Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

CHAPTER FIVE

SOMEWHERE BEHIND HUNTER, A MAN WHISTLED DOWN THE hallway outside Lina’s office. Someone else called out a greeting. The air conditioner made mechanical sounds.

Hunter counted the books in one of Lina’s bookcases. Twice.

After a very long silence, Lina asked, “May I take notes?”

“As long as you don’t show them to anybody but Jase or me,” Hunter said.

Without another word, she pulled over an electronic notebook, turned it on, tapped the screen to create a new document and a keyboard, and began typing.

“You said you could multitask,” Hunter said, “so talk while you type.”

“The knife is most likely obsidian, which is volcanic glass. Unusually refined, delicate flaking pattern. The goal was beauty, not durability. Ceremonial. Probably to be used only once, or at most in a brief series of highly important ceremonies. There is a sigil etched into the blade.”

“What does it mean?”

“Unknown. The photographer used too much flash for me to read beneath the glare.”

Hunter came and stood behind the desk, close to her. Too close. He knew it and he didn’t care. He really liked the scent and feel of her near him.

“Show me,” he said.

“Here,” she said, pointing to the photo.

The flash had made an explosion of light against the highly reflective obsidian. The result obscured part of the knife while throwing the rest into relief.

“Go on,” he said.

Her full lips tightened, but all she said was “These are first, very quick reactions to the artifacts. A gut response. If you want academic detail, I need more time.”

“Give me what you can right now. I’ll wait for the rest.”

There was no double meaning in that, Lina told herself. And he’s not breathing in the scent of my skin.

She forced herself to think, to multitask despite the looming presence of Hunter Johnston, but every breath she took was flavored with warmth and something clean, healthy, male.

“Give me room,” she said tightly.

He shifted an inch away. When she met his eyes, she knew that he was as aware of her as she was of him. She set her teeth and forced herself to concentrate on the second photo.

“A mask,” she said. “Those are feathers or wings flaring away from the sides of the face.” Inhuman lips parted, a god’s words pouring out. “Gaping mouth, eyes large and not filled in with shell or obsidian. This was designed to be worn, to give some visual freedom to the wearer. Again, likely for ceremonial use.”

Her fingers paused.

“What?” Hunter said instantly.

She shook her head as though throwing off cobwebs. “It…echoes something, but I’ve never seen a piece like it before.”

“What’s the echo of?”

“I don’t know. It was just a feeling. Nothing academic.”

“I do feelings.”

Lina felt a wild laugh bubbling in her throat. She swallowed it. Twice. The idea of someone as hard-looking as Hunter “doing feelings” was far too intriguing. She forced herself to look at the third photo.

Her breath caught.

“Talk to me,” Hunter said, his voice flat.

“The bundle is vaguely heart-shaped, wrapped in clear plastic.” Her fingers moved silently over the electronic keyboard. “Color beneath could be white or beige. Again, the flash interferes.”

“What are the stains?”

“Mud, blood, coffee, cinnamon, chocolate. Impossible to say without chemical analysis.”

Hunter grunted. He wasn’t getting much that was useful. He watched her fingers—clean, short nails, no rings—touch the edge of the first photo.

“The glyph in this,” she said, tapping the photo of the ritual knife, “looks like it has some jagged lines. Or it could be glare.”

She shifted the photo of the knife, changing the light, trying to peer through the glare.

It was impossible.

“Is it a common glyph?” he asked.

“As I can’t really see it, I can’t make a judgment.”

“This isn’t academia. Give me your best guess.”

“If the artifacts came from the same area as the stolen truck—a big ‘if’—then the glyph might possibly be related to Kawa’il, a Maya deity worshipped after the destruction of the Maya rule by the Spanish.”

Lina’s father probably knew more about Kawa’il than she did, but she had no intention of mixing Hunter with her obsessive, erratic father.

“Do you have an electronic image of the knife?” she asked. “You might be able to run a digital photo through a computer program and clean up the glare from the flash.”

“I’ll check into it, but I doubt it. Looks like it was taken right after the raid. ICE uses a lot of digital cameras. The photos on the card were probably printed out with the report and then wiped from the card’s memory to make digital room for the next bust. How much does it matter?”

“Kawa’il wasn’t a common deity. His worship was confined to small areas of the Quintana Roo and, perhaps, Belize. Many Maya scholars don’t even believe Kawa’il existed.”

