Mission: Irresistible (7 page)
“You are a petty, suspicious man, you know that?” Even though she felt a little guilty for sounding so harsh, Cassie refused to budge. She crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at him. To think that for one brief millisecond back there in the dark she had actually been sexually attracted to him.
Heaven forbid.
“I’m not petty and suspicious,” he denied. “Not at all. But I do know my brother. He’s a trickster. He loves games and treasure hunts. When it comes to Adam, I know exactly what to expect. You, Miss Cooper, are the wild card.”
“I might be wild,” she agreed, “but I don’t pull stunts to dupe people out of their money. And I can’t believe you think so little of your own brother.”
Cassie was breathing hard and she didn’t know why. For the longest moment, they glared at each other, gazes locked, temperatures rising.
“Why don’t you try to call Adam and see if you can wring a confession from him?” she challenged.
“I will.” Harrison took out his cell phone and punched in his brother’s number. Voice mail answered. He hung up.
“Is he still incommunicado?”
“Apparently.”
“Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it that your brother and I are not in cahoots.”
She could tell he didn’t want to buy it, but at last he relented. “All right, I’ll take you at your word, and I apologize if I offended you in any way.”
He did have the good grace to look chagrined, and when he humbled himself he was less like a high-minded pompous ass and more like a real human being.
“Your apology is accepted,” Cassie relented, uncrossing her arms.
“Thank you for not holding a grudge.”
“Don’t get too comfortable. You’re on probation with me.” She shook an index finger at him.
“As are you with me.” His eyebrows bunched darkly. “I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t even like you.” She hardened her chin.
“Nor I you.”
“You’re arrogant and judgmental and contentious.”
“And you’re self-centered and overly opinionated and self-destructive.”
“Obviously we don’t get along.” She wondered why she was so breathless.
“Not so much.” He frowned and shook his head. He looked a little winded too.
“Great, as long as we have that established, could you clue me in? Where do you think your brother might be? Seeing as how my livelihood is on the line and all.”
“Adam was here just a little while ago.”
“You saw him at the museum?”
Harrison nodded.
“Did you talk to him?”
“I tried. He ran outside.”
“Why’d he do that?”
Harrison shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought you might have the answer.”
“Not me. What did you do?”
“I followed him. Just as I hit the street, he took off around the corner on a custom Harley. He had Gabriel Martinez slip this to me.”
Harrison pulled an envelope from his pocket, extracted a small rectangle of paper, and waved it under her nose.
“Looks like a baggage claim ticket from American Airlines,” she said.
“Exactly,” he crowed, like he was Columbo or Hercule Poirot or Perry Mason. Her mother was a huge mystery buff. Cassie had cut her teeth on late-night Charlie Chan reruns and could recite verbatim every title Agatha Christie ever wrote in order of publication date.
“I had to tell the white lie in order to buy us time with Phyllis, so we could figure out what the baggage claim ticket means,” Harrison said.
“It means there’s baggage at the American Airlines terminal that needs picking up.” What was the deal? She thought the guy was supposed to be some kind of Mensa genius.
“But whose baggage? And why hasn’t it already been claimed?”
Cassie shrugged. “I dunno.”
“If we get the baggage,” he continued, “we might find the answer to Adam’s whereabouts. Or a clue to who took the amulet, but we don’t have time for honesty. Police rigmarole would slow us down for hours.”
“There’s something more you’re not telling me. You’re not too upset about the missing amulet. You’re thinking that Adam’s the one who took it, and you don’t want to get him into trouble.”
“No, I’m just good at cloaking my panic.”
“Had me fooled.”
“Actually I’m praying like hell that Adam
did
take it. If the amulet is truly missing and it’s not part of my brother’s crackpot ploy, then my life’s work has vanished in a whiff of smoke.” He snapped his fingers. “The Egyptian government is going to be extremely unhappy with me. If the amulet is not recovered, I’ll lose not only my funding, but my visa to Egypt. My entire future is on the line.”
“So that’s your real motive for lying. To save your career. This isn’t really about your brother. This is personal.”
