C. Palov - Ark of Fire

Usually she embroidered the tale, going into great detail as to how the nonexistent boater only had to spend two years in prison. But today, for some inexplicable reason, she felt guilty about the fabrication. Although why she should feel any guilt was a mystery. Shame, yes. Guilt, no. After all, it wasn’t her fault that her father was listed on her birth certificate as Unknown or that her mother had been a junkie, never able to lose her taste for smack. When her mother OD’d, Edie had been forced to spend two and a half years in the Florida foster care system. A kindhearted social worker had taken an interest in her case, going the extra two miles to track down her maternal grandparents in Cheraw, South Carolina. Edie never spoke of the thirty nightmarish months spent on the foster care merry-go-round. Not to anyone. Some things a person couldn’t, or shouldn’t, share with another human being.

Seeing a vaporous cloud approach, Caedmon waited until a red-faced man decked out in winter Lycra jogged past. A few moments later, he solicitously took her by the elbow, steering her clear of an icy patch. “Who took care of you?”

“Oh, I, um, went to live with my grandparents in South Carolina. Pops and Gran were great. Really, really great,” she said with a big fake smile. Uncomfortable with the lie, she feigned a sudden interest in the leafless shrubbery planted along the low-slung retaining wall. Winter had its claws dug deep; the nearby trees and plantings were covered in a crystal shroud. Most of the animals had taken to ground. As they passed the tamarin cage, there wasn’t a primate in sight.

“South Carolina . . . how interesting. One would think you’d have a more pronounced accent. And you’ve been in Washington for how long?”

Wishing he’d cease and desist, she said, “It’s coming up on the twenty-year mark. What anniversary is that? Crystal? I’m not sure.”

“I believe that would be china,” he replied, intently watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Edie cleared her throat, wondering if she’d laid it on too thick about Pops and Gran. As happened with all new acquaintances, she feared that he was on to her.

Hearing a branch suddenly snap, Caedmon momentarily paused as the silence filled with several unidentified screeches. Evidently satisfied that the noises were not man-made, he said. “I’m curious . . . why did you get a degree in women’s studies?”

“Why do you want to know? You’re not a closet chauvinist, are you?”

“Not in the least.”

Satisfied with his reply, Edie shrugged. “Since someone else was footing the bill for my education, I studied what interested me. At the time I was interested in the role of women in American society.” What she didn’t tell him was that, given her background, she wanted to find out why women made the choices they did. “I had an internship at a nonprofit, but because of budget constraints it didn’t pan into a paying gig. Luckily, I found gainful employment at a downtown photo shop.” At the time she hadn’t known squat about photography, having charmed her way into the job. But she learned quickly, enamored with the way that photography could be used to manipulate the real world, to erase the ugliness.

“And how long have you been working as a photographer?”

“Gees, what are you, a Spanish inquisitor?” Edie retorted, determined to end the personal interrogation. “You know, I usually love the zoo, but today it’s got creepy written all over it.”

Caedmon slowed his step as they wound their way through what looked to be an impenetrable chasm, with huge buff-colored boulders, a full story in height, lining the pathway. She wondered if the man at her side was thinking what she was thinking, that this would be an excellent place for a gunman to hide.

A few moments later, they emerged from the stone-lined walkway and approached the caged hillside set aside for the Mexican wolves, the designated meeting place with Eliot Hopkins. To the right side of the outdoor exhibit, a lone man bundled in a wool topcoat sat on a park bench, a cup of Starbucks coffee clutched in his gloved hand.

“There he is,” Edie said in hushed whisper, fearful her voice might carry. “I don’t know about you, but I fully intend to give the SOB a grilling.”

At hearing that, Caedmon jerked his head in her direction.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that? It’s called good cop/bad cop.”

Grabbing her by the upper arm, Caedmon drew her to his side. “Now is not the time for us to be out of step with one another,” he hissed in her ear. “We merely want to tickle the man.”

“Yeah, before we move in for the kill.”

CHAPTER 27

“Figuratively speaking,” Edie amended.

“I most certainly hope so.” Concerned his companion may have watched too police dramas on the telly, Caedmon tightened his grip on her arm. Like a harried parent with an unruly child.

Surreptitiously, he glanced to and fro. Rock-laden, treed, and hilly, the surrounding terrain could easily camouflage a hunter on the prowl. Attired in her red and purple plaid skirt, Edie made an easy target. Although warning bells did not yet toll, they did tinkle, the place having about it a sinister air.

As they approached the bareheaded man seated on the park bench, Caedmon closed the black brolly he’d been holding aloft, the wintry rain having dwindled to a mere spit. He hooked the curved handle on his bent arm.

“A most interesting place to meet, betwixt and between these two beautiful creatures of prey,” Eliot Hopkins remarked, slowly rising to his feet. He gestured first to the lone wolf that warily prowled the fenced hillside beside them. Then he pointed a gloved hand to the bald eagle perched aloft on the opposite hillock. “Did you know that the eagle has been a symbol of war since Babylonian times?”

With his thatch of wavy white hair, patrician features, and ruddy red cheeks, Caedmon thought Eliot Hopkins a grandfatherly-looking man. Dressed in English tweed, he could have passed for a country squire. A harmless dolt who, if prompted, could natter for hours on end about shifting weather patterns and the breeding of Leicester Longwool sheep.

“How about canning the bullshit,” Edie retorted, ignoring his earlier admonition. “Because of you, and your boundless greed, Jonathan Padgham is dead! And don’t give me any bunk about him going to London to take care of funeral arrangements. I know what happened yesterday at the museum.”

“Jonathan’s death is most unfortunate and, I am sad to say, entirely my fault,” the museum director readily confessed, a morose look in his rheumy gray eyes. “I had no idea that Jonathan was in danger. Although once the deed was done, I had no choice but to assist in the cover-up.”

“I’m curious as to how you became involved with such a bloodthirsty gang of men,” Caedmon remarked. “You don’t strike me as running in the same circle.”

Smiling ever so slightly, Hopkins nodded. “Shortly after I acquired the Stones of Fire I was approached by a private consortium interested in buying the breastplate at an exorbitant price. When I refused to sell the relic, the consortium resorted to blackmail, demanding that I relinquish custody of the breastplate or they would alert the SAFE organization.”

Edie nudged him in the arm. “Who or what is SAFE?”

“Saving Antiquities for Everyone is a nonprofit group that monitors the international trade in stolen or secretly excavated antiquities.”

“And that would have created quite the public scandal,” she correctly deduced. “So why didn’t you give the consortium the Stones of Fire? Why take the risk of being exposed?”