THE AGENCY OF THE ANCIENT LOST & FOUND BOXSET 2

THE AGENCY OF THE ANCIENT LOST & FOUND

JANE THORNLEY

RIVERFLOW PRESS

CONTENTS

The Artemis Key: Volume 4

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

The Thread of the Unicorn: Volume 5

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

The Shadow of the Emperor: Book 6

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Also by JANE THORNLEY

THE ARTEMIS KEY: VOLUME 4

PROLOGUE

Delphi, Greece, 392 AD

She had run as though the armies still burned at her heels, run as though her feet knew not how to stop, how to rest, how to heal. When she had finally reached the coast, the remnants of her people—terrified men and women who, like her, had watched their temples burn—helped her escape across the sea. Only twenty could fit into the single boat so the leader chose six of the strongest men plus their wives and children.

The way was long and tortuous. Apollo had cast such feeble light across the waves that it was as though he bled pale blood upon the swells. Was the god truly dying? She could not find him or his sister, Artemis, anywhere. The men had called for Poseidon—they had always used the old Greek names when they could—to grant them speed for their escape, but the Pythia remained silent. They were dead, all dead. The mighty had fallen. Even the priests could not deny it.

“Honored Pythia,” the woman huddled beside her had asked, “what have we done to anger the gods so? Why have they forsaken us?”

She had not the heart to answer. “Nothing” was not something her people would understand. To them, she had always held the answers and would speak them without hesitation. How could she tell them that the time of their gods had run aground, that the power they had once believed so absolute had been replaced by another?

In Delphi, she had sensed the change coming in the voices of the soldiers passing through, heard word that the might of Rome trembled upon its very foundations as the priests whispered among themselves. A new emperor had appeared—Constantine—and with him came another god. Once the conqueror, now the conquered—such an old, old story. She had sat in the temple to request guidance and the answer had come by way of total darkness, a deep, all-consuming void. Before, there had always been swirling colors, sparks in her vision, scenes rolling across her inner gaze. Now nothing, nothing. How could she journey into nothing? And yet she must.

Long ago Rome had conquered Greece—her home, her people—and now the same threatened them. New conquerors brought a new god, razing sanctuaries and their deities to the ground. Now she finally understood how destroying gods was even possible. Once the temples were gone and the believers dispersed, the gods withered like wheat in the burning sun.

And she could not find in herself to honor another, even if the soldiers would permit her to live, which they would not. To them she represented all that must be abolished. The Voice of Apollo must be strangled and his priestess raped and butchered to make way for the new god. They slaughtered the priests first, believing the oracle spoke through them and that the Pythia was merely their tool, but while they writhed, she escaped, taking the key with her. They would never have guessed that she even possessed such a thing because most believed the oracles were a hoax. Most were, she knew, but she, the last Pythia, held the true key.

So she ran, holding her gods and goddesses close to her heart, hoping for one last word, for a single sign from her once-protectors. Her ultimate haven was more journey than destination. The gods would find her in their final sanctuary.

“I must go there,” she had whispered to her boatmen after drawing a map in the sand.

“But, Pythia, we do not know this place,” the leader protested.

“I will guide you.” And she did, using the signs that had appeared long ago, signs sketched into the floor of the temple that no one but her had understood. After many days of hiding from the warships, clustering on beaches of distant shores, the tiny island finally came into view, the sharp peaks gouging the gray skies.

“Honored Pythia,” the man had cried, “what place is this? No one can survive here! Nothing but cliffs all about!”

“You will find a small beach on the other side where you will leave me. Take me there.”

They resisted, of course they did. “We will not abandon you!” the leader shouted, a chorus of others joining in, but she could see the fear in their faces when they trudged up the shale beach. A more forbidding place could not be devised by Hades himself.

“What is this place?” a woman asked.

“An ancient temple lies hidden at the mouth of the labyrinth,” she told them. “Do not be frightened for only I will enter the darkness. You will leave me there. Follow me.”

So they followed her up the scrabbled path, between the rocks and into the first cave, their torches burning acrid smoke into the darkness. The goat they had brought bleated in protest while the children cried one after the other. Then gasps of awe broke out as the flames picked out the shape of dancers painted on the walls.

“Behold,” Pythia called, turning, “this is the mark of our people, painted here by our ancestors thousands of years before. They lead us to the sacred temple of Artemis. There you will be safe until you find your new home.”

The corridor widened into a huge cavern with even more paintings, more dancers, and the golden image of the goddess Artemis running with her hounds. Her people surged towards the statue, bowing and crying in supplication, begging for her protection. Everywhere there were gold and precious objects lay scattered about, long-ago offerings their ancestors had left behind, enough to buy them food and clothing wherever they landed. Pythia turned her gaze to the tunnels opening up on all sides. She had not anticipated so many.

“Honored Pythia,” the leader cried, “you have delivered us to safety! We will hide here and sacrifice our goat to the goddess and you this night. We will feast in your honor!”

“Yes!” the others agreed, many still sobbing at the cella’s feet.

“Thank you,” Pythia whispered for her voice was hoarse from crying, “but I do not require a feast. Instead, I implore you to use the goat—” she pointed toward the bony animal held by a starving child as if it were a pet “—to feed your people one final meal. Apollo and Artemis wish you to feast in their name before you escape to your new home.” In truth, she had no idea what either deity wanted anymore but this was what she wanted. “As for me, I ask only that you leave me to walk alone into the labyrinth beyond while you escape in the morning for Delos. You will be welcomed there.”

He shook his head, aghast. “The labyrinth, honored Pythia? But…” His words faded as she pointed to the blackness yawning there.

“This is our last sanctuary. You must never speak of this place to man or god. It must die on your lips.”

The man bowed and the others followed. “As you wish.”

“There is no time to waste,” she continued. “Even now, ships hunt me down. They will arrive on these shores within days and kill the weakest and force the strongest into slavery.” There was no point in hiding the truth. “You must escape tomorrow at dawn, for if they find your boat, they will find me, and this sacred place, then all will be lost. Feast now. You will need your strength.” With that, she turned and walked past the statue of Artemis frozen in her headlong flight to forever, past her people with their weeping children and grief-stricken faces, straight toward the sixth tunnel moving east.

A woman rushed behind her holding a torch aloft. “You cannot go into the darkness without a light, Pythia,” she gasped. “There are monsters down there.”

Pythia turned and smiled. “The only monsters lie beyond these walls and they will not accompany me on this journey. Hold the torch for me only for the first few steps and then I shall continue alone.”

The woman nodded, hoisted her tattered robes in one hand and stepped into the tunnel behind Pythia, holding the torch as high as she could. Around them, the ancient dancers strode bravely on, the colors of their tunics still glowing in the light while her living people gathered at the tunnel’s mouth to watch.

“Can you hear the music?” Pythia asked after several steps.

“No, mistress.”

“Listen.”

The woman tried with all her might but the only sounds she heard were of a baby crying behind her and the endless bleating of the goat.

“Clap your hands and sing for me, my friends!” the Pythia called. “Do not let the monsters frighten you, for as long as you seek the light, they cannot harm you.”

She glanced up at the image of the priestess of long ago holding a torch above her head, the other arm pointing into the darkness. Yes, my sister, I understand.

Pythia beckoned for the woman to stay behind, then held the hem of her robe in one hand and stepped alone into the darkness.

CHAPTER 1

She ran with a white stag under a full silver moon. Her short white tunic, gold sash, and the quiver of arrows thrown over one shoulder pegged her to be Artemis, guardian of animals, queen of the hunt, and protector of young women. The small poster was definitely Art Nouveau in style with the tack holes in each dog-eared corner implying that it had once graced multiple walls. At that moment, it sat under a brochure featuring a ruined marble temple.

“What’s this?” I asked. “I mean, I know what it is just not why you’ve put it here.”

“I thought you needed a bit of inspiration for your Grecian vacation,” Zann replied as she lounged near one of our light tables in the lab. “I used to pin that pic onto my walls back in my university days. Thought it was so inspiring. Everywhere I went, it went with me. As an archaeology student, I thought of myself as the huntress of buried objects, kind of what you are now. You can take it with you along with the brochure, if you want.”

Zann Masters, the rogue archaeologist who I had extricated from a snake pit of trouble weeks before, hadn’t stopped causing our agency more of the same since our return to London. When she had announced in Italy over live TV that she was working for the agency (which she wasn’t) and that we were hunting down the master art thief and my former lover, Noel, (which we weren’t), that in itself should have been enough for me to slam the door. But we didn’t. Correction—I didn’t. I had promised to help untangle her legal woes and that’s what I did, which meant her presence remained a constant irritant in our lives for weeks too long. Thankfully, she’d be on her way to the United States to visit her father the next day and I’d be off on vacation.

Despite everything, I liked her, which explained why I’d requested that my colleagues put up with her while I worked on her behalf. And besides, most of the time she meant well, or that’s what I told myself.

I took a deep breath. “Thanks, Zann, but a vacation in the Greek isles is inspiration enough, don’t you think? It’s just a sailing holiday, so this brochure is not really relevant.”

“Not relevant? Are you kidding me? Brauronia is the site of one of the most important temples to Artemis in the ancient world, after Ephesus, that is. I mean, of the known temples. There are plenty of others around, too, but the most important one is yet to be discovered. Just thought you might be interested in a side excursion,” she said while pulling up a chair across from mine. As if seeking a lost temple was a day trip. “I mean, you’ll be so close, being in Greece, and Artemis is such a goddess powerhouse.”

I nodded. “Thanks, but this isn’t a working holiday, just a holiday.” Actually, I had an ulterior agenda of my own. I’d had a film away in my imagination where Evan joined me aboard this tall ship sailing across an impossibly blue sea. He’d proclaim his love to me and I to him all while violins played and we gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes. That alone was enough to activate my own inner goddess, powerhouse or not.

Okay, so I had booked in a bit of agency business in Athens on the side, but only a day’s worth so it didn’t count.

“Just so you know, I’ve worked on a few digs in Greece in my time and there’s this rumor going around of a hidden temple of Artemis buried on a Greek island somewhere.”

I studied her, taking in the freshly pressed striped shirt, the navy pants, the tweedy jacket. She had ditched the disheveled look from our Florentine traumas weeks earlier for something more tailored and preppy. She’d even sheared her hair short.

“When you were working for Baldi, you mean?” The topic of the now deceased arms dealer and his possible replacement, my ex, had finally subsided as everyone’s topic of choice around here. We had agreed that we were in the business of retrieving lost art and artifacts, not tracking down arms dealers, no matter how strong the emotional ties. For now, the matter had been laid to rest.

“Yeah, may he burn in hell. Anyway, my point is that I’ve excavated a few digs in Greek and Turkey so I know what I’m talking about. This belief in a lost temple is, like, everywhere. Imagine if we could find it?”

“We? Zann, please understand that you are not part of the agency so there is no ‘we.’” I’d lost count of the number of times I’d told her this in a variety of ways, from strident to gentle. “Plus we have no compelling reason to go off on a hunt for a lost temple. Lost temples aren’t our business.”

She leaned forward. “Listen up: I was in Greece poking around once and kept hearing the tale of an ancient temple that had been hidden in anticipation of an invasion, maybe back when Xerxes invaded Attica circa 480 BC or when of the other ancient hotshot conquerors decided to invade. All the archies have been looking for it for eons but can’t find it, but they didn’t have you, the lost-art sniffer dog, on the team.”

Why, oh, why had I coined that expression let alone voiced it aloud? “‘Archies’?” I inquired.

“Archaeologists. Just think of the possibilities!” Zann continued, her enthusiasm swelling. “Everybody thinks it’s a myth along the lines of when Troy was believed to be just a tale, that is until Schliemann proved them wrong.”

And destroyed an archaeological site while plundering ancient treasure. Given her history, I could see why Zann revered him. Passing back the picture and brochure, I smiled. “And I love a good myth as much as the next person, but right now I’d love a good vacation more.” My phone buzzed in my pocket. “Excuse me.”

I jumped up and headed for the toilet, which was about the only place I could escape Zann for a moment’s privacy. Leaning against the door, I pulled out my cell.

It was a text from Peaches: Are you and Ev still going on vacation together?

Me: That’s the plan. Why?

Peaches: Because I’m your bodyguard and your body shouldn’t be going anywhere without mine guarding it, obviously. But if Ev’s coming, I’ll let him take care of said body. He’ll do it in ways I won’t. Bet he’s good at it, too. Just sayin’.

Me: Glad you approve. Enjoy your own R&R. Got to get back to keep an eye on Zann before she rifles through my drawers. Catch you later.

When I emerged seconds later, it was to find Zann sitting at my desk accessing one of the stolen-art databases. “Think they’ll ever find that heisted Gardner Museum loot?” she asked without looking up.

“I have no idea. I keep hoping they’ll hire our agency to take on the case, but until then… Look, I have to talk to Max about something,” I said, heading for the elevator. “Coming?” Anything to get her away from our workstations.

“Sure."

Up in the main floor showroom, Max and Serena were studying the mid-sixteenth century Persian niche rug, our newest acquisition, now hanging in a prime location close to the front windows. The gallery was open by appointment only but we still had plenty of window shoppers drifting by.

“I believe I have a sale for this already,” Max said, catching sight of me. He shot Zann a curt nod before continuing. “In fact, most of our best pieces are now sold so I expect to be in full bidding mode at Sotheby’s next month.” Our rare textile and ethnographic artifact gallery really was booming, which served as the perfect front for my side of the operation, the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found. Max had washed his hands of that part and now concentrated on the gallery.

“Great,” I said, admiring my godfather’s handsome physique that proved that the image of the declining seventy-five-year-old belonged to another generation. “Will you two be fine holding down the fort by yourselves while everyone’s gone?” Of course they would. That was more for Zann’s benefit in case she felt compelled to volunteer her services again.

Max grinned, dapper as ever in his silk waistcoat and jeans, his thick silver hair gleaming in the halogen lights. “Naturally, darlin’. Rena and I will have a grand old time, won’t we, Reni?” He put an arm around the diminutive Serena and drew her near, a gesture that plucked at my heartstrings, romanticist that I was. Love at any age was such a thrill.

Serena, affectionally known as “Rena,” beamed, the picture of a woman who had at last obtained her heart’s desire after a long spell of longing. Now that she and Max were an item, it’s as though nothing could wipe away her glow. Even the colors in her kimonos had grown more vibrant. “We will keep the fort going, Phoebe. No need to worry. You enjoy your vacation and forget all about work.”

That was the plan. The agency calls were being routed to Rupert, currently renovating his ancestral pile in the country while Evan was away attending a museum opening on our behalf in Berlin. With Peaches visiting family in Jamaica, the agency was taking a bit of a hiatus, which we all badly needed and justly deserved.

“Well, I’ll just be off now,” Zann announced, gazing at each of us in turn as if hoping someone would implore her to stay. No one did. “I might catch you later, then. My plane leaves tomorrow afternoon,” she added.

“Have a very good flight,” Serena said. “I will walk you to the door.”

“Don’t hurry back,” Max called.

Linking Zann’s arm with hers, she steered the woman toward the front, chatting away about long plane rides and the weather.

“Bye, Phoebe,” Zann called over her shoulder. “Remember what I told you.”

Once Zann had been dispatched, Serena returned to cast a disapproving gaze at Max. “You were not kind.”

Max looked up from where he had been checking off the carpets he planned to bid on from a catalog, me peering over his shoulder. “But I wasn’t unkind, either. I just didn’t want that one to keep making herself at home around here. She’s always underfoot, asking questions, pestering the bejesus out of everyone, especially Phoebe here.”

“She is very curious,” Serena said. “She asks intelligent questions. I like her.”

“Me, too,” I added quickly. “She’s a trained archaeologist with an inquiring mind.”

“And an irritating disposition,” Max countered. “She’s poking her nose into everything and seems obsessed with you.”

“Perhaps she has—what do they call it?—a ‘girl crush,’” Rena suggested.

Max grumbled, nudging me as he circled a particularly stellar Persian rug in the catalog. I nodded my agreement with his choice. “Anyway, I was tolerant for a while, seeing as she’d once known Noel, but that soon wore thin since she couldn’t say a good thing about him. Where does she get off calling my son a crook and thieving scumbag when she’s hardly unblemished herself? One way or the other, I’m glad she’s gone.”

I was desperately hoping that Noel’s name wouldn’t come up but I should have known better. Now that Max realized that his son was still alive, relations between us had improved significantly. I could no longer be accused of killing him. Still, it wouldn’t take much for tensions to erupt again, especially since I didn’t share my godfather’s relief in my ex’s continued existence. Besides, I had a few names for him of my own.

I will not engage, I told myself. Walk away. “Right, well, time to finish packing. I love your carpet choices, Max,” I said, heading for the elevator and to my top-floor flat. “Catch you later.”

I hadn't made it to the doors before noticing the brochure and Artemis picture sitting on one of our display tables.

* * *

Athens hit me in unexpected ways. The Acropolis perched on its ancient rock gleaming white marble in the sunshine dominated the city just as I had imagined, but the graffiti on the urban walls glimpsed in passing hit me as jarringly modern. But that was misguided thinking, right? If Greece was the undisputed birthplace of democracy, why shouldn’t the current citizens express themselves in bold spray-paint? Everyone had plenty to complain about these days.

But the Acropolis was once home of the gods, the largest known conglomeration of temples to the ancient Grecian polytheism with the namesake Athena, queen of the mount. That deserved a measure of respect across the millennia, so I fervently hoped I’d never see the day when modern graffiti sprawled across ancient ruins.

Dr. Nickolas Christpodoulopoulo, a new employee of the esteemed Acropolis Museum, was to meet me in the lobby. Based on a bit of preliminary research that included museum staff lists, I knew that he had been hired exactly two months prior. I figured that if a junior historian had been assigned as my welcoming committee it was probably because I was not considered high enough up on the VIP ladder to warrant being greeted by a top dog. That suited me. Top dogs often needed their egos groomed and I wanted this process executed as simply as possible so I could get on with my vacation. Besides, it wasn’t like I was repatriating the Elgin Marbles.

All I needed was to officially sign over the helmeted head of Athena, which had been gazing at me from my shelf for the best part of a year. We had shipped her over weeks before and my role was to formalize the repatriation process with a signature and be done.

But I was going to miss her. Sometimes the marble eyes of the goddess of wisdom seemed to either caution or chastise me, usually the latter. I had often warned myself to approach difficult situations with wisdom…and often failed. Whatever the case, the absence of Athena’s head would leave a gap on my headquarters shelf.

At first, we didn’t know exactly where our disembodied Athena belonged. Greece had thousands of Athena bits floating around, remnants of an ancient empire that had spread across the Mediterranean and beyond when warring civilizations had been bent on decapitating its splendor. And yet the Acropolis Museum was the only facility willing to bring this one home.

“Phoebe McCabe, this is a great honor.” I looked up from where I had been gazing down through the glass floor at the museum’s archaeological dig to see a young dark-haired man approaching from across the foyer of the impressive modern space. Attractive in a boyish way with short curly hair and a neatly trimmed beard framing a round face, I liked him immediately. A few inches taller than I and probably several years younger, dressed in a suit jacket with a tieless shirt and big grin, Dr. Christpodoulopoulo shook my hand with unabashed enthusiasm.

“I’m excited to be here, Dr. Christpodoulopoulo.” I had even taken the time to practice pronouncing his name with the help of a Greek restaurant owner in London. “Thanks for accepting my homeless goddess. I was surprised at how hard it was to find her a place. The last thing we wanted was for a deity of wisdom to end up decorating somebody’s living room or to remain stuck on a shelf somewhere. Imagine the ignominy?” My gaze shifted to his neck. He wore an amulet that looked for all the world to be an ancient talisman of some kind.

“Perish the thought,” Dr. Christpodoulopoulo exclaimed, clutching his heart and gazing upward like an actor seeking his stage. His ancient countrymen would have approved. “And call me Nick. I only inflict my full name on arrogant foreigners, which you are not.” He grinned, dipped a tiny bow, and lifted his head to hold my gaze seconds longer than necessary. “By the way, I have witnessed a third century Hellenic bust acting as a pedestal for a coffee table in a holiday home once. Almost brought me to tears. But tell me, Phoebe, how could Athens refuse to grant Athena residence in her namesake city?”

“Yes, how could you?” Okay, so Nick had dramatic flair but I loved that enthusiasm. Give me flair over dry scholarship any day.

We laughed as he led the way down the light-filled hall lined with marble statuary and friezes toward a group of figures bathed in light. A majestic headless robed female figure stood surrounded by a posse of supplicants, one hand bearing a spear, the other a shield with Medusa’s head incised on its surface. I stared. “Do you mean that this may be her missing body?”

“If not, it’s close enough to make a perfect fit. The lab is currently assessing the piece further but it does appear to be of the same period and marble source. At one time, she would have been painted and her accessories gilded in pure gold, as you probably know. Time does bring one down a peg, doesn’t it, Phoebe?”

“Yes, it does, Nick,” I whispered, gazing up at the exquisite form, the folds of her marble robe draping the goddess in the dignity she deserved.

“Would you sign the papers, please?”

I took the metal clipboard and briefly scanned the document that acknowledged that my bust—accurately described and accompanied by a photo insert—was hereby officially repatriated to the Acropolis Museum on behalf of the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found. I signed in the space provided and passed the clipboard back.

“Thank you. The question is how did our goddess’s head wander so far away from home?” Nick asked, his accent faint but pleasing.

As if I was going to mention my brother and ex’s art-heisting ways here. For the next two weeks, I’d banned them from my lips. “I have no idea. If only Athena could talk.”

We chatted all the way through the museum and up the steady incline toward the Acropolis itself where I was given a private tour that almost left me mute with wonder. To stand below the Parthenon and gaze up at the glory of the ancient world was such a thrill. To think that thousands of years ago some of the greatest names of ancient philosophy and science had trod those very steps.

“How much of their knowledge had been lost while our civilization presumably advances?” I remarked while gazing up at the monumental ruin.

Nick turned to me with quickening interest. “How much indeed? I often ask myself the same thing as I seek esoteric knowledge that the modern world with its narrow definition of science would consider irrelevant or even fantastical.”

I nodded. “The Greek legacy has given us so much—the foundation for mathematics, science, drama, architecture, and art, to name but a smidgeon—but what’s been lost along the way? What are we still missing? It’s like the further the modern world advances, the more we leave a profound understanding of ancient knowledge far behind. We don’t know what we don’t know.” As a favorite topic of mine, I relished the opportunity to expound.

“My belief exactly,” he said, one hand resting on his heart. “We are indeed kindred spirits, Phoebe, which does not surprise me in the least.”

Kindred spirits? Perhaps. Nick certainly was an amusing and knowledgeable companion, a combination which I enjoyed, and we were hitting it off splendidly. He led me across the remains of the temple complex, weaving around the tour groups with their guides explaining the history in several languages. After admiring all the temples, we ended up taking a breather in front of the sanctuary of Artemis, now no more than a few broken columns and a collection of monumental rubble.

Sitting on a rock before the temple, breathing in the amazing ruin scape all around, I just had to ask: “So, is it true that there may be an intact temple of Artemis buried in Greece somewhere?”

Nick smiled and it occurred to me that he really was very attractive in a boyish way, not as attractive as a certain other but a close fifth. “So they say, Phoebe, but the scientific community asks how can that be? Temples were built aboveground. How can one hide something that large beneath the surface? Meanwhile, I say that anything is possible if we just look with our whole being instead of with just the intellect. The Greeks were a complex and advanced civilization. Why not bury a secret temple belowground? The Romans, who absorbed so much of the essence of ancient Greece, had secret underground temples.”

“Are you referring to the Roman cult of Mithras?”

“As one example, yes. The Mithras sanctuaries are probably the best known underground sanctuaries, but who says that there weren’t others just because we don’t recognize them as such? Most Grecian deities had many cults with differing practices of worship.” He was staring at me intently. “Is this the real reason why you have come to Greece, to locate a hidden temple of Artemis?”

Now that was an odd question. “I’m here on vacation and to do a bit of agency work on the side, which I just completed, by the way. I’m certainly not on the hunt for a lost temple or treasure. Lost temples are a bit out of my league.”

“Nothing is out of your league from what I understand, Phoebe, and here you are in a veritable playground of ancient buried treasure—art, artifacts, temples. Phoebe, consider this: throughout the ancient world countless rumored sites have vanished. To me that says that they only await the right alignment of the stars to locate and require a different kind of tool other than those used by historians and archaeologists to find.”

That struck me as an odd comment coming from a historian. I also noted how he seemed to say my name at every opportunity while holding my gaze seconds too long. Disconcerting but soon forgotten when gazing around at this ancient panorama.

“Did you know that the name ‘Phoebe’ originates from ancient Greece and is the feminine form of Phoebus from Apollo meaning ‘bright’?” he asked. “In Greek mythology, Phoebe was associated with the power of prophecy and the moon. As sister to Apollo, god of the sun, she was originally a Titan, a goddess among gods.”

I smiled. This was getting weird. “I did know that but I admit to having forgotten much of it.”

“And here you have come to Greece bearing the head of a goddess. Perhaps you are part of an ancient prophecy?” He spoke lightly and yet I sensed tension behind his words.

“Right!” I laughed, deciding to take this as a joke. “I’ve just blown in on Apollo’s chariot to do a moon dance in his honor!”

“Exactly!”

Sometimes I can be so dense.

Along the way, I learned that Nick had grown up in Athens and in various island holiday homes scattered across Greece. His father had been very well-off but they had disagreed over an important point when Nick was a teenager and hadn’t spoken since.

“Seriously?” I exclaimed. “That must have been quite an argument.”

“It was,” he acknowledged, his expression grim. “When a line is drawn, a man must decide whether to cross it and succumb to that which he vehemently disagrees or to go forward to live his truth. I chose the latter. My father disowned me and I him.”

“Wow.” Wouldn’t I love to know what line was crossed there, but I sensed it was deeply painful so decided not to prod. “And your mother?”

“A wonderful woman but now, sadly, passed.”

I gave his arm a squeeze. “We are both adult orphans, it seems. My parents are long gone, too.”

So, it happened that after the tour, Nick invited me to supper and I accepted because that’s what I thought official museum visitors did. Not having much experience in the dignitary department, and not being much of a dignitary, anyway, I thought that it would be rude not to accept. That’s how I came to be sitting across from Nick sipping wine and devouring the best calamari I had ever tasted in a candlelit restaurant that framed the spotlit Acropolis in near three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views.

“So, Phoebe, I understand that you have amazing proclivities for locating lost or stolen art and artifacts,” he said while gazing at me with a smile.

“Me?” I swallowed a bit of calamari followed by a sip of wine. “I don’t know where that rumor came from. I’ve had extraordinary luck, that’s all, not to mention expert help, and an ability to put the pieces together. I’m a dot-connector extraordinaire. No mystery there.”

Nick’s smile widened. “Perhaps you are too modest, Phoebe, and I object to your terminology—dot-connector? Never! That’s too prosaic a term for your abilities. I see before me a woman of extraordinary talents, one who can find objects the world believes lost. You possess a rare gift, an ability the ancient Greeks used to revere in their oracles and champion accordingly.”

I gulped back my last bite. What had I waded into? “Seriously?”

“As a seeker of anything lost or hidden, you would indeed be considered a daughter of Artemis.”

I stifled a laugh. “How extraordinary—me a child of Artemis. How about a ‘lost-art sniffer dog’ instead? Brings it more down to earth, don’t you think?”

But Nick was honing in on the topic I began to believe had been the ultimate point of the entire evening. “Have you ever heard of the Artemis Key, Phoebe?”

“No,” I said, wondering how I could escape before the main course arrived.

“Think of it as the ancient Greek’s version of the sacred chalice, or the Philosopher’s Stone, or even the Ark of the Covenant. Nearly every civilization, religion, or belief has some kind of sacred object that its believers are encouraged to seek to achieve enlightenment. The ancients believed that the Oracle of Delphi once possessed the Artemis Key, and when faced with invading forces, the last Pythia buried it in a secret temple of Artemis to keep it safe. It has yet to be found. I believe that you are meant to find it, Phoebe.”

Oh, hell. “Only I’m not a believer so am hardly a likely candidate to go after this probably mythical object or the temple it’s supposedly buried in.” Frankly, I was growing annoyed. “What is the Artemis Key, anyway? Is it an actual key?”

“No one knows but it does exist, I can feel it in my heart. And your arrival in Greece can hardly be a coincidence: a woman named Phoebe, named after a Titan, arrives in Athens to return the head of Athena missing for thousands of years. Admit it, it sounds mythic.”

Crud. “That doesn’t mean that every seemingly synchronous event is significant. Besides, the only thing important to me now is to relax and enjoy the start of my vacation.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve annoyed you. Forgive me. We’ll change the topic.” He smiled and nodded, one hand inching across the damask tablecloth toward mine. “So, tell me, Phoebe, where are you off to next?”

I snatched my hand away long enough to dip a wedge of bread into the lemon-and-rosemary-infused olive oil, taking such a big bite that I couldn't respond at first.

“I’d be delighted to take you around,” he continued. “Tomorrow being Saturday and with the entire weekend at our feet, I could show you the wonders of the ancient world, take you for a drive to Cape Sounion, visit the Aegina, tour the venerable Corinth.”

His eyes were luminous in the candlelight as if he was suffused with some kind of inner glow. I was beginning to realize that wine mingled with the setting had slipped our relations far too south of warm. It had been so long since a man had hit on me—well, technically only weeks ago but under much different circumstances—that I had failed to recognize the signs earlier.

I swallowed quickly. “That would be lovely, thank you, but tomorrow I take a flight to Santorini for an overnight stay before catching a high-speed ferry for Mykonos where I hop a tall ship to sail around a few islands. I realize that means going backward since Santorini is after Mykonos but the ship didn’t drop anchor at Santorini and I wanted to see that, too.”

“Which ship?”

“The Sylvan Seas,” I replied without thinking. “It’s one of those modern clipper ships that I hope will recharge my old sailing fever. It only has twenty-five cabins so is very exclusive. It actually spends the first week traveling in a big circle and barely sails more than thirty kilometers a day with a focus on archaeological sites. It’s perfect!” I’d booked a cabin with a bed plus a pullout couch in the lounge portion, my splurge of the decade. “This is the start of my vacation and I plan to meet up with my boyfriend along the way.”

I didn’t technically have a boyfriend but how else was I supposed to frame this—tell him that I hoped the trip would make the man my boyfriend? “I’ve been longing for a real vacation for so long and what could be better than two weeks sailing the Greek isles?” I was in full babble mode. “I had planned to rent a sailboat on my own but decided that true relaxation was to let someone else do the work while I just sit on deck and read or knit.” Yes, I was a woman backpedaling her way out of a predicament by tossing out superficial banalities—not my finest hour.

“You have a boyfriend,” he said, not hiding his disappointment. “I hadn’t heard.”

“Why would you have?”

He didn’t have an answer for that so I filled in the awkward spaces by rambling on about absolutely nothing until dessert was delivered and the evening officially wound down.

Later, Nick had recovered admirably and walked me back to my hotel with apparently no hard feelings. “You can’t blame a man for trying,” he remarked while giving me a hug goodbye. He smelled of some delicious spicy aftershave, something like rosemary mixed with lemon. For a moment, I had the ridiculous notion that he’d dosed himself with marinade.

“Do you believe in fate, Phoebe?” he called as I strode up the path to my hotel.

I turned. “Yes and no,” I replied before calling goodnight and dashing for the door.

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in my hotel room chastising myself for stupidity above and beyond the call of ridiculous. I was so busy reviewing where I had gone wrong that I almost missed Peaches’s text, which popped up on my phone seconds before I engaged the intruder app.

Peaches: Where is Evan?

I thumbed in my reply: In Berlin opening the new room of the Zentrum, why?

Peaches: No, he isn’t. Have you checked lately?

Me: I’m not into stalking him, remember? I’ll leave the mother hen thing to you. The last time he messaged me, Berlin was his location.

Peaches: Check the group map. He appears to have left the planet.

I quickly opened our agency global GPS positioning app on my super phone and scanned the green dots. Rupert’s was centered in Wiltshire, Peaches’s in Jamaica, mine in Greece, Nicolina and Seraphina’s on the Amalfi Coast, and Evan’s was….nowhere. Alarm pinged. There’s only three ways that Evan’s signal would go dark: either he had lost his phone (highly unlikely), he had left the planet (even more unlikely), or he had deliberately taken himself off the tracking grid. Possible.

Me: Why would he shield his signal?

Peaches: Didn’t want us to know what he was up to, obviously. I thought you were going to invite him along on your vacation for a romantic interlude?

Me: I’m waiting until Santorini before extending the invitation. I didn’t want to sound too eager.

Peaches: And then what? The guy’s supposed to just drop everything and come running to your side like a lovesick puppy?

Me: Exactly.

In my defense, he had pledged his undying devotion, but when I said that I needed more time, he had responded by remaining out of my orbit for weeks—in fact, since we returned from Florence. I assumed my request was the reason for his absence.

Peaches: When did you last hear from him?

Me: Two days ago. He had just arrived in Berlin. When I didn’t hear anything further, I figured he’d become busy. But now that I thought about it, that wasn’t like Evan. I added: Going to text him now. Check with you tomorrow.

Evan usually responded to my texts within minutes, sometimes seconds. I typed: Evan, sitting here in Athens thinking of you. Where are you?

Nearly an hour passed with me staring at a blank screen before I finally dragged myself off to sleep.

CHAPTER 2

When Evan still hadn’t responded by the next morning, I texted Rupert. Those two seemed inexplicably joined at the hip and I figured he could provide some answers.

Rupert: Phoebe, the lad doesn’t inform me of his whereabouts every second of every day. I understood that he was on Interpol business, the details of which I’d rather not know seeing as I am involved in the tiresome matter of completely gutting my baronial hall and, therefore, not on the job, so to speak. The rain last spring wreaked havoc on the old timbers and one of the chimneys in the east wing crumbles as I writhe—write. Blast this autocorrect! I must get the brickwork shored up before winter descends. Alarming business seeing one’s roof disintegrating before one’s very eyes.

Ask Rupert a simple question… I interrupted what I feared might become another windy text by phoning him.

“Good morning, Phoebe. What a surprise,” came his droll greeting. “Aren’t you on vacation?”

“I am, but, Rupert, Evan has taken himself off-grid and is not responding to either phone call, text, or email, which is so unlike him. I can’t help but be alarmed.”

“Alarmed by what exactly, Phoebe? Is this an emergency?”

His question stopped me short. What was I doing? “I’m worried, that’s all.”

“Worried about a man trained to be an undercover operative who currently does odd jobs for Interpol? That sounds very peculiar indeed. Fear not, Phoebe. The lad will reenter our orbit once the time is right. In the meantime, he is obviously at work on a sensitive matter not formally an agency concern and therefore not ours. Now do run along and enjoy your vacation. I will forward a mock-up for my proposed agency badge the moment it settles down around here. I still favor the Medusa image. It holds a certain gravitas. Do catch some sun and enjoy the Greek isles for me in the meantime. I wouldn’t be averse to a tan line myself about now.”

After we’d hung up, I stood baffled. Why was I so keen on knowing Evan’s whereabouts? Looking out over Athens through my hotel window, I reminded myself that being involved with someone romantically did not mean becoming controlling or needy, two things I despised in others and even more so in myself. That man had become my emotional Achilles’ heel.

I vowed not to check the group map again unless it was absolutely necessary. I guessed I was doing this trip solo, which is all that I deserved considering that I hadn’t properly invited the man—another sign of my continued ambiguity. Meanwhile, it was time to practice being on vacation. Obviously, I was no good at it.

The flight from Athens to Santorini took fifty-five minutes, almost an hour of gazing down at the impossibly blue Aegean Sea and dreaming of sailing across the waves and putting heists, gangs, guns, and violence far from my personal shoreline. History and art, however, remained very much in my viewfinder.

I had chosen Santorini as my first stop because the pictures of the caldera encircled by the stony volcanic outcrop had always struck me as so extraordinary. I had been disappointed when the Sylvan Seas did not include the port in their itinerary so I decided to spend one night there. The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history, powerful enough to collapse the Minoan civilization about 3,600 years prior and the island still held remnants of the largest Minoan site outside of Crete.

That was my main destination—Akrotiri—after I had booked into my luxury room, that is. The site of the Cycladic Bronze Age settlement had been on my bucket list forever. Forget that view looking down on the caldera’s circle of intense blue; forget the glimpses of the sapphire-hued domed churches amid the whitewashed buildings; forget the infinity pool, too. No matter how stunning the backdrop or the amenities, I could never stray from history or art for long.

The fact that the site may also have been the location of Plato’s Atlantis was a bonus. I booked into my room and changed into capri pants, a loose T-shirt, and stopped by the gift shop to purchase a straw hat and grab a tube of sunblock. Looking totally unlike my usual self, I set off for the day.

Minutes later, I was strolling the white cobbled streets that climbed the side of the caldera cliffs heading toward the bus stop. The sunshine smiled overhead, the streets brimmed with day visitors from the cruise ships, and I could see why Greece just might be the land of the goddesses.

Somewhere after the second pause to take in the view and the next stop at a little boutique to purchase a bracelet I didn’t need and would probably never wear again, I hit the vacation zone. All my worries dried up in the late-October warmth. Two hours of roaming the archaeological site at Akrotiri, studying the frescoes, some with evidence of weaving, and gazing at the almost lyrical design elements of the Minoan civilization, the modern world slipped away entirely.

The massive excavation site, which consisted of streets and partial houses under a roofed enclosure, was totally absorbing. I ate lunch in a kind of relaxed haze and caught the bus back to the town in the same state of mind. Sleep came quickly that night after a quick supper in a little restaurant a few doors down from the hotel.

Even my internal stalker alert had relaxed, which explained why it wasn’t until I was on the ferry to Mykonos the next day that I confirmed that I was being followed. I didn't expect stalkers while on vacation, not that I ever went on vacation. In London I was used to it, in Italy, too, but not on this holiday island populated by leisure travelers with fanny packs. Still, I had trained myself to notice things even on an unconscious level.

On Santorini, I thought I might be imagining things. In a busy port town where tourists climbed up and around well-trod paths on a regular basis, it wasn’t uncommon to bump into the same person over and over again, especially on narrow paths.

That guy with the shorts, sunglasses, T-shirt, and the cross-body man bag who always seemed to be taking phone pics nearby was a case in point. He cut such an ordinary figure that he instantly blended into the background while hanging out with a clutch of cruisers and sporting the same lanyard as the rest. That he appeared in Akrotiri wasn’t such a shock, either, since the site was on the day trip route for the cruise ships, but his lack of distinguishing features raised a flag. Most people want to be individuals as well as part of a pack. This one seemed to want to disappear. There were probably other indicators communicating to me below the surface, too. Call it instinct.

When I spotted him on the ferry to Mykonos the next day, I took his presence seriously. The guy had changed his broad sunhat for a straw fedora and now wore a windbreaker and yet I recognized the shape of his body, the way he stood partially hunched over while always looking off into the distance. He was stalking me. I pretended not to notice while plotting a trap. By this time, I wasn’t concerned so much as annoyed, very annoyed.

My time on Mykonos may have been brief but I was too irked to let that stop me. After I dropped off my luggage and registered at the Sylvan Seas office, I took off for an hour of exploration through the town. Boarding the clipper didn’t begin for another hour so I had time to spare.

Mykonos hugged the harbor with vacation properties and restaurants set against a dry, rocky backdrop. Under ordinary circumstances I might be wooed by the many old blue-dome churches or the famous windmills seen in the distance, but the town’s reported party atmosphere was not my scene. Apparently it rocked after-hours so I vowed not to spend a single night there and had planned my itinerary accordingly. I knew that the famed archaeological site of Delos lay not more than a twenty-minute boat ride away but that was on the Sylvan Seas itinerary so I was good to wait for that. Instead, I’d make a quick pass through the town, trap a stalker, and board my ship in that order.

Mykonos made it easy. Though the town still swelled with day-trippers and visitors even this late in the season, parts of the brilliantly whitewashed streets overhung with punchy magenta bougainvillea offered pockets of brief solitude. All I had to do was turn a corner and in minutes I’d be alone, which offered the perfect opportunity to enact my plan.

While I stood angling my phone pretending to get a selfie shot, the stalker appeared behind me right on cue looking as though he was admiring the little step-roofed church at the end of the lane. I set my phone’s stun app on mild, turned as if taking a selfie shot, and zapped him between the shoulder blades. He stumbled against a building and slid to sitting, back against the wall, bony legs splayed.

In seconds, I was kneeling before him. “Who the hell are you and why are you following me?” I demanded. “Tell me or I’ll zap you again, only this time with a charge strong enough to pop out your eyeballs.” I loved sounding tough.

He mumbled, fixing me with a slack-mouthed stare as his fedora rolled to the pavers. Early forties, darkly tanned complexion, regular features, thin straight hair combed over a balding head. While he gaped, I pulled his wallet from his pocket and checked his identification: George G. Baros with an address in Athens. I stuffed his wallet back into his pocket and slapped his face. “Who are you working for, bozo? Tell me.”

But the man couldn’t yet speak…yet. Damn it. I had to tell Evan to work up a lighter charge on the sliding stun spectrum. I’d used a mild zap and it still was too debilitating.

At that moment a family of five entered the lane—parents and three kids. “Is everything all right?” the man said with a British accent, striding toward us in a take-charge attitude. I knew the type: they loved nothing better than to take control of any situation. The world kept ticking along thanks to these guys.

“No,” I exclaimed, acting flustered. “I think this man had a heart attack. I was just walking along and he collapsed.”

“Is he your husband?” the man asked while checking the guy’s pulse. Mrs. Samaritan gave me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.

“Never seen him before. He was just standing there taking pictures and then fell over! Think he’s okay? Could you wait with him while I get help?”

“Of course,” Mr. Samaritan assured me while offering George a sip of water from an extra bottle in his knapsack.

And so I left my dazed stalker in their care and retreated down the lane to enter the nearest taverna. “Quick! Call an ambulance. A man collapsed up the street. It could be a heart attack!”

That prompted a flurry of activity—a phone call, a man running out with me while I pointed him in the right direction, and in the midst of all the commotion, I disappeared into the crowd. Soon I was on my way to the harbor to board a skiff to the clipper Sylvan Seas, which cut a stunning picture moored in the harbor.

With pleasure I watched as my tender approached the magnificent tall ship, which held steady with its five stately masts, imagining it in full sail with those white wings swelling with sea breezes. Not only luxurious, it promised the ideal way to cruise the Greek isles as the itinerary included many archaeological sites, talks by an expert, an optional diving trip, and plenty of romantic possibilities with (still hopefully) the companion of my choice. For me, this was the ultimate luxury. If one must go on vacation, it may as well be in style.

The captain was there to greet me, standing by a little registration desk where a woman took my passport, proof of Covid vaccinations, and handed me brochures, maps, itineraries, and menus. Captain Giannis Adamos was a sturdily built, deeply suntanned man with neatly trimmed graying hair who I estimated to be in his mid-sixties. He insisted that being in charge of the Sylvan Seas was a dream come true for one who had once captained the big cruise ships.

“I know these islands like the back of my hand,” he insisted, and I believed him. He chatted with me all the way to my cabin, telling me that a crew of thirty manned the clipper with an additional eighty staff assigned to various guest services. I did the math: that meant nearly six crew per passenger.

The map and schematic of the Sylvan Seas outlined a massive five-masted ship sectioned into the top deck designed for promenading, lounging, and dining with a partially glassed-in dining area on the main deck. The level below featured guest services that included the largest dining area, another lounge, massage rooms, a games room, and a library, among other features. Guest staterooms and cabins were spread at the back half of the ship on all three upper decks with the launch deck on the fourth level along with the crew quarters below that.

At the door of my stateroom, Captain Adamos introduced me to my room valet, Artino Andino, who I was to call by his first name. Artino was to be my personal butler, I was told, and had already provided a steamed towel for me to refresh myself with as well as an iced lime cocktail. All I had to do was call, Artino assured me, and he’d be there tending to my every comfort. I started with a pot of tea, plenty of bottles of cold water, and another one of those cocktails. So far, I believed this would be the ultimate escape with or without male company.

An hour later, I was nestled in my deluxe suite with its balcony facing away from the island, enjoying a cup of tea while knitting the first row of what I’d decided to name my Salty Rose wrap. Azure blue, white and touches of coral pink would be my colors for this one and luckily I’d packed just those yarns with the intention of making a gift for somebody, recipient as yet undecided.

Between periodic sips of tea, I savored the cocktail, hoping to dilute the alcohol with medicinal oolong, or at least that was the theory. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but feel self-congratulatory for disabling this George Baros character even though that brought me no closer to understanding why he was shadowing me in the first place. At least he couldn’t follow me on board this exclusive yachting experience that would become my home for twelve days.

After scanning the cabin for surveillance devices and finding none, I felt as though I had battened down the proverbial hatches and all I need do from here on in was to enjoy myself.

With my feet propped on my balcony railing, I was finally relaxed, gazing out at the boats and cruisers plying the waves in Mykonos Harbor. By suppertime at 7:30, the ship would be sailing into what could only be imagined as a glorious sunset every bit as magnificent as those the ancient mariners had experienced centuries before. I’d even brought a copy of Homer’s Ulysses in case I needed a setting enhancer. One way or another, I was feeling amazingly content. So this was a vacation? Why hadn’t I tried one sooner?

My phone buzzed on the cabin table behind me where it lay charging. Should I answer it or should I not? I considered ignoring it but conditioning ruled. I put aside my knitting and stepped back into the cabin to stare at the screen.

Evan: Hello, Phoebe. Who did you stun in Mykonos at 4:46 this afternoon?

For a moment I was thrilled to hear from him. That lasted seconds. Picking up the phone, I thumbed in a response. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to contact you.

Evan: I’ve been offline for a while. Why are you in Greece by yourself?

The question was irksome. Me: I’m on vacation. I did mention that I’d planned to take a couple of weeks off.

Evan: I remember, but alone?

Me: Alone unless you have a better idea…

Evan: Why isn’t Peaches with you?

That wasn’t the better idea I’d been considering. Me: Why don’t you join me?

A long pause…I counted the seconds. Fifteen, in case you’re wondering.

Evan: As much as I’d love to, I’ll be tied up for a while longer.

Me: Tied up with what? Or whom, I thought.

Evan: Meanwhile, you shouldn’t be anywhere by yourself, Phoebe. I thought we’d made that point clear. Especially now. You need a bodyguard. Call Peaches immediately or I’ll do it for you.

Try telling me that you can’t pick up on tone in a text. So I picked up on a tone that set my teeth on edge.

Me: Peaches is visiting her family in Jamaica, as you know since you can see all of us on the grid. How did you manage to go offline while the rest of us can’t? And at no time do I recall anyone saying that I require a bodyguard 24/7. Why now? And don’t give me orders.

Actually, I knew I needed a bodyguard. It’s just that I expected it to be him. Yes, poor planning.

Evan: You need protection 24/7 because of who you are and what you can do. You’re famous, Phoebe, and if you used the stun app you already have proof.

That didn’t lessen my irritation. I had expected him to join me, in which case I wouldn’t be alone, would I? As it was, I’d just have to take care of myself.

Me: Signing off now. I have a sunset welcome dinner to enjoy. Too bad you can’t join me.

Evan: I’ll call you as soon as I am able.

Me: I’m putting on Do Not Disturb.

I turned on the feature and headed for the shower, steamed before I even hit the water. Why was he being evasive? Why had I even let myself care? Wasn’t this exactly the kind of emotional entanglement I’d been trying to avoid? Yes, I was overreacting but that’s what happens too easily between men and women when emotion is involved. It’s why I had sworn off male/female entanglements for so long.

An hour later, fluffed, refreshed, and wearing a silk skirt and a full poet-style blouse with my new leather and copper bracelet, I swept into the long dining room feeling a bit like I was on board a floating Orient Express—only without the handsome suitor awaiting my arrival.

The decor had that turn-of-the-century grandeur while hinting at a thousand years of sailing history. Deep blue carpets, brass brightwork gleaming, round tables draped in snowy linen on either side of a grand wrought-iron stairway, reproduction frescoes adorning every wall. Several mariner antiques had been mounted here and there including a massive brass steering wheel that must have come off an original clipper. The decor was extraordinary and a nod to the sailing past while also capturing every modern amenity. True luxury surrounded me and now I needed to work extra hard to feel joy in any of it.

Because I was sailing solo and realized that was probably going to be a permanent state for this vacation. Blame the imaginary streaming movie I’d been replaying in my head but that’s not how I had envisioned this trip. My exchange with Evan had sucked the wind from my sails.

I had booked all of my dinner reservations in advance, each of them changeable with twenty-four hours’ notice. The private nook tucked behind a potted palm positioned by porthole windows was unnecessary now that I was alone. The romantic ambience was painfully inappropriate. Next time, maybe I’d join in a couple of group dining experiences in order to meet new friends or grab a buffet on the top deck to take in sunset dining at its best. In other words, only two days into my vacation and already I was lonely. It would be just me, Homer, and my knitting, after all.

Of course, I didn’t blame Evan for making other plans, considering that I had failed to inform him of mine. I was more annoyed by his secrecy, not that that made any more sense. In fact, my roiling feelings made no sense, period, which just made me angrier.

Looking around, I noted that ten of the approximately twenty tables had diners, including couples and groups of four or six. There was much clinking of glasses, laughter, and conversations in progress. One older couple held hands across their cozy little table. A young couple appeared to be either on their honeymoon or deep in the flush of new romance, leaving me feeling lonelier by the minute. Apparently there were twenty-three passengers listed and I’d never felt more alone in my life.

The maître d’ sat me at my table for two and passed me the wine list saying that my server would be along shortly. I stared across at the sparkling silver and glassware toward the empty chair across from mine. I had neglected to say that no one would be joining me. Now I was doubly irked, unreasonably for sure, but that didn’t change my mood.

Still, if I thought I was annoyed before, it paled in comparison to the moment when Nick Christpodoulopoulo slid into the empty chair across from mine and beamed across the table at me.

CHAPTER 3

“You followed me?” I half rose from my seat.

“Phoebe, let me explain,” he began.

“Make it quick.”

He was wearing a crisp white tux with a natty little bow tie, hair neatly combed back, every inch of him groomed to the last speck. “I’m convinced that you arrived in Greece for a greater purpose other than to simply enjoy your vacation, I mean. All the signs are there. Please hear me out.”

I slid back down into my chair, my whole body rigid. The server came by. “Nick, nice to see you again. May I offer you and the lady something to drink?”

Nick caught my eye but I made no response. “Bring us a bottle of your best Naoussa Xinomavro, Damon, and put it on my tab—room 19.” He grinned. “Two doors up from stowage.”

Damon beamed and took off.

“And they even know you by name here?”

Nick held up one hand. “Let me explain: so when you said that you had booked on the Sylvan Seas, I checked a few details. I’ve worked the circuit on these cruises as a guest lecturer before so I know the contacts. It turns out that the guy slotted for the Greek history lecture and ground guide series came down with laryngitis.” He caught my expression. “Hey, not my doing—another coincidence, honestly, though not for a minute do I believe in coincidences. There are many connective forces in our coming together, Phoebe, none of them circumstantial. This is but one.”

“So the guy came down with a mysterious throat problem…”

“And the fleet’s event planner contacted me after I left a message, and lo and behold, they were scrambling to find a replacement so here I am. For a nightly lecture coupled with playing the tour guide on a couple of the archaeological tour sites plus odd jobs here and there, I get free room and board in a cabin the size of a shoebox.”

“A miracle,’ I said dryly. “What about your job at the museum?”

“Ah, well.” He dropped his gaze. “Forgive me but that was pure subterfuge. My name is not Nickolas Christpodoulopoulo but Nickolas Pallas, but I happen to be friends with Nick Christpodoulopoulo, which is how I came to hear about your arrival. I’ve been reading about your exploits with great interest, saw your podcast interview, and desperately wanted to meet you. I begged my friend, the other Nick, to let me greet you, and since he was trying to juggle too many balls the other day, he gave in. It’s a new job, he’s still scrambling, plus I can be very persuasive.” He grinned.

I didn’t know whether to be offended or outraged and settled on a bit of both. “Are you even a historian? ‘Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.’”

He looked as though he wanted to lunge across the table and hug me. “From The Illiad? Phoebe, you are extraordinary!”

“Are you even a historian?” I glowered at him.

“I certainly am a historian, educated at the University of Athens and graduated with my PhD in 2016, but I work freelance. I’ve written several books on investigative history as it relates to the exploration of alternative hypothesis for ancient civilizations, specifically Grecian. Surely you’ve heard of my Unlocking Ancient Voices with Your Mind?”

Before I could respond, Damon arrived with the wine and performed the little sommelier ritual of waiting for Nick to approve the first sip. After our glasses were filled and he had retreated, I leaned over and said, “Unlocking Ancient Voices with Your Mind is not unlocking any recognition with me.”

“Ah, well, it’s not a bestseller or anything but it’s doing quite well, especially when I nab a few promotional gigs.”

“Meanwhile, you’ve lied your way into my holiday and are trying to convince me it was all ‘fate’?” I added air quotes for good measure. “Don’t get me wrong, I believe in fate, just not the nefarious finagling kind.”

“It is fate, Phoebe, which doesn’t negate human intervention when warranted. Try the wine. It’s a bright crisp white that pairs beautifully with our local seafood.”

“Will you just get on with your excuses?”

“They are not excuses, Phoebe. You of all people should recognize the signs: a woman named after a Titan moon deity, which is also an epithet for the goddess Artemis, arrives in Greece bearing the head of Athena saying that a friend urged her to find a lost temple. That same Phoebe has gained a reputation for finding lost or stolen art using unexplained powers. If that’s not a sign from the universe, I don’t know what is. It’s practically mythic.”

I took a sip of wine, actually more like a gulp, and leaned forward on the table trying to collect my thoughts.

“I sense you’re a believer, too,” he added.

“A believer in what?” I was just buying time.

“A believer in elements beyond traditional science’s fixation on solely empirical-based knowledge. The ancient Greeks married both the soul with a quest for the truth, the heart with the intellect. Science uses the intellect as the road to discovery but there’s always a leap of consciousness along the way, one that doesn’t fit neatly into the constraints of conventional proof and therefore something that science prefers to explain away.”

“Intuition,” I said.

“Exactly.” He smiled. “Intuition is the great leap that everyone experiences yet rarely trusts. Why is that, I ask? Why have we become such slaves to empirical knowledge and measurable fact at the expense of our inner compass?”

Wearying of playing the devil’s advocate, I sat back. “Yes, why have we? Why don’t we accept what we know unless someone else confirms its existence with a string of measurable facts? History is always difficult to verify at the best of times since past recorders and narrators often had politically motivated points of view or, at the very least, saw things through their own social construct.” Hell, I sounded like I was on his side.

“Precisely so. And yet intuition is the great unclaimed fount of knowing. Artemis the huntress was also the goddess of finding lost objects and missing truths. The Artemis Key is said to have instilled the goddess’s powers to seek what is missing, hidden, or lost as well as to foretell the future. She was the ultimate hunter, the finder of everything lost or missing as well as the nocturnal huntress of wild animals.”

“And she was also a myth.”

“Was she?” he asked with a wry smile. “Do not all of the great religions say the same thing about another’s gods?”

“You’re not seriously saying that Artemis, Zeus, Poseidon—all the Greek gods—were real?”

“Not exactly.”

I took another sip of wine. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“But it depends on how we define reality. Look, let us change directions for a moment: consider the fact that your involvement has led to the retrieval of countless pieces of art and artifacts all over the globe.”

“Yes, so? I used professional help and a base of research. Science definitely played a part along with a trail of bread crumbs we might consider clues.”

“And?”

I sighed. “Okay, and intuition.”

He nodded, still smiling. “Science aids insight without usurping it. Don’t tell me that you aren’t a believer in insight, Phoebe. I heard that interview you gave regarding a certain Tuscan chapel fresco where you expounded on a theory you had gained from reading the signs found in a Botticelli portrait, a few letters, and the fresco itself. You began by stating that you could prove very little of your story concerning the painter Filippino Lippi and a seamstress—”

“Designer.”

“Sorry, designer named Gabriela, but that you knew your story to be true. You went on to say that you refuse to defend your story. Let others prove or disprove it as they will, you said, but that to you the story was completely authentic despite its missing parts.”

I closed my eyes. I should never have given that interview but I needed to formalize my position. Tired of being refuted by esteemed historians picking apart my every statement, I resolved not to defend my insights to anyone ever again. Instead, I’d just tell the stories as I felt them and let my listeners decide for themselves.

“The menus, my friends,” Damon interrupted, seemingly oblivious to the atmosphere. Handing us letter-sized cards printed on fine parchment with a compass rose at the top, he asked how we were enjoying the wine before slipping away.

“What do you want from me, Nick?” I asked, as if I didn’t know the answer.

“Participate in my research, Phoebe. All I request is that I have the opportunity to study your intuition when faced with the remnants of the ancient Greek civilization we will visit on this voyage. Let us see whether we can locate the Artemis Key using your gifts. Be my oracle, Phoebe. I promise not to ruin your vacation. In fact, I vow to enhance it. I just want to ask how you experience these ancient sites we visit, observe what happens to your mind and being. I’d like to, if at all possible and you agree, use some of this research for my next book. All you need do is be at my side as we sail around the islands visiting archaeological digs and tell me what you’re feeling. That’s it.”

“Look, I’m not like some fleshy divining rod that vibrates when around hidden treasure. My gift doesn’t work that way.”

“How does it work, then? I’d like to understand. By the way, I recommend the seafood platter.”

“Fine but no octopi. I’ve developed a deep appreciation of the creatures following a documentary I watched not long ago. Anyway, my insights don’t come to me in a sudden eureka! effect, or at least not at first. In the beginning, I gather clues, immerse myself as much as possible in the history and culture of the period, maybe touch something that belonged to a person connected to the lost item.”

“All signs of divination but we won’t linger on that point for the moment. All I ask is that you keep your mind open and let’s see what happens. Will you do it?”

What did I have to lose? It wasn’t like his hypothesis wasn’t of interest to me. I’d always accepted my insights as just the way I worked, but maybe the time had come to investigate my gifts further. Why not now when my vision of a romantic vacation had become toast on the proverbial back burner? “Fine, but I’m not happy with how you snagged me, just for the record.”

He placed one hand over his heart. “I’ll make it up to you. I swear.”

“Okay, I’ll do it. And what are we looking for exactly?”

“Probably the lost temple of Artemis.”

“Probably?”

He leaned toward me. “It could be either the Artemis Key or the lost temple. The two are interconnected.”

All I had to do was look at this idea from another angle and come up with another response. “This is crazy.”

“Think with your whole being instead of just your intellect, Phoebe. When you asked me about the temple back on the Acropolis, I knew you were the one. You came here with that in your mind’s eye, whether you were conscious of it or not.”

“Zann.”

“Pardon?”

“Zann, the archaeologist I was telling you about, is to blame for planting Artemis in my head.”

“She was merely playing a role in the greater design. Cheers!” He raised a glass across the table and we clinked our glasses. “Here’s to new partnerships!”

It really was very good wine and I did enjoy his company, if not his methods. “Cheers! Oh, look, we’re moving.” I gazed through the porthole window at the brilliant sunset where I could see the edge of cliffs moving past. The ship rumbled as the engines engaged; that would probably continue until the wind caught its sails. For a moment I felt that thrill of expectation and imagined all my stalker minions left far behind onshore. Free at last.

A salad of the Greek variety landed before me which I dug into with gusto, savoring the black olives, feta cheese, and fresh oregano. It paired nicely with the wine, which I was thoroughly enjoying, too. I briefly forgot about stalkers, and by the time I remembered, our main meals had arrived.

An aromatic blend of everything fresh from the sea swimming in a light tomato-infused broth with a sprinkling of herbs, it looked delicious, but I realized in an instant that I was already full. Besides, a few creatures appeared as though they were still wiggling, which made me slightly queasy. I sipped more wine.

What had I been thinking about? Oh, yes, stalkers. I stabbed a shrimp, the only thing I immediately recognized, and smiled. “Nick, I must warn you that hanging around with me can be hazardous to your health. Already somebody’s following me. I zapped him on Mykonos, one George Baros from Athens. Do you know him?”

“No, why would I? Why is he following you and what do you mean by ‘zapped’?” The dark eyes widened in the candlelight.

I struggled to muster my wine-soddened brain cells. “As to the first question, just a stab in the dark in case you mentioned my arrival to someone. You’re the only one outside my circle who knows my itinerary. As to the second question, that’s what I need to find out—who and why. I mean, it happens all the time but I didn’t expect it here.”

He gazed at me. “You’re always being followed?”

“Various people stalk me on a constant basis, yes, but I have no idea who this guy is and why he’s on my heels. As I said, my destination was deliberately kept a secret with no one outside the agency and its immediate affiliates knowing where I went. Believe me, that network is private. I even booked under an assumed name. I’ll be Phoebe Baker, by the way. Anyway, that should in theory remove all the usual suspects. As for question number three, it can wait.” But the wine couldn’t. More followed.

As I dabbed the rich broth with a piece of bread, I realized Nick had fallen silent. I looked across the table after a few seconds to find him gazing at me with his mouth half-open. I laid down my fork. “Who did you tell?”

“In my defense, I didn’t realize your arrival was a secret.”

“Who. Did. You. Tell?”

“There’s a network of fellow alternate ancient civilization theorists who I chat with online regularly. We are always sharing ideas, finds, keeping each other apprised of our investigations, that sort of thing. It’s a closed group but not exactly private. Nothing on social media is private.”

I swore and took another sip. Okay, so I was on vacation—wine’s permitted, even encouraged. “Listen up, Nick. From here on you tell no one, understand? Put the lid on your social media discourses. Shut the door and slam the book on your alternate ancient civilization theorists.” That was a mouthful after wine, believe me.

“I hear you.”

But I wasn’t finished. “This is a dangerous business I’m in. Hundreds of criminals, syndicates, and just plain greedy bastards are out there looking for something ancient and lucrative at all times. I’m now a prime target, the goose that lays the golden egg, or at the very least—no, wait. I think I jumbled up that analogy. Oh, hell, I mean I’m the one that leads the bastards to treasure. Look at you. Not calling you a bastard exactly but you’ve cornered me for a variation of the same reason, get it?” I was waving my fork around for emphasis.

“I do and I’m so sorry. I just had no idea but it makes complete sense. Of course I should have been more cautious. I’m such an idiot.”

“Agreed but try to assess the risks from here on in. Realize that this is a dangerous world you’ve maneuvered yourself into. Now we must assume that somebody, or somebody who knows somebody, in this ancient civilization alternate history theorists network of yours—” I took a deep breath “—can’t you make up an acronym?—is on my tail.” I took another sip. “And may kill to get what they think we’re seeking.” I paused, trying to decide if that even made sense. Probably not. I shot him a quick look. “Did you tell your alternate history theorists what you thought I was seeking—were seeking, that you thought I’d be seeking?” Yes, I was getting drunk.

He swallowed. “Unintentionally. And they know your itinerary since this ship’s route is on their website.”

“Damn, I forgot about that. Still, if George Baros is any example, the efforts are pretty amateur so far, but the word may get out to a more dangerous group of treasure hunters. Could a lost temple of Artemis or this Artemis Key be valuable other than for historical purposes?”

“Definitely, yes,” he said. “If an untouched temple were ever located, well, it defies description since nothing like that has ever been found—tombs, yes, plenty of tombs, but not an intact temple. Those were, as far as we know, aboveground structures, remember, and centuries of invasions, religious fanatics from one doctrine or another, not to mention time itself, has razed them to rubble.”

“But the value part?” I prompted.

“Most ancient Greek temples reportedly had a gold statue of the god or goddess—the cella—at its center, plus a treasury of gifts to the deity. If such a place were ever to survive intact and be discovered, it would have immense monetary value, yes, but historically speaking, it would be totally priceless. It could rival King Tutankhamen’s tomb, the find of the century. As for the Artemis Key, that would be like finding the Holy Grail in our time.”

I sat back, my appetite plummeting, the room swaying. “This is bad, very bad.” I stared at my plate, which now struck me as a lumpy platter of blood-drenched bait. I gnawed at my bread. “I’ll need my bodyguard for sure.”

Nick, who appeared to have broken into a sweat, croaked, “Bodyguard?”

“That’s okay.” I waved my hand to reassure him and gulped water. Best to dilute the alcohol. “She’ll be on her way by now. The agency’s network reacts pretty quickly. Actually, the man I thought would be my bodyguard on this trip is actually the same man I’d hoped to stage a romantic rendezvous with. That didn’t work out—poor planning on my part. Actually, no planning. Lesson learned. Still, I’m not without a few skills of my own.” I hoped I was still making sense. “Now I’ll have Peaches.”

“Peaches? Do you want dessert?”

“Peaches, as in my bodyguard. Her real name is Penelope. And not as in Ulysses’s Penelope so don’t go there. She’s a trained engineer with plenty of defensive maneuvers plus plenty of other skills.”

Before Nick could comment, Damon arrived to refill our glasses. “Enjoying your meals?”

“Actually,” I said, gazing down at my plate, “I don’t think I can eat this. It’s delicious but just too much food. So sorry. I hate to think that all these sea creatures may have died in vain but would you mind taking the plate away?”

“I’ll take it,” Nick said quickly, extending his hand. At that moment I realized that his dinner had stopped at the salad.

“Sure,” I said, stunned. “I barely touched it.”

Once Damon disappeared and Nick was digging into my seafood plate, I leaned forward. “Did the bottle of wine drain your on board resources?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Completely. My dining credits don’t cover alcohol and only two courses per meal, otherwise. Phoebe, about this bodyguard—”

“On the way, I’m guessing, but in the meantime, you need to become extravigilant. If these alternate ancient theorists of yours include rabid treasure hunters, you’ve just landed us both in the crosshairs of some very dangerous stuff. Welcome to the club.” I toasted him and grinned.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. There was definitely too much wine involved, especially after I ordered a second bottle, plus dessert followed by an abovedeck stroll. I was hanging on to Nick’s arm by then only because I was afraid my sea legs would fail to engage post-vino. Besides, I liked the guy as a friend and overall was very relaxed in his company, despite recent disclosures.

“And so you’ll be taking this sailing excursion without your intended boyfriend,” he said as we continued our promenade past other passengers.

“Even a fool learns something once it hits him,” I mused.

“More Homer. I’m amazed by your repertoire,” he said with a grin.

“If it gets too tiresome, just shake me. I’ve been immersing myself in all things ancient Greek in preparation for this trip. It’s amazing how these quotes are so apt to the human condition in general.”

“Isn’t that just so? My ancestors have greatly influenced our existence.”

“So, give me an example of an alternative ancient civilizations theory,” I asked.

“Atlantis,” he said with a smile. “We believe it really did exist, maybe not exactly as described in the myths but still a powerful and advanced maritime civilization.”

“Related to the Minoans?”

“That’s one theory.”

I was gazing off the starboard side toward the blur of hills silhouetted against the horizon. “Oh, look at that blue.” I was easily distracted by then.

“That’s Naxos, part of the Cyclades islands, which we are sailing through at the moment. We’re heading to Paros first; it’s nearby but we will return. In fact, we’ll make a big circle. We passed Delos, which is only a thirty-minute boat ride from Mykonos and the ship will be dropping anchor near there for two days eventually. There are fifty islands all together in this grouping; however, the Cyclades were one of the three main branches of Aegean civilization.”

He said much more about Aegean civilizations, none of which I remembered. Admittedly, my brain was skimming over the historical details just then. “Wow. It’s so gorgeous with the shade of smoky purply blue. I’d love to knit that.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. Tell me more about the Cyclades. No, wait—forget it. My powers of retention have taken a nosedive. I want to learn more, though. Most of my studies have been focused on Renaissance European art history lately. I need to refresh my ancient-art databanks, though I did a little preparatory research before I came.”

“I’d be happy to enlighten you further but it can wait for another day. So there really is a boyfriend?” he asked as we leaned against the railing, allowing the breeze to play with our hair. To be back on the ocean again after so long a time nearly brought me to tears. Probably the wine again.

“There really is,” I said, glancing in his direction, “but we’ve yet to make it official. I’m recovering from a bad relationship—actually, the absence of a true relationship with steamy interludes—and have been hesitant to recommit but I’m getting there. What about you?” Really, I usually don’t disclose so much personal information, but with the alcoholic assistance…

“I continue to await the goddess of my dreams. In truth, I thought it might be you, Phoebe.” He was leaning against the balcony gazing at me intently.

“Sorry.” I turned away to stare down into the mesmerizing surge of dark water, my stomach rolling along with the waves. “Think I’d better get to bed—alone,” I added just in case.

He walked me down to the end of the second-level deck corridor where my stateroom was located, one of two occupying the end of that deck. Courteous and gallant every step of the way, he bowed at the teak door of my quarters. “A goddess deserves one of the best cabins on the ship and I see she has just such accommodations.”

I grinned. “My big extravagance, half of it paid for by my godfather as a birthday gift. The birthday was many months ago, by the way, and don’t ask my age but I’m guessing I’m still older than you by a few years, maybe even a whole decade.”

“A woman’s age is irrelevant, her spirit being all that matters.” He looked very dapper in that tux. Before leaving me at the door, he asked: “May I join you for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“Great. Let’s do the buffet on the upper deck. The first port tomorrow will be Paros. Pretty little island with plenty of beaches. It’s more of a recreational destination than an archaeological one but history is everywhere on these islands.”

“Perfect,” I said, and just before entering my cabin, I spewed another Homeric quote: “Sleep, delicious and profound…”

“…the very counterfeit of death,” he finished off for me. I hadn’t planned to voice that part.

Moments later, facing my luxurious quarters with the turned-down bed, the chocolate on the pillow, the bouquet in the bracketed bowl on the side table, the little brass captain’s lamp, I sighed. Twelve days of luxury, relaxation, respite from worry and fear had just became even more interesting. I preferred to focus on the delicious and profound part.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I skimmed the multitude of messages: Max asking how I was enjoying myself, Evan inquiring as to when was the best time to call, and Peaches telling me that she’d booked her flight for Greece the next day. All of them could wait until morning. I didn’t trust myself to speak or type another coherent word that night, anyway. Too much effort.

Despite the cognitive stumbling, I still engaged my intruder app, preformed my nightly ablutions, latched the balcony door, and plunged into the smooth sheets, dropping off that velvet cliff of sleep almost at once.

Sleeping at sea is like blending a lullaby with several streaming videos spliced together by a drunken editor. The rocking seems to shake up the brain cells while the wine drowns them. I was riding a dolphin in downtown London waving at the red buses as I went. Then I was hosting a party with the goddess Artemis as my special guest while Peaches offered her wardrobe advice, as in one goddess to another. Artemis preferred something long and diaphanous to Peaches’s stretchy leggings and we didn’t have anything else on hand when suddenly a Minotaur began banging on the door. Banging hard. He wanted to come to the party.

I sat up and blinked. “Go away!” I called. Wait, where was I and why was the room rocking? I checked my phone on the night table but no red intruder alert was flashing. Only I was sure that banging was real. Probably a drunken passenger at the wrong door. And I was thirsty.

It was 3:15 a.m. Then I remembered the ship, the vacation…

Grabbing my phone, I used it as a night-light to locate the mini-fridge with its selection of cold water. After a long drink, I was heading for the bathroom when my light flashed against something on the floor. Backing up, I beamed the phone full on it and a chill hit my spine.

A tarot card lay faceup on the carpet, the High Priestess gazing out at me as if from another dimension.

CHAPTER 4

“This was shoved under my door in the middle of the night.” I sat across from Nick at breakfast while the other diners occupied tables along the open deck around us. To my right, the little island of Paros beckoned in the sunlight and the delicious-looking array of breakfast offerings ladened a long table nearby.

“The High Priestess?” He studied the card on the table between us, turning it over, a mix of emotions fleeting across his face.

“From the Rider-Waite deck. As you know the artist Pamela Colman Smith was commissioned by Arthur Edward Waite in 1909 to create the seventy-eight-card deck based on symbols and esoteric knowledge gleaned from the involvement with the Order of the Golden Dawn.”

“Yes, I know, and have studied the symbolism since I believe it may have roots in the ancient Egyptian and Greek civilizations, but this couldn’t have been shoved under your door, Phoebe. The ship has sealed doors as a safety precaution in case of capsizing. Someone would have had to have placed this card in your room another way.” He looked up, his excitement mounting. “It’s another sign, Phoebe. Don’t you see? Mystery, secrets, the future unrevealed—”

I leaned forward. “I see it as a sign that someone aboard this ship knows my identity and that I’m seeking something lost, though how they could know that when I didn’t myself until last night is beyond me. It also indicates that someone had access to my room last night, but how could that be? I had my security app engaged.” But what if someone opened the door just wide enough to slip in a card? My phone wouldn’t likely pick that up.

“Security app?”

“Hard to explain. Let’s just say that our agency has some handy gizmos.” I sat back and scanned my fellow holidayers with the usual mix of international and local travelers. “I think it’s also a warning, probably from one of your alternate ancient civilization theorist connections.”

“But how that can be?” he protested. “Phoebe, that network is spread all over the globe. How could anyone get to Greece and aboard this ship so quickly?”

“You did,” I pointed out.

He stared. “Yes, but I live here and have connections.”

“I’m guessing so does he or she,” I said. “And whoever this person is, they obviously have resources, too, not to mention access to this ship. The door is activated by a keycard, so who else has that kind of clearance?”

“Just the steward and housekeeping services, who have been carefully vetted.”

“There are always ways, Nick. Look, the ship isn’t even fully booked. I asked one of the staff when I came aboard. We have only twenty-one passengers on a ship with the capacity for twenty-five. Somebody could have easily bought a last-minute cabin or maybe wiggled into the crew the way you did.”

He shot a furtive look over his shoulder.

I gazed around. “We need to be on our guard, check out everyone. You’re part of the staff so you can check the crew sign-ups while I work on discovering more about the passengers. See if you can nab a passenger list and identify last-minute bookers.” My bossy side was kicking in. Hangovers can have that effect.

He nodded, looking grim. “Definitely. They gave me a passenger manifest so I can learn everybody’s names, but I’ll get their cabin numbers and shore trip bookings for you, too. I’ll ask that man in the white jacket over there.”

I looked in the direction he indicated to see an older man decked out in a crisp white short-sleeved uniform with shoulder epaulets helping himself to coffee.

“That’s the head steward, Leo Vitalis. He’s in charge of everything related to passenger comfort and itineraries. If you need something, that’s where you turn. He’ll circulate among the guests, making himself acquainted now. But look, Phoebe, if these people are on board, what’s the worst they can do?”

I gazed at him sadly. So innocent, the way I had once been long ago before life sucker-punched me again and again. “Actually, quite a variety of interesting possibilities there, none of them pleasant. International art thieves are an inventive bunch, not to mention ruthless. I’m going to get some breakfast.” Actually, I had a headache and not much of an appetite but coffee was definitely in order. I wondered if they served a side of antacids.

The buffet spread was extensive and offered everything an international traveler might desire from rice dishes for our Asian travelers to eggs for the English and American voyagers plus everything in between. I’d spied fruit, yogurt and an endless assortment of fresh breads in passing plus chafing dishes of warm breakfast dishes. Maybe I could manage toast and coffee. I’d already dosed myself with painkillers.

Carefully selecting their breakfasts next to me stood a middle-aged Chinese couple, the Wongs, who smiled and nodded while I used tongs to pluck a croissant onto my plate. “Beautiful morning,” I said. They continued to smile and nod, which made me assume that they knew little English. Maybe I’d scratch them off the suspect list. On the other hand, they made a perfect cover.

On my way to the coffee station, a family of five—mother, father and three teenage kids—stood in line ahead of me. “Are you excited about today’s shore trip?” I asked the young guy who couldn’t be older than sixteen.

Tall, tanned, with a mop of blond hair, he grinned down at me. “Sure am. Can’t wait to hit the waves.”

His mother turned around and smiled, another blond, natural by the looks of those gray-streaked tresses. “Luke hopes to go bodysurfing today and take his two sisters with him. Do they even do that around here, I ask? Forget anything historical. Hi, I’m Linda Jenkins and this is my husband, Rob. My brood are Luke, Andrea and Suzanne by order of birth.” The two girls, also blonde, turned around to wave at me and grin, as did her tall balding husband before he took off, mug in hand. “We’re from Arkansas, and you?” Linda asked.

“I’m Phoebe from London by way of Canada,” I told her, and we chatted about shore itineraries all the way back to our respective tables. They had booked months ago. The first suspects eliminated.

Nick was now sitting at our table before an ample selection of breakfast offerings including an omelet, a dish of roasted potatoes, fruit and bread. “There are twenty-one passengers on board spread among eighteen booked cabins with the four most expensive staterooms like yours fully booked, Leo said,” he said between mouthfuls. “Turns out they had a sale for the last month trying to get the numbers up but there are still empty cabins.” The guy worked fast.

“Any last-minute bookers?” I asked while buttering my croissant.

“Two of the cabins were booked within the last two weeks. I’ll find out who booked what as soon as I can.” He was gazing at me with that look I was beginning to recognize as thoughtful consternation. Meanwhile, I was thinking how outfitted for adventure he looked in his safari shorts and matching shirt and how young.

“Nick, be careful. Don’t do anything to raise suspicions, okay? We don’t want anyone to know we’re sleuthing. Just go about your usual business and do your detective work on the sly,” I cautioned. “As a historian, you know how to research, and detective work is similar but much more circumspect.”

“Of course, but, Phoebe, don’t be offended when I say this: I think this alarm is excessive considering that the only thing that’s occurred so far is a tarot card slipped under your door. Surely that can’t be considered a threat? In fact, if anything, it’s another sign aligned with all the others that have alerted us to our quest, and that guy on Mykonos might just be a garden variety mugger.”

I gazed at him, sipping my coffee, wondering how to explain to one who appears to have lived a more or less normal life, albeit one populated by alternate ancient history theories, that the world is filled with very human monsters. “Nick, that card did not manifest in my room by magic. A human put it there for a reason.”

“Yes, but maybe that reason isn’t anything nefarious. Perhaps we have an ally?”

I shook my head. “All right, this is my intuition talking, but putting this card in my room does not feel friendly to me.”

Still eating—actually, more like plowing the food into his mouth—he nodded. “When your intuition speaks, I listen. The subconscious mind is one of the most powerful tools we have. What about your room steward?”

“Artino? Too obvious but I’ll be checking him out.”

He got to his feet. “Sorry I can’t stay longer and must run. Even though I’m not on shore duty today, we’re supposed to remain with the passengers as they go off on the tours. Today they are heading to the beaches, three little towns, and to Parikia by boat, the main town over there. Tomorrow at Delos we’ll test your abilities. I’ll be lecturing about the island tonight, by the way. What are you planning today?” He was half on his feet ready to dash.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said, looking up at him. “I may just wander through the town. See you tonight.”

Actually, my vacation plans had been upended. I knew that by the time I’d arranged for Peaches to share my cabin, sorted out when and where we could meet up among these islands, most of the morning would be gone. So much for my relaxing vacation. Still, being in Greece made everything much better. Nick and I said our goodbyes and I watched as he dashed off to earn his keep.

It took over an hour to book Peaches in as my cabin mate. These things were complicated. I needed her passport info, which I didn’t have, which meant I had to email her and wait for the response. In the meantime, she’d be only half-registered and, of course, I had to pay for the booking, which meant an e-transfer from London.

“Last-minute decision,” I told Leo Vitalis as we stood outside his office with my debit card in hand. He was being very accommodating while diplomatically informing me of all the difficulties involved in adding new passengers once the ship had embarked.

“Where’s the best place for her to board? She’ll be arriving in Athens at twelve this afternoon,” I asked.

“Let us look at the map, shall we?” he said, pointing to a map of Greece and its archipelagos painted onto the wall of his office. The islands scattered across the blue sea looked like schools of irregularly shaped yellow fish leaping through the Aegean.

Leo was always smiling. He smiled so much my cheeks hurt just looking at him and he smelled faintly of starch mixed with some powerful aftershave. “Here you see the Sylvan Seas itinerary.”

I followed his finger tracing a broken red line around a multitude of islands.

“First we are here at Paros for the night and then we sail over to Delos tomorrow for two days but drop anchor at Rhenia island along the way for snorkeling and diving in the magical waters.” He turned and beamed, if possible his grin widening. “Everything in Greece is magical, everywhere there is magic.”

I wondered whether that included magically appearing tarot cards but generally agreed with him. “Looks like we’re ambling about in an irregular pattern,” I remarked, “kind of like a Greek key design.”

If possible, his smile widened. “Like the Greek key—yes! We amble, yes, like fish we flow in and out, back and forth. I like this word amble. We are a pleasure cruise so no need to hurry. From Delos we go to Rhodes and then sail to Crete—of importance, you will agree—and from there to Hydra and on to Athens. I think it best that your friend meet us on Delos, don’t you agree? There are many quick flights from Athens to Nisi Delos and she can meet us in port. We will be docked there tomorrow afternoon and remain there for two nights.”

I considered his suggestion, which would mean another night on board alone with my imaginary Minotaur. “What if she meets up with us here this afternoon?”

“Ah, that is possible but perhaps not so practical?” He shrugged. “She arrives, collects luggage, buys ticket, flight takes forty minutes if she can get booking. Sometimes flights are canceled or are fully booked. Olympic Air has many flights but maybe she misses? This time of year it is not so regular. So many last-minute cancellations and things to cause delays. This late in the season, the ferries are not so regular, either. I always think it best to err on the side of caution.”

“Thank you for your help. I’m sure we’ll work it out.” For Peaches the caution part did not apply.

Back in my cabin, I zipped off a note to Peaches providing the pertinent information, knowing she’d already be on her flight and may not collect her mail until later. I was wrong. She responded in minutes along with her passport info thanks to in-flight Wi-Fi.

Peaches: Can’t wait to land in Greece. Any bad guys for me to battle?

Me: Only Minotaurs and a high priestess so far but it’s bound to get more interesting.

Peaches: Good. BTW, Evan’s back on the planet—France. See you soon.

Peaches took everything in stride, including mythical beasts and goddesses. For my part, I’d be glad for her company, not because I was afraid but because I badly wanted a trained, experienced agent at my side as well as a friend. Nick’s inexperience unsettled me. As for Evan being in France, I pushed that info to the back of my brain.

Meanwhile, I admit to having been unsettled by the otherworldly aspect of this situation, too. I believed in elements beyond which I could see or hear and recognized power in all its forms, including that of the unconscious mind. That didn’t mean I found it comfortable.

My views on goddesses and tarot cards notwithstanding, I’d always found that theorists and organized followers of anything arcane or supernatural to be an eccentric and sometimes fanatic bunch, even when I believed in their theories or didn’t dismiss them out of hand. Stir into that a hunt for gold and valuable ancient art and the danger factor accelerates. Now I wished I’d never agreed to participate in Nick’s little research project though it was possible that I’d be targeted, regardless. At the same time, I was burning with curiosity. Where would it all end?

While Greece sparkled in the sunlight beyond my balcony, I spent a solid hour researching Artemis beliefs and cults and downloaded multiple books on Greek history, ancient mythology, and a book on tarot cards. I’d never have time to read it all but I intended to scan like mad.

An hour later, my phone rang. Evan.

“Phoebe.” He spoke my name like an invocation. My heart did that ridiculous little flutter thing.

“Hi, Evan. I’m standing here on a clipper ship in the Greek isles gazing out at the Aegean wishing you were here.”

“I’m wishing I was there, too, though it wouldn’t matter how glorious the setting if I was by your side.”

Sometimes he said exactly the right thing. “But you’re in France so I’ll just have to send you a postcard. Any requests?”

“Yes, hold on a bit longer. I’ll fly to Greece as soon as I can—once I settle a few matters, that is.”

What matters? It was a testament to my will that I didn’t ask. “I’d save a place for you in my cabin but it looks like Peaches will claim your spot.”

“I would never let a little thing like that stop me.”

We bantered back and forth for a few minutes before I insisted that I had to catch the next boat to port, which I did. More to the point, I wanted to be the one to end the call, an effort to maintain some control in this blossoming relationship, I admit. Being the one everyone strives to protect can leave you feeling vulnerable in multiple ways.

By the time I’d grabbed my backpack and all the necessities for a day onshore, very few passengers were left on board. I noticed an elderly couple taking in the rays on the top sundeck, but I was the only passenger in the tender heading to shore that afternoon, everyone else having left already.

The ship contracted a couple of private shore-based water taxis to drop passengers off at key spots whenever they wished as well as employing one of their own. Giorgi, my driver, was one of the contracted ones and told me that all I need do was choose a destination and I’d be delivered. These taxis cruised around to all the major pickup points approximately every half hour right up to curfew time at eleven. Curfew was for passenger security, he assured me. After eleven, the ship was locked for the evening, which made perfect sense.

“So, what’s life like for you, Giorgi?” I asked as I stood beside him in the pilot house watching as he manned the wheel.

“Have good life right here on Paros,” he told me, a cigarette wedged between his teeth. His deeply grooved face leathered from the sun, he struck a jaunty figure in his kerchief and captain’s cap angled on his head. “Sometimes too slow,” he said. “But better than for city people. You live in little boxes—too much concrete. I know. I was in Athens many times.”

I didn’t want to know how he knew I was a city dweller. I guess it showed. “So Paros is your home?”

“My home, yes. These ships hire me to take passengers. Good life, very good life—sea, nice peoples, fresh air, money.” He rubbed his fingers together and grinned. I took that to mean that the tips were good.

“I bet you know these islands inside out,” I remarked as I gazed at the shoreline with its white houses hugging the sea below a low gray scrabble of rocky hills. There were few trees in this arid land and those that existed looked to have been planted deliberately, yet everywhere I sensed people lived bright, vivid lives unless that was just me romanticizing.

“I grew up here. My father fisherman. Yes, these waves are my home,” Giorgi remarked.

“My father was a fisherman, too,” I told him—a treasure-hunting fisherman but he didn’t need to know that.

My comment surprised him. In fact, it was as if I rose several degrees in his estimation. “Fishermen the best.”

Minutes later, we sailed into the port of Parikia, a major hub for catamarans and ferries that plied the island, he told me. I asked him about the airport and he told me where it was located.

“I have a friend arriving later this evening and somehow she’s got to get to the ship,” I told him.

“You give your friend my number. I come and pick her up to take to ship. The boy they have working on board lazy.” He handed me his card and I handed him a hefty tip. Giorgi was no fool.

By the time I disembarked in Parikia, a perfectly picturesque town crammed with tiny streets, it was 1:32 and I’d finally worked up an appetite. Finding a lunch spot in the labyrinthine town with its tangle of whitewashed streets packed with cafés, boutiques, and restaurants was the easiest thing I’d done all day. I chose a little restaurant overlooking the bay and made short work of a plate of stuffed bell peppers, a side of dolmades, and probably the best bread I’d ever tasted. Alcohol was avoided in lieu of fresh lemonade.

While digesting, I checked on Peaches’s status. She’d sent me a text at 12:30 to say that she’d arrived in Athens but that all flights to Paros were fully booked until the next day. Instead, she was hopping a ferry that should deliver her to the island early that evening and that she’d let me know when she had arrived. See you soon. Love this place already.

I smiled, sipped my lemonade, and studied the diners in my vicinity, all of whom seemed busy with their own lives, vacations, conversations… None of them were stalkers; in other words, and I couldn’t see a George Baros lookalike anywhere. That left me free to enjoy my holiday afternoon.

First on my agenda was the archaeological museum, which turned out to be a magnificent site of diverse and interesting artifacts including frescoes, a sixth-century BC marble Gorgon that looked uncomfortably like me on a frizzy hair day, and an early headless Artemis figure in a lovely flowing marble tunic. I felt no sudden insight by gazing at any of them. Though the wonder of each hit me by right of age and artistry, I felt no tremors or any sense that the ancient past wished to communicate. It occurred to me then that maybe I should read NIck’s book to see if there were some techniques I should employ.

Despite that, intellectually I was completely engaged. The island had been occupied by Cretans, Minoans, Ionians, Arcadians, Byzantines, Macedonians, and even the Romans, layering many civilizations and influences into the ruins, which gave me plenty to absorb. Otherwise, I just enjoyed the sights, strolling the lovely little streets, poking around the boutiques, and buying things I didn’t need but which felt so right to wear in that setting.

By four, I was ready for a spell of knitting and a bit of Homer on my private deck. I wandered down the harbor to catch my ride and on the way checked on Peaches again. She had messaged me to say that she’d caught the ferry but claimed that this ship seemed to stop at every port and that it would be a slow trip. She’d missed the high-speed link, apparently. Her arrival time was anticipated to be 7:30. Meanwhile she was having a scenic overload and was starving.

I smiled, wondering if she’d like the sexy little Grecian silk wrap dress I bought her as a welcome present. I shot her off a text requesting an update when she was a few minutes away from Paros. Following that, an hour of knitting on my balcony, researching, and otherwise relaxing rounded out a near perfect afternoon.

That evening over supper, I told Nick about Peaches’s expected arrival.

“So your boyfriend definitely isn’t coming,” Nick mused a bit too cheerfully, I thought.

“Sadly, no, but Peaches will be good fun.”

He seemed to accept that and we compared notes. “According to Leo, an Italian couple booked last minute into one of the staterooms cabins, the Drs. Bergognones from Milan. Also, two men booked a less expensive cabin yesterday, both named Tsaoussis from Athens, brothers, probably. Leo insisted that the ship’s fare reduction sale paid off and that’s why the last-minute bookings. Everyone else has been registered for weeks, he says.”

I was savoring a rice dish featuring capers and some tasty pungent cheese. “That’s the place to start, then. I’ll get into their cabins while you’re lecturing tonight and see what I can find out.”

His eyes widened. “You’re going to break into their rooms?”

Actually, I was hoping Peaches would arrive in time to give me a hand there. She had excellent break-and-entry skills. I laid down my fork. “How else can we learn pertinent information?”

“Maybe by asking them questions and hoping they’ll trip up?”

I shook my head. “That might work for Hercule Poirot, who could grill suspects with impunity, but not in our situation. Anyway, checking their rooms is a place to start.”

“Who’s Hercule Poirot, may I ask?”

“An Agatha Christie detective. Don’t you read detective novels?”

“I have no time to read such things. I am always researching or writing. What are you looking for?” he asked. He seemed preoccupied, focused on eating and turning over whatever was on his mind.

“Anything suspicious—guns, a pack of tarot cards missing the High Priestess…”

“Oh, excellent idea.” He tapped his forehead. “I must learn to think like a detective.”

“By the way, did you notice anything peculiar while you were out with the shore trippers today?”

He was cutting his moussaka into bite-sized pieces and spearing eggplant from a platter of roasted vegetables set between us. “Nothing suspicious, though I’m not certain what to look for. The Tsaoussis guys were on the windsurfing beach group and the couple from Milan spent the day in the town shopping and dining. I struck a conversation with them when we were boarding earlier. The husband was ladened with shopping bags of mostly food. They called themselves ‘foodies.’ Both are medical doctors, by the way, speak very good English, and seem very pleasant—Maria and Roberto.”

“Good detecting. They don’t sound like likely suspects but we can’t rule anyone out. Do you have that passenger manifest and crew list for me?”

“I do.” He passed me a thick wad of paper under the table that I slipped into my bag. “So, Phoebe, did you experience anything yourself today?”

I glanced at him. “You mean like a sudden message beamed into my cranium while strolling through the archaeological museum?”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

“No, sorry, and Artemis didn’t speak to me, either, but then the statue I saw was missing her head.” I laughed at my own little joke. “Anyway, the occasional pieces of ancient statuary that have passed through my hands in the past—like Athena’s head, for instance—never communicated, either. My previous insights have all come from the last seven hundred years. Perhaps my supposed gifts won’t work past a certain century?”

“Do you believe that?” he inquired.

“No.”

“Art regardless of the age affects you, yes?”

“Of course art affects me, moves me, even. That’s why I’ve studied art history in my adult life. It’s just that the insights that I’ve experienced in the past were never forced. They came to me spontaneously. The conditions were much different.”

“Perhaps you need to be in a location that resonates with you more. Delos tomorrow should tell the tale.” He checked his watch. “I must run. The lecture starts at nine but I must prepare. Will you be able to join me for part of it?”

“The first bit, yes.”

“Good luck with the search and I’ll see you later.” I watched as he strode away in his tux, scanning the faces in the dining room while I was at it. Definitely not a full house. Some passengers must be staying on Paros until the eleven o’clock curfew. The only diners at this sitting appeared to be in the forty-plus age range or those with children. The doctors from Milan sat holding hands across the table and another senior couple who I didn’t recognize sat with what I assumed to be their granddaughter while two middle-aged women toasted one another at the table across the way. Joining us in the dining room were the Jenkinses, the Wongs, and a handful of others I had yet to meet.

I hadn’t quite finished my supper when Captain Adamos arrived to invite me to his table for cocktails. I graciously declined, explaining that I must get ready for my cabin mate’s arrival. “She should be here any minute.”

“We can alert you the moment she arrives,” the captain assured me, looking magnificent in his white formal uniform. I doubted I’d have pulled off the same gravitas, uniform or not.

“Thank you but not tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Certainly.” He smiled and sailed on to another table to invite the two women who I gathered from a furtive glance at the paper Nick provided were friends from London. My gaze brushed over the doctors from Milan. They had to be the best-dressed passengers on board, all couture and designer accessories. Nicolina would approve. Even I recognized a Birkin bag when I saw one. Don’t ask me why I notice these things.

Minutes later, I escaped to my cabin where I bumped into Artino delivering fresh towels to my bathroom. He couldn’t be much older than twenty-five and blessed with the kind of Adonis good looks that could break a marble heart in two—longish curly black hair and a well-tended smile that contrasted nicely with his tan. Of course as a valet-cum-cabin-steward he had access to my room, but given the circumstances, I found that unsettling. I didn't see how or why he would be responsible for the tarot card, however—too obvious.

“Miss Baker, how lovely you look tonight. That dress captures the color of your eyes.”

“Thanks, Artino. I bet you say that to all the women.” Yes, it was a tired old refrain but then it went with an equally tired old pickup line. He’d get the gist. I grinned, he grinned back, my smile communicating, That won’t work on me, buddy.

“Not all,” he assured me. “Only two or three.”

“Per every five cabins?” I laughed. “Anyway, my friend is due to arrive soon. Did you happen to add extra towels?”

“I did and set up the fold-down bed. See, I try to anticipate your every need.” He was gazing deeply into my eyes and only a fool could miss the every need he hoped to anticipate. Yet, I sensed it was an automatic response sent to all females and meant nothing. I was supposed to be flattered.

“My needs are pretty simple, actually: good service, a clean room, and plenty of amenities—no frills necessary.” Actually, that wasn’t true; only I preferred my frills at my own discretion.

“Oh, of course.” The deeply penetrating gaze retreated immediately but the smile beamed on. “I will return later to turn down your beds and introduce myself to Miss Williams. Until then.”

I was about to tell him that I didn’t need turndown service but he had already darted into the stateroom next to mine. Which was occupied by… In seconds, I was inside my cabin pouring over Nick’s sheets. I found what I was looking for immediately: the neighboring stateroom was occupied by a Mr. and Mrs. Rose from Glasgow. Okay, then, good to know. I needed to meet them, too.

It turns out that Nickolas had approached his task with a historian’s attention to detail. Every passenger was listed along with additional information including cabin numbers, their anticipated daily itinerary, and dinner reservation times. The same detail was provided for the crew including break times, shore leaves, and official tasks and responsibilities—ten sheets in total.

The five valets assigned to the cabins were also listed along with a schedule as to when they serviced cabins based on their guests’ dinner reservations, tour excursions, and breakfast times. It appeared as though the valets knew the whereabouts of their charges at all times and worked around their movements accordingly. With a schedule that tight, I couldn’t see how Artino found time for canoodling. At the same time it brought home how a ship that size was run on the clock where every minute is carefully scripted.

I checked the passenger list again, noting that the late-bookers, the Tsaoussis guys, were part of the shore clubbing crowd. The Drs. Bergognones, on the other hand, hopefully would take in Nick’s talk at 8:30. Those would be the first two cabins I’d check.

Using my phone camera, I photographed the lists and placed the pages into the safe. I was so absorbed in my task that by the time I looked up, it was already 8:10.

That done, I sat down to review my messages, sending a quick note to Max and Serena that all was well. A message also awaited from Zann, who requested my itinerary so she could alert me to must-see archaeological sites in the area. She went on to mention that she was unable to see her dad because of a Covid outbreak at his care home. He was fine, she assured me, but cloistered for his own safety. The inevitable wave of sympathy almost overwhelmed me but I held firm and refused to give her my whereabouts, just in case. I did attempt to console her about her dad, though, telling her that his quarantine was for the best.

When I next looked up, it was almost 8:25. Where was Peaches? She should have texted by now.

Checking her position on the group GPS, I saw that her dot was close to a nearby island called Naxos but did not appear to be moving. Not moving.

I shot her a quick text, counting the seconds waiting for her response. After ten minutes and still no reply, I grabbed my bag and headed out the door. Damn it. Why hadn’t I asked her for the ferry’s name or number so I could at least check her progress?

I tracked down Leo Vitalis at the door of the theater where he stood greeting passengers as they drifted in for Nick’s lecture.

“Good evening, Miss Baker. Will you be joining us tonight?” Smile, smile.

“No, unfortunately. I’m hoping you can help me. My friend hasn’t yet arrived but she texted me from the ferry hours ago.”

He nodded, still smiling. “No need for concern. These ferries are not regular this late in the season. Which one did she board?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, well. If she does not arrive soon, I will make calls. Some of these ferries will remain at port for fifteen to thirty minutes so take longer than expected. Some cancel last minute or there are strikes, always strikes.”

I’d heard about Greek’s labor issues. After the economy collapsed pre-Covid, things had been bad enough, but now the problems had multiplied. Transportation strikes were common and sometimes unexpected but nothing short of a ferry crew going on strike in the middle of a run would explain Peaches’s floating offshore somewhere. My alarm mounted. Meanwhile, I couldn’t disclose that I could track Peaches on her phone and knew she wasn’t moving.

Slipping past him into the media room, a large home-theater-style space designed with every possible multimedia enhancement, I tried to get Nick’s attention. He was busy greeting the two women friends, in full charming host mode, and it took precious minutes before I could get his attention.

“I need to get to Naxos now,” I whispered. “My GPS has Peaches floating somewhere offshore.” I showed him my screen.

“Floating?”

“I hope not literally but she’s not moving and not responding to my texts, either. Something’s wrong.”

Nick paled. “Do you think she’s…?”

I didn’t let him finish. “Just tell me where I can hire a boat. I’m a competent sailor and can follow a chart so can rent one onshore, if I have to.”

“Naxos is thirty-one kilometers away, Phoebe, and it’s dark. You’ll never see anything. It’s too dangerous! Tell the police.”

Of course he didn’t understand that for me danger was all a matter of degree and that the police are often ill-equipped to handle the kind of trouble I get into, at least initially. “Not yet. Besides, I just had an idea. I’ll be in touch later.”

And with that, I ran downstairs to the launch deck.

CHAPTER 5

Giorgi answered his cell at once and after I explained the problem minus the details, he was happy to help for a modest five hundred euro. I’d be willing to pay anything for his experience and the use of his speedboat. He even contacted the ship’s tender’s night-shift guy to arrange for my shore passage where he’d pick me up. Luckily, Caspar, the on-board tender driver, spoke little English and seemed uninterested in why I suddenly had to go to shore an hour before curfew.

As promised, Giorgi was waiting for me at a little stone jetty where a few yachts and cabin cruisers were moored for the season. He’d brought the same ten-seater speedboat he’d used for his ship’s contract, which was a relief since it seemed seaworthy. From what I could see on the map, we needed to circumnavigate the top of Paros to reach Naxos. I brought him quickly up to date but there was no easy way to put it.

“She floats off Naxos?” His sharp eyes studied me from under his peaked cap.

“It’s complicated, but yes. I have one of those new phones that can pinpoint the location of anyone who agrees to be tracked.” Of course, that feature wasn’t on the market but he didn’t know that.

He took my phone and peered down, pinching the screen out so he could see more clearly. “She dead?”

I stifled my annoyance. “Of course she’s not dead—her dot is still pulsing—but she could be if we don’t get to her soon.”

Giorgi passed back the phone, shook his head, and together we untied the ropes to push the boat away from the jetty.

“How long until we get there?”

“Maybe forty minutes if lucky.”

What the hell did that mean? “How do we get lucky?” I asked.

He grinned. “Go fast. How she get out there?”

“By ferry,” I said. Actually, I could barely squeeze out the words. How did she get there?

“By ferry?” he asked incredulously. “What, she jump off a kilometer from shore?”

So Giorgi was a smart-ass, too. “I don’t know, Giorgi. Could we just cut the chatter and find her before it’s too late?”

He shoved a cigarette into the side of his mouth and manned the wheel, eyes fixed ahead. The boat zipped out of the harbor, past the Sylvan Seas and other ships, large and small. He kept the speed to a modest putter until we were farther offshore, but afterward the boat’s speed seemed grindingly slow even at full throttle. Forty minutes may as well have been an eternity.

If I expected a smooth ride around the island to Naxos, I was wrong. Yes, the seas were calm, the night clear, spangled with stars above, and the thumping rhythm of the speedboat hitting waves full-on hardly unexpected. It was all the ship activity I didn’t anticipate. Countless lights sprinkled the horizon, some heading toward us, others sailing away. Any notion I had of the Greek isles being some calm backwater lost in time was quickly erased. This was like shipping lane central.

“What are all those ships?” I called.

“Ferries, cruise ships, containers.” Giorgi shrugged. “Busy waters.”

“Do ferries operate this late?”

“Car ferries, yes. Many cruise ships this route, too.”

Well, hell, and somewhere Peaches was out there bobbing among them? After that, I kept quiet, though more than once I wanted to rip the wheel from his hands and open the throttle. But I knew better. A man knows his boat and his waters better than anyone. This was his territory and I needed to let him to the job.

Meanwhile, I kept trying to text Peaches with no success. For some reason I couldn’t bear to think about, she was unable or unwilling to respond. The possible reasons were too devastating to take seriously. All I could do was hang on to my nerves.

Then Evan rang. “Phoebe, what’s going on? Peaches’s signal appears to be drifting off Naxos and she’s not responding to my calls.”

The alarm in his voice was deafening. “Since you're on our group map, you’ll know that I’m heading toward her now. I’ll call as soon as I know something.”

“But I—”

“Sorry, got to go.” A monster ship was barreling down at us on our right-hand side. Where did that come from and why was it moving so fast? “Giorgi?”

“Athens/Crete ferry.”

“But it’s heading right for us!”

“We don’t hit.”

Tell me that land objects seem closer than they appear and I get it, but at sea when a ship appears that close, it’s probably that close. I clung to the dashboard and swallowed my yelp, doubling down when, seconds later, a smaller catamaran came into view on track to intersect the ferry’s path. Though it looked like a collision course, I knew that those captains probably had their routes timed to within minutes, maybe seconds, which didn’t explain why Giorgi seemed to be aiming right for them.

“What in hell are you doing?” I cried.

“Hold on!” he called.

We missed the ferry by meters while its wake slapped the side of our boat and sprayed sea into our faces. I held on to the dashboard while we were tossed and bucked around between the two wakes, not bothering to stifle my curses. Giorgi laughed.

“That was deliberate!” I called over the ferry’s throbbing engine.

“We do this when young,” he called.

“Do what?”

“Chase ships!”

Chase ships? Then I got it: wake chasers were like stunt drivers back home—teenage boys burning testosterone along with rubber on the back roads. The boat version was equally dangerous and bonehead crazy. “But you’re not a teenager!”

He laughed. “Sometimes I feel young!”

That single action gave me the clearest indication of Giorgi’s character: an aging adrenaline junkie. He loved danger and clearly wasn’t getting enough of it in his present job. In other words, he was the right person for the task ahead, whatever the hell it involved.

After that, we left the strait between the islands and eased closer to shore. Giorgi cut back speed. Ahead, a cluster of lights marked the town of Naxos. On one side was what looked to be an airport since a small plane was coming in for a landing overhead.

“I’ll give you directions,” I said, opening my phone. Evan’s super phone app worked the same as Google Maps only it included the location signals for each member of the agency team. All I need do was press Peaches’s green dot and up popped the coordinates with an option for oral directions, which I engaged immediately. Evan’s tech-generated voice spoke. “Proceed 37.1101 degrees north, 25.3724 degrees east.” I hated the robotic version of Evan’s deep timbered tones, but right then, I’d take anything.

“That phone something else,” Giorgi exclaimed. “I get one. How much?”

“It’s a prototype. My friend’s in the business. Not on the market yet.”

He muttered something in Greek and studied the lighted dials on his dashboard as he maneuvered along. Several minutes passed with him steering and me staring off at Naxos. We were cruising along the shoreline now, passing the occasional boat as we went.

“We go to Portara,” Giorgi called, studying his instruments.

“Portara,” I said, considering the word’s possible root. “The doorway?”

“Door to Temple of Apollo,” he said. “On small island. I have been many times.”

Since he no longer needed coordinates, I tapped a text to Evan. The door to the Temple of Apollo?

He got back in less than a minute.

Evan: Built around 530 BC, believed to be dedicated to Apollo. Perhaps dedicated to Dionysus, who was once worshipped on Naxos. Never finished. Only the doorway remains. Marble pieces were too large to be dismantled. What is happening, Phoebe?

I glanced up. Now I could see two majestic spotlit marble pillars with a lintel across the top profiled on a low hill as we rounded a point of land. What the hell was happening? At least twenty-six feet high with four blocks of white marble possibly sixteen feet or longer, I could see why those behemoth hunks were never poached by ancient builders. Standing on a little island promontory facing the sea, it could be a portal to another world.

I typed, Must go, and switched back to the map app. The green dot that was Peaches was pulsing larger and appeared to be directly ahead…somewhere. “She’s over there,” I called.

Giorgi cut the engine and switched on a dash-mounted searchlight. Together we peered into the water. On one side a causeway, on the other the doorway on its rocky outcrop, and somewhere ahead…Peaches. And then the light caught the gleam of a small white boat drifting close to a scrabble beach. “I see her!”

Our boat coasted closer, and as soon as I could, I plunged overboard to wade up to my waist toward the boat. There lay Peaches, splayed on her back in a dory, one long leg flung over each side, her head tipped back and her mouth open. Handfuls of long-stemmed purple flowers and some kind of spiky fir branches that I didn’t immediately recognize had been scattered over her chest.

“Peaches!” When I tried shaking her, she didn’t move. Grabbing the boat by the prow, I dragged it up to the beach. I took a couple of quick photos. In seconds, Giorgi was by my side and together we lifted her onto the pebbled sand where I knelt beside her and checked her pulse—strong—and did a preliminary check for wounds but found none.

“Peaches, what happened?” But she was clearly out cold.

Giorgi dumped her knapsack and her roller bag onto the shale beside her. “Not robbed. Roller lock not broken. Purse still inside duffel.”

He was right. However she got there, her luggage and wallet came with her, but those flowers were staged, plus there were no oars in the boat. This felt wrong, as if it were to be a funeral…or a sacrifice. I looked over at the door of Apollo bathed in the spotlights and shivered.

While Giorgi was studying the roller bag more closely, I plunged my hand under Peaches’s jacket to where she carried her phone in a specially made breast pocket under her shirt. Even through the thin material I could see the phone’s red intruder light flashing. It recognized my fingerprints, of course, but had an attacker touched it, they’d lose a layer of skin, at the very least. Dropping the phone into my bag, I looked up at Giorgi. “Let’s get her back to the ship.”

“No doctor? The ship has nurse.”

“She can check her out if she doesn’t rouse by then, but her pulse is strong and it doesn’t look like she’s been hit or bludgeoned or shot…” Just stop, Phoebe. “No blood,” I finished.

Giorgi leaned over and sniffed. “Drunk!”

“No way,” I protested. “Peaches can hold her liquor better than a Russian sailor, and besides, she never drinks on the…while traveling.” I almost tripped up and said on the job.

“I smell ouzo. She is drunk.”

So that’s the licorice smell clogging my nostrils.

“Someone wanted her to look that way but it’s a setup.”

He nodded. “So you in big trouble.” He pointed toward the open water. “Someone put her in that boat to float. Thought she’d end up out at sea and hit by ship but did not know the tides bring her back. She lucky.”

I nodded. “Help me get her aboard.”

In minutes we had laid Peaches across the stern’s padded bench and were headed back the way we had come. I sat cradling her head on my lap trying to gently rouse her with water, anything I could think of. Nothing worked. A few texts back and forth to Evan along with the photo I took ended with me promising to phone him as soon as I got to the ship.

The way back was calm and free of traffic compared to the ride over. About fifteen minutes away from Paros, Giorgi phoned the ship’s tender guy. A lively and querulous conversation followed in Greek. Giorgi hung up, still swearing. “Useless! He refuses to pick you up from shore. Says curfew over. I’ll take you.”

“Will they let me on board?” It was almost 11:30.

“Leave to me.”

Fifteen minutes later and we were cruising into the harbor, Peaches still unconscious.

“You need me,” Giorgi said. “You hire me to help while on ship. I know these islands and crew. I help.”

I looked across at him silhouetted against the harbor lights, his cigarette a glowing spark of red. “Help how? I can’t very well bring you on board as my assistant, can I?”

He grinned, the cigarette bobbing between his teeth. “They ask me to drive tender for them days ago. I refuse—pay poor—but you give me—” he rubbed his fingers together “—and I say yes. Then I stay on board to help you.”

Given my circumstances, that sounded like an excellent deal, despite the obvious issues of logistics. “It’s that easy, really?”

“I know crew. I report Castor now. He get fired. Not good worker—lazy. They want me. I am very good worker, understand?”

“How much?”

“One hundred euro per day, flat rate.”

“That’s robbery. You’ll be being paid by the ship so anything I give you is just a bonus. Make it twenty-five euro a day extra.”

“Fifty and we have deal.”

“Fine, but only if you can get us back on board and into my stateroom without a fuss. I don’t want to draw attention. In the morning I’ll just say that her ferry was late and you can explain away how we got through security to get back on board.”

Peaches moaned from my lap. That would be her struggling to consciousness at the sound of me making a bad deal.

Giorgi rubbed his fingers together. “You got cash?”

Bribery made the world go around. “I have cash,” I told him.

CHAPTER 6

When we arrived at the ship, two crew members I didn’t recognize were waiting to help get Peaches on board. We took a back stairway to my stateroom, the guys carrying Peaches, Giorgi handling the luggage, no questions asked. I had them lay Peaches gently on my bed before sending everyone away, including Giorgi. I watched as he strode away whispering to the two helpers, passing wads of euros to each. Yes, that guy was worth the cost of admission.

Bolting the door behind me, I returned to the bed. Peaches was moaning as if struggling to waken. I checked her pulse again—still strong— and removed her boots and sodden jacket before wrapping her in a blanket. Though she wasn’t otherwise soaked, her attackers had poured what must have been a bottle of ouzo over her shiny nylon biker jacket. Luckily the material repelled liquid so her shirt remained dry.

Dropping the reeking jacket into the shower stall, I gave my room the once-over to check for bugs with extra scrutiny applied to Peaches. All was clean. Whoever did this did not expect her to live long enough to collect information from a surveillance device, unsettling in itself.

“Peaches," I whispered, gently shaking her shoulders.

She turned her head and moaned.

Should I call for the ship’s nurse? If I did, I’d inevitably have to answer a myriad of questions that not only I couldn’t answer but which would bring a police investigation down on my head.

Time to confer. I called Evan, set the phone on the live camera feature, and propped it against the night table while I dashed around the cabin wetting towels and pouring water. “Evan, she’s slowly rousing with no sign of trauma except that she’s out cold. Did you get the pictures?”

“I did, and the manner in which she was laid out in that dory had elements of the ritualistic.” He sounded so near and I wished like hell that was true.

“That’s what I thought and she was found floating strewn with flowers near the door to the Temple of Apollo,” I said, bathing her forehead. “No fever. No wounds. I’m debating whether to call the ship’s nurse.”

“She wouldn’t be able to diagnose anything without blood tests, which would require a shore trip and no doubt involve the police. If she’s slowly coming to, it’s better to just leave doctors out of it.”

I picked up the phone so I could see his face and those warm eyes better. He gave me a faint smile, which kept me going.

“That’s what I thought. Giorgi, my skipper, claimed she was drunk because she reeks of ouzo but that was just a cover. You know Peaches doesn’t do drunk. Whoever did this wanted it to look like some bit of drunken foolery, but why lay her out in that boat like a sacrifice?”

“Who did this, Phoebe?”

“Maybe somebody from the ancient civilization alternate history theorist group, or I think I got that right. Long story.” So I gave him the short version.

“And do you trust Nick Pallas?”

“Yes and no,” I said flatly. “I sense he’s trustworthy but who knows who’s involved in this network of speculative thinkers where he virtually hangs out? He has no idea who reads what in those group chats—nothing but fake names and avatars plus a lot of shady lurkers. He posted that I was coming to Athens to repatriate Athena’s head and I gather I’ve been a topic of conversation ever since. Nick claims that everything I’ve done to date is rich in heady symbolism.”

“As in a woman named Phoebe who returns the head of Athena to Athens?”

Of course he knew his mythology, too. “More or less.”

“I’ve always said that you are legendary. According to the ancient Grecian belief system, those with high prophetic or intuitive abilities might become priestesses or even an oracle like a Pythia of Delphi, the most powerful woman in the ancient world at the time. She could tell fortunes, dispense advice, and generally divine the future. Men fell at her feet—” he paused “—much like I fall at yours.”

I smiled. “You don’t appear to be falling anywhere near me at the moment.”

“That can change.”

“Anyway, Artemis was sister to Apollo so I see the Potara connection. By the way, I have no divination abilities other than to be a bloodhound who can sniff out lost objects.”

“That you know of or are willing to admit. You’ve always undervalued your abilities. It was only a matter of time before you became widely known as one who can locate lost treasures against all odds.”

“Great,” I sighed, thinking that at that moment I’d like nothing better than to be known as the woman who knit weird wraps or, better yet, slip into the background in the boring and uninteresting department. Peaches moaned beside me. “That was Peaches, not me.”

“Run the camera over her, please,” Evan requested.

I did as he asked. “She has no wounds that I can see,” I told him.

“Did you check her phone and scan for surveillance devices?”

“That’s the first thing I did—nothing—and she wasn’t robbed. But when I found her, her phone’s intruder alert was activated. I’m betting somebody drugged her, tried to take her phone, and got the shock of his life—literally.”

“She definitely appears to have been drugged,” he said.

“Right. How else do you get a tall, strong woman who knows martial arts into a boat and float her out to sea? Evan, those waters are churning with ships. Somebody wanted her to get plowed under. This was attempted murder, but how does she fit into this Artemis Key thing, if she does at all?”

“As a sacrifice.”

“What?” Maybe at one level I’d reached the same conclusion but to hear it said aloud…

He may have murmured something about staying calm but needn’t have bothered. I had reached that cool collected zone where I did what was necessary while keeping emotion in check. “Was Artemis associated with human sacrifice?”

“That I don’t know but intend to find out. Phoebe, I’m going to give you instructions to unlock her phone and access what might have been recorded when the intruder app was activated. The phone captures fingerprints, videos, and voices. Usually I can do it remotely but I’m not at my desk.”

I pulled Peaches’s phone out of my bag, but since the battery was almost drained I needed to plug it in first. That done, I followed his instructions to penetrate the phone’s settings. We discovered that a fairly clear fingerprint had been captured the moment her attacker tried to nab the phone. Since the device had been shoved next to her bra, she must have already been out cold by then.

“Send that picture to me. Now we know that someone is running around with their thumb pad seared—bastard. He’ll have more than that wrong with him by the time I’m finished.” I loved it when he pulled all that manly stuff. “Now press the replay button and let’s see what else the phone captured.”

Seconds later a crackling voice could be heard muttering while another swore in English. “Jesus Christ! What the hell? That bloody thing burned my fingers!” British accent—male.

The other swore vehemently—also British, also male.

“Two Englishmen. London, east end,” Evan remarked as if that fact startled him.

Since the phone never made it outside of Peaches’s shirt, no pictures were recorded but other sounds followed—the ocean, faraway voices too distant to be understood, voices singing or chanting.

“That’s it,” I commented. I let the thing play out while I stroked Peaches’s forehead and Evan continued to listen.

“Send everything to me and, Phoebe,” he said, “I’ll be catching the next flight to Greece. I can’t wait to see you, even if I can’t envelop you into my arms the way I’ve been dreaming of for weeks and months. I’ll book on to the ship disguised as an eccentric senior British gentleman of wealth and means.”

“Modeled after Rupert?”

He smiled. “I’ve been his understudy for years, but in this case I may be unable to keep my hands off a certain redhead and we know how Sir Rupert maintains level of propriety. Expect me to fall off script whenever possible. Stay safe in the meantime and tell no one but Peaches that I’m coming. See you soon.” He ended the video.

After a few pleasant moments dreaming of being held by an eccentric British gentleman of wealth and means, I sat quietly for a moment, feeling unaccountably lonely. I had no idea how else to help my friend. It was late and I was exhausted.

After performing another room check and setting my phone’s intruder alert, I headed for bed. That would be the fold-down couch Artino had prepared since nothing but the main bed could accommodate Peaches’s long legs. Yet, that fold-down version was surprisingly comfy and I dropped off to sleep immediately, remaining deeply under right up until the screaming began.

“Get off me, you piece of shit!”

I fell out of bed, leaped to my feet, and sprung across the cabin, banging my shins on a table, ready to zap the intruder. The sun poured through the veranda windows. Peaches was sitting up in bed with the covers thrown off.

“Was that you screaming?” she demanded.

I laughed. “That was you but I’m glad you’re awake, no matter how loudly you do it. I’ve been so worried.” Dropping my phone on the bed, I gave her a monster hug.

She hugged me back briefly before setting me aside. “How’d I get here?”

“I’m hoping you can partly answer that.”

“Oh.” She rubbed her head. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

“Could have been a cruise ship.”

“Pardon? I’m so damn thirsty.” She grabbed the water on the nightstand and drank the bottle empty before falling back on the pillows. “And I feel like crap…helluva headache. Could you make me my detox tea? It’s in my duffel, right-hand inside pocket.” She bolted up again. “Have I been robbed?”

“No,” I told her as I emptied one of her little travel packets into a mug and switched on the kettle. “Tell me what you remember. When you last texted me, you had just caught the ferry from Athens.”

“Yes,” she sighed, lying back and staring up at the ceiling. “The wrong ferry, as it turns out. There was this guy on the plane with me from London—Richard Longley from Birmingham. Said that he teaches engineering but was off for a holiday to the Greek isles. Spoke fluent Greek. Tall, black, with a six-pack like you wouldn’t believe. Sexy as hell.”

“Sometimes sexy is hell,” I muttered. This guy sounded like pure Peaches bait. “And?”

“And like he was hitting on me and it had been a while since I’d been with an interesting guy so I hit back—hard. The ferry seemed to be stopping at every port in the Aegean and I complained that, at this rate, I’d never get to Paros, so Richard suggested that we get off at Mykonos to hop a high-speed catamaran. He was heading to Delos to study ancient engineering, he said, so it was no problem for him to go in the same direction. I don’t remember much after that.” She paused. “He must have drugged me, the bastard.”

“That’s what I’m guessing. Any idea where?”

“Had to have been on the ferry from Mykonos. They had this little bar where he bought me an ouzo and set fire to a little bean floating on the surface. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. I remember laughing, him with his arm over my shoulders. That’s where things get fuzzy and I started feeling sick.”

“How many drinks did you have?”

“One. Not that fond of ouzo.”

“Did he…?”

“Hell, no! Surely I’d remember that? Or at least feel it waking up! I was definitely not raped or sexually assaulted. Besides, where could that even happen on a ferry? Wait, forget I said that—lots of places. Anyway, even if he didn’t do something, doesn’t mean he didn’t drop flunitrazepam or gamma hydroxybutyrate into my drink. I definitely detect some funky aftertaste going on.”

“What are flun—never mind. What are those?”

“Date rape drugs.”

“Hell.”

“Yeah, I’d better detox like mad to get these pollutants out of my system. And the bastard didn’t take my stuff? Like, what’s that all about? Imagine this happening to me? I’ll kill him. How could I be such an idiot?”

“I suspect being human has something to do with it. You always say that to me when I do something less than brilliant. Anyway, your stuff’s all here with the locks intact.” I handed her the mug of tea. “We captured some data on your phone, including a fingerprint, which I sent off to Evan.”

“I’ll get that bastard, I swear I will. No one fools around with me and gets away with it. How’d I get here?”

I had to break it to her sometime. I took a deep breath. “We tracked you to a little boat floating off the island of Naxos.” Passing her my phone, I waited while she studied the image.

She swallowed hard. Setting the mug down on the table, she sprang to her feet, pacing the cabin while holding my phone in both hands. “Shit. Shit! What the hell is this? Flowers? I’m laid out like a sacrificial lamb of the bloody black sheep variety!” She swung to me. “Do you know what those flowers mean?”

“I have an inkling given the context. Juniper represents Artemis, and poppy…death.”

“So I was supposed to be like, what, a gift to a goddam goddess?”

“Maybe, but we really don’t know—”

“And they put me in a boat and floated me to where, like across the River Styx?”

“More like the strait between Naxos and Paros. We found you near the Potara of Apollo, which is the door-like ruins of an ancient temple.”

“What century are we in, anyway?” she cried. “Or maybe I should ask what dimension?”

“Calm down. We’ll sort this all out.”

“I am calm! I can’t believe this happened! What the hell is going on?”

Time for the next part of the story. “I’m going to order room service and invite a friend to join us for breakfast. In the meantime, let me fill you in on the backstory. Do you want a shower first? It would probably make you feel better.”

She glared, slung her duffel over her shoulder, and strode to the bathroom. Minutes later I turned after ordering breakfast and found her standing behind me holding up a card. “Found this in my inside back pocket—the Hanged Man. Tell me this isn’t happening. Tell me I can get off at the next port, the port of sane.”

CHAPTER 7

Nick, Peaches, and I sat around the little table on my balcony having a simple breakfast of fruit, bread, yogurt, and cheese. To my left the most amazing shade of turquoise danced in gentle swells as the ship sailed through the Cyclades toward the port of Delos—a very short distance, I was told. We were to drop anchor off one little island along the way for two hours of diving and snorkeling, but otherwise, the Sylvan Seas retained its leisurely course to one of the most important archaeological sites of the ancient world.

But none of us were exactly rocking the holiday spirit that morning. Even the occasional dolphin sighting did nothing to improve our collective mood. In the center of the table propped against the bread basket, the Hanged Man card gave a stark reminder that the setting only looked like paradise but may actually be a few degrees north of deadly.

“Just so we’re clear, that card was found on Peaches’s person,” Nickolas said.

“We already said that, Nick,” Peaches told him as she spooned up more fruit cocktail. She had finally lost that haunted puffy-eyed look after liberal doses of her medicinal tea. Otherwise, she was taking to Nick with a degree of prickly skepticism that I was attempting smooth over with doses of humor. “It was in my pocket, I said.”

“So, it’s reasonable to assume that whoever put it there expected it to be found,” he pointed out.

“After the fact,” I commented while stirring my yogurt.

“Or found by Peaches herself when she came to,” he said in that ever-hopeful tone I was beginning to recognize. "So it follows that he or she didn’t mean the card to be anything other than a message.” He spread his hands and smiled. “It could be that Peaches wasn’t meant to die but to be found as part of this sequence of cryptic symbolic messages.”

I put down my spoon while Peaches let hers clatter into her bowl. “Are you kidding me?” she said. “I was set to float unconscious into a shipping lane with hopes that something big would mow me down and feed me to the fishes. What is it about that that doesn’t look like someone wanted me dead?”

“Maybe not, is what I’m suggesting,” he said, his eyes a warm melting brown. “True that it was highly dangerous situation, but other than being drugged, you were placed in that boat unharmed.”

“Have you ever been drugged, as in laid out like a sacrifice and floated out to sea?” she asked.

“Ah, no, but—”

“Ah, no, but nothing. That’s causing harm, get it? That’s attempted murder.”

“Ah, but what I’m suggesting is that maybe it was just another sign?” he asked hopefully.

“A sign that somebody tried to kill me.”

“We need to look at this in a big-picture view to distinguish patterns and messages,” he offered.

I shook my head. “Nick, you’re still not getting it. Didn’t you study the picture? Her positioning had sacrificial quality. The only reason they didn’t kill her outright was because they wanted her death to look like the accidental end to a drunken holiday night out.”

“Did the ancient Greeks even make human sacrifices?” Peaches asked.

“Human sacrifices might have occurred in certain sects but we’re not certain of the details. In the case of Artemis, sacrifices were usually of goats or bulls.”

“That should count me out, then, huh?” Peaches said. “Obviously these guys were taking creative liberties.” She glowered down at her bowl.

“The only other incidents of human sacrifices were when the goddess believed her temple might be desecrated,” Nick continued. “But I don’t see how that factors in, in this case.”

“Look,” said I, “all we know is that someone tried to kill her and performed some kind of ritual in the process. Presumably, by the time she’d been hit by a ship or floated out to sea or capsized, most of the evidence would be gone. It was staged.”

He stared. “But I don’t understand why someone would do this.” Picking up the Hanged Man card, he stared at it as if expecting it to speak. “This card denotes energy arrested or someone awaiting judgment. Isn’t that like saying that we are to do nothing but wait for some grand design to play out?”

“What grand design?” Peaches and I said in unison.

“That we don’t know, but it is as if whoever is planting these cards wants us to take no action because he or she is saying that whatever will happen will occur regardless. At least, that’s how I understand this card.”

Peaches fixed him with her gaze. “My granny read tarot cards, tea leaves, you name it, and that mumbo-jumbo stuff always creeped me out. She’d pull one every day and lay it on the kitchen table saying that it was her message for the day. Still, I remember this card well enough. Anytime the Hanged Man was pulled, she’d say that it implied that only those who were wise, self-possessed, and have boatloads of patience would succeed in the given situation. That seems like a strange message to place in the pocket of a soon-to-be dead woman.”

“Exactly my point,” said Nick.

“And the surface symbolism of somebody hanged has other connotations.” I shook my head.

“Somebody’s playing a hand,” Peaches said.

“Instead of reading the hand they’ve been played,” I countered. “And they want me to know it, but why?”

“It must have something to do with this Artemis Key. What is it exactly?” Peaches asked, staring at Nick.

“We don’t know,” Nick replied. “The ancient Greeks believed that the Artemis Key could prophesize the future and lead supplicants to lost objects. This key supposedly lies hidden in one of the temples to Artemis.”

“There were more than one?” Peaches asked.

“There were many different cults to Artemis in ancient Greece, each with different rituals and celebrations according to local customs. Some of these had mysterious rituals associated with them, possible similar to the Elysian Mysteries.”

“Where women dance around and perform weird rites?” Peaches asked.

“More or less,” Nick acknowledged, “but in truth we know very little about them.”

“So where does Phoebe fit in?”

“Nick is hoping I’ll be able to locate the key and the temple using my lost-art sniffer-dog capabilities.”

Nick cleared his throat. “Phoebe has highly honed intuitive skills combined with psychic abilities. We’re hoping she may be able to use her gifts to locate the Artemis Key. The last Pythia at Delphi may have hidden it against invading forces.”

Peaches turned to me. “So now you're an ancient Grecian lost-art sniffer dog?”

“Diversify, they say.” I shrugged.

“No,” Nick countered, laying his hands flat on the table and pitching his voice to his most authoritative tone. “The bearer of the Artemis Key has multiple nuances of meaning and, as the high priestesses in one of the many cults that permeated ancient Greece at the time, were doubtless powerful members of society. The high priestesses of goddesses such as Artemis or Athena were probably the most powerful women of the ancient world.”

That struck me dumb for a second. “I always believed that women in ancient Greece were much like those in ancient Roman society—cloistered, muted, and hidden from public view.”

“True enough,” Nick said, “but the exceptions were the priestesses. It was considered a great honor to be named a high priestess or an oracle in ancient Greece, often one and the same. It was believed that the goddess spoke through her priestesses and thus supplicants brought gifts and made sacrifices to them on the goddesses’ behalf.”

Peaches looked at me and frowned. “Are you supposed to be a modern version of one of those? Forget it. I won’t bow and scrape to you or anyone.”

“Not necessary,” I said with a nod, “and I can do without the sacrifice part, too, but if you want to give me that velvet scarf you bought in Venice last year, I’ll accept it.”

She stared at me with her most regal tilt of the chin. “Not happening, but it looks as though somebody thought I’d make you a good sacrifice,” she pointed out.

We gazed at one another, suddenly serious. Attempted murder is never funny. “God, I hope not,” I whispered.

“We don’t know as of yet what the intention was. However, if I may change the subject for a moment,” Nick began. “What I’m having difficulty grappling with is that tarot cards are hardly the topic of alternate ancient civilization theorists, at least not directly, though we have been known to discuss secret knowledge as it relates to the ancients. The topic of spiritual archaeology has come up in the group but that was many months ago.”

We turned toward him. “Spiritual archaeology?”

“That’s the study of archaeology as it relates to sacred places, of which Greece has many,” he explained. “Delos, for instance, was the ancient birthplace of a god and goddess and therefore considered a sacred place reportedly known for miracles in its day much like Mecca, Lourdes, or other holy power sites today.”

“So what does a spiritual archaeologist do?” Peaches asked.

“The study is still based on traditional archaeology but goes beyond mere marble and physical remains to study what the ancients believed thousands of years ago. Religion is a truly human story, when you think about it, because in ancient Greek mythology—religion, I could say—the gods and goddesses often acted in very human ways, rife with all the passions and foibles we recognize in ourselves.”

“So how does the tarot fit into this, if it does at all?” I asked. “Did you ever discuss them in your group?”

“Yes, but only as they relate to ancient symbolism.”

“Because the symbolism in the cards is archetypal, even mythological, some of which may have originated in ancient Greece?” I asked.

