Concrete Evidence (6 page)

“What’s your password?” he asked.

Oh damn!

He was looking at her, waiting.

“Riversong. One word, lowercase.” She turned on her heel and left before he could ask any questions.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

T
UESDAY MORNING,
L
EE STOOD
in front of the National Archives building in College Park, Maryland, and watched Erica’s car pull into the lot. He braced himself for the coming day and wished he’d taken acting classes. Maybe then he’d do a better job of staying in character.

At least yesterday had been successful. After she’d left the office, he’d used her ID to hack into the Bethesda server and create a network client that couldn’t be traced to him. He hadn’t been able to access the Iraq project files, but he’d evaluated the security. It would take him a few days to break through the firewall. Less if Erica would stop dragging him along on these annoying field trips.

Erica’s dark sandals made a steady tapping sound as she crossed the parking lot. He liked the way her knee-length black skirt and tight-fitting burgundy blouse clung to her hips and breasts. Too bad she hadn’t been wearing this outfit when she draped herself over the pool table. He could appreciate her looks and enjoy their verbal sparring, but he couldn’t lose sight of the fact that his sexy supervisor was a prime suspect for stateside conspirator in an international artifact smuggling ring.

Questions simmered in his mind, but he’d pushed his cover to the limit yesterday and knew it would be a serious mistake to ask her about her password today. She was only a few feet away, so he started their first argument of the day. “You’re late.”

Her tentative smile was replaced by a look of annoyance and she glanced at her watch. “It’s nine thirty. I’m right on time.”

“The archives opened at eight forty-five.”

“You told me the archives opened at nine thirty.”

“No, I said the
first pull
was at nine thirty.” What he’d really said was a very carefully phrased,
“We can begin researching at nine thirty,”
because arriving ahead of her gave him a chance to show his ID and get his researcher badge without her seeing his driver’s license and discovering his real age.

“What does ‘first pull’ mean?”

“The archivists only pull records at certain times. If you’d been here on time, we could have submitted our records requests for the first pull. Since you’re late, we won’t be able to get any documents until the next pull, which is at ten thirty.”

“Dammit, Lee! You didn’t say anything about pull times. And what the hell have you been doing since eight forty-five? You could have submitted a records request without me.”

“I don’t know what records you want to request.”

She stared at him in obvious frustration but didn’t say a word. Instead, she grabbed a bottle of Mylanta from her purse and popped two tablets into her mouth.

Each time her teeth crunched on the antacid tablets, guilt stabbed him in the gut.

She sighed. “Let’s go. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Guilt was the last thing he felt after hours of sitting in the bright, climate-controlled, camera-monitored room, surrounded by dozens of silent researchers hunkered over boxes. Next to their table was the last cartload of Fort Belmont archive boxes. Another hour and they’d be done. He opened yet another box full of brittle, musty papers and muttered under his breath, “This is the most boring day of my life.”

Erica glanced at him over her shoulder and gave him a half smile. “Not Indiana Jones enough for you?”

He bit his cheek to keep from smiling. “Indy never spent hours in an archive getting paper cuts.”

“He did. It just happened off scene.”

“Do you really do this kind of thing all the time?”

“No. Today is special.”

He expected to see a teasing smile, but she was serious. “You’re
enjoying
this?”

“This is my first time at the National Archives, and we’re looking through boxes that were classified until a few years ago. Who knows what we’ll find?” Her eyes revealed enthusiasm that told him much about her. He had to respect her dedication to her work.

“
I
know what we’ll find. Papers that are old, musty, and full of military acronyms.” He decided to mess with her. “What’s the acronym we’re supposed to be looking for, again?”

She glanced at the half-dozen boxes he’d just gone through, her eyes wide with alarm. “It’s called ERDL, Lee. E-R-D-L. It stands for Engineer Research and Development Laboratory.”

He kept his face blank. “And why do we care about them, again?”

“The lab was on Fort Belmont, and Thermo-Con might have been invented by ERDL engineers.” She spoke to him as if he were slow, which he totally deserved. Her voice went up an octave. “Do I need to go through those boxes again?”

A woman two tables away made a shushing sound.

He grinned and whispered, “Gotcha.”

She dropped her head into her hands. “I so do not deserve this.”

He spoke in a quiet voice. “True. But teasing you is more fun than looking through box after box of ERDL research papers. As far as I’ve seen, ERDL engineers only worked on camouflage and amphibious vessels.”

“Have you seen anything to indicate they experimented with concrete?” she asked.

“No. Have you?”

“No.” She shook her head, clearly disappointed, and he knew one thing about Erica Kesling for certain: she did want to find out the history of the Thermo-Con house. He didn’t know if her drive came from her desire to please her client, or if she was really intrigued by the house’s mysterious origins.

Hell, it was just a house. Odd looking and made out of yeasty concrete, but still, a house.

Her neatly printed list of research questions lay on the table next to a sharpened orange No. 2 pencil. Neither the pencil nor the paper had been touched since they cracked open the first box several hours ago. The day was a total bust for them both. He should be in the office hacking into the network, not here. Tomorrow, he decided, he’d act completely incompetent so she wouldn’t take him along on any more field trips.

