Bitter Spirits Part 36

"Maybe we should shut the blinds and lock the door," she said when he pulled away. "Take advantage of privacy while we have it. I'm not happy about your brother's room being right below ours. I hope he's a heavy sleeper."

"That house is built like a rock. He won't hear anything." He kissed her bangs and gave her a playful swat on her backside. "And as much as I'd like to take you up on that offer, we need to get going. The station called to say that the train's running early. It's scheduled to arrive in an hour, and we need to pick up Astrid from school on the way." For the first time since his accident, Winter had been driving on occasion, and Astrid was no longer banned from learning how to drive. She claimed Winter shouted too much when she made mistakes, so she insisted that Bo do most of the teaching.

"All right. Grab those cookies Mrs. Lin left, would you?" She retrieved her handbag from a locked drawer in her desk and grabbed her coat and hat from the nearby coatrack, then turned off the lights.

Winter held the door open as she took down the leash hanging on the wall and whistled to the mastiff.

"Come on, Sam," she told the dog. "It's time to meet the rest of the family."

TURN THE PAGE FOR A PREVIEW OF JENN BENNETT'S NEXT ROARING TWENTIES NOVEL

GRIM SHADOWS.

COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!.

JANUARY 1928.

LOWE MAGNUSSON SCANNED THE DESOLATE UNION PACIFIC station lobby. A young couple he recognized from the train was spending the brief early-evening stop flipping through magazines at the newsstand. A handful of other travelers loitered on benches. No sign of the two thugs, but it was only a matter of time. Easier to kill him in a dark corner of a rural station than in the middle of a crowded smoking car.

Satisfied he was temporarily safe, Lowe slid a bill through the ticket booth window. Not a large bill, but large enough to sway a hayseed Salt Lake City ticket agent. Surely.

"Look," he said in a much calmer voice. "You and I both know you have first-cla.s.s tickets left on the second train bound for San Francisco. It departs at eight. If we wait for your manager to return from his dinner break, I'll have missed it. It's not like I'm asking for a new ticket. I just want to be moved from one train to another."

The young attendant exhaled heavily. "I'm sorry, sir. Like I said, I don't have authorization to exchange tickets. Why can't you just wait for your current train to depart? An hour really isn't that much of a difference in the long run. It might even leave sooner if they get the supplies loaded quickly, and aside from a couple of extra stops, they're both going to same place."

Yes, but the other train didn't have thugs with guns on it.

When he first noticed the men shadowing him, he thought sleep deprivation was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with his mind. After all, he hadn't had a decent night's sleep since Cairo. Food poisoning made the usually tolerable Mediterranean crossing from Alexandria to Athens a waking nightmare. But just when he thought he was out of the woods, he spent the storm-cursed weeklong voyage from England to Baltimore hugging both the toilet and his pillow in turns, praying for death.

But G.o.d wasn't done punishing him, apparently. Now that he'd endured three nights of restless sleep on the worst train trip of his life and was less than a day's ride away from home, armed men were stalking him.

Where the h.e.l.l had all his good luck gone?

Right now, all he wanted was to kiss solid ground in San Francisco, fall into his ridiculously luxurious featherbed-courtesy of his brother's ever-increasing bootlegging fortune-and sleep for a week. Some clam chowder would be nice. A two-hour hot bath. Maybe a small harem of nubile women to warm his sheets-dream big, he always said. But if he could manage to avoid getting shot and robbed during the last hours of this h.e.l.lish trip home, he'd settle for ten hours of uninterrupted sleep and a home-cooked meal.

The attendant eyed Lowe's loosened necktie and three-day-old whiskers. "We wouldn't even have time to find your luggage and transfer it before departure, sir."

"Just forward it to my San Francisco address." Lowe begrudgingly placed another bill atop the first. Dammit. Only forty dollars left in his wallet. Ludicrous, really. A priceless artifact in the satchel hanging across his chest, guarded with his d.a.m.ned life for the last two months, and all he had was forty dollars to his name.

Not to mention the ma.s.sive debt hanging over his head after the botched deal with Monk.

The attendant shook his head. "I'm not supposed to accept tips, sir."

Lowe changed tactics, lowering his voice as he leaned on the counter. "Can I tell you something, just between you and me? I'm on a very important, very secret government a.s.signment." He wasn't. "League of Nations business. Health committee," Lowe elaborated nonsensically.

