First You Run (13 page)

“No. These pieces are exact copies of classic Maya structures called stelae,” Miranda explained. “They’re casts of the originals, also in Quiriguá. Gorgeous, aren’t they? And the smaller ones with the animal carvings are called zoomorphs.”

He studied them, his hands locked behind him as he circled each. “What’s the writing say?”

“It’s mostly stories of the gods and their relationships with the kings. They’re actually more beautiful than the originals, because the monuments of Quiriguá are eroded and aged.”

She skimmed a finger along a few glyphs, remembering the hieroglyphic warning she’d seen that morning in Wild Eyes’ writing.

“What do you think of the layout?” she asked, glancing at the small stage and podium that had been set up for her, then up to the wooden-railed balconies that overlooked the rotunda floor. “Other than the fact that someone could shoot me from up there.”

“Someone could shoot you from anywhere,” he said. “I’ll have to get them to lock the second floor. And I’m going to arrange to get a metal detector at the door and increase the security on the floor tonight.”

She gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Adrien.”

“Thank me when it’s over and all is well. Not that I want you to worry,” he added quickly. “Just to be vigilant.”

They continued around the room, their shoes echoing on the high-shine floor, speaking quietly in keeping with the atmosphere. Tourists and some staffers peppered the museum. Miranda stood at the podium, looked around to imagine a room full of people, and let her attention settle on Adrien. He was far less interested in the cases full of Maya pottery and much more interested in access to the room, the setup for speaking, and the various ways they could get out if they had to. He had his serious game face on, his body language all control and purpose. And so insanely…byu-ee-ful.

Desire punched her just as he turned and caught her staring. He didn’t move and didn’t look away. No smile, no words. Just that purpose in his eyes that made her warm and…hungry. If he didn’t think of sex when he looked at her that way, then what?

A man walked between them with a ladder, bringing her back to the present.

“’Scuse me, Doctor,” he mumbled, clunking the stepladder next to one of the stelae.

She gestured to Adrien. “Ready?”

They left the main building and walked across a side street to the small administration building, pausing to admire the blinding topaz and turquoise colors of the rotunda roof.

“It’s a pretty place, isn’t it?” she mused.

“Pretty wide open and not exactly high security,” he replied grimly.

The reception area of the administrative offices was empty, but from the other side of a thin wall, a woman’s voice rose in escalating dismay.

“This is totally unacceptable, Juan Carlos. Boxes of books just don’t disappear.”

Miranda closed her eyes. Oh,
no.

“Hang tight, luv,” Adrien said, dropping an arm around her shoulder. “She could be talking about any books.”

“Right.”

In the background, a phone receiver hit the cradle so hard it must have cracked the plastic.

“This is un-freaking-believable!” The woman sailed out from behind the wall, a willowy blonde who nearly stumbled from her own momentum when she saw them. She looked from one to the other and settled on Miranda.

“Dr. Lang?” Nothing in her voice said she was happy to see Miranda. “Oh, God, we have problems.”

Air whooshed out of Miranda. “The books are gone.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Missing,” she corrected. “They are temporarily missing.” With a tight smile, she stuck her hand out. “I’m Suzette Kraemer. And I really am happy to meet you. I would be happier if I had your books.”

Miranda shook her hand and introduced Adrien as her bodyguard.

“Who was the last person to see the books?” he asked.

“They were in storage and shipping. Juan Carlos, the shipping manager, just called me to say he was about to arrange the delivery to the rotunda for tonight’s event, and they were gone. Eight boxes can’t just vanish into thin air. But according to Juan Carlos, they have.” She indicated the door with one hand. “Want to join me on the hunt at the loading dock and storage warehouse? It’s in the back.”

On the way, Suzette did her best to make small talk about the museum and the room setup they’d planned, and then she gushed about the article that had appeared in yesterday’s newspaper about the event.

“There was an article?” Miranda asked.

