Jenn Bennett - Grim Shadows

“Ah.”

“Yes, not exactly the victory a young archaeologist craves, but I didn’t care. So I gave the earl the better part of my wife’s gold fortune to acquire them. That’s when I ran into a problem.”

“You didn’t have the base of the amulet.”

“That was one problem, yes. But at the time, I believed I could eventually find it. The problem was, my partner heard a rumor I’d found the crossbars. And I couldn’t risk him stealing them from me before I found the last piece. Too dangerous to keep them, so I shipped them home to my wife.”

Lowe crossed his legs. “Your deceased wife.”

“She wasn’t at the time,” Bacall said. “The year was 1906. I had a lead on the last piece—a wrong lead, as you’ve proven—but I didn’t know that at the time. So I chased the lead to Cairo and instructed my wife to hide the pieces in our house. She hid them, all right. Hid them around the city of San Francisco. I got a series of telegrams from her, in which she explained that she was ending my obsession with the amulet in some misguided attempt to mend the rift between me and my partner. She tried to destroy the pieces—said no fire would melt the gold.”

Fascinating. “So she hid them around the city?”

“Indeed. Hid them, wrote a coded map of the hiding places, and hid the map as well. In her last telegram, she said no one would find the map or the pieces until I made peace with my partner. And before I could get back home to talk some sense into her, the earthquake hit. Vera didn’t survive.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“More than twenty-one years have passed, but I still miss her.” His mouth lifted in a soft smile. “Her hiding the amulet pieces didn’t surprise me in hindsight. She was always fond of puzzles, you see. Very good at deciphering code. A bit like you, actually.”

Lowe exhaled heavily. “You want me to decipher your wife’s code?”

“I’d like you to decipher her code and find where she hid the pieces, yes. A sort of urban treasure hunt, if you will. If you find them all, and if you hand them over to me along with the amulet’s base, which you’ve already found, I’ll write you a check for a hundred grand.”

A hundred thousand! Enough to cover his debt with Monk, with plenty left to burn. A familiar thrill—one of possibility and the promise of his luck changing—made his pulse pound.

“What’s the catch?” Lowe asked. There was always a catch. Always, always, always.

The old man leaned back in his chair. “The catch is, you’ll have to speak to my dead wife to find out where she hid the map.”

LOWE STARED AT THE blind man. “You want me to . . . ?”

“Your sister-in-law is a spirit medium, I’m told. A real one.”

According to Winter and Astrid, yes. Aida was channeling spirits on stage at one of the North Beach speakeasies, the Gris-Gris Club, when Winter first met her. She now worked out of a shop in Chinatown, holding private séances, performing exorcisms—that sort of thing.

Did Lowe believe in her ability? He didn’t have any reason not to. If he saw it with his own eyes, he supposed he’d be swayed into a definite yes. He’d experienced some strange things in his life, the djed amulet’s unexplainable power being one of them.

“Your sister-in-law can channel my wife’s spirit,” Bacall said. “You can talk with her, ask her about the map. Start there.”

“Why don’t you do that yourself?”

“She wouldn’t tell me when she was alive. I seriously doubt she’d do so now.”

“What about your daughter?”

“I don’t want Hadley involved in this. Not at all. If you accept my proposition, I’ll tell her you’re hunting down old friends for me. She doesn’t need to know about her mother’s betrayal.”

“Her mother hiding the pieces from you?”

A pause hung in the air. “Yes. All she needs to know is that I’m purchasing the amulet base from you. End of story. That’s not negotiable.”

Well, it certainly spoke to the man’s trust of his own family. Then again, who was Lowe to judge another man’s secrets? Especially not one who was willing to pay him.

“The payment I’m offering is generous,” Bacall said. “Twice what the Alexandria stele sold for at auction last year. I’d wager you won’t find a museum that will give you that price, nor a private collector. And I’m willing to offer something else to sweeten the pot.”

“And what would that be?”

“Due to my declining health, I’m retiring my post here soon. The board of trustees will vote on my replacement in a month. If you find the hidden amulet pieces for me, I’d be more than happy to make sure your name is the only one considered for the job. It pays well, and puts you in a position to be sponsored if you want to continue digging. And if you don’t? Well, it’s a cushy desk job with a bit of status.”

