she could jimmy the towel holder, and there stood the woman who had followed her in, waiting for her.
'Agent Steinberg, FBI,' the woman said, and flashed a badge in front of Ana's startled eyes before making it vanish into a pocket. 'Glen McCarthy told me to follow you around the museum, to see if you had anything for him.'
For a moment, Ana could only stand and gape at this evidence of the FBI man's all-seeing and omnipotent presence, but then her brain kicked in. Of course—with all the activity involving the school board to set up this trip, the news had leaked to Glen's ears somehow. She yanked her diary out of her bag and thrust it at Agent Steinberg.
'Photocopy all the pages after the marker and give them to Glen. Tell him I need information on alchemy. Got that? In two days—not tomorrow morning but the next day—I'll walk down the road at dawn. I need this diary back along with any material he can get together; have him put them underneath the big rock with the white chip out of it exactly half a mile outside the gates, on the east side of the road. Now go.'
'Alchemy,' the woman said. The diary was already hidden.
'Go.' Ana turned to wash her hands, and Agent Steinberg was gone before she could reach for the towels.
The half-closed door was pulled open and Teresa walked in.
'You okay?' she asked.
'Just fine,' Ana answered, and left to find the others.
The trouble erupted over lunch.
Jason and Bryan were in the group behind Ana's, the last to finish. When the assorted students and teachers spilled into the small courtyard behind the bookstore where the others were already settled with sandwiches and drinks in hand Teresa and the other woman chaperone were looking extremely apprehensive, and the two men, whom Ana knew only as Dean and Peter, were trying to position themselves between the two boys, with limited success. Bryan's sneers and feint pokes were kerosene to Jason's smoldering anger. Watching them, she could see the meaning of the slang term 'mad-dogging'. The two boys glared at each other, daring the other to be the first to move, encouraged by the low remarks and glances of the other students.
Steven be damned, Ana cursed to herself; those two have to be separated.
She grabbed Teresa by the arm and hissed in her ear, 'Do you want a fistfight right here in the museum? Wouldn't that make Change look really good? I know Steven said to keep those two together, but Steven isn't here. Split them up, and we can settle it with him later.'
Teresa looked over at the two boys and decided to agree with Ana. She went over to speak urgently into the ear of David Carteret, who then moved his six-feet six-inch bulk over to the table where the sandwiches had been set out.
'C'mon, man,' he said to Bryan. Time to cool down,'
Ana went to stand next to Jason, who was positively vibrating with repressed fury. She spoke his name, picked up a wrapped sandwich, and thrust it into his hand, trying to distract him, make him focus on her and return him to himself. He glanced at her distractedly, but then from behind her came Bryan's voice saying something she barely heard but which sent Jason's control through the roof. He dropped the sandwich, whirled, and reached out for Bryan, roaring his fury straight into Ana's face. She was caught up in a swift whirl of movement. Her shoulder slammed against some hard object, men were shouting, a woman shrieked—she shrieked—pain shot up from her knee and then a shocking impact spun her face around and she was buried beneath two furious and very strong young men. She cried out again when a shoe ground down hard across her fingers, and then just as suddenly as it had begun it was over, leaving her crouching on hands and knees, waiting for her body to report its injuries. Her head spun, her hand throbbed, her mouth hurt, and she watched the drops of bright red blood splash regularly down onto the courtyard tiles and across her bruised knuckles.
Hands tentatively touched her back, heads were bent to hers, shocked voices came from nearby, and at a distance a man, full of rage and disgust, harangued.
Jason, she thought suddenly. Where—?
She raised her head, grimacing at the taste of blood in her mouth, and tried to see him through the legs.
'Ice,' a voice said. 'Get a wet cloth,' said another, and 'Who's got the first aid kit?'
A dripping towel appeared; Ana took it with her right hand and put it gingerly to her mouth, which seemed to be alarmingly full of sharp pieces of tooth. No—not teeth.
She sat down on the pavement and pulled out the remains of her two front teeth, which caused a quick frisson of horror to run through the crowd of onlookers until they saw the broken plate of the bridge and the wire bits that were attached, and the tight laughter of relieved stress replaced the horror. Several of the girls began to giggle uncontrollably, and Ana was reminded of Dulcie. Great icebreakers, missing front teeth, she thought. Well worth all the trouble of getting shot up and crashing your face into a steering wheel.
Ice was brought and wrapped in the gory towel. After a minute, Ana decided the ground was too hard and her injuries too light to continue sitting where she was, so she allowed a couple of the men to help her to her feet. Her knee functioned, her left hand was scraped and already swelling but all the fingers seemed whole, and the bleeding from the cut lip was slowing down. She no doubt looked a sight, but what did that matter?
'I'm fine,' she said indistinctly to the people fluttering around her. 'I'm fine. It was an accident, and the only thing damaged is my bridge, and that can be replaced,' She lisped and enunciation was difficult, but calm communication was reducing the anxiety level. Time to move on. 'Would somebody go and buy me a T-shirt in the shop so I don't go around looking like an escapee from the emergency room? I'll pay you back. And did somebody tell the museum people they don't need to call in the riot squad?'
A babble of voices started up, and she squelched them. 'No, I do not need to see a doctor. There's no point in even seeing a dentist until the swelling goes down. Finish your lunch, I'm going to go wash my face,'
She pushed through the would-be Samaritans until she could see Jason. Both he and Bryan were unscathed other than a small, already dried cut on Jason's knuckle where it had connected with her mouth. His face was taut and pale, and not, she thought, because of the infuriated woodworking teacher looming over him. The sight of her blood-smeared face emerging from the crowd brought a look of mingled relief and horror to his features, and he took in a great gulp of air. He looked ill.
'I'm okay, Jason,' she said as clearly as she could. 'It looks worse than it is. And it wasn't entirely your fault.'
She came out of the rest room still looking as if she'd fallen in front of a truck, but cleaned up, wearing a shiny new T-shirt with Anasazi pot designs printed on it and beginning to see the humor in the situation.
And the benefits: This would mean at least two trips into Sedona to see a dentist, great opportunities to contact Glen. Silver linings, she told herself, and would have chuckled if it hadn't hurt so much.
The first group had already been taken away by their highly reluctant decent. The second group, her own, was assembling near the door, but she saw that neither Bryan nor Jason had joined them. Without hesitation she marched up to Jason, took his arm, and moved him over to her group. There was one tentative objection, inevitably from Dov.
'Look, Ana, we were specifically told—'
'I'll talk to Steven when we get back,' she interrupted him, wishing it didn't have to come out Thteven. 'I want you with me Jason.' Jathon.
The authority of her shed blood shut them up, and the tour resumed. Ana felt distinctly unwell, and would have opted out but for the strong need to maintain her poise before, and because of, Jason. She absorbed not a word of the lecture and demonstration by a Hopi carver on fetishes, and when the bus doors opened before her, she staggered for the opening as if for a lifeboat. The only thing she had accomplished was keeping Jason safe, and with her. It was enough.
Jason had not appreciated her protection. He was firmly back in his shell, refusing to meet her eyes, sitting at the window hunched away from her. She might have been an arresting officer. Ana slumped back in her aisle seat, her mouth, hand, and knee radiating sharp pain and the rest of her just sore, hoping that a degree of energy and wits would seep back before Jason had shut himself away for good. Ah, Jason my lad, she said silently, I've opened harder clams than you.
It was afternoon, and the traffic out of the sprawl that was Phoenix seemed endless. Ana had been to the