“But you do.”

“Yes. Some glyphs related to Kawa’il have been found on…” Her voice died.

“Reyes Balam land.”

It wasn’t a question.

“If you already know so much, why mousetrap me into helping you?” she asked sharply.

“The presence or absence of Kawa’il was central to the scandal that got your father thrown out of academia.”

“He is still a Harvard professor.”

“Technically,” Hunter agreed. “He’s on indefinite leave to ‘pursue scholarly interests.’ You have to look real hard to find Dr. Philip Taylor’s name attached to a university of any repute, including in Mexico.”

Lina didn’t say anything. It was the harsh truth, one that had driven Philip to ever greater lengths of obsession and secrecy. He was determined to regain his reputation no matter what it took.

“If my father knows of these artifacts,” she said quietly, “I’m useless to you. Philip doesn’t confide in anyone, including me.”

Hunter nodded. “It was a long chance, but one I had to eliminate.”

“You believe me?”

“Until I find a reason to do otherwise.” He smiled thinly. “That’s more slack than the academic community will cut you.”

Again, a harsh truth.

“Well, at least you don’t fancy things up,” she said.

“I’m a simple man.”

“I don’t believe it. The bunch of fabric,” she said, tapping her finger on the photo of the cloth, “could be rubbish or it could be a god bundle. Again, without tests, I can’t be more precise.”

“If it’s a god bundle?”

“It would be highly, highly rare. Pretty much unique, as far as I know. Such bundles are represented in glyphs and verbal legends, but none have survived to modern times.”

“So it’s worth a lot of money on the market,” he said.

“Without proper provenance, no reputable dealer or establishment would touch it.”

As Hunter had arrived at the same conclusion himself, he wasn’t surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

“That covers some of the market,” he said. “What about the rest of it?”

Lina frowned. “Frankly, I doubt anyone would pay or trade anything significant for it. So unique an object is automatically suspect. Fraud is a fact of life when you’re dealing without provenance. And a god bundle…”

He watched her face, the change in her eyes, like she was looking at something far more distant than the photos.

“A god bundle was the most sacred of artifacts,” Lina said. “It was believed to contain talismans created by the god himself. The talismans were said to literally hold the strength of that god given in promise to the village or city-state that worshipped and was guarded by the god. The bundle was carried in a carved box at the forefront of soldiers going into battle. Capturing a god bundle meant the end of a deity and the people who followed it. We have no analogue to it in modern times.”

“National flags?”

Her short nails drummed on the desk. “Not really. It’s like comparing a tennis game to World War Two. You must realize the depth of the Maya belief system. That god bundle was the god itself. It was real, like birth or death. A fact.”

She looked at him, saw that he understood what she was saying, and shifted her focus back to the photo.

“Losers in a war lost their real god,” Lina said after a moment. “The belief that the clash of armies was in fact a clash of deities is one of the things that made the Maya relatively easy to conquer. If an enemy’s god was more potent, you abandoned your losing god. You accepted the victorious god, worshipped it, and shared in its power. Because the Spanish were more powerful than the Maya, it followed that their god was more powerful. Christ rather than Kukulcán, as it were. Of course, not everyone gave up their god. Some only gave lip service.”

“Good,” Hunter said. “That’s the kind of thing I need to know. I looked at those photos and I saw a bunch of probably Late Terminal Classic artifacts. The mask was totally unfamiliar, and the fabric was a mystery blob.”

“We don’t know it’s a god bundle.”

“But we do know that unloading it for significant cash on the black market isn’t likely.”

“Yes. Too many wealthy collectors have been stung in the past. If an artifact is too good to believe, they don’t believe it without the kind of provenance that would boggle even an ancient Chinese bureaucracy.”

“What kind of provenance?”

“If the artifact came into the U.S. before the passage of various international antiquities laws, you would have to be able to prove at least three legitimate previous owners. If the artifact was in the hands of the original owner’s family, you would need proof that the object had been collected and cataloged before the antiquities laws were in place, and hadn’t passed out of the first owner’s hands without proper paperwork. That’s the minimum.”

“What if the object entered the marketplace more recently?” Hunter asked.

“Proof of proper export and import papers, signed by any involved governments and stamped with various and explicit official approvals. Again, that’s the minimum. Legitimate collectors and institutions are often more demanding.”