“This is strange,” she said.

“Did you find something?”

“Not about Thermo-Con. But look.” She handed him a notebook. “That’s the 1952 logbook for Fort Belmont. Someone recorded every event on the army post—ice-cream socials, softball games, that sort of thing—but look at November twenty-eighth.”

Lee read aloud, “‘Mrs. Claudio Guerrero and son, Ricky, were reported missing today.’ So?”

“It’s just odd. A missing woman and child got the same one-sentence treatment as the colonel’s luau-themed birthday party,” she said. “Why not include a note about where they might have gone or if the police were investigating? And where was the husband, Claudio Guerrero? Was he a soldier stationed at Fort Belmont?”

“I know Thermo-Con is boring, but I think we should finish that research before you go off on some mystery-solving tangent.”

“I said I thought it was odd, not that I was going to try to solve it.”

She reached for the book, but he held it away from her, reading some of the log entries. He turned the page, and a word jumped out at him. “I found Thermo-Con!”

Several people shushed him while Erica tried to snatch the book from his hand. He used the need for quiet as an excuse to scoot closer to her, then wondered if that was a mistake. Her subtle, sexy perfume had been tormenting him all day.

He held the book between them so she could see the important log entry. “
November 29, 1952: Construction of a Higgins Thermo-Con house was begun today.”

“One page,” she muttered. “After spending six hours looking for the words ‘Thermo-Con,’ I handed the book to you one page—one log entry—too soon.”

She was cute when frustrated.

“Well, it’s not like we learned anything. It’s only one sentence.”

She playfully punched him in the arm. “Don’t try to placate me. First you make me late, then you steal my moment of discovery. You owe me.”

His lips tickled her ear as he whispered, “Shortcake, anytime you want to collect, I’m ready.”
Shit.
Yesterday, he’d hit on her to annoy her, but this…this he’d done without thought or intention. This had come naturally, a teasing flirtation because he’d enjoyed her wit and company. This was a complication he didn’t need.

Her pupils dilated, and he felt the shiver that ran through her. She was interested too, which only compounded the problem.

She scooted away. “Behave,” she said. That she didn’t react with outrage after her intern hit on her—again—was telling. She dropped her gaze to the book and cleared her throat. “Look at this: Higgins. I wonder if Higgins is a style or manufacturer?” She picked up the pencil and wrote the logbook’s exact entry on the notepaper. If she were a computer, he’d say she was running in Safe Mode.

She finished reading the logbook and replaced it in the archive box. They went through the remaining boxes and found no more mention of Thermo-Con. At six o’clock, they left the archives. All they had to show for their day was one sentence that linked Thermo-Con with the name Higgins.

He stuck his hands in his pockets as they crossed the lot. “Can I buy you dinner?”

She stopped midstride and faced him. “That isn’t a good idea.”

“Why?”

“You’re an intern and only here for six weeks. Let’s keep things simple.”

“Friendship isn’t simple?”

“For me it’s not.” She looked away and sighed. “I’ve had a long day, and I’m tired. I’m going home.”

Where did her sudden melancholy come from? He had the urge to press her against her car and kiss her. If he did that, would he find himself in the sexual-harassment workshop she’d threatened yesterday, or would she open up and let him meet the woman she’d locked inside?

He let the urge pass and instead watched as she climbed into her car.

The hot, summer-evening air did nothing to cool his mind, so he used logic instead. For unknown reasons, Erica had lied about her credentials as an underwater archaeologist and had threatened the Menanichoch tribal chairman yesterday. She wasn’t his friend. She wasn’t his supervisor. She was a suspect.

He hurried to his car. He would follow and find out if she was really headed home. She was a suspect, he repeated to himself. He had to question everything she did.

He’d been following her for a few minutes when she surprised him by exiting the beltway. She was headed to the Menanichoch Reservation.

Yes, Erica Kesling was definitely a suspect.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

One year earlier

Off the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico

T
HE MERCILESS NOONDAY SUN BEAT
down on the boat deck, draining color from everything but the vibrant blue water. In the distance, Erica could see a yacht anchored above a coral reef, where vacationers probably drank piña coladas while listening to salsa music. Here, on Jake’s boat, the
Andvari
, the crew of six men passed around stolen artifacts and wondered aloud how much they’d get for the exquisitely carved obsidian jaguar, the large jadeite monkey, and the onyx rabbit-motif
pulque
jar.

In spite of the heat, she felt cold and somehow hollow as she stood on the periphery. Jake had looted the shipwreck, and she’d made it possible.

“You didn’t bring up the necklaces,” Marco, Jake’s second in command, said as he placed the
pulque
jar in the conservation tub that would keep the priceless artifact from drying out.

Jake ran his fingers through his short, sun-lightened hair, shaking off water and spraying her with a few drops in the process. “I was on the bottom too long. I’ll bring them up this afternoon, after I’ve had a chance to off-gas.”

The distancing chill vanished. In a flash, she felt the sweltering heat; with it came equally hot anger. “Yeah, it would be a crying shame if you got bent while looting the site.”

Jake laughed. “Still pouting, Erica? I thought you were more pragmatic than that.”