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Chapter 23

Anne sat stiffly erect in the split and sprung passenger seat of the Blazer. In her lap she held a sturdy, square box with its flaps securely closed. Inside, in a nest of crumpled paper for protection of the items, and a generous layer of dirt for protection of a different kind, they had placed an engraved, intact conch shell, a delicate pottery cup no taller than three inches, a small rock crystal pipe bowl in the shape of a jaguar, an engraved copper plate from the warrior's right shoulder, and one of his earspools showing the image of what she could only describe as an abstract elephant.

The museum representative had requested a bone, but Anne had flatly refused to separate any of the skeleton. Instead, she had moved the copper covering the right femur and knelt by that bone with a yardstick as David took a picture with the Polaroid camera he had picked up at the drugstore in town before he came to the clinic for her. That photograph and three others, each taken carefully to show the burial in its best light but mask its surroundings, were now tucked securely into the pocket of her jacket.

She slipped her hand into her pocket and touched them.

Were they doing the right thing?

David glanced at her as she shifted in her seat. Without speaking, he reached across the narrow console and took her hand. He clasped it tightly and pressed it against his thigh. Beneath the starched crisp denim, he was warm, so warm, living flesh and muscle, with life's blood pulsing through him. When he died, as he must, as they all must—

Her fingers dug into his thigh as that thought lodged in her heart. Of course he would die. Of course she would. That was a given, a part of the journey.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I was—" She turned slightly in the seat to look at him. The box grew heavy against her thighs. The pictures in her pocket burned her fingers. He would leave her. She'd known that since the first day. They'd talked about it last night. She just hadn't thought of that leaving in terms of death. She shivered, and he gripped her hand, lending her warmth.

"I was just wondering if, oh, say a thousand or so years in the future, someone will be digging up our bones and analyzing the innerspring mattresses and custom coffins we'll probably be buried in to try to determine what we ate and worshiped, how we lived, how we died."

"And if they do?"

"I guess it will mean that the civilization we know now didn't survive."

"Yeah. Probably. But it won't matter to us, Annie. Not by then. Just as it can't matter to your warrior. We'll be dead. Just like he's dead. And the spirit that animates us will be long gone from the empty shell that housed it. Just like it is from his."

His voice took on a new intensity. Who was he trying to convince? Her? Or himself?

"He's bones, Annie. Just bones. And because his burial survived, the memory of a way that is as dead as he is has a chance for survival. I don't know what this is that's protecting the shell that remains, but that's all it is. A shell. The life, the essence that was him, is gone. The civilization that honored him in burial is gone. All that remains is a small collection of things. Things that if shared can give the memory of that civilization a semblance of life. But not your warrior, Annie. Not as he truly was. He will never live again."

No. He wouldn't. She turned her hand in David's and interlaced their fingers. It was foolish, probably even dangerous; he couldn't drive that way for long. But right now, she needed the connection.

The museum and park were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Frances had explained that to them. She had also suggested that the closed museum would give them the privacy and the anonymity they insisted upon for their meeting.

Two cars waited in the parking lot. One, an elderly pickup of indeterminate years, probably belonged to Frances or to her grandparents. The other, a big Mercedes sedan with Oklahoma tags but a prefix Anne didn't recognize, had to belong to the museum rep. David parked in a slot well away from both vehicles and sat frowning at the Mercedes for several seconds after he had turned off the key to the Blazer.

"Is there a problem?" Anne asked at his continued silence.

He shook himself and turned to her. He lifted his hand and brushed a stray curl back from her cheek. "Probably not," he said. "Are you ready?"

Was she? Somehow, Anne didn't think so. But she had to be. She gave David a quick nod and an equally quick smile.

His fingers lingered on her cheek. "It will be okay," he promised. "Somehow. Some way." And she wanted to believe him. Oh, how she wanted that.

Frances opened the outer door only moments after David's knock. She glanced at the box Anne carried but didn't reach to take it. "I've set up a table in the room where we normally project the slide show. He's waiting." She closed and locked the door behind them. "I—He just got here a few minutes ago. He's . . . He's . . . Dr. Tilman apparently was not able to come. This man is not who I expected."