“Far older, in fact. The tarot symbolism is believed to have originated in ancient Egypt, which predates the Greeks by two millennia,” he said. “The ancient Greek historian Ammianus wrote that there were secret hidden chambers beneath Egyptian temples carved with secret knowledge that some speculate may have contained elements of today’s tarot. Many theorists believe that these symbols may be a legacy from ancient Egyptian priesthoods.”

“Plus Egyptian symbols can be found on some of the cards in the Rider-Waite deck such as the High Priestess,” I added.

“And it is hypothesized that the Greek god Hermes was a derivative of the Egyptian god Thoth and the ancient Egyptian high priest Hermes Trismegistus,” Nick said.

“Wait,” Peaches interrupted. “These are all mythological figures, not religious ones, right?”

Nick shrugged. “You cannot separate the two. One religion will view the stories of another as myth. Christianity’s stories of Jesus rising from the grave will sound like a myth to Buddhists or Muslims, for example, and likewise theirs will sound that way to us.”

“It’s an interesting dimension of religion to disbelieve another faith based on the fixation on the truth of our own,” I acknowledged. “Stories of miracles are everywhere but it’s the intent behind the rituals that celebrate them that is the key.”

“So you’re saying that we should respect the ancient Greek religion the way we’d respect any other?” Peaches asked.

“We should respect all religions as they represent humanity’s quest to become our best selves. Long before the current world religions dominated,” Nick continued, “other gods ruled.”

“I agree with that in principle,” I stated, “only humanity has a habit of corrupting its own religions.”

“And the tarot cards?” Peaches prompted.

“They are, many believe,” Nick explained, “all that remains of the Egyptian god Thoth’s ‘Book of Secrets,’ which reportedly unlocked the mysteries of the universe handed down by the Egyptian gods. It would be the equivalent of the Bible to the Egyptians and the ancient Greeks may have been influenced by their beliefs.”

“Only the illustrations we see on the Waite deck have been altered across the centuries. Their designer, Dr. Arthur Edward Waite, was a scholar of the kabbalah and believed in the power of ancient symbolism. The modern version was most likely shaped in medieval Europe when the current pack were first discovered,” I said.

“So where does this leave us?” Peaches asked.

“Right, let’s bring this down to the here and now,” I said, my brain cells gumming together by this discussion of religions and mythology before my third cup of coffee. “We need to find out who’s doing this and why. Obviously, there’s more than one person involved, which complicates matters. I’d hoped our search would be restricted to somebody on this ship but now it seems the reach is much broader.”

“I have found something that may help.” Nick reached inside the man bag he always carried. “So last night while all this excitement was going on, I scanned the group members list for my alternate ancient civilization theorists and studied the avatars and handles of all one hundred and thirty-two of the members. You’ll never guess what I found!” He removed the bread basket and dropped a printed copy onto the spot. “There’s a member who calls himself ‘the Magician’ and used the Rider-Waite Magician tarot card of the same name as his avatar.”

I snatched up the page and stared. “This Magician made one hundred and fifteen postings?”

“Over a six-month period, fifty-six of them after I announced that you were coming to Greece. Do you see how many comments and questions he asked? I was printing them off when Leo walked into the crew quarters where we keep the printer and computer. I’ll get back on it after the tour of Delos. Are you ready for the start of our experiment today, Phoebe?”

“What experiment?” Peaches asked.

Busily reading, I didn’t respond at first, so Nick answered for me. “Phoebe agreed to put herself out there as a test case for my Artemis Key research today.”

“And what does it mean ‘to put herself out there’?” Peaches asked.

“I’m going ashore with Nick as part of the two Delos tours to see whether I have any sudden insights regarding the possible location of a lost temple…or something,” I said without looking up.

Peaches sat back and crossed her arms. “That’s crazy.” I wasn’t sure whether she meant the lost temple was the crazy part or me going ashore.

“She will be perfectly safe,” Nick assured her. “I’ll be at her side at all times and both tours are in broad daylight. This afternoon we remain primarily on the bus, which is a rare treat since vehicles are not usually permitted on the archaeological site. The ship received special permission in the interests of accessibility for our more senior passengers to use the museum’s van. There are two tours: one this afternoon and a much longer walking tour tomorrow. Most passengers have signed up for the full-day excursion tomorrow.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?” Peaches demanded. “I’ll be the one right by her side.”

I looked up. “Peach, come today only. If most of the passengers will be onshore tomorrow, it’s a prime opportunity for you to search for a pack of tarot cards missing its High Priestess; that is, assuming that your Hanged Man belongs to another pack. Between the hours of nine and 10:30, all the rooms are slated to be cleaned and Artino takes a break.”

“I’m here as your bodyguard,” she pointed out while not mentioning the fact that last night she could have used one herself, “so I plan to guard your body.”

Nick looked across the table at her. “I’m sure Phoebe’s body will be perfectly safe. I’ll be right beside her the entire time.” He paused to glance at his watch. “We have a staff meeting of the water crew in three minutes. Phoebe, are you going diving, too?”

“That’s my plan,” I began.

“Absolutely not!” Peaches erupted. “Do you think she’s going to just ask for trouble?”

Nick glanced from Peaches to me and back again. “But nobody has attempted to harm her in any way. Why would they? She’s incredibly important. In any case, I must run. Catch you later.”

I watched him dash through my cabin and disappear through the door. When I turned, Peaches was staring at me. “What?”

“Is he for real?” she demanded.

I sighed. “I’ve come to realize that Nick is one of those rare souls who believes that the world is basically a good place populated predominantly by good people with a smattering of good people gone bad.” She was staring. “That’s a simplification, of course, but the point is that, yes, he’s for real. He’s highly intelligent, very knowledgeable in his area of study, and completely ensorcelled by the belief that Atlantis exists, miracles happen, and that someday an advanced alien species will descend to the earth and solve all the earth’s problems. I just made that last part up but you get my drift.”

“And he also believes that you’ll just land on ancient soil and maybe sniff out a lost temple?” she asked.

“Something like that. I’m willing to go along with it in the hopes that I might learn something profound about my own sense of intuition and abilities. Don’t scoff, Peach. I know that you’re a concrete thinker who prefers empirical knowledge to anything esoteric but keep an open mind. There’s so much about our own brains that we don’t understand. Anyway, forget Nick for a moment. We have to find this Magician. He’s a key to this, I’m sure of it.” I indicated the printout in my hand. “Let’s do some research.”

But it was clear that Peaches had still not recovered enough to peer down at either text or screen.

“I don’t like it, don’t like any of it,” she said as she lay back down on the bed with her arm shielding her eyes. “It’s like we have to hunt down invisible foes hiding behind ancient symbols that hint at murderous intent. I’d rather have somebody shoot at me outright than have them creep around wearing a mask and pulling mumbo-jumbo stuff.”

I agreed with her there. “If it’s any consolation, the voices that your phone captured sounded like ordinary thugs.”

“Yeah, so, like, that makes me feel better.”

“But we could also detect chanting in the background.”

“Mythic thugs, then,” she said with a sigh.

“There,” I said as I propped my legs on the coffee table and tapped Send on my phone. “I just sent off the details about this Magician guy to Evan in hopes that he can set the agency wheels in motion to investigate his true identity. Hopefully, we can get a few answers back before he arrives in Delos, which should be by tomorrow morning, at the very latest.”

“He’ll need to involve a hacker for that.”

“We’ve got a few of those in our network and it’s not as if these social media sites aren’t impenetrable. At the very least, we could trace this guy’s IP address and narrow in on his location to identify him that way. Scammers do it all the time. Listen to this. Here’s the last thing the Magician posted before he went silent in the group. Interesting that it coincides with my arrival in Athens because, after that, he makes no further postings.”

I read from the printout: “Imagine the significance of identifying a modern Artemis Key in the crucible of ancient Greece? Imagine the power such a goddess could unlock? She is the one we seek.”

“And what was the response from others in this group?”

“A smattering of enthusiastic agreements amid lamentations of the delay and the perils of Covid in general. One person suggests that I be invited as a guest speaker at a conference that was postponed due to Covid last year but later rebooked for next spring. Nick, in particular, was enthusiastic about that idea as it seems he’s to be one of the guest speakers, too. Oh, backing up a bit, here’s where Nick tells everyone that I’m coming to Athens: I have just received word that the famed Phoebe McCabe, who is undoubtedly very gifted, will be arriving in Athens to repatriate the head of Athena to the Acropolis Museum. He goes on to say that he plans to arrange a meeting.”

“By pretending to be somebody he’s not. How does that fit into your idea of his good-boy status?”

I peered over the top of the page at her. “That just proves to me that he’s willing to the occasional unethical thing to follow his convictions. Otherwise, we can slot that one into the ‘nobody’s perfect’ category.”

She smiled at that, but before we could discuss anything further, a knock at the door interrupted us. I checked the time. “That must be Artino, our cabin steward. We were supposed to take breakfast on deck so he can make up the room. Are you up for a stroll topside?”

“Sure,” she said, getting to her feet. “After all, we have monsters and magicians to track.”

CHAPTER 8

I opened the door to Artino’s smiling face, his arms ladened with fresh white towels and a cart full of amenities parked nearby. “At your service, my goddesses.” And he proceeded to charm Peaches while attempting to prod her for information concerning her late arrival the night before, all of which she sidestepped with practiced dexterity. The goddess part she simply acknowledged as her due.

Just as we finally extracted ourselves and Artino had bolted into our cabin to begin room maintenance, the door of the neighboring stateroom opened and out came Mr. and Mrs. Rose from Glasgow. I recognized them as the senior couple I had seen lounging on deck the day before.

“Our neighbors!” the gentleman exclaimed with a delightful brogue. A tall lean man dressed in crisp white Bermuda shorts and coordinating shirt, he offered one hand for us to shake while leaning heavily with the other on what looked to be an antique carved walking stick. "Allow us to introduce ourselves: I am Peter Rose and this is my lovely wife, Heather, both hailing from Glasgow, Scotland. And you are?”

We introduced ourselves and shook hands accordingly. The lovely wife Heather squeezed a reluctant smile through pursed lips and stood with her hands neatly clasped over the handbag she held pressed against her floral skirt. No handshaking happened there. “I am still not comfortable with the lessening of Covid restrictions in general,” she explained. “I presume you have been vaccinated?”

“Of course. We all had to prove our vaccination status before boarding the ship.” I tried to keep my smile going to bypass her aloofness. “Heather—may I call you Heather?” I asked, smiling over at her.

“You may. It is, after all, the standard protocol these days among strangers, though I never did abide by it myself.” The shrewd pale blue eyes studying me from over top her round clear-rimmed glasses held at least as much interest in me as I suspected mine did of her. Probably in her late sixties and younger than her husband, who I took to be at least a decade or two older, she was almost as tall as he was and equally lean with clothes hanging on her lanky frame.

While Peaches chatted to Peter, enthusing over her first trip to Greece, I attempted to pump a little warmth into my relations with Heather Rose. “This is my longed-for vacation,” I told her. “I have always dreamed of sailing through the Greek islands on a tall ship.”

Another tight smile. “How wonderful for you to realize a dream. My husband and I are celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary, albeit the actual date was many months prior. Nevertheless, we have often taken vacations in Greece, it being one of our favorite holiday locales. Peter is a retired doctor, you know, with an interest in the ancients. And what is it that you do, Phoebe?”

Since I was traveling under an assumed name but could still be recognized, I had my answer dovetailed neatly into my assumed identity. “I’m in art restoration. Are you attending the Delos tours?” I changed the topic quickly as we strolled toward the elevator.

“We are indeed. Peter refuses to miss a thing, though we have attended many such excursions over the years. One always learns something new with each expert leader, I suppose. Indeed, Peter is quite looking forward to hearing what Dr. Pallas has to say.”

So Nick had achieved a level of fame among the touring crowd. “But not you?”

“I keep an open mind in hopes that I will hear something that I haven’t heard countless times before,” was her reply.

“Have you read Dr. Pallas’s book?” I asked.

“And which book would that be?” she asked.

“Unlocking Ancient Voices with Your Mind, I believe it’s called.”

“What nonsense,” she said with a sniff. “I’m quite certain that Peter would not read such things, either. I prefer a good novel myself.”

That ended that discussion. Peter rescued me by stepping up with a tidbit of information. “Did you realize that Delos is halfway between Athens and Asia Minor, Miss Phoebe?”

“Call me Phoebe, please. I did, yes. That’s one of the reasons it became such an economic and spiritual powerhouse as well as the headquarters of the fifth century BC Delian League,” I added. It’s an unfortunate side of my personality that I sometimes feel the need to spout my knowledge in order to prove that I’m not a fluff-head. A shadow crossed Peter’s pale blue eyes before I felt a twinge of shame. Really, I had to work toward becoming a better person.

The four of us piled into the lift since the Roses needed to take the elevator due to Peter’s arthritis, which we learned all about, including recent treatment options and the necessity of seeking out the best doctors in the UK. By the time we parted company on the upper deck, we knew more than we wanted to about Peter’s medical problems and that the last-minute booking was due to his only recently feeling up to the journey.

“Scratch those two from the suspect list,” Peaches remarked as we left the Roses on the upper deck. “Peter appears to be losing his marbles. Repeated the same details about his bad knee at least twice. He used to be a pediatrician, by the way. They have two grown sons living in London.”

“The Roses are still close enough to our cabin to slip a card under the door, providing Peter could even bend over,” I said. “Poor guy is struggling. Let’s agree to keep everyone on the list for now.”

I had described George Baros to her earlier but had yet to see my Mykonos stalker again. He was still out there along with Peaches’s attackers and of course the card-slipping party, whoever they were. That was enough invisible enemies to keep us vigilant.

We couldn’t wait for Evan to arrive for multiple reasons. He’d texted that morning to say that he expected to arrive by ferry tomorrow and would meet up with us on Delos. I wondered if he knew how big an area Delos was, but knowing him, he would have researched the place down to the last cubic inch.

Peaches and I stood side by side gazing up at the sails being lowered as we arrived at our diving locale, a tiny island encircled by a pristine reef. Gone was any notion I may have had of sailors shimmying up the lines to lower the yards as in days of yore. It turned out that these uber-modern tall ships handled many of those tasks electronically.

“Wow,” Peaches said. “Impressive. Dizzying.” She quickly lowered her gaze and leaned against the rails, fingers pressed to her temples.

“Maybe you should go back to the cabin and rest? Artino’s probably finished by now,” I suggested.

She straightened. “No way. I'm sticking to you like a second pair of underpants. Anywhere you go, I go.”

Since I had originally planned to go diving but knew she wasn’t yet up to anything so physical, that meant a few hours of lounging on deck researching on my tablet while the diving parties played with the fishes. It made for a relaxing late morning, though not exactly what I had envisioned for my holiday. I wondered idly whether it would always be like this, whether I’d be targeted no matter what the circumstances and require a bodyguard constantly as if I were some royal personage. But unlike Queen Elizabeth, for instance, I didn’t have a Balmoral retreat. The Lost-Art Sniffer Dog oracle needed a fortified doghouse for her escapes.

While Peaches stretched out on the sundeck in a bikini—she could really rock that thing while I kept my bountiful parts under wraps—I downloaded anything I could find on Artemis, Greek civilization, and Greek mythology in general. That did not make easy or concise reading, though I had always loved Greek mythology and had appreciated Greek art by inclination as well as by necessity. Luckily, my scanning capabilities had been honed from my student days so I could pull off information gathering with speed and accuracy despite the occasional detours. It always fascinated me which god or goddess did this or that to whom.

Occasionally, I’d look up from my tablet to survey the surroundings. The Sylvan Seas had turned the upper deck into a kind of cabana/lounging area so that those not snorkeling or diving could relax while sipping iced tea or their beverage of choice and gaze across the turquoise water at the snorkelers bobbing in their gear. The sun was bright, the sky impossibly blue, and everything sparkled with intense color and light. Some practical side of me tried to estimate the UV index but gave up.

Farther to the left, the diving contingent were evident from the marker buoys and the guide boat. We had watched that group head out earlier, skippered by Giorgi and a woman who was listed among the crew as the diving master. Said master appeared to be an energetic young woman with spiky hair and a muscular physique who I’d glimpsed from a distance the day before. I couldn’t help but feel envious of her job. Imagine herding the black-clad human fishes through glorious schools of the real thing in some underwater fantasy world. Meanwhile, Giorgi had only winked at me and tipped his hat as he sat in the boat waiting for the diving enthusiasts to pile in, which included most of the younger passengers. Interesting how he managed to pull off insinuating himself onto the staff just as he claimed he would. My euros did the trick.

Nearby, a glass-bottomed boat manned by triple-duty Nick floated close to the ship for those unwilling or unable to get wet. I noted that the Roses were included in that group as well another senior couple accompanied by their eight-year-old granddaughter. The Dexters were British expats living in Spain and I guessed they were probably in their late eighties and still fit. After checking their details, I saw that they had booked the trip months before the first Covid lockdown and therefore I had shifted them over to my mental Not Likely suspect list.

Stifling my water yearnings, I consoled myself with a stroll down the deck, leaving Peaches to doze under her huge sun hat. Over the side and below the hull, the water was so clear that I could see all the way to the bottom at the shapes of coral and brilliant darting fish. Nearby in the glass-bottomed boat, Mrs. Dexter was tossing food into the water to attract the quarry, while Heather Rose peered down at her feet with her lips forming a tight little O and Nick identified the sea life for them. But it was Peter Rose that caught my attention. He seemed to be stirring the water with his cane, occasionally poking at anything large that dared to surface.

Catching my gaze, he called up: “Phoebe, you should join us. Quite the variety of sea life here, I must say. We have just seen a darling little flotilla of baby squid that have the makings of a smashing lunch.”

I only smiled, wondering if he meant “smashing” literally. The idea of him whacking baby squid with his cane to add to our noon buffet was a disturbing image. Turning away, I checked my phone for messages but other than a text from Max informing me that he had sold a Bornean Pua’kumba carpet, the airwaves remained silent. I did a quick check of the staff schedule I’d photographed onto my phone. As suspected, most of the crew were on duty somewhere, leaving me with a few minutes to explore.

I bolted downstairs to the lowest level. This was no more than a scouting mission with snooping as the only agenda. The only staff member I encountered along the way was a steward delivering towels somewhere.

“Can I help you, miss?”

“Yes, thanks. I’m looking for the games room,” I lied.

The guy smiled. “Sorry, wrong direction. The games room is three decks up.” He pointed up a few stairs toward a short hall to his right. “The elevator is there. Very busy right now but follow me—I take you to games room.”

I smiled and pointed toward the elevator. “Sorry. I’m tired already—so many stairs. I’ll wait for the lift, thanks.”

He nodded and left me to pretend I was waiting before dashing down the steps to the bottom level. The crew quarters consisted of a corridor with every room marked by the occupant’s name—Venari, Artino, etc.

The stewards appeared to occupy the cabins closest to the stairs, while farther down the hall the doors held placards with other names I recognized from the crew list as chefs, cleaners, and deck hands. Near the very end, I found Nick’s and Giorgi’s rooms among a handful of special employees like the dive crew. The captain, first mate, and Leo all occupied larger staterooms on other levels.

After checking over my shoulder at the deserted hall, I began trying doors. Most were unlocked and those that weren’t soon became so with my de-lock app. A quick check of Artino’s quarters revealed a simple narrow room tidily arranged with not a shoe out of line beneath the bed. A brief check of his two drawers disclosed no tarot cards and the only information I came away with there was that the guy favored black briefs plus a thong or two. He kept a wad of extra cash in his room safe.

Two doors farther down, I poked my head into Giorgi’s room, finding it sparse. The guy had two changes of clothes from what I could tell, a couple of T-shirts plus one jacket and one pair of spare shoes. I unlocked the safe and found it empty. Backing out, I tried Nick’s, not surprised to find it also unlocked with nothing remarkable in sight but multiple books and a tablet that he didn’t bother to lock away in the room safe provided.

Back in the hall, I opened a door labeled Crew and discovered a lounge area with a small mess hall, computers, and seating. A television on the wall played the BBC with Greek subtitles and I could hear voices around the corner out of sight. A sudden vision of being caught down here sent me scurrying for the stairs. There was no time for me to do the job properly.

* * *

After lunch, Peaches and I returned to our cabin to get ready for Delos. The moment we strode into our quarters, Peaches began scanning every inch for listening devices while I changed into capris and a T-shirt before settling down on the couch to read.

“Artino moved our stuff,” she said after a few minutes.

“He’s our room steward; he’s allowed to do things like that,” I said without looking up.

“But in our business, we don’t need that kind of tidying. He’s even washed my jacket, hung up my clothes, and placed my undies in a drawer.”

“So give him a good tip.”

“But I don’t like men handling my undies unless we have an understanding.”

I looked up from where I had resumed studying the myths of Delos. So Peaches was not in a good mood. “Then you’ll have to tell him that you only want him to clean, not tidy, our cabin, and to leave your undies alone.” And then in an effort to distract her: “Did you know that Delos had no defensive capacity but remained a sacred site for thousands of years?” I stepped out to the balcony. "At one time it briefly became a kind of treasury, but unlike many sacred sites in ancient Greece, it had no standing army and couldn’t wage war.”

“No, I didn’t know that.” From where I stood I could see her studying her three pairs of sandals and sneakers lined up at the bottom of our diminutive closet. “He put my shoes mixed in with yours. If he’s such a tidy whiz, shouldn’t our stuff be separate?”

Okay, so many she was a tad OCD. More distraction needed. I stepped back into the cabin. “Listen to this. Here’s how Delos was formed according to myth: the Titan Leto, daughter of Coeus and Phoebe—just thought I’d throw that in to remind you that I’m named after a Titan—got pregnant by Zeus but couldn’t find refuge from Zeus’s furious wife, Hera, to give birth to her twins.”

“Why not go after her cheating husband?”

“Maybe because he was top god?” I offered.

“The age-old abuse of male power thing but go on.”

“So she finally reached the barren island of Delos and there found the sanctuary to give birth to the twin gods, Apollo and Artemis, and it became sacred from that point on.”

She gazed at me for a moment before turning away. “Huh,” she said. “What a pile of jealous, brutal, and cruel gods these Greek deities were. They were all too human, from what I can see, and Nick says we should respect them as other people’s deities?”

“Religion holds the mirror to the best we can become as human beings and, in the case of the ancient Greeks, maybe the worst, too. That’s what makes these stories so fascinating. We see a reflection of our own nature in them, good and bad.”

“So I was named after Penelope, the woebegone heroine who waited for her absent husband while he took off to explore the world—another ancient tale I prefer to turn on its head.”

“From Ulysses. I’m reading it now.”

“This is what I’m reading now—” and she held up a paperback with a man sporting bulging biceps on the cover “—and I won’t be waiting for any man, ever. Damn that Artino. He even threw away a half-filled packet of my detox tea. Can you believe that? I had it sitting there beside the kettle and now it’s gone.”

I waved my tablet before her eyes. “Look, here’s a photo of the statue of Boreas, god of the north wind, carrying away the nymph Oreithyia. The original is in the museum at Delos. We’ll see it today.”

“Never heard of them.” Scowling down at her empty suitcase, she wedged it back into the closet beside mine. “I should have left my bag locked. Once I unlocked it, it was like I issued an invitation for this guy to go through my stuff.”

“Did you have anything in there you wouldn’t want him to see besides your silky thongs and bras?”

“Of course not. Everything confidential is locked up inside my tablet tighter than a vestal virgin. You know how Ev sets up the agency’s devices so that even Poseidon couldn’t get in there with a thunderbolt, not that I have any secret documents or anything.”

“Trident.”

“Pardon?”

“Poseidon, the god of the sea, used a trident; Zeus, top god, wielded a thunderbolt. Get your divine weapons straight, woman. Anyway, back to Boreas and Oreithyia: the story goes that Boreas was a purple-winged god of the north wind who fell madly in love with a beautiful maiden he saw bathing in a spring. That—”

“So he saw a naked woman bathing and figured she was his to take? Got it.”

“That’s the way the wind blew back then. So her name was Oreithyia,” I continued, “and he took her away to his home in the skies where they became lovers.”

“It’s probably more like he came, he saw, he conquered.” Peaches snorted. “That’s called rape and abduction where I come from. These myths glorify domination over women, right? Same old story. So what else is new?”

It was obvious that she was not in the mood for mythological tales of passion so I kept the rest of my reading to myself. By the time the ship was slipping through the waves for the short sail to Delos, I was more than ready for our shore excursion, admittedly also for a few moments alone with my thoughts. Peaches and I were compatible roomies when we each had our own space but I wasn’t certain how well this close cohabitation was going to work. Still, I reminded myself, this arrangement was about my protection and I always had my knitting for escape, if necessary.

Twenty minutes later, we stood by the railing on the upper deck, my gaze fixed on the approaching shore. I was eager to see if this amazing archaeological site of the Hellenistic world might induce some kind of intuitive moment in me. Peaches stood nearby outfitted in her version of walking clothes—a purple two-piece shorts set enticing enough to throw Boreas off course. Nick had joined us by then, his gaze also fixed ahead.

“Looks arid,” Peached remarked, staring at the rocky island scattered with broken columns that grew up from the stark landscape like a partially denuded marble forest.

“It is,” Nick said. “The island itself may not look beautiful at first glance, but once you set foot on its shores, don’t be surprised to feel its power.”

Peaches studied him out of the corner of her eye. “As in an electrical current? Will I get to recharge my phone?”

Nick ignored the sarcasm. “This is more subtle, though no less powerful. Delos is on a ley line,” he said. “Have you heard of those?”

“Of course. Apparently the great cathedrals of Europe were built on ley lines,” she said, softening her tone. She had studied those during her engineering days, she had told me once, so I knew she was not a complete skeptic.

“As were the pyramids and holy sites of all beliefs including the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and Mecca,” I added. “The ancients understood earth energy and built sites of worship where that power surged the strongest. They considered it a sacred energy.”

“And Delos is one of those rare places where these energies are most powerful,” Nick added, picking up the thread, “making human transformation possible as long as supplicants remain open to the possibilities. Delos, for instance, has more abatons than any other place in Greece.”

“Abatons?” she asked.

“In ancient Greece, any place where a person experienced a miracle was walled off as a sacred spot called an abaton. Delos has hundreds of abatons scattered all over the island. An ancient Greek poet once wrote that ‘gods from high above look down upon Delos that glows like a star in the dark sky that is earth.’ It’s that powerful. That’s why I’m hoping Phoebe will experience something.”

“Something like what again?” Peaches had turned fully toward him now, fixing him with a questioning gaze.

He spoke while still fixed on the approaching shore. “Every person will experience a miracle differently, but since Phoebe has a rare gift, her insights might be very powerful.”

Peaches side-glanced me to see how I was taking this proclamation but I kept my face serious. I did not take sacred places lightly. I knew they existed, could feel them in many of the ancient temples, cathedrals, or holy sites I’d entered across the globe. It didn’t matter by what name we called God or how we framed our beliefs, universal energy existed and could be felt more acutely in certain locations. That said, I was prepared to see if I’d experience insight necessary to find a lost temple. I didn’t realize that miracles were also part of the experiment. I wasn’t sure I was up for one of those.

“Let’s head down to the launch deck,” Nick said, touching my arm. “We’ll be taking a minibus around to the sites today—nothing too strenuous. The tour is only two hours long with an hour in the museum and is more like a mobile overview in preparation for tomorrow’s walking excursion. Ready for an adventure?” He was beaming at me.

“Sure.” I smiled back, thinking that if I truly had a gift, then Delos should theoretically activate something. After all, it was the mythological birthplace of the deities of the sun and moon. For thousands of years it had drawn supplicants, revelers, worshippers, and seekers of healing and wisdom to its shores with the promise of mystic awakening. Surely that would supercharge something inside me, or at the very least clear my sinuses?

As we followed Nick to the central stairway, other passengers joined us along the way, and while I greeted everybody, I tried to remain fixed on my upcoming possible psychic event. Maybe I needed to be alone to maximize the conditions necessary to prepare myself but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Peaches was definitely not in the right state of mind for anything at a higher level of consciousness. “Maybe I’ll see my bogus Richard Longley so I can beat the snot out of him,” she whispered. Lifting her sunglasses, she surveyed the lower deck three hundred and sixty degrees. “He’s not on board, not that I expected him to be, but maybe he’ll be slithering around Delos somewhere waiting for another sacrificial lamb to appear.”

“Do you consider yourself a lamb?” I laughed.

“More like a kick-ass wolf in disguise. That’s what makes me so dangerous.”

I agreed with that in theory.

As we arrived at the launch deck, we saw that the crew had lowered a gangway that attached to a portable wharf from which the tender would ferry the twenty-five passengers to shore in two trips. Meanwhile, we could see a huge ferry arriving as smaller boats pulled up along a spit of land that must serve as a jetty.

“Busy place,” I remarked to no one in particular while looking out across the same harbor that served ancient Delos eons before. “Wonder what the locals think of all this congestion?”

“The locals, such as they are, live mostly on Mykonos,” one of whom I considered to be the arty women, Susan March from London, told me from her place nearby. I’d met her briefly at the lunch buffet earlier and identified her as my tribe. Attractive in a wildly individual way, she wore a long tunic over white capris with a silk scarf covering her curly blond hair. Her friend, Renate, standing on her other side, was short, bountiful, and bodacious with a shape that filled her short, tight shift with back capri-length leggings worn beneath. They both looked fantastic with a style all their own. “No one inhabits the island except caretakers and the occasional archaeological party but the place still sees plenty of tourists now that people are traveling again. I’m Susan, by the way. I’ve seen you around ship.”

We chatted for a few moments where I learned that she and her partner, Renate, were on their dream cruise together.

“We’ve been trying to do this for years,” Renate told me, leaning forward, “but it never worked out. Once we were both double-vaxxed, we booked.”

“I know the feeling,” I enthused. “Escape to sunshine and ocean. Is this your first trip around the islands?”

“First trip by sailing ship,” Susan said. “We were going somewhere every year before Covid struck but nothing quite this luxurious. We decided to treat ourselves. Anyway, the congestion should clear out once we enter the park. We’re following the introductory route today.”

Renate read from the brochure. “First the Sacred Way, past the sanctuaries of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, beside the Sacred Lake, onto the Terrace of the Lions, and then we finish off at the museum.”

“Sounds fantastic,” I said.

“Tomorrow there will be time for everyone to amble about and sense the vibrations.” Nick had appeared beside us. “Excuse us, ladies,” he said as he led me away. “Phoebe, if you feel something significant today, raise your hand,” he whispered. “I plan to make a quick stop on the way back to the harbor as a test.” With that, he turned and dashed toward the passengers lining up for the tender. Giorgi passed me as he headed for the boat, tipped his hat, and winked.

Peaches, who followed close at my heels, leaned toward me. “Did I really just hear Nick say ‘sense the vibrations’?”

Before I could respond, a crew member began calling for group A to take a life jacket from the selection hanging on the rack provided, take a name tag, as many bottles of water as desired, and to board the boat. That group included us, the Roses, Renate and Susan, the Jenkins family, and Mr. and Mrs. Wong. Nick was with the second passenger group, leaving us with a crew member who introduced himself as Ari, short for Aristotle, he said, who ushered us to our seats while Giorgi manned the steering wheel and revved the engine. Once all safely settled, we puttered across the harbor toward the shore.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Linda Jenkins enthused next to me. “I’m just so thrilled to see this place.”

“Not much to see from what I can tell,” son Luke grumbled. “Nothing but a bunch of old rocks.”

“You like rocks, Luke, remember? At least the hard kind,” his sister Rebecca chided.

“Stop being such a pain,” his mother told him. “Open your mind to new experiences.”

Twenty minutes later, we were standing onshore waiting for the second shuttle to arrive after leaving our life jackets in the care of a crew member. I slathered myself with sunblock and remained safely under my sunglasses and hat. Greece like most of southern Europe had had a brutally hot summer, and though autumn was cooler, the eye in the sky seemed no less intense to me as a pale, redheaded Londoner.

“Feel anything yet?” Peaches whispered.

I gazed down at the ground below my feet. “Hot.” I took another sip from my own water bottle while tucking away the one Ari had handed out. “Apollo definitely reigns here.”

Peaches studied our surroundings. “The climate reminds me of home only dryer. I could use a bit of jungle right now. So, was this god of the sun a bad boy in Greek mythology, too? I just remember seeing paintings of him riding chariots across the sky. Always wanted one of those, preferably a twin-seater with a smoldering god of my own installed.”

I stuttered mid-gulp. “All the gods and goddesses were both good and bad, like we said, but Apollo was probably one of the better ones, morally speaking. I had a crush on him as a kid after reading all about him in my parents’ encyclopedias. Those sets were well-illustrated with Greek and Roman art, I can tell you, with lots of naked god statues to whip up the junior hormones. Anyway, it was only later that I realized that these hot gods would probably have made horrendous boyfriends, golden chariots notwithstanding.”

“Figures.”

We watched as the second batch of Sylvan Seas passengers made their way toward us, their orange life jackets brilliant against the blue backdrop. After our group had gathered complete, Nick and Ari lead us past the lineups snaking beside the ticket office and through the gates to our white minibus.

Despite my relief at having bypassed the queues, I was equally glad to climb under the shade of the bus’s blue and white striped awning. We were introduced to the driver, Leander from Mykonos, while Peaches and I headed to the rear where we could better study the others.

“Apparently we are the anointed ones to get this bus ride around. Usually vehicles are not permitted but the ship pulled strings,” we heard one of the other passengers remark.

“That means we’ll probably be blessed by dirty looks by the hot and bothered strolling around,” another remarked.

Peaches and I watched the brothers Tsaoussis recently from Athens climb on. Both actually hailed from England, we’d learned, but were taking an extended vacation with family in Greece. Brent and Gerald, in insurance and retail, respectively, were both unemployed after having lost their jobs after Covid. They appeared comfortably well-off, nevertheless.

“Ready for the rock of ages, friends?” Brent, lean, fit, and thirtyish sporting a clean-shaven face in contrast to his older brother’s bushy beard and chunkier build, called out as he took his seat beside his brother.

“Rifle through their stuff tomorrow when you search their cabin,” I whispered to Peaches. “They were late bookers.”

“Maybe their family bought them tickets to get them out of their hair,” Peaches hissed back. “I’ll rifle thoroughly.”

Up front, Nick had manned the mic as the tour officially began. First he launched into a summary of the island’s history while the bus lurched into action. Delivered with passion and verve, Nick’s lesson was anything but dry, though the landscape around us seemed brutally so. I gazed out at the rocky landscape on an island only five kilometers long, parts of which looked positively desolate. No other buses kept us company on the road but plenty of foot traffic could be seen following the prescribed route either with guides or on their own.

“Do you think it’s easy being an ancient citizen of such a wealthy and sacred city?” Nick was saying, “Not so. Your safety depended on who your allies were. Delos had no armies of her own so she relied on the protection of others, mostly powerful fortified cities. In the age of warring states and empires—”

“We’re still an age of warring states and empires. Haven’t you heard?” Brent countered. “Watch the news, dude.”

“Dr. Dude, you mean,” Nick said with a grin. He knew how to work the loudmouths while maintaining his professional dignity. “Right you are, Brent, and just like today, who you align with can determine your fate. At one point in its long history, Delos chose Rome as an ally for obvious reasons. Could one find a more powerful protector in the ancient world at the time? By 100 BC, the power of Athens had already eroded and become absorbed by Rome’s imperial might. Delos had gone from being a revered sacred island to a thriving city of commerce and politics—always dangerous in the age of warring kings and empires. She was, as we say, a sitting duck.”

“And the sitting duck got its feathers plucked, right?” Brent again. There’s one in every group.

“She did. In 88 BC, King Mithridates of Pontus sacked the city, slayed thousands of its inhabitants, took many more into slavery, and plundered the treasuries, leaving behind a ghost town vulnerable to looters for the next thousand years. Rome was too far away to respond and what you see today is what’s left of her picked-over bones.”

As the bus rumbled over the dirt road toward the first stop, all I could do was think of how fragile our civilizations were, no matter what the century, what the age. The physical structure of our imposing buildings only imparted an illusion of permanence. No physical structure withstands time, nothing is permanent. As the ancient Greek Heraclitus stated: There is nothing permanent except change.

But the past still lived in the imagination, in mine at least. I could dream of the marble buildings that had once covered the island in gleaming white majesty as I glimpsed the occasional sculpture rearing among the ruins. In my mind’s eye, I saw what it must have looked like three thousand years ago as a bustling epicenter of the ancient world—people in tunics and togas bearing baskets of food and lugging carts, children running down the street, groups of robed citizens standing in the plaza discussing politics and commerce. But that was imagination playing through history, nothing more. What I could not imagine was having some kind of psychic event that would unlock the secrets of a hidden temple or a mysterious key. In the burning light of reality, that struck me as foolish.

We drove past the remains of temples as Nick continued with his “elevator” version of history—everything neatly packaged into a vivid spiel about the rise and fall of this ancient city-state with plenty of interruptions and questions by his audience along the way, mostly by the Tsaoussis brothers, both of whom knew enough history to let everybody know what they knew.

The bus stopped often so that we could disembark long enough to stand among the tumble of stone, look out toward the sea, and dream of the past. One stop landed us beside the Temple of Leto and another along the Sacred Way where we could gaze at the lion sculptures lining the road and imagine the grand processions that must have once trod that path. Though those statues were replicas, we would see the real ones later in the museum.

We stopped by the Sacred Lake. “Here, according to the story of Artemis and Apollo, was where the twin gods were born and thus revered as a significant part of the Sacred Way,” Nick told us as we gazed out at the round shape piled with rubble with a single palm growing from its center. “Water is sacred to the ancients, symbolic of the womb itself. Unfortunately, the water here was drained about a hundred years ago because the waters bred malaria that was making the excavators sick.” Nick gazed mournfully toward the rubble-filled bowl as I stepped up beside him.

“I can imagine how beautiful Delos must have once been,” I told him softly. “The pools, the buildings, the art, and the entire sense of a community gathering to celebrate spirit as well for trade and worship.”

“It was all about celebrating beauty, art, and life,” Peter Rose said, huffing up beside us. “An old man like myself could partake of those waters, leave an offering to Artemis, and walk away feeling stronger and younger, if only in his mind.”

I glanced up at him as he stared at the empty lake, his jaw clenched and one hand gripping his cane with whitened knuckles.

“We can still absorb the power of mind over body, can’t we?” I said. “The power for this kind of miracle exists solely within ourselves. We only need something to unlock our inner flow, whether it be a sacred site, art, music—something.” I hadn’t meant to say that. It’s not that I didn’t believe it, but I had never spoken those words aloud.

He gazed down at me and, even with our sunglasses, I felt a brief connection. “Yes, indeed, Phoebe. We all have the power.”

The exchange left me shaken but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe the sun, not so much hot as intense. I reached for my water bottle, found it empty, and opened one the ship provided.

“Where did the water source come from?” Renate asked, stepping between Nick and Peter.

“We believe it came from the same sacred spring that flows beneath the island, the very one that feeds the Minoan Fountain, which you will see next,” Nick replied. The spell broken, we returned to the bus and soon stopped beside the Minoan Fountain to stare at the rectangular-shaped foundation still bearing three broken columns with eleven steps leading down to a now sludgy pool.

“This is the first sacred spring and central to the life and existence of the people of Delos. It was once covered and guarded as the life-force for the inhabitants. Consider this: the fountain dates back deep into antiquity, perhaps as far back as 3,000 BC,” Nick told us. “The foundation alone can be traced to the sixth century BC and its name connects it to the Minoans, making this a Bronze Age site.”

And I knew that Delos was once an active trading outpost for the Cretans, the links and connections among the ancients influencing the cultures. By now, I was feeling unaccountable weary, something I blamed on the sun.

Finding a bit of shade by a scrubby tree, I checked my phone for messages from Evan and found one from Zann instead. Again, she asked where I was, and though I didn’t answer her directly, I did inquire if she knew of any archaeological digs in process on Delos. We’d be sailing off to the next stop before she could follow me here, should that be her intention. I just needed information.

“Feel anything?” Peaches whispered, sidling up to me.

“Still nothing,” I told her, and took another swig of water. “And still hot. Besides, these jumble of personalities are distracting.”

“Probably staring at a phone won’t inspire the vibe or whatever.”

She was right there, even if mine was no ordinary phone. I tucked it away in my pocket.

Back in the bus, the tour continued like a film on slow motion with a discordant soundtrack rolling along in the background. This was not my idea of the ideal history tour but a common part of the packaged experience, nonetheless. That didn’t mean that I wasn’t learning something, but I was beginning to feel unaccountably weary.

“Is that what I think it is?” Peaches was indicating the remains of a gigantic phallus perched on a square pediment ahead.

“In ancient Greece, the phallus was associated with Dionysus, god of fertility and wine,” Nick was saying into the mic, “but the phallus was also the symbol of good fortune. Look around you, my friends,” he continued, “try not to make assumptions about this culture based solely on our own. Eros, the god of love, hung out with Aphrodite, goddess of love, their passion being the fuel for humanity’s continued existence. Our view of sexuality is still influenced by puritanical beliefs of procreation as being ‘dirty’ or ‘sinful.’ The ancients had no such notions of the human life-force. The Greeks saw love and lust as entwined sacred energies and worshipped it as fuel for rebirth.”

“That explains the rape and abduction part,” Peaches whispered. I only smiled and continued gazing out the window, thinking of Evan in ways that just made me hotter.

“Here is a culture so far beyond ours in certain areas that we realize that they have preceded us in their wisdom,” Nick was saying. “Consider this: music therapy was commonly practiced, as was art therapy.”

At last the bus lurched to a stop beside the museum. Nick announced: “We’ll have forty-five minutes here and we are requested to turn off our phones to avoid the annoying rings that pester museum visitors.”

Everyone muted their devices, after which we tumbled out of the bus, glad to be able to stretch our legs. That is, all except Peter Rose, who called for Ari to fetch him a wheelchair.

Inside, the museum was fascinating, the way I find all museums absorbing, but this one especially so after the drive-through introduction. Here I saw the real statues of the replicas we viewed earlier plus other artifacts I could study for hours.

“What do you think, Phoebe?” Nick asked, sidling up to me as I stood admiring the statue of Boreas and Oreithyia.

I turned to face him. “Delos is amazing but I didn’t experience an ‘event.’ This isn’t the way my gift works, Nick. Sorry.”

“The conditions are probably all wrong—too much fractious energy with the tourists crawling everywhere, which is distracting. Before we head back to the boat, I’ve asked Leander to take a short detour up one of the dirt roads not accessible to the public to a stunning viewpoint. It’s strictly out of bounds since there’s an active archaeological dig in progress up that way, but there is also a large abaton so I’m hoping that if you just stand inside for a few minutes, you may experience enlightenment.”

And now I was to experience enlightenment along with a miracle. “Won’t the others notice my absence?” I asked.

“I’ll arrange a distraction while you climb into the enclosure.”

“Climb into the enclosure?”

But Nick was already rushing over to help Peter Rose, who was now waving at a mosaic with his cane while Peaches cautioned him to keep the stick to himself. Heather Rose stood apparently entranced by a reconstructed amphora nearby, her back turned to her husband.

By now, I was weary but more from by my companions than the historical remains. I left the museum to stand outside, surprised to find that the wind had picked up and that the sun had sunk low in the sky, leaving me standing in the dying light of Delos while the breeze chilled my skin.

“It seems that the last ferry leaves in fifteen minutes,” Susan said, joining me while her partner, Renate, took a seat on the steps, one hand holding down her hat.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“That’s why everyone but us has gone.”

For the first time I noticed that we were alone but for Leander and Ari standing by our bus. “That explains the sudden quiet.”

She laughed. “Exactly. Nice, isn’t it? Everybody’s off to the harbor so they won’t get stranded.” She peered toward the water. “The wind has certainly picked up. Hope nobody gets seasick heading back to Mykonos in those smaller boats.”

I followed her gaze. “It really is getting choppy.”

“It’s the time of year,” Renate told me, still holding her hat. “In the fall the winds can get pretty intense. We vacationed in Mykonos this time of year once and on some days it was bloody unpleasant.”

“We’d rather that than the heat,” Susan said, nodding to her partner. “On chilly days, we just hung out at the spa, remember, dear?”

Renate chuckled. “I had more massages in one week than I’d had all year.”

I kept staring out toward the ferry making its way back to Mykonos, thinking of how Delos had once been a center of art in the ancient world with celebratory events, competitions, music, dance, and choral groups all gathering to fill the air with dance and song. I could almost hear the music of the ages. Now it was nothing but a tumble of remains baking in the sun.

“Oh, good. Here we go.” Renate climbed to her feet and turned expectantly as our fellow travelers wandered out of the museum. Closing time at last.

Ari began ushering us on board the bus while passing out more bottles of water at the door. Nick dashed away to assist the entry process while Peaches apparently had been commandeered by Peter Rose to help him board. He seemed to be clinging to her arm now, chatting away, which left me to sit in the empty seat beside Heather, who stared into space sourly.

“Did you enjoy that?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“About as much as I enjoyed the other three times we visited Delos, though Dr. Pallas is a lively enough character.”

I tried to draw her out about her past experiences but that was useless. Heather had sunk into some taciturn state while casting disapproving looks at Peaches and her husband in the seats across the aisle from ours. Surely she didn’t think Peaches had designs on her husband? By now, I just wanted to escape everybody.

The bus pulled away, abruptly leaving the marked road to bump its way upward to the rocky hills. Several minutes later we were up on one of the highest points of the island as the bus lurched to a stop.

“Here’s one of the best vistas on Delos that you’ll see, and you, my friends, will experience it a few hours before sunset, too,” Nick announced. “Enjoy the view. Not everybody gets to be here so late in the day. I’ve talked my friend Leander here to let you off long enough to take some photographs. Please be back on the bus in fifteen minutes. They don’t like us hanging around too much after closing.”

If anyone noticed his rushed tone, they didn’t let on. Everybody climbed out but Peter and Heather Rose. “I have had quite enough of old stone and bones for one day. I shall join my husband and rest,” Heather muttered as I left to join the others.

I stepped up to Peaches. “Got commandeered, I see.”

“Peter wouldn’t leave me alone,” she whispered. “Wherever I went, he went, and insisted that I help him at every opportunity. Don’t trust him. I’m going through his cabin thoroughly tomorrow.”

Ari soon began leading everyone to a viewing spot while Nick took my arm and led me in the opposite direction, Peaches at our heels.

“It’s just up this path here,” he said. “The biggest abaton on the island, one said to have been the site of many miracles of stunning proportions and once attached to a small temple. Here, away from the others, I’m hoping you’ll experience something.”

I looked over my shoulder at the rest of the group standing with their backs to us, staring out to sea. Peaches caught my eye and shrugged. Nobody seemed to notice us leaving.

Turning back to the rocky path, I focused on keeping my footing as we trudged over broken pieces of marble and through tuffs of brittle grass until we arrived beside low wall. We stared.

“That’s it?” Peaches asked.

Nick held up his hand. “Respect, please. Phoebe, allow me to help you inside and then we’ll leave you for a few minutes of silence. We won’t be far away.”

“Leave her? No way. I’m not taking my eyes off her for one millisecond. I—” Peaches began.

“Peaches, please,” I said, touching her arm.

“I’ll be right here. Look.” He pointed to a spot not more than a few yards away.

While they watched, I tossed my bag in and climbed over the low wall and dropped into a grassy enclosure no wider than six by eight. The top of the wall reached my nose, giving me a clear view of my companions gazing back. “Five minutes, tops.” I held up one hand and wiggled my fingers. “All I’m going to do is stand here for a few moments and see if I can feel anything. Where’s the danger in that? Now go wait with Nick and don’t look at me, okay? Makes me self-conscious.” The sooner I got this over with, the better. I was so not into it by then.

Peaches scowled, turned on her heels, and strode off to stand behind a hunk of marble that must have once been a pediment for some massive structure. They were perhaps fifty feet away. “Can you hear me from here?” she called.

“Loud and clear,” I called back.

“But you can’t see me, right?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Nick, get your butt over here.” Nick scrambled over to join her. “There,” I heard her say. “Now start communing with the ancients or whatever you do, and if you need us, we’re right here.”

I turned away to stare into the space now clotted with stark shadow that did not appear the least bit inspiring. It reminded me of my late father’s garden back home—neglected, woebegone, and strangely depressing like the erosion of lost potential where a once-glorious bounty had gone to seed. Yet the lack of chattering people and Nick’s voice going on and on was a welcome respite. Breathing deeply, I tried to get in touch with the ancients in some deep down part of myself. But they weren’t talking and I was tired of trying to listen.

Wandering over the uneven ground, I mused over what miracles a long-ago citizen may have experienced there. Did they find the cure for a rare disease, throw away their crutches to walk where previously they could not, or was this the kind of miracle that saw visions and witnessed the future?

When I approached the opposite wall, I reached out to touch the stone, thinking that it had probably been stuccoed once, maybe even painted with vivid frescoes. As much as I longed to experience the past, my flash insights remained locked away.

I stifled a yawn. Turning, I made my way toward another wall, tripped, and fell hard on the stony ground. Unhurt, I rolled over on my back to stare straight up toward the deep blue zenith.

The last thing I remembered was thinking that Boreas probably flew up there looking for maidens to steal away with into the clouds…

CHAPTER 9

“Phoebe, where the hell are you?” Peaches calling.

I sat up and stared straight ahead. Nothing but a dark mass surrounding me—shadows, no, walls. Above me a deep blue sky pricked by a single star but with still plenty of light in the sky. Where the hell was I?

“Phoebe McCabe?” I heard someone call.

“Phoebe!” Peaches again.

“Phoebe, where are you?” A frantic-sounding Nick.

“Over here!” I called.

“Over where?” They were getting closer.

I looked around. “I have no idea.”

Suddenly, there were heads—Peaches, Nick, and two others whose faces were too deeply shadowed for me to recognize at first, all staring at me from over a wall, maybe. As my head began to clear, I realized that Peaches was climbing in followed by Brent Tsaoussis.

“She’s here! We found her!” That was Brent. In seconds he was crouching beside me, Peaches beside him, nudging him away. “You all right?”

“Phoebe—are you okay?”

“Sure,” I said. Why wouldn’t I be?

“Get back, I said,” Peaches told Brent. And then to me: “What happened?”

“Nothing” I said, puzzled. “Why all the excitement?”

Nick was ordering the others to stay out of the enclosure as even more faces crowded around. It felt as if I were in a cage.

“What the hell happened?” Peaches demanded again.

I stared up at her worried face, confused. “Nothing, I said.” I struggled to get up but she held me back.

“What do you mean ‘nothing’? You disappeared for, like, almost forty minutes. Don’t you remember?”

“No,” I whispered. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“Let us through,” a woman said with an Italian accent. “We are doctors.”

I looked over to where the doctor from Milan was climbing over the wall to get to me, her physician husband following after. Brent and Peaches stepped back.

“Here,” she said, kneeling beside me. “Do you have headache, dizziness, confusion?” I welcomed her calm, professional tone next to everyone’s hysteria and her hand on my forehead was gentle.

“Confusion,” I decided. “I think I fell asleep.”

“I hear no mumbling,” her husband said from my other side. Nick was standing outside the enclosure still playing crowd control. “But best not to rule out a stroke.” Dr. Bergognone squeezed my hand. "We must get you to the ship. Can you follow my finger?” He was passing his digit before my eyes.

“Yes, of course.” I fought there urge to slap his hand away. This was getting ridiculous.

“Do you feel well enough to stand?” the other Dr. Bergognone asked.

“Let me try,” I said. Struggling to stand even with the two of them propping me up on either side left me feeling unsteady.

They helped me to navigate the uneven ground until we reached the wall where Peaches elbowed Brent aside to help me climb over. “I can manage by myself,” I griped, annoyed by all this attention. So what if I fell asleep? It happens.

Before I could utter another word, Peaches leaped over the wall and picked me up in her arms as if I were a toddler and proceeded to carry me downhill toward the bus, the others following.

“Stop this!” I protested. “I can walk.”

“Doesn’t look that way to me,” she muttered. “Been out of my skin looking for you.”

“Sorry,” I said.

Nick was following close behind, carrying my bag, the two doctors scurrying to keep up. “Phoebe, we looked all over for you but you were gone,” he said in a frantic whisper.

“But I was just in the abaton where you left me,” I reminded him.

“Not the same abaton,” Peaches said between her teeth.

I looked over her shoulder back the way we had come, not recognizing the terrain. To the left, I could just see the edge of the enclosure I had climbed into earlier but that was not in the same direction. “But I…wasn’t up there. I was over there. But you know that; you two were waiting for me not far away.”

“That’s what we thought, too.” Peaches’s voice was tight. “But that’s not where we found you. Somehow you managed to get somewhere else.”

As we descended the hill toward the bus, I realized how low the sun had sunk in the sky. Other passengers were standing outside the bus with many others coming from different directions, all part of some makeshift search party.

Bai Wong waved at me in delight while her husband scurried behind. Susan and Renate, the Jenkinses, the two brothers, as well as the doctor spouses were at our heels while the other passengers now waited beside Leander with the bus. Judging from the looks of excitement and concern I read on everybody’s faces, my absence certainly had livened up the tail end of the tour.

“Are you okay?” Susan asked, slipping up beside me.

“Fine,” I said. “I just fell asleep.”

“Oh, I get that. It’s been an exhausting day, right? It’s the sun.” She was just being kind, as if it was perfectly natural for a tour participant to crawl off into a sacred site for a bit of a nap. Now I just felt foolish.

As we approached the bus, I demanded that Peaches put me down, and something in my tone prompted her to do just that. That left me standing by the door of the bus facing Leander and Ari, both of whom stepped up to pat me on the back, asking if I was all right, while offering me more water.

“I’m fine, fine,” I insisted.

“The ship waits for us. We must hurry,” Leander said, looking agitated.

Meanwhile Ari passed his cell phone to Nick. “The captain,” he said. Nick took the phone and turned away for a lively discussion in Greek.

I boarded the bus, passing the Dexters and the Roses as well as a few passengers who either decided not to join the search or had arrived back to the bus early. The faces greeting me ranged from concerned, relieved, to scowling in Heather Rose’s case. I apologized profusely as I stumbled down the aisle.

“My dear Phoebe,” Peter Rose said as I passed, “we were very worried. They said you had disappeared.”

“Sorry to alarm you and hold up the bus but I’m fine,” I assured him, hurrying toward the back seat. “I just fell asleep.” It may have been an unsatisfactory line but that was about the only thing that made sense to me at the moment.

The doctors tried to get me to lie down on the back seat but I wasn’t having it. “Thank you very much, both of you. I appreciate your assistance but I’m fine,” They sat nearby, though Peaches claimed the closest spot.

“I’ll just sit up. See? All good.”

The physician duo exchanged glances. “We see when back on board,” said Maria Bergognone. “We will confer with the nurse.”

We had a ship’s nurse who I had seen from a distance but had yet to meet. It seemed that in the event of a serious medical issue, the ship was instructed to dock at the closest port to seek medical attention for the ailing passenger. I flatly refused to fit into that category.

Meanwhile, remaining passengers and crew began piling on board. The last to board was Nick, looking worried as he sat in the single seat behind the driver, picked up the mic, and announced: “All’s well, folks. I apologize for the disruption but our missing passenger has been located safe and unharmed. Thank you to all who helped us in our search. Now, let’s get back to the ship, shall we?”

There was a chorus of applause accompanied by a whistle, probably from young Luke, who seemed to enjoy the excitement. Seconds later, the bus trundled down the hill and across the stark landscape toward the harbor where, at the gates, staff were waiting. Obviously, they couldn’t lock up until we were off the premises. The bus was to be parked somewhere on-site, I realized, leaving the rest of us to walk to catch the tender.

The wind had whipped the harbor into froth and chop as the sun skimmed the swells. I could see Giorgi waiting on the jetty. At the sight of us, he ground his cigarette under his shoe and turned to face us.

I escaped my caretakers to scramble ahead so I could reach him first. “Did you see anything?” I whispered when I arrived, Peaches right beside me.

“I wait for you here entire time. Must stay with boat. What happened?” he asked, his shrewd face studying me carefully.

“Quickly, before they come, what have you learned?” The two doctors were almost upon us but Peaches strode toward them to hold them off.

“Nightwatchman on ship says that on last trip to Delos, he see lights on island. At night when no lights should be there, see? I ask questions, I work for you.”

“Good, so keep doing it. What kind of lights? How were they so odd?”

“Sailing around parts of island when no boat should be, Paolo thinks. Very strange. He tell captain but…” He shrugged. “No interest. If you need boat, there is inflatable in hold. I could take you at night. You just ask.” He was thumbing his chest.

Over my shoulder, Peaches was linking arms with the two doctors as Heather Rose marched past them.

“I’ll call if I need you,” I whispered, and then turned away to stare at the Sylvan Seas, which now struck me as a welcome refuge from all these personalities.

Heather Rose strode up beside me with a handful of others.

“I shall be seasick,” she complained while staring morosely at the choppy water.

“I get you there fast,” Giorgi assured her. “No problems.”

“It’s not far, anyway. Don’t worry,” Renate said, coming up on her other side trying to assure her. Meanwhile Mai Wong offered Heather a ginger chew, which she accepted with a nod of thanks.

Despite my protests, I was awarded first shuttle again accompanied by a handful of others including Peaches, the two doctors, the Roses, the Dexters and their grandchild, the Jenkinses, and the Wongs. Nick and Ari stayed behind with the remaining passengers as Giorgi maneuvered the swell to deliver us back to the Sylvan Seas. I kept my face turned toward the water pretending not to hear anybody’s questions or well-meaning comments. By now all I wanted was to be alone.

Captain Adamos was waiting on the launch deck, Leo by his side. It was the first time I’d witnessed a scowl fused with a smile but the captain managed to pull off both simultaneously. Leo just nodded as if communicating that he was on my side, which I seriously doubted.

“Ms. Baker, we have been most concerned when we heard that you were missing,” the captain said.

“She fell asleep, okay?” Peaches told him. “Simple.”

“But I must know the details for my report,” Adamos insisted. “We take the disappearance of our passengers very seriously. Dr. Pallas informs me that he was conducting research.”

“Not him, but me,” I said. “Trust Dr. Pallas to be so gallant but it was I who insisted on crawling inside the abaton as an experiment. I wanted to see if I could witness a miracle and I did: I fell asleep finally after not sleeping well for days. Sorry for the bother. It won’t happen again.”

“But of course. We are all relieved that you are safe,” Leo intervened. Grin. Grin. “Perhaps after you rest, we can discuss further?”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

Despite the veiled pleasantries, I knew a thorough interrogation was planned, but the Drs. Bergognones gave me a reprieve by insisting that I accompany them to Nurse Scala. That left the captain to request a moment to discuss my disappearance at a more opportune time.

A half hour later, I was sitting in the sick bay while the two doctors and a lively gray-haired Nurse Scala discussed my vitals as if I weren’t sitting right there. For a moment I sat studying my companions, thinking what an odd grouping we made: the two designer-clad physicians— diligent, eager to help for what I assumed were professional reasons even though they were on vacation—and the pragmatic, no-nonsense nurse.

“She has no fever,” Scala, in a white lab coat who’s smiling face did nothing to detract from her authority, said. Her sick bay, her patient. There was no doubt who was in charge here. “Miss Baker’s pulse is fine, her vitals excellent, so she will be released and I will check on her later. I see no need to hold her longer.”

“A sudden collapse could be signs of other issues,” Roberto Bergognone stated. He had two tiny wings on his snazzy red sneakers—how fitting. Hermes, the herald of the gods, wore wings as his emblem, too.

“Possibly neurological,” Maria offered. “We would be happy to take her onshore to visit a clinic.”

How far does dedication go? Otherwise, they were, I decided, the most exquisitely dressed tourists, let alone doctors, I had ever witnessed—all understated elegance every inch of the way. Fashionable and competent. I might be able to pull of competent but forget the fashionable part.

“She did not collapse,” the nurse said.

“I fell asleep,” I said, not that anyone was listening.

“Nonetheless, I would advise transporting her to Athens for further tests,” said the other Dr. Bergognone, standing tall in his Emporio Armani T-shirt and linen pants. Amazing what one focuses on in times of stress.

Then I finally clued in to what he was saying. “No,” I said, standing up. “Absolutely not. Thank you both for all your help, and, Nurse Scala, I agree wholeheartedly: I’m fine.”

And with that I strode from the room, past Peaches, who had been leaning against the corridor wall, and headed straight for the elevator. Seeing the floor light indicating it was two levels down and crawling, I veered for the stairs instead.

Peaches strode up beside me. “What’s the verdict?” she asked.

“Alive until further notice. I’m done and heading for our cabin.”

Peaches took it upon herself to ride shotgun for me by smiling at everyone who approached along the way while keeping them at bay. She almost elbowed a couple of well-wishers aside.

“Nosy,” she whispered to me.

“Curious,” was my reply.

Once we reached the sanctuary of our cabin, I flopped on the couch and shielded my eyes with my arm.

“What really happened?” Peaches asked while scanning the room for bugs.

“The last thing I recall, I had tripped inside the abaton and just lay there for a moment taking a break, just musing. Obviously, I fell asleep.”

“Obviously. And obviously you levitated in your dream-state one hundred yards in the opposite direction to land in another abaton.”

I sat up. “Is that really where I ended up?”

Peaches faced me. “That’s why we couldn’t find you at first. Nick and I waited a few minutes and then called for you with no response. I even rang your cell. Didn’t your phone ring?”

Then I remembered. “I put it on Do Not Disturb at the museum and forgot to disengage it.”

“Well, damn.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and switched it back to active.

“So twenty minutes later we found you on your back in another abaton maybe a hundred yards farther up the hill, your bag by your side.”

“I have no memory of going anywhere but I must have been sleepwalking. The strong sunlight was getting to me.”

“It was late afternoon. What does your phone say?”

“Nothing,” I said, staring at it. “I guess the intruder alert doesn't activate when in airline mode. I doubt anybody touched it, anyway, though maybe they touched me.”

“Are you saying someone might have moved you?” Peaches demanded.

“Well, if I didn’t sleepwalk or levitate, somebody must have,” I said.

“Around here, who knows? But how come you didn’t wake up when this somebody relocated you?”

We stared at one another uncomprehendingly for a few seconds, at least until we heard a knock on the door.

Seconds later, a haggard-looking Nick entered and collapsed into one of the chairs. “I’ve just been dressed down by the captain for taking a detour. Thank you for saying it was your idea, Phoebe, but Adamos isn’t buying it. He knows I do ‘unconventional research.’” He added air quotes. “I’m under advisement that further employment with this line may not be forthcoming should this occur again. What happened, Phoebe?”

I told my story once again.

“And you really have no memory of moving?”

“Not a thing,” I assured him.

He leaned forward, a touch of his innate positivity sparkling through. “A miracle! Don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t see. That was not my idea of a miracle,” I said. “That was my idea of a mystery.”

“What was the last thing you remember?” he asked.

“She was musing about the god of the north wind blowing across the sky plucking naked maidens from the glades. Are you going to suggest that Borax blew her to the other abaton?” Peaches demanded.

“Borax?” he asked, puzzled.

“She means Boreas,” I clarified. I shot Peaches a warning look. “I did not experience a miracle, Nick. Maybe I did sleepwalk, though that sounds highly unlikely. Where were the others when you two realized I was missing?”

“I have no idea but we need to find out,” Peaches replied. “We were looking around the hillside calling your name. The others could have been anywhere.”

“I called Ari to alert him that you were missing,” Nick said. “He asked for volunteers to start searching. He had to remain behind with the more infirm passengers and Leander was ordered to stay with the bus, too. Those are the rules but I’ll check with Ari to see if any of the others drifted away before then. He’s supposed to know where everyone is at all times. So am I, by the way.”

“How well do you know Ari?” Peaches asked.

“I’ve met him on a couple of cruise gigs before. He’s been with the line for years, but I wouldn’t say that I know him, and Leander was just contracted as a driver for the day. I’ve never met him before.”

“I’m guessing that whoever moved me was not on that bus but hiding out somewhere on the island. Maybe they used chloroform, though I don’t have a headache or any funky after-effects. On the other hand, there’s a chance I was drugged.” I gazed at Nick. “Can you find out more about that archaeology dig working on Delos?”

“Of course, but it looks like they’ve recently stopped work for the season. I made a few inquiries,” Nick replied.

“Closed up for the season?” Peaches repeated. “But this is Greece.”

“It still gets cold here late October. Many teams stop work and return to their offices. Our idea of cold differs from yours in England,” he pointed out.

“Obviously,” she muttered. “And I thought we islanders complained about the cold.”

“Anyway, when in season there’s always at least one site being worked on the island at any one time as well as continued exploration of known excavations,” he continued. “Teams are always attempting to recover structures all over Greece,”

“As in a hidden temple of Artemis?” I asked.

“Perhaps, but they would never openly state that was their quest. Rather they would officially say that they are excavating a previously determined quadrant where typography had indicated a structure or structures existed. I’ll add that a lost temple to a secret cult of Artemis has been in the archaeological mythos of Greece for a long time,” he acknowledged. “I will make inquiries.”

“You do that,” Peaches said, now glowering at him.

“But you don’t seriously think someone from an archaeological team moved you from one spot to another?” he asked.

“Why not? It makes about as much sense as someone on this ship doing it or the god of the north wind, for that matter. I’m not ruling anything out,” I said.

“If it weren’t for you, this group of speculative nutcases wouldn’t even know she was here, would they?” Peaches said.

Nick caught her stormy gaze and climbed to his feet. “I’m sorry about that. I’d best get right on it, then.”

“Does that mean you’re going back to Delos tonight?” I asked as he reached the door.

He turned. “Definitely not. No one’s allowed on the island at night without special permission. The archaeological team camp there when a dig’s in progress and the caretakers have cottages but that’s it. See you at supper? I have another lecture at nine p.m.”

“I’m going to order room service,” I said. “After all the excitement today, I’m sure my absence won’t surprise anybody.”

After he had gone, I turned to Peaches. “Giorgi says that lights have been reported on Delos by the Sylvan Seas’ nightwatchman in the recent past—strange lights that shouldn’t be there. He saw them last trip, which would have been about a week ago. Something’s going on, as if we don’t know that already.”

“Maybe we can catch something on video. I’ll rig up a security camera using our phones. It’ll mean propping one of them on the balcony and using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to capture the signal. Ev sent me instructions. That way if there are any interesting lights on Delos tonight, we’ll get it on camera.” She checked her watch. “I’d better get started. I said yes to an invitation from Susan and Renate to join them for supper tonight. They’d hoped you’d come, too, but I can let them know that we can’t make it.”

“Send my apologies. They’ll understand after today. Besides, it makes no sense for you to stay behind with me. It’s not like I need a babysitter.”

“You do actually.”

“I promise to stay in my cabin and knit.”

“Yeah, knitting protects you against everything,” Peaches muttered. “It’s especially useful for strangling attackers. Or maybe you could just stab them with your needles as per Agatha Christie.”

At least somebody read the classics. “I always keep my phone nearby,” I assured her, “and, in case you’ve forgotten, have self-defense training. Besides, you could use the opportunity to suss out more information from the others while dining. You should go.” Let’s face it, I craved privacy.

It took a while but I finally convinced her that I was in no risk of being spirited across the waves in the arms of a god. Besides, the arms I was anticipating were winging their way to me at that moment. A text from Evan had popped up: he was overnighting in Athens and had booked the high-speed ferry for Mykonos the next morning and from there he’d take a boat to Delos. Once he had signed in on board the Sylvan Seas, he’d get a tender to Delos. He estimated his arrival for about noon and would keep me appraised of his progress. I was to wait for him on board, he said, but I thought it more strategic if I went ashore with the others so as not to rouse suspicion. In the end, he agreed as long as I remained with the group at all times.

Afterward, I settled down on my balcony with the view of Delos, Homer open on my tablet, waiting for supper to arrive, which it did twenty minutes later. Artino was hastily dispatched without having any of his many questions answered. Meanwhile, may I just say that dining while the setting sun burns molten gold behind ancient hills was a dreamy experience and that the moussaka and salad that accompanied it equally delectable. My dinner choice was the height of Greek comfort food.

I allowed the real world in only long enough to check my messages, thinking it odd that Zann had yet to get back to me with a response regarding the Delos archaeological dig question. Unsettling, but then everything unsettled me by then. I put the tablet aside and closed my eyes.

For a time, I forgot all about the stress of the last few days, the press of irritable personalities, the mysteries that seemed to be thickening around me by the minute. When the air grew too breezy, the sky too dark, and the first stars pricked the horizon, I returned to the cabin for a shower and to plan what to bring ashore the next day. Before I entered my cabin, I cast one more look behind me, in time, in fact, to see a nearly full moon rising over the sacred island, exactly the same moon as the ancients had viewed eons before.

Only when I was reorganizing the tapestry backpack for the next morning did I find the card. I pulled out the Wheel of Fortune, stared, and then flung the thing on the floor, swearing. It was all I could do to keep from stomping on it. A few minutes later, I had calmed down long enough to place the card in a formation with the others on the table. I tried organizing them in the order in which they appeared: High Priestess, followed by the Hanged Man, followed by the Wheel of Fortune. The Magician didn’t belong in the hand per se but I felt him influencing all, like an image hovering above the cards. What in hell was going on?

When Peaches returned later, she found me calmly studying the cards, which I’d been moving around out on the table in various formations while checking my phone for possible meanings.

“I’ve laid them out in the order which they appeared, but if there’s a message here, I’m missing it.”

“Shit,” she muttered as the door slammed behind her. “Where did you find that one?”

“In my bag next to my water bottle. I’m guessing that the perpetrator knew enough not to try to touch my phone but thought it safe enough to touch my bag and person. He’s catching on and I think he drugged me while he was at it.” I looked up at her scowling face.

“We’re going to get this bastard.”

“Bastards. Pretty certain we’re dealing with the plural.”

“Right: bastards.”

“Did you learn anything from your dinner companions tonight?” I asked as I took a picture of the cards and proceeded to tuck them away.

“Yes and no. I caught up with Nick. He had managed to grill Ari, who insisted that everybody but us three were on or around the bus right up until Nick called to say that you were missing. He also found out that the archaeologist team had packed up for the season a week ago. I guess that they really don’t dig around here in late October or November.”

“That’s hard for a northerner to grasp,” I said.

“Tell me about it. So this windy, cool weather is considered frigid in the southern Mediterranean. Anything less than burning hot days and equally balmy nights is uninhabitable. I sort of get that coming from the Caribbean but I’ve had time to adjust. Anyway, the point is that the team has gone for the season, end of story.”

I nodded.

“So Nick tried to put a call in to the head archaeologist on the Delos dig on the mainland but no one answered,” she continued. “Otherwise, there was a lot of chatter over dinner, plenty of questions about your health, and the Renate and Susan duo were great.”

“All sounds pretty ordinary so far. Anything else?”

“Um, the Roses showed up a bit late and I swear that Heather kept her lips pursed so tightly that she needed to suck her food down with a straw. Peter just flirted with me in passing, which boggles me. I mean, what’s that about?”

“Maybe he has a lust on for younger women who can look down their nose at him?”

“I’d bonk him if he tried anything.”

“He won’t—it’s all for show. Any other interesting observations?”

“Yeah, so the Tsaoussis brothers sat with the Jenkinses and the Jenkinses sat with the Dexters. The two designer docs swept in wearing Gucci and ordered wine right off the bat. Hope that fortified them for when Peter Rose hobbled up to their table over dessert to discuss his knee.” She paused. “There. Think I covered all the bases. Now I’ve got to get to work rigging our phones. We’ll use yours as an internal intruder alert and mine for the balcony.”

“Sounds good.”

“Just texted Ev, who gave me a few refresher tips on how to make a recording security camera. He's arrived in Athens, by the way.”

“I received the same message minus the security camera part. I can’t wait to see him even if the version of him I see on Delos will look like he’s aged by a few decades.”

“Love burns eternal.”

“Oh, stop.” I’d long ago given up on denying my feelings for Evan to Peaches and, anyway, she’d known long before I had. I watched as she propped her phone against the ice bucket and stepped away. “Did he tell you that he planned to meet me on Delos tomorrow?”

“He did,” she said without looking up. “I told him that I didn’t like it, that I intended to stay by your side no matter what. He insisted that he’d be there soon and that as long as you remain with the group—no detours, no diversions—that I should stick with the plan to search the cabins. He believes that you need to be seen on Delos so he can keep his eyes peeled for unusual activity when he arrives.”

“And as bait.”

She stopped to face me. “That was your idea, I understand. I strongly protested but appeared to have been outvoted—again. Still, the only reason I agreed to let you go ashore without me tomorrow is on the condition that you promise to stick with the group. No drifting away to commune with wind gods or whatever.”

I slapped one hand over my heart. “Promise. I will take no chances, and anyway, I don’t find the wind god all that attractive—lacks substance, in my opinion. I’m more of a Poseidon kind of girl. Anyway, I will have my stun app ready and will stick to our group until the moment I see a tall, elderly gentlemen who desires my company. He said he’d text me.”

“Right. Here, check your phone one more time before I put it into active security duty. Said gentleman sent a more detailed description.” She passed my cell back to me and returned to her work.

I read the message from Evan saying to look out for a gray-haired mustachioed man wearing a wide-brimmed Tilley hat, cargo pants, sneakers, and a short-sleeved shirt with an expensive camera slung around his neck—the universal definition of sexy. I was not to approach him but to wait until he texted.

After rereading the description twice, I turned to make some remark but Peaches was already in the bathroom preparing for bed. Minutes later, she emerged to finish setting up my phone, which I watched with only one eye open from under the covers. I must have fallen asleep before she finished because the next thing I remembered was the intruder alerts were ringing.

Peaches and I thudded into one another in a race to our phones. The cabin was dark, the blinds drawn, with the interior phone flashing red.

“It says ‘Western perimeter alert’! That’s the balcony!” Peaches cried.

I banged my shins on that damn table again as I pulled back the curtains. The latch was secure, the door safely locked, but in seconds I was outside where I picked up the flashing phone. I didn’t even look at it before I heard the distant sound of a motor zooming away.

“Look!” It was heading toward the other side of the island.

Peaches arrived beside me and stared. “No damn pilot lights. They are definitely up to no good.”

I checked the time: 2:12 a.m.

“Get dressed,” I whispered while dialing Giorgi’s cell. “We’re going to Delos.”

CHAPTER 10

Giorgi instructed us to meet him on the launch deck but to be careful because the night watchman prowled at thirty-minute intervals, at least in theory. He told me that he’d signal us once the guy had left the lower level because he wouldn’t likely make another round for a couple hours. Apparently the security guard took a smoke break on the upper prow that lasted nearly forty-five minutes every night. I didn’t ask how Giorgi knew all this because I was too busy congratulating myself on my euros well spent. The skipper was worth every cent.

Peaches and I hastily donned our darkest clothes, which in my case consisted of black leggings and the rasher shirt I’d hope to use for diving. She went for nightshade purple stretch everything. Soon we were prowling down the hall toward the central stairs like a pair of bizarre action heroes until Peaches came to a sudden halt just before the stairs.

“Damn! I forgot the CTTV cameras.” She was pointing to a security camera positioned by the central stairs.

“Can’t be helped.” I gazed at the round glass eye that appeared to be motion activated while remaining safely out of its sightline. I took aim with my phone fully intending to zap the camera but she stayed my hand.

“Wait. That could set off the alarm,” she whispered. “Instead, we’ll navigate the blind spots.” She snatched a handful of brochures sitting on a nearby table and threw them toward the stairs, causing the camera to swivel in that direction. “Follow me.” Which I did, sliding along the wall until we reached the next level and could scuttle down toward the launch deck avoiding electronic scrutiny where necessary.

We arrived on the lower deck to find Giorgi bent over the railing. He had already jammed something between the camera and the wall to keep all surveillance focused on a life raft far to the right. Turning, he beckoned us toward him. “Help me get boat over the side.” He pointed to a black four-seater inflatable leaning against another lifeboat and the three of us soon had the thing lowered to the water using the ropes provided.

I gazed down at the rocking boat.

“Okay, so how do we get down there?” I whispered.

Giorgi, who was busy dropping two sets of paddles into the boat, one by one, turned and grinned. “Rope ladder, see?”

No, I hadn’t seen, but once I had, I wasted no time getting up and over the railing to begin the ten-foot climb down to the boat. At the bottom, it took a few moments to secure the inflatable as it was tethered only by the rope and bucked in the swells like an obstinate horse, but I soon had it steadied against the ladder. Once the other two had climbed in, Giorgi unhooked the tether, we picked up the paddles, and started paddling.

“No lights,” I cautioned. “Head around the tip of the island away from the archaeological area. That’s the direction we saw the boat heading,” I told Giorgi.

Giorgi and Peaches provided the paddle power while I did lookout duty and studied the map on my phone. Meanwhile, all the nightwatchman had to do was make his rounds and see that ladder dangling from the side of the boat or notice that the inflatable was missing to sound the alarm. Where was he when somebody tried to board our balcony, anyway?

“Did this security dude even see the boat that just pulled up under our balcony a while ago or was he too busy taking his extended break?” Peaches whispered as if catching my thoughts.

“A boat came that close?” Giorgi asked.

“Yes, and we caught it on camera, or what we can see off it. Looks like the bastards were trying to climb onto our deck until our intruder alert went off—makes a buzzing sound,” Peaches explained. “Couldn’t make out any details, though. It looked like a speedboat but they must have cut the engine when they approached.”

“You have intruder alert?” It was hard to see Giorgi’s face in the dark but I heard unmistakable admiration.

“On our phones.”

“You ladies have interesting phones.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Peaches said as she plowed the water. The surf was choppy enough to make the going strenuous. “So aren’t watchmen supposed to look out for things like that?”

“Nobody worries,” Giorgi said. “No pirates here. Too much sea traffic. Paulo he does the rounds, pokes head around corners, but not too worried. I join him for smoke some nights. Good man.”

I resisted commenting on the good man who couldn’t properly do his job. We had just rounded a point of land in the direction that our visitors had headed. The coastline made a stark outline under the moonlight, all shadow juxtaposed against a luminous sky with moon-limned earth. No signs of life. I expected to see at least something shining up in those hills, a flashlight, maybe.

“What happened to you on Delos yesterday?” Giorgi asked after a moment.

“I fell asleep,” I said, determined not to disclose just how complicated the circumstances behind that incident really were. I was working on the need-to-know principle.

“The boat definitely went in this direction,” Peaches said.

“According to the map there’s nothing up this way. I’m checking the satellite image and it’s barren except for a few roads crisscrossing the terrain.” I was studying my screen while the inflatable rolled beneath me.

“Look for a cove. There has to be one around here,” Peaches said. “Those bastards had to pull in somewhere unless they’re heading back to Mykonos.”

“Many coves,” Giorgi remarked as he maneuvered the surf. “And not smart to go to Mykonos in small boat at night.” No point in me mentioning that we had done something similar a few nights ago.

“Wait, I just saw a light up there!” Peaches exclaimed.

“Up where?” I asked. We could no longer see the Sylvan Seas now that we were sheltered by the headland, but we still couldn’t use our own lights in case our quarry spied us.

“Up there.”

We looked to where she was pointing but could see nothing but a back mass of low hills. I checked the map again. “Was it close or far?”

“Couldn’t tell,” she said.

We rowed closer to shore until we saw a small crescent of sand bleached white in the moonlight. “There!” I whispered. “I see tracks!”

In minutes we had plunged up to our waists in water to drag the inflatable up to the beach. Marks in the sand indicated that someone had done something similar not long before but there was no sign of a boat. Footprints and drag marks lead from the beach toward the hills.

“There’s a path there. Looks like someone picked the boat up and carried it,” Peaches remarked.

“Right, so let’s put ours out of sight,” I said.

Within seconds we had hidden the inflatable behind a mound of boulders, readily visible to anyone intent on looking but maybe not at first glance, and scrambled up the path lit only by moonlight. Everybody remained silent until Giorgi hissed for us to stop.

“Maybe not safe for you ladies. I go ahead,” he whispered, thumbing his chest.

Peaches turned to him. “Thanks, bud, but that’s not happening. You stay behind us and we’ll continue as planned.”

“Besides, we need you to be our lookout, Giorgi,” I added.

He clearly wasn’t happy about this arrangement but followed us without another word. You have to love men who try to be gallant regardless of the circumstances.

We continued climbing the stony path for at least five more minutes before the ground leveled out and we could see the path weaving between two large rocks. A light glowed faintly beyond and to the right. We ducked behind the boulders and peered out.

Ahead, a flat open space surrounded by a barbed-wire fence abutted the side of a rocky hill glowed stark in the moonlight. A flashlight appeared to be moving at the far end beyond our range of vision. We watched silently for a minute or two.

“The place is guarded,” Peaches whispered, “but only one light means only one guard.”

“But what is this place?” I asked. And why guard a clearing with no visible structure? “Wait, there must be an entrance somewhere in that hillside.”

“Footprints go through gate and disappear,” Giorgi whispered.

We followed his finger to the gate ahead clearly outlined in the moonlight. A small sign posted in Greek hung on the wire fence.

“What does it say?” Peaches asked.

“Keep out,” came Giorgi’s reply.

“As if,” she muttered. Turning to me, Peaches said: “What if you disarm the gate while I disarm the guard?”

“Go for it,” I agreed. “He probably has a gun so be careful. Set the app to stun, remember.”

While she crept along the shadow toward the light, I tugged Giorgi back behind the rock. “You stay here and watch our backs. If anyone comes or you see anything at all, you let us know, got it?”

I could feel his shadowed face studying me. “Who are you?”

It was only a matter of time before he asked. “Special agents,” I told him truthfully.

“Like James Bond?”

Why did agents always have to be James Bond? There was more than one game in town.

“Sure,” I lied, “Like Jane Bond. Now you stay here and keep your eyes peeled.”

“I am your man!” he whispered. That wasn’t true but I appreciated the sentiment.

I stepped out into the moonlight, my phone set on the lock deactivation mode. Everything was still, only the sound of the wind and the waves beyond. In seconds, I had passed the phone over the gate and a crackling sound followed along with a few sparks told me the electronic circuitry had been deactivated. The crackling was anticipated but the wailing accompanied by gunfire was not. Instinctively, I ducked.

“Watch out, he comes!” I heard Giorgi cry.

I swung toward the figure of a man running from the other direction at the same time that Giorgi scrambled out of the shadows waving his arms. I could see the gun in the man’s hand, hear him calling something in Greek, see him aiming for Giorgi while Peaches ran behind him yelling for him to stop. I was switching my phone to the stun app when the guy fell to his knees before toppling face-first onto the ground.

“Bastard!” Peaches cried, running up.

“Did you use stun?” I asked, dashing to the fallen man. Kneeling, I felt for the guy’s pulse—strong, thankfully.

“That didn’t even slow him down. He shot at me, missed, and then took off,” she panted. “This time I used a heavier charge.” She swiped the gun out of his hand and shoved it into her jacket pocket while I turned the guy over.

“George Baros,” I muttered, gazing at the face bathed in the moonlight. “I wondered when he’d turn up again.”

“I know him,” Giorgi said, looking down. “I see him hanging around dock. Always different hats and once a beard but same guy.”

I had forgotten Giorgi was there. “Giorgi, next time don’t come dashing out waving your arms around, okay? That’s an invitation to get shot. He was aiming at you, see?”

“Luckily, the guy’s a bad shot,” Peaches added.

“Stay undercover and call us if you see anything,” I continued without looking up. I was patting Baros down, looking for anything interesting in his pockets. “Well, look what I found.” I plucked out his phone. “We’ll leave it so if they track his signal, they’ll think he’s where he should be.”

“Let’s prop him against that rock over there and make it look like he fell asleep. Could buy us a couple of minutes if we need it,” I suggested.

“Maybe he’ll think he was dreaming,” Peaches said with a grin. “I jumped out at him, waving my arms and crying like an angry goddess, and then shot him with my phone. Does that sound like a dream or what?”

“Inventive!” I grinned. “Maybe he’ll wake up thinking he hit the ouzo too hard. Let’s get back to work. The clock is ticking.”

Giorgi and Peaches dragged Baros up against the rock where a propane cooker and a pile of blankets were stacked. I opened the gate and stepped into the enclosure, tracing footprints toward the hillside.

“What is this place?” Peaches asked, catching up with me minutes later.

“An archaeological dig, I think.” I pointed to the tools propped in the shadows against the rocky hillside. “Somebody’s camped here for an extended period of time, I’m guessing.”

“But whatever they’re digging for must be inside that hill,” she said. “There’s nothing out here.”

We followed the prints around the left side of the hillside until we saw an opening covered in a thick blue plastic sheeting.

“Ta-da,” Peaches whispered. “Careful, they must be in there somewhere.”

“Then why didn’t they come running when the Baros bozo cried the alarm?” I asked. “If they are in there, they must be somewhere deep.” Which was an unsettling thought.

“I’ll go first,” she said, tiptoeing toward the opening. “Me bodyguard, you Princess Phoebe.”

I made a face but held back as she slowly pulled open a corner of the flap. After a few seconds of studying the darkness ahead with me hanging over her shoulder, we switched on our phone lights and stepped inside.

We were in a tunnel no more than six feet wide and six feet tall, as if cut by man from living stone. It took a few seconds to grasp what we were seeing. Colorful figures jumped around us in every direction. On the right side wall, a procession of maidens danced along a path, laurel wreaths in their hair, joy on their faces, their saffron-colored robes vibrant in the sunlight. On the other side, donkeys hauled carts filled with more jubilant girls, each holding gifts and laughing as seabirds flew overhead and young men strode beside them playing musical instruments. Even the ceiling was painted in white clouds sailing against blue sky.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. “It’s a procession for Artemis, goddess of young maidens. Look at them! They’re all so joyful!” I leaned closer, hovering my fingers over the paint, obviously ancient yet still amazingly fresh. I could almost feel the brushstrokes. “Nobody discovered this until recently. It must have escaped the invasions, the wars, the disintegration of the eons! It’s a miracle find!” I exclaimed.

“But who found it and how deep into the cave does it go?” Peaches asked, staring down the long tunnel. “A long way, by the looks of things. Can’t see the end.” She beamed her phone down the tunnel’s throat, catching more color covering the same regularly hewn walls as they disappeared downward.

We took a few tentative steps forward, our feet scuffing on the sandy covering beneath our feet.

“What’s on the floor?” I looked down.

“Plastic,” she whispered.

In seconds, I was pulling back the covering expecting to see more frescoes but finding only stone. It took a moment for Peaches and I to realize what we were looking at.

“Ancient wheel tracks grooved into the rock,” she whispered.

“This is a real ancient processional road,” I gasped. “This is incredible! These archaeologists have struck gold.”

“Archaeologists? You mean the kind who shoot at you, try to board passenger ships, and then scuttle down a dig site to hide? No way!”

I straightened. She was right and I was letting my enthusiasm get the better of me. “But how can anybody hide something like this? The real archaeology team working on the island must know about it. You can’t keep something like this a secret.”

“Am I imagining things or is there a prick of light far down the tunnel?” she whispered. “Growing larger.”

I stared. “Not imaging things. Let’s go!”

I turned to leave but not before I took three quick photos of each side of the tunnel plus one of the ceiling. Then we scrambled out across the clearing, relieved to find Giorgi hovering by the gate looking as if a god had slapped him silly.

“Come on, Giorgi!” I cried. “Snap out of it: they’re coming. Run!”

He was trying to tell us something but Peaches cut him off. “Just run!”

So we ran, all the way down the path, stumbling and recovering, and tripping again as we made our headlong rush back to the beach. When we got there, our inflatable was half in the water about to be washed away by the tide, which made it easier to push it into the waves and climb on board to paddle like mad. This time I took over rowing duty since Giorgi seemed to be in a weird state.

I dug my paddle into the water, occasionally glancing over my shoulder. A light was bobbing down the path in the hills. A shot fired into the night.

“If they hit the boat, we’re toast,” Peaches called. She was now propped up on one knee, war canoe style, and I joined on the opposite side thinking that looked like a good idea, though a bit awkward. “Channel the indigenous peoples and work that thing, McCabe!”

“Working it!” I cried.

We paddled like mad, one on each side, while the surf sprayed our faces and our adrenaline pulsed in overdrive.

After a quick check over my shoulder, I could see three figures standing on the receding beach but no boat.

“Unless they plan to swim, we’re good,” I called. The next gunshots never came close and soon we were making our way around the point toward the Sylvan Seas, which floated in the moonlight like the promised land. As we approached the ship, we were relieved to see no nightwatchman and hear no signs of alarm, either.

“Giorgi, snap out of it!” I hissed. “We’re approaching the Sylvan Seas. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Giorgi seemed to rouse himself, snagging the tether floating on the surface and reaching for the robe ladder, but all his movements seemed to be in slow motion as if his mind was elsewhere. When we had climbed to the launch deck and successfully used the pulley system to haul up the inflatable back on deck, I took the skipper by the shoulders and gave him a little shake. “Giorgi? What happened?”

“Saw body,” he whispered. “Behind rocks. Dead."

CHAPTER 11

So I dreamed again, this time of being lost in a dark tunnel where ghost-like frescoes of maidens leaped from the walls and attempted to guide me through the darkness with song and dance. But I was frightened. None of the dancers would speak to me, though I tried so desperately to communicate. Was it because I didn’t know their language or because I was talking to ghosts? I remained trapped in this dark place right up until a crack of light sliced right into my eyeballs.

I bolted straight up in bed and looked around. Morning already. A cup of cold coffee sat on the table nearby and the curtains were partially open. I’d slept late, of course. Eight o’clock was late for me.

The tension drained from my shoulders when I realized that the tender to Delos wouldn’t leave until ten. Plenty of time. Still, I had things to do.

Bounding out of bed, I was surprised to find the cabin empty, though a light breakfast awaited on the table along with a half-empty cereal bowl, a spoon and a partially eaten roll. I was almost dressed when Peaches burst into the room.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Taking care of business,” she replied, still wearing the same purple stretch outfit she’d been in the night before. “I stayed up after you went to bed in order to infiltrate the security feed that runs unattended in Vitalis’s office. I noticed it when he was registering me yesterday. As I suspected, nobody monitors the thing. It just rewrites each night’s activity the next morning. I managed to scroll through the feeds of all thirty cameras that supposedly protect this ship—nada.”

“Nada as in?”

“Nada as in no strange activities around the ship’s corridors after-hours were caught on camera. They picked up half of my leg in one frame, the monitor in the crew corridor caught Giorgi leaving and returning, and the launch deck recorded our voices. Don’t worry, I erased everything. No exterior camera saw any boats coming or going, even the bridge cam registered nothing. Actually, I think that one’s damaged judging from the crack in the glass.”

“You broke into the bridge, too?”

“Of course—too easy—but the only thing I discovered there was that the security dude smokes in a corner out of view of the cameras and dozes after he completes a couple of rounds. Useless.”

“Wow, I’m impressed. You said you were out twice?” I watched as she poured herself another coffee and topped off the granola in her bowl with the glass jar provided.

“Three times, really. First to check the feeds, second to nab breakfast, and third to get Nick out of bed.”

“Did you even sleep last night?”

“Not much. I left that to you since I’ll be swanning around the ship all day while you’ll be on active duty on Delos. I’ll nap after Evan arrives.”

“We have to talk about the body Giorgi found,” I said, taking a seat across from her, “and that incredible tunnel.”

“I’ve been thinking about the body all morning but everything puts me right back to the problem of how we can alert the authorities without involving ourselves.”

“An anonymous tip, maybe?” I suggested.

“Then everyone on board this ship who was anywhere on Delos yesterday will still be interrogated. We can’t risk that, though it might happen, anyway.”

“What, then? We have to do something because not only do we have George Baros waking up with some story but now those guys must know we were on-site last night.”

“Yeah, trouble for sure, but they’re already on to us.”

A knock came at the door.

“That will be Nick,” Peaches mumbled while stuffing a roll into her mouth. “Banged on his door this morning and told him to meet us here.”

Nick stepped into the cabin right on cue, his face reading anxiety mixed with annoyance. “Something happened again, didn’t it?” he said.

“Morning, Nick. Have a seat,” I said. “Eat something. I can find another mug if you need caffeine.”

“Yes, thank you.” Nick sat down where I pointed and fixed Peaches with a wary eye. “I was told to come but I would have joined you without the royal command, I assure you. What happened this time?”

“Sorry to be so crabby with you earlier,” Peaches explained while brushing crumbs off her stretch jacket.

“Crabby is not the term I would use. Imperious, overbearing, and unnecessarily hostile is more apt,” he pointed out, sitting stiffly in a freshly ironed safari suit. I knew from his closet that he’d brought three, and I had to admit, he kept them pristine.

“Nice lexicon.” She beamed. “It’s just that when I told you to get your ass over here—very disrespectful and warranting another apology so consider it given—I thought you might be behind some of this stuff that’s going on. Since then, I’ve reviewed the ship’s security feed and discovered that you have not been prowling the corridors at night distributing tarot cards, moving Phoebe around, or anything else clandestine that I can see.”

“You actually thought that I was behind those cards? And how could I have been involved in Phoebe’s relocation yesterday when I was with you the whole time?”

I slid a mug of coffee under his nose and placed a plate nearby. “Would you like fruit? Yogurt, perhaps?”

“You could have had accomplices,” Peaches pointed out before beaming one her most charming grins, “but so far, I can find nothing to substantiate your involvement. I’m happy to announce that you’ve passed. As far as I can tell, you are who you seem, which is strange in itself. So, am I forgiven?”

“I have yet to hear the promised apology,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Forgive her,” I added hastily, “because we have more to tell you, a whole lot more. We were on Delos last night—”

“You were on Delos last night!” he sputtered into his coffee. “What, you just swam over?”

“Don’t be silly. Borax blew us across,” Peaches said.

I shot her a quick glance. “We took a boat over with the help of Giorgi after someone tried to board the ship near our balcony. Forget that for a minute. It gets more interesting.”

“Because we found an incredible archaeological dig in a tunnel covered in frescoes of a celebratory procession dedicated to Artemis, Phoebe thinks.” Peaches was still grinning.

“What? Are you serious?” He turned to me, amazed.

I held up my phone, open on the pictures I’d taken. “Beautiful frescoes of young people in a procession leading down a tunnel, and the site’s being excavated by somebody but not by any legitimate somebodies, or at least not at the moment.”

“Show me! I’ll arrange something with the custodians to take us there after the tour today. I can’t believe my eyes! These are incredibly well-preserved, in such excellent condition. Do you know what this means?”

“Maybe, but listen, Nick, this is dangerous. The guy guarding the place was the same one stalking me on Mykonos, George Baros. By now he’s come to—we zapped him—and he knows we’ve discovered the site. Who knows what problems that will unleash. Did you learn anything further about any active excavations in progress on Delos?”

But he was staring at the pictures, transfixed. I watched fascinated as his face flushed a warm cherub pink under his beard while he scrolled back and forth across the three frames. “My God, this is extraordinary! The dancers, the maidens—they look as fresh as the day they were painted! And the sky! And you say these were in a tunnel?”

“Yes, a tunnel in a hillside quite a distance away from any of the main sites, but, Nick—”

“The cave must be part of a hidden structure. There has long been rumor of a labyrinth of natural tunnels on these islands, possibly one of the inspirations for the labyrinth myths of Knossos. Could it be that this leads to an ancient ritualistic site? If so, it’s extraordinary! Look how the maidens are wearing the saffron robes of the initiates of Artemis and it appears as though—”

“But they are Grecian not Cretan,” Peaches pointed out.

“Yes, yes, but even three millennia ago the Mycenaeans absorbed the Cretans and then gave birth to Greece—long story.”

“Okay, but, Nick,” Peaches interrupted in her loudest voice. “Back to the present. We have problems.”

“This could be the find of the century! I had no idea that they’d made such a discovery. Nothing’s been leaked anywhere that I’ve heard and the archaeology circles in the islands are pretty tight,” he enthused.

“Nick,” I pressed. “About the archaeologists…” I leaned over and grabbed his wrist, which caused him to turn to me and stare unfocused. “I hear that you tried to contact the head archaeologist last night. Did you learn anything?”

He visibly pulled himself back into the present. “I couldn’t get ahold of the director for the Delos excavations so I left a message on his cell. Dr. Angelopoulos was my instructor at university and a very well-respected archaeologist who landed a directorship of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades about six years ago. I idolized the guy as a young man. Anyway, since I also knew his office assistant, Eleni, I phoned her at home in Athens when I couldn’t get in touch with him. That’s how I learned that he’d disappeared just after they closed the dig for the season. She said he’d been on-site every day before then. Now he’s—” Nick stopped, staring into space “—missing.”

“When?” Peaches demanded.

“Six days ago. Surely you don’t think he’s behind all this? Paul Angelopoulos is an honorable man, a trait I’ve seen in action again and again. He would never agree to hiding a find of this significance. He values our historical legacy far too much. At a vulnerable time in my life, he was like a father to me.”

Peaches and I exchanged glances.

“What?” he said, looking from one of us to the other.

“We don’t think he hid anything,” I said. “It’s more likely that he became embroiled in a situation over which he had no control and somebody silenced him.” I regretted those words the moment I spoke them.

“What do you mean ‘silenced’? Surely you don’t mean…?” The pink in his cheeks leeched to the pasty shade of coffee creamer.

“Giorgi saw a dead body last night—scared the bejesus out of him for all his bravado,” Peaches said. “All he saw was a hand sticking out from under a pile of rocks several meters away from camp. Looks like an animal may have dug it up and dragged it out. Giorgi didn’t investigate further, just took off like he’d seen a ghost. We’re still trying to figure out how to alert the authorities without becoming involved.”

I gazed pointedly at Peaches, hoping she’d catch the warning in my eyes, but she was on a roll. “We’d better come up with something soon. There may be other bodies. But why didn’t they hide the body properly?” she asked. “It’s like they were in a mad rush or something. Why not just drag it down inside the cave somewhere?”

Nick mumbled something. He was now sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, face buried in his hands. I felt like hell. We’d forgotten that this body was once a person and that this person had family, friends…

“Nick, are you all right? We have no idea if this person Giorgi saw was Dr. Angelopoulos. It could be anyone, maybe even another one of the site raiders or whoever they are. There could have been a disagreement among thieves. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

He raised his stricken face. “But Dr. Angelopoulos is missing.”

“Yes, but that’s all we know,” I said. “There may be no relation between the body Giorgi found and this man. Somebody hastily hid a body near that dig site; it could be one of their own after an argument, which is common enough among thieves.”

“It’s so ironic,” he whispered, tears glistening in his eyes. “By the ancient laws, the dead were not allowed to be buried anywhere on Delos and desecrating a sacred site was considered the highest offense thereby calling forth the worst punishment by gods and men upon the heads of the defilers.”

Peaches and I gazed at him in silence for a few seconds. “Nick, I doubt that these bastards care about gods or any law, ancient or otherwise. If they are murdering people to get at whatever lies at the end of that tunnel, they are ruled by greed alone. We need to stop them.”

“Call the police,” he whispered.

“Not yet,” I warned. “In our business, it’s not so simple. The local police are not equipped to deal with matters as complex as organized antiquities crime. By the time they figure out the enormity of what they are dealing with and call in the antiquities police or even Interpol, the site could be ruined and the perpetrators gone. No, we need to use more strategy than that.”

“So we can’t just go barreling up there in the daylight hours and risk chasing the bad guys away, either,” Peaches added. “We’re the ones in the best position to do the groundwork first, find out who’s behind this, then call in the police.”

“But we do need to contrive a way to get that body discovered at least,” I said. “For that, including the local police will work nicely but only if we aren’t implicated in the process. Imagine the mess we’d be in if it was ever discovered that we visited the island last night?”

Nick was holding my phone limply in one hand, his gaze fixed out the balcony window, staring toward the island. I leaned over and gently removed the device from his fingers as two texts had popped up onto the screen.

Turning away, I read the first one from Evan saying that he would be catching the nine a.m. high-speed ferry from Athens, which should put him on Delos around noon as anticipated.

The second came from Zann: Took a flight from NY to Athens as soon as I got your message and then hopped over to Mykonos yesterday. Got lots to tell you. Been asking local archies I know. On the ferry to Delos now. Should be there by eleven-ish. Meet you there.

Peaches caught my expression and removed the phone from my hands to read the message. Nick heard her swear under her breath and swung around. “What now?”

“Nothing,” Peaches assured him. “Just catching up on agency business.”

“Look, Nick,” I said, linking my arm in his and leading him toward the door. “I’ll be going over to Delos with you this morning as planned.”

“But surely it’s too dangerous, Phoebe,” he said, his concern grooving his otherwise smooth forehead. “You need to stay here. I will hold myself accountable should anything happen to you. Please don’t risk it. Had I known that my comments regarding your arrival in the alternate theorists group would cause so many problems—”

I patted his arm. “You are not responsible, at least not as far as what’s going on on Delos is concerned. Whatever’s happening there must have been in the works for days. And don’t forget that this is the business we’re in so I’m hardly unprepared.”

His confusion was so visible, poor guy. We’d given him a lot to digest.

“Look,” I said, “you probably need some time to collect your thoughts after we dropped all these bombs on you. I’ll see you on the launch deck at 9:45, and try not to worry, okay? Remember, don’t say a word to anyone in the meantime. We’ll figure out how to get this matter settled. It’s in our hands now.”

He reluctantly left our company and strode away. “That’s one sensitive guy,” I remarked, shutting the door behind me. “I hope I didn’t come off condescending or anything. I—”

“How in hell did Zann know we were on Delos?” She was holding up my phone.

“Because I sent her an email asking what she knows about the Delos digs yesterday. Who knew she was in Athens at the time? Looks like she caught the next ferry to Mykonos after she read my message and is on her way now.”

“Shit. I’ll throttle her.”

“Think, Peach: besides being a pain in the neck, she’s also an archaeologist with experience in Greece. Now that she’s on her way, I see an opportunity waiting to happen.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“An archaeologist can legitimately request to view the dig from a caretaker on Delos and maybe accidentally on purpose stumble upon the corpse. They won’t allow her into the enclosure but that’s not necessary and you can believe the bad guys will remain out of sight, no matter what happens. We’ll make sure she’s accompanied for her safety, but one way or the other, you’ve got to admit that she’ll make the perfect foil for bringing in the local police to identify that body. That will give us at least twenty-four hours to get to the bottom of what’s going on before the antiquities police arrive.”

“But then the site becomes a crime scene,” she pointed out.

“No matter; we can still get back over there tonight and penetrate that tunnel to the end, only this time we’ll be ready and Evan will be with us.”

She stared at me. “I don’t like it.”

“But you’ve got to admit that at least it’s a workable plan. I’ll go to Delos today and see if I can catch whoever’s working against us among the passengers. I’ll contact Zann, too. You search the cabins.”

“What if the perps have already reburied the body?” she asked.

“That would confound everything but we still need to do something now. This is the best option. Besides, Evan’s on his way.”

“We do need reinforcements,” she agreed.

“Right. I can’t wait to see him.” I hoisted up my backpack onto the bed and studied the contents, deciding to bring one of my multicolored knit scarves for a morale boost as much as anything else. “Dare I hope that this is all coming together? Soon we can find out what’s going on.”

I pulled up my empty water bottle, which I had bought at the Athens airport, one which sported stylized dolphins playing in curlicue waves reminiscent of Cretan frescoes. “Walking over Delos is thirsty work but I’m going to fill this baby with fizzy water from the minibar. I’m not taking chances.”

CHAPTER 12

I hadn’t ruled out the possibility that I’d been drugged. Ari had passed everyone a bottle as we boarded the tender. Had mine been dosed with something? Just in case, I had filled my water bottle from the carbonated name brands in the minibar, listening with satisfaction to the sound of the screw top’s seal cracking. As an added precaution, I also vowed to select my own bottle from the ship’s offerings before going ashore that day.

Overall, I was feeling less anxious. Two friends were on the way to assist, and though I still needed to be careful, I could breathe easier.

With that in mind, I prepared for my day on Delos. The kitchen offered boxed lunches for participants but I stuffed my backpack with minibar finds plus a roll and cheese that I’d commandeered from breakfast. Besides assuring that my creature comforts and rehydrating needs were met, I resolved to keep my phone open on the stun app within ready reach and remain alert at all times.

But I was still filled with anticipation. Soon I’d see Evan again, which provoked a multitude of interesting physical reactions, including heart palpitations. Also, Delos had taken on an almost quest-like significance in my mind: there was something happening on that island and I was getting close to discovering what.

Nick had passed out a brochure the day before that I studied in detail, taking in our proposed path up through the House of the Trident, the House of Cleopatra, the House of Dionysus… How could I not be excited to view mosaics up close or to better understand the life of the people who once inhabited this island? Maybe they were the same people who had painted those incredible frescoes I’d glimpsed the night before, maybe the same dancers who had haunted my dreams with such vividly.

I arrived at the launch deck fifteen minutes early to find Giorgi leaning over the balcony with his gaze fixed on Delos. A brisk wind blew in over the headland whipping up the surf while the sun remained shrouded behind a dark clot of cloud on the horizon. For a moment I could almost grasp why the locals considered late October wintery as I pulled my jacket more tightly around me.

Giorgi turned with a startled expression. Was that fear? Surely the deep grooves around his eyes hadn’t been so prominent yesterday, but that could be due to lack of sleep—his and mine. He glanced behind him at the security camera now facing the right way around. I followed his gaze. Got it.

“You feel better from yesterday?” Giorgi asked.

The question was whether he felt better from last night. “Yes, much, thanks. It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do.” As if I’d had one.

Other passengers began trickling down to the deck with Heather and Peter Rose leading the way, the latter leaning heavily on his cane and chatting amiably to Brent, who carried his foldable wheelchair. Beside him. Heather, dressed in a pair of linen trousers and a long beige sweater and sporting what looked to be brand-new running shoes, appeared more animated than I had yet to see and marched straight over to me.

“Chilly today, isn’t it?” she said, fixing me with a scrutiny so intense that I had to keep myself from glancing down at my jeans in case I had something hanging out.

“It is. I was just thinking that I finally understand why the Greeks consider this to be wintery conditions,” I said.

She actually laughed, if throwing her head back and hooting qualified. The sight struck me as so contrary to everything I thought I understood about the woman that it took me aback. “Winter for the Greeks is rain, which may occur today should those clouds ahead bear us ill-intent,” she said. “For Peter and I, avoiding the heat is always key. I despise the heat with a vehemence. I’d rather be cold. Or wet. The summer here can be quite punishing. But we are ready for today, aren’t we, Phoebe?”

I gazed up at her now sober face and felt a chill while pulling my jacket even tighter across my chest. Damn—I should have worn that extra sweater I had tucked away in my backpack. “Sure we are. We’ll persevere,” I laughed. Peter tapped his cane over to us, which offered a welcome respite from Heather’s scrutiny.

“Will you be able to manage all right today, Mr. Rose?” I asked. I admired how he insisted on doing the activities he loved despite his challenges. Today, he had fastened his canvas hat firmly under his chin and had donned a flannel shirt.

“Do call me Peter, please. I despise formality.” He fixed me with a long-toothed grin that illuminated his equally long face. “Indeed, I will manage very well. I have hired a young man on Delos—one of the custodian’s sons—and Brent here has kindly offered to assist me to get settled, fine lad that he is.”

Brent Tsaoussis standing nearby with a turtleneck under his jean jacket shot me an almost shy smile. So the loudmouth had turned into a fine lad. Obviously he had redeeming features.

“The boy onshore will assist me with the wheelchair in exchange for a small gratuity,” Peter continued. “Of course, these ancient sites are not wheelchair accessible but I think it not unreasonable to expect more assistance be forthcoming given the ruinous terrain. The museum does a fine job, I’m happy to say, but the grounds require more ramps, and a few elevators would not be unreasonable.”

And then Heather added: “I’m unable to assist him with the wheelchair due to a recent shoulder injury.”

“And we can’t have two of us incapacitated, can we, darling?” Peter said, leaning forward as if depositing his quote into the air among us. Unconsciously, I took a step back. “Thus, I may be slower moving along today compared to most,” he remarked as if he’d been a speed demon yesterday, “but, indeed, I shall make progress. And what about you, Phoebe? Will you remain with our group or do you plan to explore the island on your own again today?”

Was that a barb? Heather was watching me as if truly interested in my answer while I observed the Jenkinses arrive minus Luke accompanied by Gerald Tsaoussis, the two doctors, and Susan and Renate.

“I’ll remain with the group, of course. Excuse me for a moment,” I said, turning away to greet Renate and Susan.

“Brrr…today feels almost frosty,” Renate said, sliding up to me, her smile warm enough to chase away the chill. She had opted for a bright blue cotton scarf I had seen in the ship’s gift shop worn over several layers of sweaters, one of which hung down to her knees. “We may even get some rain, I hear. I never expect rain in Greece,” she grumbled, “not fair.”

“But one of us is always prepared. Note the brolly,” Renate laughed, indicating the umbrella fastened to the side of her backpack. “Sue said it never rains in Greece but that cloud says otherwise.”

“Yes, dear, you are right as always.” Susan leaned toward me and added sotto voce: “I always tell her she’s right to help keep the peace.”

“And because it happens to be true,” Renate said with a nod.

“Don’t be smug, dear.” Susan nudged her partner

“With climate change, I guess we have to expect anything,” I said. I really liked these two and desperately hoped that someday I’d have that kind of partnership with another. Evan would do nicely.

“Looks like there will be fewer of us today,” Linda Jenkins said, stepping up to us. “The Dexters aren’t coming and neither are the Wongs and many others have opted out of the walking tour in lieu of ship activities, including Luke, who complains that the island’s cell service isn’t up to his standards.”

I turned to her. “It isn’t?” I asked.

“Spotty, apparently,” she told me. “He claims he can’t keep in touch with his girlfriend, as if a few hours break would hurt him.”

“I never noticed,” I said. But then, I hadn’t been constantly checking my phone yesterday, either. Today I would.

Her ten-year-old daughter, Andrea, piped up: “It goes in and out. If you stand near the café or gift shop you get the strongest signal.”

“Or in the museum,” her younger sister added. “I found a really good spot just inside the door.”

Linda rolled her eyes.

Nick and Ari arrived to begin mustering the small group together.

“Are you ready for another thrilling day in ancient Greece?” Nick called as we all gathered around. “Today you will be able to explore the buildings in detail, journey deep into the center of the ancient lives that once populated Delos…”

But my attention had already drifted, being more interested now in studying my thirteen companions while attempting to force my intuitive skills to hone in on possible dark intentions, shifty demeanors, and otherwise noticeable ill-intent. What did ill-intent look like? Nothing obvious. Did I suspect the Tsaoussis brothers for being young, fit, and occasionally irksome? Possibly. Did I suspect the Roses, Jenkinses, Susan and Renate, the Drs. Bergognones? Yes, maybe, plus everybody and nobody at all. The whole situation baffled me. Then again, maybe I was losing my edge.

“How are you feeling today?” Dr. Maria asked as we lined up to board the tender. Today she had decked herself out in cream walking shorts, a cashmere (I brushed against it just to make sure) sweater, and an embossed gold Gucci logo baseball cap. How did she pull off such effortless style while I clomped around like a runaway hippie?

“Much better,” I assured her. “Thank you both for all your help.”

“We are happy to assist,” Roberto assured me with a charming designer smile.

I donned the life jacket under Ari’s watchful eye, took a name tag, refused a box lunch, shook my head at the offered water bottle, and climbed into the boat.

It was a choppy ride over despite the relative protection of the island’s little harbor. Usually an energetic surf didn’t bother me but today even I felt queasy. It was a relief to reach dry land where I soon learned that many of the smaller tour boats would not make the crossing from Mykonos that day. Now I wondered whether Zann would arrive, though I was confident Evan would since the larger ferry remained on schedule. Still, my unease increased. I checked my phone often, finding the signal flickering in and out.

“It’s strongest in the gift shop,” Andrea said, catching me glancing at my phone as we trailed behind Nick into the archeological park. Ahead, Brent and Peter were talking to a young man who was helping them with the wheelchair while Heather looked on. I scanned the perimeter, saw nothing to alarm me but a handful of determined day-trippers, and continued walking.

“Thanks. I may have to give that a try.”

But not yet. We began in the square that had once been an open market and on to the House of Dionysus, so named because of its amazing mosaic that featured the god of wine. One of the rich private residences that had been uncovered during excavations, this structure gave us a glimpse of how a Delos citizen of wealth and means lived.

While absorbing Nick’s every word, I kept my eye on who was nearby at all times, which wasn’t difficult. The threat of rain kept our little group together like a flock of baby ducks filing behind our leader and I could sense a different mood in the group that day—quieter, more studious somehow. It was as if a pall had been cast over us. In my case, knowing that a body lay hastily buried near a stunning archaeological find was sobering enough.

We moved up through the House of Cleopatra, viewed another beautiful mosaic floor, saw the remains of its courtyard fountain, and gazed at the two headless statues at the entrance, the originals of which we had seen in the museum the day before.

“Cleopatra, daughter of Adrastos from Myrrinous, erected this statue of her husband…for having offered the two silver delphic tripods to the Temple of Apollo on either side of the entrance…in Athens 138/137 BC,” Nick translated from the base’s inscription, adding: “We believe that this was a wealthy merchant family that must have done very well here in Delos to make such an expensive donation to Apollo.”

“Such an offering to the god was a big event, wasn’t it, Nick?” Peter asked. “Rather like bequeathing millions to a hospital or art center in today’s terms.”

“Indeed it was, and undoubtedly the biggest in the family history to be so commemorated,” Nick said, a pink flush in his cheeks either due to the cold or at finally having such a rapt group in his thrall. “Note that the woman was important enough to be named by the household as if she had authority in her own right. This lady of the house, named Cleopatra, a common enough name at the time, displayed her wealth and prominence by erecting these statues.”

“Where are their heads?” Brent asked.

“They were never found,” said Nick. “The heads of statues were often the targets of vandals across history since they best represented the subject’s spirit.” He caught my eye. Yes, my repatriated head of Athena may have fallen into that category.

We continued to the House of the Trident where a two-story partial restoration retained another beautiful mosaic that we admired from behind the ropes and plastic covering. Brilliant glass squares colored by metal oxides with a Greek key design framing an Aegean wave border. I took countless photos, noting the central design of an anchor and a trident, indicating Poseidon’s protection. Despite the beauty of the design, it was the outer symbols that made me pause. Was there a connection between the Greek key symbol and the Key of Artemis?

Then my attention fixed on the mosaic itself. I knew that Delos had the largest collection of mosaics in the Grecian world, nearly three hundred and fifty pieces from all over the Mediterranean, created just after mosaics as an art form were beginning to come into their own. Before then, designs would be made from pebbles and colored stone but the discovery of glass opened up a whole new world to artists. The Romans and all the civilizations that followed could thank the ancient Greeks again for the development of one more art form.

Looking up from my musing, I was surprised to find myself suddenly alone inside a dark halogen-lit room. Startled, I turned and made a hasty retreat outside where I found Renate and Susan striding up to the tower entrance. “We noticed you weren’t with us and came back to get you,” Renate puffed. “Come on, woman. Dr. Nick is expounding on the glories of the Dionysus festival as we head toward the theater. Can’t have you falling behind!”

Laughing, I fell into step with the two women as we wound our way up toward the site of the impressive marble theater that once hosted festivals to Apollo, the patron along with Dionysus, of theater arts, music, and dance. Once this theater had been the ancient equivalent of Hollywood for the performing arts and drew troupes all over the ancient Grecian world. To the Greeks, art and performance was so crucial to spiritual and religious life that its existence was considered indispensable to god and human alike.

I stood at the remains of the amphitheater similar at first glance to every Roman version I had visited before—not surprising since the Romans had absorbed the Greeks architectural prowess as well as their deities. But this theater celebrated art as opposed to violence and warfare. No gladiators killing animals and slaves here; no shows of brute strength with plenty of bloodletting, either, but instead music, dance, theater, song, and politics. The latter was at least as much about philosophy as governance as the voice of orators would have rang out in what must have been amazing acoustics.

“Aristotle—yes, that one, my friends,” Nick was saying, “once visited here and was so impressed by the proceedings that he witnessed in this very theater that he went on to write The Constitution of the Delians. The people who once lived and breathed on this island may have been enacting the finest, most purist example of democracy that the world has ever known.”

“Wish we could send our own politicians back a few thousand years to get a reboot,” Linda Jenkins said nearby. “God knows they could use one.”

Her husband, usually the silent partner, nodded. “And I would add that Aristotle be required reading for every politician just as it was for our political forebears,” he added.

I gazed around, noting how every one of our diminutive group remained nearby, a rapt audience overlooking the ancient theater. Peter Rose sat in his chair gazing out at the ruin from under his broad-brimmed hat with a faraway look in his eyes flanked by Heather on one side and the two brothers on the other, no one saying a word. Meanwhile the Drs. Bergognones were taking pictures one level below us while stepping carefully around the marble blocks like graceful impalas with long sleek legs. The Renate and Susan duo stood close together, arm in arm, and just gazed out at the scene in a unified partnership of absolute wonder.

Meanwhile, the youngest members of our group, Andrea and Suzanne in their ponytails and brightly patterned leggings, were less enthralled. They stood by her father thumbing on their phones. The phones! Pulling sharply back to the present, I checked my own. One text each from Evan, Peaches, and Zann coming in on a strong signal.

Turning away, I read them quickly.

Evan: On the ferry now. On schedule to arrive on Delos for 1:45. I’ll text you when I land. “There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Loving, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”

So my heart did something like a palpitation crossed with a tap-dance accompanied by an ancient chorus. Yes, I am susceptible to men quoting Homer, especially when delivered by the most heroic of men, my soon-to-be (maybe) lover. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, looking up in time to see Heather staring. Turning, I took a few steps in the opposite direction to read my next message.

Peaches: Found something interesting in my first batch of room searches. You won’t believe it. I’ll tell you in person. Ev’s almost here!

And the last one from Zann: Just landed. Crazy bumpy ride over. Had to give the guy a hefty fee to take me over in a boat the size if a peapod. Where are you? We’ll meet up.

I texted her my location but told her to stay near the café and meet me in the washroom. We would soon be making our way down for lunch, according to the itinerary. I told her not to approach me but to wait for a sign. She sent back a thumbs-up.

“Look,” I heard Susan say. She was pointing skyward where the last glowering cloud was rolling out to sea, revealing Apollo’s orb blazing clear and brilliant overhead. “No rain now.”

Renate made a face, and at that very moment, we heard a lark singing far down in the bowl of the amphitheater, its song reverberating so clear and sweet it could have been right beside us. My spirits lifted lighter than air as we filed away from the theater down toward the café, thinking that finally everything was falling into place.

Nick caught up with me about halfway down. “Phoebe, I can’t get those tunnels out if my head. I need to see it, you understand, don’t you? I need to go with you tonight. Let me join you.”

I leaned into him. “Nick, leave this to the professionals. We’ve got this in hand. Stay out of it. Don’t forget what may have happened to your professor friend.”

“But, Phoebe,” he whispered. “What if I asked for a tour as a courtesy?”

“I already have someone lined up to pay a visit up there to locate that body.”

“So add one more. I’m talking broad daylight here. What could go wrong?”

There’s a reason why the ancient Greeks warned us mortals against tempting the fates. “No,” I said shortly as we continued down the path.

CHAPTER 13

The café, located next to the museum, had both indoor and outdoor seating but most of us sat indoors to escape the wind. I ordered a coffee with a spanakopita and then wedged myself in with Renate, Susan, and the two doctors around a little wooden table. We all chatted away while my companions picked away at their boxed lunches and drank their coffees.

“Why are you not eating the lunch provided?” Maria asked while carefully plucking a black olive from her salad with a plastic fork and delicately placing it into her mouth. I watched fascinated as she sucked on it, rolling it around in her mouth with a minimum of chewing.

“I wasn’t all that hungry when we left,” I told her while scanning the twenty or so diners that occupied the other tables. “I hate wasting food.” Actually, I was almost always hungry and very little went to waste around me.

She flashed me a quick smile and slowly bisected a cube of feta. Her husband, on the other hand, sat half-turned away from us checking his phone. Just by happenstance, I glanced down and noticed again how his red sneakers had the little wing logo that heralded Hermes. “Fleet of foot, hey, Roberto?” He was too absorbed in his phone to hear me.

“This is pretty yummy,” Susan said, forking up a tomato, “but your spanakopita looks delish, too.”

“It is,” I agreed, catching the eye of the lone woman by the window decked out in a red Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap with a red and white striped hoodie. She quickly lowered her eyes but I recognized Zann immediately as she spooned up her soup. It wasn’t until later when I picked up my backpack sitting between my legs and announced that I was off to find a washroom that I saw her stir.

“We’ll keep an eye on your bag for you,” Susan offered as I hoisted the thing over my shoulder.

“No problem,” I said. “I need to change into my warmer sweater, anyway. See you in a minute.”

I was just rounding the corner toward the washrooms when Zann caught up.

“I’m not even going to ask why you followed me to Greece because I’m almost glad you’re here,” I whispered as we strode into the three-stalled facility. Luckily, it was empty but for a woman washing her hands who quickly left.

“You need me, I keep telling you that, and I can’t do Dad any good right at the moment but I can help you. Besides, I found out stuff for you. One of my contacts on Mykonos says that the head archie for Delos, a Dr. Angelopoulos, is missing. The rumor is that he was close to finding the hidden temple of Artemis.”

“I know,” I told her. “A colleague of mine discovered a body on the site last night that just may be the guy in question but the body must be identified. We need you to perform a small service for us today but only in the safest manner.”

“Safest manner?” she hissed. “What am I, a choir girl? Has anything I’ve been doing in the last decade been remotely safe? Tell me what you need and I’ll do it and forget the safe part.” She patted her crossbody bag. “Brought a gun.”

“Like we want the sound of gunshots ringing over Delos.” Still, that might come in handy before this game was done. “Though it’s too complicated to get into now, something’s going on here that involves me, the Sylvan Seas, this Artemis Key, and the hidden temple business.”

“I told you that Artemis was calling you.”

“Well, it’s coming in more like a yodel. So Peaches and I are working at identifying the perpetrators on board the Sylvan Seas and Evan’s on his way here with an ETA of 1:30.” I checked my phone. “Thirty-five minutes away, if all goes well. We need you to nab a custodian to give you a tour of the excavation site in the meantime. As an archaeologist that should be doable. See if you can locate the body, which is possibly Dr. Angelopoulos. Can you do that?”

“Piece of cake. Might need some cash to grease the wheels.”

“How much?”

“A hundred euros should do.”

I passed her two fifties. “Be careful. The remains are about twenty meters away from the front gate buried under a pile of stones so you’ll need to make an excuse to look around. If it’s still there, we’re hoping you can accidentally stumble across it and then get the local police up there ASAP. Don’t get us involved, though, or we’ll be dragged into an investigation. You, however, only just arrived so—”

“I’m like the innocent bystander—got it. Why not call Interpol?”

“First we do the groundwork, then we bring in Interpol. We’ll return to those tunnels tonight with all of us in attendance. If that place is guarded as well as I think it is, we’ll need all hands on deck. We almost got caught last night. Are you with us?”

“I’m with you. I’ve always been with you, Phoebe. Just hoping that someday you’ll recognize how valuable I am to the team.”

“Repeat back to me what I just said.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Yes and no. What have I just asked you to do?”

“Find a custodian who will accompany me to the excavation site; look around for a dead body, if it’s still visible. What am I, a kid passing a test or something? I told you I got it. Anything else?”

“Don’t go alone—remember that. You need a witness and we don’t know how they guard that place in the daytime. It’s dangerous.”

“Right. What about you?”

“I’m hoping to catch whoever is targeting me today on Delos. He or she has to be part of this little group. Plenty of odd things are going on, too complicated to get into now. What do you know about a Dr. Nick Pallas?”

“Read his book—interesting stuff.”

At that moment Linda Jenkins and her two daughters entered, sending Zann diving into a stall and me to a sink to make on like I was washing my face.

“You okay?” Linda asked.

“Fine,” I said from under scratchy paper towel, “just freshening up and changing.” Which I proceeded to do while Linda and the girls used the toilet. When they emerged minutes later, I was wearing my sweater retrieved from the bottom of my backpack and was just pulling on my jacket.

“That should keep you warm,” Linda remarked.

“Hope so. See you in a few minutes,” I said, stepping into a stall. Only after I was sure that they had left, did I emerge.

Zann was waiting. “Well, that was fun.”

“I’ve got to get back before someone else comes in to check my status. I guess I blacked out yesterday.”

“Seriously?”

“I was probably drugged but I’ve yet to figure out how or even why.”

“To throw you off your game, maybe, make you feel vulnerable?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Perhaps.”

“Want to borrow my gun?”

“No thanks.” I held up my phone. “I have something far more valuable.”

“Yeah, you do,” she said, removing her cap long enough to brush a hand through her inch of hair. “When this is done, get me one of those, will you?”

But I was already peering at my phone, relieved to find the signal strong here, too. Evan had arrived on Mykonos and was en route to Delos now. So far, everything was right on schedule. I looked up and smiled. “Good luck today. Got to run.”

“I want to be in on the excavation site run tonight. Text me, okay?” she whispered after me.

On my way out of the washrooms, I wasn’t surprised to find Dr. Maria striding around the corner toward me. “You were gone so long that we grew concerned,” she said, her smooth bob still flawlessly tucked behind her ears beneath the chic little baseball cap. A home run for style.

“I’m fine, thanks. Just changing.”

She carried on to the washroom while I returned to the café in time to find part of the group gathering for the second half of the tour while the rest bolted to the washroom, Nick among them.

“Everything okay?” he whispered in passing.

“Absolutely.” I smiled at him.

While waiting for the group to reconvene, I texted Peaches with the information that I’d been in touch with Zann and so far, so good.

Minutes later, we resumed our trek to the temples of Apollo and Artemis. The sun poured down overhead, warming the air as we strode behind Nick into the temple complex.

The temples stood together among a tumble of stone and fallen columns. All I could do was gaze at the exposed foundations, blinking at the white gleam of broken marble. Very little structurally remained intact but for three slender marble pillars, the hips and torso of a colossal statue—too enormous for the ancient looters to remove, of course—and chunks of hewn stone lying around in heaps everywhere. And yet it was still immensely stunning. I could almost see how it must have looked thousands of years ago, understand how the ancients felt as they stepped into this sanctuary to worship.

“The Temple of Artemis is possibly the oldest structure on Delos and preceded Apollo by millennia,” Nick was saying. “Consider this, my friends: long before Apollo was worshipped as a god on this spot, a temple to the ancient mother goddess later known as Artemis stood here.” He was pointing to the first strata of visible foundations below the others. “That has been dated as far back as 1200 BC.”

“The Mycenaeans,” said Peter, struggling to stand with his young employee’s help. “In Delos, women were worshipped first and only later did the Greeks depict the goddess as running young, free, and virginal, the lady of the moon, mysterious and wild compared to the bright clear intellect of her male counterpart, Apollo,” he intoned.

Nick, looking startled, nodded. “That is correct, but I ask you why was the Temple of Apollo, more recent by a few thousand years, built around the remains of what was to become his sister Artemis’s temple? Was he to envelop the female and protect her?”

My lips moved despite myself. “Or perhaps to contain and control her—the male force taming and controlling the essence of the sacred feminine, the beginnings of what would eventually become global male domination.” So much for keeping my mouth shut. “God was a woman first before the male force stamped her down.” Crud, Phoebe, shut up.

Peter caught my eye and smiled as did Heather beside him.

Gerald scratched his beard and added: “But the guys were put on earth to protect the weaker sex.”

“Yeah, that’s why we are taller and stronger,” claimed his brother, flexing a puny bicep.

“Nonsense,” Renate piped up. “Bet I could beat you at a game of chess any time, my boy. Brains not brawn rule the world.”

“And I could probably whoop you at fencing,” Susan added.

“Want to give it a try?” Gerald said with a grin, stepping forward. “I did a little fencing at school.”

“Any time,” Susan said more fiercely.

“I take kickboxing at school,” Andrea piped up as she delivered an imaginary kick at an invisible opponent with moves that were anything but child’s play. Wow. You go, girl.

What had I started?

“Wait,” Nick said, holding up his hands. “Let’s not turn this into male against female. Both energies are necessary for life and both were celebrated here on sacred Delos. The sexes are not meant to be enemies but partners necessary to balance the universal equation and to continue life. I was merely posing a question. Come, let me show you more wonders of the ancient world.”

We continued traveling upward, heading along the path to more temples, more monuments. The sun seemed to become punishingly bright now, making the stones appear too sharp, the marble too hard. Behind us, even in his wheelchair, Peter seemed to be tiring. Digging around inside my backpack, I pulled out a water bottle and took a long refreshing swig.

“Isn’t this sea air bracing?” Peter said, pausing beside me as his young employee popped open a soda.

“I love the sea air,” I remarked, trying to recall a Homeric quote regarding the sea, and was surprised when nothing came to mind. I thought I had those on automatic recall. Heather nodded at me as we proceeded together along the trail, the others having gathered around Nick as he waited for us to catch up.

And Nick was brilliant in his descriptions of all the sacred wonders we visited—the Tomb of the Hyperborean Maidens, the Minoan Fountain, the Temple of Aphrodite, and the House of Hermes, being only a few, each site rich with both history and myth, a powerful reminder of how the ancient Greeks lived and believed.

Truly, I thought as I trudged along, how modern life paled by comparison, how bare of magic and belief is the world in which we live. How could we go on existing this way? It’s as if the modern world had been drained of its juices and left desiccated along the side of time like some poor beached jellyfish. And why dud I feel so dizzy?

I tried to tune out my companions while I imagined those who trod these paths before—the dancing supplicants adorned with flowers arriving to lay wreaths at the feet of the gods, their presence so vivid that I could almost hear their laughter, the chanting, and singing amid the ruins.

Turning around, I’d gaze at my companions, straining to see beyond them at the people who lived long ago. I must have been standing a little too long at one point because Renate came up to me and linked her arm in mine to urge me along behind the others.

For some reason, I was lagging and I couldn’t quite glom on to the facts I was hearing, either. Usually, I could easily dive into my mental databanks, layering in new information while retrieving dates and tasty information bits. Not that day. Everything had become a jumble of pieces sitting just out of reach at the bottom of a murky well.

