F. Wilson - Secret Histories

get in touch with you next week.

Gomennasai.”

She looked guilty as she closed the door.

“Sayonara,” Weezy said in a low voice, then turned to Jack, her features constricted with disappointment and concern. “Do you believe that?”

“Not for a minute.”

Anger flashed through him. Nobody blew Weezy off and closed the door in her

face when he was around. Suddenly he knew what to do.

He hopped off the front steps and started walking around the side of the house. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t turn. “To see the professor.”

Jack led her around to the backyard. Immediately he was drawn to the stone

garden, but he pul ed his attention away and focused on the windows into the study. There, hunched over his desk with his back to them, sat Professor

Nakamura. Jack stepped up and rapped on the window.

The professor jumped as if he’d heard a gunshot. He spun in his chair and froze

when he saw Jack. They locked gazes for a few seconds, Jack giving

him his best glare, then the professor took a deep breath and nodded. He gave

Jack the stay-there signal as he rose and left his study.

A few seconds later the rear door opened and he motioned them inside. “Oh, dear,” he said as they filed past him. “I was hoping for a little more time

before speaking to you.”

“Why is that?” Weezy said. “Did they find something?”

“Let us not talk here.”

The professor led them to the study where the three of them took up seats

around the desk.

“What did they learn?” Weezy said. “Did they date it?”

The professor kept his eyes down. “Not yet.”

“Then what?”

He sighed. “I had hoped this problem would be resolved before speaking to

you.”

“Problem? What problem?”

With a sinking feeling, Jack sensed what was coming.

The professor looked up but stil did not make eye contact. “The artifact has been

… misplaced.”

“What?” In a flash Weezy was on her feet and leaning over the desk. “What are

you talking about?”

“The Smithsonian … it appears to have mislaid the artifact.”

Weezy looked at Jack with a stricken expression. “Oh, no! It’s happening there

too. They’re everywhere!”

Jack needed more information before he climbed onto Weezy’s wagon. “How does something like this happen?”

The professor shrugged. “It wil be found.”

“No, it won’t!” Weezy said, her voice rising. “We’l never see it again!” “Young lady, I am sorry for this, but I am quite confident that by Monday, or by

Tuesday latest, they wil locate it. That is why I told my wife to say I am not here. I felt if I could put off speaking to you until then, al this unhappiness would

be avoided.”

“How did you find out it was gone?” Jack said.

“My col eague at the Smithsonian cal ed me yesterday, asking the whereabouts

of the object I told him I was sending. I had sent it for morning delivery; he should have received it.”

“Did the delivery company get it there?”

The professor nodded. “I cal ed Federal Express and they said they had a

signature from the receiving clerk. My col eague cal ed the clerk who said he signed for a number of packages. He put them on a cart for delivery, but the

package never reached my col eague.”

“And it never wil !” Weezy cried. She slammed her hands on his desk hard

enough to make the pens jump. “I never, ever should have let it out of my sight!”

With that she turned and stomped out of the study.

Shock flattened the professor’s features. “Why is that one so upset? Does she

not believe me? Does she think I stole it?”

Jack didn’t know what Weezy believed at that moment, but he said, “I don’t

think so. She thinks she’l never see it again. Do you real y think we’l get it back?”

“Of course. The Smithsonian wil find it, I promise you. It has simply been

misplaced.”

Jack wasn’t buying. He didn’t know who ran the Smithsonian, but since it was on

the mal by the Capitol, he was pretty sure it was the government. The man in the suit in the Barrens last night—he worked for the government. Jack

didn’t know what branch, or whether state or federal, but the way he gave orders to the state trooper made Jack pretty sure he was with some high-up

agency.

High up enough to send one of its people into the Smithsonian to steal a

package between the mailroom and the professor’s “col eague”?

Absolutely.

“You have our phone numbers, right?”

The professor patted his desktop. “Yes-yes. Right in here.”

“Good. Please cal me first if you hear anything, okay? Good news or bad news, cal me first?”

“If you wish, of course. But I am sure it wil be good news.”

Jack was just as sure of the opposite.

He found Weezy out on the sidewalk, getting on her bike. She had an angry expression and tears in her eyes.

“This is al your fault, Jack. I just wanted to keep it, but no, you had to talk me into letting other people look at it.”

“Me?” He had trouble hiding his shock. “We both agreed we wanted to find out what it was, and the only way to do that was to show it to people who

might know.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s al your fault. I hate you, Jack! HATE YOU!”

Hate me? Jack felt as if he’d been slapped in the face. How could she hate him? He hadn’t lost the pyramid.

As she started pedaling her bike back toward 206, Carson Toliver pul ed his convertible in by the curb.

“Hey, Weezy,” he cal ed.

Without looking at him she yel ed, “Shut up and leave me alone!” as she passed.

He blinked in surprise and looked at Jack. “What’s up with her?”

“She’s having a bad day.”

He smiled. “Oh. I get it. I know al about that from my sister.”

Jack started pedaling away. “Yeah,” he said around the lump in his throat.

Let Toliver think what he wanted. Jack wasn’t going to try to explain.

He found Weezy on the other side of 206. She’d stopped and was waiting for him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, head down, staring at the ground. “That was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean it.”

Jack felt the lump in his throat start to shrink, but he kept cool. Couldn’t let on how she’d gotten to him.

“So you don’t real y hate me?”

She looked up at him. “I could never hate you. I’m just mad at the world right now and I needed someone to blame and you were closest. I never should

have said that.”

Jack hid his relief. “Forget it. I knew you didn’t mean it.”

Not true. Crossing the highway he’d been trying to imagine life in this tiny town without Weezy to talk to and hang out with.

“Besides,” he added, “it was part mine too.”

“Yeah, but you don’t seem upset.”

He shrugged. “What’s the point? Getting upset isn’t going to help us get it back.”

“You’re too logical. Maybe that’s what made me lose it.” She shook her head. “There must be something we can do.”

“You mean, like go to Washington and help them search?”

“Of course not. It’s gone from the Smithsonian. They’l never find it there. It’s probably back in the cube, waiting to be used for whatever it’s used for, or

buried again.”

The cube and the pyramid … hundreds of miles apart, yet both stolen, and both thefts within hours of each other. It smacked of an organization with a

long reach, which fel right into line with Weezy’s conspiracy theories.