"Do his credentials check out?" David asked.

"Yes. Oh, yes. There's no doubt he's who he says he is. I've seen him at a distance a number of times. But I took the liberty of telling him that I had to wait for you to contact me because I didn't know how to contact you."

"You don't trust him?"

"I don't know. Dr. Tilman, yes. I'd trust him with my life and everything I own. But there's something—" She grinned ruefully, "I get paranoid periodically, and downright offensive when people look right at me and don't see me. I could be wrong. I have been before."

David nodded and draped his arm around Anne, and they walked into the exhibit hall. In front of the windows, Anne paused for a moment, looking out at the mounds. Timeless. Quiet. But somehow, underlying the sense of peace the park tried to portray, she sensed something ominous waiting. Just waiting.

"Annie?"

She glanced up at David. He too was looking out over the park, toward Craig Mound and its stair-step companions. She straightened within the loose embrace of his arm. "I'm ready."

The man seated at a table in the adjacent room looked as though he would be at home in the car in the parking lot. He rose gracefully when they entered the room and closed the folio of pottery artifacts that had been placed on the table. Although Anne hadn't had much money of her own, she had been exposed to it, lots of it, during her years in Chicago. Anthony had come from a monied background and during their courtship, brief though it had been, had insisted on dragging her to charity fund-raisers and intimate gatherings, either truly small ones or those with only a few hundred or so of the host's closest friends.

She took quick inventory of the man who had insisted on seeing them so quickly. Thousand-dollar suit, five thousand dollar watch, hand-tailored silk shirt, custom-designed tie, special-order-only Italian shoes, two-hundred-dollar haircut, subtle more-precious-than-gold aftershave or cologne.

And he took a quick and equally thorough inventory of them. Anne had wanted to change into what in Chicago she had laughingly called her going-to-the-bank clothes, the kind that told the man whom you were begging for money, for yourself or your clinic or your favorite charity, that you really didn't need it. She'd thought that perhaps that would give them better footing in their negotiations.

"Why do we need a better footing?" David had asked. "Annie, you have what he wants. That's all the bargaining power you can possibly need. Besides, you might not see the real him if you go dressed for success."

So they had worn jeans, casual sweaters, and casual shoes. David, of course, was starched and pressed as he always was except when dressed for physical labor. And she—well, the jeans were only six months old, and they were clean, and still, mostly, blue. But everything she and David wore could have been purchased in any small town in the state for a lot less money than the museum rep's shoes. And he knew it.

She watched the appraisal and the faint, barely perceptible dismissal that flicked through his eyes when he finished. The faint, but more perceptible distaste he revealed when he let his eyes be drawn back to the healing bruise on David's slightly Hispanic features. And she knew what Frances meant. This man had looked right at them, but he didn't see them, only stereotypes. Stereotypes beneath him, way beneath him.

She set the box on a cleared space on the table between them and rested her right hand on it as she reached up to cover David's hand on her shoulder with her left.

Frances stepped into the room with them and closed the door. She glanced at Anne's defensive posture but nodded toward the rep. "This is Stephen Carlton," she said. "He represents the Carlton Foundation, which has endowed an Oklahoma prehistory room at the Winchester Museum in Tulsa."

Carlton stepped forward, hand extended. "And you are?"

David returned a smile as false as the one the man offered them. "Anonymous."

The man dropped his hand but held on to his smile. "Yes, well, I think we've gone beyond that now that we've met. I understand you have Spiro artifacts for which you wish to find a home."

"The right home," Anne corrected gently. "An appropriate home. One that can give us certain guarantees."

"I think you'll find that Winchester more than adequate. We're a small facility, but well endowed and well staffed. Your artifacts will have a more than appropriate display area, and more than adequate climate-controlled storage for those items which, for some reason or other, are not included in the public viewing."

Point one. Anne felt David's fingers flex beneath hers. "No," she said, just as gently as she had spoken before.

Carlton glanced at her. "No? No to what?"