“Are you all right?” Susan asked as we all sat together on a marble pediment during one of our breaks. Renate stood on one side, Susan on the other, Nick hovering nearby like an anxious parent, the doctors standing close by, shooting concerned glances in my direction. This was getting claustrophobic.

“Fine,” I lied, sounding forced even to myself. Why did Nick’s brows seem permanently fused together when he looked at me while everybody else stared? Oppressive. Maybe they were only concerned or maybe something else drove them. “I just find the sun so bright. Think I’ll just stand over here in the shade for a moment.”

The shade indicated turned out to be no more than a cluster of broken columns fallen together in such a way that they carved out enough sharp angled shadow to provide relief from the sun.

Wedging myself into the deepest shade, I fumbled for my phone. Evan should be on the island by now; I should be seeing his tall figure striding up the path and hear his voice at any moment. His GPS would pinpoint my location. But no signal, no damn signal!

The thought of his arrival quickened my pulse, or maybe it was racing, anyway. I couldn’t tell. My phone slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground. Damn. Picking it up turned out to be surprisingly difficult but I managed by bracing myself against a chunk of marble. Staring at the screen was useless because everything was in gibberish. The phone slipped again. I bent to pick it up but the ground rose up to meet me.

It’s a common truth that when your mind begins to go, you may be the last to know. But I did realize that I was in deep trouble, I just didn’t know by how much or why. My limbs refused to move even to break my fall.

A scream followed by the crunch of pebbles underfoot. People were calling out. I felt a hand on my shoulder, someone trying to roll me over.

Susan saying: “Phoebe, speak to us!” A little shake. My eyes were open so I could see everything, hear everything, but my body refused to obey commands. God knows I tried.

A pair of black sneakers with a logo of white wings on the heel entered my line of vision. Hermes had arrived. “Phoebe, can you speak?” a man asked. I was rolled over onto my back.

I looked up at the man uncomprehendingly. My lips were stuck.

“She has had a stroke,” he said. “She must be airlifted to Athens immediately! I will call the hospital now.”

Stroke? I knew I hadn’t had a stroke, though I could remember exactly what a stroke was.

Something sharp pricked my arm before the blackness swallowed me whole.

CHAPTER 14

The black-bodied satyr battling Achilles against an ochre-colored sky…a jagged crack running sideways down a…

A jolt hit my temples as I turned my head. The rest of the room made no more sense—warm bright light flowing in from a tall window, a bureau with a single mounted amphora, two closed doors—one opposite me, the other in the corner. My whole body aching…

I struggled to sit up, groaning at the deep pain of bruises. I flexed every limb, one by one, under the smooth sheets. Nothing broken but where the hell was I? Not on the ship, that was for damn sure, but in a bedroom, a very luxe bedroom appointed with genuine antiquities. Maybe a ten-star hotel?

I needed a bathroom.

Swinging my legs out from under the covers, I was relieved to find myself still in my undies, though with no sign of my clothes anywhere. A white linen garment spread on the foot of the bed. I held it up, baffled. No sleeves, no buttons, no zippers—how was I supposed to wear that?

Clutching the fabric, I tried the door in the corner, relieved to find a modern, well-appointed bathroom on the other side. Flicking on the light, I stared in shock at the red-haired Medusa in the mirror. Curls twisting like crazed snakes in all directions, a bandage on her forehead, a bruise on her chin, one puffy eye…

I found the tiny bump on my upper biceps moments later. That had to be where the bastard pricked me with a needle. I remembered that sensation just before I went under.

After using the facilities, I did my best to clean myself up, taking advantage of the toiletries nearby. My efforts made little difference to the end result. I still looked a Gorgon.

And then I held up the garment provided, finally recognizing it as a chiton, an ancient Greek dress fashioned with a substantial amount of linen with an opening for the head that could be worn in multiple ways by either men or women. By draping and fastening the folds with broaches and sashes, various looks could be devised using the same fabric. Only I had no fasteners, though I found another length tucked within the other: a peblos, a shorter rectangle that also dropped over my head.

Seriously? I stared at myself in the mirror. There was a reason why the ancient artists only modeled lean women wearing these robes: the curvier ones may as well be wearing a hot-air balloon. At least I was fully clothed, though without a belt I’d probably trip over my own feet.

Minutes later, I found a long blue woven sash on the floor where I’d dropped it. If I wasn’t mistaken, that and the fabric had been handwoven, making me appreciate the textile artistry if not the style sense. Now, I could hoist the linen up in folds around my waist and look presentable, at least according to the standards of a few thousand years ago.

Had I been kidnapped by ancient reenactment fanatics? Grecian dress in a modern house seemed like a big disconnect, but at least I had regained some measure of dignity. Don’t ask me why I cared about that given the circumstances, but nothing makes one feel more vulnerable than being near-naked under the scrutiny of strangers. On the other hand, it’s not like I could see a stranger around, or anyone else for that matter…

I padded over to the window, finding myself facing a stunning vista of wheeling gulls above foam-flecked blue sea with purple smudges of islands far in the distance. Not a single boat or another building in sight. I had to be high up on a cliff, on an island, maybe, with a straight drop to the rocks below.

Turning back to study the room, I took in the large Hellenistic black and sienna painted amphora propped in an iron stand on the bureau—definitely genuine, as was that framed fresco—and the otherwise bare walls, the bed in white linen, and fine cotton sheeting…

Where was my phone? I dove for the bed and felt around the sheets before scanning the top of the single marble nightstand, which contained only a glass of water. No phone, no clothes, no bag! My heart pounded. Without my phone, I may as well have had a limb amputated. To be alone, to be cut off and imprisoned!

It took every scrap of will and several deep breaths to force my panic back into its cage so my brain could take over. Think, Phoebe. The last thing I remembered was being dizzy on Delos. Then came the prick in my arm. I had been drugged, despite my precautions. It had to have been the doctors but why? I rubbed my eyes. Couldn’t figure it out and it didn't matter now, anyway. I was here, captive in somebody’s gilded cage.

The outer door opened easily. Whoever brought me here had no fear that I could run away, which said plenty in itself. I peered down a long white marble corridor flooded with natural light from the floor-to-ceiling windows that formed a wall on one side. Stepping out, I gazed at the view, so high up that I felt as though I were flying with the gulls. The house had to be perched on a precipice. Sea in all directions, cliffs, pounding surf. How in hell would I escape this? Slowly, I walked down the hall, the marble cold on my bare feet.

To my right, more framed frescoes, some of them partials with the missing sections seamlessly blended in with fillers. Positioned halfway down the hall, a marble statue of Poseidon reared up among twisting octopi and sea creatures, some of which were missing fins and tentacles just as the god himself had lost one arm. Hellenistic age, I guessed as I studied the piece. And probably not some Roman copy. Totally priceless. Totally hidden away from the rest of the world.

Where the hell was I? Somebody had amassed a fortune in ancient Greek art for his or her personal pleasure? To hell with sharing with the rest of us plebes through galleries and museums. I strode down the hall, determined to confront my art-raping host and to hell with the consequences. My head was pounding, my anger surging, but all I cared about was voicing my mounting outrage.

After a few minutes of striding around the hall seeing nothing but more marble halls, more statues, more busts, and more mounted priceless Grecian pottery bathed in natural light, I was baffled. Maybe I was alone inside some amazing museum, some feat of modern architectural engineering designed to anoint antiquity in the purest of light. Ancient Beauty and the Beast, only judging from the mirror, those roles could be easily reversed.

Doors opened onto spacious light-filled rooms, some lined with books, always with art. One door led onto a large lounge furnished in white leather couches positioned to gaze out through the expansive windows at the waves beyond, another onto a library with walls of books including scrolls locked in climate-controlled chambers, everywhere ancient art tucked into lit niches, some mounted on thousand year old cornices and pedestals. The place seemed to go on forever and be surrounded by water. Twice I doubled back on myself, all without having seen another human being.

By now, I was growing weary, hungry, and thirsty. My stomach felt woozy. I estimated it to be midmorning, which meant that I had been here—wherever here was—for at least eighteen hours or more. My team would know I was missing. There would be people looking for me with search teams, maybe Interpol, definitely Evan and Peaches. Kidnapping was serious business and yet there seemed to been no urgency on the part of my captors, which could mean that they weren’t worried that I’d be found.

How desperately I craved my phone. Like any modern citizen, my devices had become part of my life, if not my actual person. Not once had I seen a piece of electronic equipment, a phone or computer. Electricity and plumbing were the only nod to the modern world.

I seemed to be going in circles. After several passes around the top level, I turned a corner and found a spiral staircase that opened out onto a three-story-high atrium-style marble foyer. A single statue stood on a circular mosaic below. As I descended, my robe bunched in my hand to keep from tripping, I studied the mosaic—Medusa’s head centered in concentric borders of laurel leaves and waves fashioned from chips of bronze, white marble, and onyx. The piece was exquisite. Ancient. Hidden. When I arrived at the bottom, I gently brushed one foot over the surface before meeting the marble eyes of Aphrodite. Frozen in loveliness, apparently. That was how ancient Greece preferred their women.

Swaying slightly, I had to grab on to the goddess’s broken arm to keep from toppling over. Cautiously, I took another step. Obviously, I had not yet recovered from whatever drug with which I’d been injected.

Several groupings of white leather sectional couches had been gathered into little conversation nooks about the atrium, each with its own glorious view. I could just see what looked to be the edge of a garden beyond the window far to the right but saw no way to access it from where I stood.

Overwhelmed and exhausted, I collapsed onto a deep poofy chair and waited. Perhaps if I stayed there long enough, someone would come find me. Otherwise, what was the point?

Maybe I sat for five minutes, maybe longer, but it seemed that soon enough I saw a figure gliding down the hall above me. A woman in a long white robe draped over one shoulder with a blue silk sash at her waist, curly dark hair artfully draped high on her head, and carrying a tray. She was so graceful her feet barely seemed to touch the tiles. Either I was hallucinating or I truly had landed in some kind of ancient costume event.

Only one way to find out. I bounded to my feet and took the steps two at a time up the spiral staircase, tripped once, regained my balance, hoisted my robe farther over one arm, and chased her down.

Though she had disappeared by the time I reached the floor, she couldn’t have gone far. The hall ended with another tall window framing another sea view but I now glimpsed a smaller tributary between two potted palm trees that I must have missed earlier. I stepped between the foliage down the hall, my bare feet silent, following the sounds of voices, a man and a woman speaking Greek.

Stealth wasn’t my objective. I arrived at the door of a bright, cedar-paneled office backed by more sea vistas where the robe-clad woman stood speaking to a man seated at a desk.

I didn’t recognize, either. The man glanced up. Fiftyish, bearded, well-built, completely bald, and very tanned, his lean form garbed in what looked to be a white toga with a purple sash over one shoulder. Sitting at a modern desk. In a toga. I was in a chiton so why not?

“Did I get kidnapped by an elaborate costume party?” I demanded.

“Phoebe!” he exclaimed, getting to his feet. “How delightful that you are up and around.” Only a touch of a Greek accent. “I thought to let you rest but here you are, already up. Forgive me for not being available to greet you. You must be hungry and thirsty both.”

“Why am I here and where are my clothes and phone?”

He addressed the woman in Greek, who nodded before quickly exiting. “We will bring you food and drink, but please, do have some juice while you wait and take a seat while I answer your questions.” He indicated a chair at the desk and began pouring deep red liquid into a glass to pass toward me. “Pomegranate—” he smiled “—from trees grown in my very own orchards.”

So he would ply me with fruit juice and possibly answer my questions—a start. Though I didn’t touch the juice, I sat in the seat indicated because I’d have toppled over otherwise. “Who are you and why am I here?” I repeated.

“Drink. It is neither poisoned nor drugged. You are here as my guest, so no harm will befall you. The phone was left on Delos where you dropped it.”

“Do you always kidnap and drug your guests?”

He smiled a bright, sunny smile like a father greeting his child after a long separation. It was disarming and unsettling. “Only on rare occasions when their extraction from the modern world must be abrupt and absolute,” he replied. “I have it on good authority that you would not have agreed to come otherwise.”

“It’s true that nearly killing my friend would have made me disinclined to listen to anything you had to say.” He had blue eyes, too. Why did that surprise me? The man was an enigma.

“Ah, yes, the Peaches incident.”

“Not just the ‘Peaches incident.’ There is the matter of a dead man buried somewhere on Delos beside an ancient processional path that may be being plundered as we speak. Of course, perhaps you are doing the plundering.”

He swung around to stare out the window, his frown knitting his brows. “No damage will be done to that site. The unfortunate death of the archaeologist was an affront to the sacred island of Delos but completely unavoidable. I blame the lack of time but I will not tolerate such sloppiness in the future. I wanted no deaths on my hands but others claim it is unavoidable. Perhaps they are right.”

Was he speaking to himself or to me? “So Peaches is safe?” And Evan? And Zann? Maybe he didn’t know about their arrival. He wouldn't hear it from me.

“Your friends are fine, Phoebe,” he said, turning to face me, “including your Mr. Barrows and Zann Masters, neither of whom particularly interest me. Mr. Barrows could be very useful to my mission but I know that he will neither be bought nor convinced.”

“And you think I will?”

But he continued without responding. “And Zann Masters is too unstable for the work I do. Otherwise, as long as they both remain out of my orbit, they will survive.”

“So why was I drugged and moved to another location on Delos?”

The dismissive hand again. “Another parlor trick by amateurs.”

“Do you hire amateurs?”

“I do not but those I am associated with do, unfortunately.”

“Speaking of amateurs, my agency employs a different breed. You know that they will find me,” I said.

“They are actively searching for you now but they will not be successful.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

That sunny smile again. “I am sure of many things, Phoebe, and that is one. You are secure in a place that few know exists and even fewer can access—my sanctuary, my escape from the modern world, albeit with a few conveniences installed.” He shrugged. “Even I could not do without electricity and plumbing.”

“And are you the Magician in the tarot cards that have been appearing as if by magic around me lately?”

A shadow crossed his face. “No. That is not my doing but a colleague’s. Do not allow those to distract you. As I said earlier, some team members have their own ideas and practices, which I tolerate in the interests of collaboration. I attempt to work in a democratic fashion wherever feasible.”

So there were renegade team members running around on the Sylvan Seas and Delos and planting tarot cards and playing tricks? That could explain the voices heard on my recording the night Peaches was absconded. “Did you find out about my arrival in Greece from an ancient civilization theorists group?” I wanted to eek as much information out of this guy as I could.

“Partly.” He nodded. “I have been an active part of that group since the beginning as has my colleague, and my son unknowingly keeps me informed.”

“Your son?”

“My son is Nickolas.” He nodded. My expression must have registered shock. “Yes, that Nickolas. He took his mother’s name after we parted ways.”

“Nickolas Pallas?” I gaped.

“Don’t concern yourself, Phoebe,” he said as if reading my mind. “Nick would never knowingly do you harm. My son was born with an unrealistic notion of right and wrong, which makes him totally unprepared to live in either this world or the one he prefers to inhabit—anywhere populated by humans, in fact. Once we were as close as father and son could be but we have not spoken for years. Very sad but one must move on.”

Nick. Why hadn’t I asked him more about his background? “He doesn’t know about this place?”

“He may suspect it exists but that is all,” he acknowledged. “My dear boy doesn’t know half as much as he thinks he does.”

“Not even about your ancient Greek art collection?” I spread my hands.

“Ah—” he flashed a little smile “—that was the point of our divergence. He disagrees with what he considers to be my practices, making it necessary to keep the extent of my collection and this sanctuary a secret from him.”

“Your sanctuary or your vault? You’re hiding a fortune of looted ancient art here.” At that moment, I was distracted by a wall-mounted mosaic of a single eye composed of hundreds of brown, tan, and white pebbles. A pot light beamed down on the exquisite detailing of this rare piece I estimated to date before the third century BC.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He followed my gaze. “That was rescued from the ruins of an ancient private residence on Halkidiki.”

“Rescued or stolen?” I snapped.

“Rescued,” he assured me. “Most of the art you see in here would not exist if it were not for my efforts to retrieve and preserve them. The world complains about the private collectors without acknowledging that we have done more to preserve art during war, violence, and economic decline than any other group.”

“An excuse by any other name.”

“A reality. My country works valiantly to preserve the antiquities that lay beneath our feet before time inflicts its inevitable destruction. Already we have lost so much but there are not enough resources to preserve what remains. Climate change—many important sites were lost this summer in the fires that ravaged Greece alone—war, changes of fortune, and politics. Let’s be frank, Phoebe: my country is broke. Though I donate millions to museums and antiquities groups, as do many other countries and universities, so much falls through the cracks of bureaucracy and human failure. If I didn’t take matters into my own hands and launch my own rescue missions, we would have very little left for the next generation to enjoy.”

I knew the truth of his words theoretically but that didn’t make it sit better. “And yet your rescued art isn’t in a museum.”

“Not yet but someday my collection will end up in the hands of my people, once I am assured that they are ready to welcome and protect them as necessary. At this moment, this is not the case. There are not enough resources, perhaps not even enough will, given that so many have lost much either due to the pandemic or to the economic collapse that preceded it. Now, my task is to keep these treasures safe for the generations to follow.”

I stared at him, turning his words over in my mind and reluctantly—painfully—seeing his point. I knew resources were lacking but that didn’t justify his actions, did it? “To me, when someone steals art, they are an art thief, period.” My thoughts landed on one art thief in particular. “There are no good art thieves. Your son and I are on the same page.” But I remembered too well a time when I believed otherwise.

And as if catching my thoughts a second time, he said: “But that wasn’t always the case, was it?”

My eyes met his. He couldn’t possibly be talking about Noel. There was that smile again. “Look around you, Phoebe.” He spread his hands. “Here is where you can escape to the golden age of my ancestors, to a time when thinking alone was considered a worthy occupation, when beauty existed as a testament to a divine presence of gods and goddesses, and when humanity embraced art with all of their hearts and souls.”

“It was also a time of war, famine, and political unrest,” I said.

“As is today.” He smiled. So, I fell into that one.

“Granted, the ancient Greeks approached art in extraordinary ways.”

“Exactly. Art is key to defining ancient Greece. It was a brief glorious moment in civilization, one of humanity’s finest. We had no technological distractions nor no need of them. Our communication came either from the written or spoken word, or through art. Entertainment was physical activity, theater, dance, and song, the way it should be, the way we humans were designed. Our physical love for one another was fluid and not considered a sin.”

“For men, yes, but women, as always, were kept secluded and not permitted to walk the streets unaccompanied unless as sex workers.”

“Men had to protect their seed and ensure that their children were their own. That was the way,” he pointed out.

Why was I engaging in this discussion? It was pointless to argue women’s rights with a man who believed life three millennia ago to be vastly superior to our own. In many ways that was true, in others not so much. Perhaps he needed to lecture me on the glories of ancient Greece as a justification for what he had done or had yet to do. Or maybe he was trying to distract me. Either way, I was done.

“So you found out about me through the theorist group—nice. And how do I fit into all this?” The room had begun to spin. I rubbed my temples to make it stop.

He was up and striding around the room now, his sandals slapping softly on the marble, his well-muscled legs bare below his toga, while my head pounded with a brutal thud.

I don’t even know why I asked the next question since he hadn’t answered my first. “Why the togas and the chitons? Isn’t that going too far?”

“Are they not more comfortable, more graceful, and more pleasant to see and wear?” he asked. “No bindings, no restrictions on legs or arms, and should one desire, there are short tunics to provide a full range of motion, though the nude body is still the most beautiful garb of all, is it not? Tonight, you will be one of my honored guests at dinner and will dress accordingly. You will have the full use of this house, in the meantime. No part is restricted to you.”

“Because you’re convinced that I can’t escape.” I leaned back against the chair and closed my eyes.

“Because I know that you can’t escape. To try would expend energy best reserved for another purpose.”

“Which brings me to why I am here, which you have yet to answer.” I opened my eyes and tried to fix on his face but couldn’t focus.

At that moment the door opened and the woman returned bearing a tray heaped with bowls of fruit, bread, cheese, juice, and a carafe of coffee. She set the tray down on a table by the window, dipped her head to her master, and quickly retreated, leaving a whiff of jasmine in the air behind her.

“Your servant or your slave?” I asked after she’d gone.

He actually laughed, a full-throated guffaw. “She is paid very well for her services, Phoebe, believe me. Though I adhere to the path of my ancestors in many ways, I abhor slavery. As long as they follow my rules, remain loyal and trustworthy, my employees are paid well, treated even better, and guaranteed to retire as wealthy men and women.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Come sit and share breakfast with me. I have answered enough of your questions for now, all in the attempt to form a bridge of trust between us. You are very important to me, Phoebe.”

“I can tell. Drugged and kidnapped makes me feel oh so special.” Could Nick know more about his father’s location than Dad suspected? Might he have a search team after me now?

He chuckled, or tried to. It sounded lame to me. “One has only to look at your face to recognize a desperate need of sustenance. Food, blessed food, the best my country has to offer, is yours for the taking. I shall pour you coffee and a glass of pure spring water to begin. Come, eat and drink!”

I followed him over to the low table beside the window and sank into the cushions while trying to adjust the folds of my robe demurely over my legs. Failing that, I left them bunched in my lap and drank deeply from the water provided before filling my mosaic patterned plate with cheese, bread, honey, figs, and fresh fruit. There was no point in him poisoning or drugging me at this point. He had me where he wanted me, so I ate with gusto while trying to retain a semblance of decorum as I stuffed the hole that apparently yawned inside me. No conversation followed until I felt restored enough to finally filter all the information thrown at me in the last few hours.

“Where is this place?” I asked as If I expected him to answer.

“On a little-known island in the Aegean.”

“Fine. You answer all my questions except the ones I want to know most,” I said while sipping my coffee. “Who are you and why have you brought me here, Mr. Pallas?”

He was gazing at me as one would a beloved friend. “As I said, my last name is not the same as my son’s. You may call me Sebastian. That is all you need to know about me except to say that I have made my fortune from shipping, as have many of my countrymen and my ancestors before me. My sole goal in life has been to preserve the glories of my ancestors and, more recently, to locate a sacred object of great spiritual value that has thus far eluded my grasp. To that end, I have brought you here. You will assist us, Phoebe.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, the world as you know it will end, as will yourself and every person you love.”

There it was. What took him so long? “Why me?”

He spread his hands. “You, Phoebe, may be the only one on earth able to locate this key with your uncanny ability to retrieve lost and hidden objects. Either reach down the dusty throat of time and retrieve the Artemis Key or you will die a slow and painful death and take the world down with you.”

CHAPTER 15

Dry, dusty throat of time be damned. “I love those kinds of stories as much as the next person but seriously?” Not the most articulate of responses but I might be forgiven under the circumstances.

“I am discussing the destruction of the world, Phoebe, which can take many forms and may not always be the result of a single cataclysmic event. Some would argue that it is already in progress. Either way, humanity’s continued existence may lay in locating a powerful sign, the same one that drew the ancient Greeks, even the Romans, to Delphi three thousand years ago to hear the oracle speak the truth. That is until the Byzantines intervened. The Christian emperor Theodosius outlawed all supposed pagan practices and silenced the prophetic voice forever more. The last Pythia of Delphi reportedly escaped with the Artemis Key to Delos where she hid it deep within a labyrinth. There it lies still.”

A chill hit me. A labyrinth…the tunnels in the hillside that reportedly linked to other underground passages. What in hell had I fallen into? “And you think that I can locate this key and become a modern Delphi oracle spitting out wisdom like a twenty-first century Nostradamus?” I tried to keep my tone free from judgment or derision but failed. Actually, I honored soothsayers, just not me in that role.

Until then I hadn’t believed him crazy but now I wasn’t so sure.

His eyes sparkled. “Yes, because the Artemis Key is a powerful sacred symbol believed to have been passed from the Egyptian priests to generations of Pythias. Think of it as the ancient Greek version of the Holy Chalice of Christendom or the Ark of the Covenant. Very few of the ancient historians actually saw this priceless object with their own eyes except possibly Herodotus, who claimed it was a gold, jewel-encrusted ankh that had been a gift from an Egyptian high priest. Imagine yourself holding this sacred ancient symbol and speaking truth to a world so broken that it is finally ready to listen?”

I stared at him, feeling sick. It took a few seconds before I could speak. “But this isn’t the same world as a millennia ago. Many people say the truth today but still no one listens in sufficient numbers to change a thing. We’ve become too big, too diverse. There’s too much noise and distraction for a single voice to be heard in the wilderness.”

As if to prove my point, he wasn’t listening. “Think of it this way, Phoebe. The Artemis Key, once in the hands of the ancient priests and priestesses, led the Egyptians to build the pyramids and the Greeks to herald forth democracy, leading humanity out of the darkness. The key was the light that once illuminated entire civilizations, one that we desperately need today. Our civilization is crumbling. Perhaps had we obtained the key two years earlier, we might have avoided Covid, among other equally devastating catastrophes that have beset us in recent times. The ability to prevent disaster depends on our knowledge of what is to come, which, in turn, fortifies our will to avert the destruction.”

I leaned forward. “And I would argue that humanity still barrels on the same destructive path regardless of the warnings. Science claimed that a pandemic was inevitable long before it happened but still we sailed blindly along, and how many times must we hear of the perils of climate change before we have the global will to avert it? Industry and profit are the only gods our world listens to today. Power is in the money. We’re too big, too crowded, to hear ourselves speak.”

“And if you believe that, you are part of the problem.”

“And if you believe I’ll just accept your words without challenging them, so are you. How do I know that you don’t want this Artemis Key to add to your collection or use it to find more priceless art to decorate your house? It is, as you say, priceless, the perfect keystone to your incredible collection.”

He leaned forward, our knees almost touching, his hands clasped before him. “I am the person who must protect it and you have been chosen to locate it. We humans are beginning to see the light, don’t you feel it? All we need is one powerful symbol of change to lead people to a global revolution, one symbol that rises above a single religion, political group, or ideology, something that predates all religions—the Artemis Key! And if we do not find it soon, another, more devastating catastrophe may beset us all. Or, what’s worse, the key may become the property of those who will wield it for their own dark purposes. It is priceless beyond billions but there are those who only measure worth by monetary terms alone. Consider the destruction that would follow. There is great urgency here, Phoebe.”

It is nearly impossible to talk to those deranged by fervor. I’d almost rather battle someone driven by the collector’s lust alone. Those demons I stand a chance to counter.

At that moment a young man dressed in a loincloth and very little else appeared. He rattled off something in Greek that pitched Sebastian to his feet and sent him bolting out the door. “We will talk more over supper tonight, Phoebe,” he said over his shoulder. “Until then, make yourself at home and forgive me for abandoning you. Something requires my attention.”

I watched him disappear. Turning back to the window, I stared out at the sea, attempting to regain my equilibrium. Here I was in the hands of a powerful man, not a villain exactly but one driven by some kind of misplaced messiah syndrome who believed that I was the Chosen One who could locate an ancient symbol and lead the world from darkness. Me. Some days I couldn’t find my shoes.

Yes, I had a gift. Everyone had a gift. Mine just happened to be locating lost and stolen art, but mostly by using a combination of tools and always with others, never just by conjuring locations up out of my head.

Burying my head in my hands, I tried to think but my thoughts skittered across my brain like marbles on glass. I knew only one thing for certain: I had to get out of here and fast.

I began searching the room for clues. This was an office; there had to be notes, forms, communication systems—something—but Sebastian's desk, though not bare exactly, held nothing but sketches and longhand jottings scripted on paper with a fountain pen, everything in Greek. I tried the drawers and found them unaccountably bare except for lists that appeared to be of art objects, though even those seemed to be sparse. How could a shipping magnate run his empire by paper and pen alone?

There had to be a communication center here somewhere, too. Business empires didn’t operate on vibes and that messenger didn’t run all the way from Athens or wherever over water. And what about transportation? I needed both now.

I was still scanning the room when I heard footsteps behind me.

“Hello, Phoebe.”

Swinging around, I faced a young woman dressed in a white calf-length woolen tunic with a length of red silk over one shoulder sashed at her waist—beautiful woven fabric, naturally dyed. She dangled a pair of leather sandals by the laces.

“And you are?”

“Thalia. I have brought you sandals for your comfort. I will be your assistant while you are here. Anything you need, just ask.”

“Thank you.” I took the shoes and tied them on. “How about a phone?”

She flashed a brilliant smile. “There are no phones in the oikos.”

The oikos meaning house. Did I believe there were no phones in this grand oikos? No way, but I thought it best to try to play the game. Only I couldn’t quite keep myself in check. “Do you run this establishment on thought waves alone? How about transportation?”

Her sweet smile tightened slightly. “We have no need of transportation on the island.”

“No need of food and supplies, either? Everything is blown in on the wind?”

Thalia stiffened. “We have no need of transportation,” she clarified, “because those of us who live here go nowhere and have no wish to leave.” Which sidestepped my question. “I will give you a tour and you may assess these things for yourself.”

I followed behind her wondering what Sebastian did to bind her and his other employees to this island. No phone, no YouTube, no TikTok, or Netflicks for the most connected generation in human history. Was she paid heaps of money?

She couldn’t be older than her early twenties, gorgeous, and well-practiced in the art of tour guiding as if she had filled this role many times to many others before me. Retracing my steps around the complex, floor by floor, she provided the background for every piece of art encountered, including where it came from, what techniques were used to rescue it from its original location, and how it fit into the timeline of ancient Greek civilization. At every opportunity, I sought an outside exit, but except for a veranda suspended high over the cliffs, none appeared.

She led me up a narrow set of stairs to a circular glassed-in observation deck approximately twenty feet in diameter decorated by potted olive trees, marble benches, a fountain, and a statue of Hermes in his signature winged helmet and twined snake staff, looking as though he was about to spring for the sky.

“Well, this is lovely,” I said, strolling around the perimeter trying to peer down at the topography below. All I could see from that angle were the edges of walkways, patios, and something that could be a pool.

“Sebastian loves to come here to gaze out across the sea,” she told me. “This is where he comes to think and dream.”

“He loves his views, doesn’t he? I suppose Hermes there is authentic?” I said, turning toward the bronze statue.

She smiled. “Of course. Everything here is authentic.”

“Except maybe the century.”

Turning abruptly on her sandaled feet, she beckoned me on. “I will show you the lower floors next.”

We descended to the middle level, pausing before a glass case filled with ancient Greek jewelry, the sight so gleaming and magnificent that I couldn’t speak at first.

“These pieces have been collected over many years,” she told me, “and represent the most brilliant craftsmanship of the Hellenistic jeweler’s art. Regard the delicate nature of the leaves of the headdresses.”

I gazed up at the ten gilded laurel wreaths. At one time, every hero or honored guest wore a laurel wreath in ceremony or during parties. These specimens were exquisite. Sir Rupert, known to have a collection of his own, would have wept at the sight. Or maybe he’d just complain because he didn’t possess them himself. Smiling to myself, I realized how much I missed him, missed everybody, in fact.

“This way.”

Swinging around, I followed her down the corridor to the atrium stairs, which we descended quickly, me trying to keep up, until she had led me down a hallway beside a bank of glass walls to a little foyer.

“Here you see a bronze figure of an athlete by the sculptor Polykletos in the contrapposto pose,” Thalia said, pausing by the statue. “Ahead you see our gymnasium and bath areas.”

Busy peering past the statue toward the pool beyond with my thoughts fixed on escape, I suddenly swerved my attention back to the statue. A life-sized bronze of a standing male positioned on one foot with the other gracefully bent behind him, it was a style that had influenced centuries of sculpture to follow.

“But it can’t be an original Polykleitos,” I protested. “No Grecian originals have survived. We only know of Roman copies.”

“This is authentic,” she said with authority, “rescued from Herculaneum nearly three years ago. We believe the owner of the villa had amassed a collection of Greek art.”

“But how? How could Sebastian remove a priceless sculpture from an archaeological site in Italy and smuggle it to Greece?” I was allowing myself to get excited again, jeopardizing my best intentions.

I sensed the steel beneath her smile. “It is not so difficult when you have the means. A shipping company and powerful friends can be very useful in the Mediterranean. Please follow me. There is much more to see.”

I followed her into the exercise area while trying to imagine a priceless bronze statue being removed from the ash-covered remains of a great Roman town right under the noses of the Italian authorities. Sebastian must have an entire ground team of skilled operatives ready and able to do his bidding throughout the Mediterranean.

Thalia brought us to a halt inside the gymnasium where two nude men were wrestling. So absorbed in the ancient art of unarmed combat, the men appeared not to notice our presence until the younger one caught Thalia’s eye and smiled before being slammed to the floor.

“The human body is the most beautiful of natural forms,” she whispered as we watched the men struggling for dominance, their muscles slick with what I suspected was olive oil in keeping with the ancient tradition. “It is beauty in motion.”

Another ancient Grecian concept vividly portrayed in their art. Thalia’s gaze remained fixed on the young combatant with a quickened interest I suspected went beyond mere aesthetics while my thoughts strayed briefly to Evan. That man could hold his own anywhere.

Tearing her gaze away, my guide led me into the richly tiled bath area where heated and frigid pools awaited the gymnasts post-workout but I was more interested in what I saw through the door beyond—another terrace, another pool, what looked to be steps beyond and…an open door.

I sprung for freedom, out the door, past the pool where several nude people splashed, and bounded up a set of rock-hewn steps climbing through the wooded cliff. It was a desperate move but I needed to shake this alternate universe and just breathe. Thalia called after me but I ignored her. Maybe if I gained a scope of this place, I could find my escape hatch.

The path led through small groves of cedar trees clinging to the rock with gnarly roots, the sea visible through the branches far below. I bounded past benches, small naturalized fountains, winding wooded stretches that felt ancient and lost in time. Statues of the Greek gods lined the path, but halfway along, dizziness struck with such intensity that it left me gasping. Surely I could find one clear spot, a lookout, maybe, where I could gain the lay of the land? But after four more flights of uneven stairs, I lost steam and collapsed on a bench. Damn, I had to be still recovering from whatever they had injected in my veins.

It took mere minutes for Thalia and four nude people now accompanying her to catch up. They were following at a leisurely pace chatting away as if aware that their quarry couldn’t get far—four people as naked as the day they were born, including the two wrestlers plus two others, a man and a woman, all fit and healthy-looking.

Doubled over on the bench trying to catch my breath, I watched as the naked people arrived with Thalia, all of them gazing at me with mild curiosity, me gazing back.

“I feel overdressed,” I remarked.

One of the older men smiled—maybe in his fifties, his body that of a much younger man. “Please join us, remove your clothes, and celebrate the glory of the human form at home in nature.” Nice voice, nice everything. I couldn’t help looking, considering what was in my line of vision.

“Some other time, perhaps, maybe when I haven’t just been kidnapped and forced to play pretend that I’ve fallen into another time,” I said.

“We have much to learn from the ancestors, Phoebe,” the other woman offered. “We live like this because we feel wholly human, a state of mind we can never achieve in the world we left behind. Here we are free.”

“But I am not,” I pointed out, thinking how bizarre it was to be speaking to naked people while sitting in a glade dressed in a chiton. “Maybe one of you could help. I’m looking for transportation or possibly one of those useful but slavish trappings of modern life, the phone.” Just making a point.

The older man shook his head. “We have no need of transportation or phones here.”

“You might not but I do.” I got up and strode past them to continue climbing, the whole crew accompanying me, the older guy even offering me an arm to hold as we climbed up and around. They were all so congenial as if accompanying me on a stroll around a park. When I finally reached the hoped-for lookout, a flat promontory rimmed by a low wall, all I saw was another stunning view of the Aegean with tiny ships so far in the distance I may as well be in another galaxy. On the other hand, if I could just get back up here after dark and signal a passing ship somehow…

“What is the name of this island?” I asked.

“The name does not matter,” one of my companions replied.

“How did you arrive?” was my next question.

“The same way you did,” came the response.

This frustrating feint and parry was driving me nuts. I couldn’t see a single jetty or any other way to launch a boat, though one had to exist. These guys were not going to help me, guaranteed.

Without another word, I sank onto another marble bench and wrapped my robe closer around my arms. A chill stirred in the sunny breeze that sent my teeth chattering. I admit to taking a perverse satisfaction in seeing my naked companions’ goose bumps.

“You are exhausted as well as cold,” Thalia remarked. Removing her robe, she tossed it around my shoulders. Great, now everyone was naked but me yet I was still the only one shivering. “Perhaps you would like to return to your room and rest?” she asked.

Under the circumstances, that seemed an excellent idea. We were halfway down the narrow steps when the beat of a helicopter roared overhead.

Shielding, my eyes, I looked up. Got it.

CHAPTER 16

Not that I could fly a helicopter. Boats were another story and there had to be one of those around here somewhere. Meanwhile, I slept, which, under the circumstances, seemed sensible considering that I needed to power up for my escape later.

But I didn’t expect to sleep so long or so deeply. I awoke to Thalia standing over me accompanied by two other young women. “We have come to dress you for dinner,” she said.

“Dinner already?” I shot to sitting and looked around the room. Darkness gathering beyond the window, torches burning in sconces in the hall… “No electric lights?”

“We prefer to use the light of my ancestors when darkness falls,” Thalia said.

The light of her ancestors—how poetic, but it made absolutely no sense. “Thanks, anyway, but I can dress myself,” I pointed out. “Actually, I’ve been doing it for years.”

Thalia smiled. “But tonight you will need assistance. Please follow us.”

Dropping my by-then seriously wrinkled linen robes back over my head, I followed the three women down the hall to a room that I had poked my head into earlier—a bathroom, only I soon realized as I stepped inside, a bathroom like no other, at least not in this century. Designed in the ancient Grecian style, a sunken pool with floating flower petals featured in a tiny courtyard open to the sky by an oculus high above. Braziers emitting some floral fragrance I couldn’t define—frankincense, maybe—lit the space while rows of small containers lined shelves around the room.

The three women obviously expected me to disrobe and climb in to bathe under their watchful eyes. I hesitated but figured, why not? Let the twenty-year-olds see the almost forty-year-old in the flesh—slightly less perky in places but still holding her own. I tossed off the robe and waded into the warm scented water, still in my undies. The moment I sunk up to my neck, they tossed off their robes and joined me, giggling like we were in a hot tub on a girls’ night out.

Women in ancient Greece lived cloistered lives but the physical flow had been far more relaxed than in modern times, at least until recently. There was artistic evidence that sex among all genders was common, that prostitution had been state-run, and that citizens, males in particular, enjoyed a wide range of sexual experiences with no sense of shame. I, on the other hand, remained very old-school in some quarters.

“Wait a minute!” I protested as they ganged up on me to pull off my underwear and toss off my bra, laughing away. Then came the splash play with the three of them flicking water in one another’s faces while periodically holding me down to wash my hair. Any attempt to be more intimate provoked a well-aimed kick on my part so they soon stopped that line of fun. “It’s just not my inclination,” I explained. “No judgment.”

They laughed and accepted my wishes.

“You have a handsome lover waiting for you,” Thalia said.

I took it as a question. “Yes, and I miss him terribly.” Thoughts of Evan and I alone in this watery bower was enough to send my imagination elsewhere.

“But he may be with you tonight,” she added.

Wouldn’t that be grand, but I was too distracted to reply. One woman began massaging scented oil into my scalp, and after a few blissful minutes, I was so relaxed my limbs turned al dente and floated to the surface while Thalia’s cradled me in her arms. Then I was dried off and rubbed down with soft linen towels followed by a massage with more scented oil.

By the time I sat wrapped in a soft winding robe like a huge linen-cased sausage, the women were working on my hair. I refused the offered wine but accepted the fruit-flavored water instead. They were tugging at my curls, piling my hair up on my head, and wrapping tendrils around a metal rod they had heating on top of one of the braziers. For a moment I feared I was being trussed up in ringlets.

That done, the linen cloth was wound off my body and I was helped into strophic, the Greek version of a bandeau bra, with a perizoma or unisex loincloth to wear under everything—the underwear of the ancients.

The first robe dropped over my head and following that was pleated silk the color of bronze green, and so much like Mariano Fortuny’s Delphi column dress that it brought tears to my eyes. “Who made the cloth?” I asked.

“We have all been taught but the silk is my mother’s work,” one woman said. So, there had to be many generations living here.

Earrings were fastened on, a necklace placed around my throat, and a final single length of marigold silk fastened over one shoulder and cinched at my waist with a golden braided rope. My dressing complete, Thalia held a mirror up for me to witness the transformation.

Medusa had been banished, replaced by some creature from another world, lovely, dignified, beautiful…yes, actually beautiful, or maybe it was only the light enhancing the overall effect of silk, jewels, glossy curls, and diaphanous robes. Perhaps a woman who believes herself beautiful is beautiful, and at that moment, I believed I could launch a thousand ships, or maybe a rescue mission, at the very least. So transfixed by the image was I that I barely noticed one of the women tying leather sandals on my feet.

When Thalia beckoned for me to follow, I went without comment, in a strange, almost subdued state of mind. I stood a little straighter, walked a little more gracefully, even attempted to glide across the marble floor instead of doing my usual shuffle.

Women of the modern age understood the power of female beauty, too, considering how our vision of loveliness has been corrupted by the youth-pushing media. But at nearly forty, any moment of perceived beauty had a heady effect on my sense of self, not because I felt young but because youth suddenly didn’t matter. Artemis, Aphrodite—all the goddesses—walked with me at that night and, together, we were timeless.

But womanhood is power and I was struggling to regain my own. I reminded myself that all this ritual was not of my doing. I was being groomed, prepared for some kind of sacrificial purpose.

The two companions drifted away, leaving me to trail behind Thalia through the museum-like fortress that had now taken on an otherworldly sense of aborted time. We passed statues gleaming in the flickering brazier light, mosaics, frescoes, every one of them mesmerizing. I glanced up to meet the marble eyes of Artemis and sent a silent prayer for my escape. If she was the spirit of female freedom, I needed a little help about now.

Descending the central stairway to the atrium, I realized that the space now brimmed with people gathering around chatting and sipping wine like a cocktail party for antiquity. A hush descended the crowd as I attempted to walk down the stairs without tripping. Somehow I managed to hold up my robes without falling flat on my face.

“Lovely,” I heard someone whisper in English.

My cheeks burned. I felt like a prized cow, a spectacle in silken trappings. Some of the faces I recognized from earlier and one of the previously nude wrestlers lifted a glass and toasted me in Greek. The others joined in the toast, repeating the words, smiling, and cheering.

“They say, ‘Drink! And live among the good,’” Thalia translated as we crossed the atrium.

“Homer again,” I muttered. The ancient poet seemed to be stalking me, weaving Ariadne’s thread between my world and his. But I reminded myself, this was not ancient Greece, despite evidence to the contrary. I was captive in an elaborate dress-up party and by now the novelty was wearing thin.

We proceeded down a long corridor to a wall of friezes depicting diners lounging while servants filled their cups with wine. Third century BC, I guessed. The wall slid open to reveal another scene from ancient times, this one in 3D Surround Sound: an ancient Greek courtyard with a central square pool open to the sky, columns in all four corners behind which opened a large central interior room. Braziers and torches flickering everywhere accompanied by the sound of flutes and lyres. I turned to comment but Thalia had disappeared.

This was all very enchanting but enough of this time machine. I strode across the tiles toward the open room, not surprised when Sebastian stepped out to greet me.

“Phoebe, you look like Aphrodite herself, a vision of loveliness.”

I refused to be gracious. “I’d rather be Athena ready to battle for my freedom. Sebastian, let’s get on with this charade. Explain exactly how you expect me to find this Artemis Key so I can get on with my life.”

The planes of his face danced in light and shadow, his eyes dark and hard. The silence seemed to freeze the air around us.

“You don’t expect me to ever return to my old life,” I said after a moment.

“I am hoping that you will never want to. What does your old life offer you that ancient Greece cannot?”

“Freedom.”

“Freedom can be defined in many ways and I would argue that in this world you are more liberated than can ever be possible compared to your former life. Phoebe, I am speaking of your destiny.”

Shit. Never trust a man who declares a woman’s destiny. “I make my own,” I said.

“That is not how it works. Come, let us converse further over dinner.” He stepped aside so I could proceed him into the banquet area. Tables laden with aromatic bread fresh from the oven, plates of roasted fowl and fish, heaps of glistening fruit, tureens of something fragrant with herbs, and other bowls and dishes I could not identify, all sitting on long tables with servants standing nearby.

At least twenty dining couches awaited guests, the dining couch being like a daybed piled with pillows next to a low table for placing wineglasses and plates. The ancients ate propped on one elbow. God help you if you had a stiff back.

“Who’s joining us?” I asked.

“Once we have had time to converse in private, I shall invite my friends and our other guest of honor to share our celebration.”

“Another guest of honor?” Did that mean there was another sacrificial cow about, another trussed-up captive?

“Please, take a seat.” He indicated a satin-cushioned couch where I was expected to recline. Only I wasn’t in the reclining mood.

“What celebration?” I asked. “I’m hardly feeling celebratory.”

“Perhaps you will be when you learn of how we will honor you.”

“Honor the kidnapped guest? That’s a new one. Will we be joined by the toga- and robe-clad ancient Greek revivalists I saw in the atrium?”

He was smiling but it wasn’t pleasure I saw in his eyes. “Of course,” he said, accepting a kylix, a Greek wine cup, from a servant and offering me another. I took the proffered cup, which I couldn’t help notice appeared to be genuine. Who drinks from a priceless ancient cup? I took the kylix with no intention of using it.

I sat down on the edge of a cushioned bench while he reclined nearby, Greek style, and snapped his fingers. One servant rushed to fill our cups while another delivered a plate of sliced fruit arranged in a wave formation around the plate. Too beautiful to eat, I plucked a few melon pieces from the outside ring onto the plate provided and tried to catch the young man’s eye. He kept his gaze averted in slavish deference, reminding me that democracy was for citizens alone and that servants need not apply.

“Let’s get this over with, Sebastian,” I said. “You want me to find this Artemis Key, correct?”

“Ah,” he said, sipping his wine, “if only it were that easy, Phoebe. You cannot locate the Artemis Key without being fully immersed in the civilization that hid it in the first place. You must live and feel as did the Pythia millennia ago.”

“And you expect me to do that by dressing up in a chiton?”

“If it were so easy, it would have been discovered by now. People have been seeking the Artemis Key for millennia, Phoebe, the archaeologist, historians, and adventurers digging, digging, digging. I brought you here to immerse you in the age that birthed this symbol and to attempt a different method to seek the truth.”

Oh, my God, that meant the pantomime had just begun. I nibbled on the fruit. “So consider me immersed. Can we just get on with it?”

He laughed. “Soon enough, Phoebe, soon enough. Now relax and enjoy. This feast is in your honor.”

The Last Supper by any other name. Was I like an ancient warrior banqueting before plunging into battle fully expecting to either conquer or die? The melon rolled around and around in my mouth. I may as well be mixing cement.

Any moment might be our last, Homer reminded me. Thanks for that, bud.

While I continued to sit upright, more food began to circulate while other guests arrived. Those I had met earlier plus unfamiliar faces took their places at the reclining couches, each of them toasting me as they passed. Had I my phone, I’d stage a zap attack, launch a strategy that would incapacitate a maximum number of these robed actors; I’d call my team and turbo-thrust myself out of this century. As it was, all I could do was sit in my silken robes imagining the endgame, feeling totally unprepared. Could my armed combat skills take on all these muscled athletes? Very unlikely.

“Phoebe, we honor you!” Sebastian cried. “Come stand with me.”

Oh, please. I gazed up to see Sebastian standing before me, one arm extended. Slowly, I got to my feet and stood by his side.

“To you, we give thanks this night and celebrate your bravery, your vision, your beauty!” he cried, raising his cup.

I imagined myself launching a kick right to his groin but doubted I could pull it off under the circumstances.

“‘Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed,’” I said, unable to keep Homer at bay now.

The others cheered, each raising a kylix while I scanned their faces wondering where all the women had gone. So much for equality. Women never joined these kinds of dinners in ancient Greece unless they were slaves or courtesans. So where did I fit in? There was an energy in the room I couldn’t define, something edgy, heated, like pressure rising as a pot simmering to a boil.

I turned to Sebastian. “I’m out of here.”

And I pushed past the men with their smiling faces, their crazy commitment to a life left far behind, and bolted for the door.

The braziers illuminated the courtyard pool, the stars sparkled overhead, and I was seriously considering making a jump right over the edge into the Aegean, if I had to. Take my chances with the sea, swim like hell, find a damn boat.

Dodging a pair of startled servants, my robe bunched in my hand, I ran in the direction of the false wall and was halfway there when it slid back to reveal a tall, lean figure standing in the smoky shadows.

“Get out of my way!” I demanded. The figure remained, backlit by the flaming braziers that flanked him.

“Ah, Phoebe, my warrior goddess,” he said, stepping into the light. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still trying to escape your destiny. You look lovely by the way.”

CHAPTER 17

Shock hit me in countless ways. I almost couldn’t breathe. Noel! Shit, shit, shit.

Thinner than I remembered, the skin sucked deep under the high cheekbones, the dark eyes drilled into the sockets, and that sensual mouth still quirking like all the world was his private joke.

“Why in hell are you even here?” I whispered.

“To see you, my love—” he lifted his hands and took another step “—and because my friend, Sebastian, has graciously permitted me to recuperate in this ancient Grecian resort and spa after you broke my heart, literally and figuratively. You’ve got to admit, it’s perfect—sunshine, fresh food, lovely maidens tending to my every need, clothing optional. Slowly, my poor heart mends.”

“You should be dead!” I practically spat out the words.

He pulled aside the top half of his robe, revealing the phone-sized reddened scar over his heart. “And if you wanted to kill me, dead I would be, my love. I had a gun, remember? You could have taken that and shot me. Instead, you tasered me with that little gizmo your boy toy devised. But you didn’t mean it.”

“I damn well meant it! If the charge had been stronger, it would have stopped that black ticker of yours forever, damn you!”

He took another step forward. “Seriously, Phoebe? Think I don’t know you better than that? You could never kill me. You and I are bound together forever, true soul mates. I just pissed you off in Morocco, which activated that cute little red-haired temper of yours. I’m willing to forgive and forget and pack everything into the ‘shit happens’ category. Granted, my health may never be the same but I’m willing to rise above the whole encounter. Besides, you keep helping me along—even killed Baldi for me. How can I hold a grudge?”

“Zann killed Baldi with a little help. Do you remember her, another woman you screwed?”

I took a step back as he continued moving forward. “When a girl throws herself at a man, what can he do?”

I backed right into one of Sebastian’s cronies, who gripped me by the shoulders and held me tight. If I had struggled, it would have only provided entertainment for the men so I froze myself to the spot.

Sebastian stepped between Noel and me.

“And what’s your role in this charade?” I asked him.

“As Noel says, he and I are friends, Phoebe. He’s like a son, since my own has forsaken me.”

“A son—him?” I tried to laugh but couldn’t pull it off. “He has a real father, do you know? And he’s forsaken him by being such a cut-throat, double-barreled, shit-faced bastard.”

“Forgive her,” Noel said with a grin. “She has a terrible track record with adjectives.”

“Sebastian,” I cried. “You’re being suckered! Noel is the evil, money-grubbing asshole you fear the most. You’ve put him right at the heart of your collection, at the source of every bloody piece of art he could have ever dreamed of. You’re being played!” I was close to losing it.

“When working for Baldi, Noel provided me many services and helped deliver much of the priceless art you see around you. Furthermore, he remains committed to doing more of the same. Now he will help me to locate the Artemis Key through you.”

“He won’t. He’ll steal everything of value for himself and he’s still using me as his sniffer hound. I get it,” I said. Taking a deep breath, I struggled for calm. Shouting never works. “And the fact that he deals with an arms cartel doesn’t sully your noble cause?” I asked more calmly. “A rich bit of Grecian theater, isn’t it?”

That seemed to wound him. “I do not judge my equals; I merely ensure that our goals align with mine. Through Noel and indirectly Nick, I first learned of your abilities to find lost art. You will help us locate the Artemis Key, Phoebe. It is the greatest honor bestowed upon any mortal woman.”

“Oh, please. And if I don’t or can’t?”

Noel stood watching this exchange with a pained expression, probably feigned. “If you don’t, Phoebe, I may be unable to save you this time.”

“Save me this time?” I cried, losing it again. “I always save myself, you bastard!” Actually, I used several, much stronger words.

“Whatever. The point is that the quest for the Artemis Key is far bigger than all of us combined and not fully in our control,” Noel added.

Oh, my God, not this destiny shit again.

“We will engage in a ritual that will unlock your abilities,” Sebastian explained with solemnity, “a very ancient, very sacred, ceremony designed to tap into the hidden depths of your subconscious mind. My ancestors performed similar ceremonies at the Panhellenic Sanctuary as a part of the cult of Demeter and Persephone and throughout the Greek world in various cults devoted to Artemis and her initiates.”

“Do you mean something like the Eleusinian Mysteries?” I gasped. “But nobody knows what went on in those ceremonies, which is why they were considered mysteries.”

“Indeed,” Sebastian said, “but pottery and other evidence preserved in art plus the ancient historians themselves indicate that women played a central role in the mysteries as they concerned rebirth and the sacred feminine. It is believed that a similar ritual preceded the anointing of the Pythia of Delphi, ensuring that she would emerge from the darkness to awaken her inner sight, reborn in by the hand of the gods as a goddess in her own right.”

Emerge from the darkness. “The descent, the search, and the ascent,” I whispered, the age-old hero’s journey that echoed all through humanity’s storied past. I wanted to spit. “So what, a group of men are going to invent a phony ritual to fulfill their own devious plan now?”

“Phoebe—” Noel spoke softly as if he were my lover instead of my bastard nemesis “—we do have scholarly theory on our side, not to mention the assistance of those practiced in the art of the world’s occult studies. And you. You are the key to this entire search because you are special and will emerge from the darkness victorious with the Artemis Key in hand, a goddess among women. We already know the area where the Pythia hid the key. That’s where we’ll begin.”

“I thought I zapped you in the heart, not the head. Maybe I got it wrong. You’re all nuts if you think you’re going to make me play some kind of ancient game of fetch.” I kicked out behind me, taking my captor by surprise. He fell backward as I lunged past Noel and Sebastian, heading for the open wall ahead.

Maybe I wouldn’t get far, maybe I didn’t care, but I was still going to run like hell.

“You won’t get away, Phoebe,” Noel called. “There’s no place to go!”

Luckily, the atrium had emptied as I scrambled across the Medusa mosaic toward a corner where Thalia had led me earlier. The gymnasium and outside doors lay in that direction. If I could just find a way to the other side of the house, then maybe I could find the wharf, the communication station…

The torches were lit along the walkways, pools and patios. I ran toward the lookout path with plans to diverge. Behind me the beat of footfalls and men shouting in two languages grew closer, though I doubted they were exerting themselves much after all that wine. But they were probably still practiced sprinters and I was not. Maybe I couldn’t outrun them but I had chance to outthink them.

I bolted up the stone path, untying my sash and yanking my robe over my head as I went. The wind had picked up, blowing a chill gusty breath down the glade while, to my right, a full moon sailed high over the Aegean. Weren’t all these ancient rites held by the light of the full moon? Scripted in advance, then. Once again, everyone had played into Noel’s hands. Well, damned if I was going to let him keep me there.

I had reached the first marble bench. Bundling the clothing under one arm, I dove off the path into the woods and ducked there counting the seconds as footsteps pounded past.

“She’s heading for the top!” I heard one say. “Thinks she’s trying to see where we keep the boats.”

Thanks for the info, bozo. Once they’d passed, I plunged through the woods, which began as a thick copse of cedar, sycamore, and pines opening onto stony outcrops amid clusters of skinny trees. Now in my loincloth and bandeau, at least I could climb but I needed to hang on to the bundle of silk, too. That meant crawling over the rocks with the silk wrapped around my waist, secured by the golden cord.

With the moon silvering the landscape and the shadows between the rocks as deep as Hades, I could easily skid to a wicked end at any time. At one point, I hid behind the rocks hearing voices calling from somewhere, whether from left or right, I couldn’t tell. Maybe to my right toward the look-off—no, wait, to the left. Both directions at once.

Leaving my boulder, I crept across the stones over the crest of the knoll until I reached a thin fringe of trees that was the only barrier between me and the lights below—electric lights, not torches. Keeping behind the cover of branches, I gazed down, trying to pick out the details. A paved area that could be a helipad with an open garage nearby. Lights around the pavement’s parameter, steps leading down to the sea… Bingo—I’d reached the business end of the property.

But how to get down? It was a straight thirty-foot drop from my perch to the pavement with no handholds worth grasping. I began unwinding the silk from around my waist. Tearing the fabric with my teeth, I ripped it into two, long pieces. Tying the two pieces together, I wrapped one end to a gnarly cedar, the other triple-wrapped around my hands, and dropped over the edge, repelling down the cliff face while slowly releasing lengths of it as I dropped.

Good thing it wasn’t far because what works in theory doesn’t always in practice. Silk as strong as it is, will fray against every jagged outcrop and there were plenty, plus the length turned out to be too short besides. I ended up jumping the last five feet, which made for a jarred every bone in my body.

Nothing sprained, I recovered and dashed for cover behind a bronze Zeus while scanning the interior of the open door. Definitely a garage with a single interior door at one end—green. Don’t ask me why I notice these things. A man in white coveralls was busy working over some piece of equipment, his back to me.

I scuttled across the pavement keeping low and ducking behind whatever I could find until I was deep inside the building. Within moments I had reached the green door. Slipping out from behind a barrel, I yanked the spring-loaded thing open and dashed inside, careful to ease the door closed behind me.

It took grinding seconds for my heart to settle. A long hallway with doors opening on each side stretched ahead. Men’s voices somewhere. The scent of diesel and the hum of something mechanical. Unconsciously, I felt for my phone but my hand came away empty. I was on my own. Leaving the door, I crept down the hall, ducking behind a door at the sound of voices crossing the corridor. Once they’d gone, I continued.

Two doors down, I paused at the entrance of a large empty room with meters blinking on the wall. A boiler or engine room? Here lay the beating heart of Sebastian’s alternate universe and I might not recognize half those machines but a phone I definitely would. Seeing nothing that looked like a communication device, I crept onto the next. Computers lined this space, one every foot or two on tables against three of the four walls, each featuring a screensaver with a Poseidon-esque logo. Okay then, computers I understood, too.

Easing around the corner into the empty room, I tapped the keyboard of the closest machine. Password-free, it flipped open onto an active home screen with plenty of apps to choose from. All I needed was a browser with a mail feature, which I found in seconds—a Google mail account, everything in Greek. Activating the message app, I typed in Evan’s address plus Peaches’s and wrote: HELP! Kidnapped to an island by Nick’s father. Noel’s here! Phoebe. I hit Send. Relief washed over me in seconds. Done.

“The message will go nowhere” a man said in English. “Everything is monitored.”

I swung around to see the coveralled man standing there and hurled a rolling chair in his direction. He was calling out in Greek, men were shouting back, and I barreled past him to another door on a headlong run to what looked to be a side exit.

The moment I opened the door, an alarm pealed. I was halfway down a set of steel stairs heading for the jetty before I realized that other alarms were sounding all over the island. Boots were pounding on the steel behind me, the dark sea was churning below.

Shit, shit, shit! I reached the bottom and dashed across the cement jetty. Flooded with lights, I could see a cabin cruiser moored ahead plus a speedboat nearby. I was going to make it!

The speedboat might be my best option but the cruiser was closer. I couldn’t risk sprinting that ten additional yards without them catching up. Springing on board the cruiser, I began untying the ropes, thinking that I’d get the engine going and fight my attackers off somehow. Suddenly there were lights. Someone tackled me from behind. I kicked back, but hitting a shin with my sandals made little impact. Another man grabbed me from the other side while someone else pulled a foul-smelling bag over my head, tying it fast around my torso until I was encased. I was pushed back against the rear seat still kicking.

More men’s voices. Sebastian calling out instructions from the jetty. Two men held me down while someone else gripped my legs and another bound my ankles. Thrown over somebody’s shoulder, I was then tossed onto the jetty and into another man’s arms. Seconds later, I lay facedown on the cement bucking like a tuna.

“Phoebe, Phoebe…it is never wise to fight your destiny,” Sebastian said overhead.

“Go to hell, you crazy bastard!” I mumbled, but speaking was challenging since my head wasn’t alone in that bag. Slimy, finny, fishy-smelling things kept me company, some still moving. Something slippery wrapped around my neck. I was briefly distracted by the sound of wheels rolling across the cement. The moment they stopped, I heard Noel’s voice.

“Phoebe, still taking the hard way home, are you? Some things never change.”

“We will need to subdue her,” Sebastian said. “Hold still, my goddess. We will deliver you to your destiny now.”

“No!” Something slithered against my lips, but before I could form another word, the needle sucked me back down into a blackened world.

CHAPTER 18

I fell in and out of consciousness, the darkness seeming absolute. I heard men shouting over some loud mechanical beating sound before being dragged back under. Next, I came to while clinging to awareness, my body vibrating as if I lay on top of some quivering beast. Halfway between this world and the next I remained, aware that I was now being carried somewhere. I heard the sea surging nearby and voices, so many voices. But my limbs refused to move. All I could do was lay waiting for my life to return, that is until the darkness sucked down again.

I awoke inside a small room, the blindfold gone. A figure leaned over me and shadows hovered nearby. I blinked. So much yellow—yellow walls, yellow ceiling. A fire burning in the corner.

“She awakens,” the woman said. I knew that voice. “Come tend her.”

Another woman arrived, placing a cool cloth on my forehead. Now I was being helped to sitting, though I seemed unable to move my head and could only gaze down at my bare legs.

“What’s wrong with her?” one asked.

“The drug,” said the Italian accent. “It will soon wear off.”

“Better happen pronto because we can’t bring her out like this.”

“Give it time,” the Italian said. “I have given her something to bring her around sooner.”

“She smells of fish.”

“We must wash her.”

They were trying to dress me now, moving my limbs around like I was a doll, dropping something silken over my head, poking my arms through holes. Still I couldn’t lift my head. Blue-green fabric gleamed in my range of vision.

“She's lost one earring.”

“Bring the another.”

“Can she stand?”

“Let us try.”

Holding me by each arm, they lifted me to my feet where I stood swaying. I finally managed to raise my head. Painted walls of figures bearing gifts to a throned woman, a swirl of birds and vines in the sky. They were bringing her a goat. Old, very old…

“Where…am I?” I whispered.

“She rouses.”

I slowly turned to the voice, gazing befuddled at a woman I did not recognize dressed in a white gown with a laurel wreath on her head. She smiled.

“Quickly, get the water,” the one on the opposite side ordered.

I turned to stare at her. Maria Bergognone. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I whispered. Someone handed me a cup of water, which I shoved away. “Are you seriously part of this…costume event?”

“Do not resist,” Maria said, standing in her yellow robe with the laurel tiara. “Be honored this night.”

“Be honored to be kidnapped…and drugged over and over again?”

“The drugs will help you on your journey. The ancients took them to reach higher consciousness, as must you. Come, we must hurry. The others await. Drink the water; it will fortify you. It is has not been tampered with.”

“Did you douse my water on Delos?” I asked. She didn’t respond but I knew the answer. Of course she did. I drank the water, anyway, sensing that this time it was clean and I needed all the nourishment I could get.

“We must bind her hands,” the younger woman said. “She will try to escape again.”

“Yes, but not so tight,” Maria ordered. “Use the silk.”

I didn’t struggle, couldn’t, in fact—still too weak—as the woman bound my hands in the wrappings.

“Where is this place?” I asked again.

“You are in the sacred temple of Artemis,” Maria said.

“The secret one, the hidden one?” I gazed around at a room that reminded me of the partial houses of Pompeii only much older and strangely intact. “When did you find it? It’s incredible…”

“Others will answer your questions,” Maria said.

Two young girls arrived, no older than twelve, giggling and excited in their brilliant saffron tunics. Each of them tossed flowers at my feet before stepping behind me.

“You brought children into… this mess?” I muttered.

“They are honored,” Maria said.

In a silken blindfold with my hands bound, I was guided forward, a hand on each arm. I could see nothing ahead but a faint glow through the fabric bindings—torches or braziers burning something fragrant, maybe frankincense and myrrh. Beneath my sandaled feet, the ground felt smooth as if paved in marble with petals scattered over the surface. Far in the distance, I could hear music playing—reeds and stringed instruments.

“This is crazy!” I whispered.

“Ritual is not crazy,” Maria said solemnly, “though it may seem so to those who look in from the outside. All ritual binds humanity together in the darkness.”

“Only this human happens to be bound physically. Doesn’t that strike you as just a little ironic?” No answer. Didn’t expect one. I continued to shuffle down what I sensed to be a long, long corridor. “Are we underground?”

“We are,” Maria acknowledged, “far underground. No one will ever find us. This place has been hidden for millennia.”

My heard was throbbing. Oh, my God, they had found the secret temple of Artemis, but how, when? I shuddered. “Why are you playing this game? Don’t you know that men are pulling the strings for greed alone and that all this is just an elaborate charade?”

“Be quiet,” Maria ordered. “You will understand soon enough.”

Soon enough came only after musicians joined our procession. The lyres played and the reed pipes blew an ancient melody while the beating drums caught the rhythm of my heart.

Now I felt the space opening around us as others joined the procession, the sound of singing in a language I couldn’t understand— beautiful, haunting, both joyful and poignant all at once.

I was guided across a large area where braziers burned all around, the light turning my blindfold an orangey-red. Hands guided me up one step, two steps, and at the third, I was turned and gently urged to sit on something that felt like hard, smooth stone. Then the blindfold was whipped off from over my eyes.

For a moment, all I could do was stare. A large painted cavernous room opened around me in the center of which stood a golden statue of Artemis running with a stag and hound, her quiver of arrows flung over one shoulder and a bow in her hands, authentic and ancient like the rest of this incredible place. Various cups and gold objects lay at her feet along with jeweled boxed and wreaths of flowers. Figures on the wall danced and plucked instruments while the living players they represented stood around in a huge circle, clapping, playing, still singing. Everywhere huge tripods held burning cauldrons bubbling with some noxious scent. Then abruptly the music stopped.

“No,” I whispered.

“Yes,” I heard a voice say.

I turned, shocked to discover that I was not alone on that dais. A long-faced man sat throned on my left, garbed in a brilliant red robe and wearing a golden headdress. One hand grasped something that looked for all the world to be a shaft of gilded wheat.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Peter Rose was the last person I expected. “This is a joke—you as the Hierophant! I knew those tarot cards would make an appearance sometime but not as characters in this…costume party. You must have been behind those cards planted on the Sylvan Seas. Should I expect the Fool next?” Maybe I could joke my way out of this.

But he did not see the humor. “The Hierophant represents traditional knowledge, the high priest of the known world, but always he is balanced by his mate, the High Priestess, the keeper of the secret knowledge.”

For a terrible moment I thought he meant me but a female spoke on my right.

“You will replace us.”

I turned, not surprised to see Heather Rose yet shocked to my core. She sat garbed in blue robes with a silvered horned headdress featuring a moonstone orb caught like a huge pearl between antlers perched on her head. I wanted to laugh but couldn’t. “Aren’t you two mangling your symbolisms? What do the tarot images have to do with ancient Greece and the Temple of Artemis?” I knew the answer but damned if I was going to make this easy for anyone.

“The Greeks were greatly influenced by Egyptians and by the civilizations before and after. All symbolisms interconnect in sacred images that speak through time directly to the human heart, images embedded into the tarot cards. Listen to the ancient wisdom, Phoebe,” Peter began. “From darkness comes light, from death rebirth. Those are the oldest truths known to mankind.”

From the circle of robed spectators, one figure stepped forward—Sebastian. I had been expecting him. “Phoebe, you know full well how religious and ritual symbolisms morph across the centuries. How Christian Easter accommodates the eggs and rabbits of ancient fertility rites being only one such example. Why does this surprise you? We bring together all the secret symbols into this sanctuary in order to enact the sacred rites.”

I had to keep him talking. At that moment, he seemed like the only link to sanity, albeit a thin one. “Where is this place?”

“Farther away than you can imagine but not as far away as you’d expect,” he said. “We are in a system of underground caves and tunnels used for sacred worship for millennia, lost in time but then rediscovered, the site of the secret temple of Artemis. You are before her now.”

My gaze swerved over his head to where the goddess raced with her stag and hounds—the priceless cella. Would he add that to his collection?

“So the archaeologists discovered this place and you killed them for it,” I said. “That tunnel Peaches and I saw leads here.”

“Yes and no,” Peter said beside me. “It was necessary to silence them before they penetrated the full length of the Processional Way and discovered the temple. Painful yet unavoidable. We could not allow this to become exposed to the gaze of thousands. The nature of its sacredness lies in secrecy.”

“And who gets to decide who sees it and who doesn’t—you?” I asked, unable to mask my contempt.

“Yes, us,” Heather said. “We revere and honor the ancients, therefore we accept the burden of protecting them.”

I stared at her. She actually believed this stuff.

“However,” Sebastian added, “the Processional Way you glimpsed would only lead them partway. Before the journey continues, there must be a blood sacrifice to the ancients. The true entrance to the temple lies elsewhere, hidden by a clever trick our ancestors deployed to protect their sanctuary. None of the uninitiated will ever find the way. To you, Phoebe, we bestow a great honor. You will bring us the lost key of Artemis.”

Here we go. So, we were not on Delos? “You really expect me to be your sacred bloodhound and sniff out this lost key, seriously? How do you know it’s even here?”

“It is here,” he said, stepping right up to the dais and resting one sandaled foot on the first marble stair. “Look around you, Phoebe. Twelve passages connect to this cavern.”

He said something in Greek and the robed and tunic-clad standers-by stepped away from entrances, some of which were lit but most not. “Here is a veritable maze of tunnels and chambers that are the original source of the labyrinth myth. The Cretans were frequent visitors in the past. The Pythia of Delphi escaped here, bringing the Artemis Key, which she reportedly hid in a labyrinth, this labyrinth. The labyrinth.”

“And you expect me to enter this labyrinth to find something that has been lost for thousands of years?”

“And so you shall,” Heather announced. “I had hoped it would be me but I have not your gifts. Though I have followed the ancient path in ritual and ceremony for many years, still no insight befalls me. Now the time has come to pass on the torch,” she said. “You will retrieve the Artemis Key and return to this temple victorious where we will celebrate you as you deserve.”

“Then you and your mate will take your seats upon these thrones, release us from our work, and usher in the dawn of a new day,” Peter said.

“My mate? What in hell does that mean?” I didn’t want to know the answer and yet a sick certainty knotted in my gut.

Four men entered the circle carrying a litter on which sat a man on a gilded chair. It took a moment to recognize the thin man seated there as Noel Halloran.

“I’ll freeze in hell before I ever become a mate of yours,” I said, half standing. A hand behind my seat pushed me down.

“That can be arranged, my sweet.” He remained sitting on his chair before me, that little smile twisting his lips. “But let us not go through this again, Phoebe. You know we are meant to be together.”

Decked out in a white robe with a red cloak thrown over his shoulders and what looked to be an infinity symbol balanced like a crown on his head, I just gaped. “The Magician—you?”

He grinned. “Yes, I am the Magician. I thought you would have figured that out by now. Didn’t you read the hand I played? You are the High Priestess, I am the Magician. I don’t much like the Hierophant—not sexy enough, in my opinion—but if you follow the Wheel of Fortune, it brings the two of us together again and again for I am your ultimate destiny. The Hanged Man was just a warning. Oh, and I had one other card to play but didn’t get the chance last night—the Lovers. That’s you and me, my sweet.”

I wrestled all my curses to the ground. “Oh, please. Still playing without a full deck, I see. Since when did you concern yourself with occult or spirituality of any kind?” I demanded.

“Since you ruined my health, Phoebe. Such personal catastrophes cause a man to ponder the bigger issues of life and death while seeking meaning in existence. I am a changed man—enlightened, ready for the next stage.” He placed one hand over his scarred heart and grinned.

Sebastian, who had been watching the exchange in silence, turned and caught Noel’s eye.

“But no matter, my goddess,” Noel hastened to say, “my friend reminds me that the time has come to enact your quest.” He flicked his hand and two men stepped toward me to lift me up by the arms and drag me down the steps to stand before him. “You will go into the labyrinth and return with the Artemis Key, after which you will be crowned the High Priestess at my side.”

“You crazy rat-shit bastard! What you really want is to screw these poor gamers here and run away with the goods! Don’t believe anything he says! This is your real monster…” But the words died on my lips. Two women stepped from the watching circle bearing what looked to be gilded cup and a large ball of string. I watched in horror as they approached, dipped me a bow, and held their offerings with outstretched arms. “What the hell is this?” I whispered.

“You will be prepared for your quest in the manner of the ancient heroes—a drink to quench your thirst and a ball of twine to help find your way back through the labyrinth,” Sebastian intoned. “A sacrifice in your honor has already been performed.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “What sacrifice?”

“It is enough to know that the blood shed in your name will inspire the goddess to lead you through the darkness to find the key.”

Every smart-assed retort died on my lips. Evan, Peaches, Zann? “Did you kill…?”

He raised a hand to silence me. “Enough. The moon rises high and time cannot be wasted. You must begin your journey now.” Standing aside, he indicated a tunnel ahead, blissfully lit with torches. Relief washed over me at the thought that they would not send me down some dark hole without a light.

“The torches burn for but a short time and then you will be in darkness. Most of your journey must be without light, which is the ancient way. The goddess will guide you.”

“And if she doesn’t?” I had to keep panic at bay. Panic would not serve me. Panic would only drag me under.

“If she does not, it means that you are unworthy. The unworthy can never return.” That was Heather speaking. “Use the thread to lead you back to this chamber only if you are successful and bring us the key. If you return empty-handed, you will be killed.”

“It is so ordained,” Peter said, sitting on his throne like some trumped-up bogeyman, “but we have faith that you are the One and so we send you forth with much love in our hearts. Let us begin!”

“I believe in you, Phoebe!” Noel called. “Come back to take your seat beside me according to your destiny.”

And then the circus around me began to surge forward. I was half dragged toward the tunnel entrance while the musicians played, others sang and danced, children tossed flowers into my path, and Peter and Heather Rose chanted some intelligible verse.

How could I survive this pantomime, this fancy-dress ball of the ancient ritual revivalists? Their fervor was as real as any enacted in any church, synagogue, mosque, or place of worship the world over. Faith cannot be argued with, its rituals fused into the soul of its believers with a power outsiders can never counter. Noel was another beast altogether. He just played the game.

As much as my rational mind struggled to maintain dominance, a deep panic took hold because, unlike the ancients, I didn’t believe that Artemis would help me survive this journey. I didn’t believe in those gods and goddesses, period. Hell, I didn’t even believe that the Artemis Key existed, let alone that I had a hope in hell of finding it. Where did that leave me once the lights went out?

My captors brought me to a standstill before the tunnel mouth. Beyond the doorway, the torches illuminated figures similar to those I’d seen inside the Processional Way. Did this tunnel link with that one? Was that the way out? “Has anyone mapped these tunnels using subservience mapping equipment?” I asked in admittedly a small voice.

Sebastian, standing nearby, laughed. “Nobody knows these tunnels exist. To the rest of the world they are rumored only. This is the original labyrinth, Phoebe. Only you can find your way through and deliver the answers.”

I shot a quick glance over my shoulder, estimating how many people I could engage in hand-to-hand combat or maybe startle enough to escape…but escape to where? There were tunnels all around. I had no idea what path my captors had taken to deliver me here, but at least a labyrinth supposedly offered a way out. My heart thumped relentlessly.

When I turned back towards the crowd, Maria stood before me holding the chalice. “Drink.”

I gazed from the cup to her glassy eyes. “What is it?”

“Wine mixed with opium. It will help keep you calm and open your mind to the voice of the goddess.”

“At least that’s an honest answer. Are you even a doctor?”

“I am a doctor, yes.”

“So when did you swap your Hippocratic Oath for the hypocritical kind?”

No response. She continued to gaze at me without blinking.

“No.” I pushed the cup away. “I’ve had enough drugs for now.”

“Then I will leave the chalice inside the door. Should you make your way back without the key, you may wish to drink of it to ease your death.”

Holy hell. I watched in disbelief as she set the cup on a small table in the tunnel’s mouth.

“Take the string.”

I turned to my right to see Roberto Bergognone holding a ball of gold-colored twine. “This will be your way back to this chamber should you be successful.”

“And what if I die inside those tunnels, Doc?” I asked.

“Then we will follow the string to see if you have acquired the key before you expired. If you have been successful, we will carry you back here and honor you with a hero’s feast.”

“Some consolation to poor little dead me. And if I don’t have the key?”

“Then we will leave your body to rot in the tunnel unsung without honor.”

I gazed into his strangely unfocused eyes, realizing that his pupils were dilated. Shit, were all these wannabe ancients on drugs? I whipped the ball of string from his hands and strode to the tunnel; turning to face the crowd, I waved. “Let the show begin!” If the labyrinth was my only way to freedom, I’d take it and run.

Don’t ask what I expected next—more song and dance, maybe, cries of encouragement, anything but the earth-grinding screech of a huge boulder being hefted into place over the opening. I watched, stunned, as the stone blocked me in. A few thousand pounds of solid rock now lay between me and humanity, maybe forevermore.

CHAPTER 19

It took a few moments before I mustered the nerve to turn around.

Ahead, the tunnel stretched down into a darkness lit intermittently by torches illuminating the white and saffron tunic-clad walkers on the walls. They would keep me company along the path. I was not the first to take this journey. Who knew how many other women had gone before me, sent down the throat of the labyrinth with the quest to bring back what didn’t exist? Me and how many others? I studied the celebrants on the walls but they gave no sign.

After tying the end of the string to the stone table leg, I took my first step forward, unwinding the string as I went. Ariadne, the daughter of Pasiphae and the Cretan king Minos, had gifted a jeweled thread to her lover, Theseus, to help him find his way from the labyrinth. That is, after he’d bested the Minotaur, or so the story went. I’d always thought the Minotaur was symbolic of the fears that lurk in our unconscious minds, our dark imaginings, the monsters hidden deep within.

I shivered at the thought. My handmaidens had draped me with a warm woolen cloak that should chase away the worst of the tunnel’s chill but nothing could warm the fear that chilled me. My Minotaur breathed down my neck with every step. Would I die alone in here, one of humanity’s oldest fears being to enter and journey the dark alone?

I kept my gaze fixed on my one-dimensional companions on either side hoping for a little moral support. Painted in the archaic style with black snaking curls, lyres held upright, and expressions far more serious than those in the processional tunnel, they only increased my sense of loneliness. And they looked for all the world to be Minoan. That old. At least they had the decency not to dance and sing while they lead me on. I longed to make contact with them, to feel their presence somehow, but the ancients were mute.

The deep dark ahead seemed absolute. How far did the tunnel go, how deep? Stay focused, I reminded myself. Don’t let the monsters get you. I would get out of here, I had to get out of here. Labyrinths didn’t exist with no way out. That would be cheating, but then, this wasn’t any old labyrinth. This was the old labyrinth, maybe the original one upon which the myths were based. I truly hoped that the only monsters I’d encounter were those I left on the other side of that door.

After several feet, yards which may as well be miles, the wall art stopped just below the last torch. I stared at the junction of three tunnels branching off into darkness, each as black as the next, gazing down each, one by one. Which way? I looked up at my processional companions, hoping for a sign, but found none.

But one thing struck me at once: a single female figure dressed in blue robes and a cloak like mine stood staring straight ahead holding a candle high over her head. What was she saying? Hard to tell since most of her head had been blackened by the soot of many torches, but I felt she held a message.

“Did you ever come back?” I whispered. No response.

I needed to find my own light. I reached up and lifted the reed and resin-doused torch from its bracket and carried that in one hand with the ball of string in the other and took my first step into the tunnel straight ahead. But it felt wrong almost at once. I stared down the tunnel throat, an entrance without decoration or even signs of human intervention, more like a natural opening.

Backing out I tried the one on the left. Same thing. Next, I stepped into the right tunnel. Equally bare of decoration or signs of human handwork, the dark here seemed thicker and yet I could breathe easier. Why was that? Why did the other two tunnels smell stale and stuffy while this one slightly fresher? Holding the torch aloft, I strode down this tunnel as if I knew exactly where I was going, which was sickeningly far from the truth.

All I could think of was the cruelty we humans inflict upon one another in the name of our faith, how we used our religions to twist the words of our holy ones to excuse the abuse of power and domination over others. History is a wreckage of holy wars that crushed contrary voices while humanity continually endorses domination of one sex, one race, one rule, over another. When would it end?

And here I was shoved into a dark tunnel to seek a mythic object that probably did not exist, one more life playing into the hands of a cult—no other definition applied—led by men. Anger burned deep in my core tempered by compassion for all those who went before and all those worldwide who suffered still. And the children, always the most helpless of all victims.

Who was I, really? Nobody special. Just one lone woman walking in the dark where others had gone before.

My torch sputtered, sending me into a moment of panic. Soon it would go out and I truly would be in the dark, perhaps right up to my dying moment. I thought that I could hold it together as long as that flame burned but the moment it shuttered out…

Stepping carefully over the uneven surface was challenging but at least the torch illuminated the rocks and boulders that littered the path. I didn’t know how much farther I had gone before I saw her, or I assumed that those bones had once belonged to a woman. They lay scattered across the path as if they had been kicked, possibly by accident. I hesitated, running the torch back and forth over the broken bits of human finger and one recognizable femur, my heart in my throat. Saying a little prayer, I stepped over them and continued.

In the myth, Ariadne had offered her lover string to help him find his way back to her. Clever, clever Ariadne, I thought as I continued winding out the twine. And what did the great Athenian hero do to thank his brave lover? Abandoned her on a rock, helpless and brokenhearted. And what did the ancient storytellers create for her salvation? They sent the god Dionysus to rescue her with his love, the ultimate happy ending: male rescues female because he decides she’s worthy of his love.

But I’d rather have had Ariadne rescue herself and become twice the hero that Theseus had ever been, somebody honorable who never abandoned friends for a better offer. No words existed for the intensity of my anger toward Noel just then. He was Theseus without the heroism, a slippery, gaslighting bastard who would send anyone to hell if there was something in it for him. He had orchestrated this, used Sebastian’s fervent love for all things ancient Grecian to set up this charade. Torturing me was part of his plan as was stealing whatever of Sebastian’s he could get his hands on. It was all so clear to me. Why couldn’t anybody else see it?

And then I tripped, tumbling down a sharp incline before I grasped what was happening. Startled, the torch went flying, sputtered briefly, and then went out.

“No!” I scrambled on my hands and knees to where I saw the torch land against a rock. The thing still smoldered, red and smoky. Lifting it up, I tried waving it about hoping the air would reignite the flame but no luck. Shit! Back on my feet again, I retrieved the ball and continued on my way still waving the torch in hopes that the thing might revive, but after a few minutes, the smoke made it too difficult. Tossing the thing down, I felt my way along.

In total darkness now. The full impact of my predicament hit. Before then I could while away my progress with musings, but something about the dark seemed so impenetrable that it filled my mind with fear. Panicking, I started running, dropped the string, picked it up, tripped again, pitched myself back up, and was just about to bolt again when a sudden insight hit.

Drop the string.

I stood frozen to the spot, listening. The dark felt alive around me, though I couldn’t sense any one thing that proved that. My senses only felt cold, saw dark, but still something else seemed to surround me. Some deep-down part of myself said that I had to make a choice: either let fear rule or let the dark be my guide. I dropped the ball of twine and kept on moving, more confident with every step.

That may have been the single bravest thing I’d ever done. At that moment I knew that I could never go back, only forward, always forward, that as dark in the world grew around me, the strongest light shone within. I needed to feel to listen, listen to feel with my heart and soul, no matter how hokey that might sound to anybody else.

Not an easy path but a surer one. The way was stony, often with jagged bits that scraped my legs and feet, shredding the robe as I went. It grew colder with every step, and somewhere along the way, the ground began to climb as if the dark leaned upward. The air felt cooler here but fresher, too. A whiff of the sea teased my nostrils. Heartened, I trudged on, thinking of the last Pythia.

Who had she been? Chosen among the priestesses devoted to Apollo at Delphi, she reportedly spoke of the future to her supplicants while inhaling fumes that emitted from a crack in the ground above the Castalian spring—a drug by any other name. Rumors of the Artemis Key emerged only later, in approximately the sixth century BC. In those centuries when the Byzantines took hold and a new religion began spreading across the Mediterranean, she supposedly escaped with the key in hand.

The Pythia believed that the Artemis Key was sacred. If I feared that something treasured would fall into the wrong hands, what would I do? Wouldn’t I be terrified that whatever was in my care would either be destroyed or put on display to be gawked at like a curiosity by millions of disbelievers? How horrible a sacrilege was that?

Our museums brim with objects once sacred to other civilizations but now relegated to the status of curiosities. The Pythia predated museums, as we know them, but the thought of a sacred object being melted down to be turned into baubles for the enemy or, even worse, to fund an army to kill more of her people, must have been unbearable. What would I have done?

I had climbed so far by now that my arms ached, my hands bled, and I could barely catch my breath. Cold fresh air blew down from above but I was too tired to notice. A shelf of rock was dimly visible a few feet overhead. If I could just reach that, I could rest. With what seemed to be my last burst of energy, I hoisted myself up and leaned against the wall to catch my breath. Much more climbing ahead but why bother? Maybe I’d just die here, quiet and peaceful in the dark. So much easier…

My gaze caught some lighter-than-dark gleam on the ledge nearby, not wondering on how I could see anything. Reaching out, I touched something dry and brittle. And stared. A bone? I pressed myself back farther against the rock face. Oh, my God! Not another skeleton keeping me company here, too? Small and comparatively child-like in size, the skull gleamed as a faint luminescence washed the bones with the palest of light.

She was huddled into a fetal position, the curve of her spine seeming to shelter something among bones so brittle they might crumble to dust if touched. I had no doubt as to who she was.

“Pythia,” I whispered. “You arrived.”

The hairs pricked at the base of my neck. I swear on all that is true and real that she had led me there, that she had urged me to drop the string, that she was with me still. She had no intention of ever going backward, either. Her time had ended, heralded in by a formidable decree that all that she had once held sacred must be banished from the earth forevermore. Gone in the dawn of a new age.

I began to cry, choking back water I couldn’t afford to waste. Carefully, I reached between the bones and tugged out something that gleamed golden in the half-light. The bones disintegrated as I held up a chain with a small object dangling at one end. A roped belt, maybe, with a single plain key—not an ankh or a jeweled-encrusted anything, but a plain gold key. I knew without knowing how that this had been the key to the temple where the Pythia had once been high priestess. Without a second thought, I dropped it over my head, letting it fall cold against the skin under my robes. I knew exactly what she wanted me to do as if she’d spoken the words right into my ear.

Go.

Overhead I saw stars twinkling in the dark. Funny how I hadn’t realized how close I’d come to my escape. Gripping the wall, I struggled to my feet. An easy climb up. She could have made it but decided to join the goddess instead. That wasn’t my path.

I shoved one foot into an indentation in the rock and began to climb.

CHAPTER 20

It couldn’t have been farther above than three yards. I pulled myself out through branches into a cold silvered world. Waves crashed far below while ahead the moon was slipping behind an island across the sea. Artemis was going home. Above, at least four more yards of uninterrupted cliff, but here there was light, there was air—I was alive!

Perched high up on a cliff with no visible way down or up and no light to see by, I was no farther ahead, short-term. To make matters worse, the ledge where I clung seem to be no wider than two feet with nothing but a scrubby bush keeping me company.

But morning would come eventually. Maybe if I wedged myself in among the branches of that bush that grew with maniacal tenacity, I could catch some sleep. That shrub might even hold me. Shivering, twigs scratching the skin through my robes, I tried to spread my weight evenly along the ledge while wrapping my limbs through the branches. Unable to relax enough to truly rest, the best I could do was convince myself that I wouldn’t topple over the edge—yet. Somehow an uneasy sleep must have overcome me because the next thing I knew, light filled the sky.

I blinked at the bands of a glorious sunrise pouring molten gold through flying hills of purple cloud and thought it the sweetest, most glorious sight I had ever seen—hope in full color. Ahead the dark outline of an island I thought must be Mykonos increased the drama. Forget my ripped skin, hunger, and thirst—even the throbbing headache retreated. I was alive!

Leaving my cloak and chiton bunched inside the thicket, I clutched a branch with one hand and leaned over the ledge. My enthusiasm plummeted. It was a straight fifty-foot drop ending in crashing surf. No handholds or anything to break that stony face—nothing. The only way to get down was by rope, which I didn’t have, and my fraying gown wouldn’t help me here. I pulled back, my heart thumping. Trapped.

The sun rose higher on the horizon while I sat huddled against the bushes, my legs tucked underneath me, wrapping what was left of my chiton and robe close. Something flickered in the back of my mind. Where did these cliffs come from? I’d seen nothing that matched this topography when studying the Delos geography. I recalled that the low, rocky island had hills no higher than sixteen feet, so where was this?

Staring ahead unfocused, I didn’t notice the bird flying around the edge of the cliff at first. In the rising sun, it was nothing but a black speck. When I finally caught the movement, I thought I was watching a bird that should be swooping and wheeling but instead made a steady path in my direction. Too odd. Stiffening, I watched the thing growing closer, tracking straight for me. Well, damn—no bird but a drone! I began waving my red cloak in the air. I’m here! Here!

Blessing every hair on every head who had employed this ingenious way to locate the missing, I struggled to stay calm. If Evan or Peaches were behind this and got me off this cliff, I’d hug them one by one—maybe extralong for one, especially. My red robe must have attracted the drone’s camera because it swerved closer.

No need to keep flapping my arm, so I stopped, waiting for it to sail up to me as I hunched over wearing nothing but my loincloth and bandeau. Whoever was operating this thing had to be nearby but how did my team even know I was here? I didn’t even know I was there until a few seconds ago. So, if this wasn’t Delos, how did they find me? I stilled, watching the thing approach.

As drones go, this model was about the size of a toaster oven with four propellers and a camera mounted before the housing. Having the thing hover before me without knowing who was looking back was unnerving. If it was Evan, I knew he’d be there to rescue me within minutes, but if it was… Then I spotted the Poseidon logo on the housing. No damn way!

I grabbed whatever loose stones I could find on the ledge and began firing them at the thing while it ducked and swooped like it was all some kind of joke. One good-sized rock hit one wing and knocked the techno-beast sideways. Recovering, it came back at me. This time I hit the camera, cracking the glass. Yeah, take that, bastards!

I was shouting myself hoarse by then, hoping the monsters had audio capabilities to catch my curses. Still the drone hovered. It was looking for something, I realized, and in a flash I knew that something hung around my neck—the Pythia’s key. They must be able to see it since I was practically naked. They’d assume that I’d found the Artemis Key—idiots.

“Come get me, you bastards!”

And then vertigo hit with sudden force. I clutched the bush with one hand as my legs flew out from under me and I began skidding over the edge. One of the branches broke away as I clung to the other with a death grip. Now I was just hanging on with one arm, the other trying to clutch the rock beneath me. What a spectacle my rear view was making; as if I had time to think about that stuff but that’s where my mind went.

I could hear the drone hovering behind me but now I caught the unmistakable throb of a helicopter somewhere. That had to be the Sebastian-Noel delegation on the way to retrieve the Artemis Key. Perhaps they wanted me to smash on the rocks below so they could send down a team to pick the key from my ruined body. As if I’d make it that easy.

Inch by inch, I managed to crawl my way back up the ledge. By now the bush had broken away altogether, leaving nothing but a stump to cram myself between that and the cliff. There I waited as the drone hovered and the helicopter grew closer. I couldn’t bring down a helicopter—hell, I couldn’t even down a drone—but if they wanted me, they had to pluck me off this ledge and hope to hell I couldn’t figure out a way to crash the bastards while they were at it.

Two things happened next: the drone operators must have noticed the helicopter at the same time that the helicopter noticed the drone. The flying toaster suddenly dropped from my sight, but based on the path the helicopter now took, a chase had begun.

I watched in fascination as the helicopter started firing at the cliff wall below me, the ping of bullets hitting stone. The copter swerved close enough for me to see Peaches hanging out the door firing with an AKA. I tried waving but the stump lurched between my legs. Maybe they hadn’t seen me, maybe they were going to zap the drone while I skidded off the edge. I could see Evan at the controls. I tried shouting my lungs out but of course nobody could hear.

For a horrible instant I thought I’d smash to the rocks while they played seek and destroy with the drone. But something changed. Peaches looked up, saw me, and started shouting. The helicopter swerved back to hover about twenty feet away. Peaches stared at me while I stared back, everybody calculating. Suddenly the chopper lifted and I watched with my heart in my throat as a rope ladder dropped from above.

No way could I reach that thing and I sure as hell couldn’t jump that far, either. Peaches began climbing down, swaying wildly on what looked to be a flimsy rope. It was windy enough to make this kind of rescue risky if not plain nuts.

“Jump!” Peaches called.

“It’s too far!” I cried back.

I stared at the rope swaying back and forth, watching as Evan attempted to maneuver closer by lifting the chopper high enough to avoid hitting the cliffside. The rope now dangled no farther than six feet away but the bottom rung was still above my head. I’d have to jump to reach it.

“Jump, Phoebe!” Peaches cried. “I’ll catch you!”

“How?” Just like me to ask for specifies when nothing but faith would do. And faith could do a lot. The ledge shifted beneath me. I sprung into the air as Peaches leaned over to grab me.

* * *

She hung on to me while I clutched the bottom rung. I didn't think I had it in me to hoist my bottom half far enough up to secure my legs let alone hang on that long.

“What the hell are you wearing, Phoeb? I have nothing to grip!” Peaches yelled.

I was ignoring the waves racing away below me while she clutched me by one arm and the back of my bandeau as I tried to hoist my body weight up. The ladder was simultaneously pulling in—one of those automatic things—and Zann was leaning out of the door cheering us on. The moment the ladder reached the top, Peaches yanked on the bandeau while Zann fixed some kind of sling under my arms and within seconds I was hauled inside. Minutes later, I sat huddled in one of the chopper’s seats, buried under blankets shivering my teeth off.

“Here, drink this.” Zann was passing me a thermos. “I’ve got your phone and backpack here. You need to put on some clothes, Phoeb. What aren’t you wearing?”

“Phoebe, I’m so relieved you’re alive!” That was Nick. I stared at him over the back row of seats. He was there, too?

“Your father’s a blind bastard,” I told him between chattering teeth.

“My father?” Poor guy looked stunned.

“He’s d-down there now…dressed up like an ancient G-Greek. He owns that island, right?”

He almost couldn’t speak. “Probably…I mean, maybe. He owns islands all over the Aegean.” Realization widened his eyes. “Oh, my God! He’s behind this?”

“P-partially.”

“Turn your back, Nick,” Zann said, waving him away. “Got to get her dressed.”

“My father’s behind your kidnapping?” he said over her shoulder, his expression stricken. “I didn’t know he was after you. I had no idea! And I led him right to you.”

“He would have found me e-eventually,” I said. “He was a…l-lurker in your ancient civilization th-theorist group while c-considering all those members to be loonies. He’s a user and abuser.”

I could tell that he was still trying to get his head around that. In fact, he probably thought I was still referring to his father.

“Phoebe!” That was Evan up front.

“Evan!” I called.

Peaches was ordering Nick to avert his gaze again while plucking out the extra set of clothes I always crammed into the bottom of my backpack. “Here, put these on. I’ll hold up the blanket. Hurry!”

But all I could do was sip and shake, my limbs trembling so badly that I needed both Peaches and Zann’s help to don my leggings and sweater while gazing at the back of Evan’s head and my friends’ faces one by one.

“You’ve been scratched to bits,” Peaches exclaimed. “Did you climb up the cliff or something?”

“Through a l-labyrinth,” I told her through chattering teeth. “The labyrinth. Follow that drone!” I cried, one leg in the air.

“Following it now. Ev, what’s the drone status?” Peaches called while pulling my leggings on over my knees.

But he had earphones on.

“Looks like it’s heading over the top of the cliff,” Zann called while looking out the window.

“Watch that thing!” Nick called, diving for the side window.

“Where are we?” I looked over my shoulder down at a formation of white peaks rising from the sea like a fistful of broken bones.

“A tiny uninhabited island called Polydomos, east of Naxos,” Evan shouted while passing back earphone sets. “Put these on. Only way to talk here.”

I put on the ear set, now dressed, at last. The tea was unlocking my brain and soul. “How’d you find me?”

“Nick and I had a hunch,” Zann said. “I met him after you disappeared, and while a search team combed the island, we went up to the dig on Delos. Turns out that those tunnels end at a beach on the other side with evidence of recently boat activity. They found two more bodies up there.”

“The cult of Artemis involved boat processions traveling across islands to the secret temple. Artemis was associated with water crossings,” Nick explained into my ear. “We knew they’d taken you off Delos and I knew it had to be somewhere nearby, so checking all of the islands within a reasonable radius was a place to start.”

“Noel was behind this,” I said. “He roped your father into a bit of ritual playacting so I would fetch them the key. When was the last time you saw your father, Nick?”

“Long ago, after I realized he’d been poaching Grecian art, but I had no idea just how far he’d go.”

“Further than anyone could imagine,” I said. “He and that arms-dealing art-thief bastard were behind this whole thing, even the tarot cards. Noel’s been hiding out with him!”

“Noel!” That was Evan, his voice husky with emotion. “I was tracking him in France before I flew here.”

“Probably a bloody wild-goose chase planned in advance,” Peaches grumbled.

“Noel’s down there?” Zann cried. “Let me at the bastard!”

“Yeah, he’s down there. Decked himself out like the Magician from the Rider-Waite tarot deck and participated in a ritual to sacrifice me to the labyrinth. There’s a labyrinth down there, like I said, the original one, the one they thought was on Knossos. They sent me down there to find the Artemis Key.”

Evan swore with more venom than I’d ever heard uttered from a good man’s lips. “I’ll kill the bastard!”

“No, I will. I’m done saying that we don’t go after arms dealers. We’re going after this one!” I cried.

“Did you find it?” Nick was asking. “Did you find the Artemis Key?”

“Yes and no,” I said. “More later. It’s a long story.”

Peaches gaze swerved to the long gold plaited rope hanging around my neck. Our eyes locked. “I’m so damned relieved that you’re alive,” she whispered. “If we hadn’t caught sight of you—”

“But you did!” How I wanted to hug them all right then. “Guess who else is part of this show? The Drs. Bergognones and the Roses! Seriously. Long story short: the secret temple of Artemis is buried intact deep inside the cliffs below—on Polydomos—and those four were behind my abduction all along.”

“The two doctors and the Roses?” Peaches gasped. “My God, I’ll throttle their scrawny little necks!”

“The lost temple of Artemis—seriously?” Zann exclaimed. “What’s it like?”

“Intact?” Nick exclaimed. “You mean that it truly does exist just as we’ve always believed? Oh, my God! I must see it! Describe every detail!”

But I had other things on my mind. “Noel—” I practically spat out his name “—is down there playing dress-up with your father, Nick. It’s some kind of bizarre version of the ancient Pythia ceremony mixed with the Eleusinian Mysteries and whatever occult rituals they could cobble together to feed their egos. I’ll tell you more later. Let’s just get the bastards.”

Like I had to ask. Evan was already hell-bent on tracking that drone, but one look out the window proved how hard that would be. The thing had disappeared.

“Where’d it go?” Zann asked. She was looking out one window, me out the other. Peaches had climbed back up front with Evan leaving Nick in the rearmost seat. The chopper was flying low over the cliffs as the sunrise spilled its glory over the Aegean. We were all buckling up our seat belts.

“Can’t see it,” Evan announced. “It may have landed. There’s no place to bring a helicopter down but plenty of places to hide a drone—or a person. I see a boat, though. They must have operated that thing from the deck.”

“Three boats,” Zann called.

“Five boats, ten boats. I’m losing count!” Nick cried.

We all peered through the closest windows. Multiple speedboats and cabin cruisers were zooming away from the island in a circular formation, each heading in a different direction. “No!” I gasped,

“Boats on this side, too!” Zann called. “Boats everywhere!”

“The bastards had to have an escape plan,” Evan said. “They are dispersing in all directions!”

A sharp pang hit my gut and chest simultaneously. “Pull up, Evan! The island’s going to blow!”

Evan pulled back on the wheel and swerved the chopper high to veer away over the water. We hadn’t made it more than a few hundred yards when the cliffs below shook and shattered as if something had combusted from within, the impact knocking the chopper sideways.

CHAPTER 21

“They blew up the island?” Zann cried, clinging to a handhold while the helicopter lurched and tipped through the billowing smoke.

A cold realization gripped me by the throat: he’d had his contingency planned in advance. Should I not retrieve their key, should the location of the temple be breached in any way, everything would be destroyed. Just like that—boom!

“They blew up the secret temple of Artemis?” Zann wailed. “What kind of monsters destroy an ancient intact Grecian temple? Who does shit like that?”

“Noel,” I shouted back. “Noel does shit like that and you can believe he’s run away with some of the treasures while he’s at it!”

“Oh, my God, let’s get them!”

Forcing the truth into my brain provoked bouts of burning rage alternating with frozen grief. How could he? This seemed low even for him and how could Sebastian claim to revere the ancients on one hand while destroying one of the greatest discoveries in the modern world on the other?

I fell back in my seat, processing the loss, wresting with rage, while vaguely aware of Evan struggling to level the helicopter. Peaches called out from beside him. “There are, like, twenty boats down there! How are we supposed to know which one the bastards are on?”

“That’s the idea,” Evan called. “I’m in touch with the Greek authorities now. The police will attempt to round them up but—” He broke his sentence to speak to someone on two-way radio.

All those boats taking off in multiple directions. Which one carried Noel, Sebastian, the treasure?

“My father has ferries and ships all over these waters. Look for a ferry!” Nick called. “There are ways to pluck a boat out of the sea right under everyone’s nose!” But no ferries were in sight.

While Evan held a terse conversation with somebody on ground control, we dropped and banked back and forth over the Aegean. I was trying to keep an eye on the dispersing flotilla but part of me was too numb to do much other than to sit and stare. Then a sudden thought had me reaching back to clutch for Nick’s hand. “The island where your father hides all his treasures, do you know where that is?”

He stared. “No. There’s an island? I’d always suspected there was such a place but never knew where. After we disowned one another, I was kicked way out of the loop.”

“Any ideas?” I squeezed his hand. “You said he owned islands all over the Aegean. One of them has to fit the description of a seemingly uninhabited islet with huge cliffs dropping straight to the sea. Ring any bells? Think!”

“That describes three-quarters of the Greek isles,” he said. “There are six thousand islands and islets in Greece!”

“Your father has an alternative universe staged on this islet—pseudo ancient Greece decorated by his haul of looted art combined with a helipad. How can you hide that?”

“Easily,” he countered. “It could be anywhere.”

“But it's not anywhere,” I insisted. “It has to be within a boat trip away from Polydomos. They knocked me out at around nine o’clock at night, and several hours later, I was on Polydomos.”

“That doesn’t prove a thing,” Zann said, listening in. “You could be in London by plane in a couple of hours.”

I met her eyes. She was right. “From what I recall, I’m guessing they used at least one boat and a helicopter. The islet is nearby somewhere and I’m guessing they’re heading straight for it.”

“Not straight,” I heard Evan say. “Too obvious. My bet is that the bastards will go island- and boat-hopping to throw us off the scent. To make a straight line for the hideout is too risky. They’ll divert.”

“In the meantime, look for a ferry,” Nick called. “Look for any ship labeled Diamandus. All his ships are marked with his surname.”

“Sebastian Diamandus?” Peaches asked. “The ferry I took to Mykonos was named Diamandus.”

“The surname you refused to take,” I said, my admiration for Nick growing.

“On the day he left my mom and me, I took her name and refused to bear his ever after. He tried to get me to accept my inheritance but I refused that, too,” he called. “I refuse to be his son! I didn’t want anything of his then and still don’t. The last time I laid eyes on him was five years ago at my mother’s funeral. He dared to make an appearance.”

Evan had leveled the helicopter by now and we were zipping across the sea following the wake of multiple boats, but the likelihood of tracking down the ringleaders seemed impossibly slim. The people who’d participated in that charade were probably ignorant of where the main players were heading. Or, at least, that’s what I would have done—played a shell game from start to finish. Noel and Sebastian had to be hiding elsewhere.

“The police have boarded two of the larger boats,” Evan called. “Look below.”

We all gazed out to where multiple sets of flashing red lights broke the serene dawn glow. I knew without knowing that neither contained our quarry but maybe those on board had crucial information.

“We’re heading back to Mykonos to refuel and question whoever the police round up. It’s a place to start,” Evan added.

It was a place to start, I acknowledged grudgingly, but it was equally a monumental time-waster. I guessed that none of the actors corralled that morning had the answers we so desperately needed.

In the police car later, on our way from the helicopter to the station, Evan and I sat together at the back holding hands. We’d barely spoken a word but we didn’t need to. I could tell by the grip of his fingers how grateful he was that I was alive and my gratitude to him was equally boundless. There’d be time for words later.

Forty minutes later we were all crammed into a white blue-shuttered building on Mykonos that reminded me of a Greek version of a western sheriff’s office. There was barely space to breathe and Covid protocols had each interview restricted to two police officers, two escapees, plus Evan and myself, at a time. The only ones on the first two captured boats I wanted to interview were Maria and Roberto, the only two I recognized. The others were mere bit players.

“Who are you? State your names and addresses,” the police officer said in English.

Time wasted, time wasted…

“Dr. Maria Christina Lucretia Bergognone,” Maria stated in an expressionless voice after which her husband added his full name plus their address in Milan. This was going to take forever.

“Why did you drug, kidnap, and participate in this conspiracy of greed?” I demanded, half rising from my chair. Evan placed a hand on my knee. Any other time and I would have loved that but…

“Sit down, please, Ms. McCabe. I ask for your assistance when needed.” Got it: the officers, a young, serious-faced guy and an older man both in blue masks and black uniforms, were in control of the interrogation. I was to speak upon request only. How Evan even managed to get us this far was amazing. Until Interpol arrived, our hands were tied, yet these guys didn’t know a fraction of what was going on here.

After more question and answer time, all of it preliminary and no doubt following the interrogation code of a small police station, after listening to Maria and Roberto demanding a lawyer based on their rights as citizens of Italy, I’d had enough.

“They’re stalling,” I exclaimed, getting to my feet, “and while you question them, the ringleaders are getting away!”

I left the room, slamming the door behind me, the sense of time-frittering futility overwhelming. I stepped into the washroom and splashed water on my cheeks. Moments later I was staring in the mirror at a pinched face framed with corkscrew curls and some kind of elaborate topknot. One gold earring dangled from my ear. For a fleeting second, my face reminded me of an ancient Roman funerary portrait only with blue eyes, red hair, and a slightly murderous expression. Pulling away, I strode through the crowded station and out the side door.

Outside, I found Peaches, Nick, Zann, and about thirty others dressed in ancient Greek garb sitting outside on a whitewashed wall guarded by two armed officers. I scanned everyone’s faces. No Thalia, no Peter or Heather Rose, no Noel or Sebastian, either. The ringleaders had escaped. I wanted to scream.

“Did you check yourself out in a mirror when you used the loo, woman?” Peaches asked mildly, joining me in my pacing back and forth.

“Yes, why?”

“Because you’re wearing one earring, a really old, interesting earring. Hey, Zann,” she called.

Zann scrambled over to join us.

“Take a look at what Phoebe’s got dangling from her ear.”

Zann peered so close I could smell her suntan lotion. “Well, damn, if it isn’t Artemis running away across the sea, or at least I assume those wavy things at her feet mean water.”

They helped me unfasten the wire hook closure and studied the exquisitely detailed golden earring as it lay in my palm. I expelled my breath in a whoosh. “That wave formation is actually based on the symbol of the meandering path or the Greek key design,” I whispered. “They believe one is derived from the other.”

“And the Greek key symbol also represents the labyrinth.” Nick had arrived on my right-hand side.

I looked up at him. “I need a map of the Cyclades,” I said.

“Here.” Peaches plucked her tablet from her bag.

“Let’s find a table.”

In minutes we had all tromped back inside the station past more ancient Greek bit players crowding up the waiting room into an empty office. Everybody official was too tied up to stop us. Apparently, someone had blown up an island.

“Nick,” I said, staring down at the Google map app open on the Greek islands, “think. Try to remember yourself as a child when you and your father were still speaking. Do you remember any time when he might have said something like ‘one day all this will be yours, son’?”

“Ha,” he said, digging his hands into his curly hair as he paced around the tiny space, “I’m trying to think. I remember plenty of boat rides—always boat and ferry rides with lots of islands passing by. He’d say, ‘I own this one, I own that one,’ but I don’t remember which islands they were. I couldn’t have been older than six or seven.”

“No plane rides?” Peaches asked.

“I hated planes and helicopters back then. They gave me the jitters. I was always crying. There was this one time when—” He stopped.

“When what?” Zann prompted.

“When my father took me up in a helicopter…” he said, his eyes glazed with memory. “I was screaming at the top of my lungs; he was trying to comfort me. We were flying low over all these islands and he was saying, ‘This will be our sanctuary someday.’”

“Where?” I demanded.

“I don’t know where,” he said. “It was all so long ago! We took off here, from Mykonos, I remember that much.”

Unfastening the pen from Peaches’s tablet case, I took a screenshot of the map of the Cyclades before making a red mark using the tablet’s photo program right over Mykonos. I then proceeded to draw several Greek key patterns radiating out from one direction after another, always intersecting Delos and the tiny speck that was Polydomos.

My Greek keys meandered in multiple directions like a geometric accordion. Nick would pinch open the live map to see which islands were captured in the design. We did this for several minutes before Nick’s finger came down in the middle of the Aegean. “There. Perpendicular to the last right-angled key.”

"Pinch it farther out,” Zann demanded.

He did until we were staring down at a tiny speck of an island too easy to miss at first glance.

“That must be it,” I whispered. “That’s his sanctuary.”

“Does it have a name?”

“It must but it’s not labeled on this map. At least we have the coordinates.”

Evan had arrived at the door. Our eyes met. “We need a helicopter fast.”

CHAPTER 22

Returning to the helicopter required a fifteen-minute ride back to the airport following a heated discussion between Evan and the police until Interpol intervened via phone call. When we finally lifted off, another hour had been wasted and I was almost jumping out of my skin.

Below, the Aegean zipped by, mesmerizing blue streaming with the wakes of boats and broken by islands for as far as the eye could see. The trip to the islet would take at least fifteen minutes, according to the map. I had been reunited with my phone by then but, strangely, my pleasure in its company had waned. It was as though somewhere in the labyrinth I had been reunited with my own internal GPS. Sometimes there’s so much ambient noise, we lose it.

“What happened on the Sylvan Seas?” I asked no one in particular as we sat in our seats, earphones on, me in front with Evan, the other three in the back. Evan’s profile against sky and wispy clouds was enough to quicken a marble Aphrodite’s pulse. It certainly worked on mine. He caught my gaze in a sideways glance and smiled. For two seconds all was right with the world.

“Captain Adamos went ballistic when you disappeared,” Nick replied, “and held me accountable, of course. He was still yelling when Peaches arrived and took the phone from my ear.”

“We didn’t have time for that shit,” Peaches explained. “I was looking for the real culprits. Guess what I found in Peter and Heather’s cabin? A pack of tarot plus a copy of our keycard! So Giorgi and I took off to follow your trail back up the hill where the docs had whisked you off to the medical facility.”

“Only there is no medical facility on the island,” Nick added. “Susan and Renate and some of the others tried to follow you but they were ordered back by a couple of guys dressed up as security guards. I’m guessing they were all part of the sham. I trusted those doctors. I thought they were real physicians, and when Roberto insisted that you’d had a stroke, I thought that could be true even though you’re too young.”

“Not a stroke, but a drug-induced collapse,” I told him. “Maria doused my water somehow. Roberto and Maria are real doctors but also conniving believers in your father’s alternate Greek universe.”

“And probably being paid megabucks, too,” Zann muttered. “Money never says ‘it’s all Greek to me.’”

I turned to look at her. She shrugged.

“And then there were the Roses,” Peaches continued. “They were my first suspects since finding the tarot pack but they’d disappeared, too. By then, we knew who we were looking for but the place was chaos. The Mykonos police had arrived and ordered everybody off Delos.”

“I landed just minutes before,” Evan said. “They arrested me for refusing to leave but a call to Interpol headquarters nixed that. A bloody frustrating waste of time. Every second counts in a kidnapping case and I couldn’t bear to think what they had planned for you.”

“Plenty, as it turns out,” I said.

Zann picked up the story. “So while the local cops had Evan in handcuffs, I spied Peaches with Nick and we took off for the Delos dig when no one was looking. Like I said before, I had a hunch that they may have taken you there.”

“It was a joint hunch,” Nick added.

“Yeah, it was.” She grinned at him. “So we scrambled up to the dig and guess what? The gates were wide open and one of the real security dudes had been shot along with that George Baros character. We ran the length of the Processional Way—man, those frescoes are something else—and it ended at a beach with signs that a boat had recently been launched.”

“But not recently enough,” Peaches said. “Maybe twenty minutes earlier, long enough for the bastards to get away. That’s when Ev brought in the helicopter.”

I rubbed my temple, surprised to find my corkscrews had turned to ringlets. Meanwhile, my headache came knocking again. “Okay…so I missed plenty of fun and drama. Is there anything left in that thermos?”

“Sure. Filled it up at the station.” Zann passed me her flask.

“Thanks.”

“You smell fishy,” she remarked.

“I tried to wash most of it off but that stuff sticks around,” I told her.

“Are you all right, Phoebe?” Evan asked, shooting me a quick glance.

“Fine,” I said with a smile. “I’m just boiling mad and ready to spit nails. I want to see Noel either behind bars or dead.” That stunned me. Had I really said that? Yes, and the shock was in just how much I meant it.

“We’ll get him,” Evan promised.

“But maybe not soon enough.” I already had that deep gut chill telling me that he’d escaped,

Five minutes later, I recognized the islet below, the zing of my excitement tempered by the sight of numerous ships within miles of the outcrop, including a mammoth cruise vessel sailing south toward the Mediterranean. Evan dropped the chopper’s altitude until we were staring down at the islet’s gnarly top, then we could see the lookout promontory, and even the vacant helipad.

“The good news is that that’s the right islet,” I said.

“And the bad news is that the empty helipad with no visible boats moored on that jetty could mean that they’ve been and gone,” Evan added.

I nearly choked on my heart when the chopper landed. I couldn’t wait until it was safe to unbuckle and climb outside.

“We should spread out!” I called as I ducked below the beaters and headed for the metal stairs. The garage door was now shut.

“I’m with you!” Peaches shouted.

“Me, too,” Zann said as I pounded up the metal stairs.

“We’ll stick together!” Evan ordered, and I let him take charge based on his experience in these matters. When he raced up behind me and gently pushed me behind him, I went along with that, too. Don’t quibble when a good man is on your side. Besides, by then I was exhausted and a bit strung-out.

Of course the metal door was locked, but Evan had it open in seconds after which we all piled into a series of dark, empty rooms. No computers anywhere and it seemed no source of power, either. The place had been abandoned.

My heart pounded in my ears. “The bastard’s cleaned the place out.” I gazed around, using my phone to illuminate the barren shelves with the occasional dangling plug. “There has to be a door connecting to the pleasure half of the property somewhere.”

We found it several minutes later—another of the steel variety once secured by an electronic lock but now held closed by a standard padlock that Evan easily severed with his laser app. Beyond that, a corridor with stairs leading straight up. At the top, a door opened onto the outside back corner of the building. I recognized the path up to the promontory to the left but bolted around the corner, across the tiles, past the pool, toward the gymnasium door. Inside, the sense of a building abandoned was increased.

But once inside the atrium, all I could do was stand and stare. I had expected anything but this. Everything stood exactly as I’d seen it last, including Aphrodite guarded by Medusa’s gnarly head at her feet and every piece of pottery on every marble pediment table in between. “Why hasn’t he taken his collection?” I gasped.

“Look at this place!” Zann exclaimed, dashing past me. “That statue looks like the real deal and that mosaic—wow! Third maybe fourth century BC.”

Nick didn’t say a word, only gazed around with his mouth half-open.

“This is only part of it,” I told them. “Every room in this place is filled with art of this caliber. He couldn’t have been able to move it in time.”

“Where would he have taken it?” Nick asked, turning to me. “Father claimed never to have loved any place as much as he loved Greece. If escaping with his art meant bolting to another country, he’d never do it.”

“Let’s not assume that the property is deserted quite yet,” Evan warned. “First we need to turn this place upside down. Interpol is en route but it could take hours before they get here. Let’s comb this place inch by inch but stick together. I’ll go first and run my explosives detector. I don’t trust these bastards not to blow the place up and take us with it.”

“But he’d never destroy these precious artifacts!” Nick cried. “He loved art over anything, even me.”

Peaches turned to him. “Remember the Temple of Artemis? Does blowing up that island sound like a man who puts Greek art over everything? We’re just lucky he didn’t blow up Phoebe while he was at it.”

“That wasn't Sebastian,” I said with startling conviction. “That was Noel. Noel Halloran, one of the most ruthless art thieves on the planet, expected me to die in that labyrinth. The ritual playacting was only to appease whoever he had working for him—I guess the Roses, among others. Unlike him, they really believed the rituals they were enacting. If the treasure is still here, it’s because Noel couldn’t figure out how to move it in time.”

“So, maybe the bastard’s still in here. Maybe he didn’t get away, after all. Come on,” Zann called.

Evan wielded his bomb-detector app as I led my companions to the banquet area where the wall gaped open on the courtyard pool, the smoky scent of smoldering braziers suffocating. This was the spot where Noel had appeared before me only hours before. Why did it feel like eons ago?

“Dining couches, seriously?” Zann exclaimed, striding among the furniture. “And amphora and kylixes, like genuine ones?

“Are you frickin’ kidding me?” Peaches muttered. “They really did get into the whole lost-world thing, didn’t they?” She peeked under a pottery bowl. “Stuff’s still warm.”

“I’m starving.” Zann plucked a roll from a basket and bit down while Evan prowled every corner of the room.

Nick stood gazing around, his expression both stunned and sad. “I didn’t realize he’d go this far.”

“You haven’t spoken to him since you were a teenager. How could you even know who he is now?” I asked, touching his arm. “Let’s try upstairs next.”

We filed upstairs, investigating every room, the offices, the lounges. Everything appeared more or less intact, the one exception being the jewelry case on the second-floor landing with its glass case hanging wide open and half the contents gone. I stood before it, staring. One hand strayed to the single earring dangling from my ear. “This is where they must have taken all the jewelry for the ritual last night.”

“Is that how you got the gold girdle around your neck?” Zann inquired. “You haven’t told us about that yet. Can I look at it more closely?”

I clutched the key hidden beneath my sweater. “Not now. Let’s continue scouring this place. I need to find that bastard.” But deep in my heart, I knew that Noel had gone, and that knowledge hardened me to the core. I almost didn’t care about anything else.

Evan stood in the middle of the second-floor corridor. “No sign of explosives anywhere.”

I walked right up to him. “He’s escaped, Evan. Noel’s slipped right out of our fingers again!”

“He won’t get away with this, Phoebe. If I have to chase that bastard to the ends of the earth, I will.” The phone buzzed in his hand. “Hang on.”

He turned away to give orders or take orders or whatever was going on between him and whoever was controlling operations. That left me standing alone in the hallway feeling a tiny bit broken, or maybe cracked right down the center. I couldn’t explain the feeling. It was as if all my rage had dissipated into a cold well of exhaustion and pain, the kind of deep bruising that makes the soul ache from the inside out, the kind you think will never heal.

Peaches and Zann were dashing down the hall checking every room one more time.

I just stood there.

“Phoebe.”

I turned, surprised to find Nick’s eyes moist.

“I didn’t expect it to hit me this way. I thought anything he did was so separate from me that nothing could affect me but…”

“He’s your father,” I whispered. “Of course you’re hurting. Your life and his are entwined by blood and memory. I’m so sorry, Nick.”

“I—wait. Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” All I could detect were the beat of footsteps on the tiles as my friends ran from room to room, calling to another over the sound of Evan’s deep baritone arguing on the phone.

“What did it sound like?” I asked.

“Like glass breaking.”

“Glass… The observation deck! This way!” I dashed across the hall to the side door half-hidden behind a potted fern. I had forgotten about the damn observation deck!

I half ran up the steps hoping against hope that I’d find Noel up there trying to make his escape. He’d have a hoard of ancient gold on his back with some complex rescue plan that involved plucking him from the platform by helicopter or some damn thing and I’d zap him with my phone, maybe stand over him repeatedly shooting pulses into his heart until I knew he was gone, finally gone, the forever kind of gone. I wouldn’t feel a twinge of remorse. I’d stand firm on my goddess-given right to rid the world of vicious heartless bat-shit bastard scum like him.

I practically flung myself into the light-filled dome, spinning around, scanning the circle in every direction. “Noel?” I called, holding my phone aloft and set on the red end of the sliding scale.

Nick dashed in behind me and stopped. “Father?”

I followed his gaze, focusing on the hunched-over form of a robed man sitting on a bench, shattered glass at his feet.

The man lifted his head. “Son? Is that really you?” he whispered.

Nick took a step forward. “Father, what have you done?”

Sebastian, pale, his face slicked with sweat, seemed to lack the ability to hold himself upright. “I have left all this to you, my boy…to do with as you will… Give it to our people. Share it as you see fit… Everything is yours now.”

“What have you done?” Nick cried again, his shoes crunching on glass as he crouched at his father’s feet. “You destroyed the Temple of Artemis? You tried to kill my friend? What kind of monster are you?”

“That wasn’t…me,” he whispered. “I had no knowledge of the explosives… That was…him.”

“Noel,” I said.

His filmy eyes met mine. “Yes…and the others, Peter and Heather. I didn’t believe they would do it. I believed Phoebe…that you would find the key. Did you?”

“Where is Noel?” I demanded.

“Gone,” he gasped. “Took the cella of Artemis with him. Peter and Heather, too, all gone. Escape planned in advance. I didn’t…know.”

“Gone where?” I demanded.

“No idea. Did you…find the key, Phoebe? Does it exist?”

His desperate pleading tugged at my heart. How can one deny a dying man? I pulled the braided gold from under my sweater, vaguely aware of Evan, Peaches, and Zann arriving behind me.

“Yes and no,” I said. “The Artemis Key was not an object but an ability, a powerful gift that once belonged to only a few people on earth at a time when the world’s population was much smaller. It was the gift of second sight, to see what others couldn’t, to foretell the future, even locate lost objects. She used it to help and guide people, the honor of being an oracle at Delphi passed down according to this ability for hundreds of years. Today the gift is spread thinly among thousands, maybe millions, of us, diluted. I have but a small amount but maybe more than others. But maybe we all have a bit of the Artemis Key. We call it ESP or any number of names to describe an ability that was once respected and revered as sacred, now not so much. The Pythia had this ability in abundance.”

Sebastian’s gaze seemed suffused with wonder. One hand gripped his stomach and spittle frothed on his lips. “You found it, then!” he gasped.

“No,” I said. “I found her. Try to understand. The last Pythia died in that labyrinth the way you knew I might. She could have climbed free but didn’t because there was no world left for her to climb back into. It was gone.” Tears rolled down my cheeks. “She died there alone remembering her goddess, who she believed would take her to Mount Olympus upon her death.”

“How do you…know that?” Sebastian managed to ask.

“Because she told me,” I sobbed. “Right there in the labyrinth, she told me the truth. Don’t ask me how. You’d never understand but she gave me this.” I dangled the key. “The key to last the temple at Delphi, which she knew lay in ruins even as she took her last breath. It was her gift to me and I promised to wear it always.”

“Thank you, Phoebe,” he whispered. “You do the…goddess a great honor. I have honored no one but my own folly. Look what he…placed in my hand.” He dropped the Fool and the Devil cards onto the tiles as he curled himself over the bench. “Time to go now.” Convulsions racked his body. He reached for Nick’s hand. “Forgive…me,” he whispered.

“Dad! What did you take?” Nick cried, taking his father’s head into his lap. “Don’t tell me hemlock!”

Sebastian tried to smile. “A fitting…end.”

* * *

I sat beside Nick on the promontory bench, holding his hand, both of us staring out to sea, mourning in different ways. Below us, ships encircled the islet with smaller boats traveling back and forth. Interpol had arrived along with a medical crew, a team from the National Archaeological Museum, plus the police and other officials stomping through the complex in various states of amazement. Evan had suggested that I escape the chaos and the inevitable questioning, which I did, taking Nick along with me. There’d be time to answer the questions, provide our statements, and the rest. Just then, we needed time to breathe.

“I can’t believe that he chose to die by drinking hemlock,” I whispered. “It’s such a horrible way to go.”

“Father would think it noble. The ancient Greeks always used hemlock as the poison of choice.”

“As in Socrates.”

“Yes, the most famous hemlock poisoning of all.”

I needed to distract him. “You’re a rich man now, Nick,” I said from that numb place where I currently resided.

“Yes.” He spoke softly as if trying to focus on something far in the distance. “And Adamos demanded twenty minutes ago that I return to the ship immediately and, in a roundabout fashion, informed me who owned the Sylvan Seas—my father. Adamos still doesn’t know that I’m his son.”

That made me smile. “Which means you now own the Sylvan Seas and probably twenty-five percent of every boat on the Aegean, too.”

“What will I do with all that money and power?” he asked, turning to me.

“Something good,” I said, squeezing his hand. “You’ll build a museum for this collection, maybe donate millions to a hospital, help orphans, or purchase masses of vaccinations for struggling countries. You’ll be a philanthropist art-preserver extraordinaire. You might even find Atlantis. That’s who you are—one of the good ones.”

His smile reached his eyes. “What about you, Phoebe? You’re one of the good ones, too.”

“Not me.” There was iron in my voice. “I’m planning to kill someone. I missed the first time but I’ll keep trying until I hit the mark. Those aren’t the words of a good person.”

He squeezed my hand. “Unless it’s you speaking them. This Noel fellow masquerading as the Magician is the probable orchestrator of the labyrinth madness and ultimately responsible for all these deaths. Maybe if he hadn’t played on my father’s weaknesses, none of this would have happened. Catch him and do the world a big favor. Besides, I don’t believe you’d actually pull the trigger if you had the chance.”

“I believe I would.”

Footsteps sounded behind us. I turned to find Evan stepping up to the promontory.

“Nick, they’re deciding what to do with your father’s collection. Maybe you need to get down there and introduce yourself,” he said.

“You’re right.” Nick got to his feet and sighed. “It’s time I stepped into my father’s shoes so I can walk them in a new direction.” Shooting us both a quick smile, he turned, and dashed down the stairs.

My heartbeat picked up its pace as Evan took a seat beside me. “So, what’s happening?” I asked.

“Peaches is minding Zann in case she tries to post something to the media; the museum and antiquities crew are assessing the art bounty; Interpol and the local police are arguing over jurisdiction; and the ambulance boat just took Sebastian’s body away. Oh, and, Phoebe, they found two bodies identified as Heather and Peter Rose floating in the Aegean.”

“How—?” I began.

“Shot. I’m guessing Noel no longer needed them. In any case, they’ll be sorting this mess out for months to come. You don’t need to be in the thick of it until you’re ready.”

He put an arm around my shoulders and brought me close. I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes. “I’ll wade back in soon enough. I just needed to get my thoughts straight and wrest this rage of mine to the ground. I’m going to get him, Evan.”

“You’re the Artemis Key,” he said quietly, “no need to sully your hands with that kind of task. Leave that bastard to me.”

“No,” I said, “but thank you,” I added to soften my tone. “You’re not the one he sent into the labyrinth to do or die and you’re not the one he’s been using to track down priceless art for years. And even though my recent ordeal ultimately resulted in me gaining a great gift, the task of ending Noel is mine alone.”

“Not alone, never alone. You never need to be alone, Phoebe. The agency has your back and I have your…” He paused.

I gazed up. “You have my…?”

He smiled. “Well, what I mean to say is…that I’d hoped I’d have your…”

“Heart?”

“Too hokey?” He pulled back to look at me.

“I don’t mind hokey if it’s the heartfelt kind.”

“Mine is very heartfelt. Permit me to prove it.”

“Are you asking for permission? I—”

What followed was the kind of long delicious kiss that wipes everything from one’s mind but that moment of total togetherness. Believe me, Noel Halloran wasn’t in the picture.

We could have continued for longer, maybe hours, days, even, but his phone began ringing imperiously.

“Ignore it,” he murmured.

I snuggled deeper into his arms…until my phone started, too. Now we had dual phones ringing, one after the other, each stopping only long enough to start up again.

“Damn it,” Evan muttered, pulling gently away. “That’s Rupert’s tone. I’ve already spoken to him twice today.”

I held up my phone and pressed the green Talk button. “We’d best get it over with.”

Rupert’s face came into view. “Phoebe, are you all right? I truly expected you to call by now. Must I wait indefinitely? What have you done to your hair? I can’t say that I like it, though I dare say a little styling was in order.”

“I’m a bit busy right now, Rupert. What is so important that it can’t wait?” I asked, smiling into the screen.

“Pardon? Yes, well, I promised to send the new banner image as soon as I received it from the graphic artist, which I now have in hand. Therefore, I have just dispatched it to all members of the team. Do open your email. Phoebe. Whose arm is around your shoulders?”

“Mine, and I have the image here,” Evan said, holding up his phone so I could see the banner and leaning forward so Rupert could see him.

I gazed at a graphic gold coin emblazoned with the image of Medusa’s head in a fiery vortex.

“Allow me to introduce you to the new logo of the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found,” Rupert announced. “The ancient head of Medusa being a universally recognizable symbol once emblazoned on the shields of Roman and Grecian warriors alike that will now symbolize our mission to protect lost, endangered, or stolen art.”

“It almost looks like me,” I whispered.

