“Troll?”
“Dragon!” Lowe said with a merry chuckle. “I meant a dragon guarding treasure.”
“Better.”
“Anyway, he keeps things safe. He’s holding on to the base already. He’s agreed to stash all of it.” Lowe slid the handkerchief-wrapped crossbar across the table. “Just as we discussed.”
A thousand doubts went through Hadley’s mind. Where did this man live? Where was he “stashing” the amulet pieces? What was stopping him from selling them off to someone else?
Lowe’s thigh knocked against hers. “Your father told me to keep them safe. Adam is very, very careful. And ten times more trustworthy than me.”
She gave Lowe a sidelong look.
“Okay, a thousand times more trustworthy.”
“That’s better.”
Adam laughed. “She already knows your con artist ways.”
“Oh, I think there’s another word for the kind of artist he is,” she said, suppressing a smile. “And it starts with bull.”
The men’s hearty laughter surprised her. Stella, as well, who grinned along with them like she was in on the joke. Hadley glanced at the windup cat on the table.
“I have a cat, too,” she told the girl. “He’s black, just like yours.”
The girl still didn’t answer.
“She can’t hear,” Lowe said in quiet voice.
A prickling, warm embarrassment trickled through Hadley as she looked between Lowe and the girl’s father. “I’m . . .” What? So sorry for the father? For the girl? Making a faux pas?
“She’s an excellent lip-reader, though,” Lowe said, smiling down at the girl. “And she’s learning how to use sign language.”
“Mostly she’s learning to stomp her foot and shake her head,” Adam said, giving Hadley a kind smile she didn’t quite feel she deserved. Stella banged the cat on the table and made a gruff noise. “Like that,” Adam said. “My wife passed a couple years back, so it’s just the two of us. She could probably stand to learn some feminine manners.”
“Absolutely not,” Lowe said, winding up the black cat. “Feminine manners are overrated. You stomp your foot all you want, sötnos.”
A rush of emotions welled in Hadley—tenderness for the father and his daughter. Pity, too. And something else: a nagging envy for the easy companionship and bond Lowe shared with these people, and a longing to have the same.
Watching Lowe hold the small girl tore something loose inside Hadley. This was real and good. He cared about them. Trusted them—and they trusted Lowe.
And for no real logical reason, she decided at that moment, she trusted him, too.
FIFTEEN
AFTER LEAVING LOWE AND Adam that afternoon, Hadley spent the rest of the weekend studying her mother’s pictograms. She didn’t hear a peep out of her father regarding the fallen chandelier at the museum party, which was fine. But he was the last person she wanted to see when she walked into her office on Monday. Having telephoned his house yesterday to get word about his mood, she’d discovered from his staff that he seemed to be in fine spirits. Father’s cook said he was singing to himself. Apparently he’d received a telephone message from a Mr. Magnusson that brightened his day.
She wasn’t sure why this bothered her. Lowe had told her he’d need to inform her father about finding the crossbar. Father was, after all, paying Lowe to hunt them down. And she was not supposed to know about it, so there was nothing to do but step aside, no matter how much this grated her nerves.
But now that she had to sit in front of his desk and listen to him rattle off all the reasons why Lowe was the best fit for his replacement, she was feeling less bothered and more insulted.
“I must say, you’re taking all this well,” he said after a long speech. “I’m glad your anger from this weekend has subsided.”
“It was just the shock of it.” In truth, her nails were biting into her thighs while she tightly controlled her feelings, for fear the Mori would attempt to murder the man again.
Unseeing eyes stared off over her shoulder. “Well, I’ll admit my role in this. I should’ve told you before the dinner, but my mind was on other things. And no father wants to disappoint his daughter. I was a coward, and I’m sorry. Truly.”
An apology? From the great Dr. Bacall? She was tempted to look around the room to see if he was talking to someone else. Instead, she took a deep breath and ate crow. “I’m sorry for losing control. I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”
“I feel certain you didn’t. And I hope you won’t hold a grudge against Mr. Magnusson. If he’s appointed in my position, I’m certain he’d recognize what a tremendous talent you are. And perhaps something could be arranged for you to be interim head when he’s out in the field.”
Interim. Hadley rolled her eyes. Whatever feelings were stewing inside her over Lowe, she would hold him to his promise to turn down the position, and whether her father liked it or not, she would be sitting behind his desk come February.
“I hold no ill will toward Mr. Magnusson.”
“Excellent to hear, darling. If you are to be working closely with him in the near future, it would be best for both of you to be professional. I know it’s difficult sometimes. Maybe it would help to focus on your upcoming seminars to keep your emotions under control.”
“Yes, that’s probably wise advice.” She’d be sure to relay it to her heart and brain, which were conspiring together behind her back to conjure up very unprofessional thoughts and feelings about Lowe.
Fifteen minutes after Hadley returned to her office, Miss Tilly’s pretty face popped inside the doorway. “Oh, you’re done meeting with your father. I wasn’t sure how long it would take—he said no interruptions, so I told your visitor you weren’t available.”
Her heart leapt. “What visitor?”
“Mr. Ginn.”
Oh. Oliver. After their parting at the Flood Mansion, she wasn’t sure he’d call on her so soon. And it made her a little nervous that he did, because pieces of their conversation about her specters came back. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“No,” she said, handing Hadley a small parcel. “But he was terribly disappointed that he couldn’t see you. Wish I had someone pining over me like that. He asked me to give you this.”
When the secretary left, Hadley opened a hastily scribbled folded note slipped under the parcel’s string. I hope you find chapter four enlightening. I have more information whenever you’re ready to talk.
Inside the brown wrapping was a small leather book. Not printed, but written in longhand. Beliefs of the Arabian and Egyptian People. A date—1895—but no author. A quick flip through the pages revealed the content of the chapter in question: Ifrit Spirits of the Djinn.
Thick pencil underlined several passages.
In Arabia, a rebellious class of infernal spirits said to be made of smoke and ash . . . some think they live underground, but others believe they are summoned from a netherworld.
Underworld. She turned the page.
They bear a striking resemblance to a kind of spirit feared by Egyptians, the Sheut, or “shadow” . . . one of five parts of the human soul. Magical folklore explains the origins of the creatures as being created by Set, who separated Sheuts from 1,000 dead souls as they navigated the Egyptian underworld, Duat, realm of Osiris, and later loosed them in the Egyptian desert. Now considered an Egyptian version of the Grim Reaper myth, these spirits’ purpose is to harvest intact living souls and drag them into the underworld.