He grabs the back of his neck but remains silent.
I gaze up the stairs. The light is fading with the foul weather. Someone’s surely coming. “Well, shall we?” I ask, inviting him to lead.
“You go ahead, I travel differently.” He looks back at the opening.
“Right. Yes, you do. Very well.” I don’t trust him. It’d be just my luck to have him abscond with my find. I shuffle my feet on the uneven debris.
A grin mounts his beautiful face as I linger. “Seems neither of us trusts the other.”
I snicker. Nothing like being honest about it.
Without another word, the scattered stones nearest the opening start to move, rising and reassembling themselves back into the wall.
I yip and scramble clear as the debris I was standing on is quickly added, stirring up the dust again. I sneeze as every last piece of limestone finds its place.
“Can’t have anyone finding these. Call me when you change your mind.”
I roll my eyes, like that’s going to happen. He hasn’t given me his number, and I’m not about to ask for it.
A mist of shadows begins coalescing around the tails of his duster. It grows thicker and thicker as it moves up his body, wrapping him in a dark swirl, and then he’s gone.
My mouth falls open. Who is this guy?
But I gasp the next second because I just now realize he’s resealed the room and I’m not getting access to those scrolls anytime soon.
Oh, I’ll call him all right.
“Bastard!”
Chapter Six
My exclamation echoes against the hard limestone walls, then dies, replaced by the distant sounds of wind howling and rain pelting as I stand here, mind racing.
What just happened?
I’m completely and utterly alone in this stairwell. Not another human being, much less insect, is here with me. Certainly no dark and sexy stranger.
I stare at the wall that I could have sworn had fallen down.
“Am I going crazy? Do crazy people know they’re crazy? Would I know? I feel crazy right now, not stabby crazy, so maybe I’m fine? But still…” I bite my lip.
Okay, back the train up, Pell, I tell myself. You took pictures.
“Yes, I took pictures!” I shout. I’m not crazy, and I can prove it.
My hand digs in my cargo pants pocket and extracts the broken phone and I hit the On button.
No, I’m not crazy.
I touch the Photos and furrow my brow when the pictures I took of colorful pottery shards another of my colleagues found recently come up.
I scroll.
But I run out of images in short order. “They have to be here.” Insistence fills my voice. and I scroll back to the bottom, but the pottery shards are the last ones.
I shake my phone—because that’ll definitely help—then growl at the broken screen, “Cough ’em up, you stupid device.”
Nothing happens and I throw up my hands and let out a growl.
“Okay, fine. Fine. I can’t get to my pictures.”
Pell, you can figure this out. You can.
I exhale heavily and recite, “I came to check on the stability of the cistern.”
I work through the events, systematically, like any good scientist.
I turn around, my boots scuffing across tiny pebbles that line the dirt floor and shine my Maglite around the walls and surface of the water. It’s fine.
I turn back and gaze at the wall again. “Part of this wall collapsed.”
I step forward and scrutinize it, yet no matter how long I study it, I find nothing to suggest any of the stones have moved in ages. I step closer and press a hand to the limestone. It’s solid.
My chest tightens.
Calm down, Pell. You’re a scientist. You pride yourself in being factual and literal, and avoiding embellishing.
“Walls don’t collapse and get magically rebuilt. People don’t appear out of thin air, then vanish again.”
I bite my lip harder as my brain struggles to make sense of the disparate facts. Minutes tick by without a coherent story emerging, and I start doubting.
Did a part of the wall really collapse? I run my fingers across the stones again and shake my head.
Did I really talk with a crazy, sexy man… with unique and beautiful and very familiar eyes… who isn’t anywhere in the vicinity?
I frown at my traitorous phone, then grab the back of my neck. There has to be an explanation. Has the stress of the earthquake and the toxic environment of the dig finally sent me over the edge?
I bring a hand up and feel my forehead, but my fingers are too cold to tell if I’m sick.
Have I been projecting, displacing my feelings of frustration onto a person I somehow conjured? The stranger’s dark, brooding good looks and deep baritone voice, the conversation… did I imagine all of it?
I’m not a psychologist. Has my brain created an invisible friend to help me cope? The guy beats Harvey the rabbit, hands down, but really?
I suck in a breath as another possibility dawns. Am I suffering from delusions? Does early onset Alzheimer’s run in my genes? I’ve no way of knowing. If it does, what am I to do? How long will I live? Will I forget everything?
My chest tightens and my breathing labors. Now I’m worried. I need to get it checked out. I’m too young to die. I have too much to live for.
I sneeze and a shiver races up my back, bringing me back. I scrounge in my pocket, grab another Kleenex, and blow my nose.
I snort. I am sick, all my sneezing proves it. That’s all this is. Maybe I’ve hallucinated. Yes, it has to be.
I need drugs and sleep, that’s all. They say the mind is an amazing organ