“There is a certain resemblance admittedly,” Rupert agreed, his bushy eyebrows seeming to wiggle above his eyes, “especially now with that interesting hairstyle of yours. Are those curls? However—”

“However—” Evan leaned over and removed the phone from my hand “—we’re signing off now, Rupert. Medusa and I are busy at the moment. Talk later.” And he pressed End.

THE END

THE THREAD OF THE UNICORN: VOLUME 5

PROLOGUE

Château Saint Chappelles, France, 1432

Father Louis prayed in the tiny chapel, prayed that he would be forgiven for what he was about to do. He was not a man for whom disloyalty came easily but neither was he one who could permit the murder of a young girl—a saint in peasant clothing—to go unchallenged.

It had been he who had heard his king’s confession just hours before the royal hand dispatched the message to the English that agreed to the trial of Joan of Arc. King Charles knew that his actions would result in what transpired—the burning at the stake of that poor but blessed girl—he knew! This king, for whom Louis had striven to preserve his soul through all the decisions that governance had laid upon his feet, knew that the message he sent that day signed Joan’s death warrant. Louis had tried to stay the king’s hand, pleaded that allowing Joan to die was as good as consigning the king’s own soul to hell. Joan was a saint sent by the angels to save France.

That had angered the king. Did the priest not realize that unless he allowed the English to take Joan’s head, more troops would die, more citizens felled? How the king had roared, storming off through the castle calling to his advisers to assure him that he was right. Antoine Le Viste had been among those in the inner circle that day and his eyes had met Louis’s across the long hall. Together they would give voice to their outrage, ensure that the truth was told, buried though it was deep within layers of art and artifice. Foolishly, they believed their secret was safe.

Many months would follow before they learned of their mistake,

They were fools. Too many spies lurked behind the seats of the mighty in the courts of kings. Somehow word reached Charles that a tapestry telling the true story of his treachery existed somewhere and that his challengers lay among his closest confidants. When the king threatened to grill every courier until he identified his censors, Louis had sent word that he was to blame. Let the secret die with him, for not even Le Viste knew where the tapestry lay hidden.

Slowly, Louis climbed to his feet. They would arrive soon. Now all he could do was reach deep within himself to find his courage and his God. Better that he take the secret with him to the grave than Le Viste. Antoine had a wife and children whereas he had nobody, except perhaps Joan.

Joan had become his only light, the maid of his soul. Her sacrifice burned bright within his heart as an example of true bravery and sacrifice. If not for her, King Charles would not sit upon his throne over a unified France. If not for her, both the country and its would-be king would have languished. And for this, she was burned alive? A horrible end for anyone, but for one such as she, it was nothing but a wicked travesty of justice and truth. He could not bear it.

Had he not heard her confessions many times, too? Had he not touched the head of that brave maid and known deep within that she was all that was right and true? He well believed that she had been touched by the archangel Saint Michael himself, making her death an insult to God. That’s where he consigned his loyalty—to God and to justice, not to mere mortal kings and bishops.

Slowly, he picked up the canister and threw it over one shoulder. They would never find it. There could be only one hiding place for him and their secret but he would not descend into the darkness alone. He stepped from the chapel in time to see the line of torchlights marching up the château from the village.

They were coming! Swinging around, he bolted for the old keep.

He could not believe that he, Father Louis Saint Chappelles, was running for his life through the bowels of his own château, chased by the very soldiers of the man for whom he had dedicated his life. There could be no more loyal man than he, no more obedient servant to God, but when the time came to choose, there was no choice to be made. To God he pledged his ultimate allegiance.

He could see the torches behind him as he pounded down the stairs of the old keep, the sound of their boots thundering in his ears. They would expect him to sneak out through a hidden tunnel, those passages well-known to the king’s spies, but they would be wrong. Louis would not sneak away; Louis would go meet Joan at last in the one place he knew she waited for him. But first he must cross into the darkness.

At the base of the stairs, he tossed his own torch into the tunnel to draw the soldiers away while he scuttled across the stones in the opposite direction. He had the portal ready for his arrival but still he hesitated at the edge. Clutching the canister, he teetered on the brink of forever, cast one look over his shoulder and prayed with all his heart.

And then he jumped.

CHAPTER 1

It began in Paris, which deserves an explanation.

One day in the spring of 2022, a potential client emailed me to arrange a Zoom meeting to discuss a possible case. Since I mostly lived my workday fixed to a computer, that sounded reasonable enough right up until the moment she mentioned her location. Paris. Suddenly technology lost its luster. If there ever was a city that warranted an in-person visit, it was Paris. I assured her I’d be in the area and that we’d arrange an appointment.

“Once I go, I can’t help but worry about you,” Evan said as we strolled down the Champs-Élysée.

“I appreciate your concern,” I said while squeezing his arm, “but we have to stop fretting about each other when we’re apart. We both have jobs to do.” It sounded so reasonable, so adult. Meanwhile, I was attempting to savor every moment of our time together.

On our side of the boulevard, a little park blazed sweeps of red flowers while overhead a cloud of pink and white blossoms rained petals down over the sidewalk. Since it was drizzling, we huddled under a clear plastic umbrella. Does all this sound delicious? May I just add that I had recently spent three days and nights with the man I adored. Yes, it was every bit delicious.

“But I don’t have an arms cartel after me.”

“Nonsense,” I murmured. “No sign of a drug cartel here.” I really didn’t want to discuss the details of my sometimes fractious life right then.

“Unfortunately, I’m not your only admirer.” He pulled me close and kissed me with that long languorous way of his that implied that he’d take all the time needed to do things properly. Let me just say that he applied that approach to every. little. thing.

“Yes,” I whispered when I came up for air, “but I don’t want to discuss that right now. We have about 15 minutes before you head for the airport. Let’s not squander it.”

But already he was steering us in the direction of our hotel where his luggage waited in the lobby, and I was the one about to do the squandering.

“Even though Peaches will be nearby, don’t let your guard down for a moment,” he reminded me. “Remember, Noel may still be in hiding but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have you watched every second. He could be lurking behind this mysterious client of yours.”

“Said client insisted that she needs to protect her privacy, which doesn’t mean that she’s part of Noel’s cartel.” That did it: my bliss cocoon collapsed. “That’s where you’re going, isn’t it, to track down Noel?”

Since Evan worked for Interpol and many of his assignments fell into the Top Secret category, it was pointless asking for details. That never stopped me. As much as I tried to shove my nemesis ex into the back of my brain, he was always festering away back there.

“You know I can’t disclose anything, Phoebe, but in ways other than my Interpol life, there’s nothing I wouldn’t share with you. Consider me an open book, an interesting open book, I hope, one with multiple chapters, a strong opening, a diverse and developed character, a satisfying style—note the leather jacket—a strong internal logic, a—”

I was laughing now. “And the oh-so-modest blurb on the cover, but you don’t need to sell me—I’ve already bought the whole Evan series. Here’s a short review: ‘Evan is a great and satisfying read and I can’t wait for more except that some parts remain unreadable such as those sections labeled with a nondisclosure clause and redacted footnotes.’”

The brows arched over those fine hazel eyes as if this was the first time he’d heard this.

We were crossing the boulevard, the Arc de Triomphe visible down the road, the honking horns and pedestrians racing by eroding the last of my romantic haze. A niggle was a niggle, after all. “There’s something you’re keeping from me, Evan Barrow, and as long as you hide it, I’ll keep wondering what it is and why you’re hiding it.”

The need to know always drove me.

“And do you think you know what this mysterious something is?” he asked. “Because I don’t have a clue what you’re referring to.”

“I suspect the truth and it seems so inconsequential, bafflingly insignificant in ways, but the fact that you refuse to tell me has made it grow to monumental proportions.” The Arc de Triomphe brought that word to mind.

“Phoebe, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stopped mid-sidewalk. “Monumental? What in my personal life is so monumental that you would bring it up three times during our brief time together and at least once back in London? You know that I was previously married and you have even met my former wife and son, so what could possibly be more personal than that? At least give me a hint.”

I was into it now. “Keeping with the book analogy, this involves your opening chapters, possibly the prologue or forward, that’s forward of the backstory variety. Is that hint enough?”

His gaze briefly veered skyward. “Absolutely not. Do you mind providing a translation, as in one that doesn’t speak in riddles?”

Okay, so he was irritated now. The man was devastatingly handsome when those eyes flashed and the skin tensed over his high cheekbones. I fought the urge to stroke his cheek. Before I could soothe the savage beast, however, I spied Peaches striding toward us, her long legs encased in hyacinth-blue leather jeans.

“Ev! Hell, man, you look even more debonaire in Paris,” she called before wrapping him up in one of her legendary hugs that put them nearly nose-to-nose. She squeezed him so tight it would have crippled a lesser man. “Is that even possible? I mean, God, he looks good,” she said, winking at me. “And you spent three days with this one? That must have been sweeter than all the sugar in a French pastry shop.”

Evan, not even mildly embarrassed, gently disentangled himself. “You are looking amazing yourself, Peaches. Sir Rupert would approve of the couture. Chanel?”

“A knockoff but don’t tell on me. Anyway, I have been shopping,” she admitted. My friend-cum-bodyguard had dropped her easy Caribbean spandex style for something closer to Parisian chic, at least that’s how I interpreted the Hermès scarf knotted over the leather bolero-style jacket all in that astounding hue. I could never pull off chic no matter what the city or color. I wore my hand-knit shawls as a badge of honor, the artsy shag look.

“Peaches,” Evan said with a smile. “Take care of my girl here, would you?” He checked his watch. “I must run.”

“Woman,” I corrected, “as in ‘take care of my woman.’” I could be such a pain.

“My apologies. Of course, that’s entirely what I meant,” he said as he swept down for a parting kiss. The kiss was long and weak-knee-inducing to make a point. Let’s just say that I couldn’t speak for a couple of moments but had no doubt that he considered me fully adult. A few minutes later, he had jumped into a cab and was gone.

“If that kiss is any indication, I’d say you two had a dynamite couple of days, as in hot, hot, hot.” Peaches fanned her face with her hand as we watched the cab disappear.

“It was pretty amazing,” I agreed, still dazed.

“Care to divulge?” she asked.

“No way. Consider the Do Not Disturb sign on my virtual door. Come, we’d better get going.” Trying to steer my brain back to business, I checked my phone. “Okay, so I’m to meet my client at a café a couple of blocks in this direction.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of detail,” she scoffed as she strode along, me taking two strides to her every one. “I have my steamy romance books for that. I meant relationship stuff. You know, like how’s it going? Is he officially your boyfriend now?”

“What does that even mean?” I sighed, almost tripping over a small powder-puff-size dog attached to an elderly gentleman by a rhinestone leash. “‘Boyfriend’ is not an appropriate term for an adult male.”

“Partner, then?”

“Sounds like a business arrangement.”

“Companion?”

“A lapdog.”

“Main squeeze?”

I laughed. “Is that Jamaican? That suggests a giant plush toy to me. Evan may be many things—is many things—but teddy bear isn’t one of them.”

“Definitely not teddy bear, then. What about significant other?”

I snapped my fingers. “‘Significant maybe.’ That works. How about that?”

“You’re joking. ‘Significant maybe’—seriously?” She stared at me aghast. “Think I can’t detect commitment issues when I hear them? Are they yours or his?”

“His. He’s keeping something from me.”

She gave me one of those sidelong glances I knew so well. “Shit, woman, unless it’s either your car keys or your passport, drop it.”

She had a point. In any case, we had arrived at Le Café de l’Époque, the location my client had just messaged me. “Here it is.”

Totally old world as the name implied, the café gave every indication of being the epitome of a French brasserie right down to the “Maison Fondée en 1826” emblazoned on its green awning.

“Founded in 1826,” I translated, as if Peaches couldn’t do that for herself.

She pulled me back into the doorway of a building. “The place is under surveillance,” she whispered. “See that guy behind the magazine across the street and the one gazing off into space at the outside table far right? One’s wearing a wire and the other hasn’t taken his eyes off the entrance even though he’s hiding behind Paris Match. Are you kidding me? What amateurs! Anyway, they’re staking someone out, maybe you, but they’re mostly focused on the café. What did you say about this client of ours?”

“Nothing, as in she wouldn’t disclose anything by email and only sent me the name of our rendezvous location two minutes ago. I’m to come alone. She said she wanted to interview me first, something she was only willing to do over Zoom or in person.”

“Hell, you mean you’re being interviewed?”

“I prefer to think of it as being vetted.”

“Doesn’t she know who you are? She’d be damned lucky to have Phoebe McCabe working on her case. Why did you even agree to meet her under such circumstances?”

“Because Madame Cointreau is a mystery and I love mysteries,” I told her. “I also love Cointreau and Paris. Is that a sign or what? Do you think she’s the subject of this stakeout?” But I didn’t wait for an answer. “Anyway, I’m going in. I’ll go first and then you follow.”

I crossed the side street heading for the topiary-flanked café with its outdoor tables shielded from the sidewalk by potted trees. I was to meet Madame Cointreau at an inside table away from the window. So far the whole setup struck me as delightfully clandestine, like something out of a spy movie. All of the lost family artifacts and missing-art cases I’d been offered lately couldn’t compare to this. I’d felt electricity along my spine from the moment I’d read her email.

The interior was flooded with natural light. Marble-topped tables and woven chairs offered a welcoming ambiance. It was late morning so the handful of customers were mostly sipping café au laits and devouring decadent-looking pastries. Most diners claimed the window seats. Only a chic-looking woman in a broad black hat and enormous sunglasses sat at the rearmost table against the inside wall studying her phone. That had to be Cointreau.

I strode right down to her, skirting the maître d’, who zoomed in to intercept. “Madame Cointreau?”

Though she was virtually hidden behind the sunglasses and enormous hat, I took her to be in her early thirties. Gold hoop earrings, full coral-pink lips, minty-green chiffon scarf, matching Chanel jacket. Okay, then, either wealthy or trying to look wealthy. Not a strand of natural hair showed beneath the head gear.

“Oui. Madame McCabe?”

“Oui.” I preferred madame to mademoiselle. It swapped youth in lieu of gravitas. I sat down, wondering if the entire conversation was going to take place in French. Most Parisians winced at my occasional bouts of conversational fumbling and I so hated to offend the locals.

“Thank you for meeting me,” she said in English. “Mind if I call you Phoebe?” American. Not a touch of an accent.

“Please. And you are?”

“Call me Lilly.”

Lilly Cointreau. So far, the only French thing about her was the surname and maybe her choice of couture. “All right, then, Lilly, tell me what you want me to do for you. I admit to being very curious by all the secrecy.”

The waiter appeared bearing the menus and also indicated the chalkboard lunch offerings hanging on the wall midway down. Lilly ordered a latte and I did the same. I could see Peaches sitting at the other end of the café eyeing the desserts trolley with an intensity she usually reserved for muscle-bound guys.

After the waiter slipped away, Lilly held up one pale hand while gripping her phone in the other. No rings. One gold bangle. “Wait. Are you here with anyone? I told you to come alone. My man outside said that someone came in with you.”

Good surveillance. “So those guys staked outside are yours?”

“They’re my bodyguards. Don’t mess with me, Phoebe. Part of the reason I needed to meet you first was to establish trust. Trust is like super-important to me.”

“You brought your bodyguard and I brought mine. So what? By the way, she’s the statuesque black woman pointing out the lemon meringue pie over there. She noticed your guys, too. If they catch anybody else staking out either one of us, they’re free to do their worst.”

The coral lips turned up into a brilliant smile and I realized for the first time that she was gorgeous as well as vaguely familiar. “Touché. One of the reasons I needed to meet you first was to see if you were some pain-in-the-ass know-it-all who would annoy the hell out of me and my uncle, especially my uncle. I’ve been following you in the news and it appears that you’ve got what it takes. Do you?”

“Mind being a bit more specific? You must have already checked me out so you know that the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found retrieves lost or stolen artifacts and artworks. What else are you looking for?”

“Discretion, loyalty, tenacity, and guts.”

Right, so she needed a German shepherd. I sat back to study her more carefully, not that she revealed much. “I don’t take on just any old case these days, either, and if you need to assess my character, know that I need to do likewise with you. So who are you really? Not French, but American, is my guess, and definitely attempting some version of incognito. Let’s begin there.”

She leaned over the table, briefly pulling back when our cafés landed in front of us. “Lilly Lin,” she whispered, lifting her glasses only long enough to reveal her startlingly beautiful face.

“Lilly Lin, the Chinese American movie star?” I was shocked, briefly starstruck, even, since I was a fan. She was a hot ticket just then, riding a wave of nominations for her first serious dramatic role.

“Not Chinese American but Franco Chinese American—figure that one out—though I’ve lived most of my adult life in the US. Confused? Try being born in China, adopted by a Chinese mother and a French diplomat father, who happened to be the eldest son of the historic Saint Chappelles family. My real name is Liliana Saint Chappelles. In France, that makes me a permanent outsider and something else again in China, but in the US, right now, Asian actors are almost having a moment. I say almost because, like everything else, there’s a flip side and it’s not pretty. Anyway, forget all that.” She waved her hand again. “I’m not here to moan ‘poor little me.’ I’m successful, I’m blessed, and I know it. I’m here to help my uncle.”

I sipped my coffee. Right, the uncle. “And he is…?”

“Monsieur Henri Saint Chappelles. Heard of him?”

“Never.”

“Good. We’ve both worked very hard to keep it that way. He’s a recluse who prefers to maintain a low profile, an interior decorator whose heyday was back in the ’80s. Now he just hides.”

“Hides where?” I stirred the mountain of foam into my coffee.

“In the little village where I grew up. We used to live in the Château Saint Chappelles, but after my father died, Uncle Henri tried to keep the château going but didn’t have the money. The only way Dad managed while he was alive was by accepting transfusions from me. Châteaus are like bottomless pits, even when you’re charging visitors entrance fees. Finally, my uncle had to sell. Broke his heart. Château Saint Chappelles has been in the family for eight centuries off and on and he holds himself accountable for its current loss. But he’s not to blame. First there was Covid and then there was more Covid and my uncle is more of a dreamer than a businessman, anyway.”

“Um—” there was no delicate way to ask this “—but I’m sure you’ve tried to help since…”

“Tried and tried,” she acknowledged. “Uncle Henri is a proud man. There was no way he is going to accept what he considers to be handouts from his little niece. I mean, how humiliating is that for the son of a family that once produced multiple French dukes? I didn’t even know that he’d sold the château until it was gone. Same thing with his Paris pied-à-terre. All gone. Now he lives holed up in a gatehouse.”

“Okay.” Poor Uncle Henri. “So, where do I come in?”

Her phone pinged and she held up one coral-nailed finger as she read the text. “Shit. They found us. We’ve got to go. Come on. It’ll be safer back at my hotel.”

“Safer from whom?” I hissed. “Who found us?”

She dispensed twenty-euro tips both to the waiter and the maître d’ on her way out the door as I scurried after. I could see Peaches scrambling to catch up, her mouth full of pie. In moments we were diving into the back seat of a black Mercedes parked at the curb while people swarmed around us pointing their phones. The paparazzi—got it.

Lilly landed in the back seat first, me behind her, with Peaches bringing up the rear. It was a big car, but even so, three burly guys and three women was a bit of a squeeze. The guys sat up front, us in the back.

“Lilly, meet Peaches. Peaches, meet Lilly,” I said by way of introduction as we zoomed down the street.

“Uh-huh. Hi.” Peaches was glued to the rearview window. “What’s that thing those dudes in the car back there are pointing at us?”

“Probably a telephoto,” Lilly suggested, sliding down in her seat. “They won’t see much. The windows are smoked.”

“Doesn’t look like a telephoto to me,” Peaches said, using her own agency-issue phone’s telephoto lens. “Looks like a bloody pistol with a silencer.”

CHAPTER 2

Of course Peaches could have been mistaken.

“Pont de l’Alma?” shouted the driver.

“Whatever’s faster,” Lilly called back in French.

We were zooming through the Parisian streets being chased by the paparazzi heading for the Pont de l’Alma tunnel?

“For God’s sake, fasten your seat belts!” Peaches cried. I secured mine in seconds but Lilly was slow to comply.

Peaches nudged her. “Buckle up, buttercup. Shades of Princess Di.”

“Oh, shit, yes!” Lilly exclaimed before securing her belt and settling into a tense silence as we dashed through the tunnel.

“Um, where are we going again?” I asked as the tunnel walls whizzed by.

“I had planned on going directly to my hotel,” Lilly replied, “but changed my mind. We’ll lose these scumbags and head straight for my uncle’s. I need you to meet him so he can decide whether to hire you or not. Without his help, we’ll get nowhere.”

“And your uncle lives…?” I asked.

“In the village of Saint Chappelles, about two and a half hours’ drive outside of Paris in the Loire Valley. If your agency is going to take on this case on behalf of the Saint Chappelles family, we’ll need his blessing. Don’t worry: I’ll have you back in the city by ten p.m. at the latest.”

We burst into daylight on the other side of the tunnel and breathed a collective sigh of relief. The driver was trying to dodge our tail but hardly in the skilled manner I’ve come to expect. So I was spoiled. I judged everything by Evan’s calm, measured, and utterly impeccable technique. He could take a hairpin turn like a maestro. This guy was sloppy by comparison. We almost sideswiped two cars as he cut in between the lanes.

After several quick turns, we slid into a side street and slowed down. We seemed to have lost our tail.

Lilly leaned back against the seat and sighed. “This is what drives me nuts—the constant scrutiny. It’s even worse here than in LA. In LA, it’s manageable, somehow. Here and in London, it’s like open season.” She switched to French and instructed the driver to head for Saint Chappelles.

“Is the driver your usual guy?” I asked.

“I don’t have a usual guy,” Lilly said. “This crew has been hired from the foremost security group in France. The driver’s Jean Luc, the guy with the topknot is Pierre, and the guy on the right is René.”

Peaches and I exchanged glances but said nothing. All three were of a type: big, muscle-packed, and probably hired at least as much for their brawn as their skills. I guessed they had all been bouncers in a previous life and spent their downtime pumping iron at a gym. At least René was black, which gained him a few brownie points from Peaches.

Once we hit the main arteries leading out of Paris, Lilly threw off her hat, releasing a long glossy black ponytail, and pulled down her face mask.

Peaches stared. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed. “Lilly Lin? I’m such a big fan! I just loved the hell out of Sacred Medallion.”

I’d never seen Peaches gush.

“I mean, like, I’ve seen your Princess Bai and the Mongolian Dream twice, at least. I just love the way you do those action scenes—the flying air chops, the somersault back kicks—the whole shebang.”

And gush.

“And when you conquered the genie monster with a—”

“Peaches.” I nudged her.

“Right,” Peaches said, subsiding.

“It’s okay,” Lilly said, leaning back in her seat. “I’m used to it, but, Peaches—cool name, by the way—as an Asian actress, starring in all those films is more of a stepping stone than a destination. I want to be cast in roles like my recent The Human Zone, not because I’m Asian but because I’m a good actress who happens to be Asian.” She turned and smiled at her. “As a visible minority, I bet you get that.”

“I totally get that. I always want to be seen as a person first and a tall black Jamaican woman second. For a minority, I’m way too visible.”

Lilly grinned. “You’re, what, six foot something? Good luck with that, but yes, and then there’s the whole gender thing. Anyway, you've both passed my initial trust test so I’m really hoping Uncle Henri will accept you for the case, too.”

“Which is?” I prompted.

“There’s no point giving you the details until my uncle gives the nod. He’s a hard nut to crack, I warn you. So I’ll tell you this much: we’ve had an item missing in our family since the early fifteenth century or thereabouts. Or we think it’s missing. Actually, we don’t really know that it even exists.”

I was studying her while half listening to the three guys discussing routes up front and simultaneously watching the road signs fly by. It took me a second to catch on to what she’d just said. “Wait, you don’t even know that it exists?”

“My dad thought it did and Uncle Henri, too. Dad was obsessed with it. He died about five years ago, Mom two years back. Anyway, if it exists, its estimated worth should be in the millions, maybe more. Enough I think to buy back the Château Saint Chappelles, which is currently up for sale again. I’m hoping that if we locate the family treasure, Uncle Henri will dig himself out of his depression, buy back the ancestral pile, and live happily ever after.” She shrugged. “Something close, anyway.”

“How come you can’t just purchase the château yourself, Lilly?” Peaches asked.

She grimaced. “Because my uncle refuses to accept handouts from me. Besides, I’m now an American citizen, which prevents me from buying it outright unless I’m planning to reside here. French laws are complicated.”

“But since you were raised here, you’re French,” I pointed out.

Lilly rolled her eyes. “Growing up in France doesn’t make me French. To most countries, if you say ‘Made in China,’ nobody accepts you. A little village like Saint Chappelles is no different than any tiny village anywhere and probably worse than most. I don’t belong, never did. They want you to look French to be French. Nobody looks at me and sees French. They used to call me a French translation of ‘Chopped Suey’ in school. I applied for US citizenship and got it.”

“But you grew up here.” I couldn’t help myself. It was the injustice of it all, though I grasped the reality well enough.

“And it was unbearable at times. As much as I loved the village, it didn’t always love me back. My mother finally had to pull us out of the community and send us to a school in Paris, against my dad’s wishes, by the way.”

“Us?” Peaches was quick to ask.

Lilly sighed. “I had—have—a twin sister. Fraternal. We’re not close. In fact, we couldn’t be more different. So, when they adopted these two little Chinese girls all those years ago, they had no idea that growing up in a château with at least one French parent would never be enough to protect the kids against racism.”

“Damn, there were actually two of you?” Peaches took the words right out of my mouth.

“Yeah. Look, let me make the long story short.” She spread her hands. “My parents couldn’t have kids of their own so decided to adopt. Adopting kids from Asia has always been a thing, you know? And since Mom was Chinese, it sort of made sense. But they underestimated the problems. Mom should have figured it out since she wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms in France, either. Still, being wealthy and living in a château kind of insulates you. But not for kids. Once you send them to school, they’re exposed to everything. Mom finally packed her bags and took us to live in Paris where it was only slightly better but at least there was—is—a Chinese community. It tore Mom and Dad apart in the end. Though they stayed married in name, they lived separately. I took off for the US as soon as I was old enough and never looked back.”

“And your sister?”

Lilly gazed out the window. “She headed in the opposite direction—to China to live with Mom’s brother, Uncle Tengfeng. After we hit our teens, we drifted apart. She runs my uncle’s export business in Beijing now. I hardly ever hear from her anymore.”

“But you’re sisters!” Peaches exclaimed. “I’d give my eyeteeth for a sister.”

Lilly continued gazing off into the distance. She shrugged. “Yeah, so Uncle Henri and my friends are my family now. Who cares for me matters more than who shares my blood.”

“Yeah, I get that, too,” Peaches said. “I consider Phoebe here like a sister now, though she’s very white and a little on the short side.”

Lilly smiled. “Are you an only child or something?”

“No, I have a brother of the criminal persuasion,” she replied.

“Me, too,” I said. “Like Peaches, I have a brother but both my parents are also gone.” An attempt to connect, albeit a bit clumsy. “My brother and I used to be close but things changed when he stepped into the dark side.”

“The dark side?” Lilly asked.

“His activities turned criminal, too.”

She glanced at me and flashed a wry smile. “Criminal as in…?”

“Serving time for international art theft.”

“Both your brothers are in prison?” Lilly exclaimed, turning in her seat to get a good look at us.

“Don’t worry,” Peaches assured her. “It’s not contagious. But that’s how we met: both our brothers were in the same line of work, you could say. The Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found was born from family drama—got to love it.”

“Are you single, Lilly?” I asked.

“No, I have a boyfriend in LA. We’re planning on getting married sometime next year,” Lilly continued. “He’s a director.” Thinking of him seemed to bring a light to her face.

Peaches caught my eye. “Note she said ‘boyfriend,’ not ‘significant maybe.’”

“I heard,” I said.

Lilly was watching us. “What about you two?”

“I’m single,” Peaches told her. “And Phoebe is confused.”

“I’m not confused,” I said in my own defense. “I’m just hung up on the names we give the men—or women—in our lives.”

“Okay.” Lilly shrugged. “But what difference does it make if everybody understands the meaning?”

“My point exactly.” Peaches shot me a grin.

Sighing, Lilly returned to gazing out the window. “Anyway, forget all that. Forget about my parents, forget about my sister, my boyfriend, forget about me. This is about finding something lost. This is about my uncle Henri. I need to see him happy. I love him to bits and he’s all the family I have left.”

“You two are that close?” Peaches asked.

“Totally. We both know what it’s like to be different, to not fit the norm.”

“How’s he different?”

“He’s gay, so we both know what it feels like to be marginalized.”

“Do people still get bent out of shape over that?” Peaches asked.

“Yeah, in some places they do. When he was growing up it was far worse. Things are better now, for sure, but in my uncle’s case, it’s like he hasn’t noticed.”

We fell silent after that, focusing on the scenery changing outside the window, at the turnoffs leading across farmland, the copses of trees, the stone-wall-edged rivers. In the distance, we’d glimpse clusters of tiled-roof cottages, the occasional barn perched in a field of crops, a few castles on hilltops, and finally a sign reading Ville de Saint Chappelles.

After cutting cross-country for a few minutes, the lane abruptly dove down into a little wooded valley where the river flowed closer to the road. We crossed an old stone bridge past a waterwheel into narrow streets where white stone cottages topped with tiled roofs huddled. Flowers spilled from window boxes everywhere.

Peaches pressed down the window. “Wow. Did they package this place for tourists or something?”

“Nope. It’s totally real, as in quintessentially French,” Lilly remarked, donning her sunglasses and reapplying her hat. “Not a Chinese takeout anywhere—bad joke. Put the window up, please.”

Peaches did as requested. Meanwhile, the car slowed to a crawl, maneuvering the picture-postcard streets with care, slipping by the boulangerie, the patisserie, the boucherie. The butcher shop had a whole pig hanging in the window. “Just in case we don’t know how that guy brings home the bacon,” Peaches muttered.

“How that woman brings home the bacon,” Lilly remarked. “The Boucherie Beaumont was taken over by the youngest daughter. She was the only one in my class I was sort of friends with, by the way. At least she got that the world was changing and treated me with respect. Mimi, on the other hand, clashed with everybody.”

So, Mimi was the sister. I was so absorbed in thinking about the two siblings that when the car wound down a long lane, I wasn’t quite ready for the turreted house that reared beyond the stone gateposts. Two conical towers plus one tall curved sharply slanted roof, a dovecote, mullioned windows, a tumble of vines crawling over everything, made it every inch the fairy tale.

“Where’s this?” I asked as the driver pulled up to the wall and parked.

“Uncle Henri’s place, the gatehouse,” Lilly explained.

“This is the gatehouse?” I exclaimed, climbing out. “It’s bigger than most homes in St. James’s Park.”

Lilly took me by the arm, drew me back to the other side of the lane, and pointed through a break in the trees. There, framed by the branches and perched on the crest of a hill about a quarter of a mile away, stood a white fortified château complete with pediments, multiple conical-peaked towers that matched the one before me, and something that could be a drawbridge. “All relative.”

“Got it,” I whispered. “If you used to live up there, then Uncle Henri’s fallen on hard times.”

Lilly smiled. “Can I leave you two out here while I go inside and prepare Uncle Henri for visitors?”

“Sure,” I said. “Does he need priming?”

“Sort of. He’s been depressed and in a funk since his partner died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. When did that happen?”

“Three years ago but Uncle Henri has never gotten over it. Hopefully this will give him a distraction. Stay out of sight, okay? The security team are going to check the perimeters to make sure we weren’t followed or have photographers lurking in the bushes. If you and Peaches stay in the garden, I’ll try to keep my uncle away from the windows.”

“Right,” I said.

Peaches and I stood watching Lilly march up the stone pathway under the flowering fruit trees and let herself in through the front door. A dog started frantically yapping from somewhere deep inside the house. The security dudes had already melted into the shrubbery.

“So what do you think?” Peaches asked as we wound our way through to the back garden.

“I think there’s lots going on here besides a missing family treasure.” But I was briefly enchanted by the garden, which was charmingly overgrown and delightfully tangled without looking messy or unloved. A weeping willow drifted branches into a lily pond flitting with golden koi and nearby sat a pair of waders with a scummy net propped against a marble bench. Birdbaths, a little fountain, and an arbor climbing with wisteria greeted the eye.

“It’s sort of like a mangy Giverny,” I remarked.

A flash of movement sent both Peaches and me scuttling behind a tree. Lilly could be heard calling for Uncle Henri through the open French doors. Suddenly, a tall lean man came into view carrying a screaming Lilly in his arms, twirling her around until she demanded that he put her down. I stared at the man with the gray-streaked ponytail and goatee, the denim dungarees over the red striped T-shirt, with a kerchief knotted around his neck. A diamond stud glinted in one ear.

A string of expletives mixed with endearments followed as Uncle Henri admonished his niece in French for not telling him she was coming, not calling often enough, not living in France, etc. What was he, anyway, yesterday’s lunch? She was his little “ma chérie,” “mon poussin,” the French equivalent of shit-face, and his little shrimp. She was a bad girl, a good girl, the world’s best niece, as well as by far the worst.

By the time the fond expletives had trailed away, Lilly was standing before him, arms crossed, with a grin across her face. “Fini?”

No, he was not finished. In fact, he launched a new tirade, this one even more impassioned and more creative with the salty Anglo-French adjectives thrown in until finally Lilly held up her hand. “Enough,” she told him. “I have something very important to discuss with you, uncle, so let’s not waste any more time.” In moments, she had tucked his arm in hers and led him deeper into the house.

I turned to comment to Peaches but she’d shifted several feet deeper into the wisteria arbor. “Wait here,” she whispered. “I thought I saw movement in those hedges. I’m going to investigate.”

“Maybe it’s the security dudes,” I suggested, but she had already disappeared. Right, so I turned back to stare through the two French doors. I spied color and pattern. Color and pattern call out to me like Circe to the sailors. I had to investigate.

I stepped inside what looked to be a breakfast room with a round table spread with blue and white toile fabric. Vases of lavender and garden flowers seemed to spill from every available receptacle, infusing the air with fragrance. The shelf closest to the door was amassed with a mix of unmatched crockery interspersed with neatly stacked books.

Wandering from one room to the next, I found books everywhere, not shelved so much as arranged. Big coffee-table books propped face outward on a ledge as if their covers were part of the decor, along with the oil paintings and watercolors, which hung everywhere. On every colored wall (no white walls existed), some interesting collection had been composed—a series of old tiles in one corner, a selection of Indonesian batik blocks in the other.

The fireplace in what must have been the main sitting room was completely tiled above the marble mantelpiece with corresponding vases on little pedestals about the room. The deep yellow walls seemed to hum with color like living sunbeams caught in the center of a buttercup. Chintz wingback chairs, plump overstuffed sofas, and gilt-legged Louis IX seats abounded. I was totally overwhelmed by color, pattern, and texture. The man was a collector, a lover of all the things I adored, and had to be as besotted by color as I was. I liked him already.

Suddenly a yapping white mop burst into the room and dashed for my ankles, stopping feet away to bare its little teeth.

“Qui diable es-tu?” a deep voice demanded.

I turned. There stood Henri Saint Chappelles, looking like a pirate cavalier farmhand in dungarees, grey goatee, and sweeping mustache. There had to be an ostrich-plumed hat stashed somewhere.

“Hi, I’m Phoebe McCabe, finder of lost things. What can I locate for you, Monsieur Saint Chappelles?” I thought that a suitably jaunty opening.

“Uncle Henri,” Lilly said in French, moving between us as if she half expected either dog or uncle to lunge for my throat, “this is the woman I told you about.”

“She who enters my house as if she had been invited? I do not like this person. She must leave immediately! I will not tolerate such an insult. Go at once, I say! Immediately!” All delivered in French while flapping his hand as if shooing away flies.

Truly, the man might have been a bit frightening had I remained looking at him but by now I was crouching beside the petit chien with my hand outstretched muttering doggy endearments. “Is he a Coton?” The Coton de Tulear breed hailed from the once French colony of Madagascar and looked very much like a white fluffy cotton ball. I’d never met one and I was charmed. This one gave my hand a tentative sniff followed by enthusiastic tail-wagging.

“She,” I was told imperiously. “She. You insult Mademoiselle Le Chouchou now?” Henri said in French. “How many insults must we endure? If you do not leave on your own volition, I shall pick you up and toss you into the road on your ear, you tawdry little English upstart,” Uncle Henri raged. The tawdry little English upstart bit was delivered with racy expletives and included a few professions I’d never explored. Still, I was more amused than offended.

Then Mademoiselle Le Chouchou jumped into my arms and covered me with kisses and I knew in a flash that the matter was settled: if I passed the doggy test, I could stay.

And then in strode Peaches.

“Hi, you must be Henri.” She entered the room as if she owned the place. Naturally, she didn’t waste any time waiting for greetings from monsieur. In seconds, she had taken his hand and pumped it energetically before exclaiming: “I love the decor! I love your look!”

Henri was staring at her, his mouth half-open. “Who is this magnificent creature?” he asked in English.

“The name is Penelope but you can call me Peaches. Okay to call you Henri?” Not that she waited for an answer. “So, you have a couple of oddball stalkers lurking on your property, Henri—oddball as in they can run like hell and disappear into the shrubbery like shadows. They don’t look like paparazzi to me—too fast. More like professionals. What are we searching for here, anyway, the French crown jewels?”

“Okay to tell them?” Lilly asked, turning to her uncle.

“Tell them,” he agreed, standing with his legs apart and his fists dug into his waist, smiling at Peaches.

“A missing panel of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries,” Lilly announced, her tone ta-da and her expression expectant.

“The Cluny Tapestries?” I pulled my face from the dog’s fur.

Peaches looked to each one of us in turn. “The Clooney Tapestries, seriously? As in George Clooney?”

Lilly and Henri broke into gales of laughter. Only I knew that she wasn’t joking.

CHAPTER 3

Peaches never was big into textiles, no matter how old or how historic. She was, however, big into George Clooney. Luckily, the Saint Chappelles thought she was just kidding around.

“She is very funny this Peaches, non?” Henri exclaimed, taking Chouchou from my arms, “but of course she knows that La Dame à la Licorn tapestries are one of the wonders of the Middle Ages, a priceless testament to the weaver’s art, is that not so, Chouchou?” He was gazing at the dog, who licked his face in agreement.

Peaches wisely remained silent, leaving me to exclaim excitedly: “You’re actually looking for, what, a seventh tapestry? The six tapestries in the Cluny Museum are masterpieces and to think there might be another, well, that’s just incredible!” We all have our gush points. I could easily enthuse about this topic but suddenly the possibility of a missing panel struck me as unlikely. “Wait, why do you even think there is a seventh?”

“Do you know the history, mademoiselle?” Henri inquired coolly.

I was close to blurting out my credentials but kept my ego in check. “Could you please just call me Phoebe? And I know the basics. I know, for instance, that the tapestries were probably commissioned by a Jean Le Viste from Lyon sometime in the late 1400s and that they were designed in Paris but probably woven in Brussels. They are believed to be allegorical, representing the five senses with the biggest, the sixth, À Mon Seul Désir, possibly referring to the lady’s love or possibly her virginity but there are other interpretations. Right so far?”

“C’est exact.” Henri nodded, putting the dog down.

“Okay, then. Here’s where things get a bit fuzzy. Historians assume that the tapestries were commissioned for Le Viste’s marriage to Genevieve de Nanterre in 1475. He hailed from a wealthy family, she from a noble but broke one, making the union particularly beneficial to both families despite the age difference. But, if I remember correctly, the tapestries were actually completed about the time of Le Viste’s death. They could have been commemorating his marriage to Genevieve since the Viste crest is prevalent throughout and it could easily have taken many decades to weave six panels of that detail, but it’s puzzling.”

Henri now stood with his arms crossed but otherwise did not appear ready to throttle me or erupt into a tirade.

“So why do you believe there’s a missing seventh panel?” I asked.

“Because, Mademoiselle McCabe, my family is in possession of a secret letter written by a relative of mine, a Louis Saint Chappelles, to a member of the Le Viste family referencing a seventh,” Henri continued in English. “He is writing to a Monsieur Le Viste but we do not know which one. He promises to keep the seventh panel safe, that he hopes someday it will hang with the others. Louis Saint Chappelles was a priest and spiritual adviser to the King of France at the time.”

“How extraordinary,” I remarked. “What else does it say?”

He shrugged. “Rien.”

“But where does the missing tapestry come in?” I pressed.

“The letter, it references À Mon Seul Désir,” Henri said with a flourish. “That is most important. My late brother and I, we thought the letter was to Jean Le Viste, who may have commissioned a seventh panel in secret and requested help from my ancestor, the priest.”

“Seriously?” I asked. I could have shaken the information out of him if I could.

“Seriously?” Henri repeated, drawing back. “Do I not appear serious enough for you, mademoiselle?”

“Sorry, what I mean to say is that as exciting as that all sounds, does it really indicate a missing seventh tapestry?”

That was a mistake. Henri’s long face had turned so thunderous I swear his mustache twitched.

“Anyway,” Lilly intercepted, “this letter has haunted our family for centuries and sent my dad and uncle off on quests that have unearthed nothing.”

“And yet, we believe a seventh tapestry exists, n’est-ce pas?” said Uncle Henri, turning to his niece.

“We sure hope so,” Lilly agreed, “but for that to be proven, we need an expert in locating lost things, don’t we, uncle?”

Uncle shrugged.

“May I see the letter?” I asked.

“Non.” That was Uncle Henri. “Why should I hire you for such an important case when some of the most well-regarded detectives in France have had no success?”

“Because my skills are unique,” I suggested.

“Phaw!” That was a Gallic snort. You had to experience it to grasp its full gravitas.

Peaches stepped forward. “What, Henri, you haven’t heard of the famous Phoebe McCabe?” She held out her phone on an article about me finding the lost Botticelli. She loved that one. “Phoebe finds things others can’t—paintings, lost temples, family jewels—you name it. What’s a missing tapestry?”

Yes, embarrassing, but I was trying to own my worth. “I believe I can help you,” I insisted.

Now Henri was temporarily transfixed by Peaches again. One long stride and he was before her, taking her free hand and kissing it. “So magnificent,” he murmured over her knuckle. “Will you help me find the lost tapestry, mademoiselle?”

“If you hire the agency, I’m part of the package.” She caught my eye over Henri’s bowed head. “I’m her bodyguard, by the way.”

“Bodyguard? Why does one such as she require a bodyguard?” Henri lifted his head and peered at me skeptically.

There was the crux. If told him my full sorry tale, both Lilly and Henri might assume that I’d attract unsavory types from the underside of the art world—justifiably, I might add. Though I seriously doubted that any of my usual admirers would be that interested in a tapestry, I didn’t want to alarm my employers unnecessarily. Lilly drew enough attention on her own.

But Peaches had it all figured out. “Bad ex,” she explained. “My friend here has an abusive ex-boyfriend who won’t leave her alone.”

Henri straightened. “Abusive?”

“Oh, completely. Just a few months ago, he locked her in a cave and tried to kill her. Controlling bastard.”

Funny, I had never thought of Noel Halloren as an abusive boyfriend or even an abusive significant maybe. Then again, I had never considered myself a victimized girlfriend, either.

Henri swore in French. “I have such contempt for men who abuse the ladies! What is it about these tiny men—” he brought his thumb and his forefinger together to measure these minuscule beings “—these tiny, tiny men, these putains, who must abuse the much weaker sex?”

Lilly, Peaches, and I exchanged glances.

“Anyway,” Peaches assured him, “I’m around to keep her safe. I’m particularly good at bonking bad guys but I could assess any structural difficulties you may have on the side. I have a degree in architectural engineering, too.” She was distracting him. Clever. "How’s your foundation and your roof? I’ve already seen two areas of concern regarding the structural integrity of this cottage. Take that beam directly overhead…”

All eyes turned ceiling-ward. A thick whitewashed beam, no doubt hailing from the days when trees were allowed to grow into ripe old age undisturbed, ran the full length of the pitched roof and seemed to brace the supports on either side.

“See that crack running down the center?” Peaches asked. “Ordinary age as in wear and tear, I’d say. What is it, about five hundred years old? So it’s allowed to have a few wrinkles. It might hold up for a while longer but already I can see fissures in the plaster there and there—” she pointed “—which means it’s starting to buckle. If you don’t get that attended to soon, this whole thing could come tumbling down on your head.” Peaches stared at him.

“Would you do the work yourself?” Henri asked softly.

She shrugged. “Could be tricky working with a French crew but I could stay on hand to consult, certainly.”

Then it was as if he snapped to. “What do I say? I cannot afford such renovations!” Henri proclaimed, throwing up his hands. “I am but a poor man.”

“Okay, then,” Peaches said with a shrug. “Let’s get your house in order and make you a rich one. Let’s find this missing tapestry of yours and turn the Saint Chappelles fortunes around. Show us the letter so we can get started.”

And just like that it was done. We were hired, or so I thought.

Minutes later, I was trailing behind with Lilly as Henri led Peaches on a tour through the house, supposedly en route to view this letter from Father Louis Saint Chappelles. But it seemed that nothing would be done quickly around Henri. He insisted on stopping every few feet to explain his collections, the decor, the colors. “This hue is called,” he noted at one point, “‘pipi de vache,’ named after that wonderful shade that flows from the pipi of cows fed on mangos.”

“Cow pee, seriously?” Peaches stopped to gape at a sunflower-yellow wall, the predominant hue in the house.

“There really was such a color in the eighteenth century,” I told her as we followed Henri up the stairs. “Colors have fascinating stories.”

“If you say so,” she whispered. “Never putting cow piss on my walls, just sayin’.”

The upstairs opened up onto a series of small chambers, several of them bedrooms furnished with oversized grand furniture but also cozy libraries and studies, every room crammed to the rafters with furniture and collections.

We were led into a room where a wall of mullioned glass faced onto the garden; it seemed at first glance to be a cabinet of curiosities crossed with an art gallery with a dash of a storeroom thrown in. Among the oak cabinets and wall-to-ceiling books, watercolors hung along with several Dutch oils that would have fetched a few thousand euros had Henri been inclined to sell. It looked as though a few had already gone since two vacant rectangles remained empty as if in memoriam.

Lilly went directly to a chest sitting in the center of a desk, me in tow, while Henri continued pointing out his treasures to Peaches.

“It’s in here,” she said as she pulled a fob of keys from her pocket. Inserting a tiny brass key, she flipped open an ivory inlaid Chinese chest and pulled out a piece of paper. My first thought was They keep an old letter in a box? but soon realized it was only a photocopy.

“What happened to the original?” I asked as I took the page between my fingers. Standard quality photocopy in stark black and white. Surprisingly brief.

“Stolen way back when we still lived in the château.”

I looked at her. “How long ago?”

She shrugged. “Maybe twenty years ago, before I left for the States. Dad was still alive then. Lots of guests staying at the château back in those days since Mom and Dad always entertained. Glad we kept copies just in case.”

“Do you have any idea who took it?” I asked.

“None. It could have been any one of about twenty-five people. Dad didn’t even know how long it had been gone when he discovered it missing.”

I peered down at the page. It was barely legible and the date above the salutation was completely indecipherable.

Lilly read it off by heart: “‘

Dearest Monsieur Le Viste, to m

y sole desire. I shall guard the seventh panel with my life, as promised, and will prevent—’ there was a big hole in this line so we never knew what was to be prevented ‘—ever learning of its existence. I hope to someday see it complete with my own eyes and dream of the day when it may hang with the others—’ the rest of this line was ruined, too ‘—

yours faithfully, Father Louis Saint Chappelles.’”

Not much to go on but intriguing nonetheless. “And you believe the seventh panel refers to the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries?” I asked.

“That has always been the family’s belief,” Lilly said, “and the Saint Chappelles family was related to the Le Vistes, which is yet another connection. The family rumor was that the Le Vistes used to come to our château because of this connection—cousins or something. Father Louis Saint Chappelles was supposedly a priest in the court of Charles VII when Le Viste was the barrister.”

I pondered that for a moment. The timeline didn’t quite add up. “Is any of that substantiated?” I asked.

Lilly shook her head. “We’re kind of light on the ground in tracking down any real historical information here, which has always been part of our problem. My dad hired a few detective types. I can pass over everything they found, which wasn’t much. There was a Louis Saint Chappelles in the court of Charles VII and he was a priest. That’s all we know. Most of the findings are historical texts you can find in the national archive.”

“Tertiary?”

“Pardon?”

“Firsthand accounts?”

“Oh, yes, I think so. The Saint Chappelles were all supporters of Charles VII.”

I turned. Henri was standing directly behind us. “The same king of France that Joan of Arc helped crown against the English-backed army?” I asked.

He nodded. “Exactement.”

A tremor of excitement hit. Joan of Arc. “We’ve got to get back to Paris to see the other tapestries and begin research—the sooner, the better.”

“Agreed,” Henri said, “but then you must return here, non?” He was pointing out the window. “The tapestry is hidden there in the château. This I feel in my soul.” He tapped his chest. “My brother and I, we searched and searched but never found it, but I know it must be there. You must look.”

I gazed out the paned windows toward the hill where the imposing château stood glorious, magnificent, and at first glance rendered all mere mortals to mere serfs.

“You must start there,” Henri insisted. “The owners, they have turned it into a lit et petit déjeuné. Travestir! Why not a Rocco Forte? Why only room and breakfast? That was the plan but they say they have not the money so they scrimp.” “Scrimp” was spoken as if synonymous with defecating in a corner. More French curses followed. “It is no wonder that they fall on their heads, non? They close half of the château off for the spiders and open up but a few rooms for guests but the guests do not come. Now that the Covid wanes, maybe they do, but it is too late, oui? Les DuBois, they lose money. Phiff!” He shrugged. The Gallic shrug spoke volumes and involved a combination of expression and gesture implying that the poor buyers deserved their fate.

I was at a loss on how to respond. “That’s sad. So many businesses failed during Covid. Of course we’ll book ourselves in there.”

Henri snapped his fingers. “You must roam the house. The owners, they ask for my help to prepare the château for sale. I will say that you will help me, designers from London, non?”

No, because I couldn’t imagine anyone French requesting anyone English as a design consultant but what did I know?

“They want to stage it,” Lilly explained.

“But they only have to do a little research to discover that design is not our business,” I pointed out.

“If I recommend you, they will look no further. Of course, it is me they want and I will make myself available. They want l’original,” Henri added. “C’est moi, Monsieur Saint Chappelles, last remaining son of the famille de Saint Chappelles, I am an original. When I appear, they fall all over themselves. This they have done since purchasing the château from me in 2020. I will say that, with your assistance, I will make the château more, um, buyable to the Anglais or Americans.”

“Salable, marketable?” I offered in English.

“Oui.”

“But didn’t you tell them that you wouldn’t help them anymore, Uncle Henri?” Lilly asked.

He lifted his chin. “I said that I would not help if they would not permit me to choose the next buyers and they refused this, so I refuse them.” He was gazing toward the château, so much pain grooved into his long face that I thought he would cry.

“And now?” Lilly prompted after a few seconds.

“And now I change my mind so Peaches can find the tapestry.”

Lilly visibly sagged with relief. “Good. We’ll get started, then, but I thought you liked the DuBoises?”

Henri shrugged. “For them, the château is but a business. For me, it is blood. The DuBoises let me visit any time I want, that is a good thing.”

“They’ve been…very gracious,” Lilly said.

Henri gazed down at her. “But what if new owners will not let me come whenever I choose, close the doors to the Saint Chappelles forever? How could we bear this?”

Lilly sidled up to him and gave him a hug. “Don’t worry, dear uncle. Phoebe and her agency will find the tapestry and then you can buy back the château yourself.”

Daylight had leached from the room by then and Peaches was staring out the window. “Where did you say your security dudes were posted, Lilly?” she asked.

“I didn’t. Actually, I don’t know where they are.” She pulled out her phone and tapped in a text. “Um…Jean Luc and Pierre are at the end of the driveway. No word from René.”

“Why aren’t they surrounding the house?” Peaches demanded. “Do they seriously think bad guys only enter through the front door? There should be one guy out front, one out back, and one watching the driveway! If we’re going to work for you, Lilly, I need to be put in charge of security.”

“Magnificent creature!” whispered Henri.

“Why are you so agitated?” Lilly asked as we scrambled down the stairs behind Peaches moments later.

“Because I saw movement in the garden just now and if it’s not the security dudes, then who the hell is it?” Peaches didn’t wait for a response but ran straight out the door into the garden, little Chouchou at her heels. Henri called the dog back.

“Peaches, wait!” I hissed but she had disappeared.

“It’s just a pap. He’ll get the photos he wants and then be gone,” Lilly said as the three of us stood together peering into the shadowy woods.

“These photographers, they have no respect,” Henri muttered.

“What bugs me is that this means they’ve tracked me here, uncle. Shit!” Lilly turned away and tapped her phone. When Jean Luc and Pierre strode up the drive, she demanded in French, “Where is René?”

The two men glanced at each other. “I thought he was watching the door here,” Pierre, the topknot guy, replied. “He’s not answering his mobile.”

“Then find him! Peaches saw somebody in the bushes. Maybe it was him,” Lilly said. As the men strode off, she turned to me. “I promised to get you back to Paris by ten.”

“But you have only just arrived,” Henri complained.

“We’ll return tomorrow, I promise. Phoebe and Peaches have a hotel they have to check out of tomorrow morning, uncle.”

“Come, I give you something to eat before you drive back, something light—soup and baguette?” Henri offered.

“Perfect.” Lilly turned to walk with her uncle into the house when Peaches called out behind us. Turning, we watched as she dashed up to us, Jean Luc and Pierre carrying someone between them.

“Found René,” she panted. “He’s been shot.”

CHAPTER 4

Actually, shot wasn’t correct, more like chopped.

By the time the doctor had arrived followed by the police, it appeared that René had received a blow to the head, not fatally but definitely incapacitating. The poor man lay in one of Henri’s upstairs bedrooms while the doctor tended him, and the police waited below until he could be questioned. There was still some debate over whether he should be taken to a hospital for further tests but René himself wanted to wait until his return to Paris for that.

Meanwhile, the area surrounding the property was thoroughly searched with no signs of an interloper detected, not even a footprint that didn’t belong to either Peaches or the security team. The rest of us remained in Henri’s cow-pee-colored salon while two police officers grilled us until we were crispy.

“Mademoiselle Williams, you say you went to look for Monsieur Bouchard?” asked Monsieur Cappat, a member of the regional police force, a pleasant-faced man with closely cropped hair and a ready smile packed into a dark uniform so close-fitting it molded his body like a second skin—impeccable French tailoring. He spent an undue amount of time interrogating Peaches, who, he pointed out, was the only one in the vicinity when René was accosted.

“I said I had,” Peaches told him again. “After I saw movement in the bushes, I ran out to check and found René several yards back in the orchard flat on his face. The other two joined me seconds later.” The fact that Peaches refused to call Jean Luc and Pierre by name indicated how disgusted she was with their overall security skills. “That wasn’t the first time I’d caught movement, as I’ve said. I saw a shadow back there earlier.”

“Let me just clarify, if you please,” Monsieur Cappat continued with excruciating courtesy. He was, it appeared, the senior officer. “You are here protecting Mademoiselle McCabe, and the three men from Forces de Sécurité à Paris are protecting Mademoiselle Lin, yes?”

“That’s right,” Peaches told him.

“Correct,” Lilly agreed.

“That appears to be a great deal of security for two women. Mademoiselle Lin I understand, she being a famous person, but what is the nature of your protection of Mademoiselle McCabe?”

Peaches gazed at the officer as if he had spent his days perched on an inflatable water toy. “Haven’t you heard of Phoebe McCabe? She’s famous, too.” I tried to catch her eye but she was fixed on Cappat. “She’s notorious for finding lost treasure, missing art, countering art thieves, and putting criminals behind bars. I watch her back. Check out the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found’s website if you don’t believe me. It’s not fake news, either. Everything you read there is verifiable.”

The second officer, Monsieur Boucher, tapped something into his tablet and passed it over to Cappat, who was not the only one who understood English between the two as I first assumed. Whispering ensued. I caught the French translation for Interpol stooges where I sat with Chouchou on my lap. That rankled but I said nothing.

“I invited Phoebe here to meet my uncle,” Lilly explained, “in hopes that she could help us find a missing family heirloom.”

“Which I intend to do,” I added.

“Family jewels, a rare painting, a stash of ancient treasure, perhaps?” Cappat asked while skimming the tablet.

“Just something lost, monsieur,” Henri was quick to assure him, “and we are quite certain that whatever happened to the security man that lies incapacitated above is not connected to what we seek here. Another photographer—such a nuisance! Lilly is always being harassed by these types.”

“We were chased by the paparazzi in Paris but believed that our driver shook his tail,” Lilly said, “but who knows if someone managed to follow us here in order to catch a few photos?”

“Oui,” Jean Luc interjected in French. “We were contracted by Mademoiselle Lin to assure her safety after she arrived in Paris three days ago. The paparazzi were harassing her.” None of this was new information but repeating the same questions in different ways was a familiar police technique.

Cappat was still reading about the agency, his expression hard to decipher. Meanwhile, Jean Luc perched forward in his chair looking ready to spring while Pierre kept glancing upward as if concerned for his wounded comrade upstairs.

“So,” Cappat said, lifting his gaze at last. “It would seem that Mademoiselle McCabe may attract attention of her own. Perhaps not the best choice for your seeker of lost heirlooms considering you fear for your privacy, Mademoiselle Lin?”

Though he was addressing Lilly, Peaches jumped in. “Au contraire, monsieur d’agent, we were contacted because we are the best finder of lost things. Lilly chose her agency well.” She probably hoped to detract from the true point of the officer’s statement. By then I feared that Lilly may have been regretting her choice.

Luckily, further commentary was aborted when the doctor arrived to say that it was all right to question René. That sent the two gendarmes upstairs and left us staring at one another in the salon. Henri leapt up to fix us a light snack, leaving Lilly twisting her hands.

“I didn’t realize that you might attract that kind of unwanted attention,” she said to me. “Is this from your abusive boyfriend?”

“He was—is—an international art thief,” I admitted, feeling guilty for not filling her in on the sordid details. “But he’s not involved here. I can feel that in my gut.”

“Phoebe has a kind of gut that knows these things. Call it a sixth sense,” Peaches explained. “If her gut tells her that her ex isn’t involved, then he isn’t involved.”

Lilly looked unconvinced.

“Lilly, attacking a security man isn’t my ex’s style. He’s more into dramatic staging on an impressive scale and prefers big-ticket items that can be quickly turned into profit. A possible seventh Lady and the Unicorn tapestry, should one exist, will probably need years of conservation once found. Noel prefers quick turnarounds like gold and jewels.”

Since Henri returned with plates of bread and cheese, we dropped the subject to eat. I was temporarily entranced by melt-in-the-mouth cheeses the like of which I’d never tasted. The store-bought varieties held only a thin resemblance to the original.

By the time we’d brushed away the last crumb, the police announced that we could go. René could provide no information about his attacker. He claimed that he felt a sharp crack of pain in the head and then went unconscious. With no footprints and no clear sighting of anything conclusive, the police resolved to blame the attack on a rabid photographer. They would make inquiries in the village about strangers hanging around and move on to other things.

It was already 10:30 by the time we left for Paris, René leaning against Peaches’s shoulder and Lilly up front with Jean Luc and Pierre.

“You okay?” Peaches asked René.

The wounded man only mumbled and stayed put. By now Peaches was taking a personal interest in his well-being, due, she assured me via a whispered exchange, to the fact that he was the only one of the security team worth his salt. At least he had been prowling the property like a proper guard when he was wounded, she said. The fact that he was tall, well-built, black, and good-looking probably didn’t hurt, either.

After dropping René off at the hospital in the care of Pierre, Jean Luc drove on to Lilly’s Hotel Crillion.

“We’ll rent a car and meet you back at Saint Chappelles the day after tomorrow,” I said to Lilly as the car slowed to a stop outside the lobby. "First I want to research here in Paris.”

“Hold on to the research part until I get back to you,” she said as a bellman opened the door. “I’m not sure hiring you was the best idea, like I said. I didn’t realize that you attracted such notoriety.”

I leaned forward in the seat. “We’re absolutely the best ones for the job, Lilly, and you know it. Whatever happened to René had nothing to do with us.”

“You don’t know that,” she said without looking at me. “I have never had a paparazzi attack a security guy ever. That just doesn’t happen around me. Anyway, I’ve got to think about this. Mind getting a cab to your hotel? I’d feel safer if Jean Luc escorts me to my suite.”

“Of course.”

That left Peaches and me standing by the hotel entrance while a bellman hailed us a cab.

“I feel like I’ve just been dumped after a bad first date,” Peaches muttered.

“We’re not being dumped,” I told her. “Technically we haven’t begun dating. I still have time to convince Lilly.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet but I’ll find a way. If there’s a missing panel to the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, I’m going to find it, no matter what.”

“Are you getting any tremors in your gut, any sense that we’re on to something big?”

“Not a thing,” I admitted as we climbed into the cab’s back seat, “but I rarely feel anything this early.”

I had no intention of waiting for Lilly to give us the nod before launching my research. In fact, I intended to begin a preliminary web expedition as soon as I reached my room. But first things first. I had promised to keep all members of the team informed of any case I was on, as in step-by-step, a fallout from my recent Grecian experience. Rupert, in particular, had grown irate when he had learned how quickly events had accelerated during my presumed vacation. Now I did due diligence accordingly. Sort of.

“Heading straight for bed,” Peaches said with a yawn. “Can’t believe how tired shopping and bodyguarding makes you. See you tomorrow morning.”

“Night.”

Peaches and I parted ways at the doors of our adjoining rooms and I stepped into my suite with my phone in hand, trying not to imagine Evan standing there the way he had been only a few hours before. I wondered if he’d messaged me and, if not, maybe I should contact him. Before I did anything, however, I crafted a brief group message to all team members bringing them more or less up to date.

I had no sooner hit Send when a text from Rupert popped up on my screen: More detail required.

I knew what this meant; in fact, I could have added a postscript: I expect a detailed description of every case ASAP as per our agreement. Any attempt to brush me off will not be tolerated. I could almost hear his plumby vowels rolling between my ears.

Taking a deep breath, I called him immediately. “Hi, Rupert. Hope you’re enjoying working in our new lab. Anyway, to keep it short, the client hasn’t signed us up yet so there’s really not that much to report.” The term “short” and “Rupert” rarely coexisted but I was ever hopeful. “In fact, she may not hire us in the end.”

“Whyever not? If she has something of value worth retrieving and is herself a discerning individual, she would be foolhardy not to hire us for the task. After all, we are foremost in the field. Who is this woman and what does she seek?”

Crud. My answer would pique his interest above all else. “A family heirloom,” I said quickly.

“Who is the family to whom the heirloom allegedly belongs?”

I sighed inwardly. Why did I think I could keep this off his radar? “The Saint Chappelles.”

“The Saint Chappelles?”

“Yes, the same. You’ve heard of them?” Of course he had. He was more up on French history than I, having spent many seasons in France. “Anyway, the potential client is Lilly Lin, the movie star. Yes, I didn’t make the connection, either. Long story. She and her uncle, Henri Saint Chappelles, are hoping to find a seventh panel to the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries.” There, I said it. Done and dusted. In my case, more like done and dynamited.

“Henri Saint Chappelles, the celebrated interior designer?”

“The same.”

I counted the seconds before he spoke again. His tone was as frosty as the North Sea. “You disappoint me. You have been withholding pertinent information, Phoebe, something which I find unbearably difficult to accept given our history. After all these years, do you truly believe that I am unable to tell when you are dissembling?”

I sighed. “Sorry, Rupert. It’s just that this case is in such early stages that I’d hoped to be on a firmer footing before engaging you or the others. The Saint Chappelles family believe that there may be a seventh panel to the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries that went missing from their family sometime in the fifteenth century. While I’m at it, I may as well tell you that there was an incident earlier today where Lilly Lin’s driver suffered a blow to the head. She’s constantly plagued by paparazzi being who she is but she believes that our notoriety may be responsible. There, that truly is everything.”

I counted ten beats of silence. “How extraordinary,” he said. "I will be on the next flight to Paris and will book at the Étoile, too,” he said finally. “That is where you and Peaches are staying, I presume?”

“The Splendid Étoile, yes, but, Rupert—”

“Pray do not check out until I arrive.”

And then he hung up. I stood for a moment, phone in hand, silently swearing. Of course a possible missing Cluny tapestry would send him flying over, not to mention any hint of a historic French family coupled with the dual bonus of meeting a famous film star and an apparently noted French designer. Like it or not, Sir Rupert Fox was on this case.

Looking for a distraction, I gazed down at my phone again, hoping for a message from Evan. Nothing. Next, I checked the agency’s tracking map, which showed his dot flying across the Mediterranean. That pitched me into muttering my latest mantra: I will not be needy, I will not be needy.

Wherever this relationship went with Evan, if it progressed anywhere at all, the last thing I wanted was to become a woman who needed a man so badly that she had to know where he was every moment of the day. Even worse was the thought of waiting on tenterhooks for a message or a phone call. No. Phoebe McCabe was never going to be that woman. She had work to do, fulfilling, engaging, and important work. Men were secondary.

With that, I dug out my laptop, activated my phone’s intruder alert, and launched the first of many online research excursions beginning with the history of King Charles VII of France circa 1422-61, the Saint Chappelles, and the Le Vistes.

CHAPTER 5

The first thing the next morning, I called to arrange an appointment with a Madame LaForte, one of the curators at the Cluny Museum, and received an appointment that same day. Finally, I thought, the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found had begun to open a few doors. Such appointments were rarely organized so quickly and I was feeling incredibly lucky. The fact that I had not yet heard from Lilly was something I chose to ignore for now.

“You got an appointment just like that?” Peaches asked as we headed for the museum on foot under a cloudy Parisian sky. It was so tempting to linger over coffee and croissants on our balcony that morning but my lingering-in-Paris days were over. They took the flight out with Evan the day before, in fact. However, I did glimpse the Eiffel Tower punctuating the sky in the distance, which almost made it better.

“I expected to have to wheedle and throw a few names around to arrange a meeting so quickly but it turns out I didn’t need to. Good thing. Now we can interview Madame LaForte before Rupert arrives.”

Peaches cast me one of her sidelong glances. “Think so?”

“Why do you say that?” I shot back.

“I checked the agency map this morning and it looks like he’s already here.”

I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, nearly banging into the woman behind me, which prompted me to say excuse me in three languages before remembering where I was. “No!” I said to Peaches. “I was only talking to him last night.”

“So, he works fast and flights from London to Paris are frequent. Why the problem? He’s your friend and a member of the team.”

“He is both,” I acknowledged, resuming my pace, “but this particular case—an ancient tapestry, a historical French family—is the sort of thing that will make him jump in with both well-heeled feet and possibly hijack the case. He loves this sort of thing and he’s bound to confangle everything.”

“‘Confangle’?”

“I just made that word up but, trust me, it works when applied to Rupert.”

“Sometimes I think you’d rather operate alone without other agents kicking up dust in your sandbox, at least until you need them,” she remarked.

Ouch. There was truth to that. Sometimes I wondered when my colleagues would clue in to that reality but it seemed that Rupert already had.

My appointment wasn’t until 2:30 so Peaches and I had a few hours to explore the museum on our own. My friend was naturally fascinated by the architecture so was keen to study the building itself, it being the best-preserved medieval mansion in Paris, while I wandered from room to room, soaking in the stained glass, the kingly effigies, the exhibit of golden objects.

Any time thoughts of Evan interfered with my historical pondering, I quickly shoved them away. I refused to be enslaved by my emotions unless those emotions were incited by ancient art, of course. In my effort to remain focused, I only permitted myself to check my phone a few times per hour, which, by the way, was how I knew that he had landed in Sardinia.

The stained-glass exhibit was mesmerizing. Staged in a darkened room so that the light could illuminate the medieval glass, I spent considerable time bathing in the colors. That was the first time I sensed that I was being followed. A tug on my senses, a prickle at the nape of my neck, was all it took to alert me that someone in that gallery—shadowy figures all—might be more interested in me than the glass.

Turning quickly, I glimpsed a figure scurrying away at the back of the gallery. I didn’t chase him, partly because I was used to such scrutiny and partly because I had better things to do. I was in a museum, after all.

I saved the tapestry room for last. Though it wasn’t my first visit to pay homage to the Lady and the Unicorn, every encounter was as fresh and vivid as the first. The six tapestries hung in splendor in a curved room where the lighting was designed to illuminate the jewel-like colors of the wool and silk against a darkened background, and even to this day they represented the height of a weaver’s art.

The colors sang out in rich red and woad blue with the millefleurs—millions of flowers—background enlivened with white, green, orange, and yellow, a design which the weavers of the Netherlands, where the tapestries of this kind were created, had perfected. Every blossom was identifiable, every creature romping in the foliage clearly defined. Even after all these centuries, the artistry was incredibly detailed, as much akin to painting with fiber as any existent woven art then or since.

They were presumably commissioned around the mid-1400s by either Jean Le Viste or Antoine Le Viste, both of whom had been involved in the French court. Exactly which one was behind the work, no one seemed to know for certain. According to the scholarship, the subject of the tapestries remained an enigma, too, thought by general agreement to be dedicated to the senses with multiple symbols of courtly love hinted at throughout. Each panel featured a beautifully adorned lady often with her handmaiden standing in a millefleurs background flanked by a unicorn on one side and a lion on the other. In most cases, the animals held a banner emblazoned with the Le Viste emblem and both the expressions of the central ladies, who changed from panel to panel, and the animals themselves, were unique. Sometimes the lion frowned, sometimes he grinned. Sometimes the lady looked happy, at other times sad, even resigned.

The first panel shows a lady holding the Le Viste pennant flanked as always by the lion and the unicorn. In this panel she is holding the unicorn’s horn, which is believed to represent the sense of touch. In the next, the lady and a maid stand together playing a kind of table organ resting on an intricate carpet. This piece reportedly represents sound. Another tapestry supposedly representing smell has a lady removing carnation blooms from a basket her maid carries while a monkey sniffs a flower in the background. For sight, the lady holds a mirror up to the unicorn, who is resting its forelegs in her lap while looking at its own reflection. For taste, the lady appears to be reaching for a sweet in a basket while a parrot flaps over her hand as if eager to get at the treats. In the sixth and most enigmatic panel, the lady stands before a tent held open by the lion and the unicorn while her maid holds a chest from which the lady is either removing or returning a jeweled necklace. Written on top of the tent are the words À Mon Seul Désir. Was “to my only desire” referring to love, as is often interpreted, or something more mysterious?

I stood staring at the tapestries as other viewers circled around me, struck by the multiple interpretations the medieval artistry presented. Even the rabbit was symbolic, suggesting lustful urges, while the monkey represented whimsy and mischief. The little lapdog in different versions appeared near the lady in all the panels and could represent loyalty or devotion but the fact that they were always collared might also imply captivity. Was the unicorn itself referring to the tale of the unicorn that could only be tamed by a virgin, a powerful myth dominating the Middle Ages?

These were only a smidgen of potential interpretations that frolicked in this rich and storied hodgepodge of medieval symbolism. The tapestries were probably designed to thrill, entertain, physically enhance a space, as well as to baffle the viewer all at once. They must have been displayed in some magnificent hall similar to the building in which I stood where the rich and mighty wined and dined.

If John Le Viste had commissioned them, I couldn’t believe that his sole purpose was to decorate his drafty manor house or simply impress everyone with his wealth and taste, though no doubt those reasons factored, too. If a seventh tapestry did exist, that could be the piece of the puzzle that unlocked the entire mystery once and for all.

I stared at the faces of the women in the tapestries, each lady’s expression exquisitely rendered. Weaving faces in tapestries was no small feat. The weavers followed a cartoon or drawing while actually working the images in reverse, never able to see the work as a whole until the piece was removed from the loom and unrolled months or even years later. These weavers were technically and artistically brilliant, something more evident in these magnificent tapestries than any of the others I had seen or studied.

My phone pinged. It was Peaches reminding me that our appointment was drawing nigh and that she was waiting for me in the main hall. I thought I caught a shadow flicking past as I retraced my steps back to the entrance, someone short, dressed in total black, but the moment I caught sight of Peaches, I put it out of my mind.

She stood brimming with enthusiasm beneath the effigy of an ancient king. “Fantastic place! You wouldn’t believe the foundations here and I just read the most incredible piece on flying buttresses. So where do we meet this Madame LeForte?”

“This way.” I indicated a sign discreetly hidden beside a brass plaque saying Ne Pas Enter. Personnel Seulement. “But first, I’m to let the information desk know that we’re coming.”

I strode up to the desk and told the clerk that we had arrived for our appointment. Moments later, a slim woman estimated to be in her early forties and dressed in a maroon cardigan over a black pencil skirt and low heels approached me with a welcoming smile.

“Mademoiselle McCabe. I am Ella LeForte. A pleasure to meet you,” she said in faintly accented English. She extended her hand and quickly pulled it back. The days of handshaking had apparently died during the pandemic but she appeared to regret the lack of physical congeniality. “Come with me, if you please.”

We followed her, me studying her clothing as we went, a habit gleaned from a conviction that what we wear says much about who we are. Or want to be. Her apparel was well-tailored of excellent quality and yet plain enough to imply that the wearer wished to stay very much in the background. Her short curly hairstyle spoke of wash-and-go ease and her glasses leaned on the practical rather than stylish side. She also walked a lot, judging from her muscled calves.

We climbed up a curved wooden staircase and through a side door, down a long hall, and finally to a spacious room at the end. The door was open and the figure of a man stood backlit against a tall arched window.

Rupert. Well, damn.

“Phoebe, you have arrived at last but I must say that I do feel as though I have been waiting forever—a bit of an overstatement, I confess, but you do get my drift. Nevertheless, Ella and I have been happily reconnecting in the interim. Did you know that I have worked with the esteemed tapestry curator in the past? Yes, indeed. She has kindly assessed several of my French pieces over the years. I—”

“Rupe!” Peaches exclaimed. “What a surprise!”

“Greetings, Peaches, and may I say you look divine. Is that Chanel?”

But Peaches dove in for a hug despite his efforts to avoid her enthusiasm. “Sure, if you want it to be.” She squeezed him repeatedly until he was gasping for breath and managed to shove her away long enough to fetch his fallen glasses.

“Bulletproof, I hope?” Peaches asked as she swept the glasses from the floor and attempted to replace them on his nose while he swatted her hand away.

Ella was regarding the display with amusement. I sensed that she grasped exactly what was going on. Turning to me, she smiled. “Please sit and explain how I may help you.”

While Rupert readjusted his spectacles and straightened his tie, I took the seat opposite Ella and got right to the point. “Thank you for seeing me so quickly, Madame—”

“Ella, please.”

“Ella,” I continued. “I realize now that Rupert probably played a part but I’m just grateful to connect with you so quickly.” I cast a quick glance at Rupert, who was now seated and mustering his composure. I flashed him a smile, which he didn’t return. “Anyway,” I said, turning to the curator, “I have a prospective client who believes that her family may be in possession of a seventh Lady and the Unicorn tapestry, which they are convinced may be hidden somewhere in the former family château.”

“Ah, yes, of course—the Saint Chappelles.” Ella’s hands lifted and fell. “Members of the family have approached many curators here over the years, me included. I was speaking on the phone to one member of the family only last week.”

That had to be Lilly since Henri appeared to have stopped the hunt. “And may I ask what that conversation involved?”

“Mademoiselle Saint Chappelles wished only to know whether I thought the letter that had once been in possession of her family was authentic. We hold a copy here in our archives. I explained that since I have only seen a facsimile, it is impossible to say. A carbon dating and thorough assessment by an expert would at least place the letter in the correct time period but the original has been lost.”

“Apparently it went missing decades ago.”

“Yes, so I understand.”

Rupert cleared his throat. “So, there is a letter?”

“Presumably from a Louis Saint Chappelles, which may reference a seventh panel.” I passed him my phone, open on my photo of the letter. “It doesn’t really say much but Louis Saint Chappelles was a priest in the king’s court, though not of the same generation as Jean le Viste.”

“Either way, that would place it in the Valois dynasty. Which king, Charles VI, known as Charles the Mad?” Rupert inquired.

“Mais non, King Charles VII, his son,” Ella said.

‘“Charles the Victorious?”

“Oui.”

“This Louis was a court priest?” Peaches inquired. “You mean there were more than one in the same court?”

“Many, indeed, nuns, too,” Rupert remarked. “The court would have many spiritual advisers on hand.”

“And this letter is supposed to refer to a seventh panel? Unlikely but not impossible.” Ella lifted her hands again. Bare of rings, close-cut nails, perfect for handling delicate textiles. “The interesting thing about the letter that causes me to doubt its authenticity is that it does not follow any of the social constructs of the day—no courtly language, nothing that indicates the importance of either the sender or the recipient, non?”

“It almost appears to have been written in haste,” I suggested.

“Yes, I agree.” She smiled. “Or by one who does not comprehend how a letter of the day would be scripted, a forger, perhaps.”

Fair enough.

“And there is no way we can authenticate the handwriting?” Rupert asked.

“Mais non,” Ella assured us, “little has been traced to either the Saint Chappelles or the Le Vistes except dates of marriage and deaths, all through church records. Though important members of the courts of two kings, there is no paper trail for these men. I attribute that to their turbulent times.”

“Indeed, due to the Hundred Years’ War and the ensuing chaos that it wreaked on France.” Rupert realigned the knife crease on his gray flannel trousers and crossed his ankles, flashing his brilliant knit socks. “Indeed. Pardon me, but from your remarks earlier, Ella, I was led to believe that it is your opinion that it is doubtful a seventh tapestry ever existed.”

“Most of my colleagues, and indeed the scholarly world, do not believe that such a tapestry has ever existed,” Ella acknowledged.

“But do you?” Peaches asked.

“I prefer to withhold judgment but I think not. If you regard the tapestries in the series as they are now—” she indicated six poster-sized images of the tapestries framed on the wall over her desk “—you will see that the story appears complete with À Mon Seul Désir. Not only does this panel differ in height but it is the only one that depicts a tent and, with that tent, a label that appears to both define and complete the story.”

I gazed up at À Mon Seul Désir. “What do you believe it means?”

“It most likely refers to the constraints of courtly love that guided the social behavior of the nobility at the time. Wealthy couples married for family betterment, as you know, for political, financial, and status reasons, but rarely for love. Love was as a game that couples played within the safety of the courtly rules. Such rules allowed couples to flirt, to pine, to write songs and poetry to one another, to court romantic love, without actually engaging in the physical act and often while remaining married to another.”

“Amazing,” I mused, gazing up at the images.

Rupert cleared his throat again. “So, in keeping with that concept, the lovers may be permitted to engage the senses depicted in the tapestries up to a point, for example to sniff the flowers, see the object of their desire, to serenade them, and whatnot, but that À Mon Seul Désire, if it could be said that consummation of physical love may be the sole desire, must be safely packed away in a chest, so to speak.”

“That’s brilliant, Rupert,” I enthused. “That’s one interpretation of the tapestries and I suspect there are others.” A jeweled necklace representative of physical love? Maybe.

“Many others,” Ella agreed.

Before we left, we exchanged contact information and I promised to keep her informed as I proceeded with the case. She also offered that I could run things by her as they came up on my search. She’d make herself available to help in any way possible, too. I thanked her warmly.

“She’s great,” Peaches remarked as we stood outside the museum considering next steps. “Nice, easy to talk to. So what’s next—check out someplace else or what?”

“I’m sending an update to Lilly and asking for us to meet her later today,” I said.

Rupert was staring at me. I finally turned to him. “Okay, Rupert, I’m sorry. I kept the details from you because I wanted to get a sense of this case without distraction. Am I forgiven?”

“You are not. The assurances you gave following the Delos case indicated that you would provide a fulsome description of each case as it unfolds. Instead, you attempted to smokescreen your activities as if you did not wish my involvement.”

“Sorry is all I can say. Of course I adore you, Rupert, but I think I felt a bit possessive about this case because it involves textiles, and not just any textiles. I will try to do better, promise.”

A response from Lilly popped up onto my phone screen: Still not sure you’re the right person for the job. Am returning to my uncle’s. Will inform you of my decision tomorrow.

“Wow,” Peaches remarked while gazing over my shoulder. “Cold or what? It’s not like we attacked René ourselves or anything.”

“Who is René?” Rupert inquired while fluffing out his pocket jonquil-colored silk, which naturally matched his tie, which naturally coordinated with his socks.

“One of the security dudes that Lilly hired to protect her against the paparazzi,” Peaches explained. “Really cool guy. He was whacked on the head yesterday by persons unknown. Kind of shook Lilly up. Look, maybe we should just hang around Paris until she makes up her mind?”

I feigned shock. “Peaches, that doesn’t sound like you at all: waiting around for someone else to make up their mind. Did I hear that right?”

“You neglected to add the Paris part. That’s important.”

I grinned. “Right, but I have another idea. We’ll rent a car and drive down to Saint Chappelles and restate our case to Lilly and Henri. Henri really likes you, and with the Sir Rupert Fox on board, our argument will be that much stronger.”

“The Sir Rupert Fox?” Rupert inquired. “Are you attempting to placate me?”

“Yes. Is it working?” Linking my arm in his, I beamed my brightest smile. “Monsieur Henri Saint Chappelles is a bit of a character, a former Parisian interior designer, as you know. He had the notion that we should book ourselves in to the Château Saint Chappelles B and B as interior designers arrived to assist the owners to find a new buyer. He sold the family pile during Covid to cover expenses but now the owners are putting it back on the market. He believes that we could claim that we’re ‘staging’ the property to give us more run of the château.”

Rupert’s brows shot upward.

“I know: How does one stage a château?” I said. “I have no idea, either, but let’s find out. I’m all for telling the DuBoises the truth but I’m taking my client’s lead in this.”

“If we get in there as designers or something we’ll have the roam of the place. The Saint Chappelles believe the tapestry may be hidden somewhere there,” Peaches pointed out.

“Extraordinary,” Rupert remarked. “I do rather like the idea of being a designer.”

“I thought you might but there’s a huge flaw in Henri’s logic: he believes if he finds the tapestry in the Château Saint Chappelles, the tapestry will be his to claim.”

“Which is not the case.” He nodded.

“Definitely not but I haven’t broken that to him yet. If we find it, it could be claimed by the current owners or possibly France itself.”

“Indeed, but I suggest we worry about ownership when and if we find the tapestry. It is, after all, a long shot as they say. Meanwhile, if we are to arrive as designers, it behooves us to dress the part, which I must say, you do not, Phoebe.” He was studying me over the top of his spectacles in a manner that always made me edgy. “One of your art sweaters or wraps will only work if paired with interesting separates that can be mixed and matched without looking too done or too, well, boho. Your total look at the moment does not say stylish, Phoebe, it says shaggy. However, I know just the shop and the person who can assist. Come along.”

Which is how we came to arrive back at our hotel at 5:35 laden with packages and, frankly, exhausted. After retrieving our keys from the desk, the three of us were just crossing the lobby when a tall man stepped out in front of us.

I stood looking up at him, trying to figure out where I’d seen him before. “René?” I finally registered.

“René!” Peaches exclaimed. “Why are you out of the hospital?”

“I was dismissed,” he said in broken English peppered with French. I’m sure he meant discharged. “But you I had to see. I remember something.”

CHAPTER 6

He remembered very little, as it turned out, but still enough to make things interesting. Just before René was chopped on the head—and he swore that’s what it had felt like—he recalled seeing a small dark figure diving through the air toward him. For a brief moment, he thought it was a bird—a big bird.

“Like a bat?” Peaches asked.

“Non, trop grande. C’est très petite. Très quick. There were deux, ah, two, one in front, one behind.”

Must have been two if somebody cracked the rear of his head while the bat thing was diving toward him. On the other hand, had the concussion muddled his thinking? Large bats don’t tend to dive at people at dusk, contrary to popular opinion, unless they were Transylvanian and of the Dracula persuasion. Besides, did they even have cat-sized bats in France?

“Why did you not tell the police, dear chap?” Rupert asked as we sat in the lobby.

René gazed across at Rupert as if he were a hallucination, maybe as a result of Rupert’s blazing yellow accessories. Shaking himself from his apparent confusion, the wounded security guy replied, “I only remember now and I do not like the gendarmes.” He made it sound like a point of honor, no talking to the police.

I studied him, detecting what I thought might be a faint African overlay to his French and English accents. He was an immigrant, too, I guessed. “Where do you hail from, René?”

“Hail?”

“Come from. Where were you born?”

“Sudan,” he admitted. “I come to France many years ago with mother. My true name Abdul. I change. French now.”

I smiled at him. Being a black Muslim immigrant wasn’t easy anywhere. “So, are you still working for Lilly Lin’s security detail?”

His gaze sank to the floor. “She fired company; they fire me.”

“But you were hurt on the job!” Peaches protested. “What about workmen’s compensation, sick leave?”

He stared at her, baffled, maybe a little in awe. She was undeniably magnificent. “I do not know these things.”

“That’s all right. You’ll come with us. We can use extra help on our case,” Peaches said, reaching over and grasping his hand. “We’re going back to Saint Chappelles this afternoon.”

You have to love Peaches’s take-charge attitude. Forget about the legal shenanigans of hiring a French national. In fact, forget the tricky details like offering employment to a man with a head injury unable to actually work. Still, René happily agreed and it was settled.

I caught Rupert’s eye: we’ll pay him under the table.

René offered to drive us down in his little Citroën. Rupert refused in the name of legroom and hired an Alpine A110 sports car, which probably had less capacity than the Citroën but better suited his style. It was bright yellow to match his socks but he swore that was only a coincidence. Peaches and the luggage drove with René and I kept Rupert company.

It was the first time I’d actually seen him behind the wheel. When he had been undercover, Evan had catered to his every need as the chauffeur extraordinaire. Rupert, however, managed the wheel like a pro and had even decked himself out in driving gloves, a peaked cap, and a white silk scarf reminiscent of some World War Two fighter pilot, minus the goggles.

At least now I had apparently been forgiven enough to enjoy a congenial drive into the countryside. I brought him up to speed on all the details I had been withholding as well as a few I hadn’t had the chance yet to disclose. He listened intently, which in itself was a rarity.

“I’m still disgruntled with you,” he said after a few minutes of blissful silence.

“I’ve apologized. There’s nothing more I can do for now but consider this, Rupert: for all the years I’ve known you, you have hidden the truth from me, lied, dissembled, and far worse. It’s only been in the last few years that you’ve begun playing it straight.”

“Ah, but I was working to catch an art thief who I originally believed to be your then paramour and possibly you for a time,” he pointed out. “My undercover sleight of hand was completely necessary given the circumstances. Now I am compelled by the honor and integrity of our agency to be completely honest with you as a member—dare I say leader?—of the team, an approach, I am sad to say, that you failed to uphold with me.”

“Okay, so I initially kept back the details of this case but—” and I took a deep breath “—you are still withholding things from me, too, personal things, I admit, but as friends, I can’t understand why.”

“I am holding back nothing from you, Phoebe. What an astounding thing to say.”

“Forget it. We’re almost here. Take this exit,” I said just as the computerized navigator voice told us the same thing in French.

We fell into silence as the car wound its way down into the valley, me trying to focus on the beautiful French countryside, the hum of exquisite engineering, the plush leather seats, and not the niggle that chewed away at the back of my mind.

Pulling out my phone, I checked my screen: no word from Lilly, just a message from Max complaining that Rupert had left without saying where he was going, one from Serena sending a photo of a carpet they were eyeing at an online auction, and…nothing from Evan. Damn. Didn’t we just share a wonderful few days? Does such romantic bliss simply end without a postscript? I was an adult, I reminded myself, not some insecure teenager. I pocketed my phone.

As we drove through the village, I pointed the way to the gatehouse while the little Citroën followed behind. “We need to convince Lilly that we are the team for the job before we book into the château B and B,” I remarked.

“Yes, indeed,” Rupert acknowledged, “but I have taken the liberty of registering at the château in advance under our assumed names.”

We had assumed names now. “What about our passports?” I protested.

Rupert sighed gustily. “I will dispense both you and Peaches with false passports for the purpose of our stay in order to support our little ruse.” He shot me a quick glance. “Phoebe, do not look so shocked. Surely you realize by now that the agency always has a selection of false passports on hand in the event that a mission may require undercover personas? Each of us have three or four that will do in a pinch. I doubt they will be too deeply scrutinized.”

I kept forgetting. A part of me hadn’t yet quite adjusted to this new life. “And I am…?”

“You are Phoebe Wentworth, a fledgling designer from London and the newest member of my firm, Carpe Diem Design Inc. I haven’t had business cards made up—one can only do so much overnight—but I do have a virtual one on hand. Peaches is Penelope Guy Françoise from Haiti and a senior member of my firm.”

“And you are the chief designer, of course.”

“Of course, and you are our newest, least experienced member.”

The fledgling. Got it.

“And yet, if I understand correctly, staging isn’t redecorating so much as it is rearranging. It's about plumping up the curb appeal of real estate and making an interior more appealing for prospective buyers.”

“Exactly.”

“Which surely works better for houses than for castles,” I reasoned. “So, what does make a castle more salable—a new turret, the latest in baronial hall chic, perhaps? Even a fledgling designer should know that much.”

He smiled as we pulled into the lane beyond Henri’s gates. “I believe you are overthinking this, Phoebe.”

Two uniformed guards stood outside talking into their phones. Lilly must have hired a new security team. “Shit,” I muttered.

While Rupert addressed the guards, I shot off a text to Lilly: We’re here just outside the gatehouse. Can we talk?

She was marching up to me minutes later, Chouchou bolting out ahead of her, greeting me with excited yaps. “What’s the meaning of this? I’ve un-hired you, I said.” Today, casually dressed in gray joggers with a baseball cap, she was the picture of California chic.

I launched into my spiel immediately while gathering the dog up into my arms. “Lilly, we’re the only ones who can locate this missing tapestry. You need us. We’ll begin with combing the château since my agency has high-tech tools uniquely able to X-ray walls without moving a stone.” I pulled back my head to avoid doggy kisses, then gave up and offered my chin. “However, in order to locate a missing ancient artifact of this importance, we need to better understand the time in which it was created. Once we understand the context, we’re that much closer. I’ve already begun.”

Lilly was gazing at me, clearly pondering the possibilities, while Rupert was addressing Henri, who had just ambled out in a pair of jeans and tall boots with a striped T-shirt over all, his look complete with a matching kerchief knotted at his neck.

Henri was busy inspecting Rupert and Rupert inspected him back. “Sir Rupert Fox? A member of the aristocracy?” he asked in French.

Rupert explained that he had married into a wealthy family but that his parents were actually working class and Jewish. I have no idea why he disclosed so much personal information in the first few moments of acquaintance—that was a first, to my knowledge—but Henri suddenly embraced him as if such candor was an expression of friendship.

Lilly and I turned in amazement to gaze at the two men. Rupert was now pointing toward the château; Henri, apparently excited and engaged, nodded enthusiastically. There was much hand flapping and exclamations going on. I released Chouchou to go have a yap at Rupert.

Lilly shook her head. “Looks like it’s out of my hands.”

“Does that mean that we’re rehired again? It’s like a meeting of the eccentrics, British and French versions, by the way. That’s Sir Rupert Fox. He’ll be booking into the château as designer extraordinaire, advising the owners on the best way to stage the property as per Henri’s suggestion. Standing with Peaches you might recognize René, who was the security guy hit on the head yesterday.”

“Why is he even here?” Lilly asked. “I fired them all.”

“Peaches thinks he can be helpful. Have there been any further incidents?”

“No.” Before she had an opportunity to continue, Henri approached with Rupert, and in the stream of French that followed, I gathered that the agency had been hired, as I suspected.

“Brilliant ruse!” Henri exclaimed. “We will surely find the tapestry now. Rupert—” pronounced Rupair “—has state-of-the-art tools and wall-penetrating radar in his phone, Lilly, imagine that!”

Rupert kissed Lilly’s hand. “I am a great fan, madam, and my deepest congratulations on your recent nomination. The judges would be blind not to award you the highest award for your flawless depiction of a serial killer. Masterful, truly masterful, and I eagerly await your next astounding performance.” And so Rupert won over Lilly’s resistance and the deal appeared further secured. Chouchou yapped her approval.

The enthusiastic discussion between Rupert and Henri continued all the way into the house where coffee, tea, and pastries were served while Rupert laid out the plan for finding the tapestry. After that, Rupair was given the grand tour of the cottage by Henri, leaving the rest of us sitting in the yellow salon trying to squeeze one more pastry under our proverbial belts. René remained in the garden at his own insistence, keeping watch while appearing to devour more pastries than the rest of us combined.

“Looks like Rupert and your uncle are of like mind,” I remarked, brushing crumbs from my knitwear onto my plate. It’s a little known fact that hand-knit anything gloms onto crumbs like a mass of fuzzy little incisors.

Newly decked out in a black 1999 Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking jacket over leggings, compliments of Madame DesCartes from Au Revoir, Bon Jour, Paris’s foremost vintage and consignment shop, I needed to wear my “artistic flair” minus the snack residue. My beloved Melancholy wrap added multiple shades of burgundy and teal to enliven my monochromatic vintage couture but presumably a dusting of sugar and crumbs might spoil the effect.

“Yeah,” Lilly sighed. “Uncle Henri rarely makes friends but it sounds like he’s found one in your boss.”

I looked up. “Actually, Rupert’s not my boss but I don’t blame you for assuming that. He likes to play a few roles himself.”

She grinned. “I figured as much. Where did you get that wrap, anyway? Oh, I just love it.” Lilly reached over to feel my stitchery. “Wow, so soft. Silk and cashmere?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m working on one in berry shades interlaced with streaming tones of butterscotch and caramel with dollops of creamy silk, my tribute to French patisserie.”

“Hey, Lilly,” Peaches interrupted. “While the guys are up there discussing paint, maybe you could show me a few of the moves you did in Princess Bai and the Mongolian Dream?”

Lilly turned. “You know I had a stunt double who did most of those moves, don’t you? And part of it was animated.”

“Yes, but you must have learned something. Don’t actors go into training for that kind of movie?”

“Well, yes, I was trained by a martial arts expert for months.”

“Then show me something! I always longed to do some of those ninja moves.”

Lilly assessed Peaches’s long body for a moment. “Your point of gravity may be too long for some of these maneuvers. True martial arts maestros are much shorter.”

Peaches shrugged. “If Keanu Reeves can do it, so can I. We’re about the same height.”

That provoked another grin. “Yeah, why not? Ninja is Japanese, by the way, but who cares? Come on, I’ll show you a few tricks.”

The moment the two of them stepped into the garden, I pulled out my phone and settled back into research. I was stuck on Charles VII for the moment, the king for whom one Le Viste had worked as a court lawyer. There were multiple Le Vistes, it turned out.

King Charles seemed to be an odd duck. Called “The Victorious” or alternatively “The Well Served,” he came to the French throne under difficult circumstances. Not only did English forces backed by the Duke of Burgundy occupy Paris and other important parts of France at the time, but his father, Charles VI, had disinherited him back in 1420, naming the English monarch Henry V as his successor. I mean, seriously? Ouch.

So Papa Charles had thrown over his own son in favor of the English king? I knew that Europe was a muddle of cross-political monarchial successions but since when did a French king throw over his bloodline for an English monarch? For politics, as it turns out. French daughters married off to English kings to secure peace, which, in this case, failed miserably. An unstable king who was often forced to leave his rule up to regents, Charles VII’s father only further stirred up a fractious Hundred Years’ War. It appears that his queen may have been partially behind the disinheritance of Charles Junior.

I glanced up from my phone long enough to see a pair of long legs flying in the air somersault-style beyond the garden windows. My gaze returned to my phone to stare at a painting of Charles VII, where the monarch sat enrobed in red velvet with a sulky expression that made him appear ready to cry. For a man who had regained the throne against impossible odds, he certainly looked miserable. If it weren’t for Joan of Arc, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. Maybe that was guilt.

Moments later, Rupert and Henri entered the room chatting away in French.

“I do appreciate a finely turned furniture leg in mahogany with just a hint of inlay but my oak spindle-post tester bed is still among my favorite pieces,” Rupert enthused.

And here I always thought his collection of Roman gold laurel-leaf crowns ranked as his favorite.

“And mine is, above all, my Louis XIV gilded canopy bed, a gift to one of the Saint Chappelles from the king himself,” Henri countered.

“Which king?” I asked.

“Pardonnez-moi?”

“Which king did your ancestor receive the bed from?”

“Louis XI. Why do you ask?”

I stood up from where I was perching on the settee. “I’m trying to find out more about one of your ancestors, the priest who may have been in the court of Charles VII, the relative to the Le Viste. King Louis was the wrong timeline. Did you have other Saint Chappelles working with other French courts?”

Henri blinked at me as if I had wrenched his thoughts away from the delights of antiques and decor to plunge him into the difficult mechanisms of French history. “But of course,” he said, straightening. “Just as Jean Le Viste had worked for both the court of Charles VI as well as Charles VII, so did my ancestor, Father Louis. He was a religious adviser to both kings, a priest of some note.”

“Why do you believe Jean Le Viste was the one who worked with Charles VII? His dates place him much earlier. Why not Antoine Le Viste?” I asked.

Henri shrugged. “But no one knows for certain, n’est ce pas? The dates are not clear.”

“True, but if it was Antoine Le Viste, that puts your ancestor right in the thick of Joan of Arc’s first meeting with Charles at Chinon where she convinced him that she had been visited by the archangel Michael and would help make him king of France. Your family could have been a key player.”

CHAPTER 7

If there ever was a woman betrayed by the mechanizations of male political power, it was Jeanne d’Arc. Named “the Maid of Orléans,” she rose from being a peasant girl besieged by visions to the spiritual leader of a nation, one who had commanded armies into battle against the English-backed Burgundians to reclaim the throne for France. She was at Charles’s side in Reims when he was crowned King Charles VII and went on to lead multiple campaigns that eventually ended the Hundred Years’ War.

After leading armies to further advance on English strongholds in France, she was captured by Burgundian troops and traded to the English. Charles VII’s efforts to release his champion is murky, but from the time she was put on trial by the pro-English Bishop Pierre Cauchon and charged with heresy, there appeared to be little intervention on the part of the king. In 1430, she was burned at the stake at only age nineteen.

For decades, her name was besmirched as a heretic until Pope Callixtus III declared the original trial politically motivated and reversed the findings. She was eventually beatified and canonized.

I stared across at Henri. “France had a girl warrior supposedly backed by angels and saints whose leadership helped regain France’s identity and release the nation against English-backed intrigue and invasion. For that she was burned at the stake. Sort of redefines one’s definition of traitor, right? How do you think the Saint Chappelles felt about that, or any French family who lived during this time, noble or peasant alike? They would have heard about this incredible girl, perhaps even seen her riding through the villages—an amazing sight at any age, a girl and a peasant in charge of an army and she delivered on her promises. For that she was tortured, burned!”

Henri slapped his hand across his heart, his eyes wet. “A travesty! The pain the French still feel in our hearts here.” He thumped his chest. “Jeanne d’Arc is our martyr, France’s own patron saint, well-loved forever.”

I stood. “What I’m getting at, Henri, is that Joan of Arc was betrayed by the very king she helped crown. He did little to save her. Meanwhile, your family was somewhere in the thick of it. Your priest Louis must have seen it unfold in court, possibly even begged his king to rescue the holy maiden, yet ended up forced to watch her die for political expediency. Maybe he was even his king’s confessor.”

“Left alive, Joan was too much of a threat,” Rupert agreed. “She could rally supporters around her at the drop of a gauntlet and would continue to rage against the pockets of English supporters at every opportunity. After his coronation, Charles had to don the mantle of diplomacy and negotiate with the straggle of still powerful Burgundians in order to unify his country. In all probability, Charles VII had bargained behind the scenes to let her trial go forward. He sacrificed her, in truth.”

“And thirty years after Joan’s death, the tapestries were presumably commissioned, though no one really knows for certain when,” I said. “The drawings may have been done much earlier and hidden before the Le Vistes believed it safe to formally launch the commission. Possibly they were commissioned by Antoine Le Viste, another prominent lawyer but in Charles VII’s court, or they were a family secret through two generations. Along with the Le Vistes, the Saint Chappelles were also at the same court only as spiritual advisers rather than legal ones.”

“Phoebe, what the devil are you getting at?” Rupert demanded.

I stared at each of the two men in turn. “I don’t know,” I said, “but I’m getting that itch in my spine again. I’m on to something.”

In strode Lilly, busy plucking leaves from her joggers, while Peaches trailed behind practicing air chops. “Okay,” Lilly puffed. “It’s almost 4:30. Are you going to take the design team up to the château and introduce them to the DeBoises, Uncle Henri? I thought I’d book us all in for dinner at 8:30. The DeBoises have a very good chef they bring in from the village. All I need do is call to say we’re coming.”

After we had tidied up a bit, we climbed into two cars, Chouchou included, wearing a natty little embossed leather collar with a pink bow catching her topknot, and drove about a mile up a hill toward the château, arriving shortly after six p.m. To say that the structure was impressive understated the effects of a looming white stone multiturreted building constructed as much as a fortress as a home. The French knew how to make a castle, leaving the English versions no more than austere bastions in comparison.

“It has been many times renovated over the centuries,” Henri explained as we piled out onto the gravel drive surrounded by shaggy topiary and crumbling cement flowerpots. Once I imagined those yew trees ahead must have been shaped into fantastical creations but now looked more like clusters of badly behaved puppies lounging by the foundations.

Henri muttered his disgust under his breath.

“Indeed,” huffed Rupert, gazing up at the spires and turrets sprouting from the multilevel roofs like some kind exuberant Game of Thrones birthday cake. “I recognize traditional French, Renaissance, and baroque influences here.”

“Oh, yeah. It was once a castle and then a château, right?” Peaches was studying every inch of the structure, too.

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

“A castle is defensive, a château is not. See the squarish central structure with the surrounding thick stone walls branching out? That would have been initially built to withstand attacks. It’s a kind of keep and those sections must date as far back as maybe the 1300s. Then successive renovations after that are when the sharply pointed turrets in the architectural promenade style came in.” She was pointing overhead. “And then that part rising up there is pure Renaissance with the arched windows. Cool.”

“This was once a moat, n’est ce pas?” Henri indicated the deep depression that surrounded the foundations. Sometimes it was difficult to tell whether he was asking or telling when he mixed French with English. “The Duke Saint Chappelles drained it in1602 because les mosquitos buzz-buzz.” He flapped his hand and Chouchou barked.

Moments later we were crossing the drawbridge into a courtyard where a man and a much taller woman strode across the pavers toward us.

Eduard DuBois, greeting us with a ready smile, was a lean man of about thirty with short-cropped blond hair dressed in a white shirt and blue linen pants with bare feet tucked into woven leather loafers. Dark-haired Natalie DuBois was equally svelte in her red silk palazzo pants and high heels, the gold bracelets gleaming on finely toned tanned arms.

My first impression was of two people who very much wanted to be to the château born. I had learned on our way up the hill that Eduard had made his first fortune in advertising, Natalie in PR, both originally hailing from Paris. It seemed they had now resigned themselves to returning to the city to regain their careers and possibly in order to refresh their capital after maintaining a château during the pandemic.

Much enthusiastic greetings between the DuBoises and Saint Chappelles followed after which we were introduced as the British design team arrived to help put the Château Saint Chappelles on the international castle market/grand estate map. The whole thing struck me as bizarre but Rupert had risen as star performer and managed to infuse an air of credibility while Henri enthused away about Carpe Diem’s fame. Peaches stood by with a regal tilt to her head while I stood smiling and trying to shake off a knob of crusted sugar I saw clinging to my wrap. Chouchou had bolted across the courtyard for the open door and Lilly took off after him.

“This is the grand hall,” Eduard explained in French as he took us through to the baronial space, a huge long room the size of an auditorium with a black-and-white zigzag pattern decorating the stone walls. A high timber-peaked roof rose overhead while wooden balconies encircled the entire space. I gazed up at the circular wagon-wheel-sized wrought-iron candelabras dangling at regular intervals along the room and suppressed a wave of vertigo.

Eyes back down, I focused on the comfortable furniture that had been gathered around several round tables with additional seating areas near the two monstrous fireplaces at each end. Over the thick stone walls several eighteenth-century-style pastoral French tapestries hung in an attempt to warm the room, replicas all, with a few Persian-style rugs thrown over the flagstones here and there.

“In this room we serve breakfast,” Natalie was saying, “and the couches against the wall are for the guests’ pleasure. The television room is through that side door and next to that we have a library stocked with a range of English and French titles. At first we had hoped to welcome many American and British visitors but our timing was very bad with the pandemic. Do you see how this area might be improved, Sir Fox?”

“Mais oui,” Rupert assured her, lifting his hands as if about to conjure up accents. “More pillows of velvet and needlepoint would enhance the sense of regal comfort immediately. Small touches such as huge bouquets of flowers are always appropriate as are other small items that give the appearance of grandeur without compromising comfort. In my own estate, I have employed these things.” He was definitely in his element.

“The bedrooms are up there,” Eduard was telling Peaches while indicating the rooms along the balcony. “We try to restrict the guests to this part of the château and keep doors into the other wings locked as we have been unable to afford full renovations.”

I had finally shaken the sugar bit onto the slate-tiled floor and watched Chouchou lap it up in seconds when I remembered that I had a role to play in this little pantomime. “But of course. However, we will need to investigate every inch of the building, you understand.”

“Every corner,” Peaches added, standing arms crossed, staring straight ahead at a set of armor that appeared to be staring right back.

Eduard shot us a tense smile. “That is inadvisable unless either I or Natalie accompany you. These old châteaus are filled with dangers—crumbling stone, unstable planking. My wife suffered an accident just this winter when a chunk of plaster hit her on the head in the west wing. You cannot investigate the château alone, non?”

“Oui, we can.” Peaches fixed him with a brilliant smile. “We have arrived to assess the building for resale and complete honesty is necessary, meaning that I and my colleagues will study every inch for structural integrity.” Her French was a bit spotty but her message was clear.

A cloud crossed Eduard’s pleasant visage. The poor man seemed alarmed to the point of panic. “But no, you are not real estate agents but staging agents so the structural integrity is not your concern.”

Peaches appeared startled. She had forgotten that point.

“Ah, Eduard, mon ami, do not be so stern,” said Henri, throwing one long arm over the younger man’s shoulders. “I know that you worry over this great responsibility that burdens you. Worry, worry, that is the price of owning a château, non? The insurance costs alone are so extreme, the things that need to be repaired endless. But my friends, they have come to help you prepare this château for sale and maybe I buy it back so we must permit them free rein, oui?”

I looked up and smiled. “Besides, we’re bonded. Would you mind showing us to our rooms?”

Natalie seemed eager to comply. René, who stood beside me, looked ready to topple over and I needed to get him horizontal pronto.

“This way.” She smiled as she moved to help me with my luggage. I had only a roller and a carpet backpack so I shook my head.

“Tell me, Natalie,” I asked as we climbed the wooden stairway to the balcony level passing by mounted swords and shields, many of which were no doubt replicas, “I heard Eduard say that you had been injured over the winter. Hit on the head by flying plaster?”

Natalie turned back to me as she paused by a thick arched door. The skin over her high cheekbones seemed to tauten and her blue eyes fixed on mine widened. One hand flicked a length of long brown hair from her face. “Plaster does not fly but—” she shrugged “—this one flew. It was strange. I was inspecting a leaking roof—we have had many—but this one needed immediate attention. It seemed to grow by the day. Eduard was in Paris arranging roofers and I was here alone with only a handful of helpers hired from the village to clean, cook. It was a horrible winter, one I never wish to repeat. Suddenly, I see something big and black flying from one of the windows. Before I could cry out, I was hit on the head and shoved to the ground. Eduard found me hours later in a pile of crumbled stone. It was horrible!”

“I’m so sorry.” Now I understood how the DuBoises were not only financially eager to be rid of the château but terrified to remain.

“I will help protect you,” René said.

She smiled and touched his arm. I could tell instantly that she had assessed his state of health and possibly his nature, too. “What a sweet man you are! So gallant. Perhaps you would like to rest now in this room. It has a big tester bed perfect for a large man. Dinner is at eight o’clock.” She gave him a warm grateful smile and opened the door to urge him to enter, which he did.

“Have you experienced any other unusual events here?” I asked as we continued down the hall.

“Mais oui. It is so strange. We enter abandoned rooms and find piles of stone, not like they have fallen down but as if they have been removed piece by piece. It makes no sense.”

Ah, but it did. It meant that we were not the only ones looking for something valuable in the Château Saint Chappelles.

CHAPTER 8

Just before supper I texted Peaches and Rupert to meet in my room.

“After everyone goes to bed, we’ll go through the castle room by room using our X-ray apps,” I told them, holding up my phone. “If we divide up, we can take it in sections. The app may not reveal much since it only picks up metal but Evan added a new feature that maps depressions or cavities through stone. That will help.”

“Just be careful of the security system,” Peaches said. “Believe it or not, they actually have one here, even if it does only secure the main living quarters. No problem, though. We can deactivate that pretty quickly." She leaned forward. “Hey, a text from Evan just popped up onto your screen.”

I pulled back my phone and replaced it in my pocket to read later. “So, look, Natalie tells me that there’s been strange occurrences going on around here. She was hit on the head while investigating one of the deteriorating wings this winter. She thought she saw something flying toward her. Sound familiar?”

“The same sort of flying thing that hit René? Have they determined whether they have killer bats in France?” Peaches asked.

“Not likely. I’m thinking that there is definitely another interested party searching this château, maybe the same group watching the Saint Chappelles, but they’re not of the nocturnal beastie kind,” I said. “We need to be careful.”

“In that case, we’d best perform our searches in pairs,” Rupert pointed out before doing the math. “Well, that will not work unless we include René, will it? I do not think the lad is up to it tonight. Perhaps we three must remain together.”

“But that will take too long,” said I. “This place is huge.”

“Lilly and Henri will help and they know the château,” Peaches said.

“Good idea. I shall ask them at the next opportunity,” Rupert said. “Shall we convene in the hall outside at 1:30 a.m.?”

“Great. What about the guard team Lilly hired?” I asked.

“I suggest that we leave them to watch the grounds,” Rupert said.

Just then, the gong rang for dinner, a deep sound reverberating with an almost teeth-rattling intensity.

“What the hell was that?” Peaches asked, gazing upward.

“It does sound like one of those Chinese Bao gongs, a mite incongruous for a French château, n’est ce pas?” Rupert stood to straighten his dinner jacket and readjust my blouse collar while he was at it. This was the very same silk couture top that my Italian friend Nicolina had bought me years ago and the most expensive thing in my wardrobe. “So last year,” he muttered once satisfied that I looked reasonably pulled together.

“What’s the difference between ‘vintage’ and ‘so last year’?” I asked, not bothering to hide my irritation.

“It’s all in the eye of the beholder, my friend.” Turning away, he added: “Let us descend to discover the source of that metallic ding-dong.”

René was waiting in the hall wearing the same gray joggers and hoodie he’d worn all day.

“Dear boy, do you not have anything more formal?” Rupert inquired, looking up at him.

“Non. A pair of jeans and a shirt.”

“Well, do go get changed and I will lend you a tie. Will lime-green silk suit?”

Clearly René didn’t care. He emerged from his room moments later and stood obediently while Rupert tied a Windsor knot on his plaid shirt. After that, we met up with Lilly on the stairs. She had donned a black silk tuxedo suit over jeans with a pink boa tossed over all.

“Natalie prefers her guests to dress in gowns for dinner but this is as dressed up as I’m going to get.”

“Lilly, about the gong—” I began.

“A gift to my mother from Uncle Tengfeng. When Uncle Henri sold the château, he didn’t want the thing so we left it for the new owners. Follow me, guys. We’ll dine in what I consider along with the library to be the best room in the château."

Down the stairs through room after room, passing pseudo suits of armor with a few genuine antiques thrown in until finally we ended up in a wood paneled room that to me spoke pure château.

“Ah, magnifique!” exclaimed Rupert as he gazed about the long space hung as it was with two genuine Flemish tapestries that I inspected closely before I could do another thing. I had glimpsed Henri seated at the far end of a banquet table in a tête-à-tête with Eduard but was too enchanted by the sixteenth-century hunting tapestries to pay much attention.

“These are genuine!” I gasped.

“Those were sold with the château, too,” Lilly said. “So sad. I would have hung them in my LA condo in a minute.”

“What a stunning room!” Rupert enthused.

“Merci. This is where we poured most of our renovation euros. The paneling has been restored and we installed new windows into the garden at, oh, so much expense. Ah, well. We had capital in those days.”

I turned. Natalie had just stepped in carrying two wine bottles with a maid following with a tray of hors d'oeuvres. For the first time I noticed the graceful arched wall of paned glass at the room’s far end that looked out onto a fairy-lit back courtyard. “It is similar in design to the library, which is next door,” she added.

“You can see the Loire River from out there. Had it been warmer, we would have invited you to taste the valley’s finest vintages while seated in the garden but, as it is, we will remain here, non?” our host said, standing and offering a seat with a wave of his hand while his wife poured the wine, two glasses each, white and red.

“The Saint Chappelles once owned a vineyard,” Henri sighed. “Now it, too, is gone. All gone.” In his lap sat Chouchou as if one of the dinner party. By the looks Natalie cast the little dog, she was not pleased by the arrangement.

Rather than spreading out along the sizable table, we had all joined Eduard and Natalie on one end where the table had been set for ten.

“Do you have other guests coming?” I asked, picking up a glass of white along with a slice of brie. I reminded myself to take it easy with the wine but to enjoy it, anyway.

“Mais oui, two more just booked earlier this afternoon. We are so excited to have our château filled with guests at last!” Natalie smiled and took a seat, unfurling her napkin in the process. Garbed in a sapphire-toned silk flowered gown, she seemed so much more at ease, almost happy. “Know that Eduard and I are thrilled that you have come to help us to sell but by coincidence this new guest arriving says that she may be interested in purchasing a château. Imagine that? All these good things happening at once after a winter of trauma.”

Over the table I caught Rupert’s eye. Was he thinking what I was thinking, that the last thing we needed was more guests underfoot while we combed the grounds for possible textile treasure?

If it weren’t for the fact that our goal might eventually result in a happy outcome for both the DuBoises and the Saint Chappelles, I might have felt guilty about our ruse. Now I was more afraid that the new guests might actually buy the place from right under Henri’s nose. The poor man had blanched the shade of boiled haddock.

“Seriously?” I asked. “You may have a buyer already?”

Leaning forward, she added: “She did not say that she was necessarily interested in purchasing the Château Saint Chappelles, just that she always wanted to own a château, so I think why not this château? It is the first possible buyer we’ve had. Others phone and ask questions but never follow through with a visit.”

“Except that couple who only came for a good meal last summer,” Eduard added. “They said they were serious buyers but piffff!” He shrugged. “They were more interested in eating and drinking our wine.”

“What price are you asking?” Rupert inquired while Henri still sat in stricken silence.

“Approximately two million euros,” Eduard said. “Cheap by British standards, non?”

Henri snapped one hand over his face. “Sacré bleu! But I sold it to you for one point five!”

Another shrug from Eduard. “That is the way, mon ami. You sold it to us during the first pandemic wave. The market improves as things open up, non?”

“Right now condos in Toronto are going for over a million dollars so a couple of million for a château sounds like a bargain,” I exclaimed, sipping my wine while wondering what Henri had done with all that loot.

“The real estate market has hyperventilated in many North American cities and towns, it is true, with prices far exceeding expectations, partly as a result of Covid,” Rupert remarked while holding up his glass to study the color and “legs” of the wine. “But it is sad to say that this same rise in prices is not translated into the French estate market, as I understand. However, in your case, my dear hosts, the key will be to convince your prospective buyers that owning this château is a business opportunity. Allow me to raise a toast: to a successful staging venture. My colleagues and I will look forward to assisting you in this undertaking! Cheers!”

Throughout the evening the wine flowed; the coq au vin was magnificent, the confit de canard interesting, the salade Niçoise delish, and don’t even get me started on the chocolate soufflé. The conversation was relaxed with both Eduard and Natalie seeming to enjoy being hosts. I could see why they had longed for this particular enterprise, though I guessed that their current joviality had something to do with the prospects of achieving liberation from the glorious albatross overhead.

The prospective buyers did not arrive in time for dinner or even dessert. Apparently they had been delayed in Paris but were on their way. While my companions continued to enjoy the wine, I excused myself in order to get a few hours’ sleep before the long night ahead.

Rupert was deeply engrossed in a conversation with Henri while Chouchou nibbled at delicacies Henri plucked from the table for her enjoyment and Natalie looked on with dismay. Eduard was deep in conversation with Peaches over his problems with shoring up the east wing’s roof system. Lilly, however, looked as weary as I. We escaped together.

“That’s what the DuBoises and my uncle talk about all the time—dissecting the château’s restoration needs. Uncle dreams of the day when he’ll hang the missing tapestry in the great hall and people will come from all over the world to see it.”

That was a long shot but I didn’t have the heart to say anything just then. “What happened to the money that your uncle received when he sold the château?”

“It went to his creditors. He had gone so deep into the hole trying to keep on top of the renovations that he thought he’d never dig himself out. All he’s left with is enough money to keep himself in relative comfort in his cottage until whenever.”

On the way back to the central staircase we took a different way, passing by an enormous brass gong framed on its carved cherrywood stand.

“Wow. That must have cost something to ship from China. Did your uncle Tengfeng visit often?”

“Twice, I think. When he did he always seemed to get in an argument with Mom. He didn’t like her marrying Dad and even less about her raising two Chinese kids in France. Mimi and I were sent to stay with him for a month in Beijing when we were in our early teens. He was very big on trying to teach us what it meant to be Chinese. It was interesting, but for a kid like me, I just wanted to watch American television and eat potato chips all day. As far as I was concerned at the time, Chinese was a race not a disposition.”

I laughed. “And Mimi?”

“She was his A student, always trying to please her uncle Tengfeng.” We had arrived at our floor. “Do you think who we are is in our genes or in our upbringing?”

“Both,” I said. “It has to be, doesn’t it? But I think mostly in our upbringing, which is when we humans study what’s on the proverbial table and decide who and what we want to be. You decided not to be Chinese but your sister chose differently.”

She smiled sadly. “But it doesn’t have to be either/or. I’m proud to be of Chinese descent. I just don’t believe that means I have to hate everybody who isn’t. Still, maybe Mimi is less conflicted than I am because of her choices, not that I really know her anymore.”

“So you’ve chosen from two tables and not just one. That’s the choice of a global human.”

“I guess, but sometimes that leaves me feeling like nothing is truly mine and that somehow I need to start from scratch and define myself my own way.” She shrugged, a pure French gesture that echoed her uncle’s. “Anyway, see you at 1:30. I thought we’d start at the oldest part of the château first. It’s in the worse shape but may be the most logical place to begin.”

“Lilly.”

She paused, hand on the doorknob.

“I don’t think the tapestry is here. I’m going through the motions because your uncle is so convinced. I just need to tell you that.”

“I know but Uncle Henri is desperate to believe it’s here because that’s the only hope he has of laying claim to it.”

“If it exists, he probably can’t lay claim to it, anyway. Still, I’ll find it one way or the other and we can worry about legalities later. If the provenance leads clearly back to the Saint Chappelles, there may still be a case for the family’s ownership,” I told her. “We’ll worry about that when the time comes. See you later.”

I entered my room, a grand yet cozy space with high ceilings and a cheerful toile-blue-and-white wallpaper to ward away the mental chill. Switching on the Tiffany-style lamps, I bolted the door, and sat down to savor Evan’s message. It filled my screen with a picture of a Sardinian sunset, all liquid gold and flaming orange. Below the picture, I read:

You are constantly in my mind, as illuminating as any sunrise or sunset, filling me with warmth, hope, and joy. I cannot wait to hold you in my arms again and I spend far too many moments imaging the two of us together.

And then he added a few lines of poetry by the French poet Paul Éluard:

Au bout de tous mes voyages

Au fond de tous mes tourments,

Au tournant de tous les rires

Sortant de l’eau et feu

At the end of my travels

At the bottom of all my torments,

At the turn of all laughter

Coming out of water and fire

Entre mes bras je t’ai vue

Dans mes rêves je t’ai vue

Je ne te quitterai plus

In my arms I saw you

In my dreams I saw you

I will not leave you anymore

I will not leave you anymore. But of course he would leave me as I would leave him. The two of us had our work, our passions. Then we would return to one another. Therein lay the power, the excitement, of love.

Did I just think that word? Yes. Closing my eyes, I fell back on the bed with a smile on my face. I didn’t even read the other messages that had crowded onto my phone screen.

Apparently, I fell asleep in that position because it seemed like only moments later that my phone pinged and that someone was knocking on my door. I checked the time: 1:45 a.m. already.

Lurching up off the bed, I slid back the bolt to find Peaches standing outside dressed in her skintight black stealth gear, Lilly standing behind her.

“You’d better change, woman. Hear that?”

A dog was yapping somewhere deep in the château. “Chouchou? But why isn't he with Henri?” I asked.

“That’s the problem,” Lilly said, poking her head around the corner. “My uncle’s door is wide open and he and Chouchou are gone. He didn’t even take his phone!”

CHAPTER 9

Lilly followed the sound of frantic yapping and we followed Lilly. So far, the rest of the house appeared to remain undisturbed, including the DuBoises, whose rooms were at the end of the hall. The two other closed doors I spotted must be the late arrivals.

We downed several flights of stairs, entered multiple doors to cross gloomy chambers where we briefly sliced the darkness with our phone lights. Peaches deactivated all the security features right up until we reached the part of the château that had been cordoned off. The huge oak door hung wide open on its hinges, the scent of mildew emanating like a foul presence from the darkness beyond.

Once we had entered the first unused corridor, Lilly began calling for her uncle and Chouchou. The dog had stopped barking, which was worrying in itself. We navigated empty spaces while flashing our phone lights over moldering curtains, splotched wallpaper, and the occasional piece of broken furniture shoved against the wall. One room seemed to be tiled completely in mirrors.

“The ballroom,” Lilly remarked.

“Venetian glass,” Rupert muttered. He was having trouble keeping up and occasionally spent too long investigating a patch of wallpaper or textile or something else until either Peaches or I pried him away. Otherwise, we trailed along, Lilly, me, Peaches, and Rupert, in that order. René always brought up the rear as if watching our backs.

The rooms seemed to go on and on, deteriorating by degrees the deeper we went. “Lilly,” Rupert puffed, “do you really know the lay of the land?”

“Of course,” she said without pausing. “I grew up here. My sister and I made the château our playground. Nothing Mom and Dad could do could kept us out. The fact that it was dangerous made it all the more enticing."

“Look,” I said, flashing my light on a tumble of stones that appeared to have fallen from a wall. “Those didn’t just crumble by themselves. Somebody pried them out.”

“With a crowbar, by the looks of things.” Peaches pointed to the gouge marks in the plaster.

“Come on, guys!” Lilly urged us. “I think I hear Chouchou whimpering ahead!”

We quickened our pace, navigating around various impediments that appeared to have fallen from the roof or a wall.

“This is one of the oldest parts,” Lilly said as we entered a round flagstone space open to the sky. “Used to be a tower. Dad always wanted to restore it but it’s so far away from the main living areas he couldn’t get around the logistics. Chouchou! Uncle Henri!” she called. “I thought I heard the sound in this direction.”

The five of us suddenly stilled. A chill breeze was howling in around the crumbling battlements overhead creating an eerie cry like ghosts caught in the mortar. I shivered.

“Is that what you heard?” I whispered.

“I don’t think so. This was always one of the creepiest parts.” Lilly was aiming her flashlight overhead to where tuffs of grass and shrubbery grew out of cracks in the wall. “But it sounded…different. See that hole covered up there?” She beamed the light down on a cement square in the center of the space. “The oubliette is underneath that. Nothing down there but bones. Dad long ago covered it up.”

And then a human cry shattered the air.

“This way!” Peaches pushed past Lilly and bolted through an arched opening. Soon we were all racing into a little courtyard, or at least that’s what it looked like.

Henri was splayed facedown on the stone attempting to push himself up. Overhead a black figure was scaling up what looked to be an outer wall. Peaches attempted to climb up after him while I aimed my laser app in his direction. The first blast missed the figure by a foot and by the time I’d taken aim again he had disappeared.

Lilly and Rupert were beside Henri; Henri was crying for Chouchou but the dog was nowhere to be seen. Peaches was balancing on top of the wall cursing as she tried to pick her way across the broken surface looking for a way down while René rushed to help, calling out in French for her to fall into his arms.

“You’ve got to be bloody kidding me!” Peaches shouted down in English.

I left them and climbed out through a hole in the wall onto what looked to be a broad hilly meadow where I could see the village lights far below. I didn’t know exactly where I was going but knew that the dark shadow thing couldn’t have gone far. There was only one direction for it to escape: straight down the wall and away.

The château was perched on a knoll overlooking the Loire Valley with nothing nearby but copses of trees and piles of ruins. Using the phone and starlight to guide me, I ran blindly, looking for movement in the shadows ahead, but saw nothing significant. Everything seemed to move—tall grass, trees. It was only by chance that I caught the shape of something small and white crouching in the grass. If it hadn’t twitched, I would have missed it.

In seconds I was crouching down, shocked to find Chouchou hunched and shivering. Some bastard had wrapped the dog’s snout in duct tape! I picked up the shivering bundle to comfort the little thing, so angry I wanted to scream. Who would do this to an animal? I knew I couldn’t easily get that stuff off her by hand without causing her pain. Then I caught movement and the flick of a light far to my right.

“You stay here, sweetie,” I cooed, stroking the little dog. “I’ll come back and get you as soon as I break a face.”

With that, I bolted for the light, readying my body for every possible trick of hand-to-hand combat. I was no expert but mad enough to do some damage. Or so I thought. Something jumped me from behind and set me flying while at the same time that another something appeared to flash before my eyes only to be intercepted by a second figure.

Pushing myself back onto my feet, I struggled to make sense out of what I was seeing. Two figures fighting? Three figures? Someone crying out in French, another swearing in Italian while firing a gun overhead? One figure kicked away the other and leapt to its feet. That one disappeared into the shadows with the other one chasing after. “What the hell?"

“Phoebe, are you all right?” said the figure with the gun.

I knew that voice. “Nicolina?”

“Of course it’s Nicolina,” she said, running up to me. “You knew I was coming. Did you not read my text?”

* * *

We sat together in the library, Natalie, Lilly, Rupert, Henri, Chouchou, and Nicolina, a fire crackling in the hearth, various mugs and cups scattered around the tables as we helped ourselves to tea and coffee.

Eduard, René, and Peaches were still off combing the grounds looking for the perpetrators but, of course, the attempted burglars would be long gone. A quick peek at my agency map assured me that Seraphina was still on their trail, her spot placing her somewhere near the village.

Was I surprised that the agency’s Rome division had joined us? Actually, I should have expected it. As soon as I posted that internal all-points bulletin, my European colleagues were bound to rush to the scene.

And it would have helped had I read my texts.

Henri was unhurt but obviously in shock after being knocked to the ground by an unseen assailant. He sat cradling a whimpering Chouchou. We had sliced the tape off her snout but not without leaving little patches of bare skin here and there and now the two of them seemed to huddle together for comfort.

“Chouchou began barking and would not stop,” Henri said for at least the third time, “and when I open the door to see what upsets her, she runs out very fast. Then I follow deep into the keep and…someone takes my petite Chouchou and tapes her jaws together. Why would they do such a hideous thing? I should have protected her.”

“It’s all right, dear man,” said Rupert, leaning over to pat his knee. “No one blames you or the petit chien for this monstrous evening.”

Lilly had yet to utter a word.

“They are back again, that is it,” Natalie said, sitting wrapped in a silk kimono trembling almost as much as the dog, “these monsters that plague us. What could they possibly want? Why do they do this? I apologize so much for these terrible events, countess. I promise you it is not always this way.”

Nicolina sat regally, not behaving the least like a disgruntled guest. The fact that she was also dressed in black leather and that her companion, Seraphina, was still off somewhere tracking down the infiltrators didn’t seem to strike Natalie as odd—yet. She was clearly in shock.

We agreed not to call the police. “The police, they have come many times and find nothing, do nothing, do not assist us in any way,” Natalie explained. She would not report another break-in, endure another round of questioning, only to be left with the implied sense that the victims were somehow to blame.

We were happy to oblige.

Meanwhile, we awaited the others’ return and for our hostess to leave us alone long enough to talk freely. Finally, Natalie received a call from Eduard and dashed from the room, phone pressed to her ear.

We all spoke at once.

“Nicolina, did you get a good look at the perps, and how come you told the DuBoises that you were looking to buy a château?” I asked. Leave me to thread a major concern together with something minor.

“Dear man! Did you see who jumped you? And, Nicolina, do you think it wise to discharge a firearm on the property?” That was Rupert. “It will tip off the DuBoises, surely, and ruin our cover.”

“Would you really buy the château?” Henri wailed at Nicolina. “It is a terrible place! Not good at all. I could recommend others much better.”

Nicolina, that would be Countess Nicolina Vanvitelli, head of the Rome office, held up her hand and spoke in English. “Please, one at a time. First, I thought that arriving as a prospective buyer would also allow me full range off the property, and no, I will not consider purchasing it—too many villas to renovate as it is. Why add another ruin? I pretend only, yes? And I did not get a good look at the perps, as you call them, because they were all wearing black masks and I do not mean the Covid kind but full-face ones with holes for the eyes.”

“All?” Henri inquired, staring at the tall lethal-eyed leather-clad beauty in wonder and possibly a dose of fear.

“I counted at least three but they were very fast and, by the way they fought, trained in martial arts. They used no guns but relied totally on their body parts.” Nicolina paused for a moment, considering her words. In English they came out a bit risqué. “Not all body parts, just two, well, four. Yes, four,” she amended. “The firearm was discharged into the air to alert the band that we were serious. They are an organized group but my assistant, Seraphina, will tell us more when she returns. She is also skilled in martial arts.”

Henri began to weep quietly into Chouchou’s fur. “They must be after the tapestry, non?” He sniffed. “But why?”

