She shook their hands and walked on. Behind her the guys slapped palms and shared a triumphant hoot. That made her smile. So what if Kristie had posters? She didn’t need no stinkin’ poster, just give her a dirty T-shirt and a marker.
Inside the restaurant Annja navigated to a corner booth with the shades drawn over the windows. Depositing her backpack on the opposite seat she climbed into the booth and put her spine to the wall, knees drawn to her chest.
She ordered coffee. A framed black-and-white photograph of Carlo Gambino, the Mafia don, hung on the wall behind her. The glass was cracked, but the autograph looked real.
“Friends in strange places,” she muttered, thinking briefly of Garin and his on-again, off-again pseudo friendship with her. He’d hug her, then stab her in the back and sink her in the river wearing cement shoes just like a mobster if given the motivation.
There were half a dozen patrons in the restaurant and the heat blasted like a Sahara wind. It felt great. And the waitress wasn’t crabby, as the guys had intimated.
So she sat. Alone. Without the skull.
At least Serge didn’t have it. Or Benjamin Ravenscroft. Whoever he is.
But Garin did.
What would he do with such a thing? After his tale of the power it possessed, and watching innocents die in the fifteenth century, she thought for sure he wouldn’t want it to again wield such wicked power. And yet he’d brazenly used it against her.
She could have been killed! And Garin could not have known otherwise.
Annja rubbed her hip. Nothing was broken, but she’d find a bruise there later. Probably bruises on her elbows and ribs, too. As well, her wrist still ached, and she was feeling in sorry shape.
But the most vexing question was, why had it worked when held in Garin’s hands, and yet the whole time she’d had it…nada?
A sip of coffee confirmed it did indeed rock. Annja crossed her arms over her chest and hunched down farther until the back of her head rested on the torn vinyl booth.
She’d never felt so alone. And she felt it in every ache and cut on her body.
Bart’s question tormented her. Why wasshe doing this? Who said she had to save the world? Or, for that matter, one tiny skull. Let the bad guys go at it.
She wanted to go home and crawl between the sheets.
It would be great if someone was at home waiting with arms open to give her a much-needed “you tried your best, kiddo” hug. She’d never had one of those before, but had often imagined what it would be like.
Shaking her head at her thoughts, she sipped coffee. “Not going to happen in this lifetime, Creed. Deal with it.”
25
CNN played on the plasma television mounted on the meeting room wall. Well after midnight, Ben wasn’t close to leaving the office for the day. It wasn’t his turn to tuck in Rachel, so he wasn’t bothered by the late hour.
A burgeoning migraine gave no regard to the time, either. He should take his medication. Already he was beginning to see spots before him, gray holes in his vision. Though the TV was on, the sound was off. He couldn’t see the news-caster’s face unless he blinked. That granted momentary relief from the visual spots.
The crawl across the bottom of the CNN broadcast flashed a breaking news story. Ben squinted to read it. A professor at Columbia University had been found dead. He had taught in the Sociology and Anthropology department and was the rock star of the campus. He had been garroted with a guitar string.
Ben pressed two fingers to his temple and rubbed at the sting pulsing in his head. Was there no end to the ineptitude of those he had chosen to work for him?
“I should have taken care of this myself from the start,” he muttered.
But he’d always believed leaving the dirty work to others best. Benjamin Ravenscroft was a known public entity. He couldn’t afford a slipup, or to be connected to anything immoral or just plain dirty. Not that he didn’t positively drool to get his hands on the inept and smash their faces into a brick wall.
He slammed a fist on the conference table. The force toppled the empty paper cups left behind from his afternoon meeting. Anger bled through his veins, pulsing with each squeezing grip at his temple.
Shoving aside the pile of mail he’d been going through, Ben picked up the letter opener.
The headache gripped more fiercely. He squeezed the thin staff of steel. If he was home, Linda would touch him, ease away the pain.
No longer. Once Linda had nursed his headaches, leading him into the dark bedroom and pressing a cool cloth over his pulsing brow. Gentle touches reassured, made him know that, even though he could not speak for the pain, she was there.
But Linda hadn’t touched him since Rachel’s diagnosis.
Why couldn’t she speak to him in anything less than a scream? She blamed him for all their troubles. For Rachel’s sickness. For his headaches. For the maid quitting after the dog bit her. She would blame him for the housing crisis if she could.
He was just trying to take care of his family in the only manner he knew—by hard work, and by investigating all means to curing his daughter.
Ben had to prove to Linda he was not the man she thought he was. He would win back her love, her welcoming smile and gentle touch.
A twinge of red pain struck his temple. Ben cringed, leaning over the table. Gripping the letter opener as if to break it, he was about to stab the stack of officious charity requests when a knock at the door stopped him.
Like a guilty child trying to hide the evidence Ben swung the letter opener behind his back.
He’d never escape the guilt of his own ineptitude. His inability to make the world right for those he loved the most. He could sell air,for Christ’s sake. But save his own flesh and blood?
“What is it?” he snapped.
Harris stepped inside, pushing the door with a careful hand. “Sorry to bother you so late, boss. There’s no one here, so I let myself in. You okay, boss?”
No, he wanted to tear out his brain and slam it against the wall. “Just a headache,” Ben said. “Your man finish the job?”
“Er…”
“Apparently he did. I saw the news. So where is it?”
Harris rubbed a palm over his knuckles. A bruise near his left temple looked fresh. “There was a snafu,” he said.
“Snafu?”
Ben didn’t want to hear this. Yet if the operation was going to fall apart around him, he needed to stop it before it bled out. Had to contain the damage. Like his pulsing migraine, it threatened to explode.
His knuckles tightened about the letter opener.
“The police were called,” Harris said. “Jones was arrested.”
“You kept my name out of the deal, I expect?”
“Of course, Mr. Ravenscroft. I never use names with my men. But the skull…”
“Let me guess. No skull,” Ben snapped sarcastically. “But why should I expect success from you?”
“Jones hadthe skull,” Harris began, as always tracking the floor with his gaze. “He called me for pickup, said he was being chased.”
“By the police?”
“No, by some woman. Then he was cut off. I didn’t get there until the police had arrived. I stayed out of sight while they made the arrest.”
Ben stabbed the table with the letter opener. The high-gloss mahogany cracked. Damn his frustrations. “A woman?”
One guess who that might be.
Clinging to the shaft of steel, Ben pressed his free palm to the table’s slick surface.
“Would that be Annja Creed?” He could not look at Harris. The gray spots had multiplied. “That same slender bit of a woman who managed to fall from a bridge and notdie, as you would have me believe. Wonder how she managed to rise from the dead? And then to chase a big fellow like Jones? Andslip away with the skull?”