His smile broadened, which made Angela feel very uneasy—but also . . . What? She felt something else she couldn’t name, which increased her uneasiness. And so she hurried a smile onto her face and said, “Well. Thank you for setting me straight, Chief.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
And then Angela could not make herself turn away, although she quite clearly had to, and they lapsed into a rather awkward pause—or at least awkward to Angela. It didn’t seem to faze the chief at all. He just continued to regard with her with a fixed expression that reminded her of a large predator looking at its dinner. Angela felt her blush return and spread over her entire body, and she had no idea why. She really, truly wanted to leave, get on with her job, walk away from this man—and yet she did not, and she hadn’t a clue why. “Yes, well,” she said at last, determined to break away, “I’m afraid I have to get back to it. There’s a bit of bunting I need to get and, uh—in the supply room?”
The chief nodded. “Just where I was headed,” he said. “I’ll give you a hand.” And he did so quite literally, putting his large and powerful hand in the small of her back and shepherding her along the hallway to the supply room.
Angela opened the door, and he came in right behind her. He turned and closed the door, and then faced Angela. She stared at him, unable to speak, and the unknown feeling came back and washed over her and made her feel very wobbly and uncertain.
But the chief just nodded, walked over to Angela, and put both hands on her shoulders. Then he leaned slowly forward, and Angela did not move or try to pull away. Their lips met, and with a shock, Angela responded, putting her arms around him. His hands began to move over her, and she pressed against him harder.
And when it occurred to her what was about to happen, she broke away from him at last. He regarded her mildly, one scarred eyebrow raised.
“The door,” Angela said in a husky voice she did not recognize as her own. “Lock the door.”
CHAPTER
26
It was three nights before the gala opening, and Katrina surveyed the setting for the exhibition where it sat in the most secure interior room in the museum. The team from Tiburon was putting the final touches on the electronic security equipment, and every few minutes an alarm would squeal as they carefully tested each sensor.
Katrina barely noticed. In the first place, she was completely focused on making this event unfold flawlessly. But just as important, she was exhausted. Or, to be a little more accurate, she had been exhausted three days ago. Now she was so far beyond that she had trouble remembering where she was, let alone what she was supposed to be doing.
But she’d been doing it anyway. Because for the first two days that Randall had been curator at the Eberhardt, he hadn’t come home at all. There was simply too much that had to be done before the opening and not nearly enough time to do it. And so naturally, Katrina had come to the museum to give what help she could. Since then, the days and nights had blurred together into an endless flurry of frantic activity, with no time for sleep except for short naps when it was absolutely essential. She and Randall—and Angela, the assistant curator—had been laboring around the clock.
Katrina took a deep breath and let it out audibly. She didn’t dare close her eyes, even for a moment, or she would fall asleep where she stood. She took another look around the room. The collection itself would look absolutely fabulous in the setting they’d made for it. The individual pieces would sit in transparent cases that were locked in place, each one guarded by a half dozen devices that would detect any change in weight, any movement, any disturbance at all to the blast-proof glass of the case. Cameras were sited on each case—not merely for visual surveillance but for infrared, too. In addition to those measures, each case would have several human guards on a random patrol schedule that ensured there were always eyes on each item.
But the room itself was still littered with tools, scraps of wire and tape and packing materials. Stacked against one wall were a dozen poster-sized placards with information relating to each item, the general history of the collection, and something of Iran and the Persian Empire. They were not in place yet because, although each placard had its own easel to display it, the paint on the easels was still drying.
Katrina shook her head at the mess. They couldn’t really clean up until the Tiburons finished their work. But at least they were finished in the museum’s lobby. She could begin in there.
Katrina left the exhibition room and walked through the large marble archway into the lobby. She paused in the archway for a moment and surveyed the wreckage. The lobby was truly a disaster. It had been the staging area for all the individual work projects, and it looked like a combination of warehouse and dump. In just a few days, it would host the glitterati of the art world, all come in their finery to see an exhibition of wonders that had never before been displayed in the United States. And when they arrived, if the lobby was not absolutely gleaming with quiet good taste, the multitudes would sneer as they sipped their champagne and end the evening by calling for Randall’s head on a silver tray. They would be joined by the Iranian delegation, demanding an explanation for the dreadful insult and probably setting off an international incident, maybe even culminating in war.
Katrina knew there was only one way to avoid a long and bloody war that might eventually drag in most of the world and end in nuclear catastrophe. That was to set things right, make everything beautiful, turn the museum from a litter-strewn slum into a gleaming mecca of good taste. Only she and Randall could save the world, and time was running out.
And as Katrina had that thought, she saw her husband stagger around the corner from an alcove of the lobby. He was trying to balance a huge burden of trash, made up of four large boxes and two oversized trash bags. She watched him for a few seconds, smiling, and then, as the load began to slip from his grasp and onto the floor, she hurried forward.
“Randall, for God’s sake,” she said as she reached him, “didn’t you ever hear the saying ‘The lazy man breaks his back trying to do it all in one load’?”
Randall sighed. “That sounds very German. Is that another of your grandfather’s pearls of wisdom?”
“Probably,” she admitted. “But it’s true anyway.” She frowned. “Where’s Angela? She could take some of this.”
“She vanished a little while ago,” Randall said. “She must have fallen asleep somewhere.”
“Well, you can’t carry it all by yourself,” Katrina said. “Here—you take the boxes and I’ll take the bags.”
“Deal,” he said, and in another moment they were walking together toward the back door, where the already-full dumpster awaited.
As they passed the exhibition hall, an alarm sounded, and Randall nearly dropped his armful of trash. “Jesus,” he said.
“They’re just testing all the alarms in there,” Katrina said. “I think that means they’re almost finished.”
“I sure to God hope so,” he grumbled. “There’s this thing called time? And it’s definitely running out.”
“We’ll get it done in time,” Katrina said, trying to sound confident.
“Uh-huh,” Randall said, making no attempt to match her tone.