She rubbed her hand over David's, drawing strength from him. "I'm not at all sure I want the artifacts on public display. The only reason I'm even considering placing them anywhere is because of their value in leading us to understanding the culture that once thrived here. But whether or not they are ever placed on public display isn't really the issue. Whatever we decide about that, I must have your assurance—written, legal, binding—that the artifacts will never be separated."

"Separated from what?"

"From each other. The collection must be kept intact."

"I can assure you that we would never sell or donate any part of the collection without your permission."

"No. Please listen to me, Mr. Carlton. The collection must be stored in the same location, in the same room, together, touching, at all times."

He glanced at her and then at the box. "With demands like that I certainly hope you have more than the contents of that box."

Almost feeling as though she were abandoning it, Anne slid her hand from the top of the box and into her jacket pocket. She retrieved one of the Polaroid snapshots and handed it to Stephen Carlton.

He glanced down at it, and his brows drew together. "This is a hoax, right? Ms. Collins, if I can prove you're party to this, I'll have your job."

Anne took the other snapshots from her pocket and handed them to Frances. The woman looked at them, visibly stunned. "Oh, my sweet lord," she whispered. Her hands trembled when David took the photographs from her and placed them on the table. He shared a long questioning glance with Anne. Did she want to go on with this? No. Would she go on with this?

Now her fingers trembled as she worked them under the flaps of the box and opened it. "Frances?" she asked. "Will you help me?"

Frances walked to her side and looked down into the box as Anne lifted the large conch shell from its nest. She turned to hand it to Frances, but while the woman touched it with loving, wondering hands, she refused to take it. "Oh, no. No, I don't think so. Not in this lifetime."

Carlton had no such compunctions. He reached across the table for the box. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," David warned softly. "The lady will take them out of the box and put them on the table."

And Anne did. The conch shell, the copper plate, the delicate cup, the rock crystal jaguar, the earspool.

Unable to restrain himself any longer. Carlton snatched up the earspool. "A long-nosed god?"

Beside Anne, Frances nodded confirmation.

Carlton pulled a spotless lined handkerchief from his pocket and began to rub the earspool. "There aren't—what? More than two of these known to have survived from this site?"

With an alarmed glance at David, Anne reached out her hand. "Don't!"

He glared up at her, annoyed, angered, or maybe just so surprised that she had dared to order him that he failed to hide his condescension. "I certainly know how to clean an artifact without injuring it."

"That isn't the issue," David said coldly. "She said don't, and unless you reach an agreement with her, she has every right to direct the care and handling of her property."

Anne noticed that he had said unless, not until, and she was very much afraid that until was getting farther and farther away.

She chuffed out a sigh and began lifting items back into their nested box. Carlton took the conch as she reached for it and turned it to look inside the bowl of the shell. They had filled it with grave dirt. Now he upended it. "Is it stained from the black drink?" he asked as he began shaking the soil onto the tabletop.

The growl started low and grew until it swirled through the room. Frances stiffened beside her, her hand stilled in its gentle tracing of the crystal jaguar Anne had already returned to the box.

"Put it down!" David ordered.

Carlton frowned at him and continued dumping soil and rubbing at the bowl with his fingers as the growl surrounded them, growing in intensity. Unbelievably, the man seemed totally unaware of it.

David reached across the table and yanked the shell from Carlton's hands.

"My God, why did you do that? You could have broken it, jerking it away like that."

But the growling faded to a low grumble.

Anne took the man's linen handkerchief from the table where he had dropped it and began sweeping the spilled soil across the table to her waiting hand. And when David placed the conch shell in the box, she scattered the soil over and into it and over the other items.

"I believe we have our answer," she said as she closed the box.

"Yes." David picked up the photos.

"I'll need those for our Board of Trustees," Carlton said, reaching as though to take them.

"No." Calmly, competently, David stacked the four photos together and then, with no apparent effort, ripped the pile in half, and in half again. He tucked the pieces in his windbreaker pocket and picked up the box. "Thank you, Frances. We appreciate your efforts."

She shook her head, let out a closely held breath, and placed her hand over her heart. "I can't say it's been a pleasure, but it's certainly been an experience. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Something will," Anne told her. "Something will have to."

