The Bone Conjurer (9 page)

“Daddy!”

Ben swung his briefcase into the maid’s waiting arms and glided into the living room to greet his daughter. She didn’t rise to hug him. Instead, her attention was glued on the television.

“You got home early tonight, Daddy,” Rachel announced, without looking from the plasma screen.

“I wanted to spend some time with the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“Mommy?”

“No, you, silly.” He settled on the sofa next to her, and tucked the end of the pink scarf she wore tied about her scalp behind her ear. “Where is Mommy?”

“Upstairs, taking a bath. She put supper in the microwave for you. We had beets.” Rachel managed a second away from the TV to comment on supper with a distasteful wrinkle of her nose.

“Maybe I’ll forget they’re in there?” he teased. “I had salad again today. I think we need a new cafeteria at the office. It’s either salad or cold roast-beef sandwiches.”

“Mommy said to say good-night to you.”

She always did deliver that morsel through Rachel.

Attention still fixed on the television, Rachel asked, “Why does Mommy always go upstairs as soon as she hears you drive into the garage?”

He couldn’t explain that he and Mommy were not on best of terms lately. Linda blamed him for the impossible.

Ben glanced over the back of the couch. The box of roses sat on the kitchen table, unopened. Great. Not as if he hadn’t expected that reaction, though.

“Mommy gets tired early.” He summoned the lie easily because it had become rote. “I see her when I go upstairs after you’ve gone to bed.” As I grab my shirt and suit coat from the closet for tomorrow and sneak into the guest bedroom.

“Uh-huh.”

Behold, the idiot box’s remarkable power. Ben wondered if Rachel’s teachers had ever captured her attention as easily as a six-foot plasma TV. This “coming home early to tuck the kid in” thing was going over like a boulder tossed in a pond.

“How you feeling tonight, sweetie?”

“Good. Not sick.”

“Not sick is always good.”

He stroked his fingers over the soft blond hair that snuck out from under her scarf and kissed the crown of her head. The hair had begun to grow back in superfine strands.

Rachel wrinkled her nose but snuggled in closer to him. “You smell good, Daddy. What’s the spice again?”

“Cloves. And you smell—” he sniffed her hair “—like a purple dinosaur.”

“It’s groovy grape! I love that shampoo. It’s so mummy I could eat it.”

Ben propped his heels on the coffee table and nestled beside his daughter’s warm yet frail body.

The past two months she’d been through radiation therapy. Yet even with radiation, the chordoma tumor the doctors had removed from the base of her skull could grow back. In fact, the oncologist had seemed sure of it. The relentless cancer could lie in hiding for as long as ten years, and then suddenly strike again.

Rachel had lost weight and hair—but not hope. He worried he’d break her if he hugged her too tightly.

“What are you watching that has your attention so rapt?”

“
Chasing History’s Monsters.
What’s ‘rapt’?”

“Rapt is what you are right now. Glued to the set. Immersed in the screen. Can’t bother to give your dad a real hug.
Chasing History’s Monsters?
Sounds creepy.”

“It’s not, Daddy. It’s got this really pretty woman who stalks through caves and forests and tries to find monsters. She’s really smart, too. Not like the other woman with the big knockers.”

“Knockers? Rachel, where did you pick up a word like that?”

“Tracy says her dad calls them knockers.”

“That’s not an appropriate word for little girls to use.”

And did they still use that word nowadays? Apparently so.

“Mom calls them boobs. What do you call them, Daddy?”

Ben pointed to the TV to avoid the topic. “Is that her? The one with the, er…”

“No, she’s the smart one I like.”

The chestnut-haired woman on the screen held some bit of pottery and pointed out the crack in it. Her voice commanded with a good solid tone. Droll, but punctuated with real enthusiasm. She was obviously very learned and passionate, even about some crud-encrusted bit of vase.

“She is very pretty,” he agreed.

“Her name’s Annja Creed, and she travels everywhere,” Rachel explained. “I want to be like Annja Creed someday.”

“Host of a television show?”

“No, silly, an archaeologist,” she said, indicating he was a dunderhead for not getting it straight.

“That woman’s an archaeologist? Huh.”

He had no idea pothunters were so physically appealing. And so what if her knockers weren’t so big, she was a nice package—brains, looks and confidence.

The show broke for commercial and Rachel said, “I e-mailed her the other day.”

“Who? The lady on the television?”

“Yep. It was about the Skull of Sidon.”

Ben’s heartbeat suddenly raced. How could she possibly know? “Rachel, what do you know about the Skull of Sidon?”

“Well, not much until I did research. I saw it scribbled on one of your work papers last week, Daddy. Don’t
you
know about it?”