That was an odd thing to say. If the tapestry was the assailant’s real target, then the why part was pretty obvious. The who part could do with a bit of explanation. Furthermore, I reasoned, though taping a dog’s snout was cruel, they could have easily knifed the little creature, which would have been crueler still.

I fixed on Lilly, who sat staring down at her hands. Why didn't she say something? Her uncle kept trying to meet her eye but she kept her gaze fixed on her hands.

The sound of slamming doors alerted us to someone’s arrival and soon in strode Peaches and René. “The bastards got away. Hell, they’re fast! No wonder René thought they were bats. They leap and dart and chop and kick—I got hold of one but he backflipped me onto my stomach so fast I didn’t know what was happening. Couldn’t even get my knife out of my belt.”

René sat down with a thud. “I caught one with bare hands but he slipped away. Very fast, like catching fish.”

“We found the two security dudes tied up by a back wall—useless twits,” Peaches continued. “I told them to get their butts back to Paris.”

“The enemy is truly worthy combatants,” Nicolina said, flexing her fingers and appearing pleased at the prospects of throttling somebody. “I should have shot one in the leg to get answers. Next time.”

I glanced at Henri, now clutching Rupert’s hand while staring stricken-faced toward his niece. Lilly still avoided his gaze.

Getting to my feet, I slipped up beside her. “Lilly, can we talk in private for a sec?”

She looked up. “Sure.”

Moments later, we were alone in the hall. “You know who’s behind all this, don’t you?”

Nodding, she opened her palm to reveal the black and silver thing she’d been grasping all evening.

Picking it up, I studied the inch-wide silver embossed disc, one half of the curved image formed of an inlay of onyx, the other inset mother-of-pearl, all set in thick silver. A hole at the top indicated that it was designed to be worn around the neck. “Yin and yang?”

“It’s my sister’s. I’m wearing one just like it, a gift from our mother for our thirteenth birthdays. We made a pact to wear them always, and when I can, I do. Mom always called us the yin to the other’s yang, so different yet inseparable in ways. I found it in the hall outside my door, deliberately placed there like she wanted me to find it. Yes, I know who’s behind this. It’s Mimi Saint Chappelles and I’m betting Uncle Tengfeng is with her.”

CHAPTER 10

“Your sister?” I gaped. “But why steal from her own family, from you?”

She turned away, tugging her ponytail over one shoulder. “Because it’s a game she thinks she can win. When we were kids, it was always a race to find the tapestry, the two of us taking off every day during our vacations to find the famous family treasure. We’d make bets over who would find it first, but in the end, neither of us did. Life and other interests took over, but for Mimi, it was always about winning. That’s how she measures success. Now she wants me to know she’s winning.”

“But why would she try to steal from her own uncle?”

Lilly turned to face me. “Because she doesn’t consider Uncle Henri to be her family, you see? She’s chosen a different allegiance and it’s not to us or France. China is her home now, Uncle Tengfeng her family. He must want this tapestry for the money, yes, but equally for the prestige. It would fetch a fortune in China going to some wealthy collector or be a point of honor to hang in a Chinese museum. Imagine the status, a French treasure on Chinese soil? And it would trump the country he knows did not welcome his sister and her children with the respect he believes they deserved. Uncle Tengfeng is in the export business so he might even have a key buyer lined up. Mimi just wants to beat me at the game.”

“Hell, it sounds like Mimi is your evil twin,” I remarked.

“I wish it were that simple.” Lilly began pacing up and down before the suits of armor standing guard in the hall. “We are always in a struggle with two sides of our beings, dark and light, and that is the way of both nature and humanity. None of us are totally evil, none of us are totally good.”

“That’s true enough,” I remarked.

“Absolutely. The great philosophies of ancient China like I Ching and Confucius will always be relevant. Mimi’s studied the Chinese Thirty-six Stratagems of war, which Uncle Tengfeng applies to business. Mimi just continued with her studies while I chose another path. Don’t get me wrong: the Chinese culture is rich, complex, and based on ancient philosophies. Much of it is deeply spiritual and purports the principles of good and not doing harm to either man or nature. But, like every culture, there’s a dark side. My sister fully embraces success as measured by material goods. She looks at it like a war game. Mimi intends to find that tapestry.”

Just then Peaches flung open the library door and sped down the hall. “Got to get some salve for little Chouie.”

I stood there listening to her footsteps fade. “Does your uncle Henri know?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s figured it out. I’m guessing Mimi bound Chouie’s jaws to keep her quiet but she’s too much of an animal lover to silence her permanently, at least not until it’s absolutely necessary. She can be ruthless. He also knows that Mimi has studied kung fu and that Uncle Tengfeng is a grand master.”

“So he’s in on it, too?”

“Definitely. Once Mom died, he stopped trying to connect east with west. Now it seems he sees them as adversaries.”

“But isn’t kung fu as much of a spiritual practice as a martial arts one?”

“It is, but like I said, nothing is simple. The original practice began with monks and has been tied to both Taoism and Buddhism, but like everything else, it can be corrupted. Now Mimi and Uncle Tengfeng are using that practice to win this game. They want the tapestry. I just hope they don’t want it so badly that they’ll employ any tactic to get it.”

Peaches reappeared and dashed toward us holding a jar of one of her creams. “I’ll have the little girl feeling better in no time.” She opened the library door and was gone.

I gazed at Lilly. “They know that the tapestry exists. Now we need to find it first. They’ve been poking holes in the walls—not very strategic so far, or at least not to my eyes. We’ll use something stronger.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know yet but it’s coming to me.” But something else hit me first. We had to be under surveillance by something our bug detectors didn’t pick up. I felt it as sure as anything but what had we missed? Then it struck me.

I put a finger to my lips and pointed to Lilly’s neck. Catching on in an instant, she fished out her pendent and dropped it into my hand. I sped into the library, finger still on my lips holding the discs toward Rupert, who silenced everyone in the room with his hand before snatching the discs and dashing from the room. I followed him out and placed a hand on Lilly’s arm as he passed us down the hall.

“I think I just discovered how they’ve been listening in on us. We’ll find out soon enough when Rupert returns. While we wait, tell me more about these stratagems and how Mimi and your uncle might be using them."

“For instance, they could be punching holes in the walls as a ruse,” Lilly pointed out. “‘Deceive the enemy with an obvious move that will keep them occupied while taking a direct approach in the real direction.’ Loosely translated, that means they could be just fooling us by making like they believe the tapestry is hidden in the château. We could be wasting our time looking for it here when it really lies elsewhere. ‘Loot a burning house’ also works. The DuBoises clearly can’t cope with this ruin of a place.”

My eyes widened. “Are those stratagems?”

“Míng xiū zhàn dào, àn dù Chéncāng.”

“I thought you weren’t paying attention when your uncle gave you Chinese culture lessons?”

She grinned. “Wú zhōng shēng yǒu. In other words, I pretend not to pay attention to hear better.”

I laughed. “Damn it, Lilly! You, too, make a worthy opponent.”

She bowed.

We were back in the library to continue strategizing our next moves when Seraphina dragged herself into the library, cut and bleeding from multiple scratches on the face and arms yet appearing remarkably jubilant.

Nicolina leapt to her feet. “What did you discover?” she asked in Italian.

Seraphina said in English. “I follow them into village to campsite. There are six: five men, one woman. They drive in a black camper hauled by truck. I hide and watch.”

“And?” Nicolina prompted.

“They stay inside but one comes out to use toilet and I jump. We engage in combat. His pants were down or I maybe lose sooner—his fighting skills very good. With pants down, not so good. Before I taser him with phone, I insert tracking device.”

“Insert where?” Peaches asked.

I almost didn’t want to hear the answer.

“In pants.”

“Which will only work as long as he wears the same pants,” Peaches said.

Seraphina glared at her. “I also place one under camper and under truck.”

“And then what?” Nicolina prompted.

“Then I run very fast."

It took a few moments to digest all that. Lilly was watching Seraphina in amazement; the DuBoises and Henri had gone off to rest and make breakfast, respectively. Good thing. Trying to explain Nicolina’s fierce little assistant to anybody else would have been a challenge.

“Seraphina works for Nicolina,” I explained to Lilly.

“Doing what?” she asked.

“Whatever I request,” Nicolina replied with a smile.

Seraphina held up her phone. “Battery going but I monitor their activities when charged.”

Nicolina nodded and Seraphina was released from active duty to have a shower and recharge her batteries while the rest of us continued our plotting.

“When Rupert returns, we’ll see if my hunch was correct,” I said.

Moments later, he entered wearing a self-satisfied smile. “I inserted a penknife into the crease between the two halves of each disc and, as Phoebe suspected, they contain surveillance devices. I have sent a picture to Evan for further instructions but in the interim took the liberty of battering the innards of one onto the patio pavers. The other I have left inside your room, Lilly, while we ponder ways we may use it for sending the enemy false information.”

“Very wise.” Lilly nodded. “I suspect that my sister hoped I would not guess about the eavesdropping, which I did not. I’m glad you did.”

“Excellent,” I said, “now we can get back to work, hopefully free of eavesdroppers. We have checked and double-checked this room but should we go someplace else to discuss next steps?”

“Why not the grand hall?” Peaches suggested. “If we stand in the middle of the space, there’s nothing nearby in which they can hide a device.”

In moments, we were standing in the center of the grand baronial hall as far away from anything as we could get. I carefully placed my printouts and assorted historical abstracts on the rug along with everything I could find on the Saint Chappelles family, the Le Vistes, Charles VII, and Joan of Arc. All of it simmered in my brain like a cassoulet and yet I could still not pick up the scent. The DuBoises had given us the run of the library and the printer so we had all the tools we needed, just not the lead I craved.

“Why do you think Joan of Arc is involved?” Nicolina inquired, gazing down at my little packet of Joan information.

“Because she was at the center of a political bomb in the war between France and England,” I told her. “Everyone in France must have known the Maid of Orléans story and, on top of everything else, she was a religious icon. What if the missing seventh tapestry references Joan of Arc in a way that was not flattering to the kings of either France or England? What if the unicorn represents Joan and France while the lion represents England?” I opened my phone on images of the six tapestries and slipped through them, one by one, while the others looked over my shoulder.

“But the unicorn is always depicted as male. There’s that little matter of the horn supposedly with its phallic references,” Rupert pointed out.

“But Joan was a warrior who dressed in men’s clothes and wielded a sword,” I countered, “plus she was a virgin and infused with what many believed were magical properties. A white unicorn is a perfect image for Joan of Arc.”

“And the lion has been traditionally an emblem for England, notably English royalty dating back to William the Conquerer. If ever anyone in the Middle Ages would wish to choose a symbol for British might, it would surely indeed be the lion.” Rupert appeared convinced.

“And in every tapestry panel, the English lion is on one side and the unicorn on the other,” Nicolina said.

“So what does the woman in the middle represent?” Peaches asked.

“I think she’s France herself caught between the two powers, one noble and magical, the other mighty with claws and teeth,” I suggested. “She’s in a tug-of-war masquerading as a noble lady.”

“Following with your line of reasoning, why would a member of the Le Viste family commission such a thing and why involve a member of the Saint Chappelles to assist him?” Rupert asked.

“Because they had both watched Joan’s rise and downfall from vastly different perspectives in the French court and were equally appalled? Because they conspired together to change the Maid of Orléans’ fortunes but ultimately failed? Because they were forced to stand by mute and helpless as the heroine was imprisoned, charged through trickery and deceit by members of the church itself, and ultimately sentenced to death without rescue from the man she’d help crown?” I was on a roll.

“Yes, the Maid of Orléans was betrayed multiple times in the name of political expediency,” Rupert acknowledged.

“And if people were standing by watching all that, wouldn’t they want to express the truth?” Peaches suggested.

“Yes,” Nicolina said, touching Peaches’s arm. “I like that thinking very much. I would feel such a thing.”

“I just read the transcription of her trial—unbelievable,” I said. “They grilled her on the nature of her apparitions so they could trick her into saying something that would nail her for witchcraft. Every time they tried to trap her, she was too quick for them. She refused to tell them what Saint Michael wore, for instance, or whether he appeared before her clothed. They wanted to prove her visions were satanic. She may have been a poor, uneducated peasant girl but she was brilliant and brave. In the end, they had to lie to declare her guilty of heresy.”

“And so Antoine le Viste commissioned a tapestry that told the story hidden in multiple layers of meaning,” Lilly marveled.

“And perhaps Louis Saint Chappelles was friends with Antoine Le Viste. Maybe the seventh panel was an afterthought and, once completed, too risky to put on display, forcing the two men to hide it?” I suggested. “I’m betting that the actual drawing for the tapestries was complete many years before the tapestries were officially commissioned."

“So the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries were about courtly love only on the surface?” Peaches asked.

“On the surface, yes, but like anything else in the Middle Ages, multiple meanings exist simultaneously,” Rupert explained.

“Scholars have long suspected a hidden meaning to the series,” added Nicolina. “This could be the one.”

“I’m guessing that the first six were safe enough to display while the seventh was far too dangerous.” I rubbed my eyes, suddenly exhausted.

“This is giving me a headache, too. Let us have breakfast.” Rupert sat down heavily on the nearest chair while the rest of us gathered up the research to return to the library. We all agreed that after food rest was in order.

After breakfast, I trudged back up to my room suddenly exhausted. Understanding a possible secret meaning to the tapestries was only part of the quest. Usually, I’d have a stronger inkling of where to go next but this case seemed to elude me.

I lay in the tub up to my neck in lavender-scented bubbles allowing the elements of the case to steep in my brain. I seemed to be tied up in knots both muscularly and in terms of my thought processes.

Where would these two co-conspirators hide a seventh panel? There was a tapestry, the Le Viste family, a French heroine, betrayal, and incredible bravery. There were angels, court priests and lawyers, kings, warriors, and politics. And there was a disparate Chinese element that sounded like a gong disrupting everything.

After dozing in the tub, I dried myself off and wandered into my room where the drawn curtains cast a deep blue glow. We needed to find that tapestry before Uncle Tengfeng and Mimi. Did they know where it was hidden? Maybe not if they were still hiding out in a nearby campground. But would they try to trick us by using ancient battle strategies? Maybe they’d wait until we led them right to it. Surely that, too, was an ancient war tactic: when seeking something, let the enemy find it first.

I was almost asleep on my bed when my phone pinged.

Evan: I hear you are on the trail of a seventh Lady and the Unicorn tapestry while being chased by Chinese nationals. Interesting conundrum. Has the oracle spoken yet?

Rupert had obviously filled him in. Evan and Peaches were the only ones who knew about the golden key I wore around my neck, the only souvenir from my Greek vacation. Referring to it as the “oracle" was only half in jest. We all wondered that, given its provenance, whether it might actually drop hints into my subconscious mind when needed. However, in this case, no luck.

I sat up and typed. So far, nothing. I’m baffled by all the seemingly disparate elements in this case. History claims that the tapestries were commissioned by Jean Le Viste but I’m thinking that it was more likely Antoine Le Viste, which places their commission sometime after the Joan of Arc debacle. Nobody knows for sure.

Evan: Joan of Arc? Phoebe, you always pull out the strongest threads in any circumstance and tug at them until the truth comes into the light. Keep pulling, my love.

So that gave me butterflies. That he called me his “love” and glommed on to a tapestry/weaving/fiber analogy, too. There was a reason why we were so drawn to one another. I worry that this one may be beyond me. Everything is so tangled that I just can’t find the strongest thread.

Evan: You’ll find it as long as you keep seeking. You never give up, that’s one of your many strengths. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

Me: Okay, so that’s a quote. Name your source.

Evan: Confucius.

I laughed. I should have known that you’d have the words of a great Chinese philosopher at your fingertips.

Evan: Must pull myself away. I am picking up a lead that we thought had grown cold back in Delos last fall. I’ll be in touch soon.

After he signed off, I sat gazing down at the empty screen. He’d told me more about what he was working on than he’d ever disclosed before. He was following Noel. Shit.

I fell back on the pillows thinking I’d never be able to relax because I’d be fretting about Evan chasing that cutthroat bastard. And yet, I fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting straight up in bed saying aloud: “Saint Chappelles! There must be a chapel around here somewhere!”

Minutes later, I was dressed and downstairs, tracking Henri onto the patio where he sat in a patch of sun stroking Chouchou with her bare little snout and gazing off across the Loire Valley.

“Henri,” I said, “The château, the village, and your very last name indicates that there must have been a chapel around here once.”

“But of course,” he said, turning toward me. “Not the famous one in Paris but a smaller one, a family chapel, yes? It is nothing but ruins now, just old stone.”

“We must go there today.”

Gently placing the dog on the pavers, he got to his feet. “What are you thinking?”

I took a deep breath. “Imagine just for a moment that you are a priest in the court of King Charles. A warrior maiden has just liberated your country, a maiden who now stands on trial. You have been asked to hide something by a friend, one who believes as you do that the maiden has been falsely accused. This object, if seen by the king, would surely anger him and perhaps see the beautiful but politically sensitive item destroyed and you with it. Where would you hide it?”

Henri stared at me. “Mon Dieu! In a chapel or a church!”

“Exactement!”

“Let us go!”

“Let’s confer with the others first.”

“And while you do that, I will drop petite Chouchou at my housekeeper’s where she will be safe.”

“Good. I’ll meet up with you later.”

The idea was to do everything in daylight when Mimi and Tengfeng least expected us to engage in nefarious acts. Somehow they must know that the DuBoises had no idea what we were up to while also being aware of our every move.

“But how? They are privy to inside information somehow.” I was standing outside the library with Peaches, Nicolina, and Seraphina. The DuBoises were content to leave us to use the room as our office while regularly supplying refreshments. Rupert was at the desk inside busily drawing up staging plans with Henri, and Lilly was in her room resting. Henri had agreed to say nothing of my idea until we knew it was safe to speak aloud. “I was followed in the Cluny Museum, remember, and we were also tailed down to Henri’s cottage. They were on to us even then. We found one source but there may be others.”

“Did you scan for bugs?” Seraphina demanded from Peaches. Seraphina was the bug expert. I imagined that she had a collection like a tray of electronic insects with pins stuck through their innards.

“Of course: agency protocol,” Peaches answered. “I searched every inch with the debugging app, naturally.”

“Every inch?” said Seraphina with a snort. “Of this big château? I do not believe this. I search. If there are bugs, I find!”

Peaches rolled her eyes. “There are no bugs here,” Peaches insisted. “The app beeps if it detects anything within fifteen feet.”

“Not all kinds,” Seraphina argued. “Newer types only beep when inches away. I am expert. I know these things.” She was stabbing her chest with her thumb, daring Peaches to deny her expertise. I figured Peach would rather engage with a combine harvester.

“Go, then.” Nicolina dismissed her assistant with a flip of her hand.

“If the DuBoises want to know what you’re up to, say that you’re studying the walls. Or something,” I called after her.

“Let’s wait until about three o’clock and then check out the chapel ruin. Maybe we can do that much undetected. Just Henri, Peaches, and I will go. We’ll make it look like we’re taking a walk.”

Fifteen minutes later, when we were all in the library waiting for the lunch gong, I had an idea. “Henri, did you ever receive a gift from Uncle Tengfeng?”

Henri glowered with Chouchou in his arms while bobbing his head back and forth like a water bird. It was an odd sight. “A good luck cat with a spring head. I think why would he give me a good luck cat? Do such things appear like my taste?”

Exactly. Why would he? I seem to recall seeing those in San Francisco’s Chinatown and they were mass-marketed for tourists. “Where is it now?”

“In my basement. Somehow I accidentally broke it.” He grinned.

“Any other presents?”

“Non. He gave Puilan the gong and I leave it here.”

Puilan must have been Lilly’s mother. I sent a quick text to Seraphina suggesting she double-check the gong, not that I believed that a reverberating sound mechanism would make the best place to hide a sensitive listening device.

When Lilly entered the room, I spoke pointedly toward the disc she now wore around her neck. We had decided to use it as a deflecting device of our own.

“Tonight we go through the château again,” I said, pointing to the disc.

She smiled. “I suggest we concentrate on the east wing this time. It’s a continuation of the oldest parts of the structure dating from the thirteenth century. We’ll need ladders to really get up into those walls to scout around.” She ended with a sly grin.

“Good idea,” I said.

Rupert opened the door and remarked: “We must rest up. It will be a long night.”

CHAPTER 11

We began using the second disc to send decoy information to our infiltrators. According to Seraphina’s bug monitor, neither the camper nor the truck had budged since the night before, leaving us to hope that they were buying into our ruse.

After lunch, Henri, Lilly, and I set out to investigate the chapel, leaving Nicolina, Rupert, Peaches holding Chouchou, and Seraphina to watch our backs and keep the DuBoises busy. René kept an eye on the front entrance and prowled the grounds looking for lurkers. Lilly had claimed that she would be taking an afternoon nap and placed the yin yang disc in her bedroom with the occasional sounds of running water and a flushing toilet to strengthen the effect, compliments of Seraphina.

“I’m trying not to think what Mimi’s been listening in on for all these years,” Lilly exclaimed as we slipped out the back door and wound our way through the keep toward the crumbling outer walls. We figured that the oldest parts of the château offered us the best protection from prying eyes.

“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked as I maneuvered a pile of tumbled stones.

“Years ago.”

“But you do not always wear that thing, non?” asked Henri, his arm around his niece’s shoulders.

“No. In fact, I often take it off and leave it lying around when I’m on set or doing a red carpet stint,” she said.

“Then, you see, she had much opportunity to work her wickedness,” Henri said. “Much opportunity.”

“It’s not really wickedness,” Lilly tried to explain. “It’s a game.”

“A wicked, wicked game,” Henri insisted. “She tries to steal from her own uncle, from me. What have I done to deserve such treatment?”

“It’s not about you, uncle, it’s about me—well, Mimi and me. It’s hard to explain. She needs to prove something.”

“Prove what, that she is just as good and talented as her beautiful, famous twin? It is an old story, non? She was always jealous of you.”

“It’s not that simple, believe me, though I’m not saying that jealously isn’t a part of it. She always called herself the ugly one even though she’s far from ugly. She always thought she wasn’t good enough but she was, she is. Now she has to prove she’s better.”

Henri was right: it was an old story but this one came with new twists.

“She’s the math whiz, remember?” Lilly continued. “She was always the brilliant one academically, but even for that she was teased at school and nobody championed her the way they did me. They said that doing well academically was in her genes because she was Asian, as if she didn’t work hard to earn everything she got. Think about it, Uncle Henri: it’s true. I was the performer, I got all the accolades. I was more conventionally attractive and got all the acclaim, too. It’s not fair.”

Henri kept his gaze fixed on the ground as we stepped through the crumbled wall into the meadow. “Perhaps, but that is no excuse. Life is not fair,” he mumbled. “Somehow, we as individuals must rise above, is that not true? You and I were always closer than I was with Mimi. I did not think I treated you differently when the three of us were together, but perhaps I did. Your parents, though, they loved you equally.”

“It wasn’t our family so much as the world that treated her worse than they did me.”

“Ah, just so,” whispered her uncle. “Beauty is its own currency, yes? This makes me very sad. Perhaps I should have made more effort but it’s still no excuse for doing bad things to people.”

“True,” she admitted.

We crossed the meadow, slipping among the trees where possible to remain shielded until we reached a pile of stones over which rose a single arch, all that remained of the family chapel. Backed against the Loire River winding away in the valley below, it was a postcard-worthy sight.

“Do you know how long ago it was destroyed?” I asked.

“But no,” said Henri, still appearing deep in a reflective mood. “For as long as I can remember and much longer than that. I believe it was ruined by fire sometime in the fifteenth century.”

“Fire,” Lilly mused. “But it looks like the chapel was mostly made of stone.”

“But the pews, the altar—all wood.” Henri shrugged.

I began running my phone’s X-ray app over the foundations. That and the arch were all that was left standing of the little building. I guessed that over the centuries much of the stone had been scavenged by other builders in the village.

“What do we seek?” Henri inquired.

That wasn’t clear even to me but a chapel for the Saint Chappelles family, who had once counted a priest for the king of France among their members, warranted investigation. “I’m not sure,” I told him, “but I’ll know it when I see it.”

As expected, all that showed on my app screen were irregular pockets of air, none of which were the right size and shape for what I was seeking.

“Come.”

I turned to find Henri beckoning me through the rubble toward a narrow passage. Lilly and I followed him into a grassy opening that must have once been the nave. I gazed around, prodding my inner senses to feel something, anything, but no revelations came.

Lilly was tracing the rectangular shape of the building in the air with her fingers. “If I were trying to hide something in a chapel, where would I put it?”

“In a crypt?” I asked, turning to Henri.

“A crypt…” He pondered for a moment, one finger tapping his goatee. “I do not remember a crypt on the property. The Saint Chappelles are buried in a crypt in the main cemetery outside of the village. There is a fine church there.”

“Maybe now but what about five centuries ago? Wasn’t it common for wealthy estates to have their own crypts?” I pressed.

“Oui.” Henri gazed downward. “But there are no plaques, no signs, anywhere here. Usually such burials have the names of the departed embedded in the floor, and the Saint Chappelles would know that our ancestors lay there.”

“Where was your priest Louis buried?” I asked.

“No one knows,” he said with a shrug. “All mention of him disappeared from the records. There is no record of his burial.”

“Don’t you find that odd?” I asked.

“Not so odd for the times. People who lived during the Hundred Years’ War did not leave peaceful lives. Many disappeared without a trace.”

“That makes sense.” I followed his gaze to the ground and ran the phone app over the grass looking for depressions. There were none. Underfloor graves such as seen in many medieval chapels and churches would be clearly revealed as rectangular depressions on my screen. “I guess the Saint Chappelles chose to bury their dead elsewhere.”

“What if we check the village cemetery?” Lilly suggested.

“Cemeteries are like an invitation to looters. If the tapestry is hidden somewhere in the area, I can’t imagine it would be there.” How could I explain that I felt no tugging at the back of my mind, no tingling along my spine? “Besides, I’m thinking that the tapestry was probably hidden in a hurry. We need someplace accessible. Now that I think about it, anything that involved digging and pulling up the floor of an active church wouldn’t do. And a grave would be the worst place to hide a tapestry.”

The chapel having borne no fruit was abandoned on the spot and we trudged back the way we had come.

“We need to think the way a long-ago Father Louis Saint Chappelles and his allies might have thought. Attack from one faction or another was afoot and if a member of the Saint Chappelles family did hold an item that criticized the kings of two countries as well as the church in some way…”

“Then he would hide it in a hurry. A sorry matter.” Henri waited while Lilly and I climbed through the opening in the wall into the roofless tower.

“Mimi was the history-lover of our family, though not usually of the French history variety,” Lilly mused.

“How seriously did you two hunt for the missing tapestry?” I asked.

“It was a game to us, a chance to run around the château at night,” she replied.

“Okay, so did you ask yourselves where somebody would never think to look?”

“Georges and Puilan were so furious at the girls when they found out what they were up to,” Henri exclaimed. “I was working in Paris at the time and I am certain I could hear them roar.”

We were passing by the cemented opening for the oubliette. All three of us stopped and stared at once. A six-inch-thick slab of cement sat directly on the ground topped off by a layer of grass.

“Mais non!” exclaimed Henri, staring at it in horror.

“How long ago was it sealed like that?” I asked.

“For decades,” Lilly replied. “Ever since Dad caught Mimi daring me to go down there. Before then there had been this rusty iron grille over the hole with a padlock attached. That very same day, Dad had this cement covering built.”

I was walking around the slab looking for signs of tampering but the layer of grass and soil that covered it clearly had remained undisturbed for years. “Has anyone ever gone down there that you know of?”

“Never!” Henri exclaimed. “No one would dare.”

“Even in the past?”

“The family stories say that it has remained undisturbed for centuries. No one would descend to such a horrible place. It would be like climbing into a grave! The bones of the unfortunate dead must still lay there even now,” Henri insisted.

“No forensic archaeologist wanting to get down there in the name of research?” I pressed.

Henri’s look of horror said it all.

“It was designed so that once someone was dropped into the pit, they would never be seen again,” Lilly said. “They called it ‘the forgotten room.’ There’s no way to access it from the bottom, either. Dad found an old sketch for it in the château archives once. It’s a horrible thing.”

I looked at each of them. “And a perfect hiding place. Someone could throw something down the hole in a hurry and almost guarantee that no one would descend to the bottom to find it.” But I could tell from their alarm that I needed to drop the subject for the time being.

An hour later we had all gathered back in the center of the hall, the diagram of the château spread across the table with a separate one of its oubliette beside it, the corners weighed down with paperweights. Where the château diagrams appeared to have been drawn in stages over the centuries, the oubliette’s seemed to have been hastily sketched. I guesstimated the date of its execution to be in the early 1400s.

“It is rather an unusual design for an oubliette, is it not?” Rupert asked Henri. “It appears to be sectioned like…an intestine.”

I had thought the same thing. First came the long esophagus-like drop that opened into a small stomach-shaped chamber, which squeezed into an even narrower tunnel leading down from that. There was no way out except back the way that you came and, except for the first drop, it looked natural rather than man-made.

“My brother and I, we believed the oubliette was constructed in a natural cavity in the earth. Many caves are found in these parts.”

“So no poor sod was forced to dig the wretched thing out except for the opening drop, at least.” Rupert was claustrophobic. Even gazing at the sketch seemed to be making him queasy.

“It is true. It was not designed to be a place to keep people like a prison—there were those in the original castle, also—but a place to forget them,” mused Henri.

“Indeed,” mused Rupert. “‘Oubliette’ does mean forgotten room in French, after all.” He turned away to stare into the garden as if he needed to glimpse the flowers to erase his imaginings.

Nicolina and Peaches were both watching me in an uneasy silence. I knew what they were thinking but had vowed to say nothing until the time was right.

“Henri, perhaps we must soon own up to what we’re really doing here to the DuBoises. What do you say, my good man?” That was Rupert desperate to change the subject. “The DuBoises deserve an explanation, do they not? They appear to be decent people and keeping the true nature of our presence here has become desperately difficult.” He turned to his new friend.

Henri nodded. “Mais, oui. I have thought the same thing. Perhaps we should explain that these scoundrels harassing them at the château are searching for something of value and that we only thought to find it before they did without disclosing the details. True enough, n’est-ce pas?”

“True enough, indeed. We shall say that we did not wish to heighten their anxiety but believed that the problem arose over, er, family problems,” Rupert suggested.

“Why not just tell them the truth?” I said.

“The truth?” Henri turned to me, a storm brewing in his eyes. “That we have been duping them so that I can locate a priceless object that might save the château for the Saint Chappelles family? Would they not want the tapestry for themselves, which will only deepen our difficulties?”

“It’s not that clear-cut,” said I, taking a deep breath. “Legally, and providing that we can prove a relationship between the Saint Chappelles and the tapestry, there’s a case for the ownership going to your family,” I began, “but the French government will definitely have a say in something of such national importance. They could confiscate the tapestry and keep it for years while the matter is battled out in court and maybe then give you some portion of its worth—maybe—but only years later. Finding it will not be an easy fix.”

Henri fixed me with a baleful look. “Why did you not say sooner?”

“Because until I believed there was a tapestry, it seemed better to wait. Also, now that I see better what we—I mean, who—we are dealing with, the more important it is to alert the French branch of Interpol ASAP to help us find this treasure before Mimi and Tengfeng get hold of it.” I turned to Rupert. “Don’t you agree?”

Rupert touched Henri’s arm. “Sadly, yes, my good fellow. I will send the necessary information forward when we believe we have enough to justify such a position. At the moment, that is not the case.”

“I will find what we need.” After I moment, I added, “Soon, I hope.”

Henri still looked angry enough to shake my teeth out and, in truth, I should have told him sooner.

Seconds later, Seraphina burst into the room and flung her phone onto the table. “The enemy moves,” she said. “First I think they go nowhere, do nothing, but look.” Picking up the phone, she pinched open the screen image to show a red dot crossing the countryside.

“Where do they head?” Nicolina demanded.

“I do not know yet,” said Seraphina. “Possibly toward Paris. Only the truck moves. The camper does not.”

“Is there anyone inside the camper?” Rupert asked.

“I do not know,” she replied.

“Well, have you picked up any conversations with your devices?” Peaches pressed.

Seraphina kept her gaze fixed on Nicolina. “I hear nothing. No one speaks.”

“Well, how bloody useless is that? That means they’re on to us,” said Peaches. “The moving truck could be a decoy.”

“I agree that looks to be the case,” Rupert said.

“I follow,” said Seraphina, making for the door.

“Not yet,” I said. “First we need to finish up our business here in the castle. Like Peaches said, the truck is probably a decoy.”

“Why do we wait to chase it?” Seraphina demanded.

“Because we have work to do here first.”

“Shit, I knew it,” Peaches muttered, turning to me. “You expect me to descend that oubliette thing, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” said I. “I have to do it myself and it has to be tonight.”

CHAPTER 12

I was not one of those Gothic heroines who penetrated spooky castles at night where no one in their right mind would be caught dead—no pun intended. Wait, let the pun stand. I needed to go because I was the only one who knew exactly what I was looking for, who could recognize the receptacle typically used to transport tapestries of that importance from place to place, and because I was the one with the itchy spine. Yes, I was being that kind of a control junkie.

The tapestry panel would have been carefully rolled together with layers of cloth and placed into a canister probably at least five or six feet long or the width of the weaving. Perhaps the receptacle itself would be made of oiled leather and covered in heavy cloth to further protect the fibers during transport. It might even be encased in lead. Travel between France and the Netherlands would have taken weeks, depending on whether it was initially shipped by land or sea. Considering that the countries along the way were in various states of war, probably by sea made the best sense, but then they had the damp to contend with.

“Couldn’t you just tell us what to look for?” griped Peaches. “Besides, with today’s technology, there’s no need for any human being to descend into that hellhole.”

“I agree, Phoebe. My word, we can send a special camera down there to do the proverbial dirty work while the rest of us remain safely above ground where members of our pitiful species belong,” said Rupert, pressing his palms together as if praying for me to agree.

“And how long would that take?” I demanded. “You couldn’t get one of those special units here much before tomorrow afternoon and certainly not without multiple people knowing about it. Besides, even a camera like that doesn’t have the mobility and flexibility of a person. There will be uneven surfaces down there and a little height will be needed at times. No, it has to be me and it has to be tonight.”

Peaches swore.

“What I need can be purchased in any hardware store—a rope, a sling, something that roofers might use, and maybe a pulley to hoist up something heavy, if I find anything. Peaches…” I turned to my friend and bodyguard, now so angry at me I thought she might blow a gasket. “You can use your engineering mojo to rig something up while all the strong arms we have on hand will move that cement lid aside.”

“Don’t try to placate me,” she said with a snarl. “I know what I have to do.”

“I bet René could help,” I plowed on. “We can’t waste time. I’m guessing that the Tengfeng-Mimi contingent have either dismissed the oubliette out of hand or they don’t know what they should be looking for in the first place.”

“Or they are on another track entirely, working on information we lack,” Nicolina pointed out.

The debate went on for several more minutes but I won in the name of reason. The last volley thrown against my idea was that Seraphina should go in my stead because she was lighter. Seraphina didn’t appear too keen on the idea so didn’t put up much of a fight and I argued that I needed her to remain up top watching out for bad guys. “Given that you’ll fix me in a secure sling to lower me down, the more important issue is for trustworthy people to be up top watching my back.” I stared at each of them pointedly.

“Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?” Henri asked in a small voice.

“Yes and no. My definition of ghosts differs from the traditional one,” I said. “I believe the real specters live inside us all and answer to energetic opportunists that lurk in the dark. There are exceptions, of course. I’ve encountered them before.” Unconsciously, I touched my Pythia key under my shirt. “But those aren’t the kind that usually hide out in dark pits. Unless they’re stuck,” I added.

At last, it was settled: as soon as Seraphina and Peaches returned with the necessary equipment, we would begin. That left Henri and Lilly to explain the truth to the DuBoises while René, Nicolina, Rupert, and I figured out how to move the slab off the oubliette. The latter took several trips back and forth until we’d worked out the logistics.

An hour later, Natalie and Eduard DuBois entered the library accompanied by Lilly and Henri carrying Chouchou.

“We knew you were not designers,” Natalie addressed Rupert and me at once. “And you, countess, though you are apparently the real deal, it seems you also work for the agency.”

Eduard added, “We knew immediately after Sir Rupert booked that you were not being truthful.”

“Seriously?” I said, turning to face him.

“You thought us so foolish that we would not research the big-name designers from London? I found the web page that Sir Rupert posted but our previous experience in advertising told us that it was fake,” Eduard said, his usual friendly face crossed with anger.

“Hastily made,” his wife clarified.

“Yes, hastily made. Then we find all the real details of your occupations—finders of lost treasures, art repatriation, association with Interpol,” Eduard continued. “All over the news."

“But we know Henri and Lilly so we think, what are they up to? We will wait and see,” said Natalie.

“And we knew you would not harm us, at least, because you work with Interpol and we think it must be safe to have you stay here and fill our bedrooms with company, which you have done.” Eduard was focused on Henri now. “We knew we would learn the truth in time.”

“That much pleased us—the company—but now we hear the truth and even we are surprised,” added Natalie, today donned in casual jeans and oversized shirt. “An ancient tapestry?”

“I explained my hopes to buy back the château with funds from the sale of the missing tapestry,” Henri said with a shrug. His eyes were wet. “I am deeply sorry.”

“But why do you want to take back the château?” Natalie swung on him. “This is madness! You always say how difficult it was for you with the constant upkeep and the bottomless hole it creates in your bank account. You were almost destitute when we bought the château, you said, and now you want it back?”

“It is my home!” Henri said with a sob. “This is the only home I have ever known, where I dreamed to retire, where all the memories live. I miss it terribly, poverty and all.”

Lilly sidled over and slipped an arm around her uncle’s waist. “We’re sorry for the ruse, Eduard and Natalie. You deserved better than that and we clumsily tried to play you. Now we know that my sister is behind the attacks in the château and that she’s after the seventh Lady and the Unicorn tapestry, too. Even if Phoebe and her agency find it first, we understand that it will not solve my uncle’s yearning and maybe it shouldn’t. We’ll have to work that through on our own. Can you forgive us?”

“You are forgiven.” Natalie dismissed the notion with a flick of her hand. “But we are disappointed in you both, of course. Still we will rise above it, yes?”

Lilly smiled. “I certainly hope so.”

“And I believe I may be of help to you regarding the château,” Nicolina assured them, “though now is perhaps not the right time to discuss my proposal.”

Rupert stepped toward the couple to take one of their hands in each of his. “In any case, I extend my deepest apologies, madame, monsieur, along with profound regret. Our actions were callow and unworthy of your generous hospitality upon which you’ve rained on our ignoble heads, yet we behaved so only to better study the premises without raising unnecessary alarm while continuing to locate the significant object in question. Meanwhile, we ask for your forbearance for a while longer as—”

“In other words, we’re truly sorry, all of us,” I interjected, stepping forward. “But matters are growing more desperate and we’re running out of time. Would you mind if we continue looking on the premises? We promise to keep you posted of every aspect of the case as it unfolds, as we should have from the beginning, which brings me to the next request: would you permit me to descend the oubliette this evening? It will mean removing the covering but I promise we will return it to its original condition one way or the other.”

Eduard gaped. “You are serious? Lilly said that you wanted to go down there but I could not believe my ears. Do you really expect to find a priceless tapestry in that death pit?”

“Not really,” I admitted, “but it’s too perfect a hiding place not to at least give it a try. Tonight, as a matter of fact.” I checked my phone. “Sometime before it’s completely dark. My colleagues just texted to say that they’re on their way back with equipment. As soon as they arrive, I’d like to get started. We have plenty of preparations to make.”

In the end, it only took a crowbar as a lever and a bit of René’s and Eduard’s might to topple the slab off the trapdoor to reveal the black opening. At first glance, it looked like a well, covered by a badly rusted grille, which broke into pieces in our hands.

When Peaches and Seraphina returned, they were put in charge of constructing the tripod-like mechanism over the hole where a sling would lower me down by a pulley. They had also purchased two big spotlights to illuminate the outside up top and a smaller version to wear around my neck. When they weren’t arguing over who knew more, they managed to get the job done fairly quickly.

Eduard had leant me a pair of waders that though too big were a welcome addition to my non-designer wardrobe and offered some protection against whatever I might find underfoot.

While we watched them work, Evan texted me: Phoebe, are you certain about this?

Me: Please don’t try to talk me out of it. I need to do it. I have to do my own dirty work this time.

Evan: I’m not going to try to talk you out of anything. If it’s what you need to do, then it’s the right thing and I’ll be behind you all the way. I just wish I was physically there to take you into my arms the moment it’s over.

Me: I’d love that, too, only you’d probably insist on going down yourself.

Evan: Probably.

Me: Who told you the details?

Evan: Both Peaches and Rupert texted me. I’ve alerted my French colleagues. A possible seventh Lady and the Unicorn tapestry sends shivers of anticipation through my network.

Me: I bet.

Evan: I also launched an inquiry about Tengfeng Yu Ho and Mimi Saint Chappelles, who now goes by her adopted mother’s maiden name of Yu Ho. They’ve been running a network of stolen art under the guise of the Lucky Ho Export Company out of Beijing. My informants tell me that they may have been responsible for the theft of the Blue Globe diamond from the museum in Chennai, India. The diamond was probably sold to a private buyer since it hasn’t appeared on the market. They are professionals, Phoebe. I don’t need to warn you to be careful, but just in case you believed this was just a family matter, it is not.

Me: Got it. Thanks. Better go. It looks like the pulley is almost done.

Evan: Use the geocontour map app. Click the button on your phone that looks like the sketch of a mountain peak. Once activated, this will allow you to detect an object's shape as far away as twenty feet by sending radio waves out to transcribe outlines onto the screen. This should help you find whatever you seek.

Me: Thank you! And I sent him a couple of hearts just because I could. He sent ten back but his were animated.

That left me staring at the contraption suspended over the opening of the oubliette. It reminded me of one of those old-fashioned tripod cook fires where a caldron is hung over open flames, only in this case I would be the pot and nothing that lay below me even remotely warm. A sudden shiver ripped through my being. What the hell was I doing? If I fell, I could break a lot more than a leg or two.

“Phoebe, are you sure you wish to go through with this? It would only take another eight hours at the most for a camera to arrive.” Rupert was gazing at me with concern while Nicolina stood by backing him up.

“I could call our Rome office and have it couriered overnight. There is a man I know who specializes in these things,” she suggested.

“Why is everybody so worked up about this?” I asked. “Haven’t we all done worse things—haven’t I?”

“Of course you have,” Nicolina agreed. “But you are our friend and we worry.”

“It’s just a pit,” I pointed out.

“A pit that nothing has been down for a very long time—” Rupert began. “A deep pit, a—”

I held up my hand. “Don’t make this worse than it has to be. I’ll be down and back up within twenty minutes, at the most.”

“We check oxygen levels down there,” Seraphina said, stepping up to me. “Meter shows ample air to breath now that cover is removed but you must remain close to opening.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I can breathe, at least.” I stepped up to the oubliette and studied the pulley system Peaches had rigged. Though I knew nothing about these things, it looked secure enough. She had fashioned a sling seat for my comfort on descent.

“Either call up or tug the rope when you want to return,” she said. “The first sign of trouble, we’re hauling you up. I figure you’ll be too busy using your phone to text. Sounds should echo down there so we should hear you if you just yell.”

I studied the hole now illuminated by a spotlight that beamed straight down into the darkness. The only thing visible on the bottom was a jumble of grayish brown things, maybe bones. I took a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

Peaches grabbed my arm. “Let me go with you. I’ll go first, then you come down after.”

“No,” I told her with a smile. “I appreciate the offer but I really do need you up here.”

“Are you kidding me? There’s like three armed agency members up here plus René, Henri, Lilly, and the DuBoises. We’re practically standing room only. How many do you need?”

“As many as I can get—enough to fend off a swat team of kung-fu-trained warriors or whatever, if it comes to that. Enough to get me out of trouble if the pulley jams. I’ll be back in no time. I figure that the object I’m looking for would have landed nearby. Straight down the hole, in other words. I should be able to locate it in minutes.”

With that I climbed up onto the edge of the oubliette and settled into the sling. It was almost comfy.

I gazed out at the gathering dusk, heard an owl hoot somewhere, a nightingale sing, a bug buzzing past. Above my head, the first stars were pricking the sky and I imagined that the moon wouldn’t be far behind.

Rule number one: never descend into the darkness without filling your heart with light. If Confucius didn’t say that, he should have.

“Okay, lower me down,” I called.

Whenever I am faced with a distasteful task, I focus on the intent to get it done without allowing my thoughts to stray either right or left. It’s a similar technique to balancing on one foot while fixing on a spot on the horizon. Keep an eye on the ball, in other words.

As the pulley lowered, manned by Peaches and René, I thought only of reaching the bottom and scanning the space using my phone app. With a flashlight thing around my neck and my phone open in one hand, both arms encircling the ropes on either side, it seemed an easy enough task to manage. I was not going to think about the bones I fully expected to see down there or the possibility of rats, which I assumed must be everywhere. I was looking for rectangles or cylinders, period. Geometric shapes in a sea of rounded organic objects should be easily detected.

And it helped that my friends above kept up a steady stream of shouts, comments, and questions firing down, especially when the first ten yards or so seemed to be nothing but a rock-hewn well with its claustrophobic lack of surrounding space. They expected me to describe everything and I happily obliged. “I can’t see anything but slimy stone around me but the ground is getting noticeably closer.”

“I estimated it to be thirty feet down. You’re like one-quarter of the way there,” Peaches called.

And then the walls fell away and I was suspended in a cavernous darkness. Panning my phone in all directions, at first it was difficult to discern one object from another. Everything seemed a jumble of gloom, kind of sepia-toned with black pockets everywhere. The air smelled so foul I barely wanted to breathe. I didn’t want to imagine whatever nasty molecules I might be inhaling. But try holding your breath while yelling.

“What do you see?” Nicolina called.

“Nothing yet,” I cried back. “Keep lowering me.”

The rope jerked and stilled for a moment before continuing.

“Sorry!” That was Peaches.

I swore. “Do that again and I’ll start seeing my life pass before my eyes,” I said with a laugh I didn’t feel. Suddenly I was too aware of being suspended over a death pit. I began imagining what it must have been like to be somebody who had angered the castle owners enough to be dropped down this place to die frightened, in pain, and alone. For a fleeting second it was as if I could feel the press of souls against me, hungry for warmth, light, life, compassion.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“What do you see now?” This time it was Rupert and the sound of his voice yanked me back into line. “Still nothing,” I said, “but I’m almost at the bottom. Ease up a bit!”

My descent slowed and at last my feet hit the bottom. Maybe hit wasn’t the right word—thunked, I supposed. No, squelched. It was strangely mucky down there, not bone-dry the way I had expected. I had a horrible thought that maybe all this organic matter had just settled into a kind of stew. My stomach lurched. I shook myself out of that and scanned the chamber with my phone.

“It’s covered in silt,” I called. I took a brief glance at the hole above. The light shone down on me like a beleaguered moon as my friends’ heads peered down in silhouette. A flashlight raked my eyes.

“Sorry!” Peaches again.

I turned away and cautiously got to my feet. Walking was tricky in the oversized waders but I was grateful for the layer of rubber between me and whatever. Holding the phone with care, I clicked the ground-contouring app and panned it around the chamber. Nothing geometric in sight, just a bumpy surface. “I need to walk a little farther,” I yelled up.

“Don’t leave our sight.”

“It’ll only take a minute,” I replied as I took my first step away from the safety of my sling with its shining path to safety above.

What if the object tossed down the hole didn’t arrive alone? What if a person was clutching it when he fell or was pushed into the oubliette? I hadn’t considered that until now but it made perfect sense. These were desperate times and somebody was escaping somebody else while clutching political dynamite and possibly the first somebody wanted to ensure that what he grasped would never be seen. Maybe if it was witnessed by a ruling power, another person—maybe a friend—would be harmed. Such secrets needed to be protected, even buried. Such secrets might have to be plunged deep into the darkness of the forgotten room and take their carrier with them.

In which case, the object I was seeking may have been moved, maybe dragged, by a wounded man.

What would I do if I was sentenced to die alone with this object that had cost me my life? Wouldn’t it seem like my only companion, perhaps a spark of humanity in this horrible place? Maybe it told the story of bravery and sacrifice, maybe dreaming of it would be the only thing to bring me comfort as I struggled for my last breath. Fix on the light, always fix on the light.

Fixer sur la lumière.

Several steps later and I realized that I was treading on crunchy things below the slimy muck. I must be walking on bones. I stifled a sob.

Somebody was calling for me to return but there could be no return for me. I had given that up long ago when I took the oath to defend all that was holy and true and sanctioned the creation of this beautiful tapestry that told the true story of our maiden’s betrayal. Would its beauty never see the light of day? Would I? No matter, what was my sacrifice next to hers?

I tripped and my phone went flying, jolting me out of my trance. I landed facedown in the muck, my chin hitting something hard. With the light around my neck stuck in the mud and my phone gleaming weakly to my right, I was blinded, yet somehow I could see.

Lifting my head, I gazed straight into the hollow eye sockets of a human skull. Scrambling to my knees, I crouched, trembling. It was as if I knew him. I did know him.

“Where is it, pére?” I whispered. The blank gaze was fixed to my left. I turned toward its gaze. “Merci.”

Seconds later, I had plucked my phone from the silt, wiped it and my neck lantern off on my waders, and fixed the geocontour app straight ahead. Right on cue, the outlines of the upper part of a cylinder appeared on the screen like a ghostly sketch against the darkness. It seemed to be poking out of the ground against the end wall, close to where I knew the first chamber narrowed into the second intestine-like drop. Shit.

I dragged my feet deeper into the darkness while speaking in French to my imaginary (perhaps not so imaginary) companion. Voices and shouts sounded from somewhere behind me but they all seemed so far away, so irrelevant. I remained fixed on the object ahead. It was sticking out at an angle, definitely a cylinder embedded at least one-quarter of the way deep. I hope it wasn’t wedged in something. I would have to yank it out with both hands and somehow drag it back to the sling.

But now I seemed to be gasping for air. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Reaching the cylinder, I blinked down at it, dizzy. Lead casing. Slimy coating. I pocketed my phone, grabbed the object, and tugged. It slipped from my hands and flung me backward.

Luckily, I blacked out before I could feel myself sliding deeper into the forgotten room.

CHAPTER 13

I lay on my back shivering. Somebody was wiping my face with a damp cloth. I blinked up at the stars overhead and all I could do was push gulps of fresh air and heaps of gratitude deep into my lungs.

“What happened?” I gasped.

“You passed out,” Nicolina told me, her hand warm on my forehead.

“Not enough oxygen. Should have remained near opening as I said.” That was Seraphina’s voice.

I jolted upright and gazed straight into Peaches’s glaring face. “Yeah, we got it back up safely, too.” She pointed to the muck-covered lead cylinder lying on the ground behind me over which stood Rupert, Eduard, and René. I moved to get to it but Nicolina held me back. “We will open it once you are recovered.”

“I’m recovered now,” I said, struggling to my feet.

Peaches held me down. “You’re recovered when we say you’re recovered. Lilly and Natalie have gone to get a hot bath ready and fetch you some clean clothes. Then you’ll have something to drink—”

“Tea,” Rupert instructed as he crouched beside me. “Tea is always the best restorer, Phoebe. I’ve brought my own selection, along with a particular soothing favorite.”

“I’m fine,” I argued.

“You are not fine,” growled Peaches. “You passed out. Seraphina and I had to go down and drag your sorry butt back through the muck and bones before returning to get the canister. I can’t believe you bloody insisted on doing this alone, woman! We had to go down there, anyway, so why not bring us in the first place?”

Nicolina tried to silence her with a look but Peaches refused to meet her eye.

“Can’t explain right now, Peach. Just know that I needed to be alone in that pit to find out what I needed to know.”

“Holy shit, you better not be speaking about spooks down there because I’m not having it. I—”

This time Nicolina chopped the air with one hand, a gesture as close to witnessing a royal command as we’d ever receive. Peaches fell silent, though her expression was still filled with admonishment.

“We will help Phoebe into the château now,” Nicolina ordered while adding directions for René and Seraphina to bring the canister into the library after wiping it down. Peaches then lifted me into her arms and marched toward the château.

“Let me walk,” I protested.

“Forget it,” came the reply.

I kept looking around. “Where’s Henri?” I asked.

“In the loo,” Peaches responded. “He almost peed himself for fear for you.”

“I’ve got to tell him something important,” I said.

“Will have to wait, won’t it?”

I resigned myself to helplessness for the rest of the way. I couldn’t even pull my phone out of my pocket to message Evan. I just had to wait. I hated waiting and I was desperate to get at that canister.

But first came the shower—no bath, takes too long—then I climbed into one of Lilly’s red silk Chinese robes that was just roomy enough to work over my leggings while my clothes were being washed. Then came the tea, which I was grateful to sip while munching croissant sandwiches Natalie had put together. The last two activities were at least performed while I shot a quick text to Evan.

Me: Survived the ordeal.

Evan: I know. I held you safe in my virtual embrace.

Me: The story is beginning to weave together at last.

Evan: As I knew it would. Go bury your face in a flower. Bright beautiful things are necessary after penetrating something so dark.

There was a posy of roses and baby’s breath in my room. I buried my nose deep inside the peachy-colored petals and breathed deeply, a smile on my face.

Seconds later, I was heading downstairs, tea in hand, accompanied by Peaches, who had remained on guard outside my bedroom door as if she expected an armed attack.

“What’s the status of the Tengfeng-Mimi dot?” I asked.

“It stopped briefly at a little church on the other side of the river but is on the move again,” Peaches told me. “The camper has been abandoned and there’s been no sign of activity anywhere around the château. Seraphina set up a perimeter scan around the property but there’s been no disturbances there, either.”

“They are off on another track,” I remarked.

“That’s what I think, too."

“Or maybe they want us to think they are.”

Everybody was in the library gathered around the now-wiped-clean cylinder, which lay on a towel on one of the library tables. All eyes were on me as I entered.

“I’ve been running the X-ray app over the canister, Phoebe. Though the exterior is lead, it contains nothing metallic, as you’ve probably gleaned, and the receptacle is not long enough to hold a precious tapestry,” Rupert informed me.

“No, it’s not,” I agreed, “but what it does contain is important enough for a man to lose his life over.” I sought out Henri sitting by the fire nursing a glass of wine. “Henri,” I began. “I found your ancestor Pére Louis Saint Chappelles.”

He jolted up from his seat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Louis Saint Chappelles was either thrown down into the oubliette to protect the secrets contained in that canister or he jumped, taking it with him. I think he jumped.”

“But how do you know this?” he demanded.

“I wish I could explain that convincingly but trust me, I do. He knew where the tapestry was hidden, too, but this was a piece of evidence he needed to secure against the enemy. I think the clue to its location is hidden in the canister. When all this is over, you may want to retrieve his bones and give him a proper burial. I’m not sure why his spirit didn’t escape the oubliette but it could be because he believed his spirit had to guard the canister. I’m honored that he let me take it.”

Peaches swore while I blithely continued. “Either that or he committed suicide, which, as a Catholic, may have convinced him that he deserved purgatory. Anyway, I think he’d like somewhere in the orchard overlooking the Loire or near the chapel. For now, let’s see what he gave his life to protect.”

All eyes turned to the receptacle, which appeared to be bound with four deteriorated leather straps with brass fittings. “Who will do the honors?”

“Henri, perhaps it should be you, old chap. Here, Eduard has brought us a set of wire cutters.” Rupert stepped forward flexing a pair of wire cutters, which he handed to Henri. The DuBoises and the rest of us gathered around.

“I wish I knew this ancestor of mine who plays such a role in French history,” Henri whispered as he cut the remains of the strapping and snapped the brass closures open. He then lifted the top and gently tipped the receptacle backward to look inside. “Hello? Whatever is there, it appears to be wrapped in some kind of cloth. Canvas, perhaps?”

“A painting?” Nicolina asked, likely remembering our Botticelli mission.

“Or something else. Tip it out, Henri, please,” said I.

Of course, in a perfect world, a delicate operation such as this would be performed in a lab under stringent conditions but here we only wanted a clue that might save an even greater treasure. Onto the table fell a roll of what looked to be thick rust-colored fabric.

Seraphina leaned forward. “Waxed textile.”

“Something is rolled between the layers,” I said.

Rupert donned a pair of surgical gloves and gently unrolled the piece, or pieces, which turned out to be four large sections of paper, placed one on top of the other and rolled in waxed wool. The top piece appeared to be approximately one and a half feet by one and a half feet and had absorbed so much of the dye from the fabric that it was almost indiscernible.

“I can see faint lines and color,” Lilly exclaimed. “It’s a drawing or a painting.”

I almost forgot to breathe. “It’s a cartoon quadrant!”

“Isn’t a cartoon a joke?” Natalie asked.

“Originally a cartoon referred to a drawing that is hung behind the loom while a tapestry is being woven. It’s the guide the weaver follows and is never drawn by the weavers themselves but by an artist commissioned for the purpose,” I said. “This one’s very old. Hardly any have survived down the ages. The best collection is at the Asmolean in Oxford. How many are there?”

Rupert counted the layers while carefully separating the sheets. “Four.”

“Then it’s a complete set. Spread the quadrants out on the floor now,” I instructed, so excited I nearly squealed.

Rupert and Seraphina obliged, weighing down each of the corners with the DuBoises’ collection of glass paperweights, until we stood facing a large red-tinted picture measuring nearly five feet long and slightly less wide. It was challenging to tell which quadrant went where. We shifted a couple of them around once or twice. The images were mostly indecipherable, rendered on a deep red background with a crackled surface as if the fabric’s dye plus some of the wax had been absorbed by the parchment. Obviously, it had been damp down there so possibly the wax had even preserved the paper to some extent.

Whatever lay below the dye and wax was impossible to decipher. One section must have encountered a more highly waxed section of wool in a deeper, dryer position because the dye transfer there was much lighter. At least the outline of a figure emerged: a gowned lady, a look of pain registered in her features, staring sorrowfully off to the left. I leaned closer to the image, running my phone magnifier close to the surface, my heart banging against my chest. “I think there may be a unicorn under there. I can’t tell without scraping and manipulating the paper, which is bound to destroy it further, but I can just make out a hoof.”

Sitting back on my heels, I sent a quick message off to Ella at the Cluny Museum describing our find with pictures included. When I looked up moments later, Nicolina and Rupert were trying some of the X-ray apps, trying to capture the drawing’s outlines.

“Drat!” muttered Rupert. “Had the drawing been with a lead pencil we might be able to detect more of the outline but, as it is, I believe this was drawn in ink and then washed in watercolor, which has mostly run.”

“Once a conservationist investigates this, we may learn more but right now we can’t risk damaging it further.” I stood up. “Still, I’m guessing we just found the cartoon for the final Lady and the Unicorn tapestry.”

“But what does it tell us other than the drawing must have somehow been explosive in some way?” Lilly asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Like the rest of the tapestries, it would be layered in symbolism and allegory but this one somehow completes the story of the Lady and the Unicorn in such a way that it tells a much more dangerous tale. Once we can see the whole design, we’ll understand why Father Louis had to hide it.”

“What do I see there? Look,” Henri demanded, leaning over the cartoon segments. “Up there in the upper right-hand corner. Perhaps it is just my eyes but I see a sword. A line, perhaps, with what could be the cross of a hilt below it.”

Rupert studied the segment from Henri’s perspective, nearly toppling over the other man as he leaned in. “I dare say, I believe he’s correct: a sword flanked between two wings, perhaps, or are those smudges? Blasted difficult to tell.”

“It may only be a mark made when the paper cracks, non?” inquired Nicolina.

A discussion followed as each individual weighed in on whether it was a flaw or an actual drawing emerging from the ancient sheet. Meanwhile, I stood back, calibrating, calibrating… If it really was an image and not a splotch, why a sword and why in the upper right-hand corner?

All the other completed tapestries filled the background with millefleurs but the fact that those details may not appear on the cartoon itself didn’t mean that they didn’t feature in the actual tapestry. Millefleurs was perfected by the Netherlandish weavers and added by them during the weaving process so did not require the help of a drawing. There were also birds, rabbits, dogs, and plenty of other wildlife in the tapestry fields, but a sword? More likely the unicorn would hold the sword or possibly the lion but to have one hovering in the upper right-hand side? Too strange. How I wished I could see the entire drawing.

We decided to leave the cartoon where it lay, anchored flat in the library overnight with René and an electronic sensor keeping watch while we had supper and then headed for bed. René was ordered to bed but insisted on camping out beside the cartoon. In the end, we decided he was too big to push around so we let his decision stand.

The major point of discussion over dinner was where to go next. The Tengfeng-Mimi contingent was on the move and, according to Seraphina’s tracking map, appeared to be following a trail of small churches and chapels across the countryside.

“Any similarities among the churches?” I asked Seraphina over a dish of beef bourguignon served with new potatoes and cottage vegetables.

“No. I watch always,” she replied. “All churches or chapels but nothing to link them. I made list. I send.”

“Thanks.” I gazed at the central table bouquet without focusing. They were after churches, just as we had investigated the chapel on the property. They also suspected that there had to be a religious connection and perhaps even that Father Louis was behind the conspiracy, too.

Then, as if catching my thoughts, Rupert said: “If they are investigating religious sites, I daresay it must be because they believe the tapestry is hidden in one.”

“And they didn’t check the chapel on this property because they already knew it wasn’t there,” I remarked.

Seraphina pulled out her phone to check the screen again. “They are heading for Paris.”

“Perhaps they’ll try the older churches, those that were active during the Middle Ages. Maybe they’ll even go to the basilicas of Sacré-Coeur and Sainte-Chapelle,” I continued. “I would if I didn’t have a clue.”

“Do we have a clue?” Peaches asked.

“We do,” I replied, “but we just don’t know what it means yet.” I was referring to the cartoon, a major find that so far told us nothing.

“They believe they are ahead of us,” Nicolina said as she set down her knife and fork. Nicolina never spoke and ate at the same time. She gave herself fully to either one task or the other but never both simultaneously. Maybe it was a countess thing. “They believe they know the tapestry is hidden in a church.”

“But not in which church,” Lilly said.

“But they pay no attention to us now,” said Henri. “Suddenly they take off. No more break-ins.”

“No doubt they are aware that we found out about their surveillance devices,” Rupert began. “In fact, I guarantee they know that much since one of Lilly’s went dark suddenly. They must believe themselves ahead of us in the search and have temporarily dropped us from their radar.”

“Nothing will ever drop me completely from Mimi’s radar. She’ll find the tapestry and then make sure to lord it over me,” Lilly said.

“She won’t find the tapestry without my help,” I said, turning to her, “but you can believe that they know exactly where we are at all times. We may have caught all the surveillance devices but not every tracker.”

“Don’t underestimate them, Phoebe.” Lilly again. “Maybe they are listening in on us right now. They could be two, three even, steps ahead of us. They’ll try to trick us just as we tried to trick them but they’ll be better at it because they’ve had more practice. Promise me that if anything weird happens, you’ll do the opposite of what they may expect.”

I pondered that for a moment. “Okay,” I said slowly. “I can be really impulsive sometimes so you may need to remind me to act strategically if the time comes.”

“Deal.” Lilly nodded. “So, like I’m nervous about leaving the château because that makes us vulnerable.”

“It is true that military tactics always prefer to draw the enemy out of the castle.” Rupert nodded. “However, what choice do we have since we are convinced that the tapestry does not reside here?”

“We have to find it, obviously.” I gazed off into space. “We just don’t know where to look."

“Are we going somewhere?” Peaches asked.

“To Paris,” I said finally. “That makes the most sense.”

Across the table, Nicolina smiled. “To the old churches in Paris as if we are on the same path as they.”

I nodded.

“Sainte-Chapelle houses King Louis IX of France’s Passion relics and was where the kings of France traditionally worshipped. It would be a perfect place to look for a piece of hidden art,” said Eduard, looking up from serving another round of wine.

“At least on the surface. The revolutionaries did massive damage to that lovely structure, though indeed it has been rebuilt. Definitely worth a bit of investigation. What say you, Phoebe?” Rupert had caught my eye over the rose bouquet and silently toasted me with his wine.

“I think that since we believe this tapestry tells a story that may be uncomplimentary to a certain French king, and the church itself, for that matter, hiding it in a place of royal worship wouldn’t make sense but maybe they don’t know that so we should make on like we’re checking it out, too,” I said. “At least until we can work out its true location.”

“Plus there are others,” Nicolina added.

“Many others,” I agreed.

“There are not that many churches and basilicas in Paris of the correct age that have not been destroyed or damaged by either war or the revolutionaries,” Rupert reminded us. “I have narrowed it down to two: the Sainte-Chapelle, Kingdom of Light, and the Saint-Denis basilica. Notre-Dame would have been the ideal place to start but we know that’s out of the question. We might even have a go at Saint-Germain, the oldest church in Paris.”

“But we don’t know what church the tapestry may be hidden in so that makes us even with Tengfeng and Mimi,” Peaches said.

“Not quite. We still have the cartoon in our possession and a theory,” I said.

“Neither of which assist our endeavors for the moment but I trust this will change,” Rupert added. “Meanwhile, we need to go to Sainte-Chapelle and Saint-Denis to make it appear as though we believe that is where it is hidden.”

Lilly lifted her head from her plate and smiled. “‘Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west.’”

I grinned back. “Something like that.”

“Only we don’t have a clue as to where in the west to strike,” Peaches pointed out.

“Not yet,” I acknowledged, “but hopefully while they are expending their energy scrambling over those churches and we pretend to be doing the same, we’ll figure out where the tapestry is really hidden and send them on the wrong path. After all, we have the cartoon, they don’t.”

“But we can’t decipher it or even see it properly,” Peaches repeated.

“Not yet.” I picked up my fork and stabbed a carrot.

The rest of the meal passed in more of the same. Seraphina excused herself early to go upstairs to comb the rooms for bugs again. All agency members knew what she got up to every night when she supposedly went to bed early. We also knew that she’d probably plant a few devices of her own in the DuBoises’ room, just in case. Seraphina’s policy was to trust no one and, at this point, we weren’t going to disagree.

As the evening ended and we were heading up the stairs for bed, I broke the news about the Lucky Ho Export Company to Lilly.

“Seriously? Why am I not surprised?” She paused. “Mimi and Uncle Tengfeng are united about making money any way they can and those of us in the West are merely the opponents in the game, me especially.”

“I don’t think this is all personal,” I remarked.

“Not totally,” she agreed, “but most of it feels personal to Uncle Henri and me.”

Once alone in my room, I read the latest message from Evan, a few lines from a poem by Victor Hugo provided in French and English:

Life is a flower, love is its honey. It is the dove united with the eagle in the sky.

Nothing else, just the poem, and for a moment I imagined his spirit, the spirit of the dove mingled with the fierceness of the eagle, both predator and lover all at once. A thrill hit me. The man I loved was chasing a dangerous foe, making him as much the eagle as the dove, but he was doing so in part for me. Was he saying that because he loved me, that he was determined to vanquish my foe?

Wiping away tears, I sent him a heart, which symbolically best caught the multiple emotions surging through me just then. Words escaped me. Somewhat parochially, I added a photo of the cartoon quadrant with the barely distinguishable figures in the upper field.

Then I read the message from Ella that told me she would be traveling down to retrieve the cartoon as soon as she could make the necessary arrangements. Max also messaged me to say that he had just purchased an amazing seventeenth-century carpet, and Zann texted me to say that she thought she had a lead on a hoard of Roman gold.

My head spun. Not surprising, my sleep was filled with dreams. I was trapped in an airless chamber while a bodiless monk floated around my head asking about the weather above ground.

“Why do you want to know about the weather?” I asked him.

“Because here it is always dark unless the angels visit,” he replied in French.

There was more but I couldn’t remember much of it when I awoke about four hours later. By then it was three-ish and the time I often wake for no good reason. Do I have an internal alarm clock or something and, if so, how do I turn the thing off? When at home, I’d fix myself tea and knit for a bit before returning to sleep, and since I’d barely touched my needles since leaving Paris, I decided that tea and knitting would be my soother of choice.

I plugged in the room kettle, placed one of Peaches’s herbal tea remedies into a cup, and settled down in the room’s only chair to dig around in my tapestry bag for my sack of French confection-colored silk yarns. Meanwhile, I’d cast about in my subconscious for strands of what still alluded me and, with a little luck, catch something.

Nearly thirty minutes later, I yawned and crawled back to bed none the wiser.

* * *

The next morning, we divided into two groups: me, Peaches, Lilly, and Rupert would travel together in Rupert’s spiffy rented car, while Henri, Nicolina, and Seraphina traveled in Henri’s Peugeot. René would remain with the DuBoises on cartoon guard duty.

We found tracking devices under both cars, as expected, which suited our plans perfectly. The idea was to confound the enemy. While Nicolina’s group investigated the Sacré-Coeur basilica, my team would take on Sainte-Chapelle and Saint-Denis, all the while pretending to be searching the floor tombs or hidden underground recesses. I suspected that Tengfeng probably knew by now that we used handheld devices with X-ray capabilities but I figured he didn’t know that those devices could not yet detect a textile through stone. Let them track us.

We said goodbye to the DuBoises and promised to let them know what we were up to as soon as it was safe to do so. Meanwhile, we left a few surveillance devices around to catch any interlopers should they be lurking. We gave René a short session on how the things worked and left him with a program to check on his own phone. By the time we were under way, the sun was rising in the east and the air promised a warm late-spring day.

About a half hour after we were on the road, Seraphina texted to say that the Tengfeng-Mimi tracker had arrived at the Île de la Cité and stopped, which meant they’d parked. Two main cathedrals lay in that area, Notre-Dame and Sainte-Chapelle.

“Damn. They beat us to it,” Peaches muttered.

“Maybe not,” Rupert remarked. “Sainte-Chapelle does not open its doors for another ten minutes and Notre-Dame is of course closed until further notice.”

“We should spot them in line when we enter,” Peaches said.

“If they intend to tail us, they’ll need to divide up eventually, too,” I muttered. “Somebody will have to follow each of our groups, which will be useful when we discover the tapestry’s true location.” Or that was the idea.

“And you expect to figure out where the tapestry is really hidden while we pretend to be searching for it?” Lilly asked me in amazement.

“Something like that.”

“But what if you don’t figure out where it is?” Lilly asked.

“We will.” I truly believed that but had absolutely no way of explaining it convincingly. “It may take a few more days but it will come to me.”

“Should be interesting. It always is watching Phoebe work,” Rupert murmured as he navigated the lanes heading for A10. “By the way, I have requested that Seraphina report regularly as to their location.”

We sat lost in our thoughts for a while. “Lilly,” I asked as the signs for Paris began to appear, “was Père Louis Saint Chappelles a monk, by any chance?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted, today back in incognito gear in a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. “I don’t think very much was ever written about him or that he wrote much about himself. Then again, maybe everything that had existed along with any correspondence was all destroyed except that one letter.”

A few minutes later, a sign for the Île de la Cité appeared to our right. Meanwhile, the enemy’s tracker hadn’t moved.

“I’ll give you directions to the nearest parking lot,” Peaches, who was up front with Rupert, said as she peered at her phone. “Take the first left off the ramp.”

“Why do you ask about Père Saint Chappelles?” Lilly turned to me and flipped up her glasses.

“Just a dream I had. I imagined myself talking to a bodiless monk.”

“Sounds scary.”

“It wasn’t. Just odd.”

She smiled. “Maybe that was Père Louis. Maybe you’re on to something.”

Rupert called from the front seat. “Speaking of Louis, did you know that King Louis IX, the king who ordered the Sainte-Chapelle cathedral constructed around 1242, could have easily born the descriptor ‘aggrandizer’ attached to his name? He built this cathedral with the intention of making Paris the new Jerusalem. The cost of the holy relics he accumulated far outstripped the cost of building the cathedral itself.”

“I think entitlement is clearly the kingly way,” I remarked. “He probably hoped to pave his road to heaven. Wasn’t he sainted in the end?”

“He was,” Rupert acknowledged.

“And wasn’t some of the structure destroyed during the French Revolution?” Peaches inquired. “They did have that anti-royalty thing going on.”

“Also correct,” said Rupert. “However, it has since been reconstructed. Fortuitously, most of the stunning stained glass has survived, despite the marauding populace razing down the epitome of wealth and excess while crying ‘Viva la France!’ as if France isn’t as much about its history as it is about its future. Poor deluded sods. Nevertheless, they helped pave the way for democracy. Let us visit the upper chapel first.”

Along the way it was necessary to pass Notre-Dame, that day a mass of webbing and scaffolding that all but obliterated the magnificent structure beneath. The ravages of time had fangs of fire in this case. Our hearts fell looking at it as we hurried along.

“Prepare to be astounded,” Rupert said as he ushered us toward our destination.

Being astounded while simultaneously pretending to be seeking something of value and looking out for our enemies at the same time was more challenging than I expected. Once we had joined the line (Peaches had purchased our tickets in advance) and climbed the narrow stairs to the upper level while attempting some modicum of social distancing, we entered the magnificent upper chapel only to be struck dumb. Or at least I was.

“Holy crap! Pure Gothic magic! Look at that vaulted ceiling!” enthused Peaches, gazing upward at the huge rosette window inset into the front nave.

Never had so much color and light beamed over me all at once. With fifteen glass walls over forty-nine feet high, it was as if we had stepped inside a magnificent multifaceted prism, as if a thousand Tiffany lamps were washing brilliant illumination down upon our heads all at once. Bathing in color and light was so overwhelming I temporarily forgot what we had come to do. When next I looked around, Rupert had his phone in hand and was running it over the mosaic floor.

“I’ll watch your collective backs,” Peaches whispered. “There may be lots of space in here but that leaves plenty of places to hide, too. If your guess is correct, they’ll be watching us. Luckily, the first group is still relatively small. I only counted forty people to enter with us.”

Lilly was keeping an eye out for any individual who could be either her sister or uncle in disguise. “Don’t expect them to be all dressed in black, either. They’re smarter than that. They’ll probably look like tourists and tag along with an Asian tour group. Most people don’t bother to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese, anyway. Still, I don’t see any tour groups, for that matter.”

I checked my phone. No message from Seraphina, though Nicolina had texted to say they had just arrived at the Sacré-Coeur and that there was no sign of any likely suspects there, either. Okay then, time to pretend to get to work.

As I held up my phone as if to run an X-ray app, a guard strode up to me with a pleasant but definite non. No pictures allowed. Now what? Somehow I had to pretend to use my app on the sly. To that end, I veered toward the side of the chapel that was richly gilded and elaborately decorated, though the stained glass clearly stole the show.

Still, since the whole place had been restored long after the Hundred Years’ War, I knew there was likely no place there to hide a tapestry. The logical thing would be to head down to the crypt, anyplace, in fact, where the revolutionaries might not have ravaged. And then it hit me: there was no place that the revolutionaries hadn’t ravaged. According to the guide I overheard speaking to my right, they’d even melted down the reliquaries and stolen the jewels. What tapestry could survive that? And I bet Tengfeng and Lilly knew that, too.

I was crossing the mosaic floor toward Rupert just as he was approaching me.

“Nicolina texted to say that the enemy’s tracker has not yet moved but that she sent Seraphina to do a reconnaissance and that Seraphina believes she has spotted two who may be our enemy checking out Notre-Dame!”

“Through the barricades and scaffolding?”

“Just so.”

“That’s crazy! That place was badly damaged.” I knew the tapestry wasn’t in Notre-Dame, though the dates fit and a court priest would have access to that facility. There were crypts, of course, but Louis wouldn’t have hidden anything that close to his king. “Let’s head for Saint-Denis. Maybe they’ll start following us.”

Peaches arrived with Lilly. “What are you talking about?”

We filled her in.

“Well, they’re not here, that’s for sure. We were the first ones in when the doors opened for the day.”

“We’re heading for Saint-Denis now,” Rupert said.

“Where the kings of France were buried?” Lilly asked.

“Exactly.”

And so we left for our car, me reading a text from Nicolina as we strode along. “No sign of Tengfeng and Mimi in the basilica, either. What does that mean?”

“That they believe the tapestry may be hidden in the remains of Notre-Dame?” Rupert inquired.

“But it can’t be,” I claimed. “They are off on the wrong track.”

“So are we,” Peaches mused, “since we don’t know where the right track is.”

Unfortunately true.

“That’s a good thing that they’re on the wrong track, isn’t it?” Lilly was striding along right beside me.

“Yes, it’s a good thing. It means we don’t have to lead them along on a wild-goose chase because they’re off on one of their own but it’s not the way I’d hoped this would happen. Let’s continue to Saint-Denis and see if they track us there.”

But it was unsettling. What if Louis had hidden it in Notre-Dame? But no, I reminded myself, he couldn’t have. Don’t ask me how I knew that but I just did.

The basilica was in a northern suburb of sprawling Paris and required maneuvering traffic, taking several wrong turns, and probably frittering away our time to get there.

“Where would you hide a tapestry if you were a monk?” I inquired to no one in particular.

“In a monastery,” Peaches replied. “Don’t mean to be so literal but, really, why not?”

We had reached the car park by then and Rupert was pressing the horn button on his key fob to find our rental. “Well, indeed, why not? There’s the blasted thing. The basilica of Saint-Denis was, in fact, a former medieval abbey church and contains the remains of every French king dating from the tenth century. It sounds like an ideal place to hide a tapestry on one hand, except it would be extraordinarily well-guarded on the other, and why would this Louis chap make things so difficult for himself?”

Peaches ran her scanner around the car in case something worse than a tracker had been attached. She paused somewhere near the fender. “The bastards.” And she swore under her breath.

“What?” Lilly asked.

We watched in silence as she slid her hand under the car, emerging minutes later holding a wafer-like object about the size of a stick of chewing gum. In moments, she had ground it under her heel and tossed the remains down a drain. “They were here and fastened that thing under our car. I have no idea what it was but let me check the interior before we go anywhere.” Five minutes later she emerged with another one, glaring at it in disbelief before taking its photo and performing the same crunch-and-discard ritual.

“Surely it isn’t an explosive device?” Rupert asked.

Lilly blanched.

“Couldn’t be or we’d be nothing but bits and pieces by now,” Peaches told him. “Just never seen anything like it. I sent the pic to Ev but the scanner indicated a listening device merged with a tracker—ultra-high-tech, like man-on-the-moon high-tech, which, now that I think about it, is so last year.”

“Technically so last century,” I remarked. “Let's get going.”

We piled into the car and took off, and while we cut across Parisian traffic, all I could think of was how it was folly to underestimate one’s enemy. They should be following us by now but apparently weren’t; they appeared to be investigating Notre-Dame instead but probably weren’t. Did they have a lead that we didn’t? It was baffling, unsettling, and left me at loose ends.

And now we were hoping to trick them into thinking that we, too, believed the tapestry was hidden in a church, specifically a tomb. Hence, Saint-Denis. The sight had a fascinating history. Any structure that begins its tale with a saint who was supposedly decapitated by the Romans and carried his own head to the spot where he wanted to be buried is worth hearing. However, while en route, Rupert also informed us that most of the monastery sections were destroyed in 1792 and that the revolutionaries had melted down the artifacts and reliquaries there, too. Even the lead roof had been dismantled to make bullets. It was boggling how much destruction this basilica, in fact this entire city, had endured through the ages. Still, she rose proud and inspirational over the collective imaginations of Europe and beyond.

By the time we had arrived and parked our car, still no one followed us. Our tracker remained resolutely in the same spot. Meanwhile, back at Sacré-Coeur, Nicolina and team likewise found that their activities were garnering no interest on the surface or, at least, not enough.

“It’s a game and they’re winning,” Lilly remarked as we strode toward the imposing exterior of the basilica. The visitor line was depressingly long and Peaches had been too preoccupied to nab tickets. “While we think we are leading them on a false trail, they intend to do the same to us. How do we know that their car hasn’t moved?”

“Seraphina found it in the same car park as us, but,” I said, my mind racing, “suppose they left that vehicle and transferred to another one? They must know that we’re tracking them, too.”

“Of course they know,” she said.

“I shall just pop into the ticket desk and see if I can throw Interpol’s weight around to get us a special pass,” Rupert announced before scuttling off.

Lilly stared at me. “We need to deploy another strategy.”

“Any ideas?” I asked.

“How about we find the real tapestry first?” Peaches always preferred the most direct approach.

Then somebody recognized Lilly and swooped in for an autograph while Peaches and I stood aside to watch.

“Peach, I agree that we need to find that tapestry but I just don’t know where to go next. Maybe I need to return to the oubliette and confer with Louis?”

“I’ll just pretend you didn’t say that. Still, it looks like we’re being played while we think we’re doing the playing. At least we didn’t go dashing into Notre-Dame to follow them, did we? Maybe they thought they’d jump us or something while we were scrambling around the scaffolding,” she pointed out.

“Maybe, and maybe they never went to Notre-Dame in the first place. Maybe they went elsewhere and only wanted us to think they went to Notre-Dame.” I shot a message off to René, who replied within seconds: no signs of interlopers at the château. Still, I remained uneasy until Rupert returned and beckoned the three of us to follow him. He had used his Interpol pedigree to get us a special pass to the most sacrosanct parts of the basilica, which left him as plump-feathered as the king of the barnyard.

“Indeed, it was surprisingly easy. All I need do was show my card, wait while they made a brief phone call, and voilà!—we’re guests. Truly, I do love it when things work as they should with the least amount of effort expended on my part, and am sorely tempted to use a similar technique for getting us a prime table in one of the top Parisian restaurants—Le Cinq, L’Oiseau Blanc, the Carette—”

Peaches whispered, “Cock-a-doodle-do,” under her breath.

I slipped up beside him. “If only we had time for fine dining.”

He adjusted his ascot and sighed. “Just so.”

Moments later, we were descending into the underbelly of the basilica toward the crypts, a long dimly lit area with various interconnecting stone chambers that spanned the centuries from Charlemagne on to the seventeenth century.

It was a perfect place to hide a tapestry if someone needed the location and privacy to manage such a thing. A court priest would certainly have access to those vaults and be allowed to pray in solitude for the souls of the dead while he secreted something of immense value in one of the tombs. But why would he? If he thought his secret damaging to the crown, wouldn’t he want to hide it someplace as far away as possible and not in the midst of them? Also, tombs were hardly dry and tidy. One didn’t need to be a textile conservator to figure that one out.

“Henri believes he recognized a sword in the cartoon,” I mused aloud. “In keeping with the Joan of Arc theory, Joan was a warrior so that sword could represent her triumph. I thought at first that maybe the tapestry might be hidden near Joan’s remains but there were no remains. She was burned and her ashes tossed into the Seine.”

We stood gathered around one of the oldest sections, gazing at the crumbled and worn sarcophagi that had been arranged—and looted—centuries ago. We had been left alone.

“However,” Rupert began, clearing his throat, “a recent scientific discovery investigated an apothecary jar that supposedly contained Joan’s ashes and found a piece of linen hailing from the fifteenth century.”

“Along with the femur of a cat, right? It was typical during the execution of a supposed witch to throw a black cat onto the flames to ward away evil spirits,” I added.

“Hell, if I were an evil spirit, that wouldn’t work on me,” Peaches whispered. “I’d want the kitty to keep me company wherever I was going.”

“You’d probably be burned as a witch, too, then,” I said. “Me, too, actually.”

Peaches nodded. “Bright, kick-ass, rebel women were easily branded as witches back then. Both of us are sistas in time.”

“Anyway, speaking of time, this is wasting it in bucketloads. We’ve got to stop pretending and start finding,” said I. “Our enemy are on to us.”

“I’m all for that,” Peaches said.

I turned to Rupert. “Name some of the major sites in France that factored during the Hundred Years’ War.”

“Crécy, Orléans, Agincourt—” Rupert began.

“I don’t mean battles, just locations.”

“Phoebe, all of France was involved in the war that continued for well over a hundred years. It would be most difficult to determine a location that wasn’t affected.”

We began walking back the way we’d come. “What about significant castles, châteaus, or fortifications that factored in the war?” I tried again.

“The Château de Castelnaud,” Lilly offered. “It was captured by the English during the war.”

“Not a likely place, then,” I said. “Our priest and his confederates would want to hide this secret someplace they believed the English would never conquer.”

“Surely there was no such place?” Rupert said.

“What about the royal Château de Tours?” Lilly again. “That’s where King Charles VII married Marie d’Anjou and it was the site where they hosted Jeanne d’Arc’s victory at the Battle of Orléans.”

“Too close to the seat of the mighty again,” was my response.

“I thought you believed that it must be hidden in a church?” Peaches pointed out. “Why are we thinking castles all of a sudden?”

“Just brainstorming,” I said.

“Hold on a minute. I have to find a toilet,” Lilly said. “I think I saw a sign near the entrance. I’ll meet you back here.”

“Wait, I’ll go with you,” Peaches said. “We need to keep eyes on you at all times.”

Lilly flashed her a smile. “I’ve been doing this on my own for a long time, Peaches. You guys can wait nearby if you insist but I’m entering the toilet alone. Do you see the toilette signs?”

We followed Lilly to the entrance where we all reapplied our face masks in the interest of germ avoidance because by now the place was swarming with visitors. While Rupert waded through the throng to thank the guard for letting us in, something caught my eye.

I nudged Peaches and Lilly. “Look at that,” I whispered as a tour group squeezed by us chattering away. “Are those saints?”

Peaches stared at the painting that was probably done in the late seventeenth century, situated beside the information booth, and portrayed four radiant figures descending through the clouds. “I have no idea, being a Baptist from birth, but do saints have wings? That top guy is brandishing a sword.”

Lilly just stared before announcing, “Right, off to the loo. See you in a minute.”

We watched her stride away as Rupert arrived beside us. “Those are four of the top archangels. Really, you two, don’t you know Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, and Michael?”

“Not personally,” Peaches remarked, “but that explains the wings.”

“The topmost image is archangel Michael, the most powerful angel in the celestial realm and also the angel of protection. He’s often portrayed as a warrior, which is why he holds aloft a sword and—” Rupert’s words trailed off as he stared transfixed at the image.

“A sword with wings,” I whispered.

“Which angels did Joan of Arc see again?” Peaches asked.

“The archangel Michael…” Rupert said.

I licked my lips. “I think we just found our next clue.”

“Wait!” yelped Peaches, swinging toward the entrance. “Where the hell is Lilly going and who is she with?”

CHAPTER 14

We burst outside in time to see Lilly wedged between two men running toward a white van parked at the curb about fifty feet ahead of us. Short, powerfully built, only one of the men appeared to be Asian, though it was hard to tell since both were wearing hoodies. I took a photo of the license plate while Peaches and Rupert dashed toward the van, which pealed from the curb seconds before they reached it.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Peaches was crying. “They bloody kidnapped her! We’ve got to follow them!”

That was my first instinct, too, but our car was parked several blocks away. Peaches began hailing a cab while Rupert spoke into his phone.

“Alerting Interpol!” he said over his shoulder. “This is now a kidnapping case.”

“I just sent you a picture of the license plate and the van,” I said, running up beside them. Turning to Peaches, I added: “Forget the cab.”

“What do you mean ‘forget the cab’?” she blurted. “We’ve got to chase after them!”

“No, we don’t. That’s what they expect us to do, what they want us to do. Leave that to the police. Lilly won’t be harmed. This is her uncle and her twin sister we’re talking about, remember? They want us to chase her to divert our attentions away from what they are really up to. We fell into the first trap, let’s not stumble into another.”

I called Nicolina to fill her in.

“They must have another vehicle that we do not track,” she said. “We must locate them quickly. I will put Seraphina on it at once and use our network. Do we need a helicopter?”

“Maybe,” I said. “At least we will once I know where we’re going.”

As soon as we hung up, I opened a map of France on my phone.

“Brain-think, everybody!” I said to the others. “We now know that the tapestry cartoon may contain an image of the archangel Michael. In fact, I’m sure it does. That must lead us somewhere. I feel like the answer is hovering between my eyeballs but I just can’t catch it.”

“The cartoon may also reveal the images of Saint Catherine and Saint Claire, both of whom, along with Saint Michael, Joan of Arc claimed emboldened her to save France,” Rupert pointed out. “How can we consider one without the others?”

“But surely an archangel trumps a saint in the holy hierarchy?” I said.

I turned away and sent a quick message to Evan, who had been raised Catholic and knew all about saints and sinners. Hopefully he would respond right away:

Me: Evan, if the archangel Michael is a clue to a location of a church or fortification in France and you were a priest and a dissenting member of Charles VII’s court following the Joan of Arc crises, where would you hide a priceless object?

“Are you seriously going to just let Lilly go?” Peaches had arrived at my elbow.

I looked up. “I assured her that I’d think strategically and wouldn’t fall into another trap. This is a trap, Peach. They want to lure us off-track. They must know where that tapestry is hidden and are heading right there now, if they haven’t already arrived. All this—” I waved my hand around “—is a smokescreen.”

“The police are on their way. I shall remain here and submit our report but you had best leave now or you’ll be tied up in questioning for at least another hour or more,” Rupert announced. “Here’s the keys to the car.” He dropped them into my hand. “Let me know when you determine a location.”

“Thanks, Rupert. Come on, Peach,” I called as I dashed away.

“Where are we going?” she cried as she ran next to me.

“I have no idea.”

“Seriously?”

We reached the car park just as the peal of sirens ripped the air.

“Seriously. You drive.”

After performing a quick scan around the car where we discovered and destroyed three more trackers all inserted in different locations from those found last time, we climbed into the front.

Peaches banged the steering wheel with her palms. “There’s too many buttons on this damn thing! Give me a switch any day. Where are we going exactly?”

“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “Just take us as far away from Paris as fast we can go.”

Then the phone rang. Evan. I put him on FaceTime while I watched that beautiful face on the screen. “Hi. So glad you called right away. Peaches and I are leaving Paris to parts unknown. I need you to be a good Catholic boy and think like a priest for a moment—okay, maybe think like a monk. I believe Father Louis became a monk. You’ve seen the pictures of the cartoon I sent? We think one of those smudges could be the symbol of the archangel Michael.”

“I’ve reached the same conclusion, but first of all, good morning, Phoebe and Peaches. Nicolina’s filled me in on the status. As for the next piece of business, I haven’t done many monkish things lately for which I have you to thank. I have you on my tracker map, by the way. Is Peaches driving?”

“Yes, Ev, I’m bloody well behind the wheel of this souped-up car Rupe insisted upon renting.”

He smiled. Such a fabulous smile that warmed every cell in my body. Totally irrelevant, I know, but still. “Take the sign for the A14 toward Évreux.”

“Evhoo?”

“Évreux,” he repeated, spelling it out. “You should see it on the dashboard map as a destination to lead you out of Paris.”

“Okay, so like do you know where we’re going?” she asked as she merged into traffic. “Oh, shit, don’t tell me we’re heading for the Arc de Triomphe. Traffic there is like a zookeeper’s nightmare.”

“Stay calm, Peach,” I said in my most soothing tone.

“Yes, I have an idea,” said Evan, “and if you take the next left, I’ll navigate you away from the congestion. Your location is open on my map here.”

“Where are we going?” yelped Peaches.

“Phoebe, it should strike you momentarily. Look at the map.”

I pinched out the map on the dashboard screen, locating Évreux. My eyes traveled along the route to a spot so obvious it shocked me to the core. “Oh, my God!” I cried. “I should have thought of that! We’re going to Mont-Saint-Michel! Evan, you’re brilliant! I just adore you!”

“And I feel the same way about you.” He grinned. “I just wish I were close enough to show you in person.”

“Get a room, you two! Ev, where next after I take that left? There’s a garbage collection truck ahead the size of one of our ambulances back home plonk in the middle of this lane. Looks like they’re chewing up boxes one at a time. We’ll be here all day.” And then she caught sight of something in the rearview mirror. “Shit! I think we’re being followed.”

I turned to see a black Rover rapidly approaching from behind, a guy hanging out the window aiming something at our tires.

“Over the curb!” Evan ordered.

“But—”

“Now!”

Peaches veered to the right of the truck, swiping stacks of wooden boxes and crunching something under our tires, leaving the sanitation workers swearing at us with waving arms.

I fell back into my seat. “They’re following us. Not the sanitation guys but the bad guys.”

“Yes, they are,” Evan said calmly, “so we must outmaneuver them and get you outside of Paris to rendezvous with the helicopter we’re trying to organize. I’m guessing that they don’t want to kill you, just capture you.”

“Me, why?” Peaches asked.

“Not you, Peaches. Phoebe,” he said gently. “They believe she’ll lead them straight to the tapestry.”

“Of course it’s Phoebe they’re after. Sorry—distracted.” She leaned over and patted my knee.

“So they must believe that the tapestry is hidden in Mont-Saint-Michel,” I said. “Peach, eyes on the road, s’il vous plaît. Leave my knee alone.”

“No doubt they know that much but not exactly where. They’ll need you for that. Take the next right and then a hard left. I have a fix on your pursuers and they’re not far behind. Keep going straight until I say otherwise.”

“But I don’t know exactly where it’s hidden,” I protested, holding on to the door as the car swerved to the right.

“Not yet,” Evan said in that calm measured way of his, “but I have full confidence that you will. Tengfeng and Mimi Yu Ho are professionals, Phoebe. You can believe they’ve done their homework and know that you have a sixth sense for finding lost art. You’ve been monitored from day one. We just don’t know how.”

“You believe that we were under surveillance even after we ran the scanners and found Lilly’s yin yang pendent?” Peaches asked.

“We must have been. I’ve always suspected it but didn’t know how,” he said.

I stared straight ahead, shocked by the realization that Tengfeng and Mimi must know everything, including the Joan of Arc connection, which I thought had given us a powerful advantage. “They must have known about the cartoon after we found it, too, maybe even figured out the archangel reference before we did. Damn! If it’s not a device sending them information, then it has to be a mole.”

“A mole!” Peaches exclaimed. “You mean somebody in our trusted circle has been reporting back to Mimi and Tengfeng?”

“A mole is my conclusion, too,” Evan said. “I just spoke to Rupert and Nicolina and we concur. Peaches, at the next stop sign you’ll merge onto a road that will eventually become the A13. Stay the course and follow the signs. How well do you know Lilly?”

I gazed into Evan’s eyes. “Not particularly well but it can’t be Lilly. She was the one who hired us to find the tapestry in the first place.”

Peaches whacked her horn with her palm. “Get your smelly old Renault butt out of my way! That thing is so old it shouldn’t be on the road. Yes, but Lilly believed that all we needed to do was find the tapestry to make Uncle Henri richer. What if once she discovered it would be confiscated by the government, she decided to throw her hand in with Uncle Tengfeng and Mimi? Let them steal it and sell it on the underground market like for a percentage. They’re family, after all.”

“Did you do that with your criminal brother?” I asked. “Did I?”

“Course not but everybody’s different. We’re very different.”

“I just can’t believe that it was Lilly. Her competition against her sister is real, plus she has a career she needs to protect, plus she warned me about how to play this game. Lilly’s legit. The mole can’t be her.”

“But we can’t rule her out, either,” Peaches insisted. “After all, as soon as you pointed out Saint Michael’s symbol, she conveniently ran off with a couple of dudes.”

“Kidnapped,” I pointed out. There are other potential moles to consider—the DuBoises, for instance. What about René?”

Peaches glanced at me. “René’s a sweet guy but not the brightest bulb in the box. Maybe Henri.”

“But he detests Tengfeng and would want the tapestry to stay in France.”

“Focus on the road for now,” Evan warned. “We still have to get you safely out of Paris. It should take roughly four hours to get to the mount, barring any mishaps.”

We glued our eyes back on the road where dark clouds were gathering in the western part of the city. “Where are our tailgaters now?”

“They’ve fallen far behind but they may have glommed on to the direction you’re heading.” Evan spoke in such a calm manner that it could only mean trouble.

“And?” I prompted.

“And if I were them, I’d wait until you were in the countryside heading for the coast before making my next move.”

“Which would be?” Peaches inquired.

“I’d find a way to stop you long enough to kidnap Phoebe. I wouldn’t waste my time and energy chasing you all over Paris once I figured out where you were heading. The other option would be to wait until you arrived at the mount and ambush you there.”

“Thanks.” Peaches swore. “Here we come, a pair of canard assis.”

“You’re hardly sitting ducks,” Evan said. “You have the strength of our network behind you, plus the two of you are dynamos.”

So why didn’t I feel like a dynamo? Suddenly, I felt more like a fool. Why didn’t I sense a mole sooner? “Do we have agents on the ground in the abbey yet?” I asked.

“No, but they’re on the way and so am I. I’m sitting on a plane as we speak.” Relief washed over me. “Do you have an inkling of where Father Louis Saint Chappelles may have hidden the tapestry?”

“Not yet.” I sat gazing into his eyes, letting them give me strength because I had no idea what lay ahead and I needed all the support I could get. Unconsciously, I fingered the key beneath my shirt. “It would have to be in the medieval part of the abbey. I gather that the site is very old. I haven’t had a chance to do my research yet.”

Evan was like a walking history book—with benefits. “In the eighth century, the cult of the archangel Michael inspired Father Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, to build a sanctuary on Mont-Tombe, now Mont-Saint-Michel. The story goes that the bishop was slow to comply so the archangel poked a finger into his skull to bring the point home. The bishop’s skull, complete with indentation, is among the abbey’s relics.”

“A holey skull, in other words. Never argue with an angel,” Peaches muttered as she followed the signs to the Normandy coast. “They’ll always have the upper hand.”

“And the abbey part?” I asked.

“The site became of strategic importance in 966 when the Duke of Normandy established a community of Benedictine monks, which continued there for over eight hundred years,” Evan told us.

“Which included the Hundred Years’ War,” I remarked.

“Absolutely.” Evan quirked his mouth in a half smile, trying to keep me calm and possibly distract me from a sense of impending doom. “Mont-Saint-Michel never succumbed to the English no matter how hard they battered its defenses. As you know, it’s perched on a pinnacle of inhospitable rock in a tidal estuary that is now linked by a causeway.”

“A perfect defensive position,” I remarked.

“The best. Though it withstood the English, its formidable location made it a perfect place for a prison, which it became in the seventeenth century when it was named the ‘bastille on the sea.’ It’s designed in the hierarchal style: first comes the abbey with a golden archangel perched on top representing God—a later addition, by the way—next comes the monastery, then the great halls and the dormitories, after which follows the town beyond the walls on the very rock foundations with the sea crashing below.”

I looked up at those dark clouds scudding in from the English Channel. “Crashing? What’s the weather report?”

“Gloomy with a side of disaster,” Peaches muttered.

I smiled. “Oh, just stop.”

“I have to talk to French Interpol for a while. We’re having trouble locating a helicopter on short notice. Stay the course, Peaches, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

As the buildings began to recede and the French countryside opened up around us, I pulled up my phone and dug into my research.

“So Charles VI, Charles VII’s father, strengthened Mont-Saint-Michel’s ramparts and added courtyards,” I said. “Sometime during his son’s reign and following the Joan of Arc debacle, Père Louis Saint Chappelles may have requested the king’s permission to join the monastery for a time, which could have given him the opportunity needed to hide the tapestry.”

“Going to monasteries was a medieval priest’s idea of a vacation, I take it?” Peaches asked.

“Yes, either that or on a pilgrimage and the mount was also a pilgrimage site for a time.”

“What I don’t understand is why he and Le Viste felt compelled to have that tapestry made in the first place if it was such a treasonous act? Couldn’t they have been burned at the stake, too, if they were ever discovered?”

I sat back in my seat and stared out at the gathering clouds. The first drops of rain splattered the windshield. “Possibly. I think Saint Chappelles and Le Viste needed to express their outrage at Joan of Arc’s treatment by church and state. Art has always given subversives a voice and these were subversives. Maybe they believed that the archangel demanded that they do this.”

“Maybe.”

“To true believers. Joan of Arc was a simple peasant girl who went to war after she was supposedly commanded to do so by archangel Michael and two saints.”

“And Louis was a priest, too, and to him Joan of Arc must have seemed like a miracle.”

“And a beacon of faith to everyone, an agent of Saint Michael himself. Like all great women, she delivered what she promised, and in what must have seemed to be in a miraculous manner.”

“Yeah, Joan was a badass.”

“A true medieval superhero, a real one. Anyway, the first tapestries in the series were just leading up to this grand finale panel, which I’m convinced was not designed at the same time as the others.”

“So they’d really risk their lives for a tapestry?”

“For art, yes, and they wouldn’t be the first.”

After that we fell silent, focusing on our thoughts while preparing for whatever lay ahead. As if we could. Rupert informed us that the police had found the kidnapping van abandoned on the outskirts of Paris. It had been stolen, apparently, but there was no sign of Lilly.

“Hopefully they won’t harm her,” Peaches replied.

“I doubt that they will but I’m betting they’ll piss her off."

“Do you think the Yu Hos will go into the abbey disguised as tourists?” The first glimpse of the coast came into view way off to our right.

“Maybe. They’ll probably hide out somewhere. If they don’t try to kidnap us first, they’ll let me find the tapestry, then nab it. The site shuts its doors at seven p.m., as in an hour’s time.”

Those banks of dark cloud gathering over the English Channel aligned with my mood.

“Does anybody stay overnight at the mount?”

“There are about sixty inhabitants, which probably include shopkeepers, bed-and-breakfasters, plus a handful of monks and sisters.”

“The monastery is still active?”

“So I understand."

Peaches stared at the gathering gloom. “Damn. Why does nature have to be such a set stager? Is that a storm I see blowing in?”

“Yeah, really. We could do without a squall hitting tonight.”

“And I don’t have a gun on me. That just leaves my knife and our superphones for protection. Will that work against a bunch of kung-fu bat-shit überwarriors?”

“Peach, stop panicking. Leave that to me, will you?”

She laughed and fell silent again. That left miles and miles of beautiful cloud-scudded farmland, small towns whizzing by, and plenty of traffic that gradually intensified as we neared suppertime and, after dusk, dissipated once again. The rain, too, would intensify and then reduce to a splatter here and there before resuming with more vigor.

Still no one attempted to stop us, ambush us, or do a single disruptive thing. We had a moment when we were forced to slow for roadwork but the slowdown ended up being exactly as advertised, allowing us to continue on minutes later without mishap.

“I think there’s a seagull following us,” Peaches commented. “I’ve seen the same black speck hovering overhead for the past ten miles.”

“Must be a drone. Since none of our peeps announced anyone tagging us, it must be theirs.”

“First sign to Mont-Saint-Michel ahead,” Peaches announced. “Where’s Evan with our helicopter?”

I glanced down at my phone. “He just messaged me to say that they can’t locate one on such short notice but he’s still trying. It won’t be much help in this weather, anyway.”

The rain began whipping the car as the dark descended dense and ominous.

“Drone still overhead. I think,” Peaches muttered.

I responded: “It’s times like these I just want to be at home knitting.”

“Right. That’s my first thought, too: bad guys, art thieves, a spy drone, and sneaky bastards who want to kidnap me equal ‘where’s my knitting?’”

“I’ll turn you into a convert yet.”

We were cruising along a road called Route du Mont-Saint-Michel lined with restaurants and B and Bs interspersed with farmland. Most of the traffic was heading in the opposite direction. We could just see Mont-Saint-Michel puncturing the sky in the rain-whipped horizon ahead.

“So what are we going to do, just drive up and demand to be let in?” Peaches asked.

“Pull over,” I said quickly. “There’s a restaurant/B-and-B combo on the left. See the sign? Turn there.”

Peaches turned into the parking lot while I rang Evan. He didn’t answer but had sent a text minutes earlier that I read aloud: “Just landing. No helicopter. Rupert and I will get there as soon as possible. Nicolina and Seraphina en route now.”

“Now what?” Peaches demanded.

“We eat, of course. We have to assume that the Yu Hos and their crew are waiting for us somewhere in the monastery or in the village itself or maybe up ahead by the causeway. You can believe they’ll have that causeway watched. We need to do the unexpected. When’s high tide? Maybe we’ll wait until dark and then commandeer a boat.”

“Shit. I was afraid you were going to say something like that. Need I mention that it’s wet as hell out here?”

“Let’s order supper and think this through.”

I ordered a croque monsieur with plenty of hot coffee on the side while Peaches slurped up a bowl of onion soup with crusty bread. Between bites, I was on my phone trying to locate boats for hire, which turned out to be futile. Only the tour boat variety were listed, which meant a slew of after-hour recorded messages telling me to book online without a single live human attached to a phone. But we wanted a boat then, as in that night, not the next day. I went through five phone numbers before exhausting the available options.

“This isn’t going to work,” I said after a moment.

“You’re damn right it isn’t.” She had the Google map open on her phone and was switching back and forth reading background accounts. “It’s crazy to tackle that estuary by boat at night unless you know the currents and even then. Nobody does it, not even the locals. There’s marshland and an estuary leading up to the mount. Once the tide comes in, everything is pretty much obliterated with some of the strongest currents in Europe washing around that rock.”

“Okay, but I’m pretty good with boats.”

“Did you miss the crazy part? If you’re nuts enough to try scrambling across the sand flats at night,” she continued, “the chances are high that you’ll hit quicksand and be sucked to your death. In other words, take the causeway. Maybe we can ward them off with our phones.”

“Just the two of us against we don’t know how many ‘bat-shit ninjas,’ as you call them? Where are we at on the tide cycle?”

“The next low tide is at 9:45 p.m.”

I stared straight ahead without speaking.

“I hate it when you do that.”

“Means I’m thinking. So…we’ll leave the car and proceed on foot to the causeway. Maybe we can escape notice if we blend into the shadows. At least that drone will be useless on a rainy dark night. Let’s book into this B and B and hopefully convince anyone who may be watching that we’ve decided to head over in the morning.”

“And then what?”

“And then we wait for reinforcements to arrive.”

We nabbed one of the few available rooms, a twin-bedded motel room overlooking the mount with an image of the monastery etched into each headboard. An added bonus to our location was the green belt at the back of the motel that ran along the estuary that fed into the mount’s bay. It appeared to head directly toward the causeway.

After booking in, we climbed into our black stealth gear, sneakers, and rain hoodies, made certain our phones were completely charged, and waited for word from the team. Nicolina informed us that they’d been held up with the roadwork, which now appeared to be completely blocking access to all routes heading in our direction. I checked the time. “Road work still at 8:15?”

She texted moments later: Ambush!

“Damn it. The enemy is swooping in!” I said. “We have to get to the mount one way or the other.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here. I hate being a canard assis even if it means we may be walking into a trap.”

We scrambled along the wet grass. To the left, a fringe of tall grasses and stubby trees lined the estuary while, somewhere ahead, the lights of the mount twinkled in the dark like some beacon in the jaws of hell. I had no idea how we were going to get across unseen and kept hoping to borrow a boat in a pinch. But there were no boats of any kind anywhere, which told me plenty in itself. My hopes to cruise up to the mount was abandoned.

“Low tide is when?” I hissed.

“In 32 minutes. We can’t walk across that bay. Don’t even think about it.”

It had stopped raining but the blustering continued with the kind of howling wind that made it nearly impossible to walk at times. The marsh grasses on one side offered a bit of shelter, but by the time we could see the causeway off to our right, the air had suddenly become surreally calm.

“I don’t like it when the weather plays games with us like this,” Peaches whispered. Turning her face skyward, she added: “Get off your high horse!”

We stood together staring out at the rock with its pinnacles and monumental foundations uplit with spotlights. Mont-Saint-Michel seemed to hang suspended in a dark, slick sweep of receding waters that twisted in channels and pools like a shadowy luminous snake.

“Doesn’t look real hospitable or holy, either,” Peaches remarked.

“No, it doesn’t, and it’s totally surrounded by those fortressy walls. The only way to get in is through the main entrance, unless we feel like scaling the defenses.”

“Nope. Let’s sneak closer to the causeway.”

When we arrived at the entrance to the road and crouched down in the grass, I brought up my Google map to a flyover image of the causeway with its roads, walkways, and side parking lots. “It’s long,” I remarked.

Peaches gazed down over my shoulder. “There’s a bank of grass running beside the road. Let’s creep along there. We probably won’t be seen with our black hoodies.”

Which is what we did, trying to keep our heads down as we clambered across the scrubby grass banking the causeway. Ahead, the medieval rock fortress hovered over slick sand, the lights glinting off the occasional rivulet as the water receded.

Everything smelled briny, a scent I usually found comforting after growing up in Nova Scotia, though here it hit me as ominous. I knew we had to be under scrutiny by somebody somehow but couldn’t see them, couldn’t detect them. I had the horrible sense that the enemy tracked us every step of the way. And my friends had been ambushed! Where were they now? I texted Evan but had yet to receive a response.

Eventually we ran out of grass as the causeway became a bridge.

“Shit.” Peaches added a few more pithy expletives. “Let’s just take the road.”

Only we saw two black-clothed figures looking down at us from overhead at the same time that a mechanical whirring approached us from behind.

I turned. “Run!”

CHAPTER 15

“What the hell is that?” Peaches cried.

We were slopping out over the wet sand heading for the mount with something like a mini-tractor chugging up behind us, its headlights raking the sand.

“Some kind of ATV! Keep moving! If you stop, you’ll sink!”

“How many people driving?” Peaches called.

“Don’t know. Maybe two.”

Though the vehicle wasn’t exactly racing toward us, at the pace we were making it may as well have been.

“We’ll never outrun them!” Peaches called.

Every second step, the wet sand sucked us down, making our progress slow and laborious. Both of us were covered in sand from the knees down.

“Then let’s outthink them!” I cried. The wind had picked up again. Maybe she couldn’t hear me when I shouted: “Fall!”

I had my phone in one hand when I landed flat on my stomach into the wet sand. Quicksand wasn’t nearly as effective for sucking you down when spread across a larger surface and I figured my body qualified.

I kept my gaze fixed on the approaching vehicle while out of my peripheral vision I saw Peaches drop on her stomach, too. The guys driving the ATV were speaking Chinese as they pulled up beside us and cut the engine. Bastards thought they had us. Poor little girls caught in the quagmire.

The moment the first guy crouched down, I rolled over on my back and phone-tasered him right in the chest while Peaches beamed her laser into the other guy’s eyes. One screamed, the other fell unconscious into the sand. I tried to jump up to grab the side of the ATV as one leg began sinking.

“Peach!”

She was scrambling on her hands and knees toward the tractor thing and managed to haul herself up into the driver’s seat before reaching down to pull me free and up into the seat behind her. The five causeway guys were yelling and scrambling toward us by now but the engine turned over and the vehicle lurched across the sand.

It wasn’t fast but it made steady progress toward the mount on its tank-like traction system.

“So, when we hit a wet patch does it float or something?” Peaches called over her shoulder.

It had begun to rain again, which made it hard to see. “Don’t think so. How could it with those track plates under there? Is there a button that indicates a propeller or something?”

“Nope,” Peaches called back.

“Then it can’t float.”

And it couldn’t speed, either. What it could do was keep steadily on while the men on foot plodded along behind us, occasionally getting stuck along the way. Two were trying to help their wounded comrades back to shore while the others talked into their phones.

It had begun to rain and blow, wet lashings whipping across the expanse. I checked over my shoulder to discover that our pursuers had stopped pursuing. “They won’t try chasing us. They’ll change tack and ambush us up ahead instead. The main gates are the only way in.”

“Unless you have a vehicle that can zoom you around the outer walls looking for another route.”

“Zoom” wasn’t quite the right word, but why quibble? It made a lot of sense to try entering the fortress another way. After all, the mount was no longer under attack except by swarms of tourists, which should mean that the battlements were no longer battle-worthy.

“Besides,” I said aloud. “They might not have eyes on us on the other side, whereas they definitely will at the entrance.”

And so we made our slow progress around to the channel side of the mount, our vehicle bumping and lurching along over the uneven ground, occasionally splashing through tide pools and over sandbars. We kept the headlights off until out of view of the causeway, proceeding along deeper into the shadows of the high defensive walls. Here the lights were less frequent and mostly hidden by the thick rock overhead.

Though just as forbidding and impenetrable-looking, the walls here had fewer cosmetic features, like window boxes in the arrow slits. Also, it appeared as if plenty of flotsam and debris had washed up against the foundations over the months, including pieces of wood, plastic jugs, part of an upturned dory and a tangled fishing net. As we puttered around the circumference looking for an access point, our ATV crunched over shale while I flashed my phone light over the walls.

We both saw it at the same time.

“Is that a door?” Peaches asked, pulling the vehicle up to the wall.

I climbed off and strode up to investigate. A thick metal door about four feet high sat in a deep indentation in the wall. “I’m guessing it’s an access door so workers can get in and out of the fortress to make repairs. It’s certainly modern.”

“Any way in?” Peaches asked.

“Not from the outside unless we laser-cut the hinges off.”

Peaches studied the foundations. “This level has to be a seawall. See those arrow slits there? They are so low down that this whole level must get flooded during high tide. If we cut our way in, it won’t damage it structurally. Let’s get to it.”

Using the ATV’s headlights for illumination, Peaches set her phone’s laser feature on high and began to cut into the metal door.

“You’ll probably exhaust your battery,” I said.

“No choice.”

Finally, one last spark-filled sweep around the door and the thing groaned. We stepped back as it toppled off its hinges before we slipped inside a dark, foul-smelling space, me flicking my light along the slippery, seaweed-slick floor while Peaches cast one longing look over her shoulder at the ATV.

She ran back and turned it off, pocketing the keys. “If we can get this over with before high tide, maybe we can drive that thing back to safety.”

But right then, all I could think about was getting out through the walls to the other side. We found the outside door almost directly adjacent to the seawall door and this one had a simple lock we could easily disengage. Minutes later, we were gazing out at scrub brush and rock overhead. From this vantage, we couldn’t see any lights.

“Must be on the other side. If we climb up that way, we should reach the village,” I said.

Which we did but only after scaling boulders and scudding down the other side until we arrived at the roofline of medieval houses stepping upward toward the abbey.

“The Grande Rue,” I whispered. Directly below us, wedged between a building and the stone, lay a tiny garden the size of a table. “Should we scramble up the roofs or take the street?”

“Looks like the streets are deserted thanks to the weather. Let’s go that way.”

We squeezed through the alley between two buildings until we reached the street. Luckily, the restaurants and souvenir shops were all closed, the medieval buildings huddled together over the street in a manner that would have been charming any other time. Keeping close to the walls, we began the long trek upward, the cobbled streets slick in the rain. Peaches kept turning to scan for stalkers while I did the same thing ahead. Nothing.

“They’re waiting for us here somewhere,” I whispered while checking my phone, “waiting for us to lead them right to the tapestry. Evan and Rupert are still en route from Paris while Nicolina, Seraphina, and Henri remain incommunicado.”

“Think they’ve been captured?”

“Hope not.”

The farther we climbed, the more intense the wind blew, lashing the rain across the cobbles with bone-chilling intensity. We were high enough now to see the lights of the village and other towns way across the bay while ahead the road stretched on.

We were about halfway there.

“Has Louis told you where to look yet?”

She was only half joking. “It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “I have no idea where’s it’s hidden.”

“It would be great to find out soon. Can you send an ESP text or something? Look.” Peaches pointed to an almost indistinguishable wall of stone with a bell tower.

I checked my phone map. “That’s the Église Saint-Pierre, the parish church for the community. Let’s cut around behind it. There’s a shortcut up to the abbey.”

“How old is it?” Peaches now walked half-turned, trying to keep watch both ahead and behind. “I keep thinking I see movement on the street back there.”

“Fifteenth century.” I plodded along, exhausted by now. I longed for someplace warm and dry to rest but nothing on my agenda fit that description. “But its foundations date back to the eleventh century.” I paused to turn back long enough to study the little church with its side door while wiping the rain from my eyes. “Is that a statue of Saint Joan I see?”

She was tucked into an alcove at the entrance to the church, so deep in the shadows that we nearly missed her. We ran up to investigate.

“It is!” Peaches exclaimed.

“She must be the patron saint of the parish.” I studied the statue for a moment, at the way Joan gazed off into the distance, one hand on her sword, always fixed on her goal. The statue was late seventeenth century, was my guess. I took it as a sign that we were on the right track, whatever that was.

I stepped back, turned, and strode on. “Come, the abbey’s just overhead.” I meant that literally. A million tons of rock and turreted stone now rose above our heads, lights twinkling in the rain but looking about as welcoming as a dungeon.

Peaches clutched my arm and pointed behind us. I froze, catching a flash of movement at the end of the lane leading to the Grande Rue. One, no, two figures followed, all dressed in long black slickers, or maybe those were robes? One paused to look around in all directions, missing us completely as we stood still as stone dressed in our own shadow gear, our phones shoved into our pockets.

“Shit!’ Peaches hissed as they passed. “That has to be them, unless the monks are on patrol.”

“The real monks are probably safe in their beds by now. Let’s keep going.”

Something tugged away at my spine, one minute feeling like a pulse of electricity, the next a tingling sensation. “We’re looking for a statue,” I whispered as we trudged along.

“A statue?”

“Something raised from the ground, something that could enclose a canister or a roll of something, maybe five or six feet long.”

She turned back to stare at me, eyes wide. “Are you having one of those bolts of enlightenment or something? Did Saint Joan or Father Louis talk to you?”

“Neither. It doesn’t work that way, either.”

“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t work that way’? Creepy skulls talk to you in death pits, don’t they?”

“That was a dream. Oh, look. More stairs.”

“Oh, goody.”

And we climbed and climbed until we reached a junction between two sets, one leading up, the other down.

“This way,” I said, heading down the dimly lit stairway. The kung fu monks would be coming up the main street. They’d expect us to head directly for the abbey, which we couldn’t afford to do. Nothing so obvious.

Seconds later, we were slipping against the wall leading to what I guessed were the lodgings and main halls, and soon enough, a door appeared—tall, imposing, and very locked. We had the electronic mechanism disengaged within minutes, slipping into a long stone hall lit with lowlights fixed on the stone.

Coats hanging on pegs and a filled umbrella stand with a puddle drying at its base indicated that the area was probably used for offices and lodgings. We had no idea which way to head next but our best guess was to head up, always up.

Another set of medieval stairs offered us a narrow curving climb, the stairwell so steeped in darkness that we half expected to see a living shadow blocking our path at any moment. When we finally reached the top, we stood there on legs trembling with fatigue, waiting for our hearts to stop banging. Another thick arched door lay ahead. Peaches opened it slowly so we could peer out into a broad stone hall with arches and pillars lining its long expanse.

“They had to build these huge vaulted ceilings to support the weight above,” Peaches whispered. “All clear.” Indicating for me to follow her, she crept out, our footsteps nearly soundless against the ancient stone.

The hall was devoid of decorations of any kind, just arches and broad-branching medieval stone. Stairs off to the side probably led down to the crypts and dungeons, but at that point, I still believed that any statues that existed would probably lay up, not down, so we continued on our way looking for another stairway. It was cold in there, cold with the kind of damp stone that chilled you to the bone.

The next stairwell up led us to the abbey. We paused inside the magnificent structure, awed by the enormity of it all: by the looming arched windows pushing bleary light into the expanse, by the sound of rain whipping against the glass, and the sense of vast emptiness pervading all.

“I’m sure when the candles are lit, it’s beautiful, but right now—” Peaches began.

“Shh!”

I took her by the arm and tugged her inside an arched alcove where we huddled in the dark listening. Something like a scuffling sound was coming from the far end of the abbey. The rustling was followed by a sharp cry and then total silence. We waited breathlessly. Somebody began raking a light down the length of the abbey floor, sweeping it back and forth as if looking for something—us, I guessed.

We remained frozen until the light retracted and we heard a door click shut.

Peaches expelled her breath while I pulled out my phone and began searching for a map of the abbey’s interior, scrolling by frame after frame until I hit one especially designed to guide the handful of lucky people who occasionally lodged there overnight. Pinching the screen open, I stared at the labels of every room, chapel, and hall. When I found it, my gasp was audible.

Peaches nudged me. Taking the phone from my hand, she pinched the screen open further. “Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre?” she whispered. “Our Lady of the Underworld? Why doesn’t that fill my heart with joy?”

“It’s the earliest part of the abbey,” I whispered back, “Nothing left but one wall of the original chapel and that statue of Black Madonna.”

“Black Madonna? There are black Madonnas?”

“Lots in France, yes. The most famous one is in Chartres. They represent the realm of the dead and actually hail back to pre-Christian times. When this site was called Mount-Tombe, it was a Gallic burial site and the black goddess reigned over the underworld. Our earliest ancestors worshipped the sacred feminine as protector and the provider of life after death. The power of the feminine is manifest in the Virgin Mary and Madonna figures today. Humans weren’t always so patriarchal.”

“I can’t stand it when you go on and on like that. The short story is that black goddesses have ruled from the dawn of time! What did I tell you?”

“Let’s go. The chapel’s directly below and the entrance at the other end.”

We stood up on our stiffened legs to silently cross toward the far side where we’d heard the noise earlier. By now, my heart was racing again, jolted to the quick by my conviction that I’d found the hiding place for the seventh tapestry, that I’d tugged at that thread until the unicorn of truth fell out into my proverbial hands.

But racing hearts and a fixed focus can make one careless.

The Sortie sign beamed red at the far end. I fixed on it as if that beacon of modernity was some kind of pilot light leading me on. Peaches was directly behind me.

“Look out!” I heard her cry just seconds before I tripped over the body and fell hard on the floor face-first.

CHAPTER 16

The breath was knocked out of me. I lay dazed, staring out at my phone, which had skidded across the floor. Peaches was beside me in an instant, rolling me over. “You okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t know if that poor guy is.”

I forced the air back into my lungs as she shone her phone light over the body I’d tripped over.

“He’s alive.” She crouched beside him and felt his pulse. “Just knocked out. Blow to the head, by the looks of things.”

I crawled toward the man—middle-aged, bald, dressed in nothing but his white boxers and undershirt. “I think he may be a monk. Bastards stripped him and took his robe. That must have been the sound we heard.”

Peaches sent a quick message to the team saying that the enemy was inside the abbey knocking out monks and stealing their habits. “Why isn’t anybody answering us? I’ve sent messages to everyone and no one responds. Think he’ll be okay here until help comes?”

“I hope so.” I retrieved my phone and beckoned her to follow.

We had to leave him, as much as I hated to. Using the map, we took an exit in the far corner and began descending another twisted ancient stairway. Unlit, the way was steep, slippery, and appeared to be penetrating deep into the heart of the rock itself. Periodic new brick and mortar patches indicated recent repairs but most of what surrounded us was ancient to the core.

The deeper we descended, the danker and darker it became. My only comfort was in the conviction that our monk-garbed enemies were off somewhere way overhead goose-chasing on another track, leaving us to the underworld.

At the bottom of the stairway, we followed the hall into the arched doorway of a little chapel where we stopped and ran our lights across the stone. The statue was tucked into an alcove. “This part dates from the first millennium.”

“Okay,” Peaches whispered, staring at the wooden statue of the Black Madonna. “I feel like I should genuflect, curtsey or something. It’s about time I found a Madonna that looks like me.”

The Madonna’s and baby Jesus’s gowns were painted in gold, the figures tucked into an arch with a faded blue star-flecked sky above. The statue was lovely if a bit strange in her rough-hewn sanctuary.

“Too recent,” I said, my disappointment so heavy I thought it would drag me down to the cold stone.

“Recent how?” Peaches whispered.

“Looks to be nineteenth century. We need something much older.” I flicked to the map on my phone again and continued reading the article accompanying the map. “It says that one Black Madonna was destroyed by the revolutionaries but before then there was another, much older Madonna, which now resides in the crypt of the Twenty-three Candles, wherever that is. We’ve got to find that.”

“Which way?”

I checked the map again. “Toward the dungeons.”

“Fabulous.”

But the route to the dungeons looked like the rest of this warren of ancient rock-carved crypts. In the end, we stumbled upon it by accident. Our lights flashed across another very old vaulted ceiling with more areas of old brick mingled by cement.

“There.” I shone my light over the stone altar before landing on the plaster statue of a crowned Madonna perched on a shelf on one side.

“But she’s white,” Peaches protested.

“Sorry, but she’s also old. Show some respect. Typical of the time, she’s dressed like a queen.” I came as close to the statue as I could considering that a spiked fence separated the viewer from the figure, and ran my phone scanner over the faded paint of her once-red gown. “Definitely thirteenth century or older. It would have been here in Father Louis’s day and she’s hollow, too.” Leaning forward, I studied the Madonna’s missing hand, the baby Jesus with his absent head. “Can you get me up there?”

“Up where?”

“Up to that shelf so I can get to her.”

“What are you seeing?” Peaches asked as she looked around to rig up a stand somehow.

“See Jesus’s neck? It has a hole right down the center where the head would have been attached to a rod of some kind. These medieval plasters were sometimes cast in hollow molds with the hands and heads fixed by metal rods. See the faint horizontal line below the plaster on the Madonna’s neck? I’m thinking that if we take her head off, we’ll find a hollow core with something hidden inside.”

“Damn you’re good! Sometimes.” Peaches darted behind a stone altar, emerging seconds later carrying a wooden step. “This might not be perfect but it will help us to climb over the grille and hoist you up to the statue.”

Which we did.

“Now you climb onto my shoulders so I can lift you,” she suggested.

That worked. In moments, I was riding Peaches, eye-to-eye with the Madonna. “Hold still. I’m going to try to screw her head off.”

“And you say that I should show some respect. What if she breaks?”

“She’s made of sterner stuff than that.”

But the neck barely moved. I tried again, pouring every inch of strength into my arms as I gently but firmly twisted to the right. The head finally scraped an inch or two, leaving the plaster eyes gazing calmly off to the side. Taking a deep breath, I turned steadily until the head lifted in my hands. “Ah, she’s heavy. Quickly. Put her down.”

Once the Madonna’s head rested on the ground, I returned to my Peaches perch and stared. “Do you see what I see?” I whispered.

“Something sticking out?”

“Leather, I think.” Leaning over, I lifted the object straight up, a stiff, mold-scummed narrow brown carrier that Peaches helped me to raise out of the hollow core and lower to the ground.

“We found it!” I exclaimed. I could hardly believe it while, at the same time, my heart filled with admiration for Father Louis. Of course, he could never have imagined that even the sacred statue of the Madonna might have fallen prey to the marauding revolutionaries. He must have thought such statutes sacrosanct. But then, he would have believed that the angels, saints, and Joan herself would have protected the treasure. And maybe he would have been right, based on his beliefs.

“Snap to, Phoebe! Let’s put the lady’s head back and get the hell out of here.”

The moment we had made the Madonna whole again and were staring down at the moldy canister on the floor, voices sounded far overhead.

“Is it my imagination or are they getting closer?”

“Shit. They’re like bloodhounds,” Peaches whispered. “They’re coming.”

“We need to find a way to carry this thing.” It was long, heavy, and awkward. “Maybe if I sling it over my shoulders? I think these disintegrating strips were once straps.” I lifted it up carefully but it was surprisingly heavy.

Peaches had gone to the door to listen but was back in a minute nudging me aside. “I’ve got this.”

In seconds she had the carrier over one shoulder, fixed in place partly by her belt and partly by one of the rotting straps, the top end of the long canister sticking out of her coat up into her rain hood. Our phone lights made a monstrous silhouette of her profile but she could move and the treasure was protected from the elements—all that mattered. That and avoiding the Tengfeng gang.

“Put your light on night-vision mode,” Peaches whispered.

“There’s a night-vision mode?”

She plucked my phone out of my hand with an irritated sigh and tapped the screen. “You need to study Evan’s updates for once,” she hissed, passing it back.

“I’ve been too busy studying Evan.” And I craved like anything to have his tall protective presence by our side right then, not that he could do anything differently. Escape was our only plan. How was another matter.

The strange blue night-vision light turned the ancient corridors into something even more underworld-like as we slipped farther away from the sound of voices. They had to be on this level now and, with luck, had not yet detected our presence, let alone our success. Meanwhile, we had no idea where we were heading except for as far away from those voices as we could get.

I kept a rough image of the map imprinted on my brain and knew that many stairways led from the crypts and dungeons onto various levels. All we needed to do was find one and escape the monastery, descend to the village, find the outer wall that we had entered, and retrieve the ATV to make our way across the possibly tide-flooded bay. In other words, we needed a new plan and fast.

I could only pray that the rest of the team were somewhere on the mount by now because the scope of what lay ahead seemed as monumental as the rock itself. A few Interpol agents would be helpful, too. We’d had no time to check our messages in the past half hour. Where was everybody?

We found a stairway maybe ten minutes later.

“Praise the Black Madonna!” Peaches whispered as we crammed into the narrow passage and up the steep stairs. “And the saints and angels, too! Is there anybody else we should add?”

“Is that the Baptist in you talking?” I whispered.

“Yeah, she arouses at times like this. I could almost pray right now.”

Now there was shouting behind us, the sound echoing against the stone. Meanwhile, the stairway we pushed through became so narrow Peaches had to stoop in order to climb without scraping the top of the canister against the scummy ceiling.

What the condition of the tapestry might be after centuries rolled inside that thing was another matter. I only knew that under the care of the right conservator—Ella, for instance—the final unicorn tapestry could be brought back to life and take its place in the history of France at last.

But the way was long and steep for humanity, clambering around in the dark as we so often do, weary, half-blind as we often are, sometimes with nothing leading us forward but the light of our faith, if we were lucky enough to believe in something.

“Where the hell does this thing go—up to the steeple?”

“Keep moving,” I panted.

We arrived at a door crammed into a landing so small it was impossible to stand upright.

“Look.” I shone the light on an ancient bolt system where the rusty arm had been thrown back. “This has just been opened recently for the first time in a long time.”

“And?”

Someone called out way down in the darkness behind us.

“And let’s go!”

As I shoved the door open, a gust of wind wrenched it from my hand to send it banging against the stone wall, reverberating right down to the bowels of the mount. Damn!

“They must have heard that! Run!”

The howling wind swallowed Peaches’s cry as we pushed out onto what seemed to be vortex of rain and wind. Around us, nothing but swirling rain-whipped mist with zero visibility. Then for an instant, the tempest abated long enough to see lights far away to the left while, above, an uplit golden archangel Michael flew through the storm.

Peaches saw him, too. “Sometimes I believe in angels.”