Hunter braced a hand on the desk, half enclosing Lina.

“Tell me about the less demanding ones,” he said.

She tried and failed not to breathe him in, realized at a primal level why many cultures felt breath was the essence of the soul. Breathing in.

Breathing him.

“Buyers and sellers alike get stung in the gray or black market,” she said in a low voice. “It’s the price of doing business on the wrong side of antiquities laws.”

Hunter rubbed the back of his neck. The motion reminded him that his hair was too long. Downright shaggy. “But some people risk it.”

“I’m not one of them. My reputation can’t take another hit, no matter that I never did anything wrong,” Lina said flatly. “I can’t even be seen with the loose type of dealer or collector, much less be associated with any. If a branch of my family didn’t own this museum, I probably wouldn’t have been let in the door, much less hired.”

“What about your mother?” Hunter asked.

Lina stiffened. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing. Just asking.”

Grimly Lina got a grip on herself. “As far as I know, Celia learned her lesson years ago. The charges of dealing with looted Maya antiquities nearly destroyed the Reyes Balam family. But you already know all of this, don’t you? It’s why you’re here.”

Hunter barely managed not to wince. Her voice had gone from the husky warmth that made him think of foot rubs and creamy desserts to the kind of ice that could cut skin. Whatever her family might or might not be into, Lina had embraced the purity of Caesar’s wife.

Professionally it was a disappointment to Hunter. Personally, it made her all the more appealing.

You’re trusting her, he warned himself.

Only until I find a reason not to, he defended himself.

Problem was, he wasn’t certain he wanted to see that kind of reason.

“I’m here because you’re an expert in Maya artifacts,” Hunter said evenly.

Lina measured his stark, angular features, his brilliant, patient eyes, and knew she was outmatched. All he had to do was whisper a few words and she wouldn’t be trusted in academic circles with a handful of twentieth-century potsherds. And her family…

She stuffed down her anger at being trapped and went back to studying photos. Yet her hands wanted to tremble. Everything she was seeing pointed to Kawa’il, to the family estates in Quintana Roo, to the illicit artifact trade.

These must have been looted, she told herself. It’s the only rational explanation. My parents might be foolish, sometimes even childish, but they aren’t stupid.

Feeling more sure of herself, Lina pointed toward the fourth picture. “This is a stone scepter. The cup on the end could have been for corn pollen or blood or some other ritual material. There’s no way of knowing without examining the object itself.”

“Blood again.”

“Blood was central to Maya sacred rituals. Everything depended upon and sprang from blood.” She shifted the photo. “Again, this is ceremonial, finely made. Note that the protruding, carefully worked obsidian flakes run the entire length of the scepter. Whoever gripped this would be cut deeply enough to bleed freely. It’s a sign of a priest’s or king’s willingness to sacrifice his own blood for the god or gods.”

“Beats the foreskin-piercing routine,” he said.

“I’ll have to take your word on that.” A hint of huskiness was back in Lina’s voice, ice melting, white teeth sinking into her full lower lip as she bit back a smile.

Hunter’s body came alert. He leaned over, getting closer to the photo. And Lina. There was a hint of cinnamon in her scent, either from the spilled coffee or just a natural part of her.

He wanted to taste.

“So this scepter goes with the ceremonial theme of the other artifacts,” he said.

The extra depth in his voice was like a stroke over her senses. “Yes.”

The word was breathless. She yanked her mind back from Hunter’s male body so close to her.

He blackmailed me into helping him.

For a friend, she reminded herself. Hunter wasn’t after personal gain.

Part of her wondered if he would really ruin her reputation. Then she remembered the look on his face when he said that Jase had two kids and his wife was expecting a third. To protect the children, Hunter would do what he had to.

She couldn’t really blame him, but she didn’t have to like it.

Just once, I’d like to be the most important thing in someone’s life.

Lina squashed the thought as soon as it came to her. Her childhood was what it was. Her adulthood was her own responsibility.

She cleared her throat and said crisply, “Yes, ceremonial.”

“Late Terminal Classic?”

“From all appearances.”

“What about the Chacmool?” he asked.

He was so close to Lina now that he could see his breath stirring the tendrils of hair that had escaped the severe bun at the nape of her neck. Goose bumps rippled over her skin, telling him just how sensitive she was, how aware of him.