"Health committee," the attendant repeated dryly. He couldn't have cared less.

"I wasn't aware the U.S. had joined the League," a voice called out.

Lowe looked up from the window to find the voice's owner, a woman, standing a few yards away. She was long and thin, wearing a black dress with a black coat draped over one arm. Black gloves. Black shoes. Black hair bobbed below her chin. So much black. A walking funeral home, blocking his view of the platform entrance.

And she was staring at him with the intensity of a one-person firing squad.

"I did say it was a secret a.s.signment," he called back. "In case you missed that part of my private conversation."

"Yes, I heard," she said in an upper-crust transatlantic accent, as if it were perfectly polite and normal for her to comment. No remorse whatsoever for b.u.t.ting into his business.

"Excuse me." And please leave me alone, he thought as he turned back to the ticket window. Concocting a believable story on no sleep wasn't the easiest task.

But she wasn't done. "Can I have a word in private, Mr. Magnusson?"

Had she heard him giving his name to the agent, too? Ears of an owl, apparently.

"Sir?"

Lowe's attention snapped back to the agent. "Look, just get me the ticket before the train leaves. Have the porter deliver my steamer trunk to my address. I'll be back in a minute."

He stepped away from the counter and strode toward the woman.

"Mr. Magnusson."

"Yes," he said irritably. "We've established you know who I am."

Her brow tightened. "You were to meet me." When he gave her a blank stare, she added, "My father cabled you when you arrived in New York."

s.h.i.t.

In his haste to change trains, he'd forgotten about meeting up with Archibald Bacall's daughter: the oddball museum curator. Not that she was unappealing, now that he was seeing her up close. Not plain, either. To complement her owl-sharp hearing, she had an angular face that reminded him of a bird of prey. A lot of bones with long, sweeping lines. Long face, long arms, and nice, long legs. Tall for a woman; the top of her narrow-brimmed hat might fit under his chin, so he guessed her height to be five foot ten. But her boyish, slender body made her seem smaller.

And the all-black widow's weeds b.u.t.toned up to her throat didn't do her any favors.

"Hadley Bacall." She stuck out a hand sheathed in a leather glove trimmed in black fur. More fur around the collar of the coat draped on her arm. The Bacalls had money. Old San Francisco money, from the Gold Rush days-her deceased mother's fortune, if he wasn't mistaken. The Bacalls also had significant influence in the art museum at Golden Gate Park. Her father ran the Egyptian Antiquities wing and sat on the board of trustees; he'd been a field archaeologist when he was younger.

Not that Lowe had ever hobn.o.bbed with the man. Without the amulet carefully tucked in Lowe's satchel, Dr. Archibald Bacall and his daughter would not be extending high-cla.s.s handshakes in Lowe's direction. h.e.l.l, they wouldn't even give him the time of day.

"Yes, of course," he said. "Hadley, that's right."

Her grip was surprisingly evasive for someone whose arm was propping up a thousand dollars' worth of fur and an aloof att.i.tude to match. She tried to end the handshake as quickly as she'd offered it, but he held on. Just for a second. She glanced down at his hand, as if it were a misbehaving child. He reluctantly let go.

"You did get my father's telegram, did you not?" she asked.

"Sure." He received a lot of telegrams from the man after the photograph of Lowe and his uncle standing in front of the Philae excavation site circulated in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic-a photograph that had been reprinted a month later in National Geographic.

"Why were you lying to the ticket agent?" she asked.

He coughed into his fist. "Ah, well. It's a long story, and one I'm afraid I don't have time to share. I'm switching trains, you see. So I won't be able to meet with you after all."

One slim brow arched. She was almost attractive when she was frustrated, very glacial and austere. The corners of her eyes tilted up in an appealing manner, and her gaze didn't waver. He liked that.

"You didn't come all the way out here just to meet me, I hope."

She shook her head. "I was giving a seminar on Middle Kingdom animal mummification at the University of Utah."

Fitting for a woman who specialized in funerary archaeology, he supposed. If he wasn't so G.o.dd.a.m.n tired, he might've been interested in hearing her theories, but his travel-weary gaze was wandering to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Nothing much to speak of, but that didn't stop him from looking.

"I'm on my way back to San Francisco," she said, diverting his attention back to her eyes. "But when my father found out you'd be coming in on this train, he thought it might be wise for me to book a ticket so I could speak before you arrived. We aren't the only ones interested in your discovery. I'm not sure if you know what you're getting into by bringing the djed amulet here."

