His mobile buzzed. It was Gray. He said only, “Bingo.”
Nicholas said, “Talk to me. What magic have you wrought?”
Gray said, “Our Lilith Forrester-Clarke was a very bad girl.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
London, England
Ben was impressed. Elizabeth St. Germaine had been thorough and organized, and every page of the manuscript held something new and interesting, sometimes shocking. But her notes were the best part. Through her eyes, he was beginning to see the Kohath family and their unrelenting obsession to find the Ark. They truly believed they were God’s chosen ones, and they alone could control the power of the Ark. And the weather machine—it was ingenious, really. Deadly, but ingenious.
He was knee-deep, literally, in Elizabeth St. Germaine’s material when a shadow fell over his shoulder. He looked up and smiled at Melinda St. Germaine. She wore a fitted black dress with cutout shoulders that was at once demure and shockingly sexy.
“Are you making progress?”
Ben laughed a little, gestured to all the papers. “Yes, absolutely. I could be here for weeks. Your mother was very detailed.”
“I’ve come to roust you for dinner. You’ll need to eat if you have any hope of making it through all of this.”
Ben was torn. He needed to keep pushing, but his stomach growled at the thought of food, and she heard it, punched his arm. “I guess a short break wouldn’t hurt.”
Melinda laughed. “Oh, no, sorry, Ben, but there’s nothing short about evenings at the St. Germaines’. I suppose I should warn you that dinner will last around three hours. We don’t do much halfway around here.”
Well, life isn’t fair, now is it? “I can’t. I’d love to join you but we’re on a tight time frame. I better stay here and keep working.”
He was pleased to see she was really disappointed, and surprised at how good it made him feel.
“All right, I understand. I’ll have something sent out to you.”
“Rain check?”
Melinda grabbed a pen, and wrote something on a note card and handed it to him. “When you’re in town again, you give me a ring. You can take me on a proper date.”
The world brightened. Date, a proper date. Ben grinned. “I’d like that. Very much.”
“Good. Maybe you can steal some of Mother’s letters or notes and I’ll complain to your bosses and demand that you have to return them. Here, to me, in London. That way I’ll be assured you will come back.”
“Oh, I’ll be back. I have vacation time due. The moment we wrap this case, I’ll be here.”
Melinda lightly laid her hand on his shoulder. After the horror of the past weeks, she now had something to look forward to. Ben Houston, an American FBI agent, and a redhead, just like her. Who would have thought?
He rose and took her hand, said her name. “Melinda.”
She leaned up, kissed his cheek. “Get back to work. Don’t forget to eat.”
And then she was gone, trailing the scent of roses in her wake.
He looked after her until she was gone, then sat back down and pulled the St. Germaine’s notes to him, read over them again.
In 1909, Appleton founded a family-owned company called the Genesis Group, which quickly became an archaeological powerhouse due to a continued influx of money generated by attacks through the weather machine. As revenue flowed in, the company began to fund legitimate digs all over the world. But it was finding the Ark that was Appleton’s life’s work. He felt his family, as direct-line descendants from the Levites, were God’s designated inheritors of the Ark. Since the Ark is known to be a conduit to God, Appleton operated on a simple premise—when the Kohaths finally had the Ark in their possession, they would show the world they were the chosen ones, and would have the ultimate power, and God’s blessing, to do what they would to the earth. God’s blessing for evil as well as good?
Ben read through the rest, shaking his head. He’d run across genius like this before, melded with all-out craziness, but nothing on this immense a scale.
His phone beeped with a text from Nicholas.
Have you anything more for me?
Ben texted back.