“Ceremonial.” It was more a husky whisper than a word. Then, “Stop it.”

“What?” he asked, his breath against her ear.

She opened her mouth to tell him precisely what he was doing, then realized how easily he could deny everything, making her feel a fool for noticing him so intensely, allowing him to affect her so much.

It could be an accident, she told herself. I’ve often leaned over someone’s shoulder to look at something.

But it hadn’t made her skin feel too tight, her breath too short.

“I have an American’s sense of personal space,” she said. “You must have spent a lot of time in Mexico.”

“Busted.” He moved away just enough that she could no longer feel his breath. “Better?”

She let out a long, almost silent rush of air. “Chacmool figure, including a bowl to catch blood. Ceremonial. New World jade. Jaguar glyphs engraved around the edge of the figure. The glyphs around the lip of the bowl appear to be Late Terminal Classic.”

Hunter barely kept himself from leaning closer. He’d liked the scent of Lina’s skin, the creamy texture, the pulse beating rapidly at the base of her neck.

“So, this represents the god’s mouth?” he asked, pointing to the shallow bowl that was the reason for the Chacmool’s existence.

“Are you sure you need me?”

“Very sure.”

Lina told herself there was no double meaning in his words. She couldn’t quite believe it. But then, she’d never been flirted with in such a bold yet indirect way.

“If you already know the purpose of the Chacmool…” she began.

“Your course work covered it—a reclining man-god figure with knees bent and head raised, providing a rest for a shallow bowl.”

“You missed half the classes.”

“The syllabus was excellent.”

Lina gave up and concentrated on the photo. “The glyphs I can see are what I would expect on a ceremonial object. The date. The royal hierarchy. Man’s reverence. The gods’ awful power.”

“Is Kawa’il a part of the Chacmool and its ritual?”

“Without seeing the entire rim, I can’t answer that.”

“Is it possible?”

“I’m told anything is possible, including the Maya millennium,” she said dryly. “Ask Melodee.”

“Pass. I prefer women who haven’t been cut-and-pasted.”

Lina shook her head, smiling. Hunter Johnston was very much to her taste. Too bad he was little better than a blackmailer.

“You still mad that I twisted your arm to help me?” he asked.

“Are you a mind reader?”

“No. You were smiling, then you looked like someone had asked you to eat a bug. Since I’m the only insect-eating SOB here, it was a logical connection.”

Hunter was entirely too quick, or she was too easy to read. Or both.

“The fifth photo fits with the time frame and ceremonial theme,” Lina said, sticking to what she knew rather than what she feared or desired. “The censer appears to be clay, beautifully crafted so that the incense smoke would seem to be pouring from the mouths of gods.”

“Looks like snakes to me.”

“The feathered serpent was a common Maya theme. If the censer was originally found with the other objects—”

“Unknown.”

“—the assumption would be that you have the trove of a high priest or a king.”

“You keep saying priest or king,” Hunter said.

“The English language makes the distinction. There is no proof that the Mayan language did. From all we have learned, it appears that nobility supplied the priest-kings. The duties, if they were separate at all, overlapped so heavily as to make a distinction meaningless.”

“I love it when you go all academic on me. Such a contrast to your—” Abruptly Hunter closed his runaway mouth.

Lina raised one dark, wing-shaped eyebrow.

“Off the subject,” he said. “I’m a man. My thoughts sometimes wander.”

She didn’t ask where they went. She knew. And she liked it, which confused her. He had strong-armed her into helping him, but she wasn’t as mad as she should be. He was flirting with her, and she liked it way too much. She’d slapped down less aggressive males without a thought.

Hunter took thought.

“The Maya believed that a god’s words could be seen in smoke, in dreams,” she said.

“Drug-induced?”

“Perhaps. Peyote enemas are a documented archaeological reality, as are mushroom and other psychotropic substances. But there are other ways to induce visions.”

“Such as?”

“Pain. Enough pain, enough self-bloodletting, can cause what Western people label hallucinations and Maya called communication with the gods.”

The part of herself that was instinctive, bone-deep, knew that the censer in the photo had been used in just such rituals.

“I wonder what the gods told him,” she said softly.

“Him? What about women?”

“Maya weren’t, and aren’t, much for equal opportunity between sexes. A Maya queen could never ascend the throne unless she was pregnant and her husband was recently dead.”