“Yes, but it was just…” A stupid mistake to put questionable information out there for his daughter to find. That made him as inept as the men he’d hired to track Cooke. “It must have been something I heard on a television show. It was just a scribble, sweetie.”

“Yeah, well, I thought it would be perfect for my history report, so I researched it online and wrote an outline for my teacher. She was not happy.”

Ben rubbed a palm over his face. He wasn’t sure how much Rachel could have dug up on the skull, but if the teacher hadn’t been pleased…

“She didn’t want me writing about necrophilia! Do you know what that is, Daddy? Gross.”

“Yes, Rachel, sorry. It’s another of those things kids your age shouldn’t have to worry about. You should have asked me about it before going to your teacher with it.”

“Why are you studying old skulls and all that gross stuff?”

“I’m not, sweetie. Like I said, it was just something that caught my ear, and I wrote it down. Nonsense stuff. You know Daddy is always taking notes in case he gets ideas for work. So did the lady on TV write back to you?”

“Nah. She’s probably really busy. Too busy for a kid, I’m sure.” Rachel sighed. “I really like Annja Creed. Wish she would have wrote back to me.”

She finally shuffled in for a proper hug and Ben squeezed her gently. “It’s about time. I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten how to hug. Want me to tuck you in?”

“Can I watch the end of the show first?”

“I don’t think so. Isn’t Mommy taking you to the zoo tomorrow afternoon? You’ll need your rest for that.”

She gave him the patented pouty face, but Ben knew it wasn’t for real because she followed with a yawn. Poor thing. She’d missed two days of school this week thanks to stomach flu. Last week it had been radiation sickness.

“All right, I’ll go to bed. But will you carry me?”

Ben leaned forward and slapped his back. “Climb on, pardner.”

He secured his daughter’s legs with both arms and pounced through the living room, down the hall and up the stairs to tuck her in. He moved swiftly, because more important things than good-night kisses and wishes for sweet dreams must be tended.

On his way back down to the living room, Ben got sidetracked. The master bedroom door was open. Low light glowed across his wife’s shoulders. It had been too many months since he’d seen her bare skin. He couldn’t remember when he’d last touched it.

Pausing in the doorway, he admired Linda as she pulled the brush through her long blonde hair.

Admittedly, Rachel’s cancer had been tougher on his wife. She was the one who had to bring their daughter to her doctors’ appointments and radiation treatments. It had changed Linda. Made her harder. Distant.

Ben didn’t know how to crack that hardened exterior. So he did not try. Instead, he sought acceptance from others. Rebecca’s exterior was soft and lush and always giving. And she never blamed him for things he could not control.

Linda’s tearful tirade still lived fresh and so punishing in his memory. Two months earlier, Ben had been watching Rachel at the park. He’d wanted her to have a fun afternoon before her doctor’s appointment that day. He and Linda had been concerned about Rachel’s frequent verbal slurs and loss of equilibrium.

He’d had a lot to do that day, as usual, and had spent more time on his BlackBerry than he had watching his daughter. He’d lost her for one heart-wrenching harrowing hour.

Linda had been out of her mind by the time the Central Park police had found Rachel huddled at the base of an oak tree, oblivious to her parents’ fears as she’d chatted with her Barbie dolls.

An hour later, the oncologist diagnosed Rachel’s bone cancer.

That night, her face red with anger and tears, Linda had beat her fists against Ben’s chest and blamed him. If he had been paying attention, Rachel would be safe now.

Not sick,
had been the unspoken implication.

“What are you staring at?”

Shaken from his distressing thoughts, Ben staggered into the room and crossed the floor to his dresser. “Nothing, sorry.” He dug out a T-shirt and boxer shorts to sleep in.

“You were late.”

“Rachel was still awake. I got to kiss her good-night and tuck her in. I thought that was what you wanted from me?”

Her reply was a snort.

“It’s hard on me, too, Linda.”

“Yes, I suppose prancing about in your five-thousand-dollar business suits and lunching with executives is rather trying. And when you’re not working late at the office you’re hanging around with that sinister Russian guy.”

“He’s Ukrainian.”

The brush slammed on the vanity. Ben felt the clatter in his bones.

“You never have time for family!”

“I’m
always
thinking of Rachel, and don’t you dare take that from me.”

Linda stared at him in the mirror. Rarely did he garner such focused attention from her. Not that he looked for it, because it always ended like this—in an argument.

She could never comprehend that he simply needed attention. Appreciation. He worked long hours to support his family and pay the medical bills. Did she not understand he had a heart, too, and it broke into more pieces every time he looked at Rachel?