“A nice one, in the
UT
—the
Union Tribune
.” Suzette’s heels tapped on the terra-cotta floor as they walked down a long hallway. “The reporter talked about your theory about the Long Count calendar and how your book is going a long way toward dispelling a growing worry about December 2012. I’m sure it will drum up a good crowd tonight.”

Adrien and Miranda shared a look as they reached a steel door that Suzette opened without a key. Inside the warehouse area, one whole wall was an open garage door and cement delivery dock, where sunlight streamed over cartons, crates, and an empty forklift.

“Juan Carlos!” she called. “It’s Suzette! Snuff the butt and get in here!”

From below the delivery platform, a heavy-set Latino man came around the corner, crushing a cigarette and blowing a puff of smoke. He hoisted himself up with surprising ease, considering his size, and approached Suzette with a sheepish grin.

“You have that I’m-going-to-kill-JC look in your eyes.” He chuckled, the laugh of someone who’s shared a lot of inside jokes and mini-crises through the years, and Suzette’s twinkle confirmed that.

“That’s because this time, I really am going to kill you, JC. But first, let me introduce you to Dr. Lang. The
author
.” She ladled shame over the word. “They’re
her
books you lost, my friend.”

He wiped his hand on dark trousers and then reached out to shake her hand. “I am sorry, Dr. Lang. We have very expensive and rare works of art come through this department, and we’ve never lost anything before.”

“When were they shipped?” Miranda asked. “Are you certain they actually arrived?” Perhaps the problem was with Calypso Publishing and not the Armageddon Movement.

Juan Carlos dashed that hope. “I had them, I counted them, I inventoried them.” He pointed to a receiving area where other boxes were stacked. “Right there. On Friday afternoon of last week. Wait here, and I’ll get the paperwork.”

Adrien walked over to the boxes and poked around, checking out the area where trucks backed in.

“Anyone can get in here,” he said to Miranda.

“That’s really not true,” Suzette replied. “There’s a guard at the back drive, and everyone’s ID is checked. It’s not that easy to get back here. We had the Dead Sea Scrolls, for heaven’s sake! Security’s not lax. Anyway,” she added, setting her hands on the pencil skirt that hugged her narrow hips, “who would want 192 copies of a book? That’s an odd thing to steal, don’t you think?”

No, Miranda thought ruefully, stealing her books had become someone’s favorite pastime this week.

“I found one!” Juan Carlos’s victorious exclamation rang out through the warehouse. “I must have forgot to log this box in. Can you have your event tonight with one box?”

Suzette dashed off toward him. “Maybe we can give IOUs, Dr. Lang, or maybe you can sign brochures or bookmarks for them or something.”

Disappointment pulled a frustrated sigh from Miranda. Along with a sense of dread.

“What should I do?” she asked Adrien. “He may not show up at all if he thinks I’m going to skip the event like I did in LA. But maybe the boxes are really lost or hidden, and he’s planning to blow this place up, too. We can’t jeopardize people like that.”

He nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. But tonight’s event hasn’t been canceled, and people will be here. I think you should be, too. I’ll alert the security team here and order police backup. They’ll need to check every backpack and bag. I’ll watch the door—there should be only one entrance and exit. Not that I want you as bait, but it could be the best way to draw him to us.” He stepped closer and took her hand off her chest, where she didn’t even realize it was covering a thumping heart. “Unless you want to skip it and cancel.”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll do my reading and sign whatever books they have. You’ll catch him, then find out who he is, what he’s up to.”

“You’re absolutely sure that’s what you want to do?”

“Absolutely.”

She wouldn’t be beaten by Wild Eyes. Not this time.

“I
DUNNO ’BOUT
this, Miss Lucy.” Wade Cordell purposely loaded some serious drawl into his voice, mostly because he knew it amused her, and she’d always appreciated the disarming power of one of his most deadly weapons. People generally thought a Southern boy who talked slow and walked slower couldn’t be much of a threat. “You sure you want
me
on this assignment?”