“Angels are real, they just don’t all look like him! We’re on the upper terrace,” I gasped. “This way!”

Only that way meant plunging headlong and head down into the wind, which also meant that we had no idea what or who we were running into.

It was like ramming into a moving wall when it happened. My first thought was that I had hit a solidified darkness.

* * *

Everything flew by quickly yet seemed to be happening in slow motion. Faces flashing in my phone light, me trying to tap open the taser app while somebody tackled me from behind, the phone slipping from my wet fingers, something black covering my face. Then Peaches’s cry was cut off in mid-curse.

I was bundled up in something like a black tarpaulin, bound at the ankles and hands before being half dragged with my feet scraping against the pavers. All I could think of was Did they hurt Peaches? They have the tapestry!

Minutes felt like hours as my feet bumped and bumped up over steps, the bastard dragging me by the shoulders not caring how hard or where or he clutched my flesh. The rain splattered on my plastic wrapping and my panting used up all available oxygen inside my casing. Panic hit. Maybe they’d toss our bodies over the wall to be smashed against the rocks below! Such an easy way to dispose of two women on a hellish night like this and what a stupid end to what I had hoped to be a long and interesting life.

Then suddenly the rain and wind stopped as if somebody had flipped a switch. The splattering on the plastic ended abruptly. Now the ground beneath my feet felt smooth enough for me to realize I was being dragged indoors. I was gasping for breath by then. Dizzy, too. The men around me were speaking Chinese, maybe accompanied by one French speaker. Four men, maybe five.

Moments later, I was dropped onto the floor, falling hard on my back. A knife slit the covering over my face to let in a crack of bright electric light and air, blessed air. Gasping, I blinked up into the faces of two masked men.

Somebody behind me gave orders in Chinese. I was dragged over, still in my cocoon, and propped up against a wall. Now I could see Peaches lying soaked and still as death on the tiles where she’d been dropped, her back toward me.

“Peaches!” I cried. “What have you done to her?” And then my gaze landed on the three gagged and bound men seated at the table in front of me, stripped but for their undies—the real monks. Only one was conscious. The others sat with heads lolling. The single alert monk’s eyes found mine as if to give me strength. I tried to smile but couldn’t pull it off.

“Do not fear, Mademoiselle McCabe,” said a voice to my right. “Your friend lives still but she dies unless you do as I say.”

I looked over at the man standing in a monk’s robe, the fabric bunched around his waist and secured by a rope sash. His round pleasant face was smiling benignly at me as he stood with his hands tucked into his sleeves. A second non-monk stood over Peaches holding a knife and there were ten others standing around in black, ill-fitting robes. We were in a long table-filled room, a refectory, I realized.

“You must be Tengfeng Yu Ho,” I managed.

He bowed. “And you are Phoebe McCabe. I am most honored. You are most well-known as locator of lost treasure.”

“Why don’t I feel honored after being hijacked and encased like a sausage? What are you going to do with us and—” I scanned the room, my gaze landing on the canister on a nearby table “—and with the tapestry? If you open it now in this damp, it may disintegrate on the spot.” I doubted that would happen quite like that but it would certainly be damaged.

“The tapestry, yes,” said Tengfeng, taking a step forward. “At all costs, I protect tapestry. Buyer in China waits with great anticipation as do team of experts when back in Beijing. But you real treasure.”

Shit. What did that mean?

Peaches moaned on the floor. The man with the knife gave her a viscous kick.

“Stop that, you monster!” I tried to get at him but only thrashed inside my casing helplessly. “What are you going to do with us, I said. Where is Lilly, the other agents you hijacked, your favorite niece, Mimi? Surely you don’t expect to get away with kidnapping a bunch of monks and stealing a French treasure? Interpol are on their way, if they’re not on the mount already, and you’ll never make it out of the country.”

For that, I received a full-beam smile. “Dear honored one, look around. No Interpol here. None on island. Island blocked off. Causeway open to shuttles in daytime only. Monks imprisoned in rooms, phones confiscated, your friends all captive, and we have escape plan. You make error fighting battle without army. Very poor planning. This disappoints me but in other ways you very fine adversary.”

Oh, my God, did that mean he had Evan, too—everybody? Damn, but he was a brilliant strategist. He’d had the details all worked out in advance. “You knew the tapestry was hidden on the mount all along, didn’t you?”

He bowed. “When you find cartoon, we know. Not before. I send men here immediately and we infiltrate. As for weather, this luck. Luck follows Lucky Ho Export Company.” And the bastard laughed.

“Who betrayed us or did you have us under surveillance the whole time?”

“No time for questions now. All answered later.”

“When’s later?” I cried. “You can’t stay here but how do you plan to escape since Mont-Saint-Michel is closed off?”

“Ah,” Tengfeng began, still smiling. “Most easy. Causeway open for emergency only. Wounded monks emergency. Ambulance waits below.”

I had to keep him talking. “So I led you right to it, is that it?”

Another bow. “You are very good finder. You make good moves—stealing the ATV very good move. You almost succeed but we have many bodies, you too few. Now you help with rest of plan.”

“I will not help you!” Pure rage warred in me now. “Never! And I’m not getting in that ambulance!”

The monk sent me a pleading look. Maybe he’d seen enough of brutality in the past two days to try warning me but I wasn’t in the listening mood. I was in the ranting mood.

“You dollar-driven murderous bat-scum creepos! I’m not going to help you steal a French treasure or let you get away with this travesty! I’m going to watch you rot in jail, that’s what I’m going to do! Do you hear me?”

Tengfeng nodded and the man with the knife and three of his comrades stepped forward.

“If you do not do as I say, your friends die,” Tengfeng said. “If you do not believe, I toss this one over walls first. You watch.”

I froze as the men lifted Peaches up by the arms. Still out cold, her limbs flopped about. Don’t ask me how but I knew that he meant it.

“Okay, okay! Stop! I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hurt her, just don’t hurt anybody else,” I sobbed. “But what more do you want of me since you already have the tapestry?”

“You help me leave country,” Tengfeng said. “And you will come with me to China.”

My mouth opened ready to protest but before I could say a word Tengfeng shoved his phone in my face. It was open on a live feed of Rupert, Nicolina, and Seraphina seated, gagged, and blindfolded.

CHAPTER 17

A deviously simple plan. Peaches and I would be removed from the mount on stretchers carried by the supposed monks. Because they remained hidden under hoods, no one would notice anything strange about them or think twice that the patients they shielded from the driving rain were bound. Furthermore, unless an onlooker chose to brave the elements long enough to investigate more closely, the fact that one wounded monk had curly red hair and her mouth sealed shut with duct tape would go unnoted. Ditto the long cylinder that had been strapped to her side like a splint.

The way down was hellish. My carriers made no effort to ease up on the bumping and jostling as they clambered down stairway after stairway. At least the bastards were sure-footed enough not to trip, but inside my plastic wrapping I seethed and shivered. At least my face was exposed to the air.

The sight of Rupert, Seraphina, and Nicolina bound and gagged with a masked man standing over them had shocked me to the core. Our team were not easily conquered and were a match for any force. The wall behind them could be anywhere but I had the sneaking suspicion they were photographed in a basement. Or a dungeon. I needed to speak to Evan, who as far as I knew remained free. But he had been traveling with Rupert so how did that happen? At least no one had mentioned him and it was my hope the Tengfeng gang didn’t even know of his existence.

Our phones lay on the terrace in the rain and, without them, we were unarmed and helpless. Where had we gone wrong? Did we fail to recognize the enormity of our enemy in time? Did the mount itself conspire against us through sheer geography? And who the hell was the mole?

At last we arrived at the bottom where red flashing lights indicated the ambulance. Not until I was being lifted into one did I notice that there were actually two. Tengfeng and three other non-monks climbed into one vehicle with me while four others guarded Peaches in the other. I thought I glimpsed police officers around the vehicles but I couldn’t be sure. I certainly heard French voices before the doors slammed shut and we pealed away, sirens blaring.

Obviously they had commandeered real ambulances but were the genuine first responders lying in a ditch somewhere? And did the escape plan include a hospital? The ambulances had to go somewhere.

But I had other concerns just then. I was asthmatic and allergic to many things including the duct tape over my mouth. The adhesive taping my lips together was causing my skin to swell. Visions of anaphylaxis shock danced in my head. I tried to catch someone’s attention but my stony-faced companions sat staring straight ahead looking like soldiers out of Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s terra-cotta army. My moaning was overridden by that damn siren and no one was paying attention to me, anyway. Death by duct tape was not how I wanted it to end.

Then, without warning, Tengfeng leaned over and whipped the tape from my lips while snapping instructions at his men. It hurt like hell but I was too busy gasping to care. I could see alarm in his face, hear blame in his tone. He snapped a question at his men. I guessed the meaning: Who used such tape? Idiots!

Soon, an icepack was pressed over my mouth—not much help since I was gasping for breath by then. Tengfeng had my casings cut and my hands released, helping me to sit up so I could breathe better. Hunching over, I heaved air into my lungs while pressing the pack to my puffy lips. I was dizzy, sick, and unable to focus.

“Most sorry. Please forgive,” he said. I was too muddled to speak but still relieved to know that he had a vested interest in keeping me alive, at least for the short term. I could only hope that the same applied to the others.

Wherever we were heading took hours to get there. I dozed off and on, and listened to Tengfeng talking on his phone from what seemed like some faraway place. There definitely was somebody French driving the ambulance. He spoke to Tengfeng from the front seat but I couldn’t catch the words.

When the doors finally flew open and a waft of fresh air entered the van, I was shocked to find it already dawn. The rain had stopped and a pale silver light was breaking through the clouds.

They removed me from the vehicle and carried the tapestry as carefully as though it was a wounded queen. I, on the other hand, was steered along on my own two feet, though my hands were now bound and my arms pinioned. A tall white structure loomed, very old, vaguely familiar. The blue turrets gave it away first. We were at the back of the Château Saint Chappelles. I expected maybe an airport or a shipping pier, not this. What was going on?

Ahead, Peaches was being carried on the stretcher, still unconscious.

“Peaches!” I urged my keepers forward so I could catch up but they held me back and I could barely stand up straight, anyway. “What have you done to her?” I demanded. “Head injuries are serious. She needs a doctor!”

Behind me Tengfeng laughed. “Proceed. We talk later.” He added something in Chinese.

Finally, one of my keepers grew so annoyed by my stumbling that he threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I was carried up to some part of the château I didn’t recognize, at least not while hanging upside down, and tossed onto a bed in a dark room. By then, I was so dizzy that all I could do was lie bound until I blacked out.

I had no idea how long I remained in that state but I was vaguely aware of people entering and exiting the room, of being propped up to drink water, of being forced to swallow pills.

Hours later, I awoke inside a little room and sat on the edge of the bed trying to muster my brain cells. My hands were free and a night-light glowed in what had to be a bathroom ahead. Soon I was staring shocked at my image in a mirror. The ravages of my duct tape attack still burned an inflamed streak across my mouth and cheeks. Though the swelling had subsided, the whole event had left me weak.

Back in the bedroom, I drew back the curtains of a small window and gazed down at a cluster of roofs. I was way up in some part of the château I’d never been, captive in what may have once been a servant’s quarters. It was still night. No, wait—it was night again. Somehow, I had slept away a full day. Shit.

My heart was racing. Where was everybody? What about Peaches, Rupert, and the others? Panic gripped me as I ran for the door. I was shocked to find that it opened easily in my hand but an armed guard stood waiting outside.

The man restrained me with one arm while speaking into his phone. After a moment, he nodded and smiled—smiled! Soon, he was ushering me down the stairs as carefully and graciously as if I was his old auntie. He’d caution me in Chinese any time we maneuvered some obstruction, did not allow me to descend steep stairways without his hand on my arm. I couldn’t understand a word he said and yet I did. He was one of the good guys.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Hai,” he said.

“I’m Phoebe.”

He nodded and smiled.

“Why are you working for this murderous creep?”

His grasp of English didn’t extend that far, and before I could launch a conversion campaign with hand signals, we had arrived in the main part of the château. I was passed over to one of the stony-faced minions and steered across the great hall by a much rougher hand.

Tengfeng stepped across the expanse to greet me, today dressed in a traditional Chinese Mandarin red silk jacket that looked to me to be very old and simply gorgeous. It belonged in a museum, in other words.

“Mademoiselle, I most happy to see you well. Very concerned.”

“Seriously?” I could have said so much worse but my inner voice was screaming at me to keep quiet. I needed to assess what was going on here, formulate a plan. And eat.

“So, this is the famous Phoebe McCabe,” said someone behind him.

A small figure dressed in another silk Mandarin-style jacket, this one sunflower yellow and richly embroidered in dragons and clouds, stepped toward me. In my weakened state, it was like being approached by a flock of butterflies, the rich fabric glowing in the subdued lamplight.

Mimi was nothing like her sister, it was true, but she was no less attractive. Round face, pale porcelain skin beneath a thick fringe of glossy black hair, and a sweet almost child-like expression that belied the hard glint in her eyes.

“So you’re the miraculous locator of treasure regardless of the century or origin or even the cultural identity of the piece pursued.” She spoke in French, stepping past her uncle to better study me.

“And you’re the evil twin,” I remarked.

That made her laugh. “And you are a speaker in stereotypes.”

“If the shoe fits…”

“I think I may like you. We will make a good team. Why are your lips swollen with that red mark across your cheeks?”

We will make a good team? “Your uncle’s henchmen were a little too slap-happy with the duct tape and I’m allergic.”

“Careless. When you join us, I promise much better treatment.” She nodded, her expression suddenly serious. I had no doubt that despite her pleasant countenance, the woman meant business.

I opened my mouth to protest but thought better of it.

“Mimi,” her uncle interrupted. “Ship leaves in morning. Must hurry.”

They planned to escape by ship?

She nodded to the man gripping my arm and once again I was propelled forward, Mimi and Tengfeng leading the way.

“Where’s Lilly?” I asked, “And your other uncle? And my friends—what have you done with them?”

Mimi shot one hand up to silence me.

Into the dining room we went. I was shoved into a chair before a plate of crackers and cheese. Natalie was there placing a jug on the table but kept her head averted.

“Natalie, are you all right? What have they done to you?” I asked, reaching for the water and drinking deeply. Then it occurred to me that she might be the mole so I added: “Or should I say: ‘What have you done to us?’”

That seemed to startle her into shooting me a quick, pained look. Dark circles under her eyes, no makeup, hair barely combed. If possible, she looked worse than I did.

“Natalie?” I asked, shocked.

“Leave,” Tengfeng ordered, waving her away. “And make noodles for dinner tonight.”

“We don’t have noodles,” she whispered.

“Then make rice.”

Natalie darted from the room after which I turned to Tengfeng. “Have you made her your domestic slave, is that it?”

That annoyed him. “Eat,” he commanded. “More later.” The bonhomie had evaporated leaving in its place the little general with his eye on the goal. “Now I speak, you listen.”

Mimi sat back with her hands folded on the table, a little smile on her lips. “And listen carefully,” she advised.

Picking up a cracker, I popped it into my mouth and chewed. I needed desperately to fuel my body for whatever lay ahead.

“Tomorrow morning, we leave Paris for China. You and tapestry will accompany. I have arranged details—visa, everything. You work with Lucky Ho Export Company in Beijing to help find certain treasures. You most honored employee. Very well rewarded.”

I gaped. Gone went any attempt to control my tongue. “You’re joking? How do you expect me to do that—under perpetual gunpoint?”

“You do willingly,” Tengfeng said with a nod, frowning at his plate. “Or I kill friends. I keep hostage.”

I dropped the other half of my cracker. “You plan on holding my friends hostage indefinitely, trained agents who have already been reported missing by Interpol? How will you manage that?”

He pulled out his phone and scrolled to a photo of a huge container ship. “This way. Friends go to ship. Many containers made into many rooms.”

“Converted cargo containers,” Mimi clarified. “We’ve had them made into modified holding tanks with toilets and beds where we can keep people for a long crossing—feed them, keep them isolated, hold them prisoner. We’ve used them before for transporting sensitive goods to China. It works beautifully. You’d be surprised how little scrutiny a human being gets inside one of those things. Customs look for contraband, not people. China and Europe exchange stuff all the time. Your friends will be drugged and boarded in crates bound for China—this time a load of French clothing headed for the high-end shops in Shanghai. Very smooth sailing.” She laughed at her little joke.

I was dumbstruck. “You’ve done something similar before? What, like human trafficking?”

“Not exactly,” Mimi told me while Tengfeng gnawed at a biscuit. One of his men had just delivered him a plate of sliced meat. “No one is waiting for them on the other end. If you board that plane tomorrow morning willingly—you’ll be disguised and provided with a false passport—your friends will be guaranteed the best treatment on the ship. Good food, wine even. Maybe books. As long as you work willingly, they live in relative comfort. The moment you get out of line, the treatment worsens. We will provide a live feed for you to watch. Oh, and if you refuse, you will be the one transported by container ship, only your friends will be dead.”

Hell, they were monsters. My mind raced ahead to the only possible endgame: there’s no way any of us would ever get out of this alive. How could we? They’d have to dispose of us eventually.

“I don’t believe you,” I whispered.

Mimi grimaced. She spoke into her phone before laying it facedown on the table and staring at me hard. Not a crack of a smile, not a hint of the earlier merriment. Cold and ruthless, this one.

Seconds later, the door flew open and in came Lilly. I jumped to my feet before being shoved back down again.

“Sit, sister.” Mimi pointed to the seat beside her across from mine.

Lilly sat. She looked nothing like the glamorous, confident woman I had first met in Paris but somebody much smaller, cowed, almost colorless.

“Lilly?” I whispered.

She straightened her shoulders, her reddened eyes meeting mine. “Do as they say.”

“Be their slave? Be blackmailed into submission?”

“Better to live than to die.”

I stared at her in horror. “Lilly, are you the mole? But why? Is giving up your career worth the price of the tapestry?”

“Not the tapestry,” Tengfeng said, looking up. “You. You biggest prize. Tapestry bonus.”

“All this was just to trap me?” I asked, stunned.

“First, I test. You pass test.” He cast me a charming smile. “Now you make us much money.”

Struggling to get my mind around this, I couldn’t speak at first. Lilly kept staring. I couldn’t have been as bad a gauge of character as that. I knew she had been telling the truth back at the beginning of this nightmare. Yes, she was obviously being coerced now but there was more afoot here than sibling rivalry. She was trying to tell me something.

“Lilly?” I asked again.

“Tell her, sister,” Mimi ordered.

“I have been shown the importance of one’s family and cultural identity,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “I have been misled by the glitz and glamor of Western life, corrupted by your values. Do as they say.”

Like hell.

“Show her what will happen if she does not, sister dearest,” Mimi said. “Take her upstairs and to see the others.”

Lilly stood. I stood, too, following her out the door while being helpfully shoved along by one of the minions.

“Where’s Henri?” I asked her once we were crossing the grand hall.

Lilly remained silent. Either she refused to speak or she wasn’t permitted. Either way, I felt as though she was playing a role, the amazing actress that she was, and if Mimi and Tengfeng thought they had her reined in, they didn’t know her.

We climbed the main staircase toward the bedrooms and with every step I grew more terrified of what I was about to see. We arrived first at what had been Peaches’s room and I stood there inside the door blinking into the gloom. One man turned on the bed lamp so I could see the woman lying there, eyes closed, caked blood on her temple.

“Peaches!” I tried to run to the bed but the other guy restrained me. “Lilly, tell them to let me see her,” I cried.

Lilly, who waited just outside the door, stepped in and addressed the men in Chinese.

“They say that was not their instructions but I told them that you must be permitted to see how bad she is because that’s what my uncle wants.”

One of the guards jerked his head at me and I was allowed to slowly approach the bed. Peaches was lying on her back, her hands and feet bound, breathing through her mouth. At a glance, I also took in the way the empty water glass lined up with the bud vase on the side table, fallen rose petals neatly piled in the center in the triangular arrangement. A jolt of pure joy shot through me. I knew my friend’s signature when I saw it: she was much better than she appeared.

“You bastards are going to just let her die?” I cried.

Lilly translated and then I was pushed from the room. Before the door shut, I looked back and saw Peaches lift a finger of her bound hands. Best damn sight I’d had in hours.

We proceeded along the balcony to the end room where another guard stood. Lilly turned to me. “He tried to escape. They warned him but he wouldn’t listen. See for yourself.”

I forced my feet to move, and found myself standing in the bedroom, a spacious master suite with a huge canopy bed. A man lay on the bed.

“Eduard?” Stepping up, I reached for his wrist, relieved to find a faint pulse. “He’s barely breathing! What did they do to him?”

“Uncle Tengfeng had him beaten. I doubt he will last the night unless he gets a doctor, which they won’t do.”

“What about Rupert, Nicolina, and Seraphina?” I demanded.

“In the dungeons. Uncle Tengfeng keeps them alive because they are useful to him against you. Peaches will end up there, too, if she survives.”

“My, God, Lilly. They’re animals! How many are there?”

She placed a finger to her lips before whispering: “I counted twenty-five.”

And that probably didn’t include the ones at the mount. “What about the man with Rupert?”

“I know nothing of that. Rupert was found in the grass outside, I understand.”

“We have to escape!”

She was only talking to me now because the guards remained outside out of earshot. “Unless you want everyone to be killed, you’ll do as they say.”

“Where’s René?”

“He was gone by the time they brought me here.”

“And your uncle Henri?”

But one of the minions poked his head in and barked something in Chinese. We were corralled back down the stairs to the far end of the main hall toward the older part of the château. I sensed where we were heading, to the dungeons. True enough, after several more flights of steep stone stairs partially lit by a few modern spotlights, we arrived at a door guarded by two men.

“The DuBoises planned to open the dungeons to the public eventually,” Lilly said.

“Silence!” one man commanded. Smart. The prisoners were guarded by men who could speak their language. Their every word would be monitored. And these guards were big-muscled, mean-looking, and carried rifles. Shit. “You must not approach prisoners,” the man ordered. “You remain in doorway.”

We were escorted through the door, me bracing myself for the worst. I could never have prepared myself enough. Rupert slumped unmoving against a wall, eyes swollen closed, his hands and feet bound; Nicolina, a bruise blackening one cheek, sat as if frozen with her hands bound in her lap while Seraphina lay sprawled facedown on the floor.

“Nicolina!” I couldn’t suppress my wail of pain and outrage. “What have they done to you?”

Of course she didn’t speak—she was gagged—but the eyes that met mine were filled with the kind of pained, resolute endurance I knew so well. Warrior first, countess second. She would not be defeated, only waylaid. As for Seraphina, I could only imagine that she had attempted something of the equal parts brave and foolish nature only to pay the price. Clearly she had been knocked out.

“I understand that they are granted one bathroom break a day and two small meals,” Lilly whispered. “The guard goes in with the women and watches. That’s when Seraphina flipped out.”

I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming.

The guard’s phone rang. He answered, listened for a minute, and passed the phone to me.

“Phoebe?” It was Mimi. “If you agree to our terms, we will immediately remove your friends from the dungeons and put them upstairs in more comfortable conditions with better food and en suite bathrooms. We will tend to the old guy, who seems to have a very weak constitution, and bandage the head of the short snippy one. Medical care will be provided before they board the cruise to China tomorrow morning. If medications are required, they will receive a good supply.”

I didn’t ask what would happen if I didn’t cooperate and she didn’t remind me. By then it was perfectly clear. “I’ll do what you want,” I told her.

“Of course you will,” she said.

I shoved the phone back to the guard. Again, he listened for a moment before turning to me and bowing.

“You will be permitted time to visit them later in their new quarters, Mademoiselle Phoebe. Now you are asked to return upstairs to meet special guest.”

Special guest? I turned to Lilly, who clearly had no idea, either.

“I’ll see you later, then, Nicolina, Rupert.” My gaze lingered on Rupert, who still hadn’t lifted his head or acknowledged my presence. I thought my heart would crack right down the middle.

We had just regained the main floor level when a doorbell jingled through the hall. The guard brought us to a halt. We waited as Tengfeng and Mimi scurried up to join us.

A man in a suit and tie flanked by two minions and carrying a briefcase attached to his wrist was striding through the front doors toward us. When he was within a few feet, Tengfeng and Mimi greeted him with much bowing and handshaking. Finally, Tengfeng turned to me.

“Mademoiselle McCabe, this most famous textile scholar in all China, Mr. Tao. Mr. Tao, I introduce other expert, Phoebe McCabe. She joins team also. We dine, then see priceless tapestry.”

It was all I could do to squeeze out a smile.

CHAPTER 18

The congenial Mr. Tao was first allowed to wash up after his long flight and it was strongly suggested that I do likewise. In my case, my luggage was still in the motel room so Lilly was pressed to find something that might work, which resulted in me donning her kimono again. Natalie fetched the robe from the laundry room.

I could only imagine her state of mind with her husband near death and now forced to be slave to the Tengfeng army. We were not allowed to speak when she passed over the kimonos. She still refused to meet my eyes. I figured out that she blamed me for every hellish thing that had happened to her since our arrival and I didn’t blame her.

I showered and dressed in my old room—an upgrade, no doubt; a reward for my apparent compliancy—and, using the château’s amenities, emerged at last, fluffed and fragrant to rejoin the supper party. Still wearing my muddied leggings and sneakers beneath the silk probably spoiled the effect but who cared? I had hoped to visit my comrades in their new chambers but that was strictly forbidden. Dinner first, visitation rights second.

The gong reverberated through the château as I crossed the hall. All I could think of was that there were so many men it may as well be an army, and here we were occupying a fortified château. My colleagues would have a hell of a time rescuing us unless we helped them from the inside. Where was Evan? How did he become separated from Rupert? Nothing made sense.

Mr. Tao was already seated in the dining room talking pleasantly to the Tengfeng contingent when I entered. Lilly was also present wearing her game face. The two men rose when I stepped in as though I was joining a lovely dinner gathering for new colleagues. It was all I could do not to throw my food at someone but the stakes were too high to reveal my rage.

I sat down smiling. I picked up my fork smiling. I smiled while I ate the stir-fry Natalie had prepared with the help of one of Tengfeng’s men and continued to smile all through the meal. Most of the conversation was in Chinese but occasionally either Mimi or Lilly translated on my behalf. I gathered that the esteemed guest did not speak English.

“Mr. Tao says that he is most delighted to meet you and looks forward to a long and fruitful partnership,” Mimi said.

I looked up from stabbing a piece of broccoli and smiled. I wondered if the esteemed expert thought it odd that I had a perfectly rectangular red strip across my mouth and cheeks and that both Lilly and I looked haggard. “Likewise. Perhaps Mr. Tao can tell me a bit about his experience with fourteenth-century French textiles, tapestries in particular?”

Mimi’s smile tightened but she managed to respond without missing a beat. “Mr. Tao has much experience with venerable textiles and has worked extensively with the Warring States tabbies dating from the Qin and Han dynasties.” There was no point asking anything more pointed because I knew it wouldn’t survive translation.

Still the Warring States tabbies bit was impressive considering that those dynasties spanned 475 to 221 BC. “Amazing,” I said truthfully. “Does Mr. Tao believe the conditions here at the château to be ideal for investigating a tapestry, which I presume he has come to do?”

Mimi turned to Mr. Tao and spoke Chinese to which the expert replied in kind.

“Mr. Tao says that the conditions are very poor here but that he would like to inspect the fibers with your assistance using tools he has brought for the purpose. He says that unrolling is unadvisable but he wishes to ensure that the tapestry is part of the Lady and the Unicorn collection as believed. We have brought him here for that purpose,” Mimi added. “Our guest will inspect the tapestry on behalf of our client to ensure authenticity before transport.”

Lilly said something in Chinese. Tengfeng replied with an abrupt tone, causing Mr. Tao to pause startled and glance at the uncle and niece combo. Then it hit me that the venerable expert had no idea what he had fallen into. Whatever Lilly had said had clued him in to the fact that all may not be as it seemed. I briefly caught Mr. Tao’s eye before both of us lowered our gazes and returned to our meals.

The remainder of dinner passed in conversation that I didn’t understand, though Lilly occasionally added a translation for my benefit. Mimi and Tengfeng no longer maintained that courtesy, although a few times some bit of pleasantry was added in English to make it appear as though I was there voluntarily.

Meanwhile, I counted the minutes, fearing for all the wounded souls in the château that night and trying to figure out a way to save them. I wasn’t alone, I knew that, but how could my allies help us when we were holed up in this fortification? If there was one chink in Yu Ho’s armor it was that he was on foreign soil and that sometime before the dawn he planned to leave the château to make a run for the coast. And maybe the airport, if I understood correctly. His most vulnerable moments, then, would be in the early hours when most of his house would be sleeping.

Until I had an opportunity to strike, I vowed to play my part. Mr. Tao and I were ushered into the library after supper where the canister now sat on a table. Relieved, I saw that the cartoon remained in its position on the floor.

Admittedly, I was preoccupied. I couldn’t believe that René and Henri had just left. No one had said what happened to Henri after the hijacking of Nicolina, Rupert, and Seraphina. Either he had escaped or he was working for the enemy. As for the absent René, that was just boggling. It was hard to concentrate on anything else.

“What do you think, Mr. Tao?” Mimi was asking as the textile expert studied the canister.

Tao spoke, Mimi translated. “I think this is of a great age and of much importance to be hidden as it was for so many centuries.” He entered a code into his briefcase and flipped back the lid to remove a long clear tube that looked a bit like an electronic turkey baster and a pair of gloves. “With this device, I test the fibers for age without damaging textile.”

“Really, you can do that?” I said.

Lilly translated that part. She had been allowed to join us while Tengfeng removed himself from the proceedings long enough to stand at the back of the room and argue with somebody on his phone. I could only hope that his plans were going awry.

“China has made many new developments in the preservation of rare textiles,” Tao responded through my translator. “I am most pleased to be working in the study of our rich textile heritage. I wish our nations were on better terms to exchange such knowledge.”

“Me, too. Maybe we will be when the world finally begins to think like a global entity instead of a bunch of warring tribes,” I said.

He smiled when Lilly translated. “Let us hope so one day. Chinese heritage is world heritage just as this precious tapestry belongs to human history.”

“I agree,” I said, smiling at him with genuine warmth. A kindred spirit is always a joy to meet. “But this one still belongs to France first."

Mimi interjected with something that sounded a great deal less pleasant.

“My honorable sister says not to waste time,” Lilly told me. “She urges Mr. Tao to get back to work.”

Which the man did at once; opening the lid of the canister, gummed together as it was, he gently inserted the turkey baster deep into the core of the folds. When he removed the device moments later, he sat one end on top of a metal platform hooked up to a laptop and waited for the data to calculate.

“Ah,” he said through Lilly. “Estimated creation 1432.”

“1432? Can that meter really date with that much precision?” I marveled.

“It tests the wool to the estimated life of the sheep based on a complicated carbon dating process that can assess accuracy within a five-year span,” Lilly translated. “He says that with more time, the textile can be studied as to location of weaving and source of wool and dyes.”

“But that’s amazing!” I exclaimed. But it also meant that this tapestry was older than the others in the series, as I suspected, predating the previous panels by almost three decades. It would have been completed just years after the death of Joan of Arc. It was the first in the series not the last. I was stunned by what that could mean and longed to see the piece unfolded, which could never safely happen under these conditions.

Mr. Tao began to carefully replace the canister’s top. “He’ll use another device to remove all air and moisture from container. When left in place, it will protect the textile until it goes to a lab,” Lilly said for my benefit.

Tengfeng marched up to the table and spoke rapidly in Chinese. I knew that wasn’t good. The little general was annoyed about something.

Lilly caught my eye. “He says to unroll it.”

“No!” I gasped.

Mr. Tao immediately protested, his alarm evident in his tone and features. Tengfeng, with reddened face, pointed and repeated his order. The textile expert cast me a worried glance and offered me a pair of gloves. He then raised the canister.

“Tengfeng, this is nuts! Do you want to destroy the very item you worked so hard to steal?” I demanded.

“You I try hard to steal,” he countered. “This rug will get same price no matter what happens now. It can be ruined—no matter. Amount negotiated as is.”

Bastard. I assisted Mr. Tao so that Tengfeng wouldn’t intervene and wrench the delicate fabric from our hands. As it was, we had to gently tug it from the canister because the fibers had swollen. When we finally laid it out on the table and began to roll it open, tears burned my eyes and Mr. Tao appeared just as stricken.

The tapestry had faded to a mostly muddied red and blue with vibrant patches here and there where the wool had survived the onslaught of time, yet nothing could suppress its energy. Clearly Flemish in origin, the tale it told was buried in the moldering fibers. To anyone who didn’t know better, it was a muddied mess.

“Very poor condition. Is it valuable?” Tengfeng demanded.

“Not in this condition,” I replied.

Tengfeng scowled.

Lilly translated for Mr. Tao, who straightened and said: “Tapestry must not be removed from France. Mr. Tengfeng, you have been untruthful to me.”

I cringed at what I feared would come next.

Tengfeng swung toward him speaking rapidly in Chinese, causing the poor man to flinch. Lilly tried to translate for me but Mimi silenced her. I captured enough of the gist when two guards arrived and made as if to drag the textile expert away. He threw up his hands and spoke rapidly, bowing and smiling while backing up against a bookshelf. The man was begging for his life. I was betting that he promised to behave from now on. I knew what that felt like.

After a moment of silence, Tengfeng nodded. The minions left and Mr. Tao straightened, though he appeared to need to sit briefly to regain his composure.

“We must secure the tapestry for travel,” I said, stepping in as tapestry expert numéro deux. “I see from Mr. Tao’s briefcase that he has brought absorbent archival muslin, which can be used to re-roll the tapestry into its original shape. Perhaps we can use a case for transporting rugs? I saw a few in the storerooms when I was investigating the château earlier. If we use one of those it will look as though we are transporting a carpet out of France and nothing more valuable.” I nodded toward Tengfeng, resisting the urge to bow. That was too much even for me. See what a good little minion I am?

Tengfeng gave me a curt nod and added a few words to poor Mr. Tao, who jolted up out of his seat to stand by me. Together, we covered the tapestry with a layer of white muslim-like fabric and proceeded to roll it into its original shape. Mr. Tao inserted another long clear device into the folds, something I assumed was designed to absorb excess moisture from the fibers. In the meantime, I gathered that one of the minions had been sent to find a rug carrier.

When I looked up minutes later, Lilly was eye-to-eye with Mimi and Tengfeng was back on his phone.

“Do you call this freedom, Mimi?” Lilly was asking in English. “You are as much a servant to our uncle as the rest of his crew. You jump when he says jump, march when he says march. Is this what you call success? You’re better than this. You don’t have to be a crook to measure your success.”

“Don’t lecture to me, sister dear,” Mimi replied, also in English. “You were always the weaker one, so willing to acquiesce to please everyone, always the favorite sister, the apple of everyone’s eye. You aligned with poor foolish Uncle Henri, the family buffoon. And where is he when you need him? Went running off into the dark when our men attacked the agents. Lily-livered like you. ‘Lilly-livered’! Oh, I like that! Sometimes I love English better than any language. Anyway, I’ve made my success my way.”

“You’ve made your success his way—” Lilly indicated her uncle “—the easy way, the way he’s schooled you for. He’s given you everything so you don’t need to make your own luck. Mother warned us about Uncle Tengfeng. She avoided spending time with him because she knew he was up to something criminal. Now look at Lucky Ho—an underground smuggling ring. And you’re proud of that? Are you kidding me? Look at you!”

Their voices were rising.

“Look at me? Look at you! All you do is pretend to be something you’re not. An actress for the American films? What kind of job is that? You strut and pose using your looks like you always have. What have you done? Nothing!” Mimi looked ready to strike, her fists clenched, her eyes narrowed.

“It takes talent and brains to bring a character alive on film, plus a level of sensitivity and care for humanity that you’ve always lacked. You can’t even be true to yourself let alone to another. All you care about is bettering yourself at another’s expense!”

Mimi screamed something in Chinese, causing Tengfeng to lurch from his spot and step between the two sisters. He yelled at them both, ordering them from the room with a point of his finger. Bad girls. Unbelievably, they seemed to accept this, at least they left the room in the care of a minion. Lilly caught my eye just before the door shut behind them. Damn she was good. She orchestrated that on purpose.

After the sisters exited, Mr. Tao and I snapped out of our suspended animation. We had been standing with our hands frozen on the tapestry. Tengfeng caught sight of us and barked an order. In seconds we were back to work. One of the minions delivered an old rug carrier and soon we had the tapestry packed for travel.

When I checked my watch, I was startled to find it 11:15. Tengfeng was on the other side of the library still talking into his phone, giving me a chance to wander over to the window, leaving Mr. Tao to fiddle with his briefcase. I pulled aside the curtains, startled to feel fresh air on my face. There was a window open? A chill hit my spine. There was a window open and something was on the move.

And then the Bao gong resonated through the château.

CHAPTER 19

Tengfeng flung open the library door and shouted for the guards. In seconds, Mr. Tao and I were being steered across the hall by one of his men.

Pandemonium everywhere. Guys running and shouting. A woman screaming from the balcony. We were being hurried up to our rooms, but once we hit the landing, I saw that the guards stationed outside Eduard and Peaches’s room had left their posts. One was dragging a fallen comrade down the hall. A gunshot fired somewhere below and our guard was shouting questions at another.

“They’ve escaped!” Lilly was standing outside her room waving.

“All of them?” I asked.

“All but Rupert. He’s still in there but the others have gone. Mimi’s taken off but nobody’s paying her any attention. I’m screaming periodically to throw everybody off. Seems to work.”

The guard shouted at her in Chinese and Lilly shouted back, though she retreated into her room, shutting the door.

The gong sounded again and our guard shoved Mr. Tao and me into a room, the lock clicking shut behind us. I pressed my ear against the wood, guessing that nobody was on guard. I pulled back, caught Mr. Tao’s eye, and pointed at the old-fashioned warded lock. He nodded and I began searching the room for something long and thin.

“Mademoiselle McCabe?” he said after a few moments.

I turned. Mr. Tao stood by his open briefcase holding a long pin-like device. I hadn't noticed that he’d even taken the case with him. Flashing him a grin, I took the object and wiggled it around in the mechanism until it sprung free. On the way out the door, I shrugged off my kimono, leaving me in full stealth couture.

Lilly was standing outside holding a key. “I was about to release you.”

“No need. Tell me what’s happening,” I said while dashing down the hall to Rupert’s room, Lilly and Mr. Tao scrambling after.

“Peaches jumped her guard, took his gun, and knocked out a couple more on her way into Nicolina and Seraphina’s room. They’re loose, too, and everybody’s armed. I heard that one of the guards found a back door open on patrol seconds before all this started, which means that we may have other friends within the building.”

“That’s fantastic! Where’s Natalie?”

“In her room with Eduard.”

“Come on, we have to get mobilized. Can you fire a gun? Ask Mr. Tao if he can,” I whispered.

“I’ve been trained to handle a firearm but Mr. Tao says he is pure scholar.”

“Tell him to be pure warrior.” I entered Rupert’s room. He lay on his back on the bed as I approached, one hand covering his eyes.

“Rupert?”

“It’s about time,” he rasped, propping himself up on his elbows. “Dear Phoebe, how relieved I am to know that you are well but do be careful out there. There’s quite a few of these chaps running around. Peaches knocked a couple on the head; Seraphina did damage to a few more.”

I stepped up to him and gripped his hand, breaking down just a bit when he pulled me in for a hug. “Rupert!”

He patted me on the back with his one good hand. It appeared that they had broken the other. “I am in no condition to be much help since they gave me a rather nasty knocking about but I have learned a few things as I lay here. I studied a touch of Mandarin in my school days, you know—not much, just a trifle, really—but enough to understand a word here and there.”

“Rupert, make it quick, please!”

“Yes, well, I chanced to overhear the guards whispering and it turns out that only a handful of Tengfeng’s men are properly trained while the others are makeshift toy soldiers hired on the fly, hence the current disarray. However—” he took a deep breath and let me ease him back to the pillow “—those that are trained are masters in several of the Asian martial arts, black belt sort of thing, and deadly.”

“Where’s Evan?”

“Our plan was to use me as an infiltrator while he musters our forces to storm the Bastille, so to speak. Lad’s around here somewhere.”

“Stop talking,” I told him as I headed for the door. Lilly and Mr. Tao stood watch in the corridor. “Stay here and rest until we can return with help. Do you have a gun?”

“Nicolina gave me one but perhaps you need it more than I.”

“You’re defenseless. Keep the gun.” I was at the door.

“One more thing.”

I paused.

“Eduard, the man who owns this house…he was working with them but then rather changed his mind…at an inopportune moment.”

We could hear Tengfeng shouting down below, heard footsteps pounding on the stairs.

“They’re coming!” Lilly whispered.

Two men hit the landing running. Lilly shoved Mr. Tao out of the way as she leapt into action in a maneuver that was all flying legs and arms. I was too busy tackling the second guy with my Combat 101 moves to pay much attention.

It shocked me how unprepared that guy was as I kicked him in the groin and pushed him backward. Amateur. Lilli crept up behind him and crashed a vase down on his head as a final effect. I whipped the pistol out of his hand and shoved it into my waistband. Tengfeng must have sent his weakest men to take on the ladies—idiot.

“Get the bastards!” Lilli cried in French.

“With pleasure,” I said as we bounded down the stairs to the main hall. I could see Tengfeng waiting for us below flanked by two men—all black clothing, carrying rifles. These must be the elite and they probably intended to capture us, if we let them.

“Lilly, can you take on your uncle?”

“No way,” she whispered back. “He’s a kung fu master.”

“At least they won’t shoot us. Get ready to run.”

“Head for the kitchens,” she whispered. “I know this place better than he does. Mimi’s another matter.”

“Tell Mr. Tao to wait here. He’ll be safe enough. It’s us they want.” We were still moving, though more slowly now, working out our strategy on the descent.

“I did. He refuses. He feels guilty falling for my uncle’s spiel so now he’s looking for retribution.”

Pure exasperation hit. “Tell him to wait here! Retribution is better when alive!”

And then the lights went out. Sudden, complete darkness.

Our team had to be behind that. The timing was perfect in one respect and not another. I had already mapped out an escape path—jump over the banister on the last set of stairs and bolt for the back of the château—but now I couldn’t see what lay below the six-foot jump and crashing into a set of armor wasn’t in the plan. I knew there was one standing there, I just couldn’t recall whether it was two feet to the right or farther to the left.

But I had to try. I leapt over the railing, Lilly following, leaving Mr. Tao to scramble down the stairs. We landed on the tiles without obstruction and dashed for the back of the château. Behind us, I heard thudding sounds and scuffling, which made me think that Mr. Tao was doing something with that briefcase of his.

Lilly was tugging me to the right. Now I was following her blindly down a corridor, through the kitchen, and down a set of steps. Behind us, our pursuers’ flashlights raked the walls but had veered off to the left. I couldn’t see a thing but Lilly seemed to know her way around in the dark well enough. She pulled me into a linen closet and shut the door.

We stood for a minute still as death, not daring to breathe. A linen closet, I realized, not that I could see anything, but the scent of starch and detergent gave it away. Lilly was wiggling a shelf.

“Secret passage?” I asked hopefully.

“Right. Only Mimi knows about this and Uncle Henri, of course,” she whispered. “You’d have to have grown up here.”

“Lilly, what’s really going on? You know, don’t you?”

“Not exactly but I know Uncle Henri. The lights going off has him all over it. The fuse box is way down in the basement. Nobody knows about it except the DuBoises and Uncle Henri but he used to turn off the lights when we were kids so we could play hide-and-seek.”

“I felt a draft in the library. Do you think he’s here somewhere?”

“Definitely! I argued with Mimi to distract everyone—I know where all her trigger points are—and she fell for it. But still, it shocked even me to see how corrupted she’s become.”

“What happened when they kidnapped you?”

“Nothing. They just gagged and blindfolded me and I ended up here.”

“Shh!”

The sound of voices came from somewhere beyond the doors, along with pounding footsteps. After they’d faded, I whispered: “Where does this lead?”

“To the old keep. It links several rooms along the way.” She was fumbling around for something. “We always kept flashlights here for emergencies but they’re gone.”

“A light would certainly help.” Without either my phone or a light, I felt naked and blind. How would we be able to tell friend from foe?

Something creaked.

“Got it. Help me push this open.”

Applying shoulder to wood, I felt something budge before the whole shelf slowly swung forward, revealing a wall of dark beyond. Using my hands to steady myself, I followed Lilly down a set of stairs into a musty-smelling corridor, both of us fumbling along using our hands and feet as feelers.

“Be careful here. The floorboards are rotten. Keep to the edges,” she warned.

The planks groaned beneath us and one cracked ominously underfoot as we passed. Dust irritated my nose, forcing me to suppress sneezes. My eyes were watering and my nose running by the time I heard Lilly pushing on something ahead. When I reached her side, a crack of air washed in pale moonlight leeched into the corridor.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Inside one of the old halls. It’s been closed for decades.”

We gazed out into the space. A body lay facedown in the center of the floor, illuminated from the moonlight penetrating cracks in the boarded-up windows.

“Cover me,” I whispered, passing her my gun. I crept out to the center of the floor, and knelt down to feel for the guy’s pulse—one of Tengfeng’s men and very dead. I stood up. “He’s been shot,” I said.

“By your people?” she asked.

“Who else? They must be here somewhere.”

We froze at the sound of voices speaking rapid French—a man and a woman.

Lilly put a hand on my arm. “That’s Mimi and Uncle Henri. Come on!”

She led me through another room, down winding corridors, and out through an exterior door. Now we were running across the grass. Seconds later we were climbing through the wall of the ruined keep and ground to a halt deep in the shadows. There, on either side of the still open oubliette, circling one another, were Mimi and Uncle Henri.

Mimi, dressed in her black martial arts gear, appeared small, fierce, and lethal but her adversary seemed equally dangerous wielding a long sword. It took a second to realize that Henri wore the tapestry strapped to his back like a long quiver. How did that happen?

“Do not make me hurt you, uncle,” Mimi was saying. “Hand over the tapestry.”

“You take me for a fool, me the man who helped raise you, and now you come to steal my family treasure?”

“Isn’t it my family treasure, too, uncle? Only we know that’s not true, don’t we? A Chinese adoptee does not lay claim to her adopted family’s French fortune. She only stands by like the outcast she is.”

“You make yourself an outcast! Your father and mother would be so ashamed!”

They inched around each other step by step encircling the dark hole between them. Why wasn’t the cover replaced on that thing?

“Not my mother and father,” Mimi sneered. “Pass me the tapestry and I will permit you to leave unharmed. You are no match for my skills with your puny sword. Are you kidding me? Such a joke! Do not force me to make a greater fool of you than you already are.”

Henri emitted a cry either of disbelief or pain, I couldn’t tell, but at that moment my attention was drawn to the shadows moving along the walls of the keep above, black-clad figures climbing into position, but to what purpose? Were they ours or theirs or both? Shit. I turned to Lilly but she was slipping around to the other side as if to line herself up with the combatants. I didn’t know what she had planned but knew it couldn’t end well.

I stepped out of the shadows, thinking to draw attention away from Henri and Mimi long enough for Lilly to activate her plan, but Henri took that moment to leap over the oubliette at his niece. Then Lilly sprang toward her sister just as a chorus of cries erupted overhead. I was distracted by the clamor, which is the only excuse I have for the fact that someone grabbed me from behind.

I kicked out only to be flipped onto my stomach in an instant. My assailant was knocked sideways and I turned in time to see Peaches slug him with the butt of a rifle.

I was on my feet in seconds. “Glad to see you!” But I couldn’t wait to play catch-up because Lilly was tackling Mimi while Henri was using his sword to fend off a kung fu adversary. The two sisters were not evenly matched, either, but even so, Lilly was holding her own. I worried more about Henri just then. He was battling none other than Tengfeng himself.

Henri brandished his sword and lunged; Tengfeng kicked the weapon from his grasp and swiftly delivered a chop to Henri’s throat. In seconds, Henri went down flat on his back and stilled. Lilly cried out, losing her focus and leaving Mimi with an opening. In seconds, Lilly was on the ground with Mimi straddling her, hooting a cry of triumph.

I sprung toward them, thinking surely to hell she wouldn’t harm her own sister, but I wasn’t sure with this bunch.

“Don’t hurt her!” I cried, but suddenly two things happened: I felt myself wrenched backward by my neck and someone shot Mimi. I saw the woman clutch her shoulder and scream, more in fury than in pain.

But I was a bit preoccupied. It took a few seconds to realize that I was being dragged up to the edge of the oubliette. My feet scrabbled to find the earth beneath them, finally ending up partly propping my weight on my toes. I struggled for breath, furious with myself for getting into that position.

“Stop!” Tengfeng commanded in my ear. “You move, she dies!” The cold metal of a gun pressed to my temple.

CHAPTER 20

There was comfort in seeing friendly faces amid the carnage. Nicolina stood over one of the felled minions while a guy in uniform held another at gunpoint, and from what I could see out of my peripheral vision, some kind of black-clad op team was rappelling down the walls into the keep. It had to be ours.

Tengfeng released the safety catch in my ear. I remained strangely calm but I have no explanation why. It was not because I believed that he wouldn’t kill me because I knew him quite capable of pulling that trigger. It’s just that when the situation reaches the possibility of no return, I ready myself for the ultimate adventure. Only, I was way too angry to just give up.

Peaches’s gaze was fixed on my face. She held a gun pointed at Mimi, who now clutched her wounded arm with a snarl on her face. By the expression in Peaches’s eye, anyone who didn’t know her would believe that she could happily finish Mimi off. I wasn’t so sure.

“Let Phoebe McCabe go. You are surrounded,” a deep voice announced over a megaphone.

Oh, my God, I knew that voice! It didn’t matter that I hovered over a gaping black hole with a gun to my head, my gut still did that butterfly thing. Evan! But for the record, I detested this helpless woman shit. I’d rather be the one doing the rescuing.

Tengfeng leaned forward until my legs dangled over the pit, leaving me kicking into empty space. No breath entering my lungs now. He was strangling me. Maybe I only imagined everyone holding their breath at the same time. I needed to remain alert but dizziness hit. Suddenly, he pulled me back and released his grip long enough for me to gasp a lungful of air before tightening it again. My attempts to kick out at him were expertly avoided.

“One false move, I shoot!” Tengfeng called.

“And if you hurt one hair on her head, I’ll pull the trigger on your precious niece!” Peaches cried out in broken French.

“You would not kill in cold blood,” Tengfeng said contemptuously. “You weak, all weak.”

“You’ve got me all wrong, Teng. I’d shoot this little bitch in a microsecond. Just give me another reason to pull the trigger. Let Phoebe go and your niece lives.”

“You are surrounded,” Evan announced. Did I just imagine a tremor of emotion in his voice? “You’ll never get out of here. Most of your men have been captured and we are in possession of the tapestry.”

They were? I strained my eyes trying to see what had happened to Henri but couldn’t see anything from my perspective.

“Your army is outnumbered so what do you have left to gain?” Evan asked?

“Her.” He jostled me in case anyone doubted his intended victim. “You let me go safely to China and I take McCabe. No one killed. You make wrong move, she dies.” But he sounded less confident now. “Sniper has gun on her. You try anything, he shoots.”

The enormity of the force against him must be finally hitting home—no army, no might—but if he had nothing to lose, I was as good as dead. So, was there a sniper in those walls with a gun on me? Probably. The enormity of my predicament was hitting me now but first I needed to breathe.

There was a long pause.

“All right. We’ll give you safe passage as long as you release her neck,” Evan said.

Tengfeng loosed his grip long enough for me to shove in a lungful of air. Evan was going to play along, I realized, knowing that there would be multiple opportunities to ambush Tengfeng before we ever reached a car let alone an airport. Tengfeng had to know that, too. If I didn’t do something, more people would get hurt, but my options were a bit thin at the moment. Peaches and Mimi stood in my direct line of vision. Peaches was trying to communicate something. I was trying to think.

Suddenly, I let myself go limp in Tengfeng’s grip. Though he might know what I was up to, it still made things difficult. He couldn’t hold my weight and the gun for much longer and he needed me to walk out of there with him.

He cried out and tried to shake me into standing. I felt his gun arm move. He swung toward Henri, who I now realized sat propped on the ground. He intended to shoot him! I kicked out at his knees just as a bullet whizzed by my ear, hitting Tengfeng. He dropped me like a bag of rocks.

While I was scrambling for a handhold at the edge of the oubliette, Tengfeng was yelling, “Stop!”

Everything went still except me. I had just hauled myself to safety and crouched about three feet away while Tengfeng stood with the gun pointed to his own temple. It looked as though he’d been shot in the shoulder, maybe by his own sniper.

He called out, “I die with honor!”

“Uncle, no!” Mimi cried.

And then he pulled the trigger.

* * *

We all sat in the grand hall, countless people moving back and forth throughout the château, ambulances parked outside along with police vehicles among others. We had been interviewed by French Interpol agents attempting to piece together the story while Evan periodically joined in long enough to weave in knowledge of his side of the operation. Mostly he remained occupied in organizing the multiple agencies that had descended upon the château. We hadn’t yet had a moment to speak.

It turned out that he and Rupert had come up with the idea of dropping Rupert onto the château’s doorstep in order to infiltrate the Tengfeng bastion. Rupert’s knowledge of Mandarin along with a surveillance device inserted into his ear was designed to gather the necessary information to tackle the twenty-three-person-strong Yu Ho team. They thought wrongly that an older man would be unharmed. What they couldn’t have anticipated was the beating Tengfeng ordered on Rupert almost immediately, taking his bile out on the man in pure spite. Though tougher than he looked, Rupert had been badly shaken by the ordeal but assured me he’d be fine.

René did not fare as well. He had been hiding out in the château once Tengfeng had arrived, awaiting his opportunity to stymie the gang, which he did in countless ways, more of the annoyance variety at first. He had located and destroyed all of Tengfeng’s monitoring devices before managing to disarm Peaches’s guard and helping her and the others escape. Then, deep in the older parts of the building, he had attacked one of Tengfeng’s guards and snatched his gun. The two scuffled, the gun went off, and both the Tengfeng dude and René were shot. René’s wound, though not fatal, was nasty. He remained unconscious during most of the action from thereon in.

Meanwhile, Henri had played king wimp during the ambush when he, Nicolina, and Seraphina were on their way to Mont-Saint-Michel. The man had a dramatic flair of his own and wielded it to play sniveling coward once they had bound him. He said that everyone was always a little too ready to believe a gay man a coward when it took more guts than anyone anticipated just to survive. While Nicolina and Seraphina fought the attackers, he waited for his opportunity to escape. He could not, he explained, overcome five armed men but he could make it back to the château and find Lilly, who he knew had been kidnapped. At his first opportunity, he let down the tires of the cars and slipped away to hitchhike his way back to the château, finally arriving later that night. There he had entered the complex through a secret entrance, cut the power, and stole back the tapestry, encountering Mimi on his way to rescuing the rest of us.

After Interpol finished their interviews, we remained seated in the baronial hall in various states of shock and exhaustion. Henri slumped inconsolably in one of the couches, Chouchou in his arms, after having his head attended to by a medic; Rupert, René, and Eduard had already been transported to the hospital while Mimi and eighteen Chinese nationals headed to jail. Tengfeng left for the morgue along with a few of his hapless supporters. A Chinese lawyer had arrived threatening retribution along with a French lawyer arguing against him while Ella and her team arrived to claim the tapestry on behalf of France. I had only time to smile and wave at her as she passed with her team.

“Eduard was the mole, seriously?” Peaches asked, gazing around our motley gathering, slurping back mugs of coffee and devouring croissants while she was at it.

Natalie sobbed. “I didn’t know at first, I swear! He made a deal with Tengfeng, who promised him thousands of dollars if he passed along information. That’s all he thought he must do but no, then Tengfeng demanded that he help capture Phoebe and that’s when he refused. They beat him, they beat him so badly!”

Lilly sat beside her holding her hand. “Eduard will be fine,” she whispered. “You can visit him at the hospital as soon as they give the word. Be warned, though, they may lay charges.”

“Everything is gone, non?” moaned Henri. “The tapestry, the château, Mimi, everything. You will need to auction off the château now and it will never be in the Saint Chappelles family again. I have failed.”

“You have not failed,” we all said more or less at once. “You are a brave man and helped win the day,” I added.

After all, he had launched a noble mission in the attempt to release us but, in the end, it seemed that taking advantage of the ensuing chaos to snatch the tapestry had brought him face-to-face with his niece. That had shaken him emotionally more than anything. “I could not convince her that I loved her,” he sobbed. “She did not believe me and said such hateful things. I should have loved her better when she was young.”

Lilly leaned toward him. “Uncle Henri, you are not responsible for Mimi’s choices. She made them, not you. Besides, you’ll always have me and we’ll have one another because we’re the only family left that matters.”

That caused him to muster a sad smile.

“I’m ashamed of my sister and ashamed that she chose to represent the worst part of humanity instead of its best,” Lilly continued. “China deserves better ambassadors than Mimi and Uncle Tengfeng.”

“And I’ve met many, some here.

Besides,” I added, “if it were not for you, Henri, the château would never have been opened so our team could not have infiltrated it.” That wasn’t quite true since the structure was holier than Swiss cheese and the operatives had stormed the ruined ramparts on their own initiative but my words seemed to make him feel marginally better. I felt for him. He was a sensitive man and his heroism had made a difference in the larger scheme of things.

Nicolina sat straight and elegant in her ripped leather couture. “I have an idea that may solve the issue of the auctioned château but perhaps we speak of this at another time?”

“Now, please,” Lilly urged.

Nicolina folded her hands. “Very simple. I buy the château as part of a…” She sat struggling to find the English word.

“Conglomerate, cooperative, group purchase?” Peaches suggested.

“Perhaps one of those,” she acknowledged, “but I am only the money person—”

“Financier,” Peaches said triumphantly, snapping her fingers.

“Financier,” Nicolina agreed with a nod. “I finance the hotel operation until the château pays me back. Natalie and Henri manage it together.”

Lilly translated that in case Natalie missed it.

Natalie and Henri gazed at one another.

“That is if Eduard spends much time in jail,” Henri said in French. “If not, he joins us and I will forgive him. Natalie, I would be most happy to work with you to bring the château to life with this financial backing. We can make this work, yes?”

Then Mr. Tao entered accompanied by the Chinese lawyer. “I say goodbye now,” he said with a smile and a nod. He spoke to Lilly, who translated.

“Mr. Tao thanks you very much and wants you to know that he is most glad that the tapestry remains on French soil. He invites you, Phoebe, to come to China anytime where he will ensure you a very warm welcome.”

I grinned. “I hope someday to take him up on that.”

“Make sure he invites me, too,” Peaches added.

Two more bows and he was gone.

By the time the château cleared out later that afternoon, we were half-asleep in our chairs. We began heading for our rooms, me planning a detour to see Evan.

Peaches sidled up to me. “He’s outside being manly and organizing the last of the forces. Look.” Taking me by the arm, she led me to one of the windows and pointed below. “Total babe magnet.”

Evan stood discussing something with a gendarme, hands flying in the air—tall, broad-shouldered, too handsome by far, all I could do was sigh. I didn’t have enough energy left for much else.

“Right,” I said after a moment. “I’ll see him later.”

Some things are worth waiting for.

CHAPTER 21

A maiden sat weeping under an orange tree in a field of flowers with a dead unicorn in her lap, the creature’s tongue hanging out, and a sword plunged into its side. Rearing overhead, a lion roared victorious, waving the Le Viste pennant while a second banner lay burning in the grass amid a patch of lilies. Overhead, the archangel Michel flew in a swirl of fire with his sword glowing in the upper left-hand corner and the holy cross in his left.

The textile was still in the process of being restored but had garnered so much attention in the interim that the museum relented long enough to give VIPs a special glimpse. It remained enclosed behind glass in a clear temperature- and moisture-controlled environment, the fibers badly deteriorated in parts and most of the colors faded. It would not be fully revealed to France until it was able to hang in some semblance of its former glory.

“It tells the story of the betrayal of Joan of Arc,” I whispered. “The maiden is France, the unicorn is Joan, the lion England, and the pennant burning in the lilies bears the arms of King Charles VII of France, which contained the fleur-de-lis as his emblem.”

“And a Le Viste could be burned as a heretic for commissioning such an image,” Rupert remarked.

“Definitely, as would his collaborators, the Saint Chappelles. Father Louis risked more than his own life when he jumped into the oubliette with the cartoon,” Evan said. “The tapestry says in summary: the king of France and England killed Saint Joan, a travesty against God and man. It’s an accusation against the church and two of the most powerful earthly forces in the then known world. It’s an act of defiance and an expression of treason coupled with the most extraordinary courage.”

We had held a small private ceremony for Père Louis back at the château after having his bones removed and reburied on the property at a spot overlooking the Loire. Henri was commissioning a lovely headstone to commemorate his ancestor’s bravery and the role he had played in preserving the seventh Lady and the Unicorn tapestry. The French government were debating adding another statue of Jeanne d’Arc but that might take a while.

“I’d never stick my neck in a noose for a tapestry, just sayin’,” Peaches commented.

“No, it’s more likely you’d be out there battling the men who actually burned Joan at the stake,” I told her.

“Damn right I would.”

“And I would celebrate you, too, mon amie, as I would all noble souls who go forth to battle injustice.” Henri Saint Chappelles gave Peaches’s shoulder a squeeze. He had yet to squeeze me but I was all right with that. Henri, I realized, was drawn to the marginalized and the minorities.

“Indeed, our Peaches is a queen among women.” Rupert stood nursing his arm, which he’d encased in a lovely silk Hermès scarf that just happened to match his socks, should anyone choose to investigate that closely. He had assured me that, in Paris, people investigate that closely. I’d take his word on that but I still wore my so-last-year silk hydrangea print blouse with a skirt.

“Consider me a black goddess,” Peaches was saying. “The French used to worship us, as well they should.” Actually, she did look like a goddess that day decked out as she was in her hyacinth leather suit. We won’t mention that it was far too hot for leather.

We were all standing together at the private unveiling of the seventh Lady and the Unicorn tapestry in the Cluny Museum, the public event having been slated for much later. Besides various French dignitaries, Peaches, Rupert, Henri, and I were in attendance along with Evan, who stood by my side. Lilly was on location filming her next movie so couldn’t attend. Natalie did not receive an invitation but was busy readying the new Château Saint Chappelles with Nicolina for an onslaught of late-summer bookings, anyway.

Ella stood at the front of the small gathering speaking to a handful of officials from the Ministère de la Culture. When she caught my eye, I left Evan’s side to join her where I chatted with the esteemed company about my interpretation of the tapestries as a whole. Several remained unconvinced and still championed the courtly love view but it was a lively discussion, nonetheless, and I left flushed with the stimulus of a good debate.

Minutes later, we left the Cluny and headed into a warm sunny Parisian summer day. Paris can do summer so magnificently and we were on our way to one of Rupert’s favorite restaurants by way of a treat. It was a bit of a stroll but we were up for it and Paris appeared happy to oblige.

While Peaches walked arm in arm with Henri, and I held hands with Evan, I took Rupert by the arm so that I was flanked by two of my favorite men. “All right, gentlemen, it’s time you disclosed what you’ve been hiding from me all along.”

That provoked the usual expressions and protestations of bewildered innocence, all of which I allowed to peter out before I said anything further. I was temporarily distracted by the sight of lovers kissing by the Seine. I took a deep breath, thinking I could use more of that. Definitely later. “I realize that I’ve probably been handling this all wrong. Let me approach this another way by posing a direct question: Evan, you say that you were adopted by two lovely people whom you consider to be your true parents, but who is your biological father?”

I looked up to find him staring down at me, dumbstruck. Here was a man who didn’t do dumbstruck often or well so I took pity on him and turned to Rupert.

“Rupert, is there any reason why you have spent the last five years hiding from me the fact that Evan is your son? I’ve seen how solicitous he is of you—when he’s not dropping you off in the grass outside a château, that is, but every son’s allowed a few transgressions. And I even wondered if you two were a couple—back then, I mean. This is before I knew Evan so well, er, in that way, and even if that had been true and you two were a couple, it still wouldn’t have been anything to hide. This is 2022, right?”

“Phoebe—” Evan began.

“Don’t deny it,” I said.

“I’m not denying anything, I’m merely trying to explain.”

“Oh, good. Please do.”

Rupert and Evan exchanged glances.

To me the resemblance was unmistakable once I began to look for similarities—the same eye and hair color, only Evan’s complexion leaned on the olive side whereas Rupert always remained pale.

“Well?” I prompted.

“Phoebe.” It was Rupert who was about to tell the tail. “The fact that Evan is my son has remained a secret for a very good reason. Initially, it was because my dear late wife, Mabel, was not aware that I had sired a child before we met and, after we married, the conditions of my inheritance were determined by my having no progeny, thus I preferred to keep it that way. As it stands, my estate and title revert to Mabel’s eldest nephew upon my passing but there is yet another complication in that Evan’s biological mother, indeed my first love, also was at one time a wealthy woman and her estate belongs to…” He paused as if exposing the truth to the air might suddenly bring universal wrath toppling down upon his head. But then, he may have just needed to come up for air.

“Belongs to?” That was me again.

“Nicolina,” he finished.

I allowed that to ripen among us until I could digest it fully. Then I was the one to gape. “Maria Contini is your mother?” I swung to Evan. “The Maria Contini who was Nicolina’s friend and heir and whose murder we helped solve in Venice years ago? You are the member of an old Venetian family?”

His expression, pained in a way I’d never seen before, seemed to be unable to release the word his lips were forming. “Yes,” he said finally. “But Nicolina must not know. On no account do I want her to think that I will ever make a claim on the Contini assets. That’s not who I am.”

“Did you know two years ago when we were searching for Maria’s killer?” I asked.

“I suspected.” His eyes met Rupert’s. “But it took several months before I discovered the truth.”

“Oh.” I could hardly speak and the emotion flowing between the two men was so thick with either reproach or love or both that I hardly knew which way to turn.

“What’s going on?”

I looked up to find Peaches standing before us, leaving Henri up ahead gazing across the river.

“I’ve just heard confirmed what I knew all along,” I told her.

“Which is?” she asked.

“If we tell you, you cannot disclose the truth to anyone,” Evan told her sternly.

“Huh, seriously? Are you about to confess that you’re married, Evan, maybe the centerfold for the Hunk of the Year calendar, a Mr. Bicep UK division?” she quipped. “Is Rupe Mr. Loquacious, is that it?”

“This is serious, Penelope,” Rupert warned.

Nobody called her Penelope. She looked from Rupert to Evan before holding up one hand. “My lips are sealed—Black Goddess’s honor. So, what’s the big mystery?”

Rupert cleared his throat. “I suggest we wait until this evening to disclose the details over dinner along with a very fine glass of wine.”

“Hell, yes,” Peaches exclaimed. “By the look on your faces, let’s make it the whole damn bottle.”

THE END

THE SHADOW OF THE EMPEROR: BOOK 6

PROLOGUE

Pompeii, AD 79

That morning I stood outside my door and savored all the fruits and flowers with which the gods had sowed the earth and the good fortune they had bestowed upon my head. I had much for which to be thankful. An orchard hedged with flowering trees and a back garden alive with brilliant color and running water as well as a fine and richly appointed domus, that was the world I lived in now. Though it was not solely mine, I shared the benefit.

My life couldn’t be more removed from my days of servitude to the goddess Vesta when I lived in comfort but with little freedom. Who would have imagined that I, placed into the goddess’s service at an early age, would one day be in command of such a magnificent villa?

“Mistress?”

Wrenched from my reverie, I turned. It was Lucius, one of the few slaves that had been with me since my release from the Vestals, a good and trusted man. He was of dark skin and born a mason in Egypt before he had been brought in slavery to Rome, and I had always felt a kinship. We were of a similar age. He knew things the others did not. “Yes, Lucius, what is it? Is Juno all right?”

“Juno is fine, mistress, though the tutor did not arrive again this morning and the young mistress now reads her Greek in the scriptorium.”

It was good that the girl remained diligent with her studies but she must have a tutor as I could only school her in so much. Cato Servius, the best I could locate with experience schooling the children of noble families, had let me down again. He had been with us but for a month.

“What has gone amiss with Servius this time?” I demanded. “Are my coins not as good as any other?”

“They are, mistress,” Lucius hastily said to appease me. “I have checked the town and it seems that he has left, his bags piled on a mule heading for Naples.”

“But why no word to me?”

“Because he left in haste after yesterday’s rumble. I hesitate to say this again, mistress, for I know that you have little patience with the news, but I must keep you informed.”

Ah, yes. One thing about this man that I had yet to alter was the fear that appeared to lodge in his heart. Every corner held a monster, every bird an evil portent. I watched him twisting his hands, thick-knuckled and well-used to hard labor across the years, though I had lessened his duties of late. “Just come out with it so I can be about my day.”

“It is said in town that the earth shakes beneath our feet too often now and that soon the gods will spew their fury upon our heads. Many citizens like Servius have left or are preparing to leave. Mistress, once again I implore you to consider that we do the same.”

My gaze flew up to the cloudless sky, to the tangle of birds flying overhead. Leave paradise? I had been entrusted with this villa and with the girl who would someday inherit the world. We had no place to go that would nurture her in the manner with which the fortune had been provided to me to ensure.

I sighed heavily. “Has not the mountain rumbled many times in the past, Lucius? Have we not had a massive shake but years ago where all citizens had to run for cover and then rebuild once again? As I have said many times before, we cannot leave for we have no place to go.”

“We could return to Rome,” Lucius said. “Now that the Emperor Titus rules, it is said to be a more just place.”

“More just than what, Lucius? No place is safe for such as me and none are just. That which has been granted me to nurture lies here. Now go into town and tell the soothsayer that I will visit her soon.”

“Yes, mistress.” He bowed his head as if awaiting his execution.

“And pray to our gods. Remember where our fortunes lay. You better than any of the others know the truth of my words. I have taken a vow to her and you to me and must trust in the gods to protect us as they have many times before. Now, be off about your duties. I will hear no more of this.”

Besides, I had other things to consider just then. I must find another tutor and quickly for I could not have that girl spending her days roaming about when there was so much left for her to learn. But first, I must pray for our continued protection.

Leaving the garden, I quickly retraced my steps through the frescoed rooms of the vestibule toward the atrium. I passed many servants along the way sweeping the leaves from the mosaics, cleaning the braziers, polishing the brass. Was it only my imagination or did they each shoot me a worried glance as if gauging my mood? Why was everyone so on edge? We had lived with a rumbling mountain all our lives.

I would light a flame and send a prayer before checking on my young charge.

In a corner of the atrium, surrounded by the garden frescoes we loved so well, stood a most magnificent altar to our household gods: the Lares, and, always, to Vesta. Their little statues greeted me each morning. Before them I would make my daily sacrifice of wine and fruit but on this morning I would add something more precious—a pearl from the great queen’s hoard—and light a candle that they might protect our domus with continued good fortune.

I carried the pearl with me always. Many others I had used to pay for larger expenses for even the monies I had been given would not last forever. The pearls, however, were bountiful and held much value. Carefully, I took the creamy orb from my stola and slipped it beside the statue of Vesta. Pray protect our house, great mother. I give you this pearl to prove my devotion.

Striking the flint, I lifted the flame toward the alcove and reached between the figures toward the candle. “Protect our hearth and home, O mighty ones,” I said aloud. "Keep us forever safe just as you have done these many years.”

But as the flame reached the wick, it flickered, and went out. I stared. Never had that happened before.

“It is a bad omen, mistress.”

I swung around. “Why are you not at your studies, Juno?”

She was now fourteen years old and ready to be wed. Fair of face and slim of figure, she had attracted the eye of many suitors but not yet the one I desired. It was not wealth I sought for the girl, but status. Her future husband must be ambitious, from a good house, and be favored by his father for public life. Now that I had one in mind with the dowry to secure it, I need only wait for the father to arrive before I could secure the match. My one goal in life, a mission entrusted to me down two generations, was to prepare this girl to rule the world.

True to her advanced learning for which I paid much to maintain, she answered in Greek. “I weary of studying the same script day after day. I’d hoped that we could take a walk, perhaps to the baths.”

Down to the baths to catch a glimpse of Marcus Priscus, she meant, for we had a bath room of our own and had no need to use the public facilities. Juno had caught glimpses of the young soldier at the games and now those thoughts heated her blood. There could not be a more unsuitable match and she knew it. She was destined for another and it mattered not her wishes in the matter.

“Not today, Juno. Instead, we shall proceed for a quick walk to see the soothsayer so she can remind you once again of your destiny. Quick, fetch your palla.”

It was but an impulse on my part, thinking that to visit the soothsayer and hearing the old woman speak again would settle this general unease once and for all. Whatever the wisewoman said would be proclaimed about the villa and put the servants at ease. We could not afford this distraction when there was so much to be done.

Wrapping my red woolen palla about my head and shoulders while the girl left her head bare, we stepped forth and headed down the walk. Always, I preferred to leave the villa with my head covered so as not to draw prying eyes to my person, but Juno was young and marriageable. Her head must remain uncovered. Even if I wished it otherwise, she would likely resist as she did with most things.

Today, I planned only to proceed to the soothsayer and to be quick about it. No hesitation as we strolled past the market stalls, no lingering to admire the wares that had recently arrived by ship or from Rome, though Juno was eager to touch the baubles and stroke every length of fine fabric, as always.

“Enough,” I chastised as we strode along. “Do not dawdle.” I loved the girl, of course I did, but I knew that too much softness on my part would only turn her headstrong nature in a direction we could not afford. Though her mother had been a Vestal Virgin, still Eros rode in her blood—that had to be curtailed no matter how I detested the role I must play—custodian as well as guardian.

The streets were crowded this morn, many wagons lumbering along the cobbles laden with household goods. I could see the line trailing out from the sea gates all along the Roman road.

“The citizens are fleeing, mistress. Why do we not follow?”

Suppressing my fear, I said: “Because your fate is not to be a follower but a leader.” Taking, the girl’s hand, I tugged her from the traffic into one of the narrow thoroughfares.

“How can I lead if I am dead?” she demanded.

So headstrong. So opinionated. It is a delicate balance to school one to be both strong and obedient. How could I not squash this endless rebellion without damaging her spirit? Juno knew only part of her destiny, but not enough perhaps. What rewarded me in the future only plagued me today. “Enough! Stop such foolish talk. To die young is not your fate for you are destined for great things.”

Or so I desperately hoped. The empress had decreed it; the Vestals had struggled across the years to make it so, and now I was tasked with the final piece. Surely all this good fortune could not end so abruptly when we were so close to the prize? The haruspex would settle all. She would tell me the news for which I would pay her dearly. Today, I would double her price to divine from the liver of a slaughtered cow.

The haruspex lived on a side street behind the Stabian baths not far from a bakery. Usually, there were many crowded about the stall purchasing loaves but today we passed only a handful waiting nervously about.

The priestess’s domus was small but well-appointed. Many paid for her services in kind, either through artisan trade or in goods. Some brought her food by the cartload. It was said that when a petitioner brought a liver for her to divine, he would often bring her a large piece of the animal upon which she could dine. In my case, I always paid in coin and the woman seemed glad of it.

“I don’t wish to listen to this old hag go on and on,” Juno hissed as we approached the gate. “She always says the same thing: I am to be the wife of a great man and be the one to steer his ship behind the throne. Why is it that no one asks what I want?”

“Hush! This woman was once a Vestal from Rome and deserves your respect.”

But respect did not come easily to one so young, or one so convinced that she knew better than her elders. Before I could say more, the soothsayer appeared. Usually so serene, today she was dashing out the door, her palla hastily thrown over her head, with her servants carrying bundles of belongings on their backs trailing behind.

“O anointed one, did you not receive word that I was to visit this day?” I asked, surprised.

The soothsayer stopped and gazed at me, always unsettling with her rheumy white-scaled eyes. “I sent Lucius away to tell you that I would not be receiving today or any other day. Did you not receive word?”

“I took another path,” I explained, “but please remain long enough to read for us. My young charge grows restless and must be soothed.”

“Today no one is to be soothed, they are to be warned. I am leaving Pompeii this morning—now, in fact—and suggest you do the same.”

“But I cannot! You know I cannot,” I exclaimed, scurrying behind her, sacrificing my dignity for my desperation. Juno followed behind, watching the exchange with her quick sharp eyes. Together, we all piled down the steps out into the streets. “Please, take a moment to scry for me, I beseech you. I have brought coins enough for a cow’s liver and could pay more, if you desire.”

Outside on the road, a passing cloud had cast a pall over our heads but I hardly noticed. The soothsayer turned to face me, her expression as dark as the sky. She was older than I by many decades and had never been forced to do manual tasks and yet still her body stooped. “You do not need me to read for you, mistress. Look up for once and use your eyes instead of your desires. Vesuvius tells your future if you have the will to listen.”

With that, she turned to climb into her litter, her slaves easily lifting her frail person into the chair, and in moments she was trundling down the street toward the main roads, leaving me to stare after her.

“Did you hear that, mistress?” Juno demanded beside me. “The old woman speaks the truth for once! I can see it with my own eyes. If you will not listen to reason, then why must I listen to you? I am away and nothing you can do will stop me.”

I tried to grab her hand but she was too quick for me. In seconds, she had disappeared into the press of people now trudging down the streets toward the gates and, for one blinding minute, I knew that I had failed.

CHAPTER 1

On a dreary London day deep in the heart of an equally gray November, I hopped the tube for Pall Mall to meet Rupert Fox for lunch. Let me just say that Pall Mall, the traditional stomping ground of the very rich, was not a street I usually visited. The St. James area, with its embassies and clubby addresses, rarely lured me over.

Mostly, I just worked at my computer in our agency offices off King’s Road, cross-referencing missing art with international registries and Interpol databases, every day the same. My one big outing was my biweekly hand-to-hand combat practice, which at least got me out of the flat. When not on a case, I lived a dull existence. I liken my life to how sailors often describe oceanic sailing: one part terror mixed with three parts long stretches of sameness.

Evan was on a case and Peaches away in Jamaica. My godfather and gallery business partner, Max, was off to France on a textile shopping expedition with our office manager, Serena, his girlfriend, leaving the gallery in the hands of Serena’s daughter-in-law, fledging fashion designer Jennifer. More about that later.

Anyway, I was convinced that Rupert’s invitation had been a ploy to cheer me up or, at the very least, to distract me. Granted, I was anxious. Evan could only be tracking down my nefarious ex, which involved significant danger and might explain why I hadn’t heard from him in days. Of course I worried. Who wouldn’t? Add to that the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about the man who had become my official “boyfriend” and of how little time we actually managed to spend together now that we were a couple.

When I exited the Charing Cross station minutes later, I remembered the countless times I’d been ferried across London by Evan in the comfort of Rupert’s limousine while he masqueraded as his father’s chauffeur. Of course, I didn’t know of their true relationship at the time. Still, I’d seen more of him back when I was under suspicion of international art theft myself than I did now. There’s the irony. Apparently, being a person of interest back then made it the good old days.

So, Rupert had chosen the Royal Automobile Club headquarters as our lunch venue, but why? Because he wanted to wow me by the grand entrance, exemplary service, fine food, and floral bouquets festooning the polished foyer? Or did he have an ulterior motive entirely? My bet was on the latter. My friend was a great automobile enthusiast as was his son but he knew that I couldn’t tell a Porsche from a Peugeot. To me, cars were notable by color alone. I was particularly fond of the green kind.

The moment I stepped through the door, an impeccably uniformed man—dark navy, brass buttons—descended upon me with courtesy glinting off every fastening. One needed a reservation and to be invited by a member. One did not just walk in off the street looking for a quick burger with a side of fries.

After mentioning Sir Rupert Fox, the demeanor slipped into a more gracious welcome and another young steward escorted me up to one of the bars. He explained while en route that there were multiple lounges and to watch my step as I climbed the carpeted entry. Perhaps the fact that I was garbed in one of my art knit wraps and wearing an otherwise nondescript pair of velvet pants with a turtleneck meant that I required walking lessons.

Okay, so I was being testy.

Mostly men sat in the leather seats drinking and chatting, the conversation seeming as revved and engaged as a sleek automobile zipping around a track. No doubt they were negotiating business deals or otherwise lubricating the social wheels of the upper echelons. One glimpse of the glossy silver sports car on display on the grand landing didn’t improve my mood.

Rupert was waiting for me dressed in sartorial splendor as usual—Savile Row tailoring in a subtle gray-green tweed with a crisp white shirt paired with a blazing chartreuse tie. No doubt matching socks were tucked into his polished loafers.

“Rupert!” I exclaimed.

He rose to greet me, bestowing an air kiss to each cheek as he ushered me into the seat across from his. “Dearest Phoebe. What a delight it is to pry you from the office for a touch of social discourse at last. Now that I am partially retired, I rarely have the opportunity to see you as often as I’d prefer.”

Rupert had retired from Interpol and now only worked when the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found required his services.

“I’m happy to see you, too, Rupert, but why here?” I beamed at him.

“I believed you would enjoy a change of scenery, of course, and the food is top-notch. Sad to say that I no longer drive late-model cars myself but recently purchased a four-year-old Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. One must economize where one can. Did you chance to see the Aston Martin on display? Oh, I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you a glass of fine chardonnay to help you to unwind and one also for the guest I hope will arrive shortly.” I took a breath to protest but he stopped me with a smile. “One glass will not put you awry,” he told me.

“Yes, it will,” said I, but didn’t put up much resistance.

The glass arrived along with a bowl of mixed nuts and potato chips, the kind one imagines the chef preparing in the kitchen moments before your arrival. Nothing mass-produced here. I drove into the snacks first followed by a sip of wine. Delicious. The knots in my neck began to loosen as I resolved to enjoy the moment.

“So, what’s happening with you these days, Rupert, and who is this mysterious guest you’ve invited? Have you heard from Evan?” That last question just slipped out. Blame the wine.

Rupert fixed me with gimlet eyes framed by his incredible bushy eyebrows, which consistent grooming only managed to contain but never tame. “I am finishing the last of the renovations at my country estate, which I’m relieved to say are nearly complete.” He’d decided to ignore my inappropriate question—fair enough. I wasn’t supposed to know the intricacies of Evan’s Interpol assignments even if they affected me both emotionally and physically. “Tedious business that with all the endless costs to acquire building materials in this post-pandemic climate. Prices have risen exponentially—”

“So, you must be glad to have that done,” I interrupted. “I know that Evan must be in pursuit of Noel so I can’t help but worry. Hope you understand, you being his dad. Is it back to Sardinia, do you think? He probably doesn’t tell you any more than he does me.”

Rupert scooped up a few nuts with the silver spoon provided and placed them in a little dish. “As I was saying, the ability to acquire certain bespoke items has become a gauntlet run of negotiations and under-the-table payments that drive me to distraction.”

“Sardinia, then, or maybe back to Sicily? I know there was some speculation that Noel has been hiding out somewhere in southern Italy.”

“Now I have dispatched my household to my Belgravia home for a spot of rest and to connect with friends.”

I gave up. “Like me and this mystery guest you’ve invited?”

Rupert checked his watch—nothing ordinary there, either, but I didn’t know my watches any better than I did my cars. “Precisely so, but I am not personally acquainted with the man. He contacted me by phone, as in the landline variety, Monday last, and requested our services. He said he had a case that might interest us. I do hope that the chap deigns to come.”

“If he has a case for us, why not go through the agency website? Why call you at home?”

“I have no idea but I expect all will be explained. He did claim to be a bit of a fan of the agency and had heard of my exploits in particular and I couldn’t very well resist an opening like that, could I? I suggested him meeting us here and told him that I would bring you, the illustrious Phoebe McCabe.”

“Great,” I murmured.

“I thought he’d be thrilled to meet at such an auspicious location. Nevertheless, I detected considerable reticence when I named the locale, to the point of him suggesting we meet someplace less visible.”

I looked up. “Someplace invisible, then?”

“Don’t be glib, Phoebe. But really, who wouldn’t want to dine at the Royal Automobile Club headquarters?”

“Maybe a veteran walking enthusiast? Joking. Don’t scowl at me. What do you know about this man, anyway?” I asked.

“Very little accept that he works as a volunteer at a museum where he claims there has been some irregular goings-on.”

“Like hanky-panky in the Etruscan exhibit?”

Rupert glowered. “You are in rather an odd mood today, Phoebe.”

“Sorry. Anyway, please carry on.”

“The man, a one Markland Rodgers, said only that he had experienced some unaccountable goings-on at his museum and he thought that we might be the ones to find out the answers on the sly. He originally hesitated to bring the matter to anyone’s official attention. If he can solve it without fuss, all the better, though a few of his colleagues are also aware of the anomalies.”

I looked up. “What kind of anomalies?’

“He wouldn’t say.”

“Did you check him out?”

“Of course. A Markland Rodgers has been working at the museum for several years.”

“Which museum?”

“Sir Bentley Broadhurst.”

I gasped. “Sir Bentley Broadhurst, my absolute favorite museum in the world?”

“Well, that’s a bit rich, Phoebe.” Rupert’s caterpillar eyebrows collided on his brow. “There have been many museums that have engaged your attention in our line of work over the years but this is the first time I’ve heard that Sir Bentley Broadhurst’s was a favorite.”

“It was among the first museums I spent any time in when I moved to London because it seemed, well, almost cozy. I love it to bits.” Okay, so the wine was talking by then but my emotional draw to the most magnificent house museum in the world was absolutely true.

Sir Bentley Broadhurst was a nineteenth-century lawyer (1750–1839) and an enthusiastic collector who bought three buildings in Eaton Square to become his offices, home, and personal museum to house his magnificent collection of mostly ancient artifacts and art. He positioned each piece with an artist’s eye, playing off the elements of ancient art and architecture one against the other to illustrate the striking beauty of the whole.

Rooms were opened up with upper and lower floors viewable from different angles with careful attention paid to light sources that were curated through stunning window features. In short, the man was a genius, making history seem more accessible, human, and completely alive. “I can’t imagine an anomaly happening at the Broadhurst museum.”

“Neither can I,” Rupert remarked. “Nevertheless, this Markland Rodgers chap insisted that strange events were occurring on the premises.”

“Like what—talking statues, spectral presences, missing art?”

Rupert leaned forward. “Phoebe, I said I did not know. Besides, I do not believe in spectral presences. That’s entirely your interest, hardly mine.” He looked up. “He told me to look out for a man wearing a red scarf and here comes one now wearing a rather dreadful example. What stitch is that—garter?”

I turned to watch a tall man of medium build approach dressed in a navy sports jacket over a white T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers complete with said woolly scarf wrapped several times around his neck, everything a bit worn and crumpled. Of average looks, he had a pale pleasant face with a fuzz of short gray hair and kept his eyes fixed ahead as the steward led him toward us. Rupert got to his feet as did I and a flurry of handshakes and introductions followed.

“It’s very good to meet you, Sir Fox, and you also, Phoebe McCabe. Your reputations proceed you, as they say.” His grip was firm despite his mild appearance.

Markland sat down smiling, his eyes finally resting on our faces, each in turn. Sky-blue eyes, direct, shrewd gaze. “I admit to hesitating on meeting you here and thought at first to suggest a pub somewhere but dining at the club is a treat, too. I certainly can’t afford places like this on my pension.”

“You are here as my guest, dear chap,” Rupert said while beaming in pleasure. “Happy to treat one of Britain’s indispensable volunteers. You did say that you volunteer your services?”

“Yes, at the Sir Bentley Broadhurst Museum,” Markland said. “I retired as a curator from there five years ago but now I’m happy just to help out part-time.”

“A noble cause,” Rupert said with a nod. “What would England do without her volunteers? And it was while you were engaged in your selfless service that you noticed something awry on the premises, as I understand?”

“Exactly. It’s the most damnable thing and I really can’t figure it out. I’m hoping you can help.”

“You’ve come to the right place, I assure you.”

“What exactly is going on?” I asked, eager to discover the reason for our meeting, but at that moment a steward whispered into Rupert’s ear.

“Our table is ready,” Rupert told us. “Shall we proceed into the dining room?”

The dining room could almost be described as palatial, at least the gold-embossed baroque interior with its painted ceilings and murals gave every impression of a royal abode, fitting enough seeing as the Prince of Kent was the club’s official headman.

We were seated at a table by the window, every glass and piece of cutlery gleaming in the light, and presented with a large, stately menu while I appreciated the huge floral bouquet that dominated the central space. Imagine the price of dahlias and chrysanthemums in November!

“May I recommend the sole meunière?” suggested Rupert. “It’s exemplary and I know just the wine to accompany it.”

We agreed and once our orders were taken I just wanted to get on with business. Gazing at the man across from me, I watched as he unfurled a snowy damask napkin onto his lap. “First, let me prepare the staging to these events. Are you familiar with the museum?” he inquired.

“I’ve been many times but there’s so much to take in that every visit is a new discovery,” I told him.

“Isn’t it just?” His eyes met mine. “In order to better understand the extraordinary occurrences that have been happening of late, let me explain how we guides work. Each day, one of us is in charge of a room or a group of smaller areas such as hallways and corridors during our shifts. We are there to answer questions from our visitors as well as to ensure that no one tampers with or otherwise touches the exhibits. Because Sir Bentley Broadhurst specified through an Act of Parliament that objects remain positioned in the museum exactly as Broadhurst designed it, the artifacts are more accessible to visitors than most museums, which is both its charm and its vulnerability.”

I nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I love it so much—I feel as though I’m walking through time itself with no barriers to partition me off.”

“Something which Sir Bentley wished to achieve through lighting and staging. The man knew what he was doing. He was a master of theater, among other things. In any case, those of us who work there, especially those who have been at it as long as I, have come to know the displays intimately. We stare at them every single day, sometimes for hours at a time. We notice when an object shifts position.”

Our lunches arrived before us, looking delectable in every sense. I leaned forward. “Shifts position?”

“Moves, maybe by mere centimeters, but moves nonetheless. Several artifacts have shifted position and none of us is responsible for the act. It appears to be happening almost every night.”

“But, dear man, surely the facility has excellent security systems in place?” Rupert protested while simultaneously carving out a tasty morsel.

“Absolutely—the best—yet no alarms have gone off nor have cameras detected anything unusual.”

“Surely you’re not implying…” Rupert hesitated to utter the words. “Something of a supernatural nature?”

Markland lifted his hands. “I have no idea, which is why I contacted you, Sir Rupert. I hear that your agency is the best for such detective work. I’ve recently alerted the higher-ups but so far nothing has been resolved. As long as everything is accounted for, no one is unduly concerned. Nothing’s been stolen, after all.”

“Do you think that a theft may be in the offing?” I asked. “I mean, the museum is filled with priceless treasures.”

“Indeed it is, but the museum owns nothing like the crown jewels or works by some Renaissance master,” Markland pointed out. “There are a couple of fine Turners and a range of diverse antiquities Broadhurst picked up on his grand tour combined with others he acquired through auction—valuable, irreplaceable, even, but not something that might attract a thief. The more precious objects are frankly unwieldy, like King Seti’s sarcophagus, for instance, or the Hopley vase, neither of which can be simply pocketed.”

“One would need a forklift for the sarcophagus,” Rupert remarked as if actively considering how to remove the object. “And possibly a crane,” he added.

“Yet, somebody appears to be looking for something. Any chance we can spend a night in the museum to check things out?” I inquired.

“Absolutely not,” he said mildly, shooting me an appraising glance. “That would be completely against security protocols and I could be prosecuted for even suggesting such a thing.”

“But you didn’t suggest it,” I pointed out.

Picking up his knife and fork, he nodded. “I didn’t, did I? Why not pay the museum a visit on one of our candlelit tour nights. Book for an exclusive evening and experience the museum in the manner in which Sir Bentley would have entertained his guests. The next event is this Thursday beginning at nine p.m. I’ll be on duty that night. I’ll send you the link. The sole is delicious, by the way.” He dug into his meal with satisfaction.

CHAPTER 2

“Phoebe, you can’t possibly be considering what I believe you’re considering.”

Rupert and I stood in the club lobby waiting for the cab to arrive after he insisted on dropping me off on his way home. Markland had already left.

“How else can we figure out what’s going on inside that museum?” I whispered.

“Allow me to make inquiries through the proper channels and, if need be, formally engage our Interpol affiliations.”

“And how long would that take—a month, two? Seeing as nothing has been stolen, I doubt Interpol will be too interested and we can’t even contact Evan to pull the strings. Meanwhile, somebody’s up to something and we need to discover what before a priceless object goes missing.”

“Nevertheless, those are the proper channels.”

“Since when did you worry about ‘proper channels’?” I whispered.

“Since I matured or, at the very least, since I partially retired and realized that doing otherwise unleashes far more complications than one needs at my tender age.”

“Stop sounding as if you’re hobbling around on your last legs. You’re a mere spring chicken in the great barnyard of life at sixty-four. Don’t tell me that you’re turning into some supercautious fuddy-duddy?”

“Fuddy-duddy!” His look of effrontery was almost comical.

I patted his arm. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair. It’s just that you know better than anyone that the best way to get things done is to skip the permission stage and go directly to hopeful forgiveness. One way or the other, I’m going to get into the museum to stay the night and I’m hoping you’ll come with me. We need the distraction.”

He didn’t say much after that except to make pleasantries about the new hybrid cab we were in. The cabbie did the talking, anyway. Most London cabbies were philosophers or political analysts, depending on the day and whatever was hitting the news at the time. This one had plenty to say about the British labor strikes and American presidents. He also added a mournful tribute to the late queen.

I jumped out of the cab at our gallery-cum-office and waved Rupert goodbye. We were to stay in touch by text between today, a Monday, and the days leading up to the museum’s Thursday night opening. There was planning to be done, research to get under my belt. Rupert still hadn’t agreed to participate.

When I opened the gallery door, Jennifer was nowhere to be found.

“Jenn?” I called.

“Back here.”

I followed the sound of her voice to the back storage area now expanded to include a mini lounge, storage, and office space. Two long legs were popped on the coffee table, the face hidden behind British Vogue. “Hi ya.”

“You’re supposed to be watching the gallery, Jenn.”

The magazine lowered. “I am.” She pointed to our closed-circuit TV in the upper corner, which covered every angle of the gallery. “Nobody’s entered for hours, Phoeb. It’s, like, sooooo dead around here. We should have Monday closing. Lots of places do that.”

I glanced at the screen. “Max knows that if even one person drops in and buys a carpet, it’s worth paying operational costs.” That was a direct reference to her exorbitant salary since Max paid his girlfriend’s daughter substantially more than minimum wage and expected her to earn it.

“Yeah, but I’d hear the bell if somebody entered and it’s not like anybody can steal anything, anyway, right? Those carpets are kind of hard to peel off the wall and alarmed besides, don’t you think? And all the smaller stuff is in locked cases so, like, theft-proof.”

“Nothing is theft-proof but that’s not the point. Max wants you to mind the gallery, Jenn.”

Sighing, the blonde Gwyneth Paltrow lookalike unfolded herself and got to her feet, every inch garbed in the latest fashion, this time full high-waist trousers with a matching cropped jacket. She was dazzling, as always, her outfit accessorized with some original twist, which today happened to be a silk scarf worn as a bandeau beneath the tweedy fabric.

“Any word from your internship with that designer?” I asked as she slipped away with a model-perfect glide.

“Not yet. Soon, I hope.”

As if on cue, her cell rang. “It’s him!” she squealed, holding up her phone.

“Good luck. I’ll just leave you be.” With that, I exited the room and stepped back into the gallery. I desperately hoped she’d get the job. I knew from her sketches that the young woman had talent with the kind of edgy verve that could stand out from the fashion wannabes.

For a moment, I just stared into the gallery space with its three-story ceiling, admiring the colors pulsing off the carpets that hung bathed in the halogen glow. Max and Serena liked to stack them one on top of the other with every alternative piece just touching the floor. They were like textile paintings composing the brilliant intricacy of cultural design.

It was just by luck that I caught the dull gleam of something metallic far across the room at the foot of one of our magnificent sixteenth-century Persian Safavids. Those carpets didn’t have beading or any kind of embellishments so what was that about? Probably a bit of foil that escaped the morning sweep, not that Jennifer actually did any sweeping.

I crossed the space half thinking that I needed to get up a bit earlier to run a dry mop around the floor, a loving task I used to do before the agency business took over.

Stopping at the carpet, I gazed down at what looked like a burnished gold coin sticking out from under the fringe. Surely not. Seconds later, that’s exactly what I held in my palm: a Roman coin with the head of woman and the name Augustus visible despite the wear. Flipping it over, the second side featured an image of a badly rubbed figure seated on a throne. I knew a genuine Roman coin when I saw one but why was it half-hidden on the gallery floor?

Turning, I darted back toward the storeroom just as Jennifer was exiting.

“I got it! I got it! I start next Monday.”

Great. Max and Serena would return on the weekend.

“That’s fantastic, Jenn!” I hugged her and stood back while she performed a happy dance, hers being almost ballet-like in grace despite the high-heel pumps.

“I’ve got to text Mom and tell Marco! They’ll be so excited.”

“Oh, will. You do that. I’m just going to go through the security tapes. Can you keep an eye on the gallery?”

But Jenn was speed tapping into her phone by then—no, skip that; she decided to call instead, all the time keeping her back turned to the gallery.

I gave up and locked the door, putting up the CLOSED sign on the window before diving into Max’s office to hit Replay on the security recordings.

Those recordings were overwritten every seventy-eight hours and I was almost positive that Jennifer hadn’t gone through them in the past six days since Max and Serena left. Usually footage reviews only happened in the event of suspicious activity, which was rare. Since the carpets were all alarmed, a suspicious activity would need to be an attempted robbery or damage to one of our priceless textiles.

As I feared, the hard drive registered that the last seventy-eight hours had been erased and partially recorded over. Unless the coin had managed to land in its spot over the past twenty-four hours, I was out of luck.

I scanned through the recordings, including the night when the gallery lay bathed in infrared lighting, finding nothing out of order. I saw myself leaving to meet Rupert late the next morning, noted the three people who had entered the space before and after, including the postwoman, Sylvia; Mr. Peabody, who paid us a weekly visit just to admire our carpets; and a young couple who hastily exited once Jennifer told them the price of the Chinese Ming imperial dragon carpet they were eyeing. Jennifer was right: business was slow.

I hastily posted a picture of both sides of the coin and dispatched it to Rupert along with information about where it was found. He got back to me within minutes.

Rupert: Extraordinary. Someone must have dropped it.

Me: Dropped it halfway under the hem of one of Persian beauties? That doesn’t sound likely.

Rupert: Perhaps the person in question inadvertently kicked it under the carpet after accidentally, and quite carelessly, I might add, allowing it to tumble from his or her pocket. I suspect that he or she carried the item as a kind of talisman, a rather common event these days. People can grow attached to these kinds of things.

Me: Do you know anything about this coin generally?

Rupert: If it names Emperor Augustus, which it does indeed do, the woman’s head must be his empress, Livia, though Augustus never minted any coins with his wife’s head from his seat in Rome. The coin most probably hails from one of the provinces and I’d estimate the date possibly circa AD 20 to 33.

Me: Okay, thanks. I’ll just keep it until the owner realizes it’s missing and comes back to the gallery looking for it.

But it struck me as strange. Why would anyone remove a valuable coin from their pocket in a carpet gallery in the first place? Unless, I reasoned, they had pulled out something else and dropped the coin by accident. That had to be it. Nothing else made sense. Still, it struck me as odd. I tucked the coin into the secret compartment of my carpetbag and forgot about it. I needed to focus on my upcoming night in the museum.

Downstairs in our renovated basement lab and office area, the official flagship agency headquarters, I busied myself with researching everything I could about Sir Bentley Broadhurst. That involved skimming multiple books including a description of the contents penned by the gentleman himself. By the time evening rolled around, I’d exhausted every avenue available to me and decided to visit the museum myself the next day.

That left an evening of knitting periodically interrupted by checking emails on my agency superphone. Evan was still off-grid, something he did when his mission was considered top-secret. I sent him messages hoping for a response but nothing came. Why was I the only one who fretted when that happened?

Peaches texted to say that she’d met a new man in Jamaica and, unless something interesting happened back here, she was staying on for a while. Peaches avoided the cold wherever possible and I had no doubt but that her new guy was hot. As for Nicolina, all was calm in Rome so far, and Zann, our newest member and head of the US division, was off tracking down a missing heirloom in Atlanta.

The next morning, after assuring myself that Jennifer was truly minding the fort, I took off for the Broadhurst. As it turned out, Markland was not on duty that morning and I took advantage of studying the museum piece by piece without interruption. Occasionally, I’d ask one of the knowledgeable guides something but I mostly wanted to wander undisturbed.

Actually, I was seeking something worth stealing and though there were plenty of priceless objects to choose from—paintings by Turner and Sir Joshua Reynolds, priceless Greek and Etruscan vases, rare books and illuminated manuscripts—not one object stood out as being something so attractive as to be worth the risk. Of course, if the thief was working on behalf of a collector, anything might be on his hit list, but unless he planned to heist multiple objects at a time, I couldn’t see how it would be worth the effort.

Many of the pieces were casts of original ancient sculptures, though there were plenty of authentic bits of Roman and Greek architecture and culture, including cinerary urns, cornices, pieces from a Greek altar, and a pilaster capital, placed throughout the exhibit.

Broadhurst arranged artifacts so that their decorative features played off against one another rather than grouping them together in a common theme. How the light touched the objects was critical to the master’s design and he crafted unique window features to do just that. I particularly loved gazing out at the Obelix Court, which formed a square courtyard viewable from multiple rooms.

And the man loved a bit of theater. The Prior’s Cemetery was more staging than a real tomb, though pieces of genuine monastical ruins abounded. Since Sir Bentley also included a cast of his late wife’s cat, Lady Fluffy, one couldn’t take things that seriously.

I wandered from the replica of the majestic Apollo bathed in light from the windows designed to spotlight the god in all his splendor right down to the fig leaf that wasn’t big enough to hide so much as a fig let alone an appendage. Then I moved on to the Sepulchral Chamber in the basement where the imposing alabaster sarcophagus of Seti IV dominated the lower level. It was by far the architect’s most prized piece, and at the time he purchased it from the British Museum for two thousand pounds sterling, nobody yet knew who had occupied it let alone deciphered the hieroglyphics covering its surface. That would come later.

In other words, the museum was layered, detailed, and fascinating. It would take more than a few hours to do it justice but at least I had refreshed in my mind as to the general layout. I sent a message to Markland asking which particular objects had been tampered with and paused long enough to reread his response: a cork model of a temple dedicated to Apollo, the ruins of which were located in Rome, and two Roman cinerary urns. That these objects were all Roman couldn’t be a coincidence.

Retracing my steps, I studied each urn but there were six, all in excellent states of preservation with not one more valuable than the other. I wasn’t the expert on Roman artifacts, that was more Rupert and Nicolina’s domain, but I knew the basics. And the cork model probably held little monetary value at all. It was also apparent by the size of the urns, which stood about two feet tall and at least twelve inches in diameter and mostly made of marble or alabaster, that moving them wouldn’t be easy, especially since the prime specimens were balanced on a thin ledge suspended over two stories. Why even attempt to steal one of those? Roman funerary urns were relatively common. I left totally baffled.

By the appointed night at the museum, I still hadn’t heard from Evan but was determined to stop worrying and to stay focused. Rupert had agreed to attend the event but not to stay the night, citing his bad back. It’s true that he was slowing down these days, either by choice or physical concerns, I didn’t know.

Additionally, he reasoned, I needed somebody on the outside to monitor the screens, which actually made sense. My plan was to use one of Evan’s new apps to transfer the museum’s security circuit onto our private monitoring system. That way the camera feed for each room would show only on our monitors. Rupert had agreed to stay up long enough to keep watch on his computer while I was still inside the museum based on the two-pairs-of-eyes-are-better-than-one theory. Besides, my tablet’s thumbnails were so small I could miss something.

Everything works via technology these days, making the most efficient systems of the nonhuman variety. Though in the Broadhurst’s case, a live guard did remain on the museum premises overnight; he spent his active hours monitoring screens from his office where he could also operate lights, power, and everything else with a press of a button. But the security screens wouldn’t register anything abnormal that night because the real feed would be patched onto my system. Even my movements inside the museum wouldn’t register, leaving my biggest worry being physically bumping into the guard during his rounds. That is if he even did rounds.

By the time Thursday night rolled around, Markland had broken off all communication. I tacitly understood that for him to be in any way involved in what I was about to do could bring criminal charges down on this head so I’d pretend not to know him accordingly. My plan was to remain behind after the night visitors exited and then to leave in the early hours once I’d hopefully found the truth behind those amazing moving artifacts.

We arrived at the Sir Bentley Broadhurst Museum at the appointed time of 8:30 p.m. to join a small group of about thirty museum enthusiasts lining up for the event. By then, the November skies had darkened enough over London to show a candlelit museum to its best advantage.

The door person scanned our tickets and we stepped into the candlelit hallway, a setting that probably approximated how the rooms must have appeared during Sir Broadhurst’s days. Apparently, the man, a noted member of Victorian society and a star among those who augmented their collections by poaching artifacts from ancient sites, often held informative soirees in his home. He was known to have led his guests from room to room, much as we would be guided by Markland that evening.

Unfortunately, Markland was not immediately visible. Even by nine, when the event officially began, there was no sign of the man.

“Where is he?” I whispered to Rupert as we accepted our glass of wine from the tray in the main salon where our tour was to begin.

“I have no idea,” said Rupert. “Perhaps he’s on one of the other levels preparing to take over as we progress?”

That made sense. For the first hour, I enjoyed the effects of the candlelight flickering over the art and artifacts, in the way the museum used uplighting to enhance the surfaces of ancient cornices and carvings, positioned as they were one above the other like a fabulous orchestra of shadow and light. The guide, Susan Brooks, was as lively as she was informative and, at certain points, another guide joined her, a man, but not Markland. By the time we reached the gloomy basement exhibits, I was beginning to grow concerned.

Slipping up to Rupert, I whispered: “Perhaps he decided to vacate himself in case he got caught up in our investigation?”

“Perhaps,” he replied. “I shall just make a few casual inquiries of our hosts to see if our man did, indeed, take the night off.”

We were nearing the end of the evening when Rupert had his answer. Holding me back as we filed out of the Picture Room to make our way toward the museum exit, the guides dousing the candles as we went and switching to electric light, he whispered: “Phoebe, we’ve been had, I’m afraid. Though a Markland Rodgers did indeed work here as a guide for many years and volunteered for many more, he was not expected in tonight because he is believed to be quite dead. He died four years ago in a sailing accident. His body was never recovered.”

CHAPTER 3

I stared. “But I thought you checked him out?”

Rupert adjusted his tie. “I assure you that I made the necessary inquiries, though not perhaps as thoroughly as I might have when working for Interpol, yet I had no reason to believe the man wasn’t who he said he was. In any event, I suggest we abandon the whole plan immediately. We are obviously being set up for reasons that allude me.”

“If somebody set us up, I want to catch the bastard red-handed. I love nothing better than to double-cross a double-crosser. Besides, what if he’s planning a heist tonight thinking he’ll pin the blame on me? If we walk away now and something is filched, I’d hold us responsible since only we are in the position to stop him.” I stood firm in my conviction. “No, I’m confident enough in the agency’s technology to beat the rotter at his own game. I’m going through with it.”

“Phoebe, please don’t be foolhardy. Being accused of an art crime is no small thing given our reputations, especially if this rotter, as you call him, does indeed plan a crime tonight. We hardly have the agency resources galvanized to stop him at this late juncture and are better placed to alert the authorities to the fact that we have reason to believe that someone may attempt something nefarious against the museum’s holdings this night.”

I waited for him to catch his breath. “Rupert, just go through with your end of things, please. Leave the rest to me.”

Susan veered back into the hall to usher us along. “We’re just about to check everyone out,” she said with a grin. “I do hope you enjoyed yourselves.” The guide glanced from Rupert to me, obviously picking up on our rather heated discussion.

“Oh, I just loved it!” I gushed. “But I’m going to have to leave now to catch the tube. Mind if I bolt ahead?”

“No, of course not,” she assured me. “Just be certain to have my colleague check you out.”

Which I did, of course, exiting just ahead of the others while keeping an ear out for Rupert’s collapse in the hallway behind me, which occurred at the appointed time of 10:05. Rupert was nothing if not punctual.

The moment he hit the floor in his feigned faint, I knew the museum would essentially lock down. I immediately used my cell phone to divert the security system, unlock the doors, and cut the power, in that order. I needed the dark to slip back inside past the employees, now in chaos.

One of them was on the phone to emergency services, one of them was presumably off looking for the power supply, and the other two were kneeling over Rupert, including one administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

They were all too preoccupied to notice the black figure slip through the shadows into the salon and toward the back of the house. By the time, I switched the power back on, I was safely tucked away behind the prior’s headstone deep in the bowels of the house, which was where I planned to remain until everything quieted down.

Hidden in the shadows, I watched the events unfold on my tablet with my wireless earbuds attached. Rupert began to recover, huffing and puffing while citing a tendency to swoon at the least provocation. High blood pressure, he insisted. No need for an ambulance, he assured them. Would they mind calling him a cab? Meanwhile, the security guard was in earnest conversation with Susan, standing conveniently below the front hall camera.

“It’s happening again,” he complained. “Can we request that electrician to come back and fix this electrical issue once and for all? We can’t go having the power just up and black out like that with no warning like, can we? Don’t those fellows have to guarantee their work or something?”

Susan nodded in agreement. “I’ve alerted the director, who assures me that she’ll put in another requisition first thing in the morning. In the meantime, let’s hope the power withstands the night without any further interruptions. What I don’t understand is why the generator’s giving out, too. It’s practically new.”

“I’ve taken a look at the thing and it seems to be working fine,” the guard assured her.

So there had been other recent outages? Curiouser and curiouser. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Now more than ever I was convinced that somebody was making a move on the museum, maybe Markland-who-wasn’t-Markland.

I settled down to keep watch on each of the twenty security screens showing as thumbnails on my tablet hoping that Rupert would soon return home to take over. Meanwhile, the guides removed all the remaining candles and did a once-around the museum. The guide who came down to the crypt area bypassed my spot entirely and, rather than looking in every cranny, seemed fixed on ensuring that all the treasures were exactly as the team had left them. Since all the guests had electronically checked out, presumably no one expected stowaways.

By eleven p.m., the museum was locked down for the night, all but the security man had left and he was upstairs sitting in his office keeping an eye on the screens, which would register nothing but another tranquil night at the museum.

Rupert popped on my screen at around 10:45.

“Nice bit of swooning,” I whispered.

“I could rather do without the mouth-to-mouth intervention, I assure you. These days, one has to be careful with whom one makes lip contact.”

I filled him in on the conversation I’d overheard regarding previous power outages.

“That sounds to me as if someone besides ourselves has been playing with the circuitry. Evan once remarked that aspects of our systems might soon hit the underground market.”

I considered that for a moment. “Well, we can’t worry about that now. As of this moment, we’re in control of the security feed and that’s all that matters. Ready for a long night?”

Rupert sighed and held up a glass. “A dram of fine scotch shall make the wee hours pass more divinely.”

I had no such pleasant soothers but I didn’t find hanging out in a museum at night all that unpleasant. Granted, I was in spot that magnified Broadhurst’s most Gothic touch of theater—arches from monastical ruins, genuine headstones, more funerary urns, and even a skull with a hole in it propped on a shelf somewhere in the dark behind me—but I didn’t find that spooky so much as amusing.

Though I was open to certain kinds of spectral encounters, I didn’t believe that objects in museums as a rule held enough of their original owner’s energy for said owners to stage a comeback. Otherwise, I enjoyed playing around with the infrared feature on my superphone until I could see the features of the ominous chamber more clearly.

The museum did have some night lighting, specifically spotlights illuminating the dome visible from the street, but since the guard wouldn’t see anything abnormal, I decided to take a stroll. I wandered through the catacombs and into the Sepulchral Chamber, thoroughly enjoying having the museum to myself.

“Phoebe, what in the world are you doing?” Rupert whispered.

“Stretching my legs,” I told him. “Keep watching the screens, please. Is the guard still at his post?”

“The chap appears to be keeping an eye on things while playing solitaire.”

“Good. I’m just going to see if anything is afoot.”

By then it was 1:15 a.m., and I figured that if anyone intended a theft, it would probably occur between the hours of one and three a.m., statistically speaking. I was mostly focused on what a criminal might target. Certainly Seti’s sarcophagus was the museum’s prime holding but also unmovable as we’d already determined. Still, I gave it a pass just in case.

After detecting nothing unusual on my scanner app, I slipped past the magnificent piece and gazed overhead at the layered artifacts and architectural objects rising up three stories under the museum’s centerpiece, the grand dome.

Broadhurst had placed the sarcophagus so that one could look down into it from the landing, the same landing that held the statue of Apollo plus the grandest of the urns balanced along the ledges above my head, everything monochromatic shades of marble and stone with touches of gold. In the daylight hours, the area was lit by natural daylight like some kind of fantastical multidimensional periscope.

So what would a thief target? I thought as I looked up. The non-Markland fellow had indicated the cork model of the Temple of Apollo and two urns that had once held the ashes of some deceased Roman. I could see those urns from where I stood. Though we couldn’t believe anything that man had told us, why single those out?

A sudden thought struck hard. “Rupert!” I whispered. “Both the objects Non-Markland had told us about were Roman and so is the coin I found on the gallery floor!”

“Forget that for a moment,” he whispered back. “Something’s afoot on the floor above your head!”

My gaze shot upward and, for a second, I caught the flash of something red. I bolted for the stairs.

“Caution, Phoebe! The guard is on the move.”

I didn’t care about that; I cared only about catching a thief in the act. I took the stairs two at a time until I arrived at the third floor where I sprung down the hall toward the dome area.

“Definitely of the human persuasion,” Rupert was saying in my ear, “dressed in all black with a ski hat pulled over his head heading toward the back of the house.”

I had just reached the balcony under the dome when my eyes landed on the statue of Apollo on the opposite side. Impossible to miss the fact that the majestic god now wore a woolly red scarf and held an equally vibrant red envelope in his outstretched hand. I scrambled toward him.

The statue had to be at least twenty feet tall and on a pedestal, too, making the only way for me to pluck that envelope from his fingers being to swat it off. Using my scarf, I took several jumps up to flick it from the god’s fingers, successfully managing the feat just seconds before the guard shouted at me from across the balcony.

“Halt immediately!”

I had just enough time to pocket the envelope before the alarm went off.

CHAPTER 4

There’s nothing more humiliating than being grilled by the Metropolitan police as if you were a common thief, or worse, a common thief wannabe.

“As a member of the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found, I wasn’t there to steal, I said, but to catch a possible thief. Surely you’ve heard of us?” It was all I could do to keep my voice even as I gazed across at Chief Inspector Helen Drury. Contrary to common misconceptions, women police officers were no less intimidating than their male counterparts. They just did it in a touch of lipstick and a bit of discreet foundation.

Drury looked as though she’d toss me in jail without a moment’s hesitation but maybe her severity was overcompensating for her blond good looks. In her line of work, that had to be a liability.

“I work as an affiliate of Interpol,” I explained.

“So you say, and yet Interpol claims to know nothing about an undercover event at the Broadhurst tonight,” the woman said coolly.

“But you have heard of us?” I pressed.

“We ask the questions here, Ms. McCabe,” she said, "and our question to you is why, at approximately 10:35, did you penetrate the museum illegally if not planning to steal? There are no signs that there was any other unauthorized persons there, just you, and that you apparently placed a red scarf on a statue. Did you plan to play some ridiculous practical joke?”

“Absolutely not, and I didn’t put that scarf on Apollo, either. That trick was probably done by the man who lured me there in the first place, a man calling himself Markland Rodgers.”

“The deceased Markland Rodgers, do you mean?”

“He didn’t look deceased to me.” I wasn’t trying to be smart, it just came out that way. “What I mean to say is, that he tricked me by claiming he was somebody he wasn’t.” There was no way I was implicating Rupert in any of this. That was our agency policy: call one of our members at the first sign of trouble but never, ever imply that one of them was involved.

“Prove it. The security footage has mysteriously evaporated. You don’t know anything about that, do you? Listen carefully, Ms. McCabe, it is a criminal offense to trespass on government property after hours, let alone tamper with security systems and deface art. You are in serious trouble here. Make it easier for yourself by naming your accomplices and tell the truth.”

Shit. Beside her at the metal table sat her assistant, a Detective Sergeant Balcom, with a bald egg-shaped head and a brooding expression. Did they hire police based on their ability to glower?

I looked from one to the other. “I wasn’t responsible for accessorizing Apollo,” I explained again. “That was the trick of the person calling himself Markland Rodgers, like I said. He claimed to be working at the museum and requested my help to decipher anomalies occurring, specifically in regards to objects that apparently moved at night.”

“Moved like levitated?” Drury asked, eyebrows arched over her chill blue eyes. Damn if she didn’t pluck her brows.

“Not levitated, no. More like shifted. Anyway, I believed that notifying the authorities at that late stage would take too much time and that a possible theft was about to take place tonight so I risked everything to make sure I was around to catch him. I was there to prevent a crime, I said, not to commit one. Do you really think I’d risk my reputation in order to decorate a statute with that ridiculous scarf? It’s really not my taste, I assure you. I go in for multiple colors and stitches.”

Attempts at humor were always met with the same grim expression. This was no laughing matter. Got it.

“Had we the opportunity to study the security footage, we might be able to better corroborate your statement but the museum’s system has been hacked. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“I have the right to make a phone call.”

“Shall I list the possible charges you have lined up against you thus far?” asked Drury, now leaning forward like an elegant bird of prey ready to swoop in for the kill. “Trespassing with the intent to steal, hacking government systems, planting a bomb—”

“Planting a bomb!” Planting a bomb. I knew where they got that. When the guard shouted at me to stop in the Broadhurst, I stopped, but told him and the arresting officers that followed not to approach me in case my phone took offense and burned them.

I didn’t say explode—I was careful on that point—but one of the officers ignored me and moved in to take my phone, search me, and cuff me, in that order. He received a second-degree burn for his efforts, leaving me to pocket my phone, and plead with them to let me follow the police to the station on my own steam. I could sit in the back seat, I said, as long as no one laid a hand on me.

“Resisting arrest,” Drury continued.

“I did not resist arrest!” I protested. “I entered the squad car as instructed.”

“Because of your phone,” Drury said slowly, “a phone that I understand has near James Bond capabilities with weaponized features that render it a menace to society, much like yourself, Ms. McCabe.”

Menace to society—me? I was too shocked to speak. So, they did know about the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found, after all, and that fact apparently was not going to get me a get-out-of-jail-free card. It was a moment of reckoning. For an instant, I saw myself as this police person saw me and I didn’t like the view. To them, I was some kind of bumbling amateur who had been granted too much freedom while wielding a dangerous weapon that had no right to exist let alone be in my possession.

I swallowed hard. “I want that call now and a lawyer.”

Drury smiled a thin tight line. She thought she had me. “Of course, but first hand over your phone. Deactivate it or whatever is necessary to render it safe.”

But I couldn’t do that, not without forcing it to self-destruct, which was our policy should it fall into enemy hands or be away from its owner for more than three hours. The self-destruct mode would take the recording of whatever had occurred at the museum along with it. Rupert might have a copy but I wasn’t sure.

There was a worse repercussion: the moment that phone left my person, I’d be subjected to a body search, which would reveal the red envelope, the contents of which I knew absolutely was for my eyes only. This whole sorry business was designed to entrap me and I was damn well going to find out who was responsible before I trotted meekly off to jail.

There came a knock at the door, which prompted Drury and Balcom to exit the square gray room.

“Take a few minutes to consider the consequences, Ms. McCabe,” Madam Officer said over her shoulder before she left. “When we return, I expect to see that mobile of yours deactivated and on the table.” With that, the door shut behind them.

I gazed around me. The depressing interrogation space was perfect for cornering a suspect by the lack of options—gray, devoid of decoration, punishingly utilitarian. For a moment, my imagination had no place to hide. I had no doubt that the police were having a group think on how to wrestle that phone away from me and that my holding on to it would only deepen the level of the hot water in which I sank. Damn! But there was no way I’d just give it up.

Actually, I was more afraid of giving up my phone than my freedom just then. I knew that any jail time I spent would be short, that there’d be strings being pulled on my behalf somewhere—or so I desperately hoped—but that phone was my only connection to my freedom, my life, in the meantime. I was tempted to check it right then for messages and make a quick call but knew I was being watched in the two-way mirror. I decided to keep it safely tucked into my pocket until I figured things out.

They left me alone for well over an hour. I ended up nodding off with my head cradled in my arms on the table when the door flew open. I jolted upright and blinked.

“You’re free to go,” Drury said tersely.

I scrambled to my feet and darted from the room, feeling every officer’s eyes glued onto my back as I retrieved my carpetbag backpack at the desk. Somebody had pulled the proverbial strings sooner than I’d hoped and I was so grateful just then I swear I would have kissed that individual on the spot.

“I’ll be watching you, Ms. McCabe,” Drury warned me as I headed for the door.

Clutching my bag and still dazed, I ended up on the sidewalk in the chill air outside the police station at shortly after four a.m. The city was just beginning to stir, and though I needed to hail a cab, there weren’t any visible.

Then a sleek black Rolls-Royce purred to the curb in front of me. As I stepped toward it, the back door opened, and I climbed into the plush leather seat that felt like a hug about my shivering person. Beside me, Rupert passed me a cup of tea from his little tea-making apparatus with a digestive biscuit tucked on the saucer’s side. I accepted the cup and saucer gratefully.

“Good morning, Ms. McCabe,” greeted Sloane, Rupert’s butler today acting as chauffeur.

“Good morning, Sloane, Rupert,” I greeted, surprised to find my voice tight and gravelly.

“Tea first, Phoebe, discussion later,” said Rupert. “We will proceed to my abode wherein you will restore your physical being before we untangle recent events.”

After a few fortifying sips and a bite out of the biscuit, I figured sleep wouldn’t touch me again until I found out what was inside that envelope. “I’d rather talk first. Did you get me released?”

“Not exactly,” Rupert said, “I merely made the phone call to set the necessary wheels in motion. Our agency does have friends in high places who follow our affairs with considerable interest. One such friend, though not involved in the operational mechanisms of policy and governance, and who was not at all pleased to be pulled out of his bed at such a tender hour, nevertheless ensured that the detectives skewering you at the station did not have the pleasure of throwing you into a holding cell.”

“They wanted my phone, accused me of resisting arrest.”

“Yes, they would.”

“I felt so small in there, like a menace to society.” My voice trembled. “If they know about the agency, surely they also know that we’ve apprehended multiple criminal elements across the years and that I’m hardly a menace?”

Rupert cleared his throat. “Dearest Phoebe, do not permit anyone to make you feel small under any circumstances. You know better than anyone what you are worth and the lengths to which you have gone to assure that art returns or remains in its rightful place so that it survives for the pleasure and edification of all. Besides which, no doubt in the case of the police, there is more than a touch of professional jealousy involved. You have been granted a great deal more latitude than they and how you conduct yourself is not within their jurisprudence to condemn, though in this case, I fear we came uncomfortably close.” He patted my knee. “Here we are, almost home at last. We will talk after breakfast.”

Despite Rupert’s long-winded approach, I was grateful for every word he spoke. I did feel less diminished. “Did you get a chance to look at the security footage?” I asked as the car slid down the darkened streets of Belgravia.

“Indeed,” he replied. “The perpetuator remained concealed in a black stocking hat pulled down over his face, making it impossible for me to identify. However, since I witnessed the cad applying that scarf to Apollo and affixing the envelope to his outstretched hand with sticky tape, I believe it safe to assume that the pseudo Markland fellow, whoever the devil he is, did the deed. The body type is similar. You do still have the envelope?”

“I do,” I assured him. “And,” I said while digging around in my bag until my fingers touched the coin and could pull it out, “this. I’m sure the two are related. The police must have found it in my hidden pocket because now it’s just rolling around at the bottom of my bag.”

“And had it originally hailed from the Broadhurst, they could have charged you with theft on the spot, but apparently, that is not the case or the intent.”

“The intent was to send me a message. Rupert, I’m convinced that the coin and whatever’s afoot at the Broadhurst are connected.”

“No doubt.”

The car slipped into its parking spot around the corner leaving Rupert and I to exit into his service door unseen. I was eager to pull out that envelope and get started on the contents but Rupert stayed my hand. “Breakfast first. Never attempt anything potentially upsetting unless first well-fortified.”

I was not the patient sort but was so grateful to him for rescuing me that I was willing to let him set the pace. After washing and burying my face in one of his fluffy, lavender-scented towels, I sat in his breakfast room sipping tea and admiring his collection of eighteenth-century landscape paintings while the scent of bacon suffused the air. I found the wait unbearable but other than to check my phone for messages—none but from Rupert sent earlier—I resigned myself.

Rupert sat across from me apparently checking out the news on his iPad. He struck me as unusually calm while the envelope sat untouched on the table between us, a bit damp from my body but otherwise fine. Meanwhile, I was trying not to jump out of my skin.

Finally, Sloane arrived with breakfast: sausages, bacon, sautéed mushrooms and tomatoes, accompanied by my favorite poached eggs accessorized by slightly cold toast. The moment it landed before me, I dug in with enthusiasm. Several minutes passed before I came up for air.

“Rupert,” I began.

“Yes, Phoebe?”

“Let’s do the deed.”

“I would rather wait to properly digest before proceeding.”

I sat back and studied him. “Okay, now I know that you’re hesitating for a reason. You know something I don’t. I’m opening that envelope now.”

Rupert set his cup back in its saucer. “Very well. Let us get this over with, but before you proceed” (I already had the envelope open and was removing the contents) “consider for a moment the necessity of remaining calm regardless of what you find therein.”

What I found therein was a postcard of the ruins of the Temple of Apollo under moonlight in Rome, the location printed in tiny text on the front. Flipping it over, I read:

Come say hello to your boy toy in Roma. N

CHAPTER 5

“Noel.” The words escaped my throat like a croak. “Oh, my God!”

“Phoebe, I implore you not to panic.”

“I’m not panicking!” I cried. “You knew!”

“I did not know,” Rupert articulated carefully. “I suspected, a different beast entirely. Last night while you were inside the Broadhurst, word came through our network that a person who might inconclusively be identified as Noel Halloran was seen in London two days ago. Later, information followed that the same individual had recently been spied in Rome. So far, this individual has once again sunk into the woodwork.”

He turned his iPad toward me showing a blurry photo obviously taken in front of a security camera. The person was tall and angular with sharp cheekbones and a sensual mouth curled into a sneer. “Taken at a banking machine.”

“By why, why the game at the Broadhurst?”

“To play you, Phoebe. Halloran always loved to taunt you and this, I presume, is one of his taunts.”

“And Evan?”

Rupert fixed his gaze with mine as he laid the tablet on the table. “So far, the lad is incommunicado. No one in our network has received word from him or picked up signals from his devices since last Friday night when he was apparently in Sicily. Several days have passed with no signal. As you are aware, our phones will self-destruct if separated from our persons for an extended period of time. The lad had been working on a new version, a prototype, that appeared to die when separated from its owner but did not actually extinguish itself, rather like rolling over and playing dead.”

“What does that even mean?” I sobbed. “Either way, Noel has Evan and is using him to draw me to Rome and find whatever the hell his greedy bastard heart is seeking now!”

“Stay calm,” Rupert implored.

“How can you say that when your own son may be in the hands of a murdering madman this very minute?”

Rupert’s hand reached across the table and clutched mine. “Because, Phoebe,” he said in a soft voice, “if there is one thing I have learned after years in this business, it is that panic clouds one’s thinking just when one most needs every faculty to be working to precision. If, indeed, Noel does hold Evan hostage, then together we will find him and outwit this devious bastard. We have the full force of the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found behind us who are being mobilized as we speak. We will fly to Rome this afternoon where we will convene with Nicolina, Peaches, and Zann, all of whom will help tackle this, our most perilous mission. It does Evan no service for you to fall apart before we can set in motion a working plan.”

He stood up and opened his arms. And just briefly, and just because I couldn’t contain myself a moment longer, I got to my feet and collapsed sobbing against his chest like an inconsolable child while he patted my back murmuring, “There, there.”

I allowed myself a good cry before pulling back, blowing my nose into the hanky he offered, and straightening my shoulders. “Okay, so let’s get down to business.”

“One thing, dear Phoebe, and I do hate to ask because, if in this case it were true, I am most certain that you would have told me.”

“Rupert, just say it, please.”

“Is there a possible way that your gifts can sense where Evan is located?”

The question was posed so piteously that I nearly broke down again. “No,” I whispered. “I have never been able to find living people, even ones I love. I don’t know why.”

“I thought that to be the case.” He was clasping his hands as if praying that it wasn’t true. “Never mind, we will find him using other methods.”

God, I hoped so.

* * *

Our arrival in Rome late that afternoon flew by in a daze. I watched the Eternal City slide by in the late-afternoon light as Seraphina, Nicolina’s assistant, drove us from the airport to her employer’s Trastevere villa. Nicolina, my friend the lethal countess, was waiting for us by the door and unlike her usual greeting enveloped both Rupert and me in a real full-contact hug before settling us into her salon to await the arrival of Zann and Peaches, each on transcontinental flights.

“We have eyes all over Italy,” she told us. “We will discover where Evan has been hidden, do not worry.”

“Did you receive the CCTV photo of the person we believe to be Noel that I forwarded?” Rupert asked.

“Yes, and we are checking now.”

“Don’t apprehend him, whatever you do. I’ll explain later,” I said.

My state of mind had smoothed into a cool self-possession by then—all business and fixed on the matter at hand. We agreed not to discuss anything until we were all together, at which point Nicolina left to arrange for our evening feast.

After taking a snack of fruit and cheese, Rupert and I went off upstairs to nap until the others arrived. We were both deep into our thoughts by then and bone-grindingly weary.

My last task before I napped was to alert Max that I was leaving Jennifer to mind the fort solo because Nicolina required my help with something in Rome. Generally, we kept the gallery and the agency businesses separate so nothing about that should prompt any undue questions. On no account did I want Max to know that we had even so much as a whiff of Noel’s appearance in case he followed us to Rome, a complication we didn’t need. Rupert was not the only father missing an absent son. In Max’s case, he hadn’t spoken to him in years.