“What are you involved in, Ben?”

He gaped. Then assumed calm. Always, she talked around the subject of their daughter. “I’ve been building a successful business, if you haven’t noticed.”

Ben clutched his things and strode toward the door. It was easier to avoid an argument. And he didn’t want Rachel overhearing.

Pausing in the doorway, he said, “I see you got the roses.”

“Your secretary has almost got your signature perfected.”

“A simple thank-you would have sufficed. Good night, Linda.”

Five minutes later, Ben was able to shuck off the chill of Linda and remembered his conversation with Rachel about the skull. He settled onto the couch.

The show was just ending. The woman detailed her findings and, though they hadn’t located vampires in the Carpathian mountains, implied that anything was possible.

He could sense the sarcasm in her voice as she spoke of vampires, but also sensed she knew what bolstered the ratings.

Rachel was right. She was pretty. And
familiar.
He’d never seen this show before. It was rare for him to watch anything other than CNN. Where had he seen her?

He plucked the picture Harris had given him earlier from his pocket.

Leaning forward, he compared it to the face on the screen. The sniper photo was grainy but the jawline and nose were similar.

It was the same woman, he was sure of it.

But really? Some television hostess had met with Cooke about the skull? Had she been meeting him in the capacity of an archaeologist or a buyer? Or with intent to feature the skull on her show?

Had the thief been thinking of handing the skull over to her? Or had he merely wanted details on it only an archaeologist could provide? What interest did Cooke have in the skull? He’d been employed simply to obtain it, and deliver it directly to Ben.

And now the one man who could give Ben hope was dead because the shooter he’d hired had an itchy trigger finger.

And the Creed woman?

“The sniper couldn’t have killed them both,” Ben muttered as he tapped the photo against his lower lip. “Maybe.”

If Annja Creed was dead wouldn’t the show feature some kind of memorial? The producers wouldn’t run the episode with a dead star. Or would they?

Annja! I never knew. Great assets.

Annja clicked the Internet link in the e-mail from a fan. It landed on a page titled “Celebrity Skin.” And there was her head, capped by the boonie hat she wore for her biography picture. From shoulders down she was naked.

“Oh, no. Really?”

She clicked the picture and it opened a page devoted exclusively to her, listing all the episodes of
Chasing History’s Monsters
she’d hosted, the books she’d penned and her various guest spots on
Letterman
and
Conan.
Her picture took up half the screen.

Annja cringed and looked away from the screen, but like an accident scene, she couldn’t make herself look away from the carnage. “Those are not my breasts. Those just look so uncomfortable. This is not for real. Seriously. I’ve never posed nude in my life. And who would think I could do something like this? For that matter, who would do this to me?” Annja couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself.

Her first guess was the most obvious culprit. Doug? Her producer was prone to practical jokes, but he’d never do anything to damage her reputation. Of that, Annja was confident.

So who else?

She searched the site for a contact e-mail. That wouldn’t help. Annja felt sure the site would merely brush off her claims to false photographs, even if they knew the truth. Sites like this were rampant online. They likely knew the photos they featured were fakes.

Whose assets were those?

“Argh!”

She checked her watch. There was no time for tracking this down. It was an hour before Serge made good on his promise to kill her. He did know where to find her.

She wasn’t going to run scared. Serge was the only one who knew anything about the skull.

“Looks like this girl has another date.”

A
GRAVEYARD WAS
the last place Annja wanted to meet anyone. Even a friend. And Serge was no friend. But at the moment he was her only link to the skull’s origins, so she wouldn’t miss this meeting for the world.

Rather, she was assuming he knew about the skull. Why attempt to steal it if he didn’t?

And what about that sniper? Serge had mentioned a name. “Benjamin,” she muttered. “Ben who?”

Annja shivered. The temperature was a blistering fifteen degrees. The wind was whipping and she was walking into its teeth. The windchill must be chasing zero, she thought.

She should have dug out her long johns. It was prematurely cold for late November, but this was New York, after all. Six feet of snow could fall any minute now and it wouldn’t be odd. It wasn’t the Arctic, but New York could chill ’em with the best of them.

Before stumbling onto the “Celebrity Skin” site, she’d found a view of the Linden Hills Cemetery, and spent an inordinate amount of time playing with the street view function. It was so cool what a person could do online and with a mouse. Now if only they could get a live feed to do things like track down a sidewalk and walk into an area and look about in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view and she’d—well, she’d spend far too much time drooling before a computer monitor.

Clad in dark jeans and turtleneck, she tugged up the furry collar of her jacket and the hood around her head.