"What the hell are you people talking about? Is everybody in this godforsaken corner of the world crazy?"

"He hasn't a clue, has he?" Frances asked.

Anne shook her head. She didn't understand; she might never understand. "I don't think so."

David took Frances's hand and held it in a moment of silent thanks. "Can you give us five minutes, maybe ten? It will be safer if he can't follow or trace us."

"The key's in the lock. If you'll leave it outside, I'll call someone to come and let us out."

Anne gave the woman a quick hug, which Frances returned. "Go," she said. "I'll be fine."

They went, hurrying out of the small room. As the door closed behind them, she heard Carlton's voice raised in protest, and Frances's voice, slurred now in the soft dialect of the area, the dialect she knew Carlton had expected simply because she looked the way she did.

"No, you wait just a minute," Frances said. Her words sounded clearly through the closed door as Anne followed David toward the locked front door, and while her accent was soft, her words were anything but. "You came down here under false pretenses. You have single-handedly destroyed any chance of the Winchester or probably any other museum gaining an invaluable collection. You have insulted possible donors. You have insulted me, and you have threatened my job . . ."

David thrust the box into Anne's hands as they reached the front door. He twisted the key from the lock, pulled the door closed behind them, and quickly locked it. Together, without speaking, they sprinted for the Blazer, but at the Mercedes, David stopped. The car wasn't locked. He opened the hood and fumbled in there. He grinned at her as he eased the hood closed. "That'll stop him."

"What?"

"Just a couple of loose wires. Want to bet our buddy has absolutely no knowledge of how this baby works?"

Anne felt a laugh building. God. Was it just a laugh? Or was it hysteria threatening to break free?

"Want to bet no one closer than Fort Smith knows how to work on a Mercedes?" she asked.

"No way," he told her as he took her elbow and hurried her to the Blazer. "I'm relatively sure that Frances will help you win that bet, hands down."

They met few cars on the road to the highway, and although Anne kept her eyes focused on the side mirror and the road they had traveled, she saw no big Mercedes roaring up behind them.

"He didn't hear them," she said. "My God, they were all around us, and he didn't hear them."

"Wayne said Joe didn't hear them either."

Anne twisted in the seat. "Wayne heard them? In the house?"

"Yes. The day Joe broke in. He said the cats warned him."

"Oh, lord." Anne hugged the box to her. "What are we going to do, David? What on earth are we going to do?"

"Something," he promised. "Something."

At the highway, he turned left.

"Where are we going?"

"Into Fort Smith. If somebody is following, if somebody was posted along the road, we'll lose them in city traffic."

Her pulse rate had returned to almost normal. The traffic along the state highway grew heavier, but no one appeared to be paying any attention to the battered Blazer. Eventually the two-lane highway became a divided interstate. A sign directed them to an off-ramp and they took it and the well-traveled road toward town.

"You can let go of your death grip on that box now," he told her.

She glanced down. Her knuckles were white where they clutched the edges of the box. Her fingers didn't want to straighten. She laughed self-consciously and laced them together, stretching them, coaxing circulation back into them.

"Why don't you stick that behind the seat? I think we've been assured we're safe."

"I guess we have at that." She twisted within the confines of the seatbelt and tucked the box behind David's seat, and then, because the day had taken one of the November weather's quirky turns into a late, late Indian summer and the sunlight streaming into the Blazer had become uncomfortably warm, she shrugged out of her jacket and dropped it on top of the box.

"Better?" he asked.

She stretched and eased tight muscles and reached to touch his shoulder. "Yes."

They reached the downtown area, a blocks-long stretch of red brick buildings, some of them appearing a hundred years old or more, many of them charming, a few in sad need of repair. They drove the length of it, from the huge, closed hotel and a vibrant, old church at one end, to the high, arching bridge that spanned the width of the Arkansas River at the other.

David turned off the main street and drove past the courthouse and federal buildings, eventually winding past the entrance to the military cemetery and the restored buildings that remained from the fort that had given the city its name.