“I know this isn’t the kind of thing you left your cushy government job to do,” Lucy said, her subtle sarcasm not lost through the cell-phone connection. She knew the consulting jobs he’d done after he left the Marines were anything but cushy. Deadly, fierce, and shrouded in black but not cushy.

“I don’t have an investigator in the Bay Area right now, and I know you can handle this. It’ll be a nice change.”

Any change from what he’d done for the government would be nice.

“Then you’ll be happy to know I am parking across the street from Kroeber Hall, the anthropology department at UC Berkeley, and I’m about to interview”—he glanced at the notes he’d written—“Dr. Adam DeWitt, one of Miranda Lang’s colleagues who might have some information on Fletch’s target.”

“Good. And if you talk to Fletch before I do, tell him that Sage checked out the bookstore clerk. There’s an Ophelia on staff, but she had called in sick that night. The manager was under the impression the bookstore was closed and no one was there.”

“So maybe their target didn’t set the bomb off. Maybe someone impersonating Ophelia did.”

“Or he had an accomplice. I’ve had Sage’s group going through all of the online databases for the Berkeley anthropology majors and graduate students, and they’ve pulled all possible pictures and will e-mail them to Fletch. When I hand this person over to the FBI, I’d like to be very thorough.”

“Got it.” He climbed out of the Navigator and scanned the campus. “And if we have any leads from the photos Sage is uploading to Fletch, I’ll check them out. I don’t mind a little field investigation work.”

“Thanks, Wade. When you’re done with this, let’s talk. I have some ideas about your future.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I’m trying to decide between an ambassador on vacation in Nice or an advance security run for a client traveling on the
Queen Mary 2.
”

He choked playfully. “You’re killin’ me, Luce.”

“I want more than consulting, Wade.”

“I know.” And so far, security consulting for the Bullet Catchers beat the holy hell out of what he’d been doing before. “We’ll talk when I can get to New York. I have to, uh, do some work over in Europe first.”

“I heard.”

Did the woman know
everything?
She must have some serious connections in the Agency still.

Inside the building, Wade brushed his hand over the S&W 1911 under his jacket. Not that he expected to need it, but habits died hard. Upstairs, down a dimly lit hallway lined with labs and classrooms, he found the main office, where he faced the back of a heavy-set woman working on a computer. Her desk was a mess of papers, almost covering the plastic nameplate. She didn’t turn, even when he cleared his throat.

“Dr. Rosevich is in a meeting,” she said over her shoulder, her fingers clicking wildly.

“Actually, ma’am, I’m looking for Dr. DeWitt. Am I in the right place?”

“I don’t work for Adam.”
Clickity-click.

“Well, then, perhaps you could tell me where to go.”

She paused just long enough for him to figure she would do exactly that.

“I’m a private investigator.”

That got her to turn, a scowl stamped on her wide, fifty-something features. “Oh…a private investigator?” she asked, losing the fight to check him out.

He smiled and reached a hand toward her. “Sounds more glamorous than it is. My name’s Wade Cordell. I’d like to see Dr. DeWitt, if that’s possible.”

She held his hand a second too long, a sweetheart of a flush rising. “Is he in trouble? No, no.” She waved her hand, the color rising to her cheeks. “Not my business. Um…let me call his office. I don’t know if he has office hours now, but—”

“If you’d just direct me, I’ll pop in and check.”

“Sure. Yes. Right out there, to the left. Second, no, third door.” She caught her breath. “Wade.”

“Thank you.” He winked. “Donna.”

“Come back if he’s not there, and I’ll help you.”

“I just might do that.”

She was still smiling when he left. He knocked on the third door to the left. When there was no answer, he tried the knob, and it opened up. He walked into the small, windowless office, scoping the room for clues about its inhabitants.

One whole wall was bookshelves, and at the farthest end of the bottom shelf, red letters jumped out at him. Dr. Miranda Lang. Was this the book Fletch’s principal had written? He leaned over and pulled it out, curious.
The Cataclysn’t: The End of the Myth, Not of the World
. He flipped it over, looking at the picture on the inside back cover. Pretty girl. He skimmed her biography. Brainy, too. No wonder Fletch was dragging this nonassignment out.