“So women weren’t part of ritual ceremonies?” Hunter asked.

“The queen was, and perhaps the wives of the highest nobles. A female let blood through her tongue. Knotted twine was pulled through a vertical cut.”

“Ouch.”

“They were a visceral people. And are today. Only the ceremonies change. Not that the Maya lacked intellectual accomplishments,” Lina added quickly. “Their mathematical system understood the necessity of a zero. The fact that their numerical system was based on twenty rather than ten makes it difficult for us to fully understand and appreciate. Our problem, not theirs. Their astronomy was superb, the equal of any world culture.”

“You admire them.”

“Don’t you?”

“The more I know, the more there is to admire.”

Not touching that one, Lina thought. He will not suck me into a world of double meanings.

“The last photo,” she said, forcing her thoughts away from Hunter’s temptations, “is as incredible as the cloth bundle. Perhaps more so.”

“I’m ready.”

Lina barely resisted the temptation to check out the fit of his jeans.

Focus, she told herself.

It was hard.

Like him.

“This.” She cleared her throat and tried to remember all the reasons she should be angry with him. But breathing in his male scent, sensing the muscular warmth of this body, made anger as impossible as her attraction to Hunter Johnston. “This is as unique as the cloth bundle.” She let the photo of a mask draw her in and down, back into a past that was as fascinating as it was lost. “Maybe more unique. If it’s real.”

“Looks real to me.”

“Frauds are real, too,” Lina murmured.

“Are you saying that the mask is a fraud?”

“I’m saying that I can’t be sure until I’ve examined it under a microscope for machine marks.”

“Somebody killed to keep its secrets,” Hunter said. “Assume it’s real.”

“Killed?”

“The driver. Maybe others. Life is cheap.”

“Not to me.”

“Or me.” An echo of Suzanne’s death twisted through him, scraping his soul. “We’re creatures of our culture. Other cultures, other creatures.”

“Assuming this is real,” Lina said, “it’s the single most extraordinary artifact I’ve ever seen. Obsidian is rare in the Yucatan, though not in what became Mexico.”

“So the object isn’t from the Yucatan?”

“Trade was commonplace. The Maya had huge canoes that ferried merchandise along the Gulf and around the Yucatan peninsula. I’ve seen a fragment of a mask so intricately inlaid with obsidian that the artifact was a complex mosaic of black with silver-gold light turning beneath. But I don’t see any sign of inlay in this photograph of the mask, just a solid, unbroken surface.”

“Could it have been made of a single chunk of obsidian?” he asked.

“If you’re asking if obsidian comes in pieces this large, yes. I’ve seen obsidian boulders as big as a car. But…”

Hunter waited. He was good at it.

“The time and effort that would go into flaking and polishing a piece of obsidian into a mask is extreme,” she said finally. “Obsidian is friable, it shatters. It’s very difficult to make it smooth.”

Like your skin, Hunter thought, leaning close again. Smooth.

“Making this would be the same as taking a ragged hunk of glass the size of a washing machine and slowly working it into a mask the size of a human face,” Lina said, breathing him in, wanting him to understand just how astonishing the mask was. “Chipping, flaking, grinding, polishing. Starting all over with a new chunk when something came apart. Big pieces of obsidian have natural flaws that make the material fracture in surprising ways.”

He watched her with eyes the silver blue of a glacier beneath the sun, framed in the darkness of a winter past.

A woman could get lost in those eyes. Lina felt a shiver go over her at the thought. She tried to believe that it was fear, not desire, cold rather than heat. But she had been curious about Hunter for too long, and he was so close to her now.

“The Chinese worked jade,” Hunter said. “Some pieces took generations to finish. It’s not impossible that the Maya did the same.”

“No,” she said huskily, “it’s not impossible.” But you are, Hunter Johnston. You’re the most impossible thing about this whole situation.

Lina forced herself to look away, to concentrate on the obsidian mask, volcanic glass lovingly worked and polished until it shone like a gold-tinted mirror beneath the harsh flash used to take the photo. Hunter’s like that. The surface isn’t what is important.

“Lina?” he asked.

Belatedly she realized that she was looking at him again, falling into darkness and light.

“The central part of the mask is human,” she said, her voice low. “The eyes are heavy-lidded, half open. The nose is a blunt blade of nobility, the cheekbones high and broad, the mouth a grim slit of judgment. This is a god on the brink of a catastrophic temper tantrum.”