But this was not a sightseeing trip. Anne sensed that in David's constant vigilance of oncoming traffic as well as of the vehicles behind them. She looked out at the stately white-trimmed red brick building across the wide lawn and wondered if one day they might return as tourists. It didn't seem likely.

David returned to the main street, traveled a few blocks, and pulled into an angled parking space at the curb.

"What?" she asked.

"I think we made our getaway without being followed." He nodded toward the building in front of them. "And I know I'm hungry."

And so was she. But there was the box on the floor behind his seat.

"Leave it," he said. "It's covered by your jacket, and I'll lock the Blazer. We're on a busy street, parked at a busy sidewalk."

She nodded and got out of the car and waited for him at the parking meter. He stuffed a quarter in the slot and grinned at her. "Your hair's all falling down," he said.

She swiped an anxious hand to her hair.

"It looks great," he said, giving her one of his killer smiles. "Leave it?"

She chuckled. "I think I'll have to. I only brought identification and a little mad money with me."

"Good."

"Good? You're on the streets with someone who has to look like a mad woman and you say good?"

He took her arm and pulled her close into a loose hug. "Yeah."

What they found in the storefront restaurant wasn't the fast food she suspected David was addicted to, but it was the best burger Anne had ever eaten. Thick, juicy, on a homemade roll, served with huge wedges of roasted potato, and coffee to die for.

They were seated at a dark pine booth against bare brick walls and gleaming hardwood floors. At the front of the room, against the storefront glass, a profusion of plants grew, but none were allowed to encroach past a certain point. And near the antique cash register stood what looked to be an authentic gravity-flow, glass-bulbed gas pump, with the top cleaned and fitted as an aquarium.

Anne loved it.

She loved the stream of nonsense conversation David kept flowing.

She loved him.

Damn.

Well, she'd gotten through worse; she'd get through this.

And she'd enjoy the time she had with him.

She would.

Anne was sated with good food and their conversation when they left the restaurant, almost content but with her senses humming with awareness of him. He'd taken her arm, and they were chuckling softly over some bit of nonsense when they reached the Blazer.

David tensed. "Damn it all to hell!"

Anne had idly glanced toward a mother and three small children making an awkward, ambling journey down the sidewalk. At David's fierce oath, she turned toward the Blazer. The driver's side window had a gaping hole in it, surrounded by spidery veins in the shattered but still connected safety glass.

David reached for the door handle but jerked his hand back. Instead, he stepped to the door and looked into the Blazer, stepped back and glanced into the back.

"It's gone, isn't it?"

"Yes, and so is our jacket."

"Well, great. Just great. What do we do now?"

"Oh, Annie." He shook his head. "I don't want to do this. If this were my car, I'd be tempted to just get the hell out of Dodge. But it isn't. I've got to report it."

"And what do we tell the police officer?"

"As much of the truth as we can."

 

"A lady's jacket and an empty box." The officer repeated David's words and shook his head. "Damn, Huerra. Welcome to Arkansas."

"Actually, it's a gentler welcome that the one he got to Oklahoma," Anne said. "There, one of our natives knocked his car into the rear end of a log truck. With him in it."

"This is a heck of a way to spend a vacation. Are you sure you wouldn't rather be back on duty? No offense, Dr. Locke."

Anne laughed softly. Officer Stanton had been a pleasant surprise. Well into middle age and comfortable with who he was and the work he did, he'd gone about taking their report with a minimum of discomfort. And she didn't feel too badly about lying to him. If the box were found, it would be empty. "None taken."

"Okay," he said, closing his pad holder on the brief report. "Tell the dealership in Fairview this will be ready for their insurance company tomorrow, day after at the latest. I'm really sorry—"

A harsh scream ripped through whatever Stanton would have said, and repeated, echoing its cry of terror and pain. The three of them turned. It had come from a nearby alley, probably magnified and tunneled toward the street by high brick walls.

"What the—" But Stanton was already turning, tossing his pad holder down, reaching for his service revolver, running.

David put his hand on Anne's arm. "Stay here. I'll go."

