a spur of the moment decision to come here. She always carried one in her backpack for such an occurrence. Watching the periphery, she determined all was still quiet. She gestured for Eric to follow her back over the mound of dirt where she paused.

  Taking the camera from Eric, she then looked over their tracks. Not so messy, and the dig grounds were not clean and smooth. This area was used a lot. Maybe no one would notice the extra footprints.

  With a signal to follow, Annja put her light in her pocket. She then crept along toward the tent. Without clear sight of the ground she had to be cautious of stones or ruts in the dirt that might trip her. Or a stray tool. She worked slowly and scanned the horizon as she did so. The moon was half-full and the air was clear and bright. If anything moved, she’d notice the silhouette against the blue-gray sky.