“Not a gentle god.”

“The Maya revered the jaguar, a climax predator. If tenderness was valued, we’ve seen little indication of it in their religious-civic art.”

“Sounds like the Yucatan I know and love,” Hunter said dryly, thinking of his last assignment. Being a courier in a kidnap-ransom scheme wasn’t his favorite job, but it brought a lot of money into the family business. And saved lives. Sometimes. If he was very lucky, very careful.

“Do you know the Yucatan?” Lina asked, surprised.

“Better than most, not as well as you do. What are these things along the edges?” he asked, pointing to the mask. As he touched the photo, it shifted, making it seem alive, breathing, waiting.

“Symbolic feathers or flames or even lightning. It’s difficult to tell against the flash.” As Lina spoke, she typed into her notebook. “These are very vigorous symbols, incised and brought into relief. Delicate and vivid, polished to the same hard gleam as the face itself. See the drill holes that would hold cord or leather, allowing it to be fastened to a man’s head? Amazing, incredible artisans created this.”

Hunter watched her profile, a more feminine, much more elegant echo of the mask.

“Imagine this in torchlight,” Lina said. “It would be inhuman, terrifying, awesome in the original sense of the word. It’s clearly a ceremonial piece, but who wore it? For what purpose? It must have been traded for, but why and when?”

She made an exasperated sound and smacked her palm on the desk.

Hunter waited.

“This is maddening,” she said. “Without context, my questions can’t be answered. I might get a chemical analysis and be able to match the obsidian to the original quarry site, but that’s such a tiny part of this mask’s history. To date it, I would need to know where it was found, in what layer of dirt, with what other objects or signs of habitation. All I have is this photograph.”

Hunter noted the flush of temper darken her high cheekbones. The lady had passion. It was part of what attracted him to her. Then he watched anger fade into something close to puzzlement.

Silence stretched.

“What?” he asked.

She flinched as though she’d forgot he was there. “I’m not sure. I feel like I’ve seen something similar to this, but I can’t remember where or when. The shining…” She smacked the desk again with her palm. “Damn the grave robber who cared more about money than knowledge!”

“Grave robbers are poor. Only the endgame is rich.”

She blew out a hard breath. “I know. I spent most of my childhood running barefoot through villages that depended on my family’s generosity for food, clothing, everything but water. And sometimes even that. I didn’t understand then. I just laughed and played with the village children while Philip and their fathers dug through the jungle, seeking Maya heritage.”

“You can’t eat heritage.”

The air-conditioning kicked on, a cool breath settling over the office.

Suddenly Lina looked defeated. She shook her head. “I know. If my child was hungry, I’d be in the front line of grave diggers, shoveling hard.”

His hand squeezed her shoulder, lingered.

“So would I,” he said. “Tell me more about Maya and masks.”

She looked into his silver-blue eyes and saw shadows. She knew he understood loss at a level as deep, even deeper than hers. She tried to remember why she should be angry with him.

She couldn’t.

“Masks,” she said, gathering herself. “Masks were an integral part of Maya rituals. The nobles/priests wearing them would take on the aspects of the god whose mask they wore, or the god would speak through the mask wearers. Either or both.”

“I don’t think the news coming from that obsidian mask would be good.”

“All masks are fearsome to some degree, because the gods are fearsome. But this one gives me chills.”

Yet I know this mask.

Or will.

A movement at the ground-level window caught her attention. Whatever it was vanished before she could focus. Just like all the other times she’d looked over her shoulder, feeling watched.

“You okay?” Hunter asked.

“Yes,” she said automatically, even as her instincts shouted no.

Hunter’s phone vibrated against his butt. A text had just come in. He fished out the device, hit the button, and read Jase’s message: NEED U. NEW INFO.

“I have to go,” Hunter said, gathering up the photos and stuffing them into their envelope.

“But—” she began.

“For now, you’ll have to work from your notes,” he cut in. “I’ll call as soon as I’m free. Have something good for me.”

The office door closed behind Hunter before she could say anything. The man moved like a cat.

Then she remembered why she was mad at him.

With a muttered word, Lina booted up her big computer and went to work. It wasn’t like she had a lot of choice, after all.

And if she kept telling herself that, she might not have a case of rapid pulse every time he came near her.