Stay. Oh, yes. Definitely. There was no way she wanted to know what caused that cry, no way she wanted to see the result of that pain. There was no way she could help, she knew that already. She could only follow David as he ran toward danger and death.

"The hell I will . . ."

And they were all running, fighting to get through the small crowd of people that had already clogged the opening to the alley.

"Let me through," Stanton ordered. "Come on, move it, folks, let us through."

And remarkably, they did.

The screams had stopped. The snarling had stopped. The growls had stopped.

The body lay in an alcove off the alley. Stanton approached it cautiously. David grabbed Anne's arm and hauled her to a stop. "Let me go," she told him.

"You don't want that."

No, she didn't, but that didn't, couldn't, make any difference. Maybe she wasn't too late. Maybe she could . . . something. "I have to help if I can," she said as she jerked her arm from his grasp.

"Annie! Wait!"

But she didn't. She couldn't. She reached the alcove just as Officer Stanton turned from the crumpled mass in the doorway and staggered toward her. He caught her in his arms but not before she saw what was left of—of a man?

She gagged and whirled away from the body. David grabbed her and held her face against his chest.

"Get her out of here," Stanton ordered. "There isn't anything she can do. See if you can keep the lookers back, and call for help. Homicide, Animal Control, God, I don't know. I'll stay here and . . ." He looked around the alley. It was empty. Anne could have told him that. As empty as the cardboard box at the entrance to the alcove. But Stanton wouldn't believe her. He stood there, an incredibly brave man protecting a dead man and a crime scene from something so far beyond his experience he could only imagine the danger, while he urged David to get her to safety.

David did. She stopped at the end of the alley. "Go for help. I'll keep them from going back there."

"And just how do you plan to do that, Annie. You don't know what ghouls some people can be."

"Simple." She reached out and touched the sleeve of a man who crowded against them. "I don't think you want to go back there, sir. There's a real serious gas leak. I think it's going to blow at any minute."

David grabbed her to him and just held her as the shudders racked him. "Don't go back there. Don't put yourself in danger. Promise me."

She nodded abruptly. She'd used her supply of words and her bravado. Only then did she remember what Karen had said about the killing in her lab.

 

David used the radio in Stanton's police cruiser. His first words were guaranteed to get the maximum help in the minimum time and cut through the bullshit of bureaucracy demanding to know who he was and why he was on a restricted radio. "Officer needs assistance."

For a small department, an amazing number of official vehicles swarmed the scene. David had his shield in his hand and his hands in plain sight when the first car arrived. "Block the alley," he said. "Keep those civilians out. Stanton's in there guarding the crime scene."

He hadn't a hope in hell that would work, at least not without a lot of explanation on his part. But it did. The officer ran his car up on the sidewalk and closed off the alley entrance. But he yelled down the alley. "Stanton? You okay back there?"

A siren coming up the alley from the other end cut off Stanton's reply but not until at least one reinforcement had heard his voice.

Annie. Where was Annie? A man in a suit forced his way through the throng to David's side and shoved a badge in his face. "What's happened here?"

There she was. Pale. God, she looked like she might pass out at any moment. But she was coming to him. If she could reach him through the press of officers surrounding him.

He took a step toward her, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm. He glared at the hand; he glared at the man who put it there. "Let her through."

The man nodded and the crowd surrounding him parted. Annie stumbled and he caught her. She sobbed once and leaned into his strength. He looked over Annie's head at the man obviously in command.

"Officer Stanton was taking a burglary report from us," he said. "He has our names and addresses. He had finished the report and was leaving when we heard a scream from the alley. I'm a police officer from Dallas. Anne is a doctor. We accompanied him into the alley approximately fifty yards to an alcove and a doorway where we found a body. We saw no one. He asked for our assistance while he guarded the scene. Anne blocked the alley and I used his radio."

"Is that how you remember it, ma'am?" the man asked Anne.

She nodded.

"And you didn't stay to see if you could give medical aid?"

Anne raised her head and looked at her interrogator, and David thought he would never forget the sick revulsion in her eyes. "Go look at him," she said. "Go look at him and then come back and ask me that question."

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