Oh, he knew, all right. He barely got the d.a.m.ned thing out of Egypt. While his uncle battled the Egyptian Ministry of State, Lowe defended their dig site from looters. He'd been shot at, stoned, stabbed-twice-and had engaged in a fair number of fistfights.

And though he'd briefly considered the possibility that the hired thugs on the train tonight might be after him because of his debt to Monk Morales, if Monk wanted to kill him, he'd wait until Lowe got home. No, these thugs were definitely after the djed.

"I've already received offers from a few collectors."

Her smile was tight. "My father is prepared to give you the best price. That's why I'm to speak with you now. I'd like to inspect the amulet. If it's truly the mythical Backbone of Osiris-"

"Christ, keep your voice down, would you?" Lowe quickly surveyed the lobby again. "I'm trying not to advertise, if you don't mind. Besides, all the artifacts from the excavation were shipped on another boat. They'll arrive next month. So I don't have it on me."

A hurried porter walked past them, wheeling a luggage cart. She kept quiet until the man was out of earshot. "You're lying."

"Excuse me?"

Her gaze dropped to his leather satchel. "From the way you're gripping that bag, I'd say it's inside. But whether it's there or in your jacket pocket, I can feel it."

The bizarre accusation hung between them for a long moment. If he hadn't "felt" the cursed object himself, he might've laughed in her face. But truth be told, the amulet emitted some sort of unexplainable current. His uncle hadn't felt it, but some of their hired Egyptian workers did. A fair number of them deserted their camp the night he'd brought it up from the half-flooded sinkhole. The artifact scared the h.e.l.l out of him, frankly. And the way she was looking at him, all matter-of-factly and unblinking, well, that scared him a little, too.

"Mr. Magnusson," she said in a lower voice as her eyes darted toward something behind his right shoulder. "Are you traveling with bodyguards?"

He stilled. "No."

"Don't turn around," she warned.

"Are there two of them? Black coats. Built like brick s.h.i.thouses, pardon my French."

"No need to apologize. I prefer frank language. And if you are trying to ask if they are large men, then yes. They've been watching you for several minutes. One has slipped through a corridor behind the ticket windows and the other is approaching us."

A clammy panic slipped across Lowe's skin. His hand went to the Arabian curved dagger strapped to his belt and hidden under his coat over his left hip: a janbiya. In Egypt, he'd become accustomed to using it for protection. But after he'd left, he'd continued to wear it for peace of mind, more or less. Just in case.

Looked like he might be needing it now.

"Don't stare at the man approaching us," he instructed her. "Just pick up your luggage and follow me out to the platform. Quickly, but stay calm."

She didn't panic or question him. And thanks to those long legs of hers, their strides fell into a smart, matching rhythm. He caught the crisp scent of lilies drifting from her clothes as they strode past the newsstand, where neat rows of Good Housekeeping and Collier's Weekly blurred in his peripheral vision.

"Listen to me," he said as he placed an open palm at the small of her back. "Those men are armed with guns. They've been shadowing me on the train all day. I don't know for certain, but I've got a funny feeling they're after the amulet. It probably wasn't wise of you to talk to me, because now they'll think we're friendly, and that makes you a target, too."

"What do you plan to do about it?" she said calmly. Even in the panic of the moment, he had to admire her grit.

"You have a ticket for the 127?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead and board your train. Tell the porter suspicious men are following you."

"A porter's not going to shield me from gunfire."

"Lock yourself in your stateroom."

"I'll do no such thing."

Oh, she wouldn't, would she? He prodded her onto the shadowed train platform, where other travelers were waiting for their departure time to come, saying their good-byes to family members and loved ones. The chilly night air didn't stop a tickling bead of sweat from winding its way down his back.

"If they shoot you and take the amulet, I'll have failed my father," she said logically, as if she were making a decision about dinner plans. "So I'm sticking with you."

"Fine, see if I care if you get yourself killed. You're already dressed for a open-casket memorial service."

"And you're dressed like a Barbary Coast drunkard!"

"Is that so? Well, I'll have you know, I'm-"

Startled cries bounced around the platform. Right in front of them, exiting a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, was the second thug-the one who'd disappeared behind the ticket windows. He barreled onto the platform with a polished revolver leveled at Lowe's chest.

end.