He opened to the middle of the book, glancing at a few sentences, then fluttered some pages to colored photos of ancient ruins and a chart. He turned another page and blinked in surprise at the red ink all over it, scratches over words and handwritten editorial markings. Had Dr. DeWitt reviewed the book for her?

He flipped a few more pages. On almost every page in the book were vicious red swipes, question marks, notations that said “confusing” and “inaccurate” and “absurd”—underlined three times.

At the sound of rushed footsteps in the hall, he slipped the book back exactly where it had been, locked his hands behind him, and copped a blank expression.

“Can I help you?” Adam DeWitt practically ran into his office, a look of distrust on his angular features and a set of purplish circles behind rimless glasses. “Donna said you’re looking for me.”

“My name is Wade Cordell. I’m a private investigator.” Wade flashed ID and noticed the already pale skin lighten even more.

“What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” Wade assured him. “I’ve been asked by a client to identify someone who was in the audience at a book reading and signing at the Page Nine bookstore on Friday night. I understand you were in attendance.”

“Miranda? She’s your client?”

Nerves. He could practically smell them.

“You were there, correct? At the reading for the book
Cataclysn’t
?”

“Is Miranda okay?”

Did he really care, this colleague who’d picked apart her entire book? “She’s fine, but there was a man in the audience that night who caused quite a bit of trouble, and Dr. Lang thinks—”

“What? That I had something to do with that? God, she’s too much.”

“—that you might be able to give a description.”

DeWitt widened his stance and got his balance. Which, unless he had something to hide, shouldn’t be gone in the first place. “If you mean the long-haired guy with a tattoo and an earring, I have no idea who that was.”

That would be Fletch; Wade had met him once a few months ago, and the description for the Aussie was dead-on. “I’m delighted that your powers of observation are so keen, Dr. DeWitt, because that’s exactly why I’m here.”

“I’m very late for an appointment.” He crossed his arms and stepped away from the doorjamb, a silent invitation to leave.

Wade sat down in the guest chair, stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles. It had the desired effect on the professor, who practically snarled as he made his way around Wade’s legs to get behind his own desk.

“You want to find that other guy,” DeWitt insisted. “Because she was staring at him and ran out of the room with him. A little while later, I saw her leave with him.”

“You saw her? Were you watching her?”

“I just happened to see her.” When Wade added nothing but an interested look, DeWitt closed his eyes. “She’s my friend,” he said. “We work together.”

Wade filed the defensiveness away. “Truth be told, sir, I’m more interested in a man who initiated the trouble for Dr. Lang than the one she left with.”

“The guy who stood on a chair?” Adam gave a mean little laugh. “I told her she could expect that.”

“Why was that?”

“Let’s just say she invites controversy. She’s young, and not really qualified to be published on such a huge subject.”

Wade nodded, then glanced at the bookshelves. “Are you published, Dr. DeWitt? I suppose most professors are writers,” he said. “Publish or perish, isn’t that the expression?”

“Some of us are content to teach.”

And watch the others get the adulation. “I realize you’re busy, but we need to get you to sit down with a police sketch artist, if you observed the man in question.”

“There are
cops
involved?”

“She’s specifically looking for information on the people who were disruptive,” Wade said. “And we intend to find them.”

“I don’t know. There were a lot of people there. I didn’t see anybody that well. I was paying attention to Miranda. I didn’t see people in the back.”

Wade lifted one eyebrow. “You got a pretty good read on the hair, tattoo, and earring.”

“You know,” DeWitt said, trying to act casual. “I don’t really have time for this. I’m sorry if Miranda’s getting harassed, but it isn’t my problem.”

Wade leaned back, getting more comfortable as his target did just the opposite. “Are you aware of the bombing that occurred in Los Angeles last night?”

He froze. “No. I mean, yes. I had nothing to do with that.”

Wade lifted one brow, real slow. “I don’t believe I implied you did.”