“Yes, okay,” Harrison admitted. “It’s personal. What’s wrong with that? But I’m not as selfish as you want to believe. Even though the amulet represents everything that I treasure deeply and hold dear, that’s not what’s important. The real travesty would be the loss of a precious artifact that gives us new insight into the ancient Egyptian culture. There’s nothing more important to the future than an understanding of history. I’ve devoted my life to it, and I’ll do anything to preserve it.”
“Even lie?”
“Even lie.”
Cassie blew out her breath, letting everything he’d told her sink in.
“Meanwhile, your boss is getting edgy.” He nodded toward the exhibit hall. “So like it or not, we’re in this mess together.”
She peeked over his shoulder to see Phyllis standing behind the glass door, hands on hips, lips pursed disapprovingly.
“I’m not in the habit of lying,” she whispered. “Not even to keep myself out of trouble.”
“I don’t lie either, dammit. But this is important. I just blurted it out. Believe me, I’m not an impulsive guy. I hate this as much as you do, probably more so. But this has to be done. For me, for my brother, for Egypt, for Kiya and Solen, but most important, for humankind.”
What a moving speech!
She’d had no idea such passion lurked beneath his cool exterior. The moonlight glinted off Harrison’s honed cheekbones, giving him a surprisingly knavish appearance in spite of his scholarly spectacles. An unexpected shiver tripped down her spine.
“You’re cold,” he said and removed his jacket.
Before she knew what he intended, he’d already slipped the hideous purple tweed jacket over her shoulders. She wanted to protest and hand it back to him, but she was cold. The jacket smelled of him, and the pleasantness of his scent caught her off guard.
She stuck her hands in his pocket and felt a cylindrical tube. It was the replica he’d made of the djed found in Kiya’s tomb. Harrison had once told her that he was determined to discover the true use of the djed. Considering the size and shape, Cassie often wondered if it hadn’t been anything more than an Egyptian sex toy, although Harrison would probably be horrified if she suggested such a thing.
“Please,” he said. “I know this is not an optimal situation, but just go along with me.”
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I can’t lie.”
“What happens,” he asked softly, “if my brother has stolen the amulet and you’re left holding the bag? You two planned this event together. You expect Phyllis to believe you weren’t part of it? Especially after that stabbed, disappearing mummy escapade you pulled.”
“I didn’t pull anything. A mummy
was
stabbed in the courtyard.”
“Either way, Phyllis is gunning for you.”
“You noticed that too? I’m not just paranoid?”
“Who could miss the animosity? She almost hisses whenever you walk by.”
Well, thank you very much. At least someone else had confirmed Cassie’s suspicion that Phyllis hated her guts.
“Would Adam hang me out to dry?” she asked. “He doesn’t seem the sort of guy who would do something like that.”
“I would hate to believe it of him, but honestly I don’t know. The murder mystery theater is our best temporary solution. If Adam is just pulling a publicity stunt, we successfully nip it in the bud. If not . . .” He didn’t complete the sentence, leaving the rest of his unspoken words up to her vivid imagination.
Cassie’s pulse spiked and a surge of excitement shot through her. Her exploits with the art thief last year had given her a taste for crime solving.
“All I’m asking is for three days to locate my brother,” Harrison continued, “and straighten this whole thing out. It’s probably a simple misunderstanding.”
“And what happens if we can’t find Adam or the amulet by Saturday?”
“I’ll report it to the police and explain what happened. I’ll tell them I coerced you into going along with me. In the meantime, you’ll still have your job, and the guests will get a big kick out of playing sleuth. And if everything turns out okay, I’ll make certain you get that recommendation to the Smithsonian. Adam’s father is Tom Grayfield, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, and he has a lot of influence in Washington. He could pull strings.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Whichever way you decide to go,” Harrison said, “lie or tell the truth, you’re already in trouble.”
That was true. Even though she wasn’t involved with the theft of the amulet, Phyllis was ready to hang her from the highest tree based on circumstances alone.
“So what do you say?” He argued a good case, but she was still afraid to trust him.
“I’m not sure I can.”
She saw that he wasn’t a man accustomed to asking for favors. But she could also see he was very worried about his brother and his career. She was worried too. Empathy could do terrible things to a woman.
“And if everything doesn’t turn out the way you foresee it?” Cassie murmured, bracing herself for the answer she did not want to hear.
