going by the book,” Pete said. “And the book says that you’ll be searched—completely. We have a physician waiting in another room.”
“Oh, you mean you don’t want to do it right here?” Annie said. She was furious. He could almost see her pulse accelerating as he watched the vein in her neck. “You sure you trust this doctor to do it right, pal? I would’ve thought you’d want to watch.”
“I’d love to watch,” he said, his voice coming out low and intimate, even through the tinny speakers. “And by the way, the name’s not pal.”
“I prefer to personalize the disembodied voices that talk to me,” she said. “It helps me feel more human. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”
She turned away from the window suddenly, but not before he saw the glint of tears in her eyes.
Pete felt ashamed of himself. What was wrong with him? Why did he have to be so rough on her?
He was rough on her because he felt for her, because he found himself believing her. And he had absolutely no facts to back him up, just gut instinct. Gut, thought Pete, yeah, right. Aim a little lower…. He couldn’t let himself forget that Dr. Anne Morrow was a suspect, quite possibly a thief, connected to people who wouldn’t think twice about killing to satisfy their greed.
He watched her pull on her pants and then her shirt as the female agent led her from the room. With a nod, he ordered the microphone connection cut.
Whitley Scott was watching him.
“She’s gutsy,” Pete said to him. “You’ve got to give her that much.”
“I think she’s hiding something,” Scott said. “We’ve got to find a way to get closer to her. But how?”
“Good question.” Pete leaned against the back wall of the room, crossing his arms in front of him. “I’m not exactly qualified to work in her laboratory. Or even on one of her digs.”
“Client?” Whitley asked. “You could bring her some rare artifact to authenticate. One thing leads to another—a little dinner, a little who knows what, and she’s telling you her deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Perfect,” Pete said expressionlessly. “Except she never dates her clients as a rule. No exception.”
“Next-door neighbor?”
“She lives over her lab in a restored Victorian house up in Westchester County,” Pete said. “Expensive neighborhood. Way out of our budget. It would cost us close to half a million to buy one of the houses next door—provided someone was even willing to sell. And I’ve already checked—no one wants to rent.”
Whitley nodded, turning toward the door. “Well, keep thinking,” he said. “We’ll come up with something sooner or later.”
CHAPTER TWO
ANNIE PULLED HER LITTLE HONDA into the driveway and turned the engine off. Damn, she was tired. Damn the CIA and damn the FBI and damn everyone who was working so hard to make her life so miserable.
Five months. The harassment had been going on almost nonstop for five months. And now, after the bombing in England, it was only going to get worse. Already everyone in town knew that she was the subject of an FBI investigation. The agents had talked with everyone she knew, and probably a lot of people she didn’t know. Her college roommate had called last month to say that even she’d been questioned about Annie. And it had been five years since they’d last gotten together….
Damn, damn, damn, she thought. And particularly damn that horrible man who’d spoken to her from behind the one-way window. Somebody had referred to him as Captain Peterson. If she ever ran into him, she’d let him have a good swift kick where it counted. Except she didn’t have a clue what he looked like. She wouldn’t even be able to recognize him from his voice, not from hearing it over those awful interrogation room speakers.
She stepped out of the car and went around to the other side to pull the package from England from the passenger seat. Damn these gold artifacts, too, she thought, as she barely lifted the crate. They always weigh a ton.
Her assistant’s car was still in the driveway, so instead of going up to her apartment on the top floors of the house, Annie went into the lab. She could hear the sound of the computer keyboard clacking and followed it to the back room, where the office was set up.
Cara MacLeish was inputting data at her usual breakneck speed. She didn’t even stop as she looked up and grinned.
“Welcome back,” she said. Her short brown curls stood straight up in their usual tangle, and her eyes were warm behind her horn-rimmed glasses. “I thought you’d be here sooner. Like six hours ago.”
Annie lowered the crate holding the gold death mask onto her desk top, then brushed some strands of hair back from her face. “I was detained,” she said simply.
Cara stopped typing, giving her boss her full, sympathetic attention, swearing imaginatively.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Annie said, smiling ruefully.
“FBI again?” Cara asked.
“FBI, CIA.” Annie shrugged. “They all want a piece of me.”
“Well, look on the bright side,” Cara suggested.
They both fell silent, trying to find one.
“They haven’t been able to make any charges stick,” Cara finally said.
Annie pulled a rocking chair closer to the computer console and sat down.
“And you haven’t lost any business because of this,” Cara said, warming up to it now. She stretched her thin arms over her head, then yawned, standing up to get the kinks out of her long legs. “In fact, I think business has picked up. We had a ton of calls while you were away.”
Annie watched her assistant cross to the telephone answering machine. Next to it, a stack of little pink message slips were held by a bright red wooden duck with a clothespin for a mouth.
“Jerry Tillit called,” Cara said. “He’s back from South America, and he’s got some Mayan stuff for you to look at.”
“Did you talk to him, or get the message off the machine?” Annie asked.
Cara blushed. “I spoke to him.”
“Did he ask you out again?” Annie grinned.
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“We don’t date clients, remember?” Cara said.
Annie corrected her. “Jerry’s not a client, he’s a friend.”
“He’s also a client.”
“So he’s also a client,” Annie admitted. “But just because I don’t want to date clients doesn’t mean you can’t, MacLeish. Will you please give the man a break?”
“I