As for how to handle the Noel affair, I’d already thought the whole matter through and only needed to run it by the team. That would happen several hours later when Seraphina roused me from my nap with the audible equivalent of a battering ram on my bedroom door. I bounded up off the bed and ran to open it.

“Penelope arrives,” Seraphina told me. Seraphina refused to use nicknames. “I pick up Suzanne next.”

“Okay, thanks.” I headed back into my room, splashed cold water on my face, and ran downstairs to greet Peaches where she met me with a hug designed to squeeze the stuffing out of toy animals.

“You okay, woman?” my tall friend asked after restoring me to my feet. “I only have the gist of what’s going on but I know enough to figure you must be beside yourself.”

“I’m fine,” I gasped. “It’s Evan I’m worried about. Who knows what Noel will do to him?”

But it wasn’t until Zann arrived, red-eyed and zoned-out, and we all sat down to a magnificent feast of pasta carbonara, Alesso di Bollito, and roasted vegetables presided over by Nicolina that we began the discussion that we had been anticipating. We were hardly a merry-looking bunch around that table since everyone but the countess had fatigue grooved into their faces.

Finally, I felt ready to lay out the plan, asking at first that Rupert bring everyone up to speed, which he did, beginning with my night in the museum and ending with the postcard. Somehow, he managed to skip right past the bit where he fell for the claims of a man who had actually disappeared years ago.

“Postcard!” Peaches exclaimed. “Isn’t that how the creep used to send messages to you at the gallery when you were still together?”

“It is,” I agreed, holding up the postcard of the moonlit temple ruins between my fingers, “which is how I knew this was from him. The cards were always coded the way this one is. Here he’s telling me that he has Evan, yes, but also where he wants me to meet him and the approximate time.”

“Meet him at the temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill?” Zann gasped. “But you can’t do that. He’ll nab you, too!”

“No, he won’t,” I said calmly. Really, I surprised myself sometimes. “He needs me to find whatever priceless cache he has his eye on next and, for that, he knows I need to remain a free agent. He wants all of you, too, I’m betting. He considers me his lost-art sniffer dog and you’re my pack, pardon the canine references. He wants us to work as a team to help him find what he’s looking for.”

“Bastard,” Peaches swore and ripped off a piece of bread with her teeth.

“I’ll kill him,” Zann muttered while digging into her food. She said that a lot but this time she meant it.

“That job is for me,” Seraphina growled. Seraphina definitely meant it all the time.

“Wait, please.” I held up my hand. “Here’s how we have to play this: Noel thinks he knows me and he’s right up to a point. He certainly knew that I couldn’t resist the night in the museum with the moving artifacts thing—that was pure Phoebe bait and I took it—but there’s plenty about me he doesn’t know, like how ruthless I’ve become when somebody I love is in danger, how I’ve learned to lie with the best of them. He’s in for a shock.”

A small smile graced Nicolina’s lips. “You plan to trick the trickster?” she inquired.

“I plan to do exactly what he wants me to do under certain conditions. I’ll set a few terms of my own when we meet on Palatine Hill. Nobody can come with me, though. That’s key. Noel knows I know how this game must be played from his perspective. The moment someone makes a move on him, Evan is as good as dead. My compliance is Evan’s insurance policy, and to some extent, Noel’s, too.”

“Shit,” Peaches muttered. “Get one thing straight, woman: you’re not going anywhere without me.”

“You’re not hearing me, Peach,” I said.

“And you’re not hearing me: you’re not going in there alone.”

Rupert cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice had a slight tremor. “She will not be alone as we will be waiting nearby. If the position of the moon over the ruins is, indeed, an indicator, then my estimate is that the appointed meeting time is 12:25 a.m. tomorrow morning, which is when the moon reaches its full aperture and arrives at that position in the November Roman sky.”

“I’ll be there, as he expects me to be,” I said, taking a sip of wine. “I’ll find out what I’m supposed to be seeking and ensure him that I’ll do whatever’s necessary to find the object or objects in exchange for Evan’s life. Meanwhile, we’ll be working behind the scenes to discover where Noel’s keeping Evan, a location which must be found before I—we—pass over the treasure, if we find it. I have no doubt that Noel doesn’t plan on keeping Evan alive once he gets what he wants.”

That brought a deep chill bearing down across the table, stopping everyone from chewing, swallowing, whatever. The ramifications of what I’d just said rendered me temporarily speechless, too, even a little ill. Oh, my God! I might lose him! I couldn’t bear the thought, felt suddenly overwhelmed by the prospects of losing the man I loved to that rat-faced, double-crossing, double-bastard Noel.

Nicolina dropped her napkin upon the table and reached over to take Rupert’s hand just seconds before Peaches, sitting next to me, flung her arms around my shoulders and squeezed hard. This was as close as we’d come to a group hug.

“We’ll get the bastard,” Zann said with vehemence. “The Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found will not be beaten by a mere mortal like Noel Halloran. The gods and angels are on our side.” Zann had a kind of out-there mystical view on life.

Seraphina, who had been sitting quietly up until then, announced: “When you go tomorrow night, we fix a tracker on him. He will not escape us!”

Noel would never let a tracker be placed on his person. He knew our ways too well to let that happen but I remained silent in case my voice cracked.

“Fear not,” Rupert said, getting to his feet. “My lad has a few tricks of his own and will no doubt attempt his escape long before we need to intervene. Now, please excuse me. Damnable allergies.” He exited the dining room dabbing his eyes.

That left us sitting pale and tense, supper forgotten.

“Did you say there was a coin involved?” Zann asked after a few moments.

I nodded and fished the coin from pocket, passing it over. “I believe Noel placed it on the gallery floor knowing full well that Max was away and that our security footage would be overwritten before anyone had a chance to look at it. The gallery and the agency premises are on separate systems.”

“But why place it there in the first place?” Peaches asked.

“It’s his form of the bread crumb method. He wanted to slowly lead me to him in a series of clues,” I said, taking a sip of wine. “Cat and mouse.”

She turned the coin around in her fingers. “Looks like whatever Bastardo Numero Uno is seeking this time may have to do with either Livia Drusilla or her mighty emperor husband, Augustus.” Zann, being an archaeologist specializing in ancient sites, was our other Roman expert. We had hesitated to bring her onto the team because she could be a bit unpredictable, but unpredictability is fine as long as it comes through in the end, in my opinion. In this case, my opinion won.

“Any idea what treasure associated with Livia might exist?” Nicolina inquired, tonight sitting as the epitome of elegance in her deep-blue silk tunic over a pair of matching trousers. The rest of us looked as though we’d been tossed in a dryer on the tumble setting minus the fabric softener.

“I’ve never heard of any treasure connected to Livia,” Zann replied. “She was fabulously wealthy as any empress and mother of another emperor is wealthy, of course. By all accounts, she wielded her power behind the throne of her husband and son but anything she might have possessed would have long ago passed into other hands. Roman treasure didn’t survive unless in tombs.”

“That we know of,” I remarked. “I have a feeling that Noel is on to some kind of lead. There’s something Rupert forgot to mention when he was filling you in on recent events. He was contacted by a man calling himself Markland Rodgers, who claimed to be working for the Sir Bentley Broadhurst Museum when he experienced some anomalies, specifically artifacts moving at night. He asked us to investigate, which is how I ended up in the museum last night. As it turns out, the real man by that name disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2017, presumably lost at sea. No body was found.”

“And you think this man calling himself Markland Rodgers was responsible for planting the envelope?” Peaches asked.

“Physically, yes, and a red knitted scarf, which he wrapped around the Apollo statue’s neck, too. He was wearing that same item when Rupert and I met him for lunch. The scarf was a clue, as well, not that I made the connection at first. Noel used to tease me about knitting him a plain woolly scarf someday knowing full well that I could never bear to knit with a single color, ever.”

“That Markland Rodgers?” Zann straightened in her seat.

We all turned to her. “You’ve heard of him?” I asked.

“Well, yes, I think so. I mean, if it’s the same Markland Rodgers, and seriously, how many could there be? He was a known collector of Roman coins and, yeah, I remember something about him working in a London museum somewhere, just couldn’t remember which one. He upped and disappeared.”

“Do you think the dude you met was the same Markland Rodgers, in which case he’d be one of Noel’s stooges?” That was Peaches.

“This one is definitely in cahoots with Noel but whether that was the same Markland that disappeared is another question,” I said, picking up my fork again. “As usual, this feast is fabulous, Nicolina. Thank you. It will restore our bodies if not our spirits.”

“Restore one, the other will follow,” our hostess remarked with a sad smile.

At that moment we heard a phone ringing the familiar strains of the agency ringtone, which is kind of an alien twang. Immediately, we all set down our forks and checked our pockets, everybody wondering whether they had left their phone in one of the salons. But it wasn’t ours.

Rupert stepped back into the dining room moments later holding his cell. “I have just received a call from one of our London contacts. A body identified as belonging to one Markland Rodgers has just been fished from the Thames, quite dead, and quite recently, too.”

CHAPTER 6

“Why would that rat-faced bastard kill one of his own accomplices?” Zann asked as we stood around a map of the Palatine Hill in Nicolina’s lab late the next afternoon. The lab was half-workspace, half-gallery of ancient bits Nicolina had acquired over the years and therefore the perfect place for us to have our meetings since it had plenty of room to spread.

We had all slept well into the morning, awoke to devour a long multicourse lunch, and now stood plotting our evening mission. Only Rupert hadn’t joined us yet as he was wrapped up in conversation with our affiliates upstairs.

“Perhaps because Markland got greedy and Noel doesn’t permit overt greediness among his minions. That’s his sole domain,” I remarked, staring glumly down at the map. “Anyway, that’s my guess. Either that or he was afraid Markland would get picked up by the police and squeal.”

“Another likely possibility,” said Peaches.

“So, it appears that the real Markland hadn’t died years ago after all but has feigned his death so he could go offline and work with Noel,” I added.

“Which means that Markland might also have been working for Alesso Baldi and his art-heisting arms ring,” Nicolina remarked. “We know that Noel is still head of that operation once belonging to Baldi that funds arms and drugs with stolen art and antiquities. The ring is still active in Europe under Noel’s control.”

“That is what Ev has been working on since Florence,” Peaches added.

I knew that, too, and it had been a source of anxiety to me ever since. “Okay, so what do we know about Noel’s chosen rendezvous site?” I asked, tapping the map. It’s not that I didn’t care about the hapless Markland or Noel’s arms interests but I had other concerns just then.

“The Temple of Apollo Palatinus was dedicated by Augustus to his patron god Apollo on the site of where a lightning bolt reportedly struck the interior of one of the emperor’s properties,” Zann began. “He vowed to give the god this honor on that spot if he was successful against Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. He definitely was, if you recall. Is there anyone who doesn’t know the story of Antony and Cleopatra?”

Well, of course. Cleopatra, one of the most famed queens in history, and her Roman general lover, Mark Antony, launched a war against mighty Rome in order to keep Egypt and her queen sovereign. The Hollywood version closely aligned with the historical one in most details, and to this day I always saw the Egyptian queen as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as Mark Antony. However, in reality, the real Cleopatra would have been as much Greek as Egyptian since she hailed from the Ptolemaic dynasty and traced her lineage back to Alexander the Great. “So this site definitely existed during Empress Livia’s time,” I mused.

“Oh, absolutely,” Zann continued enthusiastically while running one hand over her blond brush cut. “All the Roman bigwigs lived on the Palatine Hill when in Rome, though any self-respecting emperor had villas all over the place, too. In the case of the mighty Augustus, who was born Octavian, by the way, he designed porticoes linking his private abode to the temple, the whole thing looking down on the Circus Maximus where the chariot races took place. Kind of like having the best seat in the house for the Indianapolis 500 or Le Mans.”

“Pretty elaborate construction, too, if I recall,” Peaches added. “Frescoed halls, ivory doors, a portico of the Danaids with yellow marble and black marble statues, elaborate carvings, Carrara marble everywhere—wouldn’t you just love to see that?”

“There was a library in the temple also,” said Nicolina, “a library that once held the famous Sibylline Books that the Romans consulted during times of disaster, plus sculptures, many sculptures, described by ancient sources as coming from all over the Roman Empire.”

“So, it was an architectural and artistic treasure trove,” I said, “but surely nothing is left up there?”

“Only ruins,” Nicolina said. “The statues and art, whatever survived, have been picked over—is that the correct term?” she asked, turning to Peaches.

“Picked over, looted, stolen, absconded with, or vandalized,” Peaches suggested with a shrug. “Take your pick.”

“All of the above,” Zann remarked. “Some pieces did end up in museums but not many. I did a season with an archaeological team up there once and though it hasn’t all be excavated—the ruins are, like, superhuge—what’s left is whatever looters didn’t think valuable or too big to move. There are a few broken capitals left of the temple, plus foundations, walls, and a colonnade that’s been reconstructed, plus a lot of the underlying brickwork. That’s it.”

“And yet Noel set this as our meeting place so it must feature somehow.” I stared down, struck by the sheer size of the Palatine area. “I presume that I can’t just walk up to this place?”

“It is barricaded off as in an archaeological park by a fence but we can get in easily enough,” Zann said. “It’s too big an area to secure, really, but we have our ways, don’t we?” She gazed at each of us hopefully. “In fact, I’d be happy to cut a hole in the fencing using my phone feature.” She was holding said item aloft. Since she’d been admitted into the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found, Zann took great satisfaction in using the assigned phone whenever she could. Unfortunately, so far she hadn’t much opportunity since the use of these special features were closely regulated.

“No need, thanks,” I said. “We want to enter as unobtrusively as possible.”

“Oh, sure,” Zann said, looking disappointed.

“We will use something to climb over,” Nicolina offered.

“A ladder,” Peaches suggested.

“A ladder, yes,” the countess agreed.

“Anyway, Phoebe’s not going in there without me—a deserted mausoleum, a tumble of ruins in the dark, a murdering bastard hiding out in the shadows—are you kidding me? Where Phoebe goes, I go. End of story.” That was Peaches standing tall and proud (and maybe a little ferocious) in her purple leather jumpsuit. She had taken her bodyguarding job seriously ever since we bonded back in the Jamaican jungle. Naturally, she was so much more than just my bodyguard. Her engineering knowledge had often proved indispensable to the team.

I placed a hand on her arm. “Thanks, Peach—I mean it. You’re the best guard a body could want but I have to go in there alone. I have no choice in this but, believe me, I won’t be harmed. Noel needs me alive and well. You can’t cage or wound a sniffer dog and expect her to go out and track down your latest quest. If he sees that I have company, the meeting will be over before it begins.”

Peaches looked at me as though she’d use bodily force to remain by my side, if necessary, but Nicolina intervened. “We must trust Phoebe’s instincts. Never do they lead her astray. We will be waiting for her beyond the fence and will leap to assist at the first sign of trouble.”

“And remain in constant communication via our phones,” added Rupert.

“Yes, exactly.” I nodded with a sinking heart. It was one of those conundrums: I needed agency support and yet their active involvement could complicate everything. For one thing, they liked to communicate with me when I most needed to concentrate.

But it was settled: that night at 12:05 a.m., I would end up on the other side of gates of the Palatine Hill leaving me enough time to make my way to the Temple of Apollo to meet my nemesis, one of the most dangerous men in the world, by my estimation, excluding political despots.

Was I frightened? Strangely, no. I was furious; I was resolute; I was locked deep in some frozen state that I hoped would carry me through the night. Because I didn’t need emotion just then, I needed resolve and, above all, to keep my imagination from wandering to what that bastard might do, or might have already done, to the man I loved.

Yes, I used that word freely now.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening researching Augustus and his empress, Livia, and Roman history in general. With the additional help of Nicolina, Rupert, and Zann, I caught up on the history of the most powerful republic in the ancient world, one which had conquered more countries and cultures globally than any other civilization then or since. As a result, my awe of all things Roman intensified.

“They were a powerhouse,” I remarked. “When you consider the massive structures they erected, the feats of engineering, who they conquered.”

“Their legion of slaves. They’d never have all those accomplishments without their slaves,” Peaches said with a grimace. “Consider slavery as the true engine behind their building feats.” Nobody would ever argue with her when it came to the oppression angle.

“Do you know that when the sewers were being dug, the slaves who were forced to do the work, most of whom were captured enemy soldiers, claimed that they would rather have died in battle than be subjected to that?” Zann said. “It was a brutal civilization, too.”

We had decided that the rendezvous must go as planned even if it rained or if the moon was shrouded in cloud cover but, as it turned out, that November night Rome was as clear and crisp as the best autumn eve anywhere.

I donned the leather jacket Nicolina had bought me years ago with black jeans and equally black sneakers, accessorized by my Melancholy knitted wrap used as a scarf since those tones were dark enough to blend.

While dressing, I found a gun tucked into the secret pistol holster of my jacket, no doubt put there by either Seraphina or Nicolina, neither of whom believed a woman should venture forth without a firearm. I left it in the bedside table drawer. After all, I had my superphone with which Noel had already suffered a nasty encounter long ago. Besides, I was probably safer against random fits of violence than I ever had been in my life. It was in Noel’s best interest to keep me safe.

“I can’t believe you’re so calm about this,” Zann whispered as we piled into the car for the trip to the Palatine Hill. Zann was rarely calm about anything but seemed to always run on the hyper setting.

“I’m just focused,” I told her. “Speaking of which, could all of you try not to text me while I’m in there? I’ll contact you if there’s trouble and you have trackers on me, anyway.”

Nobody said a word.

Seraphina would drive Zann, Peaches, and me while Nicolina and Rupert followed in the more luxurious car. Nicolina kept two vehicles in Rome, a little Fiat for bombing around town and a Maserati for “touring.” The idea was that one car would wait for me on one side of the hill and the other on the opposite end. I was to climb in just beyond the Circus Maximus but nobody knew for sure where I might exit.

The Circus Maximus, translated from Latin into “the largest circus,” was situated in the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine hills, two of the famed seven hills of Rome. At one point, it was the biggest track in the Roman Empire and served multiple uses including to honor gods, host victories, and stage feasts of all sorts but mostly served as a venue for chariot racing. Under the moonlight just then, it looked like a large uneven playing field with spotlights on the occasional tumble of stones.

Because it was such an open area with a main road running along beside it, we decided that the best entry point into the hill compound was there. We could park the car by a fringe of trees and set two of our members to watch the road while I climbed up over the stone wall to the foot of the Palatine Hill, scrambled across a grassy knoll, over the wire fence, and into the park.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been as easy as it was. It’s not as if Roman monuments had no security against vandals and mischief-makers but the area was too huge to lock down completely. Anyway, the ladder contraption Seraphina and Peaches constructed worked to perfection.

Once I was on the other side and within the park proper, all I had to do was watch out for roaming guards, and dogs (just guessing), stay away from spotlights illuminating the ruins, and disarm any perimeter alarms my presence might trigger. My phone would signal electronic trip wires not visible to the naked eye. In addition, Evan had made additional improvements to our superphones by adding a personal space alarm, which would ping should anybody approach within ten feet of my circumference.

Evan. The thought of that brilliant man, head bowed over his circuitry, glasses perched on his perfect Roman nose, almost doubled me over. The last thing he had done before leaving on this mission was to pull me close and whisper sweet nothings into my ear. True, Evan’s sweet nothings were often packed with instructions woven among his loving words and, with his arms encircling me, I could hardly focus on the content. I was pretty certain those murmurings had to do with the phone. I pulled myself up short, suppressed the wave of pain, and forced myself back into line. I didn’t have the luxury of pain.

A text popped up on my screen seconds later. Rupert: All going according to plan? We cannot see you from where we are stationed.

I had been walking for several minutes and now gazed around where I stood on a cobbled path. Columns, steps, and foundations silvered by the moon all loomed around with ink-black shadows congealing in the hollows. Far off to my right over the tops of the ruins, I could just see the dome of St. Peter’s glowing in the distance while all around hunkered three thousand years of Roman ruins pressing against me in majestic, impenetrable darkness. For a moment, I really craved to be alone in ancient Rome.

Sighing, I texted: I can't see anybody from where I stand.

Rupert: Under the circumstances, we’ll consider that a good thing. You are located on the east end near the Temple of Castor and the Tibetan Palace. Proceed toward the House of Augustus to which the Temple of Apollo is connected. Zann has sent you a map to take you there. Open it on your app.

I switched to my map app, and immediately a simple diagram popped up where a moving red line now snaked amid the squares and boxes. I took my next step forward.

The ruins of the House of Augustus required more climbing up cobbled lanes, around hunkering foundations, past vacant haunting shells of buildings where shadows were all that remained of once mighty gods and men.

This park was not open at night so no pathway lighting was provided. Parts of the way were so dark I had to use my phone to keep from tripping on the uneven ground. When the red line on my phone indicated that I had arrived, I couldn’t believe the sheer size of the ruin that rose up on my right—as big as one side of the Colosseum with a two-level brick portico rearing like a huge wall, yet nothing matched the columns in the postcard view. I hastily typed a message to that effect.

Zann replied. Keep going. You’re at Augustus’s palace. The Corinthian columns and stairs that are the temple entrance on the postcard are on the other side.

Great. More walking through the ruins. So I kept following the new red lines that had appeared on the map. I heard a crack behind me. Swinging around, I stared into the darkness. Nothing.

“Hello?” I whispered as if I expected my stalker to answer, which I didn’t, really. It was probably one of Noel’s minions keeping an eye on the prey. I turned and continued, knowing that I was being followed and not caring.

Any time I walked through an historical site, especially when alone, I felt things plucking on the edges of my mind like whispers beyond a locked door. Sometimes I found it frightening, like being stalked by ghosts, while at other times I hardly noticed the way we absorb the sound of the breeze in the trees. At that moment, I was hardly aware of anything.

I had other things to consider right then, like how I was going to play Noel in my first encounter with the bastard since Greece. At that time, he had dressed up as a Tarot card symbol and clearly reveled in visions of megalomania. The encounter had strengthened my conviction that he was suffering under some kind of mental breakdown.

Whatever happened tonight, I couldn’t fall apart, behave hysterically, beg for Evan’s life, or do anything that made me look weak. I needed to be tough, play tough. I had to convince him that I wasn’t the same Phoebe he remembered, which shouldn’t be too hard since that was true. I had even tasered him over the heart a few years back. The old Phoebe had been so smitten by him once that she would have never harmed a corpuscle in his body. Still, the man had such an amazing sense of self-delusion that he might still believe I only tasered him out of pique.

I turned a corner and now at last could see the three remaining columns of the Temple of Apollo glowing in the moonlight like ghostly bones lost in time. The moon was almost exactly as it had been positioned in the postcard but, strangely, there were houses on the other side of the nearby fence, something not visible in the photograph.

Why would Noel choose a meeting place so exposed? The columns were perched on a mammoth block of stone that I couldn’t easily climb. Now what?

Then a sound cracked the stillness behind me. I swung around. There, shrouded in the shadows, a black figure stood deep in the recess between two chunks of foundation. A shiver strung up my spine. It was him; I could feel it in every inch of my being, a fact that delivered such a quick punch to my gut that it left me reeling.

But nothing broke my stride. In seconds, I had retraced my steps, turned the corner, and scrambled over the railing as if I hadn’t a worry in the world until I stood in the shadows mere feet away from the figure.

“I knew you’d come,” he said softly in that sexy voice he had once used for seduction. Stepping briefly from the shadows, he revealed himself not as the thin bony man I’d last seen in Greece but more like his old self: tall, wiry, with his thick black curly hair falling around his ears. He’d gained weight, packed on some muscle, too. God, I hated him.

“Looks like you’ve regained your health,” I remarked, trying to keep my voice steady.

“It’s returning slowly,” he said. “I hope you like what you see and are secretly relieved that you didn’t damage me permanently. Observe—” he spread his arms “—I’m still very much alive.”

Maybe second time lucky, if I ever got the chance. “You lured me here to provide a health report? Tell me what you want.”

“I want you, Phoebe, like I always have. You and I are the perfect team, remember? You’re my empress, my queen, and I’m everything you crave in a man, don’t deny it. You can’t have forgotten all those nights we spent together.”

“Would that be like the night you sealed me into a cave in Greece as a sacrifice to a long-ago goddess?”

“Oh, come on. That was just a bit of fun. I knew you’d escape. You always do, my little miracle girl. I remember every moment I’ve ever held you in my arms, every second you yearned for me as I did you. I still want you, Phoebe baby.”

God, don’t tell me he was still on that line. It was as if he was listening to his own secret playlist. But I had to remember that the man was deranged and you can’t argue with deranged. “You want my abilities to find lost artifacts, you mean. What was up with that Broadhurst business and why did you kill your own accomplice?”

“Do you mean Markland? I didn’t kill him, babe. He got himself tangled with someone else—double-dealing bastard. As for your other question—God I’ve missed your multiple questioning technique or lack of technique, since that implies certain organization skills you lack—I wanted to introduce myself back into your life with a little puzzle. You love mysteries, I know, and wouldn’t be able to resist artifacts moving in a museum. Fell for it hook, line, and sinker, didn’t you?"

“Let’s cut to the chase, Noel: what is it you want me to find in return for Evan’s freedom?”

He crossed his arms and gazed at me with his head cocked, his silhouette a darker shade of black. “I intend to win you back someday, babe. Just know that I’ll never let you go. What do you see in that boy toy, anyway? You told me once that you didn’t go in for those muscle-packed square-jawed GI Joe types.”

“I didn’t fall for a type, I fell for a person.” Shit, Phoebe, just shut up. “And if you harm that person, any deal you want to strike with me is off before it begins.”

“Whoa!” He held up his hands. “You’re hardly in a bargaining position.”

And then something in me flipped a switch. “Not true,” I said with a hard edge to my voice. “If you want me to find something for you, I do it only on the condition that Evan is unharmed, and I mean unharmed down to the last detail. I don’t want damaged goods. My boy toys have to be in perfect condition or why bother? I mean, after I overcharged you with the faulty taser app, you weren’t much use to me, were you?” Would he seriously believe that line? “Show me that Evan’s in good condition right now.”

He was standing back in the shadows again but I could sense him questioning, calculating, at first surprised and then appraising. Finally, he laughed. “Damaged goods, seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“I’ll tell you one thing about your latest plaything, he doesn’t give up his secrets easily.”

A jolt hit my gut. “Are you trying to get him to divulge how he masterminds those superphones, is that it? Good luck with that. He’s MI6 trained, remember. He’d rather die that disclose secrets. I suggest you forget that angle and keep him alive as collateral with me. That’s the only condition under which I’ll work for you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I want your whole agency to work for me, understand?”

“Understood. Now let me talk to him.”

“No.”

“Yes. How else am I to know that he’s still alive and will stay that way until the job is done?’

You have to admit, that did have a certain logic. Turning away, I heard him tap his phone, heard it ring followed by him saying something in quick Italian. Seconds later, he approached me holding out his phone with Evan’s face on his screen. I tried to take the device but he snatched it back.

“Okay,” I whispered. He held the phone out again while I kept my hands plastered to my sides. The sight before me almost broke me down on the spot. Evan had been beaten yet still appeared alert, unbent. Gagged and bound, his green-gray eyes seemed to beseech me: Don’t do as he says. Never do as he says.

“Can he see me?” I asked.

“It’s on FaceTime. He can see you.”

“I’m going to get you free,” I told Evan. Hold on, hold on, my love. Then I said to Noel. “Ungag him.”

“No.” And with that the screen went dark. “You know now that your boy toy is alive. That’s all you’re getting this time.”

I straightened my shoulders. “You keep him in good condition, do you understand? No more beatings, and I want to see that he’s still alive and well regularly, get it?”

“And if I don’t, what then?”

“Then I stop looking for whatever it is you’re after and you can just go to hell.” I meant every damn word.

He threw back his head and laughed that strange ha-ha-ha of his that sounded like machine gun fire, white teeth luminous in the dark. “I really did piss you off all those years ago, didn’t I? A woman scorned and all that. Maybe we’ll get to discuss it in earnest over a glass of wine sometime, like as in another first date.”

I bit down on the words I wanted to say. “Do we have a deal or not?”

“Yes, we have a deal, my sweet. I’ll keep your boy toy alive and unharmed in exchange for your services. I have you followed 24/7 as much to keep you safe as anything else. You know that, don’t you? Nothing can happen to my Phoebe.”

“I’m not your Phoebe,” I said.

“You are now. After you get what I need, then we’ll see."

Shit. “What treasure are you after this time?” I practically spat it out.

He straightened. “Okay, then, play it that way, if you must, but I know you secretly have feelings for me, too. Anyway, you’re going to seek Cleopatra’s jewels for me.”

That was a shock. “Cleopatra’s jewels!” I exclaimed. “What does Cleopatra’s jewels have to do with Livia and Augustus?”

“Ah, Phoebe, I expected you to do better research than that. I have it on a good authority that Cleopatra, after losing Mark Antony to suicide following their defeat in the Battle of Actium, tried to do some bargaining of her own. See, Octavian, popularly known as Augustus, planned to have her brought to Rome and trundled down the streets in the triumphal procession of shame. A queen of her note couldn’t bear that, especially after having arrived in Rome years before at Caesar’s side as queen defacto in 46 and 44 BC. She’d been partnered by two powerful men, lost them both, and had just lost her kingdom, too—the mark of a desperate woman.”

“I know all that, Noel.”

“Of course you do, babe. Did you know also that in an act of desperation, the Egyptian queen tried to bribe Augustus by offering her jewels to his wife, Livia? The empress was known to have considerable sway over her husband. Cleopatra hoped that by sending Livia a fortune worth of her jewels and a certain magic crown, she’d intervene on the Egyptian queen’s behalf and let her remain in Egypt. Bribery, in other words.”

I didn’t know that. “And you say you have this on some excellent ancient authority? Since when are any ancient historical accounts irrefutable ‘facts’?” I put the word in air quotes. “Have you lost all your archaeologist training already?”

“That’s what you’re going to find out for me, isn’t it? But let me just say that besides the historical references, including one from Livia herself to a certain Vestal Virgin that indicates she received such a cache of treasure from the then departed queen, rumor and innuendo have lingered. I have a scholarly source with an access to ancient texts that the modern world has never seen, my little cache of secret texts.”

“What kind of ancient texts?” Could it be true?

“Someday maybe I’ll show you if you’re good and I keep hearing that you just keep getting better. Anyway, it’s believed that Livia may have hidden the jewels as a possible insurance policy of her own but they have never been found. Can you imagine how much they’d be worth, the real jewels of Cleopatra? None have survived, that we know of. It will be the find of the century, added to which the queen reportedly included her own special diadem, which she claimed had magic properties. You’re going to find them for me.”

“And how do you expect me to do that?” I demanded. Really, at that moment he may as well have asked me to spin straw into gold.

He shrugged. “Who cares? Do what you do: talk to ghosts, have an illuminating moment, let the sky open up and Livia drop down with a celestial to-do list. Just find it or muscle man is toast. We’ll meet at regular intervals for a progress report. You’ll know the location when you receive my messages, the same way as you did this time. I know you have what it takes, Phoebe. You’ve always been my right-hand woman.”

I turned and marched up the hill into the moonlight. Turning, I spat out the words: “I never was your ‘right-hand woman,’ more like your bloody art sniffer dog!”

He laughed. “And now you’re my art sniffer bitch.”

CHAPTER 7

I climbed into the car at the foot of the Palatine Hill shaking with anger and buried my head in my hands to keep from screaming. Everyone picked up on my mood and didn’t say a word except for Zann until Phoebe nudged her quiet.

It wasn’t until we were back at Nicolina’s lab that I filled them in on Noel’s demands. Even though I had decided not to disclose his parting shot—what was the point?—what I did tell them was bad enough except for one piece of news.

“Evan’s alive,” I told them, “and alert, just a bit battered…”

“Could you see any details in the background?” Peaches asked.

“No, it was blanked out like in one of those Zoom screens,” I told her.

I thought that Rupert might have a cardiac arrest. At least, he gripped his chest and started hyperventilating while waving away any attempts to get him to sit. “I’m fine,” he gasped.

Peaches marched off and kicked a wall, which set off an alarm and earned her an Italian tirade from Seraphina.

Once everything had quieted down again, and we had all sipped substantial amounts of Vin Santo, the sweet wine that Nicolina believed fortified the spirit and made all troubles evaporate, I took a deep breath and spoke with more quiet authority than I felt. “It’s okay. We must stay cool. Evan is safe for the time being. Noel believes absolutely that I require my ‘boy toy’ unharmed in order to follow through with his intent.”

“Which is to find Cleopatra’s jewels, which probably don’t even exist?” Zann exclaimed. “I mean, seriously?”

“Seriously,” I told her. “He says he has it on some ancient historian’s authority buried in a stash of equally ancient source material that such a cache is hidden somewhere, that it was given to Livia as a bribe by Cleopatra, and that she hid it where only she could retrieve it, presumably. As if ancient historians offer irrefutable proof. Our first task is to research everything we can on Cleopatra and Livia, especially as they relate to Cleopatra’s negotiations with Augustus up to and including Cleopatra’s suicide.”

“By an asp,” Nicolina remarked.

“Most likely poison,” Rupert commented, apparently having recovered, “which was the way at the time and a great deal more of a guarantee of one’s quick demise than waiting for a snake to have a go at you. The stories of a basket of figs arriving with a snake tucked inside are merely the stuff of myth. Blame Shakespeare for that image entering our collective mythology. Nevertheless, the queen of Egypt escaped the fate she feared worse than death and managed to die in the dignity she craved. To her I say bravo.”

“Still, never has a woman been so maligned by history, is it not so?” Nicolina remarked. “Queen, scholar, speaker of multiple languages—”

“Herbalist,” Peaches added.

“Herbalist, truly?”

“Truly,” Peaches confirmed. “Yet, all we remember her for is seducing two Roman generals and clocking herself out. So, like, those dudes weren’t fools. Didn’t historians ever consider that here was a woman so accomplished, so powerful and beautiful, that the men had never seen anything like her? Next to those obedient house ornaments back in Rome, she must have seemed like something else. Of course they were smitten.”

“They believed her a goddess, the embodiment of Isis.” Zann sighed. “They really knew how to do megalomania in those days.”

“Since the historians were all male, of course we’re forced to view history through a patriarchal lens,” I said. “But Cleopatra did all the devious, conniving things that her male counterparts did and only because she was female was it considered despicable. For men, those same actions were how you maintained power back in the day.” I stretched and yawned, the wine calming me down and convincing me that I could sleep for years.

“Let us go to bed and begin our work with the larks the next morning,” Nicolina suggested.

No one gave her any arguments.

* * *

Most of the next day was spent in research, Nicolina, Zann, and even Rupert pulling in favors from their historian and archaeologist friends to shed more light on both Livia and Cleopatra in her final months. It took hours of piecing together the four dynamic lives that composed this ancient picture, a story powerful enough to launch plays, movies, and countless tragic romances, a story no less incredible because it was true.

The tale of Antony and Cleopatra was legendary. He, being one of the last members of Rome’s Second Triumvirate, traveled to Egypt to bring the sovereign dynasty under Roman rule since the mighty Caesar had left matters unfinished before his assassination. Instead, Antony fell for Cleopatra much the way his predecessor had before him. Antony was convinced to remain at the queen of Egypt’s side in order to preserve the mighty dynasty and its queen as sovereign identities. That was bad enough to give up Rome for a woman according to the folks back home but to launch a war against his home was the ultimate travesty. And all this treachery for some foreign queen?

It could only end in tragedy. After launching a war against Rome, which included audacious acts such as dismantling Egyptian war galleys in order to drag them across the land to heave them into the Mediterranean, the pair suffered massive defeats until they had no allies or resources left. Rome, led by Augustus Octavian, Antony’s former brother-in-law and now uncontested emperor of Rome, had won. All that was left was for him to march into Alexandria and claim the spoils.

In the end, we imagined Cleopatra and Mark Antony holed up in Alexandria, the epicenter for learning in the ancient world with most of their powerful friends having defected or abandoned them. Even Herod, upon whom they had heaped their hopes of persuading Augustus of leniency, bolted when the tides turned. And yes, there were records of a stream of bribes and beseeches being sent to Rome at this time, including a golden scepter, crown, and throne, plus a diadem that Cleopatra sent to Livia with her jewels claiming that it had the power to bind any man to the woman who possessed it.

Though we could find no mention of what happened to Livia’s gift, the accounts stated that Augustus kept most of the queen’s treasures but still denied her leniency. He wanted all of the Egypt’s fabulous wealth to fund his wars and building projects with the captured queen to ride in as the biggest trophy of all.

Instead of capitulating to her pleas, he demanded that if Cleopatra agreed to execute Antony, her life, at least, would be spared. But she was too smart to fall for that. Once Antony attempted suicide by falling on his sword—clumsily, as it turned out, since he died slowly—she mechanized a way to follow him to the grave on her own terms. Augustus would never claim her for that trophy ride in the end.

Most of these reports came from the historian Cassius Dio, who had recorded the proceedings in some detail based on supposedly firsthand accounts. History generally supported these statements so there was reason to believe that a fortune of Egyptian treasure did return to Rome with various emissaries. Most of that gold would have been melted down and reused as was the ancient way, but could a secret cache have escaped Augustus Octavian’s grasp and been secreted away by his wife?

“Therein lies the question,” Rupert began while gazing down at the tomes spread across the table. “It has been said over and over again that Livia was a model Roman wife—”

“At least on the surface,” Zann remarked. She, like Nicolina, had been reading the Latin texts. “Behind the scenes, she was a superb tactician and, like most Roman women with brains, assured that her husband often made decisions that she subtly suggested.”

“The honey in the ear, we say.” Nicolina touched her ear with one perfectly manicured nail. “Caligula was known to have said of his great-grandmother Livia that she was ‘Ulixes stolatus.’”

“Ulysses in a stola.” Zann nodded enthusiastically.

“A stola?” asked Peaches.

“The men wore togas, the women long loose robes called stolas,” I explained.

“Okay.” Peaches nodded.

“Which meant that she was brave, ingenious, and brilliant, at the very least, but wise enough never to overshadow her powerful husband,” Zann continued.

“Who appeared to be devoted to her, despite his many mistresses,” I added. “I mean, considering the fact that though both Augustus and Livia had children from previous marriages, specifically by the spouses they both divorced after meeting one another, they never had offspring of their own. Any Roman male could use that as grounds for divorce let alone an emperor with succession woes, and yet Augustus appeared to be devoted to his empress until the end. Livia did the noble thing: she endured his infidelities in order to see one of her children assume the emperor’s seat one day, which Tiberius did.”

“They say that she murdered all the young men along the way, any that might have laid claim to the emperor’s seat, that is, but there isn’t much proof of that,” Zann added. “It wasn’t an easy time to be in the army, which the men usually were. Guys were aways getting bumped off due to one thing or another, which is how most of them died.”

“Indeed,” acknowledged Rupert. “Nevertheless, back to the issue at hand: if we consider that Livia accepted Cleopatra’s bribe, we must also acknowledge the multiple accounts that stated this empress was, at least externally, the very opposite of the Egyptian queen. She was not ostentatious, did not adorn herself with riches, and resisted all personal excesses like jewelry and baubles. She was the epitome of what her conservative husband demanded as the vestige of a Roman wife, unpretentiously in charge of the home and hearth. He even boasted that his wife and his sister sewed his own robes. Would this woman, then, be tempted to disobey Augustus, who presumably wanted all the gold to settle his debts and to fill the Roman coffers, to the point of hiding a bounty for herself?”

“Damn right she would,” Peaches stated, crossing her arms. “Think of it this way: Livia was afraid that her husband might be snared by the same powerful charisma that had already bound two Roman generals to Cleopatra’s side. She wanted the queen’s magic crown as a kind of insurance policy. Remember that she was superstitious enough to carry an egg in her stola once as a fertility charm, right? Imagine how enticing a man-binding crown could be?”

“Diadem,” Zain corrected.

“Yeah, that,” Peaches continued. “I mean, if Cleopatra did offer such an item, it was a clever tactic. Livia lived in the times of gods and magic. She would have seen Cleopatra ride into Rome at the mighty Caesar’s side and then watch as the great Mark Antony gave up everything to align himself with this same queen. If Cleopatra assured Livia that this crown would guarantee her power over men, why wouldn’t she want it for herself? If I were Livia, I’d want all the assurances I could get and a magic crown—diadem—would do the trick.”

For a moment, we all fell silent. It was more than plausible; it made absolute sense.

“Okay,” I said, looking up, “let’s assume that a cache of Cleopatra’s jewels including this presumably magic diadem did escape Augustus’s grasp and reached Livia. Where would she have hidden it?”

“Not anywhere near the emperor, that’s my thinking,” Peaches said, standing proud and regal like a queen herself. “She’d hide it far away from his prying eyes, especially if he was busily melting down and disassembling all the ancient pieces that he looted so far. Didn’t she have her own quarters?”

“Probably,” Zann acknowledged. “Most highborn Roman ladies had their own rooms.”

I buried my head in my arms. “But where was Livia’s?”

“The knowledge will come to you,” said Nicolina quietly.

“It must,” Rupert agreed. Did I detect a note of desperation in his voice or was that totally my own?

Contrary to what so many believed, lightning bolts did not slice through the heavens to inform me where treasures lay and the ancients did not send me instructions, either. My gifts reached me through a series of subtle clues combined with an admittedly powerful intuition but it was never easy, rarely exact, and never, ever quick. Yet, I needed all of those elements if I was going to save Evan.

I unconsciously fingered the Pythia key beneath my sweater. The last of the Delphic oracles had given me this gift, not in any ordinary way, it’s true, but not through magic, either. Perhaps it’s all in how we define magic because real magic is far more subtle than the abracadabra fairy tales of old. Either way, the fact remained that I had no idea how to proceed on this course, no inkling of next steps, and no ancient spirit would be throwing me hints anytime soon.

As if sensing my thoughts, Peaches touched my shoulder from where she stood behind me. “Maybe you have to take a walk around the Palatine Hill or any place that Livia may have hung out in order to…” She paused, fishing for the right word. “Timewalk?” she suggested.

My team understood my methods better than anyone, knew enough to realize that it wasn’t a method so much as a process, and not even a very reliable one, at that. Information could come to me from multiple angles but we could never anticipate the how or the why of it. Only one thing was constant: I needed concentration.

“To begin getting in the empress’s mind or whatever, you need to timewalk.”

I gazed up at her with brows arched. “Timewalk?”

“Yeah, that’s kind of what you do, isn’t it? You walk around picking up feelings. It’s part of your process. Okay, so maybe you don’t want to get into Livia’s mind exactly but sort of get into the ancient Roman way.” She shrugged. “It’s a place to start, right?”

I smiled. “Right. Actually, I love the term ‘timewalk.’ There are times when I’ve almost felt that I’m there, walking in the shoes of another person living in another time. It’s disorienting and totally frightening. I try to avoid going quite so far, to be perfectly honest. Look, how about you put together a map of Rome during the days of Livia and I’ll start there,” I said, turning to Zann.

Zann had become our map person. She just seemed to have an innate sense of how to piece together a map based on remaining ancient ruins and to reimagine them in the way in which they must have appeared in any given century. She cheated a lot, she’d be the first to admit, using whatever sketches, diagrams, or videos that happened to exist online and there were plenty.

“Yes.” Seraphina nodded, her stern little face seemingly deep in thought. “You go for walk in these places and we follow to keep you safe.”

“That will work!” Peaches exclaimed, snapping her fingers. “We’ll start tomorrow right after breakfast.”

That would never work. Me walking around in broad daylight with the rest of the tourists? It was as if they had never heard the part where I insisted I needed to do these things alone at first, how I worked better in deep in solitude. I just nodded. At a certain stage in our lives, we learn that we can’t change our friends, that the best we can do is adapt to their quirks and work around them when needed.

Later that evening, after a day of research and study followed by another bountiful supper that consisted of more carbs than my body could process at one time, Rupert went to bed early and I decided to go up only minutes later. No one argued. We were all beat.

“I thought I’d turn in, too,” Peaches said, catching up with me on the stairs. Though she had to be exhausted as well, I knew that she wasn’t planning on going to bed early so much as not letting me out of her sight. She even followed me to Rupert’s room to say good night.

“Enter,” he called when I knocked.

We stepped inside his luxurious suite, recently renovated to Nicolina’s exacting standards in shades of bronze and chocolate. She considered this her manly room, though Rupert had his own definition of manly and would have preferred either jonquil or chartreuse as a color scheme.

“Just wanted to see if you’re okay,” I told him.

“Certainly, I’m all right, Phoebe. Why would I not be?” He was sitting in one of his silken dressing gowns working on a pair of electric-green argyle socks, the entire scene the picture of relaxation.

A still life painting that looked amazingly like it could be by a Dutch master hung above the settee, similar in age and exquisite detail to a portrait that hung in my own bedroom. I’d always meant to ask Nicolina more about those but had yet to take the opportunity. My attention swerved back to my companions.

“Sure, Rupe, what do you have to worry about?” Peaches asked while sitting in a tapestry-upholstered wing chair across from his. “Personally, I plan to sleep like a baby tonight.”

Rupert fixed his gaze at her. “If you are making a reference to Evan’s current predicament, Penelope—our current predicament—I am convinced that nothing is to be gained by either panic or distress. The best we hope to do in the interim is to take what comfort we can where we can—” he held up his knitting, the beginnings of a ribbed cuff emerging from his needles “—and give those pastimes our full attention when feasible. Besides, I have complete confidence in our Phoebe finding these jewels and releasing Evan, accordingly, that is, if he does not, in fact, escape on his own.”

Peaches turned to me with a grin. “See, no pressure.” She was trying to lighten the mood.

“I’ll do my best, you know I will.” I just hoped my best would be good enough because, right then, I wasn’t so sure. “Well, we’ll let you get back to your mind massage, Rupert, won’t we, Peach?”

“Sure.” She jumped up and followed me out. “I don’t know how he holds it together or you, either, for that matter,” she whispered once we were back in the hall.

“Who says I’m holding it together? I’m just trying to figure out how to help this process along.”

She put a hand on my arm. “Not planning anything, are you?”

“Yes, sleep.” I turned my blankest expression in her direction. “That’s what I need right now. By the way, how’s your new man?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to change the subject?”

“I’m trying to get caught up with what’s going on with you since we haven’t talked in person for a couple of weeks.”

She crossed her arms. “Matt’s good, thanks. Nice guy who treats me the way I want to be treated and I do the same for him, but he’s not The One. So far, I’m still looking.”

“Finding the right person is worth the effort,” I said, thinking of Evan and all we’d been through together. In two seconds, I’d be crying my eyes out if I wasn’t careful. “Well, guess I’d better get some sleep.” I turned toward the door.

“Don’t try anything solo, Phoebe, I’m warning you.”

“Night,” I said and shut the door behind me. I couldn’t afford to break down or fall apart. Or heed anybody’s warning, either. Maybe I’d knit for a while, I thought, but soon realized I was too tired for even that.

I set my bug scanner on and removed all the surveillance devices Seraphina had planted because she couldn’t help herself, checked my messages, turned on my intruder app, activated my timer, had a bath, and went to bed, in that order.

At two a.m. my timer woke me up and I launched the hunt for Cleopatra’s jewels.

CHAPTER 8

It only took seconds to deactivate the front door alarm plus every other trip-wire electronic device Seraphina had installed. Whether she had set up an alert for when the system had been tampered with was another matter. The best I could hope for was that I’d be long gone before anyone noticed me missing. Even if they tracked me, I might gain a few hours alone with Rome.

To most, it would seem crazy for any woman to prowl the streets of a big city alone at night, especially since I avoided all the well-lit areas in lieu of the shadows. I reminded myself that I’d never felt as protected as I did at that moment. Not only did I have a perimeter alert on a phone that could render anybody helpless with the touch of a button, I knew I was being followed by one of Noel’s goons whose sole mission was to keep me safe. Add to that, the few armed combat moves I’d learned over the years and I figured I had the protection angle sewn up.

Besides, there was no way I could think and muse the way I needed with the agency shadowing me. As wonderful as they were, they couldn’t resist being intrusive. Somebody always had to have running dialogue with me the moment they thought they could get away with it. But I needed concentration.

Rome will always help a history walker along. The modern city had grown up embracing its past with ancient walls built into modern concrete, decapitated capitals nudging against modern office buildings—nearly something of the past on every block. It’s only a short step to antiquity anywhere in the Eternal City. One only has to turn a corner.

I intended to walk the path that Livia may have taken, past the monuments that had existed in her lifetime between the years spanning 27 BC and AD 14 when she was empress of Rome. I knew that it wasn’t the same Rome that we sometimes imagine—all majestic marble monuments and stunning feats of engineering. Landmarks like the Colosseum wouldn’t have been built yet and Imperial Rome was in the early days when a tangle of streets and wooden hovels still made up most of the raucous city, away from the public plazas and the homes of the mighty.

The Roman Forum had existed, though, along with plenty of temples. Emperor Augustus, Livia’s husband, funded by his numerous military victories, was pouring gold into multiple building projects every year of his long reign. There must have been scaffolding everywhere, slaves dragging massive chunks of marble down the streets, dust, plaster, and noise along with spewing clouds of debris. Firsthand accounts claim that it wasn’t safe for a citizen to walk outside in the daytime lest he be knocked senseless by something falling from a rising building or be run over by an ox train.

Livia would never have been out in that. As a highborn woman, she wasn’t expected to venture out into the streets unless accompanied by her slaves and attendants and then only in a litter for special occasions. In Rome, a woman’s place was in the home or, in the case of an empress, in her palace, villa, or temple.

Women were not even considered citizens. They belonged to their husbands or male next of kin, as much a free agent as a chicken. In fact, one Roman historian—the Romans were great recorders, letter-writers, and opinionated orators—sometimes referred to them in similar terms. The only exception were the Vestal Virgins. The Vestals were very special and elevated in the social structure of Rome. They were indoctrinated as children from highborn families, remained chaste, and then were released after thirty years with benefits and tributes. For them, life really did begin at forty.

Vesta, goddess of hearth, home, and family, was one of Livia’s patron goddesses. The House of the Vestals was where her priestesses lived at the eastern end of the Roman Forum with the temple nearby. A sign of their prominence was the fact that the House of the Vestals was a three-story palace with at least fifty rooms designed around an atrium with two pools—no small compound for a site dominated by women. Since the Vestals were keepers of the sacred flame of Rome, a light which was never to be extinguished, they were seen as sacred, too.

Roman poet Ovid referred to Livia as “Vesta of chaste matrons.”

Livia would have definitely visited the Vestals and the Temple of Vesta located near the Forum. As empress, it would have been her duty to do so and be benefactor to the powerful cult. She was even known to have dressed in the standard divine costume of chiton and himation based on the Greek versions during certain events, wore her hair in the manner typical of the Vestals, and covered herself with a veil, as did they.

If I had been her, I would have visited the temple under cover of nightfall and struck up a relationship with these seven powerful priestesses (sometimes there were six, sometimes seven). They held the secrets of the empire and afforded freedoms not permitted to most women, as did Livia. Would she have hid a fortune of jewels with them?

I was striding across the Isola Tiberina bridge, choosing a convoluted route toward the Roman Forum in order to avoid the busiest and more modern sections of the city. My attention was fully on Livia and grappling with where she might have hidden Cleopatra’s treasure.

Outwardly, Livia was a quiet, dignified, and obedient wife and the opposite of the sensual, exotic queen that lavished herself with gold, silks, pearls, and precious jewels. Cleopatra was undoubtedly the richest woman of the then world. Behind the scenes, however, Livia, by most historical accounts, had keen intelligence with the strategic patience of a supreme tactician. Rome loved her. To her people, she manifested all the virtues of the Roman woman—in other words, not showy or ostentatious and never hogging the limelight from the mighty male. Ostentation was reserved for public buildings and events, not people and certainly not women.

Livia desperately needed to keep her husband satisfied with her role as empress—he had plenty of mistresses to take care of his other needs—but she must have had moments of insecurity, as Peaches had suggested. What if he divorced her because she hadn’t born him a child? Wouldn’t that make keeping Cleopatra’s man-binding diadem even more appealing?

By now, I was so deep in my thoughts that I almost didn’t clue in to the fact that I was being followed. Of course, it’s not like it was a surprise. Still, it was my intuitive perimeter alert that nudged me before my phone made so much as a beep.

I looked behind. The cobbled bridge was nearly deserted but for the two men that appeared to be taking an early-morning stroll beneath the streetlights. One was big and burly and of the bouncer persuasion while the other was small, dark, and shifty-looking. They were actually chatting. Neither of them should have been roaming around Rome.

“Stop right there,” I called.

The two shot me a startled look before glancing behind to check out who I was talking to.

“Yes, you two.” I repeated that in Italian, just in case. “I don’t care if you follow me but I don’t want to see you doing it, get it? Just stay way back and preferably out of sight. I’m here to do a job and I don’t want you two getting underfoot.”

I swung around and carried on my way. Seriously, Noel couldn’t get better help than those two? He had a gang of gunrunners and an elite band of art thieves on his payroll but he sent those two bozos to guard me? It was insulting.

At least they were obedient. After that, they remained far behind me to the point where I hardly knew they were there. By the time I slipped through the empty streets, snaked along the narrow alleyways, and was just crossing the main road toward the Forum archaeological park, I really believed that the whole situation would work out as I had planned. No one had contacted me; my phone remained silent.

Just before I entered the ruins with the forest of uplit foundations and spotlit columns, I looked back to check on the bozos. One of them waved as he and his buddy bounded across the road. Unbelievable.

But I had made it. I had asked Zann to prepare a map of ancient Rome as it would have looked in Livia’s time and she had delivered. Looking at her map on my phone, I was amazed at the job she’d done. I could almost follow it as if I were back thousands of years ago.

The pathway that wove through the ruined monuments should lead me to my destination: the Temple of Vesta. Zann had patched in a virtual reality tour along with overlayed drawings of what the edifices had originally looked like according to modern artists and architects. The overall effect was amazingly realistic, leaving me a sense of what it must have been like to walk these same roads in Imperial Rome.

In those days, the massive marble buildings had been painted in parts, gold embossed in others. The overall effect must have been awe-inspiring: promenades with gold-capped colonnades lining the way, gilded statues of gods and goddesses, massive buildings and columns on either side. And though the virtual tour was portrayed in brilliant sunshine, I could easily imagine what it must have looked like at night with the torches illuminating everything and braziers lit along the way.

Livia would have traveled with her entourage, well-guarded as she made her way under the Arch of Augustus and into the enclave where the circular Temple of Vesta stood.

I lowered my phone. Nothing but a few steps and three uplit columns remained of what once would have been a glorious structure. It had been round, with two rows of concentric gilded Corinthian columns and a tall narrow doorway through which one could see the fire of Rome burning brightly. The image on my phone compared to the ruins before me was a sad and sobering reminder of how time moves on, taking the greatness of man and all his creations with it.

I lifted my phone back to the virtual world I briefly inhabited, imagining Livia disembarking from her litter and climbing the steps to meet the Vestal Virgins who guarded Rome’s heart. They would have had a courteous relationship, for sure, and private, too, because no one, certainly not a man, could penetrate the temple’s inner sanctum without permission. Still, would Livia entrust Cleopatra’s jewels to their care? The cache would be safe enough for a time. The Vestals were keepers of many of Rome’s secrets, after all.

Staring up at the moonlit ruins, my imagination over two thousand years away, I thought not. Those jewels would have been suspect, much as Cleopatra herself had been. The queen of luxury with her ready laugh, quick wit, and lively sense of discourse would have been in stark contrast to the band of chaste priestesses as much as she would have been to Livia herself.

Livia, epitome of dignity and reserve, knew better than anybody how quickly the tide could turn on one’s fortunes, on her husband and herself. Hiding anything in Rome was dangerous. She’d watched enough powerful men go down either in battle or through assassination, watched daughters and wives be banished, and seen what happened to her own ex-spouse. No, if Livia chose to hide this cache, she had to do it somewhere away from Rome.

It seemed so simple, yet it hit me like a revelation: the cache was not here or anywhere nearby, but I felt, suddenly believed, that it did exist.

A sharp cry jerked me from my reverie.

Turning, I stared down the cobbled lane behind me, washed as it was by the spotlights and ambient light of Rome itself. Was I really seeing two bodies sprawled on the ground back there or was that just a trick of the shadows?

Flicking on my taser app, I stepped toward the shapes, my heart thumping wildly. The stark contrasts of light and dark could play tricks on you here. Maybe those were not bodies but shadows? I desperately wanted them to be shadows, but after a few steps I knew better. A chill hit my spine.

No doubt about it, those were human forms—two of them, one big and heavyset, one small and lean. Without getting too close in case of an ambush, it looked as though they’d been shot, probably with a silencer. Blood was pooling on the cobbles, both were facedown, one with a gun still in his hand.

Those were Noel’s men. Shit, shit, shit! What the hell did this mean?

A figure stepped out from behind a pediment holding a gun, masked, and dressed in total black. “You come with me quietly,” he said in Italian. “No tricks.”

I pressed my taser app button and zapped the gun out of his hand. It went flying away as he clutched his wounded fingers and cursed. Two other armed figures emerged from the shadows behind him. I turned and ran.

Who the hell were those murdering bastards? I couldn’t think straight then since my attention was on getting away but could I really expect to outrun three guys sprinting behind me? Probably not, and really, where could I find sanctuary in a tumble of ruins, anyway? The place was a perfect spot to stage a murder, and if the Carabinieri were going to do their rounds, I wish the hell they’d get on with it.

My only hope was to reach the road at the end of the park and try to flag someone down but even that struck me as nuts. Who was going to stop for the wild woman being chased by masked armed men? Just keep driving, plēz. Nope, I needed another plan and fast. I needed to find a place where I could hide, find enough shelter to duck down and zap those boys, one of whom was now almost at my heels.

I swung around and aimed my laser at his feet, blasting the earth just inches from his sneakers. He jumped back while I kept on running. Killing somebody wasn’t in the books, though my laser had the power to do just that.

Higher ground, I needed higher ground, but I couldn’t risk climbing over the barriers to clamber up one of those chunks of stone. The park was one big active dig site, some structures under reconstruction, the whole place a minefield of hidden pits and holes. No way. Then, looming ahead of me across the deserted main road illuminated like an ancient multitiered birthday cake rose the Colosseum.

To me in those desperate moments, what I was about to do made perfect sense: I could break the perimeter fencing, let the alarm sound, and find a million places to hide inside. The police would swarm the ancient monument and find a bunch of armed dudes crawling around while I made my escape.

The plan sounded so simple. Besides, I knew the Colosseum—sort of. I’d taken many expert tours, seen multiple television shows. There had to be a zillion places to hide in there. I only needed one good one. The key was keeping my pursuers distracted long enough to get inside.

I bolted across the road, dodging the few cars zipping by, while sending laser bolts at the ground behind me. A chunk of asphalt exploded near one guy; it slowed him down while I dashed toward the perimeter fencing looking for a gate, which I found seconds later. Once, there had been eighty entrances to the famed fifty-thousand-person stadium. A quick beam with my laser app had the lock seared open, and by the time I’d slipped through, an alarm was pealing into the Roman night. Good.

Turning, I saw my three pursuers hesitate. They were maybe six yards behind me now but apparently not keen on entering the Colosseum with the cops on the way. One of them yelled an order that sent the other two forward. Still three. Damn!

I fired at one guy, hitting his foot. A scream of pain ripped out, sending my pursuers into momentary chaos. I took a few precious moments to try searing the gate closed, which only half-worked. The scrap of fused metal might hold them back for a moment but not much longer.

As I dashed for the massive ruin, one thing occurred to me: nobody shot back. They wanted me alive. Attempted kidnapping, then, but they had to catch me first. That task just got a lot harder as sirens were already zooming our way.

I bolted under one of arched openings and into the mighty Colosseum.

CHAPTER 9

The circular corridor was dark, lit only from the exterior spotlights beaming through open archways that lined the exterior. I had to put as much distance as possible between me and my pursuers before taking my first turn. I didn’t want them knowing whether I went up or down, left or right.

At first all I did was run down the wide passageway, random thoughts flying through my head. The Colosseum fell into disrepair around the fall of Rome and, after earthquakes and time, nearly collapsed in on itself as people looted anything of value. The steps of the Vatican’s St. Peter’s were made from materials stripped from this enormous stadium.

Why was I thinking of this stuff? I needed to find a place to hide and fast!

A cry somewhere behind me was my alert that the bad guys had arrived, hopefully only two since I’d wounded number three. Due to the building’s circular shape, so far they couldn’t see me, but I needed to keep it that way.

Now they were shouting at one another. “You go that way, I go this way,” one called.

The police sirens grew much louder, their lights flashing beyond the arches. Shit! I needed to find someplace fast!

Finally, I spied a barricaded stairway. I flicked on my infrared light, leapt over the cording, and clambered down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me. I was entering the Hypogeum, that amazing bottom level once hidden beneath a wooden floor where secret trapdoors, circular winches, and an early form of elevator was used to lift tigers, lions, and slaves into the arena to be torn apart by gladiators. The Romans took their blood sport seriously and the Hypogeum was key to the spectacle.

Enough had been reconstructed to give a taste of what it must have been like but all I was interested in right then was diving into one of those stone cells. I needed to hide until the police rounded up my pursuers. To that end, I darted into a dank cubicle, dosed my light, and sat shivering in the dark. A thousand years ago some poor creature sat where I sat, awaiting its gory death to entertain the multitude.

Feet pounded on the modern wood floor above. Men were shouting, my phone was buzzing. I muted one and prayed that the other would carry on up rather than down.

But somebody was heading my way. I could hear one set of footsteps on the concrete—no, wait—two sets of footsteps, the second many paces behind the first. It sounded as though one was chasing the other but, unlike the police, no one was calling out for somebody to stop. Weird. I sensed that one was definitely in pursuit.

A bullet pinged against stone. Somebody was shooting.

Damn. I was too vulnerable. All it took was for somebody to check these compartments and I’d be caught. I had to move. Standing up, I poked my head outside the door and saw a light moving down in the bowels to my right. I headed left, launching across an elevated walkway designed for visitors to look down upon the cages below. An estimated four hundred thousand people and one million animals were killed in the arena’s four-hundred-year history and I damn well didn’t want to be one of them.

Now I was bounding up a ramp, the original of which probably delivered chariots and elephants to the arena floor, but when it ended at more stairs, I took them two at a time. I was heading for the topmost level, the seating area reserved for slaves and women. I could just imagine what Peaches would say about that. Hell, Peaches. She’d be so furious once she discovered what I’d done, but for the moment, I had to remain free and alive so she could have the satisfaction of telling me off.

My phone, still on night vision, kept buzzing in my hand. I really should answer it but who had the time? When I finally reached the top level, a gate barricaded my way, one that had to be zapped open, giving time for those footsteps to gain ground behind me.

Once through the gate, I scrambled down the corridor, far less grand than the lower levels. Bursting out into open sky, the lights of Rome spread all around and nothing but a railing overlooking the stadium below, I realized that I could hear my pursuer behind me and he was closer than I expected.

“Stop!” a man called in Italian. “Or I shoot, Phoebe McCabe!”

I didn’t believe him. Whoever that bastard was, he wanted me alive so I kept on running right up until I reached a dead end. A huge section of the stadium had broken away centuries before, leaving nothing but an iron railing between me and the drop below. Desperately, I scanned around for an escape hatch, finding none. Shit! Trapped, I flicked my phone on stun and slowly turned to meet my enemy.

The man stood legs apart, holding his pistol. “You drop phone.” He could speak English.

“Go to hell.”

He grunted, his mask awash with ambient light. He was of medium height and strongly built, the same one who had ordered his companions to follow me into the building.

“The Carabinieri are all over this place. They’ll be here in minutes,” I told him.

“They chase my colleague below. They think only one. You and I, they do not know about. You drop phone or I shoot.” He sounded tough enough, this one, all grit and nails.

“Oh, yeah, bozo, what about the shot I heard down in the Hypogeum? That wasn’t the police down there. And I’m not dropping anything.”

Bozo looked confused. “No one here but us, I said. Drop phone!” He was getting angry.

“No. Drop the pistol or I’ll toast you to a crisp. What do you want, anyway?”

“You.”

“Should I be flattered?”

In a flash, he lunged toward me, knocking the phone out of my hand. I kicked out but he grabbed my leg and flung me to the ground before I could do anything clever. Seconds later, I was hauled back to my feet, arm twisted behind my back, and the cold butt of a gun pressed into my skull.

“Move!” he ordered, avoiding my flashing phone on the ground as if it was a ticking bomb. Which it would be if I didn’t pick it up soon.

And I moved but only because he was pushing me forward.

“Where do you think you’re taking me?” I asked. “You won’t get far and why did you kill those other guys? Who do you work for?”

“He’s my Brutus, aren't you, Alessandro?” said a voice to our left.

Even I was startled at the sound and my captor certainly was, yanking me to a halt, twisting my arm for effect.

"And forgive Phoebe’s multiple-question style. It’s one of her adorable little quirks,” the voice added.

The safety catch on the pistol released with a click in my ear. “I shoot her if you take another step, Halloran.”

“No, you won’t,” Noel said, stepping from the shadows. I recognized his voice immediately, of course, but why the hell was he even here? “You need her alive as much as I do.”

“Who is this guy?” I demanded, glaring at Noel as he stepped closer, his gun aimed at Alessandro.

“He’s my Brutus, or one of them,” he replied, never taking his eyes from the other man’s face. “The Brutus who betrayed me, hence the reference to Caesar’s assassin and once-friend. This guy is a turncoat and he and his pals have the unmitigated gall to think they’ll take over my organization. They want to kidnap you so you could lead him to Cleopatra’s jewels before me.”

Oh, hell. Nothing’s more dangerous than a crook betraying another crook. “That’s not happening. I don’t work for nothing,” I said. “Maybe if he agrees to get Evan Barrows to safety, I’ll consider working for him instead.”

Without warning, Alexandro yanked me to the right until I was hanging over the railing, twisting my body enough that one flip could send me over the edge. I blinked down at the broken shadows that made up all that remained of the brutal arena. Shit.

I had no intention of ending up down there. The bastard was strong, but holding a gun on one person while shoving another over a railing left him vulnerable.

“You don’t bargain with me!” he sneered in my ear. “Halloran, you back off or she dies."

“Easy there, Sandro. Don’t harm our golden girl,” I heard Noel say. “Trust me, you don’t want her. She’s a pain in the ass. Let her go.”

As if to prove his point, I leveled a back kick at Alessandro, felt my heel hit his knee, heard his cry of pain. Instantly, he released his grip on my arm long enough for me to push away from the railing. I turned just in time to see Noel shoot him in the head. Alessandro collapsed in a heap to the floor, blood pooling below him.

“Damn it, Noel! Did you have to kill him? Why not just wound the bastard and let the cops handle it?”

Noel was wiping down his gun despite the fact that he wore gloves. “So they can interrogate him and find out all about the operation? Are we really having this discussion again, Phoebe? Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

Shouts echoed through the ancient stone. Many footsteps thundered on the stairs heading toward us. Noel grabbed my hand and tried to drag me down the corridor.

“My phone!” I cried, tugging in the opposite direction.

“Leave the thing!”

I twisted out of his grip. “No chance!”

Noel started cursing. “You just broke into the Colosseum; the cops are heading our way; and you just shot somebody in the head. What is it about ‘let’s get the hell out of here’ that you don’t understand?”

“I just shot somebody in the head?” I asked while reaching for my phone.

“Yeah, you did. Don’t think I’m going to hang around here and get nailed for murder, do you?” He dropped his gun to the floor.

I was so outraged I almost zapped him with my phone on the spot only my battery was dead and somebody else took that pleasure from me. An electric-green laser bolt hit Noel in the foot. He cried out and swore viciously.

“Stop right there, dickhead, before I sever a limb.”

“Peaches?” I gasped.

Noel swung around to see what I saw: a tall Amazonian standing in her black catsuit, phone held in line with his chest.

“Peachy baby, is that you?” he asked with a laugh. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, it’s me, bastard boy, and I’m about to do something I’ve been dreaming of for years.”

“Peaches, no! If you kill him, we’ll never discover where he’s holding Evan!” I called out.

“Yeah, Peach. Better keep me intact or her boy toy dies,” Noel said, holding up his hands.

“I don’t plan to kill you, Noel, though I’d love nothing better. No, I’m going to torture you until you tell us where you’ve hidden Evan.” She took a step forward and zapped her laser at his feet followed by a quick blast to his arm.

He leapt away cursing, gripping his wounded parts. “Ouch, bloody ouch! Stop or I swear he dies!”

She must have her app set on the lowest level, enough to leave bruises without causing permanent damage. This could be entertaining.

She zapped him again, this time on the left leg. “I’m heading farther up next time, Noel, though I doubt you have anything of interest worth zapping there. Now, tell me where you’ve taken Evan.”

He gripped his thigh and screamed, “Stop it, bitch! I swear I’ll make Barrows pay for this and I’ll never tell you where the hell he is even if you tenderize me to within an inch of my life.”

“That’s enough!” I ordered. “No more, Peach. We don’t have time, and you, Noel, if you hurt so much as a skin cell on Evan’s person, Cleopatra’s jewels will stay lost forever. I’ve learned something tonight and if you want to find out what it is, you’ll keep to your side of our bargain.”

“Sure, I will, babe. Just call off your dog,” he said, looking hopeful even with his face twisted in pain.

By now the police had arrived, calling from the far end of the corridor in two languages for us to freeze. Noel was spinning around looking for an escape hatch while Peaches lunged past him—tasering him on the knee in passing—to grab my hand. “Run!”

So we ran. Though I had no idea where we were running to since we were heading back the way I had come, back through the arched stone dead-end passageway. After about twenty yards, the wall to our left fell away onto another length of iron railing with the shadowy arena gaping below.

“Climb over!” she hissed.

Climb over the railing? But I didn’t hesitate even though internally I was screaming in protest since now we were crouch-scrambling on a narrow ledge just inches away from toppling to our doom.

The cops were still calling, their shouts echoing around the ruins, flashlights skimming the walls, while we scrambled along balancing on nothing but a few inches of crumbling brick. Soon, we reached a section of original wall tall enough to shield us from view. There we huddled in the shadows, one hand grasping the wall, the other resting on the ledge, both of us trying not to look down.

It became a waiting game. The Carabinieri were fanning through the ancient stones. There had to be at least a dozen of them, and whether they caught Noel or not, we couldn’t tell. I hoped not because if he was in captivity Evan was in jeopardy. I doubted the bastard would talk unless the Italian police were into torture, which I doubted.

The best we could hope for was to escape ourselves. Minutes turned into hours. I thought our bodies would seize into statues. A chill breeze hit the side of the Colosseum, cold enough to harden our muscles if not our wills and leave our teeth chattering.

When finally the stadium had slipped back down into stillness, only then did we risk shuffling back the way we had come and climb back over the railing on stiffened legs. By then, Peaches had been in contact with our team, who were waiting for us on the east side of the building.

All we had to do was get out undetected. She led me through tangled corridors and twisty back halls where models of the Colosseum construction sat behind glass.

“How do you know your way around this place?” I whispered, not that she was talking to me or anything. I got the sense that she was so annoyed with me that if I survived the night her fury might do me in, anyway.

“Because I did a thesis on the Colosseum during my engineering training,” she told me between her teeth. “I’ve seen every possible diagram of this place and proposed a few of my own.”

“Wow, what a stroke of luck that you came to my rescue when you did.” Probably the wrong choice of pacifier.

“I suggest you stop talking, Phoeb, because I’m mad enough right now to feed you to a lion, if I could find one.”

I kept quiet after that.

CHAPTER 10

At least they let me go to bed and even to put a good breakfast under my belt the next morning before I faced the agency firing squad. I was on my second cup of Nicolina’s strong coffee when it began and was just about to pour a third when I figured I’d had enough. In the midst of the angry tirade, throughout which I’d thought I’d launched an adequate defense, I realized that no one was listening.

“Okay, okay,” I said, swinging around from the buffet table. “I get it: you don’t want me bolting off on my own, but I keep telling you that I need solitude and uninterrupted musing at the beginning of a case.”

“Then we follow you like we did on Palatine Hill,” Seraphina said with something close to a snarl.

“And stay in contact with you so we know you’re safe,” Zann added.

“No,” I said. “That’s the problem: I don’t want you staying in contact with me because that interrupts my brain flow.”

“Did being chased by a bunch of überkidnappers interrupt your brain flow?” Peaches asked, her tone deceptively mild.

I took a deep breath. “The point is that you’re too intrusive: Rupert likes to text me asking where I am even though he can see my position on the tracker map; Peaches stays so close that I can practically hear her breathe; and Zann—” I took another breath “—Zann likes to send me videos and music clips—”

“Only if they’re relevant and I only sent a music clip once,” she protested, “and only because ‘The Saints Go Marching In’ was such a perfect accompaniment to your tour of that cathedral.”

“I wasn’t touring!” I said sharply, probably too sharply. “I was attempting to reach deep into myself to touch the past and timewalk, as Peaches calls it, and I didn’t need footsteps, chatter, and musical accompaniment to get there!”

Nicolina sat with her hands folded on the table, taking in every word while Rupert stirred his tea with a touch more energy than necessary, his spoon clinking on the porcelain. Zann and Seraphina had their arms folded over their chests, glowering in my direction. It was a mostly impenetrable wall of disapproval.

“Okay,” Peaches said slowly, lifting her head from her plate where she had been dissecting a cantaloupe into little chunks with a paring knife. “We get it: you don’t want us to communicate with you when you’re doing one of your timewalks.”

“Love that expression. That’s what I’m calling it now.”

She stared at me. Hard. I counted ten seconds. “So, while you are timewalking, you’d much rather have Halloran’s dudes tramp after you with maybe a mix of random hoods along for the ride—gotcha. But for the record, if I hadn’t bypassed all your attempts to sneak away without me, where do you think you’d be right now? Let me guess: in police custody? Nabbed by one of Noel’s rogue hoods? Dragged off somewhere by bastardo numero uno himself? Dead?”

“Granted, you appearing last night was very helpful,” I began.

“Helpful? Helpful?” Peaches was on her feet leaning over the table toward me wiggling that knife. “I saved your ass, admit it!”

“Okay, you probably did.” I really believed that I’d had it all under control but why quibble? “I was enormously relieved to see you.”

Nicolina stood. When Nicolina stood, everybody paused. “I suggest a compromise,” she said. “From here on, Phoebe does not go anywhere without Peaches. Nobody else makes contact—no musical accompaniment, no texting. Only Peaches. If there is trouble, Peaches signals us and we move in as necessary.” Her regal gaze surveyed the room. “Agreed?”

Everybody assented except Peaches. She was too busy drilling me with a glaze so fierce I swear it could have chipped stone. There was only one way for me to smooth things over.

“Okay,” I blurted out, “I’m sorry, Peaches, okay?”

“Sorry for what, that you lied to me?” she demanded.

“Not lied, exactly, more like dissembled, but yes, sorry for that. Am I forgiven? Can we just move on because, as I said, we now know that Cleopatra’s jewels do exist, that Livia hid them somewhere, that they are not in Rome but somewhere else.”

“And,” Rupert added, setting down his spoon, “that Noel has a breakaway band of Brutuses—or would that be Brutii?—after the treasure for themselves, an unfortunate and completely confounding factor bound to throw another hurdle into an already snaggy and grievous situation.”

“There,” I said, spreading my hands and grinning. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, especially in so few words. Can we just get on with figuring out where Livia may have hidden the jewels now?”

It was not a tribute to my persuasive powers that they finally relented but more to the fact that we were running out of time. Every minute that ticked away took us farther away from Evan. We had no idea what condition he was in, really. The pictures that say a thousand words also lie just as richly.

Back down to the lab we trooped to resume our research and to figure out where beyond Rome an empress might hide a stash of riches. Added to that, we were also focused on finding where Noel might be holding Evan. Odd as it seemed, finding Cleopatra’s gold seemed less impossible than finding Evan.

“Don’t you get an inkling of where he is, like as in a sixth sense or something?” Zann asked me.

Nicolina’s luxe museum-cum-restoration-lab had been commandeered as our command central. Computers sat open on maps and Google Earth, various facsimiles of ancient charts sat spread over the light tables, and one counter held nothing but books. I had assigned myself to the desk opposite Zann where I spent hours scanning translated tomes while she raked the Latin equivalent.

Looking up from reading Ovid, I made a face. “I know it seems that I should be able to divine where he is,” I began, “but for reasons I can’t explain, my finder gifts don’t extend to living people. I’ve tried and tried but I can’t see Evan in my mind’s eye except in my memory, and have no clue where to find him.” Pausing for a moment, I added: “I thought maybe that he was shielding his mind from me, maybe trying to protect me against something, but now I really don’t think that’s it. I’ve never been able to find living people. Even when a kid and playing hide-and-seek, I never had any special advantage.” I shook my head. “I can only search the past. It’s so frustrating.”

“Ever played pin the tail on the donkey?”

I stared at her. “Sure, as a child.”

“So how good were you at finding the donkey butt?”

“I don’t remember. Donkey butts haven’t featured in my memory for a long time.”

“What about dousing for water?”

“I tried it once and found an underground stream but anyone can do that.”

“Not everyone.” Zann leapt to her feet. “So, maybe we’re going about it the wrong way. Maybe we need a different approach.”

“What kind of approach?” I asked.

“The pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey method,” she responded, marching me over to the map table. She tapped her finger on Italy, a detailed map Nicolina had placed below the glass for our reference. “We’ll use a kind of divining rod approach. Close your eyes,” she ordered.

Now, Zann was our most unpredictable agency member. A true divergent thinker, nobody quite knew what she would come up with next or what she would do next, for that matter. I was always the one willing to give her ideas a try. That’s how she made it onto the team when the others had protested. I was her guarantor, in a manner of speaking.

“Eyes closed,” I announced, squeezing my lids shut.

“Turn around.”

I turned around.

“Again.”

I turned again. Next, I felt Zann guiding me back toward the table. “Hold out your hand and place your index finger down somewhere below.”

I did as I was told and when I opened my eyes again I found everyone gathered around staring at my finger planted roughly on the lower shin of Italy’s boot.

“That’s not a method so much as a stab in the dark,” Peaches commented.

“It may seem random,” Zann informed her, “but even random acts may have significance if the person doing the randomizing is gifted.”

“What I mean is, surely you don’t think Evan is hidden in—” she lifted my finger “—in Salerno?”

“Why not?” Nicolina inquired.

Rupert leaned forward. “The last I heard, Evan’s devices were signaling from Sicily and a day later from Naples, before going dark in the most unaccountable manner.”

“Naples is close to Salerno,” Nicolina reminded us.

I was staring at Zann. “Did Livia or Augustus have a vacation villa away from Rome?”

She nodded. “They had a place known as the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, maybe seven miles north of here, which was part of Livia’s dowry. But, as emperor, Augustus probably had vacation homes all over. The fact that no one’s recorded others doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist.”

“Or that Livia didn’t have a place of her own,” I said, turning to everyone in a sweeping gaze. “Livia was one of the few Roman women who could own property in her own name. You can believe that she influenced her husband to ensure that happened during his lifetime. What if she had a little bolt-hole where she could retreat while the emperor was off waging his wars?” I rubbed my hands over my face. “What do we know about Livia’s properties?”

“She lived to be eighty-six so she had plenty of time to accumulate bolt-holes,” Peaches remarked. “If she was afraid of hubby finding something significant, wouldn’t it make more sense to hide a treasure where he never visited?”

“Yes,” Nicolina agreed. “The emperor was a powerful man and any place he lived would be filled with his loyal slaves. Livia required a place of her own.”

A wave of shivering overtook me. I closed my eyes, suddenly beset with images of flowers and birds washing across my eyelids. It was dark in there. I seemed to be peering into someplace crumbling and smothered in shadows. Smothered.

“She hid it someplace dark,” I whispered, backing away, “in a room, a room that has remained hidden for centuries.” I paused, gazing stricken down the halls of time. “There are bodies, writhing bodies, all around, above and below, people dying horribly. I can hear screaming, a girl crying.”

“Like from what, a fire?” I heard someone say.

“Not fire,” I mumbled, “something much worse.”

“A volcanic eruption.” That was Nicolina’s voice. “Phoebe, do not go there. You are not prepared.”

I wanted to escape this place but had no idea which way to go, where to turn. People were screaming, I was screaming. Somebody began shaking me. “Phoebe, Phoebe, come back!”

But it wasn’t so simple. It took minutes, maybe twenty or more, before I could pull myself up from the past, gasping for air as if trapped inches away from a hideous death. I’d never experienced anything like that before and never wanted to ever again.

When I came to, I was huddled in a corner with my hands covering my head. They were all crouching around me, Rupert urging me to sip a mug of tea.

“What just happened?” I gasped.

“You had an event,” Zann said excitedly. “Seriously, a bona fide past-witness event! It was amazing! Tell us every little detail.”

“It was horrible,” I whispered.

Peaches’s arm was around my shoulders. “Try to get past it, pull yourself away.” She glared at Zann. “Back off.” And to me she said: “You’re here now, safe in AD 2022.”

Turning to her, I said: “Livia buried Cleopatra’s gold somewhere that is now deep under a mountain of ash.”

“Shit, Pompeii?”

“Yes, Pompeii,” I said. “I’m sure it was Pompeii.”

“Your finger did touch Pompeii. Livia could have had a place in Pompeii,” Zann said excitedly, “but how could we ever find that? Livia died in AD 29 and Mount Vesuvius obliterated the city in AD 79. That means that somebody else must have owned that villa for fifty years following her death.”

“Maybe a trusted friend,” Nicolina commented.

“There’s still the little problem of a mountain of ash and hardened pumice heaped all over the ruins. It’s still only partially excavated. Like getting through that is no piece of cake even when Phoebe locates the exact spot.” Zann again.

And what would Phoebe need to do to find the exact spot—die a thousand deaths? I didn’t think I could do it, didn’t want to do it.

With Rupert on one side and Peaches on the other, they half lifted, half dragged me into a chair. Lots of strong tea followed. Several minutes passed during which my world settled into current reality with no more shifting images, no more burning in my throat and nose, no more fumes and smoke. The trauma, however, lingered.

I blinked. “I never want to go back there.”

But, of course, I had no choice. I knew that. Evan’s life depended on it.

My friends were silent, busying themselves with maps and computer screens in an effort to give me space. Mostly, I just stared unfocused at the tiled floor. Out of my peripheral vision, I was aware of Zann repeatedly trying to lurch out her chair, no doubt to grill me further on my experiences, and of Peaches pushing her back into her seat every single time. That made me smile.

“Ahem.”

I turned. Rupert had been sitting beside me yet I had failed to notice. “Dearest Phoebe, it behooves me to mention something now that you are, er, somewhat recovered. A matter of import, as it turns out, and it recently arrived in the mail. Actually, not the mail exactly but discovered by Seraphina in Nicolina’s brass postbox fixed to her door. The camera had been covered and—”

“What?” I asked.

He passed me a postcard. “This came this morning, a few moments ago, in fact.”

My stomach clenched. “From Noel?”

“Apparently. The wily cutthroat must have somehow escaped police custody and made his getaway, he being a devious character and known to be an artful dodger of sorts.”

He continued speaking but I wasn’t listening because I was too busy staring down at the streets of Pompeii, the sun beaming low in the west to gild the ancient stones. Flipping the card over, I read:

See you later this afternoon. N

Jumping to my feet, I cried: “He knew! The bastard knew the whole time that Livia buried her stash at Pompeii! He was just playing me!”

“Perhaps he was testing you,” said Rupert quietly, looking up. “More worrying is the fact that somehow he may have deduced that you have successfully located the treasure’s location this very morning, which means—” he took a deep breath “—that our data explorations are not secure.”

He got to his feet and projected his voice into the lab. “From this point forth we must assume that our network has been infiltrated sufficiently for an outside source to determine our search paths.”

“Our cookies?” Seraphina demanded. “Impossible! No one sees my cookies! I shield my cookies always!”

“The digital Cookie Monster,” Peaches muttered.

“My network is tight, so tight that nobody hacks in!” Seraphina continued.

But we all knew that few networks are that iron-tight. Evan always shored ours up on a continual basis, technical genius that he was. He surveyed our electronic guard posts daily looking for weak spots, areas of vulnerability. He’d never have let this happen, not in our internal network, not on his watch.

Evan.

I collapsed into tears.

CHAPTER 11

We drove down Italy’s shin, arriving in modern Pompeii later that afternoon and booking into a little hotel within walking distance of the gates of the ancient city. Somehow Nicolina had arranged for us to take over the hotel’s top floor with its three master suites and four single bedrooms, some of which would remain unoccupied, in order for Seraphina and Peaches to install electronic trip wires and a variety of other perimeter alerts.

Strangely, I didn’t seem to care what was going on around me. I appeared to be in some kind of emotional lockdown.

“I believe you are suffering from a mild form of post-traumatic stress,” Rupert told me. “Apparently, whatever you saw during your episode appears to have been so disturbing that it is as though you suffered the trauma yourself.”

I gazed across to where he sat in the chair opposite mine. “Luckily, I pulled back in time before…she actually died, and I was a witness, not a player.” Pausing for a few seconds, I added: “Though I felt the suffering as if it were my own.”

“Because you are an empath,” Nicolina said quietly.

Suddenly, a well of emotion surged to the surface and I desperately needed to talk. “There was this intense struggle to breathe and I could feel her panic, the horrible, hideous panic, but not her death, though that was sure to follow. What I experienced was bad enough.”

“Whose death?” Zann asked.

“I have no idea—definitely a woman. She came to retrieve the jewels, thinking she’d escape with the booty, but she was worrying about somebody else, too—a girl, I think. I could sense her thoughts, her fear.”

“Are you certain it was a she?” Peaches asked, sitting on the end of the bed.

“She,” I confirmed. “A single terrified woman maybe only minutes from death.”

“Did you have any sense of how she obtained the jewels?” Nicolina asked.

“No,” I whispered. “I didn’t remain there long enough.”

I was instructed to rest until the estimated meeting time, which only gave me less than an hour. Our plan was for the entire team to enter the gates of Pompeii but that only Peaches would remain near me during my meeting. We assumed that Noel had chosen a public place as extra security against his Brutus, who would no doubt be present, too. Somewhere.

“Imagine him calling this turncoat ‘Brutus,’” Rupert mused.

“He was always a Shakespeare fan and used to quote sonnets to me,” I said.

“That’s because the bastard couldn’t come up with anything original,” Peaches remarked. With her arms crossed, she glared out the window toward the balcony as if expecting said bastard to appear at any moment.

“There’s no evidence that Caesar ever said, ‘And you, Brutus?’ when that gang of senate thugs murdered him,” Zann remarked.

“Yeah, so what does fact have to do with anything?” Peaches growled. “But back to meeting Phoebe in a public place—what’s with that?"

“Evidently, the wily cutthroat believes himself safe against Interpol and every other potential threat as long as Evan remains in captivity.” Rupert had prepared himself for the afternoon by dressing in his version of a British tourist, circa 1952. No one had the heart to tell him that the straw hat, natty linen jacket, and tonal ascot that matched his yellow socks was not what the typical tourist wore in this century. Sartorial splendor ruled.

“And he’s probably right,” I said with a sigh. “There’ll be so many people milling around no one will pay much attention to us and I should be able to get what I want out of Noel without attracting too much attention.”

“What do you want out of him?” Zann asked quickly.

“Proof that Evan’s fine, for a start; answers as to why he failed to mention that he knew Cleopatra’s jewels were buried in Pompeii all along. Why waste my time?”

“I’ll be nearby,” Peaches stood and took a step toward me.

“I know,” I said, looking up and smiling at her. “Just don’t kill him.”

“I won’t, not yet, anyway.”

And so we left our hotel-cum-fortress and strode down the streets of the modern city of Pompeii as if playing tourist was all we had in mind. We’d all dressed in relaxed touring gear, though some of our members stood out more than others. Nicolina no doubt believed a cashmere leisure suit perfect for a comfortably cool November day while Peaches only seemed to wear leather when on the job. Zann and I were the only two that could do tourist properly, though she was perhaps a little too attached to her fanny pack. I preferred leggings, a sweater over a T-shirt, and my jacket as in the layered look. Personally, I thought I was rocking it.

I’d been to Pompeii many times before and the ruined city always moved me while the modern version disappointed me in equal parts. Strange how I kept expecting the modern community that grew up around the ruins to have the same magnificent gravitas as its predecessor but of course it couldn’t.

There were people milling everywhere, most of them exiting the gates after what I could only assume was a fascinating tour through the ancient town. Only one hour until closing.

“I suspect Halloran will approach you rather than you resorting to the necessity of seeking him out, Phoebe,” Rupert said after he’d purchased our entry tickets, dusted a fleck of something from his jacket, and passed us each the accompanying map. “We shall unobtrusively linger about as if admiring the ruins while remaining at a suitable distance behind you at all times.”

“If anyone comes too close, we attack,” Seraphina said. “I zap.” She held up her phone, prompting me to send Nicolina a pleading look.

“We will not zap,” Nicolina assured me. Turning to her assistant, she added in Italian something to the effect of Do nothing until I give the signal.

“Don’t come too close. Noel may not approach if he sees I’ve brought a crowd,” I warned.

“We will stay behind but Peaches remains with you,” said Nicolina.

“Of course."

That settled, we proceeded into one of the most intact cities of the ancient world, preserved in pumice along with Herculaneum since AD 79. Most visitors were making their way toward the exit but Peaches and I headed against the flow.

“I remember that street shown on the postcard,” I told her as we ambled along. “It’s noted for those circular stepping stones rising up from the road which prevented citizens from stepping into horsey doo and other muck. And then there’s the remains of that gate or whatever that arch was. I think it’s just up ahead, around that corner, and down the next street. Anyway, that’s what I’m guessing from the map.”

Which was the route we took.

“Okay.” Peaches was constantly checking behind our backs as well as her phone for messages from the team. “Think they’ve successfully melted into the stonework but I don’t know about that couple following us.”

I turned in time to see a short blonde woman in jeans, cropped white linen jacket, and sunglasses lift her iPad aloft to photograph a building. Beside her, a tall good-looking man appeared to be discussing the details in his jeans, sweater, fedora. “They look like well-heeled tourists but they’re not. Keep walking.”

We turned a corner that took us to a cobbled lane wedged between the reconstructed walls of the ancient town. “This street is where they used to sell bread and other goods,” I said, “kind of the vendors’ lane, and look, there’s the chariot tracks and the gate. This is the road. Where are our followers now?”

Both of us turned to look. The street was deserted.

“Don’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing,” Peaches whispered. “Let’s keep walking.”

So we walked but our pace was more of a stroll now. I kept expecting Noel to appear, for once wanted him to show up so I could get this latest episode over with and make him prove to me that Evan was alive and well. I was itching to see Evan again.

“So, where is the bastard?” Peaches asked, scanning the now empty sunset-washed street.

“My question exactly. Where the hell is he? I’m here at the appointed spot or is this another of his little games?”

“Maybe he won’t approach as long as I’m with you.”

“Maybe."

We continued to scan the empty road, unsettled by the stillness and the lack of tourists, the lack of Noel. I tried to fill up my anxiety with chatter. “They used to regularly flush the streets in order to rid it of waste and stuff, which is another reason for the stepping stones.” I narrowed my eyes. “So am I seeing things or did a shadow move beside that arch up ahead?”

Peaches turned. “I didn’t see anything. I’ll check it out. You stay put. Stand right in the middle of the street—right there—” she pointed “—and I’ll be back in a sec.”

I took out my phone, flicking it onto my stun app while also engaging the perimeter alert. Shielding my eyes against the glare, I watched Peaches slip against the wall and duck out of sight.

Seconds turned to minutes. I watched the long shadows stretch across the street as the sun sank lower in the sky, wondering whether those long ago Pompeians watched the same shadows while waiting, maybe for their horse to be shod or something.

But soon I grew uneasy. “Peaches?” I called. No answer. Nothing lay in my view but a deserted street. I was just about to follow her toward the gate when my parameter alert pinged at the same time a voice echoed inside the building to my right.

“Phoebe McCabe, I have something you want,” said a husky Italian-accented woman’s voice.

It was the blonde tourist striding from the shell of the ancient building, alone and smiling.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded, holding up my flashing phone.

“Your friend, or so I hope we will become,” she said. “Put down your phone if you want to see your boyfriend alive. Do not worry. Your friend is unharmed and waiting up ahead, and your team—you call them your team, yes?—they are all fine, too, just delayed.”

“What do you want?” I was alarmed, of course, but at least this one wasn’t holding a gun on me.

She stepped closer, all smooth tan and white teeth. By the lines around her mouth, I estimated her to be maybe in her early fifties. “To negotiate, no more. You have something I want or can obtain, and I have something you want.” She held up her iPad showing a live feed of Evan lying on a narrow bed with a compress or something on his forehead.

“He was hurt but I have had a doctor take care of him. He is resting now and will be fine.”

I stifled a cry and made to grab the tablet. She pulled it back. “First, disarm your phone.”

As soon as I did that and shoved it into my pocket, she passed me the tablet. I stood gazing down at the man I loved, wanting to speak to him so badly my heart ached. “What did you do to him?” I demanded.

“Nothing. Halloran beat him but we rescued him and now keep him safe.”

“Take me to him!” I demanded.

“First we talk.”

“Why can’t he open his eyes?” By that time I just wanted to scream.

“Because he is resting,” she said softly. “He will be fine. It is not my intent to hurt him or you, Phoebe. I want only to talk, you and me, woman to woman. If you come with me now, we will go to a private place to parley and then I will release you, unharmed. This I promise.”

“And Evan?”

“He must remain in my care until he is well enough to travel. Noel had him beaten while he was unconscious—the coward. I keep him for now but he will not be harmed further. You see, he is very comfortable.”

“Why should I believe you?” I looked over at her, all smiles, her hair pulled back into a roll at the base of her neck.

She gently took the tablet from my hands. “Because I am not like the others, the idiot men. I do not like violence for violence’s sake and prefer to do things my own way just as do you, but I am not stupid, either. You will come with me because if you do not I must take other measures. I am sorry but this is how it must be.”

Tapping the tablet, she turned the screen toward me so I could see the guy sitting on a stool beside a barred door, one hand holding a gun. “He waits outside the room where I hold Evan.”

“You would have him shot?” I demanded, suddenly wanting to singe her tanned limbs until she looked like a barbecued potato.

“Only in the foot at first, later in the knee, and maybe move upward from there, though that would be a shame. Please do not make me do this. Come with me quietly. Order your friends to back away. Text them now, then drop the phone to the ground and follow me.”

She walked a few paces away. I stood frozen to the spot, twisting with indecision, burning with fury.

She turned. “Come, Phoebe. I don’t expect you to trust me yet, but if you are as gifted as they say, then you know that I speak the truth. I will not hurt you or Evan if you come with me. All of your questions will be answered truthfully and you will be delivered back to your hotel tonight once we reach an agreement.”

“What about Evan?” I needed to go to him so badly it was like a physical pain in my gut.

“I hold Evan until the deal is completed, I said.”

“Deal?”

“We will strike a deal, yes.”

Without deliberating further, I pulled out my phone and tapped out a group message telling everyone to stay away when they saw me exiting the gates, that I was working to find Evan, and they must not interfere. They were not to follow me, either.

“They’ll track you,” I told her as I placed my phone on the cobbles.

“They will try. Quick now before the gates close.”

CHAPTER 12

Together we strode out of the gates of Pompeii as though we were friends discussing life. I held up my hands for Rupert, Zann, and Nicolina to stay back while glaring at Seraphina not to use whatever weapon she seemed be holding under her jacket.

“I see that you prefer flats. I do not like high heels, either,” the woman was saying. “Give me low heels any day so I can run, jump, move. A woman should not be imprisoned.”

“Neither should a man,” I told her.

She laughed. “I refer to being imprisoned by society’s concept of female sexuality but I agree.”

I turned to see Peaches running up to the gate holding both my phone and hers. I shook my head. Stay back! I mouthed. She remained riveted to the spot, eyes screaming fury.

“I don’t even know your name,” I said as she led me toward a silver Ferrari idling across the road.

“My name is Sofonisba but everyone calls me Sonny.”

“Sofonisba as in Auguissola, the famous painter?”

“Exactly. You might say that my parents were art lovers, especially my father.”

I climbed into the back seat beside another good-looking, well-dressed man, who grinned and saluted me. Sonny climbed into the front beside the driver, the companion I’d seen earlier. The car was heavily scented with the olfactory punch of men’s cologne and perfume, the expensive multi-nuanced kind. I watched my friends running up to the sidewalk behind me as the car pulled away, my heart aching and every inch of me bouncing back and forth between fear and anger.

“So are you part of Noel’s ‘Brutus’ crew?” I asked as we negotiated the streets, twisting and turning toward the bay. Ahead the sun was sinking into the horizon, turning everything gold-tinged deep fiery orange.

“Does he speak in those terms? But of course he does. Fool! He sees everything in fairy tales and literary references because once upon a time he actually read a book or two. But he is more my Brutus than I am his if he uses the term to mean that I betrayed him. I only claim what is mine. Isn’t that right, boys?”

The boys laughed and nodded, the one beside me saying in Italian something to the effect that Noel would get exactly what he deserved.

“Where is Noel, anyway?” I asked, sensing that the men were primed to agree with anything Sonny said.

“In jail where he belongs, only I would prefer him dead,” she replied. She flipped up her sunglasses and turned around to me with a brilliant smile. Coral lips, thickly mascaraed lashes.

“The police picked him up that night at the Colosseum?”

“Yes, but how long they will hold him is another matter. No doubt he will have some story and grease the palm of someone high up in the government to secure his release. The old-boys network is very alive in Italy as in anywhere and money always talks loudest. Unfortunately, Noel has many connections.”

“But he’s an international art thief wanted by Interpol.”

“Who has a new identity and tidy alibis for all the crimes he is accused of.”

“But he killed a man that night,” I said through my teeth as I leaned forward. “Shot him in the head.”

Sonny lowered her sunglasses and faced the front again. “My brother, Alessandro. That is who he shot.”

“Oh.” I sat back in my seat. What do you say to the sister of the dead man who tried to kill you? “I’m sorry for your loss. Were you and Alessandro working together?” Okay, so not the most sensitive question for the moment.

She waved her hand for me to stop talking.

“We speak more later,” the driver said. “For now, enjoy the ride.”

Yes, enjoy my kidnapping ride, but I kept quiet after that, listening to Sonny sobbing softly as the car pulled into a gated marina. Confusing. So, Sonny and Alessandro had been working against or with Noel? And could Noel seriously escape the police so easily? And where the hell were they taking me?

As we moved from the car to a speedboat, I couldn’t wait to get my answers, though I had so many by that time that I hardly knew where to begin. “How did you know where Noel was keeping Evan?” I asked, pitching my voice over the engine as the boat zipped across the waves. We were in the Bay of Naples and for once the beauty around me didn’t absorb my attention.

Sonny appeared to have recovered as she leaned back against the leather seats, apparently savoring the view. Laugh lines and creases grooved around her mouth and the corners of her eyes. “Because he told me,” she laughed. “He told me everything, thinks that I am smitten with him like all women, like you were. Noel is a narcissist, yes?”

I couldn’t agree more. “Totally. So you sent me the Pompeii postcard this morning, not him?”

“Yes. I knew that he sends you messages through the postcards. I also know that Livia had a villa in Pompeii but he did not know that until I told him. My mistake. Still, I did not tell him everything. His vanity marks him an easy man to fool.”

“But how did you know that I knew about Pompeii?”

“We were able to hack into one of your computers.”

“That was you? But our system is practically unhackable!” I exclaimed.

“So you think. Ah, here we are.”

I racked my brain thinking of how they could have broken Evan’s firewalls, but finally decided that without Evan to monitor our technical defenses, we were all vulnerable.

Attempts at conversation ceased as we pulled up to a large yacht moored in the bay, one of many luxury craft rocking at anchor there. I turned to glimpse Mount Vesuvius far in the distance, thinking of it as a symbol of brooding danger and impending death.

Seconds later, I ignored the hand a uniformed man offered and climbed up the steel ladder unassisted. By now I was more intrigued than worried. I needed to know more about this woman who had apparently foiled Noel and to get Evan back any way necessary.

Inside, the yacht was as magnificently appointed as I would have expected but I was less interested in the sweeping views, glossy marble surfaces, and deep leather everything else than I was about the art. There were paintings on every single wall, including one by Sofonisba Auguissola, a painting of her sisters playing a board game in a garden, a favorite subject in her early years. I recognized the other art pieces but not that particular one. It was a completely new painting to me, though the artist was unmistakable. “Is that—?”

“It was a twenty-first birthday present from my father and one I cannot bear to part with, though I know it is worth millions. That one is a copy, of course. The original is safe elsewhere.”

“I’ve never even seen this piece before,” I marveled. “It’s fabulous!” I swung around. “But the original belongs in a gallery.” The other reproductions were equally stunning. I recognized the Botticelli portrait on one wall was safe in the Uffizi because I had more or less put it there two years earlier. Now I was beginning to understand. “Is this your father’s trophy wall?”

Sonny laughed. “In a way, yes. He either owned or coveted the original of every one of these pieces."

She had taken a seat at a table, a sinuous current of white marble flowing in and around padded chairs down the length of the cabin. For the first time, I noticed that a lavish buffet had been set out with silver serving trays warming over burners, oysters and other seafood heaped onto crushed ice, cheeses and finger foods. “Come join me,” she said. “We will talk over a meal, the best way to strike a deal, no?”

I stepped toward the table. “Your father gave you a painting by your namesake Auguissola for your birthday; you want to discuss me finding Cleopatra’s jewels in exchange for Evan’s freedom; you usurped Noel’s plan; and one of those paintings over there I helped repatriate. I’m beginning to get the picture—no pun intended. You are Alesso Baldi’s daughter, the late arms dealer who’s career I helped end in Florence.”

“Ah,” she said with a sad smile. “So you make the connection. Yes, I am Sofonisba Baldi, but I am sure when you met him, my father did not mention that he had a daughter.”

“We didn’t exactly discuss family life. When I saw him, it was under circumstances not unlike these. I was being held hostage while your father sought a priceless Renaissance masterpiece through my efforts—the original of that one there. Little did I know at the time that Noel was working in the background or that he would step into your father’s shoes after his death.”

“But that was not the last time you saw my father. You last saw him on that Florentine roof, yes?” Her tone was questing, sharp but not bitterly so. “You had that Botticelli and Papa wanted you to give it to him.”

“Yes. That’s where he fell to his death. I’m not responsible for that, by the way, but if I had been, I wouldn’t apologize since he was trying to kill me at the time.”

Sonny nodded. She had lit a cigarette and sat gazing into space. “Yes, and he would have done, too, had he caught you. My brother held you responsible, of course, but I knew you were not to blame.” She gazed out the windows.

“Your brother tried to kill me, too. It’s safe to say that I don’t feel all warm and cuddly about the Baldi family.”

That provoked another sad smile. “I am certain that is true but you are now meeting the new leader of the Baldi family. My father was the agent of his own demise, an obsessive man who wanted more and more, a greedy man like the emperors he aspired to, always after the next conquest.” She sighed, blowing a plume of smoke toward the bay. “I think sometimes that all this power and money makes these men crazy.”

“I recall his Roman legion playacting.”

“All these greedy men!” She lifted one hand to the sky in disgust. “My brother also, though he did not possess the skills to run the organization and Papa knew this. He refused to appoint Alessandro as his successor. He gave that honor to Noel Halloran and that decision has torn this family apart ever since. Now it has also cost my brother’s life.”

“Because your brother resented Noel and was determined to run the organization himself? Is that why he and his goons chased me into the Colosseum, because he planned to beat Noel at the game?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you in all that?”

“Nowhere,” she said definitively, turning a frank, steady gaze toward me. “I did not agree with that approach but, of course, Sandro never listened to me. He said I was too soft. He thought me good only for getting information out of Noel, for playing on the man’s many weaknesses with sexual favors, which I did, though it turned my stomach.” She shrugged. “All the time I study, I watch, gather information. I played the good girl all my life while waiting for my moment to take command.”

“Much like Livia,” I said, stepping toward her, “only the empress never openly ruled Rome.”

If possible, her smile widened, a smile that dazzled. “There are many ways that we women survive surrounded by powerful men, am I right? Sometimes, we simply allow them to self-destruct.” She picked up one of the shells that fanned over the mountain of crushed ice and slid an oyster into her mouth. I watched her swallow, taking her time to savor every second. “Oh, delicious. Try one."

“So you bided your time,” I said, dropping into one of the plump leather chairs.

“So I waited for my opportunity because I knew my brother and Noel would likely kill one another before this is done.” The word kill came with a throat-slitting action. “Now the waiting is over. One is gone and the other I will watch be swallowed by his mistakes. Noel still has his supporters, true, but I will win them over to my side with the necessary incentives. Besides, Noel has lost his—what do you say—his marbles?” She dropped her empty shell onto a plate and tapped the table with one long red nail.

I nodded, waving the smoke away. “Do you mind?”

“I apologize. You do not smoke.” She ground the cigarette out in an empty shell. “There.”

“Thank you. How many minions remain in Noel’s camp?” I asked. Though I didn’t want to like her, I did.

“Only the ones who will not work for women even if the woman treats them better than the man. Such stupidity, these men and their machismo.”

“And how do you plan to win those knuckleheads over?”

She rubbed her fingers together. “The old-fashioned way: I will offer them more money, and if they do not take it—” she shrugged “—then I dream up their severance package. Enough talk for now. Eat and then we will talk more business after.”

I chose a chilled oyster sprinkled with herbs nestled in a shell. In a moment I had popped it into my mouth, savoring the complex mix of flavors that excited my tongue as it slithered down my throat. The unexpected can be such a thrill. “Why couldn’t you claim the organization outright? Didn’t you have as much right to it as Alessandro and certainly more than Noel, your father’s antiquated rules of succession notwithstanding?”

“Ah, but the antiquated rules of succession are always standing. I am a woman,” she said, turning her mascaraed eyes toward me. “I belong nowhere but as a beloved daughter, sister, and wife according to the old school. My men believed that important positions must always go to a man.”

“Has nothing changed in thousands of years?”

“Not for my father, who idolized Roman emperors. I spent my life trying to prove my worth but still I was overlooked, even after Papa decided that Alessandro did not have the temperament—too impulsive, too immature, too totally unsuitable. But I had the necessary abilities plus I study history and speak many languages, making me even more valuable.” She tapped her skull. “And yet Papa still refused to consider me.”

“He really did follow the ancient Roman rule book, didn’t he? I remember how he gave his minions titles straight out of a circa 50 BC theme park.”

“Sad, isn’t it?” Sonny said. “The games these men play. I loved my father and my brother, too, but it is time that women rule the world.” She held my gaze.

“So rather than a man coercing me into stealing precious objects on his behalf, a woman taking the reins somehow makes it all better?” I devoured another oyster.

Sonny laughed her fully throaty chuckle. “Not quite, Phoebe. The difference is that I will deal fairly without unnecessary brutality. Besides, nothing you do will stop corruption no matter how high a horse you ride. I suggest a way to make things better for both our positions.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “You suggest that your style of corruption will somehow improve my goal to return art and antiquities to their rightful owners or to museums and galleries?’

“I do. The key to successful negotiation is to ensure that both parties walk away with something they want. In this case I want Cleopatra’s jewels and so do you but you also want Evan. This lays the foundation for a long-term arrangement.”

My next oyster paused halfway to my lips. “God, don’t tell me that you plan on holding Evan indefinitely?”

“No, of course not!” She flipped open one of the silver serving dishes and scooped out a bit of what looked to be fresh hand-rolled tortellini onto a plate, adding a little mixed salad, and roasted vegetables from another charger before extending the plate to me. I took it. “He is not so easy to hold, though I am certain you have no trouble. No, I plan to strike a deal with you, one I think you may find quite interesting. Now eat. Then we talk further.”

So I ate, the food delicious, my mind churning with every bite while the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the twinkling lights of the coastal towns sparkled in the distance. Sonny was not my typical adversary. For one thing, she was sane or, at least, not delusional but no less dangerous. She still held the man I loved captive and what she wanted ran contrary to everything I believed in.

We were just finishing up our fresh fruit dessert when the driver of the car popped his head into the cabin and asked a question I didn’t catch. I had seen him and several other men striding by on the deck outside but nobody but the occasional white uniformed server had entered. Sonny waved him away.

“Your husband?” I asked.

“Luca? No, I don’t have a husband or need one. Luca is what you might call a boyfriend. Though not as interesting as yours, he’s certainly useful and enjoyable in other ways.” She gazed at me slyly. “Your Evan is very handsome and smart, too, a worthy partner. Had I such a man maybe I would reconsider.”

I stared at her.

“Oh,” she laughed, flapping her hand. “Do not worry. I will not steal him from you. I believe in honor among women. Hands off another’s man.”

“Unless you kidnap him and lock him up in a room somewhere, at which point I presume it’s all hands on,” I remarked.

That prompted another whoop of laughter. “I didn’t kidnap him, Phoebe, I rescued him. If you only saw where Noel had been keeping him and under what conditions, you would thank me. Noel hates your Evan and would use any excuse to see him die a horrible death. Often he would tell me of the ways he planned to end his life. Castration while you watch was mentioned. But first, he said, he would win back your heart.”

“He really believes that I would love a man who tortured another to death?”

“Noel is loco.” Her index finger stirred the air next to her head. “I think when you tasered him, it scrambled the circuits in his brain.”

“Maybe. So, where are you keeping Evan?” I gazed around the cabin, hoping against hope that he might be somewhere nearby.

“Not here,” she told me. “I am not so foolish. I have him secured where neither you nor your team would ever find him. There he stays for me to admire on my monitors until our deal is complete.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Let me see him again.”

“Soon.”

“You want me to find Cleopatra’s jewels.”

“Yes. My father talked often about the marvelous Phoebe McCabe and how she had this uncanny ability to locate ancient treasures. Noel, also, spoke of you often, though in a much different way. When a man speaks of another woman when he’s in your bed, you pay attention. In my case, I encouraged this talk because I wanted to learn everything I could about my new partner-to-be.”

“I’m never going to be your partner,” I told her.

“You haven’t heard my deal.”

“I doubt anything will make me change my mind.”

“We will see, but let us begin by establishing trust between us, Phoebe. This is the first part of my proposal: you will enter Pompeii tonight and locate Livia’s villa.”

“What’s the second part?”

“That I tell you later. First the jewels.”

“Just like that. How do you know the cache even exists?”

“Through research, of course. One thing I have in common with my father is a passionate interest in Roman history, all history. He amassed a library of original scrolls, letters, and documents from ancient sources, most stolen, of course. He could not read them. That he left to me. I have degrees in art and history, speak many languages, and read both ancient Greek and Latin. It is through a private letter by Livia to Carola Publius, a Vestal Virgin during the reign of Augustus, that I first learned of the plot that would span generations. The Vestals were entrusted with Cleopatra’s jewels for a purpose. They wanted to see a woman someday rule Rome.”

That stunned me. “Rule Rome how?”

“They believed that Cleopatra’s jewels would ensure the training and preparation for a select young girl to become the wife of a powerful man who would one day become emperor. They trained her to rule behind the scenes much like Livia had. She was to be the power behind the throne. To that end, the Vestals kept the jewels in trust and worked behind the scenes to ensure their plan. The Empress Livia was behind it all. It was she who gave the villa in Pompeii to the Vestals.”

“Isn’t that unusual, leaving valuable property to another group rather than to your own family?” I asked, intrigued despite myself.

“Yes and no. When you were Livia, you made things happen, and as this gift of property was to the Vestals and she their benefactor, it was acceptable. The Vestal Virgins held more property and power than any other group of females in Roman society.”

“So the Vestals owned a villa in Pompeii where they nurtured this young woman?”

“Yes. Letters passed secretly from Livia to the Vestals until Livia’s death and, true to their word, the priestesses carried on the trust in the years afterward. By AD 70, the villa was in possession of a retired Vestal named Flora, who was the guardian of a girl they groomed to become the wife of the Emperor Titus.”

My brain scrambled through bits of Roman history. “But didn’t Titus have a wife, Arrecina…?”

“Arrecina Tertulla, yes, but this was the age of expedient executions. They no doubt planned to ensure Arrecina’s demise so that this anointed young woman would assume her place at the emperor’s side. They believed they had the power to make Titus fall in love with this woman.”

I stared, baffled. “Livia trusted a fortune in jewels to the Vestals to put another woman in power after her death? Surely they didn’t believe it could be so easy?”

“Faith is a powerful thing,” she said softly. “Once we forge it, nothing less than a cataclysmic disaster can shake its foundations. Yes, Livia wanted to see another woman—a trained, educated, shrewd woman—take the reins in Rome much as she had with Augustus. She believed that Cleopatra’s jewels contained that power.”

“The diadem, you mean.” I said it with conviction. Did she really think she could hide that piece if critical information from me?

Sonny’s expression hardened ever so slightly. “The last keeper of this mission was named Flora,” she said hurriedly. “Now, tell me, Phoebe, have you sensed Flora with your second sight?”

I met the eyes watching me with a calm, searching intensity.

“You think you know a lot about me, don’t you?”

“I know that your gifts are strengthening. Am I right?"

“Perhaps. I have felt things, it’s true.” Why not tell her since she apparently knew so much already? “There was a woman trying to retrieve something as Mount Vesuvius blew. I briefly felt her fear. It was horrible.”

“It would be.” Sonny reached across the table to grip my hand. It took me so much by surprise that all I could do was stare down at her long nails. “You have the true gift, Phoebe, and share the same passion for history as I do. Please understand, I want to know this woman and to touch the same jewels that Cleopatra and Livia held in their hands. Do you understand this? It is not all about the lust for riches. I have that also, I cannot deny it, but I want to know those that came before me even more. I want to connect with the past. If we work together, you will have access to a history you never knew existed. I would open the doors and you would enter and find the souls that once lived there.”

I swallowed and tugged back my hand. “Let me see Evan again. Now.”

Without further ado, she retrieved her tablet from the chair beside her and tapped the screen. Propping up the stand, she turned the iPad around. “There is nothing much to see but a sleeping man. I will watch you watch him.”

I pulled the tablet toward me to gaze at Evan, who did appear to be sleeping. His head had changed position from the last time I’d seen him but I could tell was breathing steadily. Both arms lay on the blankets and it looked as though a splint had been applied to his right index finger. The gray stone wall behind him was bare, with no distinguishing features. “What are his injuries?”

“He’d been drugged and beaten, which has left him bruised but with no apparent lasting damages other than a broken finger and a cracked rib. The worst damage was through the drugs.”

“Can he hear me?” I asked.

“Perhaps. Press the microphone icon and try.”

My finger pressed the icon. “Evan, Evan, can you hear me?”

A light movement of his head and briefly his eyes fluttered open. “Phoebe?” he murmured.

“Evan!” I thought I might do something idiotic and cry.

“Are you safe?” he whispered.

Just like him to think more about me than himself. “I am fine,” I told him, studying the two-day-old beard, the grooves beneath those beloved bruised eyes, and wanting to touch him with so much need. “How do you feel?”

“Tired.” He could not see me, I realized, and could only hear my voice. “Don’t give in to their…demands. What…happened to Halloran?”

“In jail but we don’t know for how long.”

“Where…are you?”

I glanced at Sonny. “On a yacht in the Bay of Naples, special guest of one Sofonisba Baldi, Alesso Baldi’s daughter.”

Evan appeared to have fallen under again. “Damn! What have you given him that makes him so tired?” I demanded.

“Painkillers,” she said. “You have seen enough.”

I touched the screen with my fingertips. “I’ll do what I have to do to get you back. Trust me to know what that will take,” I said quietly, trying to sink myself body and soul into the screen to feel his arms around me. “Anyway, stop telling me what to do. You know that never works. I love you, that’s all you need to know.”

Sonny retrieved the tablet, leaving me aching with words left unsaid. “That’s enough,” she said before flicking the screen off. “This is all very touching and I do love romance but I have done as you asked. Now it is time for you to do your part. I will tell you the second half of my deal: if you find Cleopatra’s jewels for me, not only will Evan walk away a free man but I will give you half of whatever you find.”

I stared, stunned. “You’re offering me half of whatever I find?”

Sonny flicked her hand impatiently. “You are not listening: you will have half of that cache for your museums and art galleries. I only want the diadem and a few choice pieces. I do this as a gesture of trust and to prove to you the value of an extended partnership. If you work with me, you will retrieve more treasures than you ever could find without me.”

“Because you’re operating illegally,” I pointed out.

“Is it not better to have some priceless lost antiquities than none at all? You will not find them without me, Phoebe. I know of treasures you don’t even realize exist. Think about it. Either way, tonight, you will enter Pompeii and find me Cleopatra’s jewels. Flora is waiting to show you the way.”

CHAPTER 13

They dropped me off outside our hotel at approximately ten p.m., leaving me less than an hour to get ready for the night’s operation. Peaches had been pacing outside when she bounded up to me.

“Phoebe!” she called, throwing her arms around my shoulders. “Thank God you’re all right! Who the hell are those bastards? What’s going on?”

I told her, told them all in more detail later in the hotel room, explaining the torturous family dynamics of the family Baldi, and where that put us on our quest to find Evan.

“Did you get a sense of where they were holding the lad?” Rupert asked.

“No,” I told him, “only that he was being much better treated than when he was held hostage by Noel. Sonny told me that the bastard had kept him drugged and bound in some abandoned basement in Naples. Once she mobilized her takeover plan, she claimed that it was relatively easy to break Evan free and take him to this new location. He was in rough shape, though, she said, unconscious at that point. He was still groggy.”

“So Sonofabitchi Baldi acted on her takeover plan following her brother’s death and Noel’s incarceration?” Peaches asked.

“That’s it in a nutshell.” I then explained how Noel ended up on the senior Baldi’s succession plan against both siblings.

“Because a woman could not inherit the dynasty,” Nicolina said.

“Straight out of the history of the Roman empire,” Rupert remarked.

“Straight out of the history of mankind, which has always neglected women’s leadership. It is very much like my own family,” Nicolina remarked. “Your English term mankind says it all."

“Only in your case, dear Nicolina,” Rupert began, “you convinced your brother otherwise and regained your share of your inheritance, whereas, if my memory serves me correctly, the emperors and empresses of yore preferred poisoning their siblings in order to settle matters of inheritance.”

Nicolina smiled. “I might have shot my brother if he had not come to his senses. Even Cleopatra saw to her siblings’ demise.”

“But only to keep them from killing her first,” I commented. “Anyway, Sonny, as she insists I call her, prefers attrition by natural selection: let the strongest survive, in other words. Though Noel has not yet been removed permanently from the picture, when he shot Alessandro Baldi and ended up in jail, he essentially opened the path for Sonny’s takeover.”

“On that point,” said Rupert, clearing his throat, “I have made a few discreet phone calls to my Interpol sources but they assure me that they have no man fitting Noel’s description in Italian custody.”

“But he looks exactly like his old self and was caught red-handed in the Colosseum with a dead man,” I protested.

“Yes, but I could not very well disclose our knowledge of those events, and apparently the man in custody did not waver from his statement that three armed men and one woman chased him into the Colosseum to rob him and that one hapless male victim was killed after an argument erupted among his companion thieves as to who would claim the Rolex watch from Noel’s wrist.”

“Attempted robbery, seriously?” Zann asked.

“Seriously enough,” said Rupert. “Halloran now operates under the name Peter Buck, a British financial adviser and investor, and the dead man's identification named him as a poor refugee from Sarajevo. Evidently, those were the aliases the Baldi cutthroats used for the night’s adventures.”

“I don’t believe it,” Peaches said, shaking her head. “These bastards can cover their tracks better than a nest of pit vipers in the jungle and have the gall to muddy the reputation of refugees everywhere.”

“Can you pull any strings to keep Noel in jail?” I asked Rupert.

Rupert sighed. “Sadly, no. Being no longer among Interpol’s inner ranks, I have little influence. That has become Evan’s sole domain within our agency and I regret to say that most of my old contacts have now retired.”

“What about Agent Sam Walker, my old contact in London?”

“Now promoted and no longer at the end of a phone.”

“So, one way other, we still end up in the same place,” I said. “Sonny has taken over from Noel and plays a different game, or should I say, the same game with a different approach. We are working for her now.”

“Shit, no!” was Peaches initial response. “We’re not going to work hand in hand with a wolf in ewe’s clothing! Are you seriously planning to go in there tonight with her and those henchmen?”

“Yes,” I said, “and I need all of you with me. That’s the plan: we work as a team, me to locate Livia’s villa through Flora and they to excavate where necessary to reach the hoard.”

“No,” Zann protested. “That’s archaeological sacrilege! What if they destroy valuable historical artifacts getting to the hidden stash?”

“Good point, but maybe with our tools—X-rays and ground-penetrating radar apps—we can locate the treasure with a minimum of disturbance of the surrounding area,” I said. I knew better than that, of course, but I clung to wishful thinking.

“That’s nuts!” complained Zann. “Of course there will be damages and something will inevitably be destroyed.”

“Something will inevitably be destroyed if we do not cooperate,” said Rupert, sitting with his hands clasped on the room’s only table. “Evan, to be exact, our team member and—” his voice hitched “—my son. We have little choice in this matter but to proceed on Sofonisba’s terms. Is it so very different from Noel’s initial demands?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I believe Sonny partly tells the truth, Noel only lies.”

“An honest thief?” Peaches demanded.

I took a deep breath. “When she said that Evan would be released if we comply with her terms, I believed her. Noel wanted him killed one way or the other. She claims to want my cooperation long-term, whatever that means.” I looked up and met their gazes one by one. “Please, trust me in this. Tonight we do what must be done in order to free Evan. After that, we can worry about the consequences. None of our options are great, either way.”

“You know I’ll follow you to the moon and back, woman, but just for the record, I protest to everything we’re going to do tonight,” Peaches said, standing ramrod straight in the center of the room.

“Me, too,” said Zann.

“I also,” said Seraphina, thumbing her chest.

Nicolina continued to sit in one of the chairs, gazing serenely at some unfocused point on the opposite wall. “We do what we must to save those we care about because, in the end, we must always put the living before the dead. I am with Phoebe.”

“Amen,” whispered Rupert.

That silenced everyone. I shot her a grateful look.

“So what’s the plan?” Peaches asked with a gusty sigh.

“We enter Pompeii at eleven p.m. Sonny has arranged something with the security guards—a substantial donation to their retirement fund, she calls it. We enter at the east end of the complex, which is hidden from the road, using an access gate known only to employees, after which I am to roam around the town until I can feel Flora.”

“Do you expect it to be that easy?” Zann asked.

“Of course not. I don’t expect anything to be easy. For one thing, I can’t guarantee that I’ll have an event. They seem to come randomly or, at least, I can’t figure out the process yet. Still, I’ll put one foot after the other to move myself forward as must all of you.” I stood up. “Let’s get ready.”

It was agreed that Rupert would remain behind to coordinate our work though his laptop. The rest of us galvanized as a team, reviewing whatever apps and associated tools we had to work with. Evan had always been our leader in this area. Without him, it was excruciatingly difficult in more ways than one.

“Are you seriously wearing that tonight?” Peaches asked as we readied for the night’s events.

I gazed down at my black leggings and black tank top with the black jacket over all. “What’s wrong with this?”

“You need leather pants,” she pointed out.

“I do not need leather pants,” I laughed. “I need a miracle.”

One of the riskiest parts of the whole night’s enterprise was having my team work cooperatively with Sonny’s. We were to meet outside the designated area near the Porta Vesuvio and then proceed deeper into the ancient town to work out next steps. Her people were to guard the facility against interference as well as to provide whatever grunt work would be necessary once Livia’s villa was located. We were assured that we would be sheltered behind the buildings and high walls, meaning that all of our efforts inside Pompeii were secure. I didn’t believe any of that but I was committed to going forward.

“I don’t like this,” Peaches whispered as we officially met the six worker bees Sonny had brought, including men with shovels and axes.

“Neither do I,” I responded, “but let’s just get through it.”

Sonny was as cheerful as if we were two families co-planning an outing. “Where do you think we should start?” she asked, shining her flashlight down upon a reproduction of an ancient map of Pompeii circa AD 60. She seemed excited yet distracted. “Hey, Luca, you stay with me. The others fan out with Phoebe’s crew,” she added in Italian. Luca seemed bent on charming Nicolina, who stood regarding him skeptically, but he tore himself away and returned to Sonny’s side.

“I have no idea where to start,” I said, gazing down at the map, keeping one eye on my team. I desperately needed everybody to get along and avoid any fits of temper the evening might provoke. Seraphina looked to be spoiling for a fight and, for once, Peaches would probably take her side. “Where did you get this map?”

“It was in my father’s collection, now in my collection. I told you I have many original resources.” Tonight Sonny was dressed in black stretch leggings and a black hoodie blending in with the evening’s noir color scheme. Every strand of her blond hair had been lucked under a kind of black skull cap yet her makeup appeared to be applied as if she was attending a party.

“You see how all the villas are marked.” She tapped the photocopy with one long nail. “Only they do not tell you who owned what or lived where except for a few cases where I have written in the modern names for them—Villa of Mysteries, Casa di Marco Lucrezio. This is typical because in those days everyone knew where everyone lived.”

“In that case, it’s probably best if I just walk and see if I can feel anything,” I said.

She looked at me. “Is that how it works?”

“Sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?”

“Only sometimes.” I studied the map. “We know a villa wouldn’t likely be on the Street of Tombs, or at the gladiator barracks, or the theater, but what are these big unlabeled rectangles here and here on the—” I shone my phone light onto the map “—Via Slabiana?”

“Possibly villas yet to be fully excavated. It could be any one of those.”

“Then I’ll start there.”

“I will follow you.”

“So will I,” Peaches said, stepping forward.

Sonny looked way up at Peaches, taking in the warrior stance, the grim expression. She turned to me. “You have your own gladiator?”

“Her real gladiator is in captivity, thanks to you,” said Peaches between her teeth.

Sonny returned her gaze to Peaches. “I consider Evan to be more my guest than my captive. Now he eats well, much better than when Halloran held him. It is not necessary for you to come with us. Phoebe is well-protected.”

“By whom—you, the one who kidnapped her?”

“I did not kidnap her. I asked her for lunch and we talked.”

“I’m coming. You don’t know what’s necessary to protect Phoebe. I do,” Peaches said. She stood with her hands on hips glaring at Sonny as if she were a rabid dog.

Sonny just kept gazing up. “And your name is?”

“Peaches and she’s my bodyguard as well as an engineer with a keen interest in ancient architecture. She comes, too,” I said.

“Fine.” Sonny threw up her hands and marched down the street. “Coming?” she called to us over her shoulder.

Peaches bounded up to her in two long strides and pointed to her heels. “You walk back there. Phoebe goes first, unless you say that you’re now the new superpower of lost things, in which case you don’t need to coerce us, after all.”

“Okay, okay,” the woman laughed. “I walk behind. Where do you walk?”

“Behind you to make sure nobody tries anything funny.” She shot a quick look over to the line of people studying us from the middle of the ancient street—our team on one side, Sonny's on the other. “Then, if Phoebe senses something, I’ll call my people, who will call your people and then they can all bring along the heavy equipment.”

“All right, all right. Look, I am walking behind Phoebe, see?” Sonny rolled her eyes as she passed me. Seconds later, Peaches was striding behind her and we all took off down the cobbled street.

Being in an ancient partially reconstructed city after dark was a strange sensation, especially once we’d turned the corner and the modern city lights were shielded from view. There were still spotlights and uplighting at regular intervals, which led me to believe that there were occasional special event nights or that the guards patrolled the full property under normal circumstances.

The lights made it challenging to imagine the streets after dark in ancient times, though I mentally swapped the electricity for braziers and torches, which helped. There might be parties and dinners held at the villas of the wealthy while the common folk plied the bars or worked the streets. Pompeii had been a vacation town and was likely active well into the wee hours of the morning, much like today.

As soon as I strode those streets, I expected something to stir within me but instead my brain was fixed on more pedestrian matters—the soft slap of Sonny’s and Peaches’s shoes on the cobbles, the whispered voices of the team echoing down the lanes, the faraway sound of a honking horn.

What would Flora have been thinking on the night that Vesuvius erupted? It happened in the evening but no one knows exactly at what time. The reports vary.

Flora, a trusted retired Vestal Virgin tasked with a critical mission which she may have even considered in some way sacred, lived here hoping to fulfill her task. I turned a corner and continued walking. Flora, speak to me.

“Getting anything yet?” Sonny asked.

“No,” I said crossly, “and I won’t either if you interrupt me.”

“Okay, okay. I keep quiet.”

But that made no difference. I was distracted and the only sounds that penetrated my mind were footsteps and modern noises. Flora, if that’s who I had sensed the day before, remained locked in time.

And then Sonny’s phone rang.

“Well, damn!” Peaches cried. “Couldn’t you have put that thing on mute?”

“No, I could not!” snapped Sonny. “I am running a delicate operation here and must stay in contact with my team.”

“You could still mute the ringtone!”

But Sonny wasn’t listening. With her phone pressed to her ear, she turned her back and stepped onto the nearest curb where she spoke in rapid Italian.

I caught Peaches’s eye and shook my head. “This isn’t going to work,” I whispered.

“You’re telling me. Joining forces with Sonofabitchi Baldi was the worst possible idea.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I remarked.

“I know what you meant. Ditto for what you meant.” She added air dittos for effect.

Before we had a chance to comment further, Sonny had returned. “We have a problem. Noel has been released from prison in Rome.”

“Hell,” I said.

“Do not worry. I will take care of him. Now let’s get back to finding Flora before he figures out where we’ve gone.”

I shook my head. “That’s not happening, not tonight, anyway. Tonight’s efforts are over. We try again tomorrow and this time we do it my way.”

CHAPTER 14

“Now what?” Peaches asked when we had returned to the hotel. She hadn’t stopped pacing since we had arrived. Seraphina just sat glowering at me, arms crossed, as if I was solely responsible for our mess. And maybe she was right.

