The Red Heart of Jade (6 page)

“Of course, of course. “ Owen pushed himself away from the table and spun on his heel, pacing. “We know, based on the breaking point in the stone, that this is just one segment of a larger artifact. We need to go back to Yushan, see if there are similar men or women buried with pieces of jade—perhaps other fragments of the larger stone. There might be pottery that survived, inscriptions on bones, other jade artifacts—anything to support the theory that there was cross-cultural contact or migration into Southeast Asia during this time period.”

“Or evidence that refutes it,” Miri reminded him. “This jade might not be what we think it is.”

Owen’s mouth quirked. “I think our bigger problem is Kevin. I might be the government-appointed leader on this dig, but he can still make trouble for us.”

“
Us
now?” Miri swiveled around on her stool. “Why, that is very kind of you, Dr. Wills.”

“Not at all, Dr. Lee. Your expertise will be most valued.”

My trust, too
. Owen was going to need someone to watch his back once word spread—and it would, that was inevitable. People talked, especially in this part of the world, where it was not just intellectual politics that got nasty, but other elements of the illegal, black market kind. This red jade, and anything associated with it, was going to become a very hot piece of property.

“I suppose you’ve already recorded evidence of your initial findings with the folks back home, right? Sent some pictures to sit on the Stanford server?”

“Of course. “ Owen gave her an affronted look. “Kevin will not be able to claim we stole any ideas from him. Everything is documented. “

“Well, good. But you realize, don’t you, that he’s got every right to be on the team?” And once that happened, the games would begin. Kevin cared more about politics than good science, cared more about making himself look good instead of getting the job done.

“I could always arrange to break his kneecaps,” Owen said, with the mock gruffness of a man who had never ever attempted to take a crowbar to another person’s legs.

Miri had. It was not something she thought Owen would have the stomach for. Nor would it really solve any of their problems. Although, hearing Kevin scream might be very satisfying.

She picked up the red jade. The color was soft, but rich. She could not stop staring at it, those words in the stone curling light in her eyes. It poured such heat into her palm, moving up her arm...

She put it down. “You said this was in the woman’s chest?”

“Embedded. Rather gruesome, I suppose. Part of her breastbone was removed to make room for it. The stone was partially cradled in the bone.”

“That should have killed her.”

“It clearly didn’t. The flesh had time to grow around the artifact.”

Then it hurt like hell
, Miri thought, wondering what it would take, with only primitive tools, to remove enough bone to embed this flat piece of jade inside someone’s chest. Unable to help herself, she pressed the red stone between her breasts and tried to imagine it hanging there, in her body, as part of her skeleton. Flesh and blood.

She shivered. Owen touched her shoulder.

“I know,” he said quietly.

Miri placed the stone on the table. She did not want to touch it, not anymore, though as soon as the thought passed through her, she felt the urge to press skin to stone, and soak up its warmth.

“What could be so important that a person would go through that kind of torture?” She looked at Owen. “What would be the point?”

“Why do cultures ever practice mutilation? Beauty, rites of passage—”

“Protection,” Miri interrupted, thinking of the tiny scar just above her own heart.

“Yes,” Owen said. “Sacrifice is easier when done for the good of others or oneself.”

Something Miri understood all too well, even if it was a hard knowledge, and bitter. “Anything else you need to tell me? If we’re heading down to Yushan for an extended period of time, I need to go back to the hotel and make some calls.”

“Just clear your schedule for this evening. Wendy Long wants to meet with us tonight. When I told her about the find—”

Miri made a small sound of protest. “You called Wendy before me?”

A deep scarlet flush stained his neck, rising high into his cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but Miri— resigned—cut him off with a curt wave of her hand. “Just ask the woman out on a date. It’s not that hard, Owen.”

His expression grew pained. “I can’t.”

“Owen.”

He held up his hand. He still wore his wedding ring.

“But you like her,” Miri said softly. “There’s no crime in that.”

“I know, my dear. I know. But... I was with my wife so very long, and to think that I could possibly love another... “ He stopped, shaking his head. “Other men do it all the time. I don’t know why I find it so difficult.”

“Because you’ve got a heart of gold,” Miri said. “Because you’re the kind of man who believes in loving one person and no other. But hey, you don’t have to marry Wendy. Just because you go out with her one time doesn’t mean you have to pledge the rest of your life to her. Just... be friends. Have coffee. Or tea. Tea is better. Take her to that ritzy dim sum place over by the hotel where I’m staying. You can talk dead people. It’ll be the start of something beautiful.”

“It’s not that easy.”

Miri said nothing. She was not going to beg Owen to ask Wendy Long out on a date. Not when she knew exactly what he was going through. Of course, the alternatives to being alone had not exactly been all that attractive over the years.

Because when was the last time you met someone who kept
you
interested for more than ten minutes
?

Long enough that she could not remember his name. Which was pretty damn long. Not that she was all that surprised or bothered. It seemed to Miri that all the relationships of her adult life could be summed up by boring, boring, shallow, self-absorbed, boring, and boring. And while not all of those relationships had been terrible—even the lawyer had made her laugh—Miri was not the kind of woman to waste her time with people who, ultimately, did not understand her. She liked herself too much. That, and she knew what it was to be in love—to find love in only one moment, eye to eye; to have love stay in that moment, in that person, and never fail her. Anything less paled, was not worth her heart. Better to have loved like that only once, than to try again and again, and tarnish the memory.

Which, really, when she thought about it, was so sickening sweet she wanted to vomit.

Not to mention the itty-bitty problem of being alone for the rest of your life. You really want that for yourself?

No, but there were worse things in life, so thanks but no, thanks. Single women unite. Books and cats and all that crap.