A lot of status. Enough that he’d never have to dig in that godforsaken desert again, which was tempting. Then again, he wasn’t particularly excited by the prospect of being cooped up in an office, day in and day out.

“Think about my offer,” Bacall said. “Our director is throwing our annual Friends of the Museum party this weekend. James Flood’s widow is hosting it at her mansion on Broadway—just a few blocks down from your family home, I believe.”

“Yes, I know the place.” The Flood’s marble palace. He drove past it all the time.

“Dinner, coats and tails, an orchestra,” Bacall said. “Great chance to rub shoulders with donors and people who could help your career. I’ll get you an invitation.”

He glanced at the door Hadley had slammed, wondering if she’d be attending this soirée. Maybe he should stop fantasizing about erotic carnival sideshows and her interest in clocks, and concentrate on figuring out exactly why her father was offering him a small fortune served on a silver platter.

After all, there was always a catch.

 • • •

Hadley stared out the window in her father’s office, watching Lowe chat with one of the groundskeepers. Rather animatedly, at that. All smiles and laughter. Did he strike up friendly chats with every stranger he stumbled across during his day?

“Everything all right, my dear?” her father asked as he switched on a desktop radio.

Other than her complete and utter humiliation? Not really. Why in God’s name had she said . . . that? “Just seeing what the weather looks like.”

“It’s going to rain. I can feel it in my knees.”

“Mr. Magnusson took the amulet with him?” She didn’t sense it anymore, so he must have.

“He’s going to arrange storage for it until the paperwork arrives from the Egyptian Ministry.” Her father fiddled with the radio dial, fine-tuning the signal until he was satisfied with the clarity of the music, some old-fashioned ragtime number.

“How did he get the thing out of the country without the paperwork?”

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know. His uncle is a fast talker. The whole family’s filled with criminals and con artists.”

“Why do you trust him, then?”

“Because I made him an offer he can’t refuse, and people like him sell their loyalty to the highest bidder.”

She moved the curtain to get a better view of Lowe. He was tipping the brim of his cap at grumpy old Mrs. Beckett, who looked up at his face when she strolled into the building and smiled like he was St. Peter and she was trying to cheat her way into heaven.

“What will you do with the amulet once you have it?” she asked her father. “Donate it to the museum?”

“Not sure.”

A lie if she’d ever heard one. When Father had first insisted she meet Lowe at the train station, he told her he’d attempted to find it himself when he was younger, and that it was a lifelong dream to finally own it. He wouldn’t go to so much trouble if he didn’t have plans.

“By the way, I invited Mr. Magnusson to the party this weekend. Perhaps I’ll ask Miss Tilly to play escort.”

Her stomach tightened. “He’s interested in Miss Tillly?”

“She’s a lovely woman. Who wouldn’t be?”

Who, indeed. Why this bothered her so much now, she didn’t understand. Lowe had paid her a couple of rude comments and touched her hand, and now her brain was sending proprietary signals to her heart? Ridiculous. “I hardly think you’d want to offer up your favorite secretary like she’s some kind of prostitute.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Hadley. Jealousy isn’t becoming.”

“I’m not jealous.” But she was, stupidly. And before she could control her emotions, the Mori specters spied into her thoughts and rose up from the floorboards to childishly shove the radio off the desk. Static crackled through the speaker after it hit the floor.

Her father jumped. “What was that?”

“I bumped into it,” she said, quickly snatching up the radio as she counted internally and turned the dial to find the station again. “It’s nothing.”

His shoulders relaxed. “I just want to keep him close until the sale of the amulet goes through, and Miss Tilly can introduce him to all the curators. I don’t think she’ll mind. She mentioned he was quite tall and uniquely handsome.”

Oh, did she, now? Was that Miss Tilly’s polite way of accommodating his broken nose in her assessment? Admittedly, Hadley had been surprised to see him clean-shaven and wearing a decent suit, though the dramatic brown boots that laced up to his knees were a little much. He looked like he was dressed for cavalry duty or hunting quail on horseback.

And why had Father asked a secretary her opinion about his looks instead of asking Hadley? Well, she supposed that was typical. Half the time, she swore he still thought she was a ten-year-old girl. If she told him Lowe had pressed his body against her underclothes, he’d expire from shock.