whatever it was had turned deadly. But where was Mario?
“Anyway, I mailed you something that I’d like you to take a look at. It got here a few days ago, ahead of me. I’ve been here two days, but I haven’t heard from you. I can’t give you a phone number, I’m afraid. I’m changing hotels every night. And I don’t have a cell phone with me. I’ve been told people can track you through those if they get hold of your records.” Mario took a breath. “The people involved in this, they can do things like that.”
Annja looked around the bar, feeling momentarily vulnerable. Following the two men to the hotel probably wasn’t the brightest thing she could have done. But it had felt right. If she’d called the police, she’d have been stuck answering questions for hours.
Call me, Bart, she thought. Bart McGilley could cut through the red tape. She hoped.
“Thinking back on this,” Mario went on, “maybe I shouldn’t have come. Erene didn’t want me to come. She felt it was too dangerous.”
Who is Erene? Annja wondered.
“Anyway, when you get the package, hold on to it until I call you. I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, take care of yourself. These are dangerous men.” The traffic noise in the background shifted again. “There’s one other thing. When you get the package and see what’s in there, just remember what happened to us at Hadrian’s Wall.”
Several things had happened to them at Hadrian’s Wall. A lot of them had been good.
“Goodbye, Annja. I hope to see you soon.”
A NNJA SAT BACK and stared at the television, watching the New York Yankees working out at spring training. They threw and batted and ran bases like they didn’t have a problem in the world. The sports reporters traded quips with them.
Real life wasn’t like that, Annja knew. People struggled every day. Some of them, like Mario now, struggled against deadly and dangerous forces.
In a way, it made sense that Mario had come to her. Annja didn’t think it was just because of the past friendship. She felt certain part of the reason Mario had come was because of the sword she carried.
Roux had told her that dealing with trouble was part of the legacy of the sword. The old man had been with her when she’d found the last broken piece of the sword and there again when she’d touched the sword and it reassembled itself—somehow.
Annja didn’t like thinking in terms that included magic, but she had no explanation for how the sword worked or how Roux and Garin Braden had existed since before Joan of Arc’s execution.
Somehow the sword resided in the otherwhere until Annja needed it.
Thinking about Agent Smith and his friends, Annja took a deep breath and let it out. Okay, she thought. Bring it on. This is part of why I’m here.
All she had to do was find Mario.
A NNJA CALLED Doug back.
“You know,” he said sullenly, “I’m not here just so you can hang up on me every time you get—”
“Doug,” Annja said.
Doug quieted. “Is something wrong?”
When it came down to it, no matter what their difference of opinion, he was a friend. A good one.
“Possibly,” Annja answered.
“Can I help?”
“Could you have my answering service there at the studio switched over so any phone calls coming in there will ring on my cell phone?”
“Sure, but I don’t think you really want that.”
“I’m sure I do.”
“You’re going to listen to a lot of trash.”
“What do you mean?”
“You get phone calls here every day,” Doug said. “People who love the show. People who hate the show. People who want to marry you or just leave obscene suggestions. I gotta warn you, those people can get really creative. It’s hard to listen to sometimes.”
“Why don’t I ever hear any of that?”
“You hear the good stuff. The rest I have wiped off by my assistant.”
“Why do you have an assistant and I don’t?” Annja blocked the thought. “Never mind. We’ll talk about that some other time.”
“She’s not much of an assistant,” Doug said in a low voice.
“I heard that,” a female voice said.
“Hey,” Doug protested, “I meant that in the kindest possible way.”
“Look, you little jerk!” the woman said. “I’ve put up with the menial little tasks you’ve had me doing for almost two weeks! I’ve had it! I’m not going to stand here and be—”
“You creeping into my office and standing behind me is one of the problems,” Doug said. “Eavesdropping on my conversations wasn’t in your job description.”
“I quit! ” the woman shouted.
A door slammed.
“There,” Doug groused. “I no longer have an assistant. We’re even. Are you happy?”
“Switch the phone over for me,” Annja said.
T HE HOTEL DESK CLERK’S name was Sandy. She was blond-haired, blue-eyed and very understanding about Annja’s “problem.”
“Guys can be absolute jerks,” Sandy said. “Especially ex-boyfriends. They just never seem to get out of your life.”
Annja could tell immediately that she’d touched a nerve in the other woman. Usually Annja wasn’t up on all the girl-talk issues. She didn’t like telling someone else about her private life, which was a direct product of being raised by nuns in a New Orleans orphanage, and she didn’t hang out with women who did.
Thankfully, DVD sets of Sex and the City and Gilmore Girls had given her the tools she needed to discuss her “situation” with the desk clerk.
“I know,” Annja said. “This guy isn’t the first.”
The clerk shook her head. “And the sad part is he probably won’t be the last.” She looked at the picture of the man on Annja’s computer screen. “He’s not bad looking.”
“Thanks.” Like I’m supposed to take some kind of pride in that? Annja tried not to let her disbelief show on her face.
“You said he took a necklace from you?” the clerk asked.
“My grandmother gave it to me,” Annja said, touching her neck theatrically. “It’s worth a little bit of money, but I want it back more for sentimental reasons. That was the last thing my grandmother gave me before she died.”