But then a memory came to her, sudden, like always, the image hot and fierce; a face familiar as her own, blue eyes smiling beneath a crown of short blond hair, one strong hand giving her a rock in the shape of a heart, and that voice, that low, sweet voice, saying, “
Here, I know you like these
.”

She gritted her teeth. Owen, sounding worried, said, “My dear, I’m sorry about contacting her first. Truly. I just... got carried away.”

At first she did not understand what he was saying, but then she blinked, hard, and said, “Oh no, Owen. Don’t worry about it. I was just thinking about... about something else. The artifact. The dead woman carrying that stone in her chest.”

Carrying a stone like she carried one, though Miri suspected her own might be the heavier burden. Which was just great. She was a total melodramatic sap. What a time for a reminder. She was definitely the wrong person to give Owen advice about moving on.

“I’m heading back to the hotel. “ Miri stood. Ignoring Owen’s concern, she gave him a smile that probably looked as cheap and fake as she felt, and then left his office. One of the assistants had put away the bodies. Probably listened at the office door, too.

Miri was glad the mummies were gone, out of sight. She did not want to look into the face of a woman four thousand years dead and wonder at mystery and pain, at how that could remind her of a childhood friend who had given her both and more, and then disappeared and died.

She did not want to think about why she still dreamed of that boy.

Miri took a cab back to the hotel, but made the driver drop her off several blocks away from the Far Eastern. She did not have a particularly good reason for doing so; the man at the wheel simply talked too much, drove too fast. Miri could only take so much car sickness, in addition to questions about her marital status, and whether she, as a
huaqiao
, a foreign Chinese, had come to Taiwan to look for a good man. Apparently (according to the driver), America did not have any decent catches for a girl who wanted her kids to belong to the motherland. Blood mattered, he said.

Yes
, Miri thought, but only because she was imagining quite a bit of it streaming from the broken nose she was going to give him if he said one more word. Which he did. He acted like it was cute.

She paid her fare and got out to walk the last few blocks to the hotel. The heat was terrible, and though the sun hid behind a sullen sheet of clouds, the daylight felt too bright, like the inside of a steel oven. She shrugged off her tweed jacket, carrying it over her purse as she moved on light feet. Miri remembered other walks, other kinds of heat, nights spent running through steaming back alleys with the smells of grease and exhaust in the air, firecrackers spitting somewhere distant—and at her side a boy with his hand wrapped tight around her own, laughing hard. Wild times. She could feel him even now, like a shadow rubbing her shoulder, glued to her side.

Stop
, she told herself.
Don’t go there
.

But she still found herself fumbling at the throat of her blouse to touch the light scar above her heart. A tiny ridge, a puckered hole. A kiss in the shape of a bullet wound.

The old memory made her feel tired, homesick. She wanted her little apartment, her office at Stanford with its walls covered in books—books and bones, mementos of her travels through the world. She wanted to surround herself in the cocoon of her work, where she was safe from prying eyes and people who talked too much, who did not understand her. Owen was different; Miri could be herself around him. But he was the only one, and sometimes, she held back even with him.

You don’t know what it’s like to be totally free around anyone. Not anymore. You’ve been on your own for almost twenty years.

On her own, but surrounded. Alone in a crowd. Which was not always so terrible, except on days like this, when she wished for older things, when she remembered times that had been, when she’d had a friend.

She reached the Far Eastern Hotel—made a detour through the glittering mall built alongside it—riding escalators, going high and higher, trying not to think of herself as irredeemably dowdy as she passed window upon window of beautiful lovely things. Eventually, though, her stomach growled and her feet ached. Worse, she began to feel uneasy. An odd sensation. Like she was being watched.

Big brother
, she told herself.
You ‘re picking up security cameras. They ‘re giving you the willies
.

Maybe. But the sensation felt stronger than that, more primitive. Ignoring the prickling sensation between her shoulders, Miri made her way to the narrow glass corridor linking the mall and hotel. She had things to do before her meeting with Owen and Wendy. Knowing her mentor, she might end up in Yushan by morning. With finds like this, time was of the essence. Four thousand-year-old mummies had been significant enough to draw worldwide scrutiny, but when word of the red jade leaked out, especially given its placement in the body...

Well. Dangerous times. Big money from big artifacts could make people do terrible things. By tomorrow— perhaps even tonight—extra security would be needed down at the Yushan site. At the university, too. Owen, undoubtedly, would put the red jade artifact in the department vault, but that still left the bodies exposed. The locks on the basement doors could not be trusted to keep anything safe.

Miri’s uneasiness did not fade as she walked through the hotel lobby, but she watched the faces around her, memorized and analyzed. No one seemed all that interesting. No bad vibes. Just a florist tweaking the vines on an enormous flower display covered in orchids, workers hurriedly mopping and polishing while bellhops scattered, most of them struggling with fat luggage. She passed the bakery set just off the lobby and saw, behind the glass counter, a shelf full of elaborate chocolate statues: animals, mostly, representations of Chinese astrology. Horses, tigers, roosters, dragons—

Wendy’s last name is Long. Dragon. She might get a kick out of that. And if l can catch Owen before Wendy arrives, so he can be the one to give it to her
...

It was a good plan. Owen needed all the help he could get.

As Miri stood at the counter to buy the chocolate, she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and turned. A man stood behind her. He smiled when she looked at him. His eyes were a remarkable shade of pale green. Miri did not know what to make of his gaze, which seemed friendly enough, though with a cool undercurrent, a remoteness, that made her uneasy. He had dark red hair, and wore a loose green linen shirt over tan pants. Very relaxed. A small silver medallion hung around his neck.