Harrison grimaced and shook his head. “Then we’re both royally screwed.”
R
oyally screwed indeed.
How had he gotten entangled in such an abysmal state of affairs?
Impulsive behavior didn’t solve problems, it created them. Rational men thought before they spoke. Tonight, he had been anything but rational, and now he was paying the price.
Following the disappearance of Kiya’s amulet, Ahmose Akvar had taken him aside and privately reiterated his earlier warning:
If anything happens to the amulet, your visa will be rescinded and you will never again be allowed inside Egypt.
Exiled.
For Harrison, who had devoted his life to the study of ancient Egypt, banishment from his adopted country was unimaginable. To top things off, Phyllis Lambert had cornered him and issued a similar veiled threat, whispering that if she discovered he was covering for Cassie, she would report him to the head of the archaeology department at the University of Texas at Arlington, where Harrison taught as an adjunct professor. Hinting that she would make certain he lost his job.
Thanks a lot, Adam. I hope you have a damn good reason for absconding with the amulet. Because if you’re not in trouble now, you will be when I get my hands on you.
The guests had finally departed the museum after Cassie’s briefing. She’d concocted a spur-of-the-moment murder mystery tale so brilliant in detail, she’d mesmerized even Harrison. Her cock-and-bull story was one-third legend of the lost lovers, one-third reality, and one-third creative fabrication. Grudgingly, he had to admit the woman, however irritating, possessed an incredible talent for adapting to shifting circumstances.
A skill he sorely lacked.
He resented his need for her help. If he had his way, he would ditch her posthaste and go in search of Adam on his own.
But other than Gabriel Martinez, who’d merely been given the white envelope from his brother, Cassie was the last known person to have spoken at length with Adam. And even though she professed otherwise, Harrison still wasn’t sure he could trust her.
Was she lying to protect his brother? She claimed they weren’t lovers, and for some asinine reason he wanted to take her at her word.
It was all too coincidental. The mummy stabbed, his brother missing, the lights going out, the theft of the amulet. Cassie had to have more information than she was letting on, whether she consciously knew it or not.
“Hey, Harry, why so down in the mouth?”
They were the last ones left in the building except for the armed security guards and the janitors. Phyllis Lambert had just walked out the door with one last ominous word of warning that they had better produce the amulet come Saturday night or there would be hell to pay.
“Excuse me?” He scowled.
Cassie slung her purse over her shoulder, and she was still wearing his jacket. “You look like your best buddy just ran off with your wife and squashed your favorite puppy under the tires of his jacked-up monster truck on their way out the gate.”
“Colorful analogy,” he said. “If somewhat country-and-western-songish in nature. But I don’t have a wife. Or a puppy.”
Or a best buddy.
His friends were his colleagues. Outside of work he didn’t hang around with the guys. He didn’t enjoy shooting pool or drinking beer or yelling insults at football players on television. Harrison knew he was an odd duck, but he couldn’t help the way he was. He liked being alone with this thoughts and his books. His time was precious. He didn’t waste it on trivial pursuits.
Or trivial emotions.
Cassie rolled her eyes. “It was a joke, for heaven’s sake. Ha-ha-ha. Lighten up, dude. Do you always have to take everything so literally?”
“I don’t know any other way to view the world.” Harrison held the exit door open for Cassie to walk through.
“I take that as a yes.” She sighed.
“You find my objectivity tiresome?”
“Exasperating,” she said. “There’s no fun in logic.”
“Maybe not, but there’s logic in logic.”
She gave him a sidelong glance, and he did his best to ignore the suggestive look she angled his way. He wasn’t getting involved with her on a personal level. No way, nohow.
“Then again, I’m guessing you’ve never been accused of having too much fun.”
Harrison ignored the comment. Ignored her. Well, as much as he could. Ignoring Cassie was a bit like ignoring a major force of nature.
The security guard locked the door after them and Harrison realized their cars, his ten-year-old Volvo and Cassie’s late-model Mustang convertible, were parked at opposite ends of the lot. He couldn’t distinguish shades of colors well, but he would bet the baggage claim ticket in his pocket that her car was a flaming “ogle-me” scarlet.