Perhaps she should have told Bart about where she was going today. But their dinner had been too cozy to spoil with business. And he’d left her feeling at odds about being a rebound girl. Not that he’d mentioned it, or had even been thinking about it. But she had. And much as she wanted to, she couldn’t tell him about her sword or the kind of danger it seemed to draw to her.

She had fled her place quickly this morning. Though straightened and clean, Serge’s intrusion had changed the feel of it. It was no longer her private retreat from the world, not while his threat was hanging over her.

Sure, she’d once had ninjas drop through the skylight and try to kidnap her. She’d returned later to find the sultan behind the scare had sent in a cleanup crew and he’d then later tried to seduce her. Weird stuff like that happened to her all the time.

But Serge was beyond weird. Disturbingly calm before the maniacal storm kind of weird. She had an aching wrist to confirm that. Had the guy purposefully wanted a piece of her? That treaded in stalker or serial killer territory. What would he do with a sample of her flesh and bone?

She didn’t want to imagine.

By seeing him this morning, she could confront him in the daylight, see that he was just a man, and know he couldn’t do her any more harm than he had already done. In a manner, she could take back the sanctity of her home and psyche all at once. Kill two birds, so to speak.

It was snowing again. More thick, heavy flakes. She preferred the downy stuff over the tiny sleety pebbles that made for nasty weather. Flakes collected on the grass surrounding the tightly spaced grave markers.

Annja pushed down the furred hood, and scanned the rows of tombstones. The graveyard was huge. A line of mausoleums stood south of her location. She expected Serge to pick the most out-of-the-way, least used area, maybe under some trees for privacy.

S
ERGE STOOD AT THE END
of a long-neglected open grave sunk in around the four edges. The grave was half-filled with dirt. It could be dangerous to visitors, and had been marked off with orange cones that now lay in a pile tossed as far away as he could manage.

Open graves always came in handy.

The Creed woman stomped across the grass, her boots kicking up tufts of snow before her.
Stomp
wasn’t the right word. She was graceful, as she’d been when wielding that curious sword yesterday at her loft.

He still couldn’t believe he’d missed that when rummaging through her things. And then he’d forgotten to look for it before leaving.

Rangy, observant and confident, she appeared keener than the average woman. She was not the sort who preened and expected others to notice. She altered his equilibrium. It was hard to remain focused around her. She was different. Unafraid. Not like ninety-nine percent of the females in this world.

Fearless women fascinated him. There were many here in New York—especially on the subway—but none who had prompted him to look outside his own world and wonder about hers.

If he didn’t need to threaten her life, Serge imagined it might be a thrill to get to know Annja Creed.

She stopped thirty feet from him. Puffs of air fogged before her parted lips. She held out her arms to reveal she carried nothing. Not the backpack, nor could he see where she might have hidden the skull. Black leggings skimmed long legs. The jacket had many pockets, but it fit her body as if a second skin. A rim of fake fox fur on the hood dusted her ears and cheeks.

There was no three-foot-long battle sword in sight.

And no skull.

“Where is it?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I already told you I don’t have it. Can’t give you what I don’t have. Wouldn’t give it to you if I
did
have it.”

Clenching his leather-gloved fists, then releasing them, Serge calmed his anger. Nothing was ever accomplished out of anger. Or violence, for that matter. Yet, more often than not, violence was the only weapon capable of opening some minds to reality.

A reality Benjamin Ravenscroft had introduced to his life, damn that man.

“I thought my warning was clear,” he stated, jaw tight, more from the cold than tension.

“Crystal. But I can’t give you what I don’t have. Get that into your thick skull,” the woman said.

Obstinate and gorgeous. The combination tormented his need to remain stoic and alert.

“Speaking of skulls…” He paced to the grave head, hands crossed before him. He should have worn a hat. He didn’t like the feel of snowflakes dropping on his shaved scalp. But the snow had ceased melting and dripping down his face. The world was cold—like Benjamin Ravenscroft. “Have you learned more about what you claim not to have?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t tell you,” she said.

“So why did you come today, Annja?” He liked the feel of her name when he spoke it. It had Russian origins, he felt certain.

Stupid man,
concentrate.

“To talk to you,” she replied. “To figure you out.”

She hooked her hands at her hips, matching him with a pacing stride. She was aware of his every movement, her body ready to dash, either into the fray or away from it.

He sensed she was more than a mere researcher who spent her days digging in the dirt. Yet he couldn’t figure out what experience on television could have taught her about self-defense or the fighting skills she’d used against him yesterday.