“We go to bed and try again tomorrow night,” I said. “I’m too weary and distracted to timewalk tonight. The same measures put in place to protect me also disturb my concentration so we’ve got to come up with a better plan. And this time, no one comes into Pompeii with me. I go in alone, as in solo. Everybody stays outside the gates until I signal you.”

“I meant now what about Noel, but since you’re on the topic, you seriously want to go into a deserted site by yourself with him on the loose?” Peaches demanded, swinging around. “Are you nuts?”

“Sonny assures me that she can take care of Noel, that she knows his patterns better than anybody.” I shrugged. “Anyway, what choice do we have? Without Interpol taking this seriously, our hands are tied. Why aren’t they taking this seriously?” I turned to Rupert.

“They are seeking Evan, of that much I am certain, but otherwise they refuse to provide details now that I am officially no longer in their employ.” Rupert looked exhausted. Worry was taking its toll.

“Anyway, tomorrow night I’ve got to get into Pompeii and timewalk with Flora if I’m ever going to find Livia’s cache and free Evan. We’ve just run out of time.”

“What if she can’t locate him, what if one of Noel’s minions is in contact with one of Sonny’s—a mole in ewe’s clothing?” Peaches demanded. She was fixed on those sheep analogies, for some reason. “Don’t look at me like that, Phoeb. I still have no intention of letting you go back a few centuries without me by your side. You almost blacked out when you sensed this Flora, if it even was Flora, the other day. Imagine if that had happened while you were away from us?”

“But I can't concentrate if you’re around,” I told her. “You know that. I don’t even know why that Pompeii thing even happened the way it did. It never has before when I’m not actually standing in an ancient site. Anyway, I need to regain that intensity somehow. Going in alone is the best chance I have. I can’t risk not having it work this time,” I protested. “It must. The stakes are getting too high. If Sonny knows Noel’s habits, then Noel must know hers, too. I figure it will take at least a couple of days for him to piece together where we’ve gone. We still have time.”

“Perhaps this is how it must be,” Nicolina said wearily. “We will keep the parameters well-guarded and Phoebe will have her phone with her at all times.”

I had considered putting it on Do Not Disturb, something I chose not to mention.

“That’s not enough,” growled Peaches.

“This Baldi woman doesn’t seem too happy about the plan, either,” Nicolina added.

“Nor me,” said Seraphina, stabbing her chest with her thumb. I was convinced that the woman’s fierce expression had solidified into a permanent scowl.

Rupert cleared his throat. “It is, indeed, a great concern that Noel is once again roaming free with the local constabulary clearly unaware of what a scourge has been let loose upon the world. While Evan was on the case, that cretinous cutthroat would never dare go about his despicable acts openly under his assumed alias—”

“The key,” I interrupted gently, “is to ensure that the cretinous cutthroat does not find out that we are targeting Pompeii before we locate the cache and free Evan. Noel also has a team of henchmen on his side, remember, though Sonny seems reluctant to tell me just how many Baldinos remained loyal to Noel.”

“Perhaps because her numbers are significantly lower than his,” Nicolina suggested. My thinking exactly.

“And yet Sonny did say that many centurions—I can hardly bear to use that term—remain loyal to the Baldi family, and once they learned that Noel had killed Alessandro Baldi, they were incensed.” I shrugged. “I guess that’s good news of a sort.”

Rupert stood and sighed. “In any event, let us go to bed and sleep deeply and well in preparation of tomorrow night’s continued strenuous adventures.”

Which we did, though I tossed and turned, my nerves frayed by anxiety so what sleep I got was limited despite my exhaustion.

* * *

The next day was spent in furious research. This time, I vowed to memorize the ancient map of Pompeii to avoid having to check my phone and risk disturbing my mental state while walking those ancient streets. Even Zann’s virtual tour of ancient Pompeii couldn’t dissuade me.

Sonny texted me every couple of hours with something like a progress report on her efforts to track Noel. Clearly there was a definite lack of progress on that end. Though she had appeared confident that she could easily nab him the night before, it seemed as though the chill light of day had cast a different light. Still, it seemed she didn’t fear him so much as found him an annoyance.

Meanwhile, Seraphina, Peaches, and Nicolina worked on identifying all the properties held by the Baldi family in hopes of locating a possible location where Sonny might be holding Evan. Presumably all those properties belonged to Sonny now.

The process turned out to be more arduous than expected. The late Alessandro Baldi alone held nearly fifteen properties spread all across Europe and the Mediterranean while Sonny held close to twelve in her own name that we could identify, including one hotel. Both siblings held villas in Naples, plus smaller houses on Lake Como, and Florence, for a start.

“It’s boggling,” Zann muttered, looking up from her laptop. “How rich did those bastards get? Who says crime doesn’t pay? I’m trying to identify which ones have been recently occupied but, like, it’s not clear at all.”

“I am doubtful that this line of inquiry will garner any fruit, any more than my efforts to trace Noel’s whereabouts,” Rupert remarked. “I regret to remind you that my previous contacts have simply disappeared.”

Both he and Peaches had been plying themselves with various teas in an effort to find one that provided stimulus without fraying the nerves. One preferred oolong, the other herbal. Somehow the tea question provided them some distraction. For me, it was a distraction I didn’t need.

I stared gloomily down at my tablet screen, mentally following one ancient street after another, barely paying attention. Part of me was fixed on Evan, imaging his face when I saw him last, thinking of how much he’d object to what I was about to do. He had always said that if ever he was captured, to never ever give in to the kidnappers’ demands. That might be MI6’s policy but it sure as hell wasn’t mine.

When finally the appointed hour rolled around that evening, we all felt more prepared than we had been the night before. My team delivered my instructions to me: I was not to let go of my phone for so much as a second; I was to report to them regularly—that’s me doing the reporting not one of them posting questions, comments, or sound clips—every twenty minutes; Peaches would enter the gates with me but would not approach or even keep me in her sights. Her presence was a security measure only. If I needed her, I’d signal and she’d bolt to my side.

Or that was the theory.

We arrived at the meeting place to find Sonny hunched over her phone. Seconds later, she turned to me. “We cannot pick up Noel’s trail. I have put more men on the Naples airport, sent others to watch all possible avenues that he may have taken, but don’t worry, we will capture him.”

“All roads?” Peaches demanded. “There must be hundreds. Don’t all roads lead to and from Rome?”

Sonny turned to me with a scowl. “Very humorous, this gladiator of yours. Keep her away from me or I lose my temper. I was about to say that not picking up on the bastard’s trail may be a good thing because it means he has not yet made his way to Pompeii.”

“I’ll take that as a positive,” I remarked, adjusting my black-on-black leather shadow ensemble. I’d take anything positive I could get.

“I have contributed to the guard retirement fund yet again this night. Phoebe, you must find Livia’s gold. This may be our last chance.” Sonny stood glaring at me.

“Don’t push her. That won’t help,” Peaches snarled. I sent her a warning look.

We were standing on the far end of Pompeii. On the other side of the fence stood the ancient stadium with the surrounding scrubby hills providing maximum privacy. Sonny had brought a smaller team of only four men this time, presumably because the others were off searching for Noel. Remembering Nicolina’s remark, I wondered how many people this Baldi sibling actually commanded.

“I’m going in alone without distractions following on my heels. The moment I sense something, I’ll message you. Where are the Pompeii guards?” I said.

“On the other side smoking cigarettes and counting their cash. Make sure you find the jewels tonight, Phoebe,” Lady Baldi ordered.

“I’ll intend to try,” I said.

“Try is not enough,” she said.

“What, do you think she’s some history-on-demand channel?” Peaches sniped. “She can’t just push the Play button.”

Sonny looked ready to erupt.

“Come on, Peach. Let’s get going.” I had to get her away from Sonny. Luckily, the rest of my team was spreading out around the ancient town’s parameters based on the theory that at least one of them would likely be only a shout away. The Baldinos, on the other hand, were posted at the main access points looking for interlopers and police patrols.

One of her men stood by the employees-only gate: Sonny’s sometimes boyfriend, Luca. He smiled and held the gate open for us, always the gentleman. “Have a good night, ladies,” he said in English.

“Call me a lady again and I’ll knock your teeth out,” Peaches murmured as we strode past.

I texted Rupert as we went: Going in now.

He was manning operation central back at the hotel while tuned in to the rest of the team. Seraphina had fixed five cameras at different points around the Pompeian gates which streamed into Rupert’s laptop. This was based on our policy never to trust anybody else’s security system when we can use our own.

Rupert: All quiet on all fronts, came the response.

Me: Good. I’ll contact you in about twenty minutes.

Behind us, the wire gate clicked shut. One more message popped on my screen. It was from Max: Just heard from Noel in Rome. Heading there now.

“No,” I whispered and texted a response: Please stay where you are. Your presence will only complicate things!

Why would Noel contact his father after all these years if not to use him against me? Damn. I didn’t have time to deal with that now.

“Well, that’s it,” Peaches muttered, not hearing me. She was gazing at Nicolina standing on the other side of the fence. “Sealed in time.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered, putting the phone away. I’d call Max later. “Given what happened in this town in AD 79, I don’t want to be sealed anywhere.”

“Gotcha. Do you really need the lights off, too?”

I had requested that all electrical lights be extinguished five minutes after I entered, not the most comforting idea but something I believed necessary. “Yes, we need the lights off. I should be well into the midst of the buildings before they flick the switch. I’d better get going.”

“Phoebe,” she whispered as I was just about to turn the first corner. “I could stay way back, not utter a word. You wouldn’t even know I was there. Let me watch your back.”

“No,” I insisted. “Stay there, Peaches. This is the only way I know to up my chances of having a timewalk event. It has to happen tonight.”

I heard her mutter, “Shit,” as I strode away.

Moments later I was strolling down the cobbled streets thinking of Flora coming to live in this town with the sole purpose of carrying on the protection of a stash of priceless jewels, Cleopatra’s jewels, while raising the next would-be queen.

Flora, in fact all of Vesta’s priestesses, must have been committed to Livia’s plan across the generations. Otherwise, why keep the jewels hidden, why not sell them or trade them for favors or whatever a Roman empress and mother of an emperor might do, or a retired Vestal Virgin, for that matter?

Livia had plotted her own succession plan. She believed that a man ruled better with a strong woman at his side, an adviser, a trusted partner. Maybe the emperor’s power could not transfer to a woman openly but Livia planned to pass the magic diadem to another wife, one who would work her powers of persuasion behind the scenes. With the help of Vesta’s priestesses, she planned to have this girl schooled in the art of behind-the-throne power plays. It was a brilliant if tenuous succession plan. The only thing fueling the conviction that it could happen was the belief in Cleopatra’s magic diadem.

I was just turning a corner onto another main thoroughfare when the lights went out. I froze, trying to adjust my eyes to the sudden darkness. Damn, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Above all else, I would not use my phone light until I knew where the cache lay. Artificial light would only spoil my concentration.

I squeezed my eyes shut and reopened them. Overhead the sky shone luminous like a sheet of deep blue enamel accented by a sprinkling of silver stars. A single burnished orb of a moon glowed off to the right. Tonight I needed that luminescence, the spotlight of the ancients.

Though the moon was waning, it still shone a strong clear light. Breathing deeply, I stilled my mind while fingering my Pythia key. I had to forget about modern technology and use the guiding light of the ancients. Standing perfectly still, I breathed steadily, filling my lungs with air. At first, it was still my rational brain that dominated.

Cleopatra’s diadem was the key offering made to Livia, the Egyptian queen claiming that it would bind any man to its wearer’s will. Certainly, Cleopatra appeared to have bound men to her will with Marc Antony, and Caesar, and perhaps it could be argued that Livia had, too, with a husband for whom she could not bear heirs. No wonder Livia believed the magic.

She must have considered the diadem to be a kind of love potion with benefits. What if the empress believed that this magic diadem secured her continued marriage to Augustus and that the object must be passed to another woman to help her rise to power, too? Such an anointed woman would have no trouble claiming the attentions of a powerful man. Could it really be that strong a belief to drive all these women forward?

Yes.

A current of something that felt very like electricity zipped down my spine. It was true, it was all true!

My phone pinged in my pocket. Annoyed, I pulled it out to read the message from Rupert: You have exceeded your twenty-minute check-in time. It is now twenty-five minutes since you entered Pompeii. Please send me a status report.

Me: I’ll be fine, Rupert. Please let me work in peace. I’m putting my phone into airplane mode but I’ll leave the perimeter alert engaged. Exchanging messages every twenty minutes is no better than having a crowd in tow. I’ll contact you as soon as I get some answers.

He wouldn’t like that but what choice did I have? Already the glimmer of insight had fractured. Now I had to start all over again.

I hesitated briefly. Had Evan said that the perimeter alert only functioned when Do Not Disturb was activated or when it was in airplane mode? I couldn’t remember. I mean, I’d never had to use the feature in combination with another before. Engaging Do Not Disturb took several steps and I only had time for one. I flicked on airplane mode and shoved it into my pocket.

Back to the beginning. One step after the other, I continued on my way but those tremors of connection had simply vanished. Damn. Damn. Damn!

Focus, Phoebe.

My mind plucked away at the original thread. Even if I now understood something of the power of Livia’s hidden cache and Flora’s conviction to guard its ultimate benefactor, I was no closer to understanding the where. The empress, her husband now gone and her son ruling from a villa in Capri, must have purchased this place in Pompeii secretly. Tiberius had been so incensed with his mother that he reportedly undid all the measures regarding women owning property when he came to power. If not for the sanctity of the Vestal Virgins, the villa would have passed to other hands long ago. But who was this treasured girl?

I turned another corner and entered a wider road, as in a dual chariot way. Augustus was a known womanizer, though not on the scale of Julius Caesar. Apparently, he had bedded the wives of his publican friends and highborn supporters. Maybe there had been a pregnancy along the way. Would one of those children have been marked by Livia as a powerful contender for a woman behind the throne?

No, I reasoned. Those children had parents and presumably any wise husband under the Emperor Augustus’s rule must have felt obligated to turn the other cheek, much as Livia had with her husband’s infidelities. Augustus demanded unblemished morals from his wife but not from himself—the eternal double standard.

I sighed. What other female contenders might have existed? Augustus had a daughter, Julia, from his first marriage and he forced Livia’s son, Tiberius, to divorce his existing wife to marry Julia to strengthen Tiberius’s succession rights. All accounts say that Tiberius had been happily married at the time, that he did not want to divorce a beloved wife and be saddled with the headstrong and rebellious Julia. Tiberius also was not particularly interested in being emperor. That was more his mother’s idea than his.

So where did that leave me? Nowhere. If it was true that Livia entrusted Cleopatra’s diadem to the Vestals to hold for another woman, that still didn’t tell me where the hiding spot was located. Yes, it was somewhere in Pompeii, but even had Pompeii still been intact and me living in that same era, it would be challenging to find. Now that it was buried under six feet of pumice and ash, where would I even begin to look? I had seen Flora inside her hiding spot but had no idea where that place was located. I needed to follow in her footsteps, I needed to—

Something like a skirmish sounded from far over the ancient streets. I paused, listening. What was happening? Footsteps, someone shouting. Shit!

I reached for my phone at the same time that someone knocked me to the right and another grabbed me around the arms while still another gagged me. I saw black-clad figures as silent as the dead. My phone dropped from my hands without switching into protection mode. A bag was pulled down over my head.

Gagged and bagged, I was thrown over somebody’s shoulder.

CHAPTER 15

It was almost predictable yet it was a testament to my desperation that I had proceeded, anyway. Bouncing along at a rapid pace, all I could think of was how badly I had misjudged my phone’s capacity. Evan hadn't yet perfected all the features to work together in sync, only some. I couldn't keep those details straight because I rarely used them together. And I never read his copious instructions, anyway.

Peaches would kill me. Yes, I had just been kidnapped and that’s where my mind went. Actually, thinking of other things was my personal anti-panic mode.

After several silent minutes, I felt as though we were descending downward, me being jostled at every step. Finally, we leveled off and I was lowered surprisingly gently onto a floor, my back against a wall.

The hood was pulled off and I sat staring into a deep-red frescoed room lit by portable spotlights propped on the floor. Oh, my God! I was in the Villa of Mysteries! It was one of the most fully restored and recognizable of all Pompeian villas: incredible painted interior walls vibrant with mythological scenes and that “Pompeian red” background. Vaulted ceilings overhead with only one exterior door and scenes of a sexual nature made me think this must have been a bedroom.

I pulled my gaze away from the surrounding art to find my three captors standing by as if waiting for somebody. Of course, I knew which somebody they were expecting and seconds later the bastard appeared. Honestly, part of me knew I would encounter him that night, one way or the other. It was a bit like expecting to catch a virus at some point no matter how hard one tries to avoid the inevitable.

“You bitch!” Noel burst into the room with the energy of a newly released caged animal. “How could you betray me like that? Damn you, always conniving and scheming behind my back! We had a deal!” He was standing over me, expression murderous, shaking his finger as if I was a naughty child.

In my gagged state, I could hardly launch a proper defense, but me betraying him, seriously? Besides, he sounded like a walking stereotype of the deluded male. If it ever came up in conversation, I might suggest he dredge up a few original lines.

He whipped off my gag and crouched in front of me now, stroking my cheek as if calming a beloved pet. “Why, why do you always have to behave this way, Phoebe?” he whispered softly. “Why can’t I just trust you for once? We had a deal, but instead you screwed me over by joining forces with that Baldi bitch. What did she promise you, tell me!” He gave me a shake.

I wet my lips, searching desperately for an answer that might penetrate this man’s twisted thinking. “I, ah…you weren’t around. The police captured you so how was I to know that you were even still in the picture?” I wouldn’t mention Evan in case it set him off. “She offered me half of the cache.” That at least was true.

He leapt to his feet and started pacing back and forth while his henchmen watched. “Of course the bitch did, but I would have given you so much more, don’t you get that? You could have shared everything if you’d stayed by my side, become my wife, my partner, my empress, but no, you’re too damn fickle for that.”

I couldn’t counter his thinking without playing into his distorted brain. “But you didn’t offer me anything,” I protested, sounding convincingly wounded even to myself. “You just threatened and threatened. That’s all you do these days. When did we get like this? It used to be different in the old days.”

“In the old days?” He swung toward me. “Back when you sold me out to the feds?”

No, back when you lied your way into my trust and had me do your dirty work. Then I sold you to the feds and not a minute too soon. “I didn’t sell you out, you got careless. How did you even know I was here?”

He laughed and threw up his hands, the light bouncing off the red walls casting a devilish glow over his sharp features. “How? How? I’ll tell you how.” He snapped his fingers at one of the minions, every one of them short and muscular like human pit bulls.

One scrambled over with a laptop in hand, which Noel proceeded to flip open onto a live screen. It took a few seconds to get what I was seeing: Rupert’s worried face as he spoke into a phone on one hand while frantically working the keyboard on the other.

“God, no,” I whispered.

“Shocked, I see. So Sonny failed to mention that when I captured Evan, I captured his laptop, too. In fact, Boy Toy was working on the thing when we jumped him in Sicily. Oh, yes, he put up a valiant fight, no doubt about it, but no amount of brawn can match a stun gun. Brought him to his knees instantly. All we had to do was truss him up like a side of pork and take him for a bit of a ride while I commandeered the laptop.”

“Shit!” I muttered.

“Yeah, big bag of doggy-doo type shit. After my tech guys figured out how to deactivate the tracker, I could just sit back and tap into your network and watch the whole show like on prime-time TV. Once I got released from jail, I caught up on the action, including every nasty thing you said about me behind my back. But I knew about Pompeii before that. The Baldi bitch had letters she told me about long ago.”

Hell, he knew all about our plan, practically our every thought. I almost didn’t want to ask: “And where is my team now?”

He took back the laptop long enough to tap the keyboard. Then I was watching a clip of a woman looking a lot like me with her face covered by a sack being pushed into a car by a band of masked men.

“Chasing them all the way back to Rome,” he said, thumbing at the screen. “They think I’ve kidnapped you out of Pompeii so we’ll lead them on a wild-goose chase to keep them occupied while we finish up here. And we will finish up here tonight, Phoebe. Oh, and Peach, well, we ambushed her and I had her punished for all those names she called me. Anyway, we have work to do so let’s get to it.”

By then I was trembling so much I doubted I’d ever be able to stand let alone invoke another century. “Is she badly hurt?” I whispered.

“Who cares?”

“I do.”

He wrenched me to my feet. “Forget about her. So, we’ll just keep your hands bound so you don’t try anything. Now stop talking to me and start communicating to your ghosts or whatever the hell you do. And don’t scream or I’ll have to gag that pretty little mouth of yours again.”

He pushed me out of the room into the atrium. “But your art sniffer dog here doesn’t work like that!” I protested.

“Shall I throw her a bone?”

“Where are the guards?”

“Forget about them, too. They are off planning their vacation homes for all I know. Sonny overpaid the scum. I would have just shot them and saved myself the trouble. That crew won’t be returning to work anytime soon.” Outside the villa, he pulled me to a halt. “Which way, right or left?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, gazing up at the stars.

“Oh, come on, babe, don’t try that crap with me. I’m a patient man only up to a point. Tell the truth for once. You must have had some insight before we interrupted you. Where’s Flora?”

Hell, he must know about the Vestal Virgins, too. “It was just starting, but every time my phone interrupted me I lost the thread. Honest to the gods, Noel: my events don’t work on demand. I need time to pull the threads together, time to encourage the past to communicate.”

He pulled me back against him and spoke softly into my ear. “Time, babe, really? You know who doesn’t have time for your games right now?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, wondering if I could back kick him where it hurt, but there were three others just waiting for me to make a move. Couldn’t risk it and end up gagged again or worse.

“Take a look at who doesn’t have much time,” he said.

My eyes flew open onto the laptop screen that one of the pit bulls now held before my face. Rupert was sitting gagged and bound, perspiration beading his brow. I struggled against the restraints. “Noel, no! He’s not as strong as he used to be. He’s got health issues. Leave him alone!”

“Find Cleopatra’s jewels and I’ll let him go.” He turned me around to face him. “I will release him, Phoebe. That’s the truth. I don’t care about the old man, one way or the other. He’s a has-been. Get me what I want.”

“But I can’t, not like this!” Panic hit me now. “I’m telling the truth, Noel, my gift has never worked that way. Surely you’ve learned that much about me by now?”

He hesitated, searching my face. “Well, that’s just too damn bad.” He said something to one of the other minions that I didn’t catch but which sounded a bit like On to plan B. Suddenly, I was facing front again, being steered along through the villa garden and out onto the road.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“For a little stroll,” he said. “If you can’t arrive at the loot’s hiding place, then we’ll give you a little help.”

Did he really think that an escorted stroll around the streets of Pompeii would somehow loosen time in my head? But at least he was off the idea of hurting Rupert, which brought some comfort.

We marched down the deserted streets, Pompeii seeming even emptier and more silent than ever before. I had no idea what time it was, but by the moon’s position, I guessed maybe close to two a.m.

I worried about Peaches, fearing that she was badly hurt and that my action was the cause; I worried about Evan and Rupert, and hell, I worried about just about everyone. So much angst crowded my heart at that moment I thought I might throw up. There was no way that I was going to experience a timewalk in that state. I was so closely fused to the present that nothing could get through.

We passed my phone lying in the street. Of course it wouldn’t communicate my location. Airplane mode muted all signals. I should have used Do Not Disturb. Why hadn’t I remembered that? Because you’re human, Peaches’s voice rang in my head. Yes, Peach, I hope you still feel that way when you see how badly I botched this up.

“Nice move, babe,” Noel remarked as he urged me along.

He knew that I’d flicked on that feature. With Evan’s laptop, he knew everything, everything! I stumbled but Noel was quick to catch me.

When I was shoved into the amphitheater minutes later, I realized that my captors had something very specific in mind and that I was the only one who didn’t know the details.

“Do you want me to sing now?” The joke came out with as much bitterness as I felt.

“Not sing exactly but certainly perform. The amphitheater is a good place for you to begin your—what did you call it again, timewalk?—to begin your timewalk. Here, have a seat, babe.”

He pushed me down on one of the stone benches where I sat, my heart pounding in my ears, planning my getaway. I looked over at the four men. One had a little crossbody satchel and kept his back to me, fiddling with something. Maybe if I leapt off the bench and knocked him down, kicked out at the others and bolted…then Noel would kill Rupert. Shit!

Before I had formed my next thought, the bag guy swung around. Now I could see clearly the hypodermic needle glinting in the moonlight.

CHAPTER 16

They were going to drug me! That realization evoked such a twist of panic in my gut that I jumped up and screamed, “No!”

One of them slapped a hand over my mouth while the bag guy approached me with the needle glimmering in his hand.

“Just a little mind-altering drug to act as an incentive to knock that clever brain of yours into gear, babe,” Noel said, stepping forward. To one of the pit bulls, he added: “I’ll hold her arms, you grab her legs. Ricco, make it quick.”

Suddenly Noel was behind me tugging my jacket down over one shoulder while the other pinned my legs. I bucked and struggled in an effort to avoid the inevitable while Noel held me tight from behind.

“Keep struggling, babe. It makes me so hot,” he whispered.

The prick in my arm was over in an instant but Noel kept on holding me. “It won’t be too bad, Phoebe. You might even enjoy it.” His voice had taken on the seductiveness of a lover. “Just relax and savor the ride. Not everybody gets to go back in time on a night of such historical significance.”

Time slipped by. I have no idea whether he held me for minutes or seconds. None of that mattered. What mattered was the intensity of the stars overhead and that blazing hot moon. I was vaguely aware of the man nuzzling my neck but had no idea how I got from there to standing in the middle of the amphitheater gazing upward. Nothing made sense, not the four shadow men following me everywhere or the strange-colored sky.

“Flora,” someone said.

I turned at the sound of my name but the voice had no substance, only shadow. Like smoke, the smoke that seared the air. And the screams, those I could hear all over the town. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong! I began to run.

Why was I even out this time of night? I never left the sanctity of the villa after dark unless in the company of my slaves or visiting Vestals, but all around me were screaming strangers running for safety, but from what? Then I remembered. I was still searching for that wayward girl.

From the sky. That burning moon wasn’t the moon at all but Vesuvius boiling over. Had we angered the gods?

Jupiter, forgive us! Have we grown too complacent in our wealth and excess? Hermes, lend me your wings so that I may reach my Juno in time! But then I thought that praying to the goddess Juno would be best so I could ask that she intercede on behalf of her namesake.

“Mistress,” a man cried from somewhere to my right, “do not return home. Leave your belongings. Come with us to the shore. We must escape by boat!”

“No!” I cried. “I must find Juno!”

So I ran and ran down the streets, the people storming in the opposite direction in a surge of panic like the stampede of terrified animals I had seen that day in Rome. Now the air was so filled with choking smoke I could barely breathe.

Into my villa I ran, shocked to see the door hanging open and the servants nowhere in sight. Not even Lucius? Scrambling past the frescoes, I cried with all my breath: “Juno!” I called, but my voice had hardly any strength so choked was it by ash. I prayed by the grace of Diana that Juno had gone, gone to safety with one of her nurses, maybe with Aurelia. I hoped with Aurelia! Aurelia would keep her safe. My prayers had been answered. Praise the gods!

The villa had been abandoned. Now all I had to do was retrieve the jewels and keep them safe until we were reunited, Juno and I. That fixed in my head, I ran through the atrium, past the tablinum, toward the garden, stumbling so many times, somebody lifting me up so many times. Why did I trip so often? What was wrong with me?

The smoke was scorching my eyes and nose, the air filling with a thick, black dust. Oh, Diana, please protect me!

I reached the culīna, everything scattered where the servants had left it—bread cooling on the table, a pot of milk for Juno’s night drink. I ran to the back of the room to the oven, panic throbbing in my heart. A sudden horrible thought struck: what if I could not reach the jewels? Because now it was as if a black wall had risen before me. Screaming, I beat the barrier with my fists.

“Flora,” a shadow man asked in a language I could not quite understand. “How can we help? Tell me where it is.” He repeated the question in a very bad form of my tongue.

Maybe these shades had been sent by the gods to help me and could not speak my tongue? Yes, that must be it. The goddess protects. “I must reach inside the bottom of the oven floor, lift the center brick. Deep beneath the sand, I have hidden Juno’s treasure, but I cannot reach it.” I stared into the blackness ahead. Why couldn’t I reach it? “Because the oven is too hot.” Yes, that must be it. Nothing else made sense and everything seemed to burn about me.

And then I saw her, the shape of the girl crouching in a corner. “Juno!” I cried, running toward her. “Where are Aurelia and Lucius?”

“They are gone!” she sobbed, scrambling to take my hand. “You told me to hide here in times of danger so I came. I am so happy to see you! I am sorry to have run off but I was so frightened.”

We embraced. “Oh, dear child. I had hoped you would run away from Pompeii, not remain.” I squeezed her tight.

By now the shadows were speaking among themselves—strange accents, stranger language, Latin but not. This must be the language of the gods. Overwhelmed, I fell to my knees in supplication, one hand still gripping Juno’s. “I do not have a sacrifice to offer but I promise I will make one as soon as I am free. Please help keep my girl safe!”

“We will help,” said one shadow man, touching my shoulder.

Another was making fire burn from a strange stick he held. The gods had such miraculous tools! Smoke and searing sounds followed while I crouched against a wall, staring ahead at my mistress’s garden, now nothing but pale images behind a wall of darkness. I could not breathe! Fire burned my chest! I tried to shield my girl but suddenly my arms were empty!

The gods were digging, pulling out chunks of thick black stone. Chink. Chink. Chink. Such strange sounds all around—an odd screeching noise far up in the air.

“Hurry!” whispered the shadow who had touched my shoulder. “That’s the cops!”

Cops, what were cops? But I was beyond understanding, my breath screaming to escape my chest yet grateful to have the gods help me to find the treasure and protect the girl. Mistress Livia through my priestess sisters were wise to put her trust in me. Had I not sworn to protect Juno and bring her the diadem upon her marriage? Was I not fulfilling my vow?

And then it was as though the smoke both cleared and overwhelmed me all at once. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t stand! No! The last thing I remember was gazing into a painted room where a garden grew on the walls forevermore, hoping that soon I would meet my sisters again on the other side and that we would dance together in the gardens of the gods.

CHAPTER 17

I was strangely comfortable, not anxious, just restful, lying on a narrow bed in small a room—table, shelves, bathroom in one corner, another door opposite that. I appeared to be wearing baggy white jogging pants with an oversized hoodie—not my style at all. I thought I could see my own clothes folded on the chair across from me but it was hard to focus in the blue dark. The curtains were drawn and the floor rocked. Rocked…

Slowly, I sat up, realizing that I had no idea where I was or how I got there. Every inch of me felt raw and sore. A quick peek down my shirt proved that I had been cut and bruised all over. Had I fallen? And why were my wrists and ankles bound? The last thing I remembered was the sight of a needle glinting coldly in the moonlight… Shit!

Bounding off the bed, I ran to the door, stumbled, righted myself, and hopped over to try the latch—locked! Damn. I knew I was on a boat and that boat must belong to Noel. I was studying the electronic mechanism locking my ankles and wrists when the door swung open. Backing up, I fell against the bed.

Noel entered with another man at his heels, both of them dressed in white linen pants and shirts, looking like a pair of Mediterranean playboys. “How’s my golden girl?” He grinned at me.

“What the hell happened?” I demanded. “Did you drug me, you shit-faced, assholean, double-decker pisshead?”

“Whoa!” He threw up his hands, that smug grin never wavering. “Nix the inventive adjectives, babe, because I’m so happy with you right now that I’m prepared to forgive every injury you’ve ever inflicted on me. You’re a bloody miracle. You led us right to it! I had no idea that your skills had developed to this extent.”

“I led you right to what?”

“Cleopatra’s jewels, of course. My little sniffer bitch sniffed like a dream, slipped right into Flora’s head and led us to where her villa had once stood, babbling in tongues the whole time.”

“Not in tongues,” said the other man in Italian. “Actually, the street form of parochial Latin. Ricardo filmed the whole thing.”

“Right you are.” Noel shut the door behind them. “This is Dr. Justinian Bianchi. He’s a historian and my expert on all things Roman.”

“Where Flora hid the cache was brilliant,” Bianchi told me. A middle-aged man with a louche bearing and a lean aesthetic build, he seemed the very opposite of Noel’s usual minions.

I swallowed. The last thing I could afford to do was piss off my captors. I needed to bury my rage and play along with Noel’s fantasy world long enough to escape. I just hoped to hell I had the stomach for the game. “Are you saying that I channeled myself into Flora?”

“You did, babe.” Noel stood there, still smiling.

I could remember nothing. Had I really walked in the shoes of a woman who had died in ancient Pompeii? That was not something I’d ever craved. My idea of timewalking was to view the past as through a porthole, not to channel another life. “Did Flora die horribly?”

“Don’t you recall?” Bianchi asked, peering at me as though I were a specimen in a petri dish.

“No…I…must have suppressed everything,” I said. That was true but I knew it would all be waiting for me to remember sooner or later.

“Interesting,” Bianchi mused, tapping his chin.

“Didn’t catch much of that, either.” Noel shrugged. “I was more interested in retrieving the stash but I recall you writhing on the ground in the end, if that’s what you mean, kept calling out for the goddess Juno. Got cut up pretty bad. You shrugged off your jacket, yelling that it was too hot. Ricco gave you another injection in case you suffered physical trauma from the ordeal. You can watch the clip later if you want. We have it recorded.”

I tried to smile. “Wouldn’t that be like watching myself die?”

“Only you were already dead for almost two thousand years, babe, and it wasn’t even you. Don’t forget that little reality.” He appeared so pleased, clearly congratulating himself for my job well done.

“I think I have the reality pretty clear. You drugged me, right?” I was trying to keep my tone matter of fact instead of accusatory.

“I did, just a small serving of hallucinogens to nudge along your timewalking skills,” Noel said. “And it worked, damn but it worked.”

“Amazingly,” agreed Bianchi. “I have heard that what you did last night was incredible to witness and I hope someday to watch you timewalk in person.”

Sure. I’ll sell tickets. “Where did Flora hide the cache?” I whispered. Why didn’t I recall that much?

“In the floor of a forno, or bake oven,” Bianchi replied. “A brilliant solution, really, as the tufa used at the time had amazing heat-resistant properties and the layer of sand beneath the bricks furthered the protective surface. The Romans were brilliant engineers. When the pumice and ash covered the oven, the contents remained as pristine as the day they were buried.”

I turned to Noel. “May I see them?”

“Of course, babe, but first we need to have a little chat.” He turned to Bianchi, who immediately exited without another word.

In seconds, Noel was sitting on the edge of the bed beside me, arms around my shoulders. “Babe, you are something else, I’m telling you—a real miracle woman, my miracle woman. Now’s your chance to join forces with me. I promise, together we’ll have it all. Forget what that Baldi bitch offered you because I’ll give you more. Together we can have all the ancient treasures imaginable and, with your gifts, all the personal stories that accompany them, too. Think about it: you’re a source of living provenance.”

I licked my lips. It was all I could do not to shrug his arms off me. It was if his touch seared my skin. “What did you have in mind?”

“You and me together again. When I undressed you and tended your cuts and scrapes last night, it brought back all those tender moments we spent together. Remember how good we were?”

Oh, my God! He undressed me, touched me while I was out cold! My skin crawled. I wanted to retch so badly at that moment that I could hardly get the words out. “There’s this little matter of my friends—you beat one up, held another at gunpoint, and kidnapped another. How am I supposed to take that, Noel?” I had to remain calm, rational.

“With a dose of pragmatism, my love. Think of what you did to me and let's call us even. Of course, I did what was necessary this time because we have become adversaries over the years, haven’t we? But it needn’t be like that going forward. We could be on the same team again, the winning team, as it happens. Return to my arms, my heart, my bed. We were so great together. All you have to do is be my partner.”

Partner? He was nuts. I squeezed my eyes shut. Play into the game. “May I think about it?”

He got to his feet suddenly. “Sure, think about it but don’t take too long or try any tricks or Rupert dies.”

I knew it was only a matter of time before the threats began anew. “Is he safe?”

“Perfectly. Busy napping, at the moment, I believe.”

“And Peaches?”

He smiled. “I may have overstated the battering we gave her since it seems she got up and walked away.”

A part of me sagged with relief. And Evan must still be safe with Sonny, or so I desperately hoped. Hope is what I clung to. “Now may I see Cleopatra’s hoard?”

He fired a few terse words into his phone and, just as quick, two henchmen arrived to pick me up, literally. They pulled a hood over my head, and carried me into another part of the ship.

I counted the number of steps my captors took—up one flight, down another, fifty-four altogether. After the last flight of stairs, we walked another twenty paces. I heard a door open.

Noel kept saying: “Careful, careful. She’s our golden girl” every few seconds. Minutes later I was gently lowered into a chair, handcuffed to the armrest, and the hood removed. I blinked into a large cabin where the sunlight beaming through the same curtains as mine that turned everything that deep aquatic blue.

Noel switched on an overhead light. We were now alone.

“My stateroom,” he said, sweeping his hands toward one mirrored wall, the low glass tables, a king-sized bed on the dais, and the seating area that faced a marble surround in which burned an electric fire.

“Cozy,” I said, not voicing the real adjectives that sprang to mind.

As he strode toward the fire unit, I sponged up the room’s details, taking in everything—the clothes draped across the chair back, the books on the side table, the laptop propped open on a desk against the mirrored wall. My attention swerved back to the laptop reflected in the mirrored wall. That was Evan’s laptop. I’d recognize his steel-encased version anywhere, and there it sat open and engaged for Noel’s spying pleasure.

When Noel looked over his shoulder at me, I had my gaze fixed on him. “You’ve made yourself very comfortable here, I see. Is this where you’ve been living while on the run?”

“I’m not on the run, babe. I have a new identity: Peter Buck, British investment broker earning my millions by computer and phone. The Italians love me, and if they ever stop being so obliging, I’ll just switch to another identity. Can I help it if I look like a certain art thief who disappeared months ago?”

He turned around again and flicked a switch above the marble hearth surround. A painting slid down to reveal a wall safe. While he entered the combination, his back shielding his actions, I scanned the desk again.

The mirrored wall reflected other objects including a cell phone—a cell phone! Was that Evan’s? Rupert had told me that Evan's devices had gone dark but did not enter self-destruct mode. Evan, that brilliant man, had been experimenting with another phone prototype. Was that it? Did it play dead when in enemy hands but remain in a kind of stasis?

When Noel turned toward me, he was holding a green nylon backpack, which he carried to a table near my seat.

“The original container had perished,” he told me. “Looks like it might have been leather. This is pretty unassuming considering what it contains but will do nicely.”

I wet my lips. I was about to see Cleopatra’s hoard and briefly feared that the sight of the precious items might plunge me back into Flora’s head. I wasn’t ready to go anywhere near there yet. Maybe I never would.

Noel lifted out the contents, great fistfuls of gold and pearls, inlaid bracelets and lapis lazuli neckpieces, a glowing pile glimmering in the overhead light. He lowered the bundle onto the table. I stared, too overwhelmed to speak. Those pearls were huge, many irregularly shaped but no less astounding.

“Something else, isn’t it? Cleopatra’s jewels. God, I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous. Look at them, babe, look at those pearls. Feast your eyes on what you found for me.”

He lifted up a strand of huge natural creamy orbs as big as marbles, still luminescent after all these centuries. “These were strung onto a thin gold chain or the strand would never have emerged intact. Imagine the queen wrapping them around and around her naked body in gleaming coils while Caesar or Marc Antony watched, roping them between her legs, across her breasts, everywhere. I can picture these against your white creamy skin, Phoebe, you wearing them for me. You could be my queen.”

I swallowed, pushing back the revulsion.

He stepped toward me, holding out a gleaming fistful. “Want to try them on?”

“I’m a bit indisposed at the moment.” I rattled the cuffs against the chair arm.

“Yeah, you are, aren’t you? We’ll have to save this pleasure for another time.” He stroked my cheek with the pearls before turning away.

Something clattered to the table, then onto the floor. He quickly retrieved a pearl the size of a marble. “There’s more loose in the bag, mammoth things. Whatever they used to string them with disintegrated. Cleopatra treasured pearls almost more than gold since Egypt commandeered so much precious metals in its territories but pearls were harder to locate.”

I knew that and I guessed he knew I knew it but obviously the man needed to hear himself talk.

“Look at this bracelet, a masterpiece of inlay for which the Egyptians were famous.” He held up an arm cuff, brilliantly executed in lapis, turquoise, and carnelian embedded in the gold.

I stared at the glistening hoard, trying to distinguish a diadem amid all that luster. Noel just kept talking.

“In no way does this cache fully represent the splendor of Egypt. Bianchi says that by then Augustus had already claimed most of the queen’s riches for himself and that this hoard would have been considered plain by comparison.”

“Cleopatra sent the empress her plainest offerings because the queen did her research,” I said. “She knew that Livia wasn’t into conspicuous displays. She chose her gifts carefully with her most toned-down offerings.” Why was I even talking to him? And where the hell was that diadem?

“Oh, I see what you’re looking for,” Noel said suddenly.

My gaze shot to his.

“You’re looking for the magic diadem that supposedly binds men to a woman’s will.” He chuckled softly and began gently moving aside the strands of pearls to pluck out something at the bottom of the pile. “Is this what your heart desires?”

Out came a filigreed gold band inset with turquoise, lapis, and carnelian, a simple but no less stunning gold diadem. Holding it aloft, he said: “There’s a Roman contemporary sculpture reportedly of Cleopatra wearing this exact diadem. She must have worn it during her procession through Rome at Caesar’s side—not too showy, actually rather subdued, still enough to denote her a queen, in this case the queen of men.”

He leaned over, lifted my matted curls, and placed it on my head, tucking the two golden comb extensions behind my ears so that the jeweled band rested securely over my brow. I couldn’t quite suppress my shiver. I didn’t want to wear that thing.

“A bit covered by that unruly mop of yours but it suits you, Phoebe,” he said, stepping back. "After all, you already command my heart. Let’s see if you can experience Cleopatra’s life behind those big blue eyes of yours.”

Hell, I was terrified of sensing Cleopatra across the centuries and equally sickened by the thought of ruling anyone, though I could make an exception if I could rule this bastard.

“Do you feel anything?” he whispered.

Revulsion? “’Fraid not,” I whispered. “Should I push a button?”

He let loose his machine gun laugh. That rat-a-tat-tat howl of mirth I once used to find so charming and now so…not. “Too bad. Maybe it takes time but nothing a little hallucinogenic encouragement won’t fix.”

He pulled up a chair to sit in front of me. Leaning forward, he stroked my cheek again. “Think about it, Phoebe baby. You could timewalk through the streets of ancient Alexandria, visit the greatest library of the world, read all those ancient scrolls now lost to humanity. Together maybe we could find the mausoleum of Antony and Cleopatra. Imagine the treasure that must be buried with them?”

“You mean while I’m drugged?”

“Maybe. If we’re careful and ensure that you have at least a few weeks between episodes, I’m certain we can keep addiction at bay, but would it really be so bad living part-time in the ancient past with me to come home to? We were so good once. Consider the possibilities, babe.”

“I am,” I said, surprised to find my voice so steady. “But let’s talk about our deal first. You said that if I found Cleopatra’s jewels that you’d release Evan. Since he’s not in your custody now, I want to swap Rupert for him. Let him go, then we’ll talk.”

He threw back his head and fired laughter toward the ceiling, leaving me thinking how I hated even his Adam’s apple. “Oh, shit, that’s a good one! God, you’re a wily little bitch, aren’t you? Is he all you think about? As if you’re in a bargaining position.” He slapped his thighs in mirth before leaning forward again, close enough for his eyes to be directly in line with mine, for his breath to mingle with mine. “Only, you’re not in a position to bargain, are you, babe?”

“If you want me to preform for you, maybe I am.”

He shook his head. “You’re going to perform for me one way or the other. You forgot a few details such as that you didn’t locate the cache for me willingly,” he whispered. “And you struck another deal with Sonny and screwed me over instead. You have to prove yourself first. No deals with me, Phoeb, not yet. And if you try anything, the old man is dead.” He pulled the trigger on an imaginary pistol.

“You sure know how to woo a girl back.”

That provoked another grin. “Get into my bed and I’ll woo you back soon enough.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I wasn’t doing a great job of playing along and I knew it. In truth, there was only so far I was willing to go.

“But it doesn’t have to be that way, as I said.” His tone was softening. “We could strike a new deal: if you work with me collaboratively like the good old days, I’ll let Rupert go.”

“Am I supposed to trust you?”

“Don’t have much choice, do you?”

“What about the others?” I asked.

“They’ll never be part of the arrangement. The agency has to go, all of them: the snotty countess, her rabid little assistant, Peaches—especially Peaches—all must be eliminated, and, of course, your boy toy up on the mountain.”

“The mountain?”

He thumbed toward the front of the cabin. “Well, cliff, then, where we’re heading there now—Capri.”

I just stared at him.

A slow grin crossed his face. “Oh, I forgot to mention that I know where Sonny is keeping him. Fool bitch thinks she’s the only one who can pick up critical information during a roll in the proverbial hay. She’s got Boy Toy tucked away in the basement of her chic boutique hotel on Capri, a place she once whispered to me would make the perfect place to hide somebody. Boy Toy’s at her clifftop oasis and we’re going there now to get rid of him once and for all. With a little luck, I can have you watch in my viewing room on my big screen. Would you like that, a ringside seat?”

The door flew open and another man in white popped his head in and said something in Italian that sounded like: “Boss, we have trouble.”

“What now, Carlo?” Noel demanded, half turning.

The man’s gaze landed on the hoard before swerving to the laptop. “Best see for yourself, sir.”

Noel jumped up and dashed over to Evan’s laptop. “What the hell?” In seconds, he was back at the table scooping the treasure into a bag and stuffing it into the safe. As the steel door clanged shut, instantly the Mediterranean seascape scene slid back into place over the fireplace.

Turning, bossman tossed a key fob to Carlo. “Take her back to her room and join me on the bridge pronto.” He then bolted from the room.

That left Carlo and me alone in the cabin. A thickset man, he had quick dark eyes that seemed to take in everything in an instant.

“You there last night?” I began in my best conversational Italian. “Was it as incredible as Noel says?”

Carlo said nothing. Instead, he stood studying the cuff that secured my wrist to the chair arm. I saw his dilemma immediately: once he released the cuff from the armrest, one wrist would be free to move and so would I, though in a reduced state since I was still hobbled. He must have thought I might disarm him before he could snap on the other cuff. Moving me from place to place was obviously a two-man job.

“I’m flattered but don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I can’t very well swim with my legs bound, can I?” I asked.

He snorted, released one wrist from the chair arm, and clamped it to the other at once. I just carried on looking at him, the picture of compliancy, not making a move. “If I’m going to be working with Noel and your organization, I hope we at least get along.” I got to my feet. “Shall we go?”

“You need hood!” he snapped, pushing me back to sitting.

“It’s behind you on the chair.” I indicated with my cuffed hands.

He located the hood and, while he went to fetch it, I spied something miraculous on the cabin floor—a single glistening pearl beneath a table on the far side. I blinked to ensure myself that I didn’t just wish it there but it was real. Careless, Noel. “There, on the floor under the table. Noel dropped one of Cleopatra’s million-dollar pearls!”

Carlo swung around, seeing it, too, and immediately fell to his hands and knees scrambling to retrieve the orb. Throw a dog a bone…

At that moment, I lunged to my feet. In three hops, I reached the table. Leaning forward, I slid the phone down into my stretchy pants with my cuffed hands while simultaneously throwing my full weight crashing into the table, taking everything with me to the floor.

There I lay, trying to push the phone deeper into my joggers before Carlo reached me.

When he flipped me onto my back, I looked him straight in the eyes. “Explain to Noel that this is an unfortunate accident and I won’t say a word about the pearl.”

CHAPTER 18

Whatever emergency occupied Noel kept him away from me far longer than I expected. Carlo was clearly in a panic. He had taken his attention off the captive for one second and disaster had struck but so had a huge bonus. He was swearing all the time he was steering me hopping down the hall back to my cabin.

“Look,” I told him in what I hoped would be comprehensible Italian. “I tripped, okay? It happens. My feet are bound, see? So, I got up, the boat rolled, and I went flying.”

“Right into the laptop?” he hissed. His English was better than I thought.

“Yeah, sure. The desk is right in front of the bathroom door. Accidents happen, okay? You still have the pearl, right? Must be worth millions.”

“Shut your mouth!” he ordered.

All around me I sensed tension and alarm. The crew were dashing past, men were shouting to one another. “Are we under attack?” I asked hopefully. The boat was definitely in motion.

Soon enough, I was shoved into my cabin. The door clicked locked behind me and, in seconds, I had the hood pushed off my head and stood panting in the center of the floor. The first thing I did was seek out the cameras. I knew Noel would want to keep an eye on me and yet no surveillance devices were immediately visible. They were there, I just couldn’t see them.

Damn. I lurched across the rocking floor to the bathroom, flicked off the light with my cuffed wrists, and slid down to sit on the floor. Partially shielded by the bathroom door, I felt down my jogger legs for the phone. How long would it take for Noel to know that it was missing? He’d be fixed on the laptop at first, which I hoped to God was shattered, but knowing Evan, it was probably made out of some indestructible something or other. At least I knew that the screen had cracked.

The phone had slipped all the way down to my ankles in those baggy man-sized joggers and had caught above the cuffs. I needed to activate it somehow, if that was even possible. Each of the agency phones was designed to recognize another member but this was a prototype. Who knew if it would respond to my voice?

“Phone, activate. It’s Phoebe!” I whispered toward my ankle while trying to lift the cuff elastic long enough to allow the phone to drop out. No response. Maybe it wouldn’t recognize my whisper and I needed to use my full voice instead? “Phoebe here!”

I heard the cabin door click open just as the phone toppled to the floor.

“Where the hell is she?” Noel’s voice.

“Here!” I had grasped the phone between my palms long enough to shove it under the bathmat.

“In the bathroom,” a man said in Italian.

“Here, I said!” I cried.

The door flew open and the light flicked on as I fell backward onto the floor on top of the phone.

“What the hell?” Noel barked. He stood with two minions behind him.

“Look at me!” I wailed. “I’m hobbled on a moving boat and can’t even go to the bathroom without falling all over the place. How do you think that makes me feel, Noel? Is this how you treat your wannabe queen?”

And then I cried, damn convincingly, I thought, cried so hard that something kicked in and soon the waterworks turned on for real.

The two men were helping me to my feet to stand before Noel, his reddened face boiling with anger mixed with something else—shock, realization—oh, my God, did I see guilt?

“Is this how you plan to treat me, Noel? Look at me!” I’d play that for all I was worth. Shaking my cuffed wrists in front of him, I cried: “I can’t move, I can’t walk. I fell into your table and cut myself but what do you expect? I was trying to get to your bathroom.” And then I just collapsed into heaving sobs. Damn nice touch, that.

Whatever Noel planned to do with me seemed to have corroded under my tearful accusations. Was there something in men’s nature that was triggered by the sight of a woman’s tears, even someone as damaged as Noel?

“Shit! I don’t have time for this.” He jerked his head at the guy beside him and tossed him the cuff fob. “Pasquale, unlock her wrists and let her go to the loo. Wait outside the bathroom door and don’t leave her for a minute, understand? Once she’s out, cuff her again, get it? And keep your gun on her. Don’t fall for any of her tricks.”

“Yes, boss.”

And to me he added with a finger stabbing the air between us: “If I find that you deliberately tried to sabotage that laptop, Rupert is dead!” And with that he left the room, taking the other minion with him.

I lifted my wrists to Pasquale, who pressed the fob and released the cuffs, his other hand keeping the gun pointed on me. He indicated the bathroom with a jerk of his head.

Turning, I hopped in, leaving the door ajar. One look in the mirror nearly froze me in shock. Yes, I looked a total mess, scratched up from the night before, bandages plastered here and there from my dramatic writhing, eyes puffy, hair in a snarl of matted curls, but what startled me more was the glimpse of the diadem gleaming beneath my mop. That almost made me laugh. Nobody had even noticed that I was wearing my crown?

Flipping up the toilet seat, I shimmied down the joggers while leaning far enough forward to fetch the phone from under the bathmat. From that angle, Pasquale could see nothing and appeared to be averting his head in some gentlemanly fashion.

The phone was pulsing red. With my heart pounding in my ears, I pressed my palm against the screen and instantly a photo of Evan and I in Paris embracing in the midst of a selfie duo came into view. That almost made me cry all over again but I pulled myself together and texted a quick all-points bulletin to the team:

On a boat with Noel, who has Cleopatra’s gold. Heading to Capri where Sonny’s keeping Evan. He plans to kill him, her, and all of you, too. Bring reinforcements. Meet me there.

It was now 9:15 p.m. I checked the map and found that we were zipping across the Bay of Naples, presumably heading toward Capri in a somewhat circuitous route—probably diversionary. Were we being chased?

I then tapped the “OA” map. The Offices Abroad app connected us to all the central agency devices online and indicated where they were located. Rupert’s laptop showed that his computer was still in Pompeii but presently offline and that his phone had self-destructed two hours ago.

I added a quick text: Find Rupert! Noel has him!

That left me only time enough to run the bug scanner, which I didn’t expect to work given that I was not standing in the actual room. But I was wrong. This device was so sensitive that it pinpointed the cameras and listening devices present in my cabin, all five of them, including the one located over the shower head—the shower head, seriously?—all without me having to get to my feet. It then offered me a Deactivate Yes/No option. I chose No since I needed whoever monitored the system to think everything was on an even keel.

Before I slid the phone into the jogger pocket, I scanned the icons on Evan’s screen. There were so many of them, most unfamiliar to me, but I instantly identified those I needed.

I finished my business and flushed the toilet, ending my session by splashing cold water on my face and tucking the diadem deep into my hoodie’s spacious front pocket. Let the games begin. Noel was heading for Capri and so was I. Seconds later, I had hopped back into the cabin, looking suitably miserable. “Can’t I at least have my legs free?”

Pasquale quickly clicked the cuffs back on. “No.”

“Do I get to eat?” I asked. Sounding whiny was my technique du jour.

“There,” he said, pointing to a table beside a padded bench that I hadn’t paid much attention to until then. It appeared that I had been offered a ciabatta sandwich and a salad with water and wine. No cutlery. Soon, Pasquale had left me alone.

For the rest of the evening I went about eating and resting as the picture of the subdued captive. Of course, Noel knew me better than that but apparently he was too preoccupied to pay me much attention. Meanwhile, I was plotting. I realized that if I lay on my side on the bunk, face to the wall, I could slide out the phone and shield it with my body. Now that I knew exactly where the cameras were located, it was easy to find the blind spots.

The first message from Nicolina came in while the phone was still in my pocket: Phoebe, we have been seeking you everywhere. Now we have fixed your signal. Are you on Evan’s phone?

I summarized the recent events.

A message from Peaches popped onto the screen as I typed my response to Nicolina: Shit, woman, see what happens when you leave my sight for a millisecond? Are you okay?”

Smiling, I replied. Battered but fine. What about you?”

Peaches: Battered but fine, too.

Me: I timewalked in Flora’s shoes and led Noel right to Cleopatra’s gold. Much more to say but not now. Any idea how many men Sonny commands?

Peaches: Not enough.

Nicolina’s response came in: On our way to Capri now. About two hours away by car. Will try to get helicopter. Sonny has not been in contact since Pompeii. Police almost rounded up her team. Has Noel harmed you?

Me: Not yet. He wants me to be his sniffer bitch so I’m in my kennel. Status report on Rupert, please.

Nicolina: Rupert has disappeared. We returned to the hotel but he had gone, his phone left behind.

Me: Noel has him! He says Sonny has Evan holed up in her boutique hotel on Capri somewhere and we’re heading there now. He plans to eradicate the agency starting with Evan. Got to go.

I wanted to check the map for everyone’s position but the door was opening.

“McCabe?”

With the phone safely tucked back down into my hoodie, I rolled over.

“Yes?’” I murmured. “Who is it?”

“Carlo. Noel says to check on you. What do you need?”

I sat up, taking in the massive bruise that darkened the man’s cheek. “I see you got into trouble for my accident.” I shrugged. “Too bad. Accidents happen, right?”

His eyes were pleading. If Noel knew that he had pocketed that pearl, Carlo would be a dead man. And he had pocketed the pearl, no doubt about that.

“I need to get out of these baggy clothes and back into my own and a shower would be much appreciated,” I told him.

Carlo spoke into his phone and then shook his head. “Boss very busy. Will not grant shower until he can…supervise.” The man’s face was deliberately blank but I sensed so many emotions firing there, the least of which was hate for Noel.

“Supervise? Why not now?” I asked.

“Too busy.”

“The approaching-Capri kind of busy?”

“We reach Capri now, yes, and wait for later.”

So Noel was planning an attack but needed to wait until everyone was sleeping before making a move. What did that bastard have in mind?

“So,” I said softly, “in the meantime, he asks what I need but won’t give me what I want: a shower, a change of clothes. Why are you even here, Carlo?”

He hesitated, eyes searching my face. I knew exactly why he was there.

“Weren’t those jewels amazing?” I said. "Cleopatra’s gift to Livia, no less. A single pearl must be worth a fortune, don’t you think, like as in millions?”

Carlo’s swarthy complexion turned ashen.

“So I need a shower and a change of clothes. Maybe you can convince your boss to at least let me get comfy.”

“I will ask.”

Our eyes met. We had just agreed to something, though I had no idea what. As he turned to open the door, a key fob dropped to the floor. “Maybe nobody watches,” he said, stirring his index finger around the room. In seconds, the door had shut and he was gone.

Maybe nobody watches? Was that a hint or should I take that verbatim? It didn’t matter. I took a chance. Hopping up to the door, I scooped up the fob and pressed the button to release my ankle shackles and another to release my wrists.

Moments later, I had flicked off the light, snatched up my clothes, and quickly changed into my undies, top and leggings, though pulling what was left of my leggings up over my scratched and cut legs hurt like hell. The last thing I did was to shove the diadem down deep into my stretch leggings just over my stomach where you could only see the outline under my shirt if you looked hard enough. Though I love the idea of going into battle crowned like a queen, I couldn’t risk losing the precious object.

Outfitted in my black midnight-prowling ensemble with a strange semicircular shape outlined over my abdomen and my superphone in hand, I was ready to get down to work.

CHAPTER 19

The phone had the locked door opened instantly. Outside, along the deserted corridor, I was surprised to see the number of cabins stretching toward the stairs—at least thirty doors. If the ship accommodated that many men, I was in trouble. Hell, I was in trouble, anyway. The phone was showing forty-five percent power and I was going to need much more than that for what I had planned.

Keeping close to the wall, I crept toward the stairs, flicking off lights whenever I encountered a switch. Most yachts this size managed their lights on a central control box somewhere near the engine room. Briefly, I had thought about cutting the boat’s power but decided against it since it would alert the crew to trouble too soon.

By the engine’s vibrations, I figured we were on a steady cruise. I checked our location on the map app—we had left the Bay of Naples and were now on the other side of Capri on the Tyrrhenian Sea following the island’s rocky coastline. We had to be zipping closer to Sonny’s hotel by the minute because now the boat was cutting back speed. Would they drop anchor somewhere offshore or head for port?

Though I had never been to Capri, I knew it to be a steep and gorgeous island notorious as a leisure destination by the rich and famous. I only wish I was feeling the holiday mood as I inched toward the stairs. All I cared about just then was finding out what was going on.

Voices sent me ducking into an empty cabin. Men were running down the hall. I heard a door open directly across from me, sounds of entering and exiting, before the footsteps pounded back up the stairs.

After everything had stilled, I stepped out to study the door across the hall. When I had it opened, I was staring into a long narrow room where guns of all descriptions hung on racks on either side. Boxes labeled DANGER in multiple languages sat stacked on the floor along with cartons of ammunition. A bloody arsenal! How could I have forgotten that Noel had inherited an arms-dealing empire and that antiquities was just one of his money-grasping enterprises?

I backed out of the room faced with the ugly realization that the bastard could be planning to blow up that hotel and take every poor occupant with it. Shit! I broke into a sweat and posted a hasty text about needing reinforcements ASAP. The authorities had to take this seriously. In the meantime, I might be the only one in the position to stop this atrocity or at least slow it down.

Slipping up the stairs, I found myself in a carpeted area that I suspected housed the lounge and dining rooms. Nobody was in sight. Seconds later, I had exited from a side door onto the deck where I scuttled along the edge to the left, keeping low and silent, heading for the prow. The master cabin had to be up front, away from the engine noises, affording the best possible views.

Crouching down with my back to the wall, the open water visible over a low railing beside me, I waited for my heart to settle. A row of curtained windows ran behind my back, light pushing a cool blue hue into the night. Several curtains had been pulled back, making it tricky to spring past them without being seen.

On my hands and knees, I inched along until I could peer into one window while keeping hidden. Inside of what looked to be a large dining area, men—I counted thirty-six within my line of vision—stood listening to someone directing operations up front. I couldn’t see who was talking or how many more men might be present but I had no doubt that some kind of maneuver was being discussed with Noel at the epicenter. Most chilling was the sight of assault rifles leaning against the opposite wall, boxes of explosives stacked nearby. Shit! I pulled back.

My best bet was to scramble toward the other side, which I did by retracing my steps. There, while crouching by a lifeboat station, I caught my first glimpse of a sentry prowling the deck toward the stern. There had to be more.

Keeping low, I scuttled around to the starboard side where it was blissfully dark. All the curtains here were solidly closed with no lights on in the cabins beyond, but what startled me was the island of Capri rearing on my right-hand side. I just stared, struck by the lights pricking like stars on the cliffs far overhead. We were that close? There appeared to be little in the way of development on the shoreline. Everything was way up on the promontories. How did Noel plan on getting up there?

Pulling out my phone, I pinched open the map. There it was, the little road jackknifing down the cliff to the hotel’s dock and private beach nestled in their own secluded cove, my location showing as a red pulsing dot offshore. The hotel, Sonno Degli Dei or Sleep of the Gods, was marked by a little flag at the top of the cliff. Okay, then. The hotel was exclusive, claiming its own little piece of paradise. Seclusion in this case equaled vulnerability.

The map of the surrounding area showed more cliffside hotels scattered all over the island but this one was noted by its apparent privacy. The only way to reach it was by boat or by a twisting road reminiscent of the Amalfi Coast. If reinforcements were going to arrive in time, they’d better come by helicopter.

I set the phone on stun and crawled up to the prow of the ship. If I guessed right, there’d be a set of stairs leading from the deck directly to the master cabin. I reached it undetected and then softly padded down the steps just as one of the two sentries standing at the foot of the stairs saw me and reached for his phone. My taser brought him to his knees in seconds. Guy number two met the same fate, his eyes terrified by the sight of the phone.

Leaving the two apparently dozing on the floor, I stepped over them and deactivated the locked cabin door. I doubted the safe would open that easily and I’d never used one of Evan’s apps on a complex safe combination lock before.

Dashing into the cabin and straight to the hearth, I flicked the switch, sending the painting sliding away and revealing the safe. I knew nothing about safes. I stared at the apps crowding onto Evan’s phone screen, most of which were probably still in the development stage. Crap. He had ten grouped under “Openers” alone. They could be bottle openers for all I knew.

I tapped the key icon I’d just used, a basic all-purpose open-upperer. Nothing happened. I tried another, this one designated by a metal box-like icon that looked promising. Immediately red text flashed on the screen: Line screen up with safe.

I felt the engine idling down beneath my feet as I held the phone up before the safe. Meanwhile, what appeared before my eyes was like an X-ray of the safe’s mechanism, all intersecting steel and what looked to me like mechanical whirligigs. None of it made sense to me. Was I supposed to manipulate something based on that? No way. I didn’t have the time or the knowledge. The boys in white would be manning their stations soon enough and I needed to get to shore first.

My gaze scanned the other opener apps. None of them looked either promising or familiar. I took a chance and pressed the icon shaped like a firecracker, or at least I thought that’s what I was looking at. Another diagram popped onto the screen, this one offering me nothing but a big red button. Big red buttons I could handle. I tapped it. The screen began flashing STAND BACK. Shit!

I was about three yards away when the explosion knocked me off my feet and had just pushed myself off the floor and was scrambling back through the billowing smoke when the fire alarm went off.

Terrifying seconds followed when I thought I had blown up Cleopatra’s jewels as I clawed through the bits of contorted steel looking for the nylon backpack as the sprinkler system engaged. Finding the bag safely enclosed in a steel box inside the safe walls was like a gift from the goddesses. All I could do was snatch it and run.

And run I did. It was a mad dash up the stairs with men rushing toward me from all directions amid smoke, sprinklers, and screeching alarms. Fire alarms on a ship ladened with explosives caused massive panic. It took a moment before I realized the men were more interested in reaching the life rafts than finding me—except for one.

A guy was running straight for me. “McCabe—jump quick!”

I turned and leapt over a deck hatch and ducked behind a rope housing while ripping off my leather jacket and shrugging on the backpack. He was right behind me. It was Carlo wearing a life jacket.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I kicked off my sneakers.

“Arsenal will explode in forty-five seconds. Jump!”

I shoved the phone deep into the pocket of my Lycra leggings hoping that Evan had the waterproofing perfected. Then in full view of the bridge, I jumped.

The cold water shocked my senses as I sank. I knew that carrying a few pounds of gold on my back would weigh me down but I had no idea by how much. My head broke the surface with barely enough time to inhale before sinking again. In those flashing moments, I glimpsed men leaping off the boat, others manning lifeboats.

The next time I made it to the surface, Carlo threw the life preserver over my head. I clung to the thing, relieved that I had support for my burden. Then, with one hand on the preserver, Carlo began kicking us to shore.

Why was he doing this? He had to be after the gold.

The distance of at least fifty feet may as well have been fifty miles. Waves slapped my face and nose, every second one coming with crushing surf. Now I could see the shore approaching rapidly. It must be nearing high tide and a current was pushing us along.

“Duck now!” Carlo ordered.

I went under just as an explosion seemed to tear the sea apart. For a moment I seemed to be lost in a churning mass of dark water. The life preserver escaped me in the blast but by now my feet were hitting sand, yet it was still a struggle to remain upright.

With water blurring my vision, I spun around looking for the dock and found that we’d been washed off to the left. Down I went again, only now my head was about a foot underwater when the ship blew a second time.

CHAPTER 20

This explosion was big enough to create a mini tidal surge that whipped the sand out from under my feet at the same time that it temporarily blocked my ears. I couldn’t seem to right myself. Several moments of gasping and choking up water followed before I felt myself being lifted up from the surf by an arm. We had made the beach!

“Run!” Carlo urged.

Behind me, I saw lifeboats rowing to shore, men shouting, the ship nothing but a flaming mass blazing in the little cove.

“How did that happen?” I coughed out a lungful of water.

“I detonate,” he said, urging me forward.

“You detonated the explosives?” No time to wait for an answer. All I had energy for was running for cover. Soon the beach would be crawling with men.

Carlo seemed to know where he was going. He led me through a forest of closed beach umbrellas and past rows of recliners, heading toward the cliff. I had no breath left to ask him anything but fished the phone from my pocket and gripped it tight. This guy had to be after the jewels.

The beach was a small white arc at the base of the cliff with nothing but rows of umbrellas, deck chairs, a closed snack bar and surf house crammed side by side against the cliff wall. One narrow road lit by occasional lamps switchbacked up the cliff toward the hotel. No stairs.

Behind us, the first lifeboat reached the shore, the men leaping over the side into the surf. Once we were spotted, they could overwhelm us in minutes. Meanwhile, Carlo had ducked behind the snack shack, me on his heels. There, lined up in a row, stood six luggage buggies ready to ferry guests and baggage up the hill with the keys left in every one. We jumped into the first and the beast lurched toward the road.

Nothing more than glorified golf carts, these things were not designed to go fast or to go far, yet this one puttered uphill at a better clip than I expected. Carlo sat in the driver’s seat, me beside him shivering while leaning forward still wearing the backpack. So far, he hadn’t mentioned what I carried but he must have known. I kept the phone close just in case he tried anything.

But the phone remained cold in my hand. No amount of switching buttons brought it to life. I stifled a stab of fear and checked over my shoulder. We had only traveled up to the first switchback with at least three more to go. Meanwhile the road was narrow, dizzyingly steep, devoid of guardrails, and frankly terrifying. And now it was filling up with buggies puttering up behind us on the one-lane track and men jogging along behind.

“Can’t you make this thing go any faster?” I demanded.

“Not Lamborghini,” Carlo called with a laugh.

Why in hell was he so damned amused? Even in the half-light, I could see that he was enjoying this.

“I must have picked slowest one,” he added.

“Why did you blow up the ship?” I asked.

“Sick of that bastard,” was all he said. “I want to see him go down, maybe take over. I know you stole jewels.”

“Not for your benefit.”

He grinned. “We will see.”

Was this another mutiny? But I didn’t have time to ponder Noel’s leadership problems just then. The diadem was digging into my belly and I worried that I might bend the pure gold. I needed to get that thing out and into the backpack without Carlo noticing before I punctured myself or worse.

I looked over my shoulder again. There was no passing lane on this road and yet one buggy was leaning on its horn while trying to squeeze past the one ahead of it. Too far away to see who was vying for the lead but I guessed it might be Noel. I tried to lean back to lessen the digging into my skin but the backpack nixed that idea.

So, what was going on back there? Why not just order the guy ahead to stop and commandeer his vehicle? Because, I thought, the guy ahead wouldn’t obey orders, that’s why. It was every man for himself now and they were all after a fortune of priceless jewels. Me, in other words. Boss dog had lost control.

“They’re gaining on us,” I said.

“Blow them up with your phone,” Carlo suggested, sending a toothy grin in my direction.

“And drain the battery? I may need all the juice I can get before the day is out.” If I told him the truth, he might try to grab my backpack and toss me over the edge.

While the buggy kept inching along and those behind us picked up speed, I was desperately seeking other options. If I got out and ran, how far would I get on this narrow ledge with the gold bouncing along on my back?

I shook the phone. “Activate!” I commanded. The phone remained cold.

“Not working?” Carlo shot me a worried glance.

“I have it on power preserve. In two minutes it will be back to full strength,” I lied, but I desperately needed that thing now. Evan waterproofed all of our phones so what was I missing?

“Shit!” Carlo spiced it up with a few Italian variations. “We need your phone!”

Since when did he become a “we”?

I looked up. A set of headlights was heading toward us from above. “Who’s that?”

“Probably Sonny Baldi or one of her men.” And he let rip a suite of vicious curses. No fan of Sonny’s, either, but Sonny could be my ally, or maybe not.

I stared ahead. The car was no luggage buggy but some sleek white convertible with a driver completely at ease with the jackknife turns. If he wasn’t a resident at the Sonno Degli Dei, he was certainly a regular visitor.

“Blow up car with phone,” Carlo ordered, “and then hit them behind us. Do it now!”

“Issuing commands already, Carlo? Stop the buggy.”

He slammed on the brakes but only because the car had just arrived blocking our path. Out jumped Luca, Sonny’s sometimes boyfriend, all relaxed-man-about-Capri, only with an assault rifle in hand instead of a glass of vino.

“Phoebe, get into the car,” Luca ordered, aiming the rifle at Carlo.

Carlo pulled out a gun of his own and stood up, leaning over the buggy’s windshield. “You back off, Luca, or I shoot her.”

The her he was referring to was currently slipping from the buggy to the sports car, guessing that these guys would do anything to ensure that the art sniffer dog kept wagging her tail. No one would shoot me and at least one of them might even briefly believe I was doing what I was told. I pulled open my leggings front and retrieved the diadem, slightly wonky but fine otherwise. With no time to place it in the backpack, I stuck it on my head under the matted curls.

No surprise, Carlo did not take a shot. Meanwhile, the first of the buggies arrived at the scene.

“Drop the gun, Luca,” Noel cried. “You know damn well that I have more of my men up at the Sonno. I’ve infiltrated your whole organization!”

Well, damn. I slipped into the driver’s seat, rammed the stick shift into reverse, and put my foot on the gas.

I’d just leave the boys to work it out among themselves while I shot up the hill backward.

CHAPTER 21

Luca had left the key fob in the console. Nice. Still, I didn’t plan on reaching my destination in reverse. My intent was just to put some distance between me and the warring boys. Surely one assault rifle against a herd of Noel’s waterlogged troops would buy me enough time to get to the top? Or so I hoped.

The sight of me zooming backward must have startled the men because I heard nothing behind me at first. My gaze was fixed on the back windshield as I negotiated the first turn. I eased the car around that hairpin bend with sweat beading my forehead, knowing that one miscalculation could pitch me straight over the edge. There was enough light posted at every turn to see the road but otherwise it felt as every inch might bring me closer to death. I took it slow, at least in the beginning.

I could feel them watching, making it harder the way parallel parking with an audience spoils concentration. But I managed, and once I had the car back on the straight and narrow again, I picked up speed, which seemed to signal a commotion below. When I heard machine gun fire, I braked long enough to risk looking through the front windshield. The buggies were on the move again amid bullets peppering the pavement. Well, damn.

And they were gaining fast. Every time I slowed down to make a turn, they were making up the distance. Two more switchback turns ahead. I’d never make it. Slamming on the brakes, I eased forward, turned the steering wheel hard before reversing the car into the cliffside in a crunch of mangled steel, jammed the stick into park, and left the car straddling the road on an angle. Then I jumped out and tossed the keys over the edge.

I was halfway up the next length, my lungs burning, when I turned and tried to activate the phone again. Still dead. All I wanted was a little explosion now that the buggies had just reached the car.

I had no choice but to bolt on foot the rest of the way, the backpack weighing me down while the boys scrambled over the car and took off after me. They might not be able to drive the buggies to the top but they could sure as hell outrun me. Two more switchback lengths to go and my legs felt like lead.

Almost there but what then? If Noel’s men had infiltrated the place, what defense did I have? Looking up, I could just see a figure standing backlit on the patio above. I trudged on, only slower now.

“Phoebe?” the figure called down. “Is that you?”

I stumbled to a halt. “Max?”

“Stay there! Peaches is coming down.”

A headlight appeared over the edge zipping down the hill toward me. The bike reached me in seconds, Peaches’s long leather-clad legs unmistakable. I climbed onto the back and gripped her waist as she whipped us back up the road.

“I’m so glad to see you!” I shouted.

“Yeah, me, too!” she cried back.

Behind us the boys were shouting and trying to blast out the back tire. We reached Max standing with a pistol in hand on the patio.

“Max, run for cover!” I cried. “And why are you even here?” I added.

“Phoebe!” Max tried to embrace me, backpack and all. “Thank God you’re all right. Who are those guys?”

“Art thieves, wannabe warlords, gunrunners…” I gasped.

Meanwhile, Peaches had dismounted and was striding up to the top of the drive with her phone in hand while I shimmied into the driver’s seat to brace the bike. Soon she was sending stun bolts at the first men to arrive at the top.

“How many are there?” she called back.

“Maybe thirty,” I replied.

“And they’re after you, as usual? Good thing we arrived when we did,” Max said, watching her. “You can’t hold them off against bullets!” he called as a shot ricocheted by her feet.

“Not that I’m not glad to see you but why are you here?” I asked Max again.

“Noel told me to meet him here but when I arrived the place was deserted, apparently evacuated after this big explosion in the cove. Peaches picked me up after I parked the car below while I was running up the drive. The guests were escaping downhill in their pj’s.”

“Max, that’s Noel chasing me down there. The man’s a criminal. How many times have I told you that?”

Max looked over his shoulder again. “My son’s back there with that lot?”

“He’s the leader of that lot, or was until they mutinied. We’ve got to get out of here. Peaches can’t hold them off for long.”

Bullets were pinging off the pavement when Peaches came bounding over to us. “Find cover fast! You and Max take the bike and I’ll hold them off.”

“No bloody way! If my son’s back there, I’ve got to help him. He may need me,” Max cried. “You two take the bike.”

“Talk sense into him, will you?” Peaches demanded, trying to shove Max toward the bike.

“Max, you’ve got to hide,” I said. "Noel isn’t who you think he is, I’m telling you. He probably planned to use you for something by calling you here.”

“Go, both of you!” Max told us. “I mean it. I’m staying.”

Peaches shoved her way into the driver’s seat, swearing like a storm trooper.

“Max, stop! Peaches, we can’t leave him!” I even thought about jumping off the bike to stand by his side.

“Yes, we can,” she called as she revved the engine. “We’re here to rescue Ev and Rupe. Max just made his own choice.”

And then we were zooming across the flagstones, me so conflicted I wanted to scream. “Peaches, that’s my godfather!”

“Yeah, and somewhere is your lover and friend, plus members of the team’s lives are at risk. How many reasons do you need to move? We got to make tough choices sometimes, Phoebe. Anyway, this one isn’t yours, it’s mine. Now where in this richy place do you think Sonny stashed Evan?”

“I don’t know but Noel claims to have infiltrated here, too. He says that he knows where she hid him so we’d better find him before he does. Have you heard from Sonny?”

We had zipped down a flagstone path and lurched to a halt.

“Not a word since Pompeii. Something’s up there but who knows what.”

“And Rupert’s still missing?”

“Far as I know.”

“Noel says he has him, too. Any idea when the others might arrive?”

“They were almost to Rome when we got your message while I was still poking around Pompeii. Haven’t checked the map recently. I ran into Max on the drive up. He said he heard from Noel. True?”

“Apparently.”

The hotel entrance was brilliantly lit and shockingly empty. Even the automated glass doors were gaping wide, yet not a single person was in sight.

“All the guests evacuated?” I asked.

“Yeah, I passed a couple on the hill. They said there was a huge explosion in the cove and that the manager told everyone to leave.”

“The manager,” I mused. “Maybe that was Sonny?”

“Said it was a man. Let’s hide the bike and get inside.”

“That could be Luca, then. He ended up driving down toward the cove to fetch me but I didn’t trust him any more than I trust any of these guys.”

We ditched the bike and her helmet behind an ornamental hedge, me still thinking that maybe I should just check on Max for a second, but Peaches never gave me the chance.

“Set your phone on stun,” she ordered as we slipped back up the drive into the foyer.

“Can’t.”

She shot me a quick look. “What do you mean you can’t? Why don’t you have that phone out?”

“It’s not working,” I said, taking in the polished marble flooring, brilliant blue chairs, and surround-view glass walls. Where in a place like this would somebody hide a person—in the basement?

“Not working? That’s Evan’s superphone. How can it not be working?”

“Maybe it wasn’t waterproof enough. I swam to shore. Listen, I hear voices. Come on, we’d better hide.”

We were crouching behind the reservation desk when she held out her hand for the phone. I dropped it into her palm, watching as she pressed a side button three times, causing a little water drop icon to appear on the screen followed by an animated pulsing squirt. Soon her palm was wet.

You never read the instructions, she mouthed as she wiped her hand on her jacket.

We heard a man enter the foyer calling in Italian: “Check every corner!”

I retrieved the phone and set the stun app to low. Back in business! Instantly, Peaches plucked the phone back again and tapped a different app. “This is power-packed, like a Mensa smartphone,” she whispered. “Ev told me all about it. Better than any other new generation of agency phones. Let’s see what it can do.”

On her feet in a flash, she glanced at the screen briefly before zapping the five men that appeared with a sweeping arc of light. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed as they fell, rifles clattering to the floor. “Did you see that? It’s like a ray gun.”

“Did it kill them?” I asked.

Peaches was peering down at the phone whistling while I ran over to check one man’s pulse. “Out cold,” I said, “but still breathing.”

“So are these Noel’s dudes?” she asked, leaning over and whipping up an assault rifle to study. “Russian rifles.”

“If they’re dressed in wet white like these guys, then they were on that boat, that’s all I know. Otherwise, Noel’s crew appears to be in mutiny, including the guy who helped me escape. Every man for himself type thing.”

I retrieved the phone from her hand, almost needing to tug it from her grip.

Peaches stared at me fully for the first time. “You sure are rocking the wet T-shirt look, woman, and what’s that on your head?”

I felt my forehead. “Oh, forgot I was wearing it—Cleopatra’s diadem.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re wearing Cleopatra’s diadem?”

“I am, and look, men are already falling at my feet.” I grinned. A little humor was needed just then, trust me. I removed the band of jeweled gold—a little bent but not too misshapen—from under my tangled mop and passed it over. “Do you mind placing it in the backpack with the fortune of pearls and jewels?”

Wonder glowed in her eyes as she took the diadem from me and zipped open my backpack. “Wish I had time to try it on. Bet it would look dynamite on me.”

“Bet it would, too.” I felt her tug on the zipper. “All secure?”

“Wow, look at that treasure. I think my eyes are popping.”

“We’d better get going.” I started striding down the corridor, leaving her to trot behind me still zipping the pouch. “That loot is why I’m suddenly so popular with this lot.”

“Well, damn.” She grinned, matching my stride. “I may just forgive you for all your harebrained ideas yet.” Then she sobered. “But only after we find Evan and Rupert.”

“Right.” We were walking toward the hall leading away from the entrance. Just thinking of Evan delivered a punch of anxiety. “Do you think Evan may have packed in a few extra X-ray capabilities into this thing? It could be useful.”

She caught up with me. “I remember him saying something about locating the blueprints of almost every building by using a feature that links to any related web source at lightning speed. Here, let me see.” The phone left my grip yet again.

“Here it is. Look. Every hotel built anywhere has associated blueprints, most of which have been added to a digital databank somewhere. See, Ev figured out a way to link into all of them with this feature here.” She tapped an icon shaped like a red house. In seconds, she had pinpointed our location on the group map. “You tap settings, click on this box, and ta-da! It goes and retrieves the info you want.”

I peered over her shoulder at the diagram. “That man’s amazing and I had forgotten that the Greeks first settled Capri and the Romans loved it, too.”

“Yeah, and this hotel is built over a cave system. Look.” She pinched open the screen. “And they now use part of it as a wine cellar.”

“That must be it.” We exchanged glances. “Let’s go,” I said.

By the diagram, it looked as though the caves were deep in the cliff with an interior set of stairs carved right into the living rock, the entry near the kitchen. Both of us kept our phones in hand with the perimeter warning alerts active, expecting to meet resistance at every turn.

We almost made it to the kitchen entrance when Evan’s phone started beeping seconds before Peaches’s did.

“Hold it right there,” a man commanded.

We slowly turned. Two men were striding down the hall toward us from the foyer, each holding a rifle.

“Carlo and Luca,” I said. “What a surprise. Are you two best buds now?”

Carlo smirked while Luca appeared his usually relaxed and debonaire self except for the bloodstains and dirt smears on his striped linen pants.

“Drop the phones, ladies, and then pass over the backpack,” Luca said, ignoring my question.

Peaches turned to me. “Is he serious?”

“Drop the phones, now!” Carlo snarled.

“Wow, so manly but no can do,” Peaches said. “See, as soon as I drop this baby, the intruder alert goes off and that will trigger a spray of radiation particles in all directions rendering everyone dead in seconds, except for us, of course. If you try to take it forcefully, the effects are even worse. I’m talking nuclear.” None of that could be true but hopefully the boys would buy it.

Certainly Luca looked concerned but Carlo only waved his gun. “Then we shoot you and take backpack that way.”

“She said that idea was even worse. Weren’t you listening?” I asked.

“Disastrously worse.” Peaches picked up the tale. “That will cause both phones to explode and this whole place will blow up, including you two cutie pies. Hey, didn’t you use to work for Sonny?” She was gazing at Luca.

“Yes, and Carlo here worked for Noel,” I said. “Looks like there are flaws in everyone’s loyalty programs these days.” To the men, I added: “Where’s Noel?”

“Locked up in the beach shed with his daddy,” Carlo told me with a smirk. “We put him there, like we’ll put you if you don’t do as we say. We are in charge now.”

“And Sonny?” I was looking at Luca.

Luca shrugged. “Sonny is taking a rest, poor darling. Like Carlo says, I’m in charge now.”

“I thought you two were a team?” Peaches asked, looking at Carlo.

“Shut up and move!” Carlo ordered.

“You just don’t get it, guys.” Peaches aimed her phone toward the men’s feet, delivering a bolt strong enough to blast a hole in the marble floor. They leapt backward amid a spray of flying stone chips. “Drop the guns, boys, or I’ll blow up your legs next.”

That convinced them. In moments they had lowered their rifles and raised their hands.

“Now you move,” she ordered. “You’ll accompany us to the wine cellar.”

The men strode ahead of us, sending wary glances over their shoulders every few seconds.

“Why the wine cellar?” Luca asked.

“That’s where Sonny’s hidden Evan, right?” I asked.

“Wrong,” he said. “She has taken him somewhere else.”

I hesitated. “Where?”

“How would I know? There is no need to go down to the wine cellar, I’m telling you.”

Peaches and I exchanged glances again.

“So, why don’t I believe such an honest, loyal guy like you?” I asked. “Let’s just take a look, shall we?”

“You are wasting time! We should be killing off the rest of Noel’s men. You have those phones,” Luca continued.

“Stop talking, Luca. You’re pissing me off,” Peaches remarked.

We continued down the hall, past doors labeled Steam Room, Pool, Massage, through a bar, and into a long, multiroomed kitchen with Peaches periodically checking her diagram along the way. “There should be a set of stairs off to the right.”

When we reached the stairway, we ordered the men to proceed in single file ahead of us, Luca first, then Carlo.

“You have jewels on your back,” Carlo said so casually you’d think we were sharing a chat over coffee. “I helped save your life.”

“Thanks for that,” I acknowledged. “Only I wonder how long your helpfulness would have lasted once you got hold of my backpack?”

Carlo seemed to be pondering this as we descended deeper and deeper into the heart of the cliff. “I am a fair man. We had a deal,” he said.

“We had an understanding. You helped me escape if I kept quiet about that pearl you pocketed. I kept up my end so we’re even.”

The stairs started out as wide polished marble steps complete with safety treads at first but soon narrowed to roughly hewn stone.

“You could share Cleopatra’s jewels with us and then we all work together,” Carlo suggested.

“Yeah, that’s a likely scenario,” Peaches remarked. “Keep moving, bozo.”

Only by now the stairway was winding and narrowing to the point where we could no longer keep both men in our sights. When Carlo suddenly fell backward, nearly knocking me off my feet, Peaches shoved us both aside to chase the escaping Luca down the steps.

CHAPTER 22

I kicked Carlo back from me and ordered him on his feet, the weight of the backpack nearly knocking me off balance. My phone slipped out of my hand and Carlo turned and lunged for it.

“Carlo, don’t—”

But the idiot touched it, letting out such a curdling scream followed by a whimper so intense that I almost felt sorry for him.

“Don’t be a baby, Carlo. You probably have first degree burns but you’ll live.” I snatched up the phone and pointed it toward him. “Now move it! Peaches,” I called. “Are you all right down there?”

“All right,” she called back.

“Turn around and keep moving,” I ordered Carlo, which he did while nursing his hand as if it were a wounded kitten. “And don’t try anything else or I’ll push one of the superbuttons.”

When we reached the bottom, Peaches was flexing her right hand while a bruised and surly-looking Luca slumped against the wall.

“What happened?” I asked.

She winced and made a fist. “I punched him, bastard made me so mad. Sometimes I just feel like using the hands-on approach. Get up, bozo.”

Bozo struggled to his feet, one hand rubbing his jaw.

“Take us to the wine cellar now and no more tricks.”

Luca stumbled obligingly along with Carlo sulking away behind him.

“Pathetic,” Peaches said under her breath.

We were walking along a rough-hewn corridor lit by modern lamps when I heard a sound like a sigh coming someplace up ahead.

“Evan?” I called.

Our pace quickened, Peaches hurrying the boys along by zapping them with low voltage charges.

When we arrived at the source of the sigh, we were shocked to see an arched barred room that seemed to imprison racks and racks of wine along with the haggard woman staring out at us.

“Sonny?” I gasped. She looked like hell, all frizzy blond hair and smudged makeup beneath puffy eyes. Empty wine bottles stuffed with cigarette butts sat on the floor behind her.

“Phoebe, you have come to rescue me?”

“Where’s Evan?” I demanded.

“Not here,” she said, flipping one hand around behind her. “Get me out and I will take you to him.”

“Sonny, don’t! He’s your collateral,” Luca said.

I ignored him. “Who put you here?” I asked.

She pointed through the bars. “Him.”

I turned to Luca while Peaches fiddled with the padlock. “Another mutiny?” I asked.

“She does not take me seriously,” he griped. “I make suggestions and she does what she wants, always. This time I had it up to here.” He pointed to his forehead. “I lock her up only to teach a lesson.” Then he broke into Italian directed at Sonny that sounded like some kind of ardent protestation of his devotion mixed with a plea for forgiveness.

Sonny just rolled her eyes. Soon Peaches had the padlock opened and was ushering the captive out and the two men in. Sonny slapped Luca’s face while exiting. “Idiot,” she hissed.

Luca nursed is cheek. “My love, you know I only did this for your own good, so we could have a life together. Forgive me.”

The bars clanged shut behind us and Peaches reapplied the lock.

Carlo gripped the bars with one hand and waved his other in the air. “I need a doctor!”

Peaches gave the men a passing glance. “Are those two for real?”

Sonny folded her arms and stood gazing back at her lover. “He adores me but he is so tiresome. Does anyone have a cigarette? I just smoked my last.”

“We don’t smoke, I keep telling you that,” I said. “Now, where’s Evan?”

Sonny sighed. “Follow me but I’m warning you: I need water and a smoke soon. That was one long night.”

“Ours was no picnic, either,” Peaches told her.

Sonny began treading unsteadily toward the stairs in her bare feet while we followed behind, Peaches keeping her phone aimed at the woman’s back.

“You don’t need that,” Sonny told her.

“Yeah, well, I’ll decide what I do or do not need.”

Meanwhile, I was checking our group map. “Nicolina and Seraphina are almost here.” And to Sonny: “Is Evan unharmed?”

“I see you brought the jewels,” was her response.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

“Because I said I would give you Evan if you brought me the jewels.”

“She has the jewels on her back!” Luca called from behind us.

Sonny shouted over her shoulder: “Don’t drink all my Barolo, you bastard!” Then to me she added: “Evan is fine but resting. Noel gave him a battering even while the man was out cold—coward. Had him drugged, too. He has a druggist on his payroll now, or that is what I call him, a man good at giving injections.”

“Yes, I encountered him,” I told her.

“Where have you hidden Evan?” Peaches demanded, turning to face her. “Tell me before I shake your teeth out.”

Sonny’s gaze never left my face. “I don’t talk to her, I talk to you, understand? Tell her to back down.”

I shot a quick look at Peaches, who turned her head away in disgust.

“Evan rests upstairs in my finest room where I brought him after I rescued him,” Sonny told me as we climbed the stairs. “If he could walk, he would be free to leave anytime he desires. God, I am so thirsty. I must drink some water and then coffee soon.”

“You released him?” I asked as I climbed up behind her.

We reached the top of the stairs. “Do you seriously think we’ll believe that?” Peaches exclaimed.

Sonny turned, her mascara-smudged gaze fixed on me. “We made the bargain, you and me, Phoebe. This does not involve your gladiator there.” She thumbed toward Peaches. “I have kept my word, now you keep yours. When Noel ambushed you in Pompeii, I sent a message to my men to release Evan. I knew that Noel would figure out the wine cellar thing and try to kill your man at the first opportunity. He had infiltrators working here but I already knew which bastards were which. They have since been disposed of.” She shrugged. “You might say I had them fired.”

“And on that basis you released Evan?” I asked.

“Luca and I argued about this in Pompeii, had a big fight, him telling me that I was too weak to do the things necessary to run my father’s organization. He wanted to kill Evan to show strength. I disagreed. Sometimes the weaker move is in fact the strongest. Ah, good. There is still water available.” She had just spied a guest commode against the wall where a silver bucket sat stacked with bottled water.

“So you argued and Luca…what then, he bundled you up and dragged you here?” I was gaping at her by then. Sonny had turned to gaze down at us from two steps overhead.

“For my own protection, he said. Have you heard anything so foolish? He had bought out one of my other men. Luca took me back here and locked me up but Evan had already been released. You see, I keep my promises. Now you keep yours.”

“No bloody way!” Peaches erupted. “We don’t negotiate with criminals, do we, Phoebe? Tell her.”

“Criminals?” Sonny asked, eyes never leaving my face. “I do despise labels, don’t you, Phoebe? We are all so much more than the labels others give us.”

“There is the little matter of verification, Sonny. I have yet to see Evan. How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I said.

She nodded and began to climb again. “I take you there now. Once you confirm my words, we talk again.”

This whole discussion left me reeling. I had agreed to the deal, of course I had, but I was being coerced, wasn’t I?

The corridor was surprisingly empty when we reached the top and followed behind Sonny—no Noel wannabes, no damp men in white running around shouting orders.

“Where did all the bad guys go?” Peaches asked.

Lights were flashing through the lobby’s sweeping glass windows which looked out over the patio. Something red pulsed down in the cove beyond and there were sirens screeching from the bottom of the hill out front.

“Looks like the police have arrived,” I said.

“So maybe they ran away?” Sonny plucked up a bottle of water from a guest refreshment table. She downed it in seconds. “I am so thirsty!” she exclaimed. “Too much wine. I will pay for that later, I know, but what else do I do down there? Come, we had best visit your Evan before the police tie us up with questions. This way.” She was heading for an elevator.

Peaches and I followed behind her, my gladiator obviously disgruntled. “The cops are going to nail her, too,” she whispered.

“No, they won’t,” Sonny said, catching her words. “I have done nothing illegal.”

“Are you bloody kidding me? Isn’t kidnapping not an offense in Italy?” Peaches demanded.

Sonny addressed me. “Did I kidnap you, Phoebe? I do not think so. If I recall, I invited you to lunch. There were no guns or force used.”

“You told me that if I didn’t come, Evan would die,” I protested.

“And so he would have had I not intervened.” Sonny caught a glimpse of herself in the floor-length mirror behind the guest console and grimaced. “Either Luca would have killed him or Noel, so that was the truth.”

“And the man with the gun you showed me who would apparently shoot Evan in key places if I didn’t comply?” I was incensed by now.

She shrugged. “So there, I lied. Okay, not nice but not a crime, eh? The man was nowhere near Evan. Come, let us see your man now. This way.”

We followed her to an elevator, Peaches widening her eyes at me. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to convey. Probably Do you believe this?

“One other thing, Phoebe. I rescued your Rupert, too,” Sonny remarked.

Now we both gaped at her. “You rescued Rupert?”

“But of course. I knew that Noel held him hostage at your hotel but I sent my team over to free him. Maybe I briefly thought about using him as an extra bargaining chip, I admit, but then decided not to. Consider it another proof of my goodwill.”

Peaches just stared at her as if unsure whether to snort or shake her molars loose as they elevator climbed three floors.

“So, if you rescued Rupert, where’s he at?” I said, more than a little exasperated by that time.

The elevator door whispered open. Sonny pointed. “Is that him? I have seen pictures.”

We gazed down the hall at the gentleman who appeared to be ambling in our direction. It did look like Rupert, though a very worn version dressed in a white terry hotel bathrobe. Rupert objected to hotel bathrobes in principle—too bulky at the waist.

“Oh, there you are, Phoebe and Penelope. I am very relieved to see you at last indeed. This has been a most long and arduous evening and not one I wish to repeat anytime soon. Did you hear the explosion in the cove? I could not find the management so ushered the guests out at the first opportunity but I believe the coast guard have arrived now.”

I ran up to him and nearly hugged the breath out of him. “Rupert, how did you get here?”

“Why, one of Sofonisba’s men released me, of course. I thought you knew?” He peered over my shoulder. “Is that the lady herself?”

“It is,” Sonny said, coming up beside him and extending her hand. “Pardon my appearance, Sir Rupert, but I have just spent many hours locked up in the wine cellar, much as you have been kept hostage, though I admit that the wine helped pass the time. Terrible thing, though. I was forced to down several bottles of my best vintage. I hope you’ve been well cared for while I was away?”

Rupert appeared momentarily confused. “Oh, very well, thank you, um, yes. Your staff took very good care of me and my son—”

“Where is he?” I cried.

Rupert turned. “Where is who, Phoebe? Please do be specific. I—”

“Your son, Evan, where’s Evan?”

“Why, down the hall to the left. Phoebe, the lad’s not conscious yet, though he fades in and out. He’s doing much better. The doctor expects him to make a full recovery—”

But I was hardly listening. I arrived at the door of a spacious guest room where the bed lamp illuminated a sleeping man, one whom I nearly fell upon until I realized the poor guy was truly unconscious and that a bandage bound his chest and one hand. I gripped his other. “Evan?’

He turned his head and whispered: “Phoebe…”

I could have cried had I not been too aware of an audience looking on.

“He needs to rest, Phoebe,” Rupert was saying. “Noel gave him quite a battering, leaving him with a few cracked ribs and a broken finger. We won’t mention the other wounds he inflicted upon him but I am quite certain the lad will heal there, too.”

“Phoebe?” Evan whispered.

I placed a finger on his lips. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Don’t speak. Just rest.”

“Where’s…Noel…?”

“Locked up.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek, thinking that I would soon start sniveling or worse if I didn’t pull myself together.

“Locked up where?” I heard Sonny ask behind me. Reluctantly, I pulled myself away from the patient after one more longing look to assure myself that he truly was alive and somewhat well.

Rupert took my arm and drew me out into the hall. “Yes, where have you secured that scum, Phoebe?” he asked.

“He’s locked up with Max…” Oh, shit, I just remembered that. “Down in the beach canteen. We have to get down there and let Max out, dispatch Noel to the authorities.”

“The beach canteen?” Sonny asked. “What idiot put him there?”

I met her eyes. “Luca, maybe?”

She threw up her hands. “That man cannot do anything right! The canteen is linked to the hotel by a tunnel and an interior elevator that leads to the kitchen. Luca is not involved in the operations of my hotel so doesn’t know this but Noel does.”

“No bloody way!” Peaches exclaimed. “I’m not letting that bastard get free again.” She took off toward the elevator, all but Rupert following.

“I’ll just wait here with the lad in case Noel accosts him,” Rupert said. “I have your phone, Phoebe.”

“Good,” I called back.

Sonny, Peaches, and I stepped out into the lobby, Peaches so eager to get to the beach she almost pried the doors open when they failed to part quickly enough. In seconds, she was dashing down the hall.

“Take the elevator at the back of the kitchen for the quickest way down to the beach,” Sonny said. To me she added, “Now, Phoebe, let’s you and I go to the lounge and pour ourselves a coffee. I keep a carafe brewing for guests twenty-four hours a day. We can discuss our deal before the police get involved.”

Peaches was retracing her steps toward the kitchen when she overheard that remark. “You’re not seriously going with her, are you, Phoebe?” She turned to glare at me.

Sonny continued speaking as if she hadn’t heard. “We can take our mugs with us up to the upper patio for our chat. It’s best that we avoid the police for the time being so we can complete our business, yes?”

“Phoebe?” Peaches was glaring at me, her expression as much a warning as demand.

“Just get Noel, Peach, please,” I told her. “Go!”

CHAPTER 23

The sun was just breaking the horizon over the Tyrrhenian Sea when Sonny and I walked up the outside stairs to a small patio perched at the highest point on the property. It was such an intimate setting with tables and chairs pulled together beneath a vine-covered pergola that, for a moment, all I could do was pause long enough to inhale the view. If one could skim past the flashing lights in the cove or the equally frenetic pulse of those just visible at the far edge of the hotel, it would be perfect. I just needed one pure moment to loosen the coils in my stomach. So far, nothing was working.

I was torn in multiple directions: I wanted to remain by Evan’s side; I wanted to hunt down Noel; I wanted to be reunited with my team—yet a single piece of crucial unfinished business drove me to join Sonny that morning.

She seemed so relaxed. With a fresh cigarette burning between the fingers of one hand and her mug in the other, it was as if she was ready for a pleasant tête-à-tête between friends.

“Aren’t you worried that the police will round you up and toss you in jail, too?”

“Why would I?” She smiled while taking a seat and stretching her legs out on an empty chair across from her. I pulled up one of the chairs on the opposite side of the little wrought iron table. “I have done nothing wrong. I assisted you and your friends against a notorious art thief. I have stolen nothing.”

“You are now head of an arms cartel,” I protested while deliberately keeping my tone as even as hers. I took a sip of the rich strong coffee. Hell, I needed that.

“Not true.” She drew on her cigarette and blew smoke into the dawn. A transparent halo hovered briefly overhead before being dispersed by a breeze. “My father was head of an arms cartel and then Noel and my brother followed him. I was never involved in such things and there is no proof that I was. I am not interested in running guns and perpetuating wars, though I admit to using my influence to assist the Ukrainians. Do you blame me for that?”

She knew I wouldn’t.

“Nor can I be accused of any crime regarding you and your friends. I helped you to escape,” she continued.

This woman was formidable in a thousand subtle ways and I knew she had an angle I couldn’t swallow. “You have the reproduction of a piece of priceless art on your yacht which could prove that you’re holding the original contraband should I encourage anyone to search it,” I pointed out.

“Ah,” she said, still smiling. “There is no law against owning a reproduction.”

I stared at her. “So,” I began, “you’ve covered your bases and now you’ll try to tell me that you taking Cleopatra’s jewels is somehow not a crime.”

She dropped her feet to the pavers and swung around to fully face me. “I will not take Cleopatra’s jewels. You will give them to me.”

“Then I would be committing the crime.”

“Nobody yet knows what you have in your possession except Noel and a few criminals who none will believe. Besides, had I not set everything in motion, those jewels would still remain buried.”

“But I found them.”

“We found them with Noel.”

Would I ever win that argument? She was right. “And why would I let you take anything, our pseudo deal notwithstanding?” I demanded.

“Because, Phoebe,” she began, the smile now changed into something more feral, “if you do not, countless ancient treasures will remain buried in time, maybe forever.”

“Oh, please.”

Sonny flicked her hand impatiently. “My father was an obsessive collector of books, scrolls, and manuscripts with the wherewithal to steal, sequester, and hold on to them in a manner that no legal entity could ever do.”

That brought to mind my vivid memory of her father roaming around the Medici collection with an intent to use them for his own purposes before we stopped him. I believed her.

“I am speaking here of, among others, papyri from Herculaneum, which when deciphered reveals unbelievable secrets including possibly the lost tomb of Cleopatra and Antony, scrolls from Alexandria—yes, do not look so shocked; they were not all destroyed—the lost paintings hidden by the Nazis. Also, my father blasted into the foundations of the ruins of an old chapel and found a trove of manuscripts and incunabula belonging to the Knights Templar, and I personally know of a man who holds a vast collection of African art that may lead to a priceless treasure. I now have access to this ancient legacy and all that they contain.”

Stark disbelief must have registered on my face. “Then why didn’t your father move on these treasures if they were so incredible?”

“Because he’s not a timewalker like you, Phoebe, and neither am I. He might have some of the clues—those I chose to disclose, that is—but not the ability to locate them. He couldn’t even read these sources himself. He needed me and his handful of scholars for that. Mostly he’d allow a few to access a tiny portion of his library at a time. Only I was given the full access. He trusted me, not them, but maybe that was his mistake. I told him little. I read, studied, and waited.”

I swallowed more coffee hoping against hope that it might help clarify this murky situation. “Waited for your opportunity to come out from under your father’s, brother’s, and Noel’s thumbs, you mean?”

“In a way. I watched and waited. All these men wanted this rich source material to track down antiquities and other valuables for their own ends—to get wealthier, to buy and trade guns and other contraband. They did not care about the objects themselves. That’s not what I want. I want to find history; I want to hear the voices that time has left behind, to know where the recorded stories end and the human ones begin. I only gave my father enough clues to keep him going. The rest I kept secret. Until now.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you don’t want these ancient treasures for yourself, that’s it’s all about hearing these human voices?”

“Of course not. I must stay alive, pay my staff, enjoy the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed. I’m saying that I don’t want and need it all. I am not greedy. For every timewalk you take that leads to treasures based on information and source material I provide, you will take half for your museums and art galleries. That is half of what you would never otherwise have for your institutions. But that’s only part of what you care about, too, isn’t it, Phoebe? You also want to hear those lost voices speak the way I do, only in your case they speak in your head.”

I hesitated. “I’d rather they didn’t speak through me. It’s terrifying…to carry all those voices in my head now that I can hear them more clearly.”

“Yes, I understand,” she said softly. “That must be so difficult.”

It was more than just difficult, it was heartbreaking and thrilling all at the same time. I took a deep breath. “You know that the agency’s mission is to find the ancient lost and the stolen and return them to their original owners or to humanity as a whole. For me personally at the heart of it all, I want to know that the ancient and the beautiful or simply informative remain in the hands of the many not the few. I want to know that everyone has the opportunity to see for themselves those objects that have shaped what it means to be human.” Something like a tremor was coursing through me which I couldn’t quite contain. Maybe it was the sudden jolt of caffeine.

Sonny leaned forward, propping one elbow on the table. “I applaud you. So I ask, how often does it happen that the governments all agree quickly who gets what and to what museum?”

I met her steady gaze. “You know how fraught international law can be.”

“I do. Take Cleopatra’s jewels, for example.”

“In the case of Cleopatra’s jewels, which were found on Italian soil, Italy will make the strongest case for ownership, but since Cleopatra was an Egyptian queen, that nation will demand that the jewels return to Cairo. Egypt has been very aggressive over the looting that Britain, in particular, has made on her treasures across the centuries, and they have little tolerance for any new and improved version. In this case, Cleopatra provided a gift to a Roman citizen, making the ownership clearly Italian.”

“Providing one has the proof.” She took another drag of her cigarette. “I have that letters from Livia to the Vestal Virgins, you do not. I have the provenance. See my point?”

Decades of legal wrangling in international courts, all of which might ensure that Cleopatra’s jewels may never find their home for a long, long time. Even the right to release photographs could be prohibited due to copyright wrangling. Unless the objects came with a clear path to ownership to prove history and ownership, the bounty I carried on my back may as well remain buried under a brick in Pompeii. Yes, I saw her point.

“Listen, Phoebe, I am suggesting a partnership equally beneficial to us both. I provide the clues, you timewalk, and together we discover lost or stolen antiquities. We share everything. We cooperate every step of the way. It is not possible that you will find these treasures without me or I without you. Together we will hear the past speak in the most powerful manner, and for everything we uncover, we share and I give you the source material to cut through the legal red tape. This will ensure that these treasures will be seen now, not later.”

It was a bargain so tempting, how could I refuse? At the same time, how could I accept? “Only your deal means I enter an agreement with a thief, call yourself what you will. Your intention is to keep part of these treasures for yourself, to sell or to hold at your discretion. You’re asking me to willingly relinquish ancient art and antiquities, which goes against everything I stand for.”

“But if you do not enter an agreement with me, neither you nor the world will ever see these ancient sources. But if you make a deal with me, you take half of everything for your museums and art galleries, items which you would not otherwise have access to. How does this go against your goals, Phoebe? I would even share with you the locations of the paintings my father stole and name those who bought them. In short, I offer you everything your agency could ever desire, a feast of the ancient lost and stolen.” She tapped one broken nail on the table. “All yours, all ours.”

I stared at a far point on the horizon, unable to speak.

“Show me Cleopatra’s jewels, Phoebe. Tell me about Flora. Surely you owe me that much.”

I returned my gaze to her. I needed time to think. She didn’t appear to have a gun, at least I had yet to see her carry one, but she’d had plenty of opportunity to pick something up as she trotted off to fetch coffee. Damn. I pulled out Evan’s phone long enough to see the red battery warning. The phone did not have enough juice left to defend an ant.

“You don’t need that, Phoebe. I will not attempt to take anything that you do not agree to give me.”

Slowly, I shrugged the backpack off my shoulders and unzipped the top to lift the strand of pearls, the cuffs, the inlaid collar, the gold, the jewels, the diadem, leaving the hundred or so loose pearls in the bag. We stared at the glistening hoard as the sun rose higher, gilding gold upon gold, the light fracturing the jewels into bright shards of color, the whole pile sparkling and mesmerizing in its splendor.

Sonny caught her breath. For a moment she didn’t speak but got to her feet, eyes wide with her hands pressed against her mouth, cigarette forgotten. She flicked the butt away seconds before burning her fingers.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Cleopatra’s very own.” She ran her fingers over the glossy mound, tears in her eyes, hesitating briefly over the diadem, which I had sat on top. “We are gazing at history, Phoebe. Women, maybe much like ourselves, held these very pieces and dreamed of a better world, maybe for themselves, maybe for others.” Her gaze lifted to me. “Tell me about Flora.”

I knew we would come to this and it was all I could do to speak of the woman whose death now seemed as real as if it had been my own. The memories had returned slowly like the replay of a damaged video track with Flora’s very thoughts burned into my mind. “She was trying to protect a girl,” I whispered, “a girl whose life and education had been entrusted to her by the Vestal Virgins of whom Flora had once been part of. Livia initiated the plan, the Vestals carried it out. After several generations, they identified a girl to rule the world. Her name was Juno.”

“Juno,” Sonny whispered. “This girl was named Juno?”

By then it had all unfolded in my mind, a deep knowing that had begun in Pompeii and snaked its way into my memory, a past that was not my own. Not a comfortable knowing, not an easy knowing to bear, and yet by now I felt the burden was more of an honor than a curse.

“Who was this Juno?’

“Flora never knew exactly the circumstances of her birth but believed the child was of noble blood and stolen from her mother as a baby. The mother may have even relinquished the child willingly if the Vestals insisted.”

“Yes, the Vestals were a powerful group. I could see them holding such sway.”

“The girl was raised by Flora in the villa that had been long ago bequeathed to the Vestals by Livia herself. Cleopatra’s jewels were to be Juno’s dowry and the diadem her assurance to rule all men,” I said.

“A child who,” Sonny said, picking up the story, “was raised in Pompeii with Flora under the guidance of a cult of sacred priestesses.”

“And they had her educated by scholars and tutors to become a future power behind the throne,” I added. “Livia and the Vestals planned for this girl to be the next Livia, ruling with skill and vision. They believed absolutely in the power of Cleopatra’s diadem.”

Sonny whistled, turning to look at the golden circlet gleaming on the pile. “And did Juno survive Pompeii?”

I lowered my gaze, tracing the table’s wrought iron curlicues with my finger to keep myself anchored in the here and now. Those delicate black coils weaving in and around as if within its own universe could be a symbol for time itself. “No,” I whispered. “She died with Flora. I can't bear to go back there again, never, never again.”

Sonny was beside me in a moment, her hands gripping my shoulders. “Stay with me, Phoebe. You now must control this powerful gift of yours and not allow it to control you. I know someone who can advise you. Maybe I’ll take you to him someday?”

I met her eyes. “Thank you but I don’t need help and I’m not going anywhere at the moment. I’m learning to find my way.” Though it took everything I had, I remained fixed in time.

“Good.” She dropped her hands. Turning, she picked up the diadem from the top of the jeweled pile and held it to the light. “So Livia and the priestesses believed that Juno would control the world with this?”

I watched her carefully, saw how her fingers trembled as she held the gold band aloft. “Yes. She believed that it held the power necessary to control men and, through them, the world.”

“Sad, isn’t it, that women believed that they could only rule from behind a seat of power and never on it?”

“In Cleopatra’s case, she had ruled her domain from on the throne but even she could not hold her power against the force of Rome.”

“Rome was a very male power like most forces throughout history. But Livia had believed this diadem was the key,” Sonny whispered.

“Yes, but I suspect Cleopatra knew better, which is why she passed it on to Livia,” I said.

The sun was high enough now that I had to squint to see her.

“Do you believe this diadem can bind men to the woman who wears it, Phoebe?” she asked.

“Of course not. If women are going to rule the world, they need to step out from the shadows and be heard as a powerful voice in their own right. Women have gone unheard long enough. We need to be united, even when our opinions differ.”

“I feel the same. Take the diadem with you as your half. Let other women see what lengths women had to go to rule their worlds, the price they had to pay." Sonny smiled sadly as she lowered the crown back to the pile, lifting instead a richly inlaid jeweled golden cuff shaped like a snake. “I would like this.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything,” I said.

“Yes, you have. I see it in your eyes. Now, you choose something and then I will, and so it will go until we have divided the treasure.”

“No,” I said. “Those objects are priceless and don’t belong to either one of us. Instead, take the loose pearls, which must be worth millions. Those are marketable and easily fenced, enough to keep your enterprise afloat. Everything else comes with me. That’s the deal, take it or leave it.”

Our eyes met across the gleaming pile. I counted the seconds as the sun rose higher in the sky.

CHAPTER 24

Peaches was just striding down the stairway when I exited from the kitchen door.

“Peach!” I exclaimed. “Tell me that Max is all right and that Noel is in custody!”

People in various uniforms were dashing around everywhere—what looked to be emergency personnel, medical professionals, and plenty of police interviewing someone near the lobby entrance.

She turned and stared. “First tell me that you didn’t just make a deal with the devil.”

I drew her by the arm into a coat vestibule. “I don’t believe in devils. Where’s Noel and Max?”

“You believe in angels so why not devils? And I have no idea where that bastard and your goddad are. The canteen was empty when I got there. Looks like Noel escaped through the tunnels and took Max with him. I combed through the place until the police arrived and insisted on taking over. They ordered me to keep out of the way. They think that by having dozens of dudes searching the grounds they’ll find that bastard better than I can but it’s not that easy. At least Nicolina and Seraphina are crawling around the rocks searching, too.”

“Calm down.” I raised my hands as if she was the only one getting excited. “There aren’t that many directions he can escape from without a boat. It’s either down the main drive or through the cove and both are blocked off. Even the tunnels are dead ends according to that diagram.”

She peeked out into the hallway before pulling back and giving me that look-that-could-not-be-denied. “Tell me what happened between you and Sonofabitchi.”

“I am carrying Cleopatra’s jewels, including the diadem. Here, you take them. They are wearing me down.”

She helped me shrug out of the backpack and peered inside. “Answer my question.”

There is a price to be paid when someone knows you too well. “I struck up an arrangement. In return for clues and provenance that could lead us to missing sites that might otherwise remain lost in time or even destroyed, she receives part of the proceeds.”

“Proceeds? What in hell does ‘proceeds’ mean?” she asked, shaking the bag. "You mean like part of the priceless art and antiquities, treasure in other words? Are you kidding me?” I’d never seen such disbelief mixed with so much fury.

“How could I do anything else, Peach? If it weren’t for those letters, I would never have had enough information to timewalk in Pompeii, would never have found Cleopatra’s jewels. When Sonny waved terms around like ‘Templar’s gold’ and mentioned paintings still missing from the Nazi thefts and other priceless masterpieces we thought were lost forever, how could I just let that go? I couldn’t.”

“So you did make a pact with the devil.” Her words were tight with anger.

“Stop with that devil stuff. Besides, neither one of us are angels. There is no black and white in the world we live in but only a thousand shades of gray and a million colors in between. I learned that much when I ditched that law degree. In this case, the ends justified the means.”

“Tell the international law world that.”

“Any argument on ethics has more than one side, depending on what you stand for. What do we stand for if not for retrieving lost and stolen art and returning those riches to their rightful owners? What I agreed to today does that only on a much larger scale than I ever could have imagined.”

“But at what price?” she demanded.

“There’s a cost to everything. You know that. Please stay on my side in this, Peach.”

“I’m always on your side. I’m just hoping Evan will get past this one. He’s the one who technically works for the law.” She fastened on the backpack and turned away. “Come on, we’ve got to find Max and Noel.”

At that moment, a stretcher bearing Evan flanked by two medical personnel was passing in front of the coat vestibule, Rupert trailing along behind.

I was beside them in seconds. “Will he be alright?” I asked, touching Evan’s arm. He appeared to be down under again, deep in whatever land the painkillers sent him.

“Phoebe, rest assured that they will take good care of him,” Rupert assured me. “As soon as we have finished here, we will proceed to the hospital to see the lad.” Rupert gently held me back. “In the meantime, we must let him go while we take care of business. The police have been asking questions to which I simply do not know the answers, but that officer speaking to the doctor over there is the capo, I believe. He says he would like to speak to you as soon as possible.”

I caught Peaches’s eye over Rupert’s head.

“First, we’ve got to find Max and ensure Noel’s in custody,” I said. “Then we’ll talk to anybody they want.”

“Don’t tell anyone that you saw us, Rupe,” Peaches added as we took off down the hall.

I heard Rupert calling after us: “Nicolina and Zann are looking for him, too.” Uniformed personnel were darting everywhere. At any moment, one of them might try to physically stop us.

“I think the top cop just spotted us. Follow me!” Peaches led me to the stairway to the right of the elevator and bolted upward.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The one place I haven’t checked yet. There’s a series of little viewing trails and lookouts around the point that I saw on the hotel diagram. Thinking that maybe Noel could be holed out up someplace there. He’d know the property well enough since he’d been with Sonofabitchi, right?”

“Right,” I puffed. Admittedly, I was running out of steam by then. “He could be dashing around here dressed up like an officer…for all we know,” I said between breaths. “There are enough uniforms crawling around here to get lost among.”

“I know how wily that bastard is,” she whispered.

“I’m more worried about Max. What if Noel’s hurt him?” I said, almost not daring to utter the thought.

“Do you believe that Noel would actually hurt his own father?”

“Yes, and so do you. Shh! I hear voices.”

We paused long enough to hear the footsteps overhead.

“Let’s get off on this floor,” she whispered. The hotel only had four stories, the top opening onto a roof garden. We bolted through the door to the third level. “We’ll take the fire escape the rest of the way,” she told me as she headed for the end of the hall.

“Peach, do you understand why I did what I did?” I asked as we burst out to a set of exterior metal stairs that climbed the back of the building. The property had been built flush with the cliff, which flanked it in the early-morning light. For a moment we stood in silence getting our bearings. Soon we were heading down.

“Not now. Look!” Peaches said with a hiss.

Not now made perfect sense. Below us on one of the upper patios Nicolina, Seraphina, and Zann could be seen running for one of the stone stairways heading down. We headed after them, Peaches sending a text while we sprinted in their direction.

By the time we reached the bottom level, our team had disappeared and no one was answering Peaches’s text.

“They’re chasing somebody,” I said as we dashed across the pavers and down the next stairway. This part of the property appeared to climb the cliffside in interconnecting patios, one being where Sonny and I had held our meeting. No sign of Sonny now or anybody else, for that matter.

At the top of the next stairway, I paused. “Look!”

Below us, two levels down, five officers stood at the edge of the main terrace where the road jackknifed down to the beach. Beside them, also looking downward, stood the rest of our team. A helicopter buzzed overhead. One of the officers had a megaphone and was demanding something in Italian of somebody below. I didn’t have to see him to know who it was.

My heart was in my throat as we sped down the steps and ran over to join them.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I arrived beside Nicolina.

“Phoebe.” She said my name and placed a hand on my arm without looking at me. There was no need to respond. I saw what everyone else did: a man standing on the road below, one arm over the shoulders of an older man with his gun pointed at his skull. It shocked me.

A part of me still couldn’t believe that Noel would be so heartless as well as so desperate to use his own father as a hostage. Maybe I still held out hope that something like a heart beat in that scarred chest if his.

Max, on the other hand, was staring bleakly ahead while his son held a gun to his temple. I could only imagine what it felt like for a father to finally face the truth of what his son had become. Both were bruised and battered but my godfather had a black eye as well as a swollen lip. I worried about his heart in more ways than one.

“Put the gun down and your hands up,” the officer blared. “Release the hostage immediately. You cannot get off the island. It is surrounded.”

“You’re going to get me an airlift out of here or the old man is dead,” Noel cried, shaking Max for emphasis. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder to where a line of armed officers blocked the road down to the beach.

“We do not negotiate,” the capo insisted. “Release the hostage now.”

Peaches leaned over and whispered. “If you keep him busy, I’ll dash down through the kitchen and sneak up behind him from the beach.” She’d never get past the officers and we had no idea just how twitchy Noel’s trigger finger might be. He was cornered and frantic.

“There’s no time. Stay,” I hissed. “I need him to focus on me.”

I broke from the others and strode down toward the drive, ignoring the officer shouting for me to stay back. Peaches remained where she was but I knew she’d have her phone ready to level at Noel, which she could no more risk than the snipers lining up to take a shot. One false move and it would be Max who went down. I had to keep Noel busy.

“Noel, are you seriously using your own father as a shield? Is that what you’ve become?” I asked as I strode down the hill.

“Stay back, Phoeb, darlin’,” Max called, his voice choked with emotion. God, I couldn’t bear to see him looking so beaten. “This is my battle.”

“No, it isn’t.” I stopped a few yards away and stared at Noel. “It’s mine. It’s me you want, isn’t it, Noel? As usual, you have to get to me by using someone I love so I’ll make it easy for you. Here I am. Take me instead.” I spread my arms.

Noel emitted one of his machine gun laughs, only this one fired short. “You’ve got to be bloody kidding me, sniffer bitch. I don’t want you, not anymore. You’re nothing but grief—always have been. Don’t know what I saw in you in the first place. Get away from me or your goddad gets it in the head.” He jammed the gun into Max’s temple. Both of them were the same height but Noel had a wiry strength after so many years on the run while Max had long ago given up his gym pass.

One of the officers above called down: “You are surrounded. Place your firearm on the ground and raise your hands.”

“Noel, do as they say,” I pleaded.

He glanced quickly to the patio above. “Nope. I told you before, babe: I’m never going to die in some prison somewhere. If they won’t let me leave with my hostage, then what do I have to lose?” A wolfish grin crossed his face, one filled with more pain than mirth. “I may as well die here and take whoever I can down with me, right? Might keep me company in the great hereafter.”

God, he was ramping up. “Then take me. Look, Noel. I’m unarmed.” I threw Evan’s dead phone to the ground and held up my hands. “See, nothing to defend myself with. You can take me knowing that I have no special powers for protection for once.”

His cheeks were sunken, his expression tense and ragged. Whatever demons drove this man were in full control of him now. Surely he’d like nothing better than to take his rage out on me?

“A bit late for that, isn’t it, babe?” he said softly. “You had your chance—we had our chance.”

I couldn’t afford to have his anger diffuse, either. In his case, a cold realization could be as deadly as mad desperation. I needed him to turn his anger on me. “Okay, so once again I’ve whipped the treasure out from right under your nose, didn’t I? It’s in the hands of the authorities now waiting to be returned to where it belongs. You put your little sniffer bitch on the scent and she went and retrieved the loot again but not for you, Noel, never for you.” I took a step forward. “You’ve lost again. How many times is it now?”

He shoved Max off to the side, nearly toppling the older man, while I stepped forward with my hands raised. The moment Noel reached out to grab me, I lodged a swift kick to his groin, causing him to double over and drop the gun, which Max snatched off the ground in a stumbling grab.

Now Max clutched the pistol barrel in both trembling hands. “Stop right there, son, or I shoot,” he said.

Noel looked up at him as he slowly straightened. “You can’t pull the trigger, Dad. You just don’t have it in you.”

“But I do.” I whipped the gun from Max and turned it on Noel.

“You can’t, either, babe,” he said.

But he was wrong.

CHAPTER 25

No, I did not kill him. I’d been told over and over again that under the circumstances it may have been better if I had. Avoid the trials, the courts, the chance he might wiggle out of his conviction. None of that mattered.

Yes, I cared about ending the years of terror he’d inflicted on me, my friends, and the world, but killing anyone was not in my DNA. I did pull the trigger, aiming to the left of the heart he no longer possessed and watched him drop. There was a certain satisfaction in that and relief, too. Because I’m not that good a shot, I could have easily missed and killed him dead, but I didn’t. No blood on my hands.

As Noel collapsed, Max ran to his side, and I relinquished the gun to the police. After that, I was ushered into custody. What followed was interview after interview, some accompanied by agency members and some solo, me explaining the whole torturous play of coercion and interaction to one authority after the other. Most were sympathetic, others grilled me as if I were the criminal, but I was getting used to that.

I explained how I found Cleopatra’s jewels based on a letter Noel Halloran possessed. No, I had not actually read the letter myself, I told them, since we couldn’t read the badly damaged ancient script. It was at this point that I fudged the truth, de-emphasizing Sonny’s role in lieu of Noel’s. That was surprisingly easy since Sonny herself had emerged looking more heroine than criminal and I simply turned up the volume on the storyline.

Generally, my tale went that Noel had held Evan Barrows captive, threatening to kill him, and it was on that basis that the agency began the search for the jewels. After that, Noel kidnapped me and forced me to locate the secret hoard.

It seemed so straightforward up to that point but I could no more explain how I’d actually found the cache than I could any other of life’s mysteries. I just did. My mind works that way, I said. To me, a woman named Flora became the key player in a running dream that I found both enlightening and frightening.

So, I told the truth (mostly) and, by now, I had enough of a reputation with Italian Interpol and the antiquities divisions that they heard me out. Whether they could quite get their heads around this woman who claimed that she could pluck away at the strings of time until something lost and ancient spoke to her is another matter entirely. I could hardly believe it myself.

In the end, the authorities had little choice but to accept the reality of the impossible or, at the very least, the unlikely. Fact was that I laid a pile of ancient jewelry at their feet along with the letter sealed like a scroll that apparently granted convincing provenance that those jewels had once belonged to Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic ruler of the Egyptian dynasty, given to Livia Empress of Rome as a hoped-for bribe.

The diadem alone rendered everyone speechless. One rapt antiquities expert who had been called in to verify the finds could barely speak when he brought up the picture of the presumed statue of Cleopatra wearing that same circlet. The diadem was the clincher. As for the pile of loose pearls, no one knew about those. As I said, I fudged.

In any case, my most difficult hearing was not before the police but the Agency of the Ancient Lost and Found, my friends, and my godfather, the latter having flown back to London in a state of shock.

“I know that my arrangement with Sonny Baldi puts us squarely in the crosshairs of a legal and ethical dilemma and I—” I began.

“Call it for what it is: a deal,” Peaches said. “You made a deal with this woman before clearing it with us.” She appeared slightly less angry than she had back on Capri but I knew that her anger had a way of going underground for a slow smolder before erupting all over again. Madam Vesuvius.

“I did and I’m sorry that I couldn’t involve you in that moment. It was one of those flash decisions. Either I called Sonny out to the authorities or accepted the opportunities she offered in the name of accessing more of the world’s lost treasures sooner. I made the choice and stand by it, but if you decide not to stand with me in this, I understand.” I’d be desperately hurt, but really, who could blame them?

We were sitting in the lounge of Nicolina’s Naples hotel room where we awaited visiting hours to begin in Evan’s hospital. I’d been with him most of the previous day and had yet to tell him the details. He was still too groggy with the effect of drugs and a lingering concussion but the fog was finally beginning to lift.

Nicolina spoke first. “Is there anyone in this room who has not crossed the legal line? I do not think so.” She gazed at us each in turn. “We all have. That is how we all came together, yes? You, Peaches, were once a guerrilla in the Jamaican jungle; Zann, you broke into a building in Florence and discovered the Botticelli; I will not even begin to list my transgressions but they are many. We are not angels.”

Rupert, who had been sitting studying his hands, cleared his throat. “Yes, to some extent I would argue that in our line of work regarding retrieving the lost and stolen, we have, indeed, all encountered matters of some legal and possibly ethical uncertainty. I assure you that as a prior Interpol agent, I did knowingly and with the full understanding of my superiors perform tasks that were clearly illegal as well as possibly unethical, depending entirely upon one’s point of view.”

Blazing relief and gratitude filled my heart. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I really don’t know what I would have done if you had decided to stick to the rules.”

“We have never stuck to the rules,” Zann commented. A second later she added: “Have we?”

It was only later as we were crossing the street toward the hospital that Peaches strode up beside me. “Your Sonofabitchi sure knows how to push your buttons, doesn’t she? Have you heard from her since Capri?’

“Not a word,” I said. “I figured she’d get in touch once this whole business settles down. Why?”

“This.” She passed me a piece of paper. “She emailed this to me so I had it printed out.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s an article published in a popular online art mag talking about the widespread poaching of African artifacts. She underlined the part where it named some bigwig collector in Santa Fe who apparently owns a wooden carving that may lead to a lost hoard of African art. She added a line saying that she has more information based on a nineteenth-century journal in her late father’s collection.”

I stopped dead center of the street. “African art?” I broke into a grin. “And you say that she knows how to push my buttons? Looks like she knows where to find yours, too.”

“I’m not falling for it.”

“I’m betting you will,” I said, turning away to continue crossing the road. “Didn’t you once complain to me that the poaching of African art is nothing less than the cultural raping of an entire continent? Maybe we now have the opportunity to undo some of that wrong.”

“But at what cost?” she wailed.

“There’s always a cost.”

She clutched my arm to hold me back. “But who’s going to pay it, Phoebe? Do you think Ev will go along with us partnering with an art thief?”

I gazed past her to the hospital knowing that today I must tell him the full story, no matter what the consequences.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I can only hope there’s enough between us to get past this. Maybe he can love me without loving every single thing I do.”

“We do,” she corrected. “It’s the Agency of the Ancient Lost & Found who agreed to go with you in this. All of our necks are on the line.”

“Sometimes you have to stick your neck out to improve the view. Come on, let’s go.”

THE END

COMING SOON: The ZAMBEZI CODE, book 7

ALSO BY JANE THORNLEY

SERIES: CRIME BY DESIGN

Crime by Design Boxed Set Books 1-3

Crime by Design Prequel: Rogue Wave e-book available free to newsletter subscribers.

Crime by Design Book 1: Warp in the Weave

Crime by Design Book 2: Beautiful Survivor

Crime by Design Book 3: The Greater of Two Evils

Crime by Design Book 4: The Plunge

Also featuring Phoebe McCabe:

SERIES: THE AGENCY OF THE ANCIENT LOST & FOUND

The Carpet Cipher Book 1

The Crown that Lost its Head Book 2

The Florentine’s Secret Book 3

The Artemis Key Book 4

The Thread of the Unicorn Book 5

The Shadow of The Emperor Book 6

The Zambezi Code Book 7(preorder)

SERIES: NONE OF THE ABOVE MYSTERY

None of the Above Series Book 1: Downside Up

None of the Above Series Book 2: DownPlay

SERIES: TIME SHADOWS

Consider me Gone Book 1

The Spirit in the Fold 2 (companion to The Florentine’s Secret)