her face flashed across the TV screen on occasional Thursday nights it wasn’t easy going incognito.
She pushed open the fourth-floor stairway door. The sudden awareness that something was not right made her pause before her loft door labeled with 4A. She held her palm over the knob, not touching it.
The door wasn’t open, but she sensed a weird vibe in the air. Intuition had always been good to her.
Had someone been here while she was gone?
“Paranoia does not suit you, Annja,” she muttered, and twisted the knob.
Apparently paranoia fit this time.
Her loft had been ransacked. The messy desktop was now clear save the laptop. Books, papers, manuscripts, pens and small artifacts were spread haphazardly across the floor. One sweep of an arm had cleared them from the desk.
Curtains were pulled from the rod and heaped on the floor. So much for dusting them. Couch cushions were tossed against the wall and the couch overturned. The filming setup in the corner of her living room was trashed. The green screen coiled on the floor, and the camera sprawled on top of that.
Everything had been touched. She didn’t want to venture into the kitchen. She got a glimpse of a cracked peanut-butter jar from the doorway.
The reason Annja didn’t rush into the kitchen sat on the desk chair before her. As if waiting for her return.
Annja lowered her body into a ready crouch, but she did not summon her sword to her grip. She didn’t know who he was, but she wasn’t so quick to reveal her secrets before she learned the secrets of others.
Besides, he didn’t jump her, nor did he have a pistol aimed on any important body parts.
The man was bald, seeming tall from his seated position and his broad shoulders and dressed in a dark suit with a black tie. He looked up from his canted bow through his lashes, which made him seem more sinister than the business suit could ever manage.
Could he be the man who’d pulled her from the canal? That man had been bald.
“Annja Creed,” he said calmly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
7
He sounded Russian. The voice was deep but the tones were even and he didn’t sound threatening.
What was she thinking? The man had destroyed her home. And she had a pretty good idea what he must have been looking for.
“You know my name. It’s only polite I learn yours.” Still in defensive mode, Annja kept the open door behind her in case a quick escape was needed.
“Serge,” he said, putting a Slavic lilt on the second syllable. “You know what I am here for, Miss Creed.”
“I have no idea. How about you tell me? That is, after you apologize for tearing my place apart. You’ve tossed valuable artifacts about as if toys.”
“Unfortunately, not the valuable artifact I seek. You slipped through my fingers last night.”
So he was the guy at the canal. That explained the bruise at the corner of his left eye. Points for the half-frozen chick.
“I know you have it. I saw the pictures you posted online.”
Crap. For as many times as she’d posted photos—and said postings had resulted in cluing the bad guys to finding her—she would never learn. And yet…
“How did you find me? I cover my tracks well online. My Internet profile is secure. You couldn’t have traced me.”
“I have my ways.”
She chuffed, then thought better of angering the guy who had turned over her heavy leather couch. His ways may simply include following her cab home last night. She only took it eight blocks. And she had been out of her head, not thinking clearly.
On the other hand, she’d left him flat on his back. He couldn’t possibly have followed her.
“So you knew the man I spoke to last night before you shot him?”
“I fired no weapons last evening.”
That supported her theory on the existence of both the sniper and her attacker.
“So, you and the sniper work together?”
The man looked aside, breaking eye contact, but he didn’t drop his dead calm. He reconnected with her gaze immediately. “No,” he said quietly.
Interesting. So if this one had been tracking the thief for the skull, then what stake had the sniper in the whole thing? How many parties were involved? She counted three so far—the thief, the sniper and this lunk.
“I’ve spent an hour going through your things,” he said. “It’s not here.”
“I could have told you that, if you’d been polite enough to simply ask.”
Her things? That implied something so personal. Things that were meant for her eyes only. The idea of this creepy bald guy shuffling through her underwear sent a shiver up Annja’s spine. He didn’t look the sort who would linger over silky things.
Then again, crazy never did look crazy until it was too late.
“News of the skull’s emergence pleased me.” The slow calm of his speech made her wonder if he thought out his words before releasing them into the ether. “It is quite the prize. I thought to have it in hand last night. But then the contact you know as Sneak switched things. I was unaware of your clandestine meeting on the bridge.”
That meant Serge had been tracking the thief. Or the sniper, Annja thought.
Emergence? That might rule out the possibility of it being taken from a dig sight.
“I still cannot understand why he would give it to you,” Serge said.
Well, he didn’t have to make it sound as if she were a distasteful tangle of octopus sitting on a plate of greens, she thought. She said nothing in response.
“I have studied you, Annja. On your own computer.”
That explained the laptop on the desk, powered up and open to Google. Nice of him to spare that expensive piece of equipment. The green screen and camera, on the other hand, were definitely a loss.
“You’re a television personality.” His grimace was accompanied by strange wonder. “As well, an archaeologist. But you’re no one special, Miss Creed. You are common. Your schooling is common. Your expertise not equal to the world’s foremost in your field. Why would he give the skull to you?”
She shrugged. “I’m cuter than you are?”
The man tilted a malevolent frown at her.
What did he expect after that berating put-down? Common? She’d show him common. And he wouldn’t see it coming.
He stood in one smooth motion. The dark navy suit
