”
Erin’s heart sped up, knowing the subject of Amy’s last dig: the headhunters of New Guinea. That could mean only one thing …
If true, the story behind this mass grave of children might be even worse than the tale of Herod’s massacre. But it still seemed unlikely. The newborn’s skeleton had been fairly large, with no obvious signs of malnutrition that might indicate a famine, which might warrant such depraved hunger.
“
”
she typed back.
“
”
Erin lifted her thumb, momentarily too shocked to type—then Lieutenant Perlman suddenly snatched the phone out of her grip, making her jump. He switched it off.
“No outside contact,” he yelled.
She swallowed her anger and crossed her arms, submitting. No point getting further on his bad side.
Yet.
The lieutenant dropped the phone into his shirt pocket. She missed it already.
She was relieved when the helicopter touched down at the pad at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. Perlman had kept his word. White-suited hospital personnel sprinted toward them. She’d heard that they had a good trauma team, and she was grateful to see such a rapid response. She reached to unbuckle her harness, but Perlman covered her hand.
“No time,” he warned.
His men had already climbed out and unfastened the stretcher. Julia stood next to it on the ground, still holding Heinrich’s fingers. She lifted her free hand to wave to Erin. Heinrich’s chest rose and fell as they wheeled him off. Still breathing. She hoped that would be true the next time she saw him.
As soon as the soldiers were back on board, the chopper lifted fast and hard.
She turned her gaze from the hospital to stare at the spread of desert beyond Caesarea as her thoughts moved from her anxiety about Heinrich to another gnawing worry.
4
Bathory Darabont stood poised in the shadows, hidden on a second-story landing above the hotel. She stared down to the tiled fountain that dominated the hotel lobby, water splashing from the wall into a half-round basin of monstrous green marble. She guessed the water was two or three feet deep. She stroked the ornate brass railing as she calculated the drop from where she stood.
The man next to her rattled on. With his masses of curly dark hair, huge brown eyes, and straight nose, he looked like he had just stepped out of a fresco depicting Alexander the Great. Of course, he knew that he was beautiful and rich, some distant prince of a distant land—and that made him accustomed to getting his own way.
This bored her.
He strove to talk her right out of her designer silk dress and into his bed, and she wasn’t necessarily averse to that, but she was more interested in action than in preliminaries.
She pushed back her waist-length red hair with one languid white hand, watching his eyes linger on the black palm tattooed across her throat. An unusual mark, and more dangerous than it looked.
“How about a bet, Farid?”
His brown eyes returned to her silver ones. He really did have the most amazing long dark lashes. “A bet?”
“Let’s see who can jump into that fountain.” She pointed one long finger down into the atrium. “Winner takes all.”
“The stakes?” He flashed her a perfect smile. He looked like he might like games.
She did, too, and held out one slender wrist. “If you win, I give you my bracelet.”
The diamond bracelet cost fifty thousand dollars, but she had no intention of losing it. She never lost.
He laughed. “I don’t need a bracelet.”
“And I give it to you in
Farid looked over the railing and fell silent. She liked him better silent.
“If I win …” She stepped so close to him that her silk dress brushed his warm leg. “I get your watch—and you give it to me in
A Rolex; she suspected it cost about the same as her bracelet. She had no need of it either. But the jump would cut short the flirting and might lead to more inspired and passionate lovemaking than Farid was probably capable of.
“How can I lose?” he said.
She gave him a long and languorous kiss. He responded well. She slipped her phone into his pocket, fingers tracing a metal knife that she found there. Farid was not so defenseless as he appeared. She remembered her mother’s words.
When she drew back, Farid slid both hands down her silk-covered back. “How about we skip the jump?”
She laughed. “Not on your life.”
Grasping the cold railing with both hands, she vaulted over the side.
She opened into a swan dive, falling, arms out straight and back arched. Her dress fluttered against her thighs. For a moment she thought that she had misjudged the depth and the fall would kill her, and in that moment she felt more relief than fear. She hit the water flat, distributing her weight.
The violent slap stole her breath.
For a second, she floated facedown in the cool blue, breasts and belly stinging, her unsettled blood finally quiet. Then she rolled over, pushing her now transparent bodice out of the water while dipping her head to slick back her hair, laughing brightly.
When she stood up, the entire lobby stared. A few onlookers applauded, as if she were part of a show.
Far above, Farid gaped.
She climbed out of the fountain. Water streamed from her body and spread across the expensive woolen carpet. She bowed to Farid, who returned the gesture with a slight nod, followed by the dramatic unbuckling of his Rolex and the lift of an eyebrow, conceding she had won the bet.
Minutes later, they stood outside her door. She shivered slightly in her damp clothes in the air-conditioned hallway. Farid’s bare palm, as soft as silk but as hot as a coal, ran up her back under her thin dress, raising an entirely different shiver. She sighed and glanced darkly toward him, craving the heat of his flesh far more than any companionship he could offer.
She retrieved her key card, the newly won Rolex dangling from her wrist.
As she unlocked the door and pushed it open, her phone buzzed, but it came from Farid’s pants. She turned, slipped her hand into his pocket, and tugged it free.