She was a well-rounded woman. Smart and capable of protecting herself. Unlike his family. They would never see it coming when the reality of Benjamin Ravenscroft came for them.

That was why he had to settle this matter and get the skull before Ben did.

“Is figuring me out so important?” he called through the crisp air.

“I’m a curious kind of girl, Serge. A guy breaks into my loft, then stabs me with some funky tool and it makes me wonder, you know?”

“How is the wrist?”

She stopped pacing. He saw the tiny wince she made at mention of the wound. It satisfied him. He was still in control.

“What the hell kind of weapon was that? You punched a hole right through me.”

“A specialty item. Necessary to my trade.”

He marveled inside as she wondered over that morsel of noninformation. She wasn’t a high-heels-and-lipstick kind of female. Not easily breakable. At least, not yet. He’d give it a go, if need be.

“Let’s quit with the banter,” she said. Flicking her gloveless fingers over her cheek, she swiped away a few snowflakes. “Why do you want the skull? And what is it, exactly?”

“So you have no clue. Good. It’s not information you require, Annja.”

Always be familiar with your enemy; it put them off guard. But was she really the enemy? he wondered.

Anyone who would keep from him what he most desired was definitely on the opposition.

“As for why I want it? Will you accept it means more to me than it ever could to you?”

“I’m an archaeologist. Old bones are like gold to us. And puzzling out their origins are the platinum sprinkles on top. If you’re not going to help me, then I can’t help you.”

He bit off the retort,
But you would help if I did?

That was weak. He wasn’t about to cower to get what he needed. And this was more than a want; it was a
need.

“Did you have anything to do with Marcus Cooke getting shot?” she tried.

The thief Ben had hired to obtain the skull. Serge had tracked him from the moment he’d landed in New York.

If a man thought to control him by threatening his family, then Serge made sure to keep a keen eye on that man. There wasn’t a move Ben made without Serge knowing about it. Mostly, he knew things like where Ravenscroft took his secretary for an after-work rendezvous, or at what clubs he entertained high-roller clients. Material bullshit.

But when Ben had returned from a trip to Venice and had gone to the Cloisters, a medieval museum in Manhattan, Serge had followed. He’d overheard Ben asking a curator about Sidon and a mythical skull rumored to be giver of all good things.

Could Ben possibly know what it would mean to Serge to possess the skull?

“I can honestly say I don’t know the man,” Serge offered. “The thief, that is.”

“But you knew the sniper?”

“Again, no. That surprised me, I must say. If someone was after the skull, why shoot the man carrying it and risk losing it?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out, either. So why were you there? How did you know Marcus had the skull, and who else is after it?”

“I thought I was the one asking the questions?”

She shrugged. “My bad. Looks like you hauled your ass all the way out here for nothing.” She scratched her head and looked at the grave markers. Puffs of breath condensed before her face. “Any family members you need to say hello to?”

“You do remember my threat, don’t you, Annja?”

“I’m not much for threats. They’re mostly hot air. Besides, if you’ve heard one threat, you’ve heard them all. And trust me, I get them a lot.”

“I sense that you do. Not the most agreeable woman, are you?”

She didn’t want to cooperate? Time to see how breakable she really was.

Serge kept a bowie knife tucked inside his coat, in a leather sheath right next to the bone biopsy tool. He did not draw it out.

This time, he wanted to see what she could do without weapons. She hadn’t brought a sword. It would be fist to fist. Or rather, fist to air, as his first strike was parried by a dodge from his opponent.

“What’s with you and beating on women, Serge?”

Light on her feet, she dodged another punch, and swung a return that connected with his jaw. But it wasn’t hard enough to make his head jerk.

“Violence is gauche,” he answered. “I would never harm a woman unless she disobeys a direct request.”

“Is that so? But taking core samples from people is cool with you?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

The heel of her boot soared through the air. Serge blocked the roundhouse with a forearm, and swung his other hand to grip her ankle. He twisted her leg, and she went down, her body spinning to land forearms and knees on the snow. But she was quick. Kicking back with her other leg, she managed to bruise the side of his knee.

Serge yelped.

The ground was slick with fresh-fallen snow. He teetered. His heel slid through the wet grass. In that moment, a kick to his ankle knocked him backward. It was humiliating to be felled by a female.

The woman landed on his chest, crouched and determined. She punched his jaw. Once. Twice. The third time, he clapped a hand about hers and kneed her in the gut.

With a ragged grunt, she spilled sideways and rolled across the snowy grass. The open grave lay nearby. She didn’t move. Had he knocked her out? Not from a gut kick.

A small storm aimed for his head was blocked with a fist. The snowball clattered against his elbow. Snow wet his face.