“Your very presence here implies something.”

A gentle knock on the open door pulled their attention. “Is this about what happened to Miranda the other night?” An older man, easily in his seventies, hunched in the doorway, an olive-green suit matching the color of his eyes.

Wade stood. “As a matter of fact, it is,” he said. “I’m investigating the incident. And you are…”

“Stuart Rosevich.” He gave Wade a hearty shake. “Department head. Did DeWitt tell you how badly they treated her? I was there, and it was just an atrocity for that poor woman.”

“That’s what I understand,” Wade said. “We believe there could be a connection between some individuals in the audience and the bombing that occurred in Westwood, which happened to be a bookstore where Dr. Lang was scheduled to speak.”

The older man’s eyes widened. “Is she all right?” His concern, unlike Adam’s, was genuine.

“She is. But we’re trying to find people who can remember the troublemakers well enough to help create a sketch that might lead to an ID.”

“Oh, I remember the worst of the bunch. The one who stood on his chair. I’ll help you. And Adam, you got a good look at him.”

“I…I could probably remember him,” he back-pedaled.

“You talked to him for a good five minutes after Miranda left,” the other man said. “Of course you could describe him. Where do you need us to go?”

“I’ll arrange for an artist to come here and interview you both,” Wade said. “Will that fit in with your schedule, Dr. DeWitt?”

“Of course it will,” Rosevich answered for him. “Miranda should be enjoying the fruits of her hard labor and well-deserved success right now, not fending off these lunatics who want to prove her wrong. Right, Adam?”

Adam nodded. “Absolutely.”

Wade stepped to the door, then pointed to the book on the shelf. “I see you have Dr. Lang’s book,” he commented. “Did you enjoy it?”

DeWitt half shrugged. “I haven’t had a chance to really read it yet.”

“I have,” Rosevich said, nudging Wade into the hall. “It’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Of course, I’d expect no less from Miranda. She’s a star in the department.”

Wade sent a bland look at Adam. “Thanks for your time, Dr. DeWitt. I’m sure Dr. Lang will appreciate the help from such a supportive colleague.”

When Adam just stared back at him, Wade shot him a Southern charmer smile.

“Could he hate you enough to orchestrate a campaign to see you fail?” Fletch asked, opening up his laptop on the bar in the suite’s living room after he’d reported Wade’s conversation to her.

Miranda looked doubtful. “He has issues, no question. He’s tried to write books himself and has had trouble even getting his papers published. He’s having problems and sees tenure slipping further away every year, but I don’t think he’s so jealous that he’d go as far as sabotage. He’s petty but not…menacing.”

“We’re going to watch him.”

She leaned forward, clearly interested. “What else do you guys do?”

“Well…” He tapped a few computer keys and entered a password she couldn’t see. “We have a database that can tell you just about anything you want to know about anyone in the world. It’s run by the head of our Research and Investigation Division, Sage Valentine.”

“And any of you can access it?”

He clicked a few more keys and pulled up the file on Miranda. “See?” He turned the computer toward her, letting her see the stats of high school, college, graduate school, address, and phone number.

Her jaw dropped. “You had that before you met me?”

“Yes. I knew you lived on Regent Street, so you fooled me when you brought me up the shortcut.” He smiled at her look. “We don’t have everything. There are some limitations and some people who are canny enough to erase their info. This is first level. If we want to go deeper, Sage’s team gets involved.”

She studied the screen. “It’s all accurate, too.”

“That’s the way we like it.”

“What else?”

He thought for a minute. “We have a GPS-based locator system that can tell my boss where any Bullet Catcher is at any time, assuming they have a certain code punched into their cell phones.”

“Show me.”

He pulled his slim phone from his pocket. “I’m not working now, so I don’t have it on.” He punched in the code, then opened the program on the laptop, typed in his name and Bullet Catcher ID number, and a map of San Diego appeared, with a star at the street corner where the hotel was located.

“So, if I have that, I could track you after you leave me tomorrow and see where you go, couldn’t I?”