Aching for Always (32 page)

The water was still running when she entered the bedroom. The door to the bathroom was shut, and his clothes were on the floor. His phone was on the bedside table. He must have forgotten to take it in with him. He had been working in bed. His laptop was open and running. His wallet and pen were on the bed next to it.

She knew where she wanted to look next—in Rogan's tiny study off the bedroom, a room he usually kept locked because it contained the safe and a number of confidential files. She ran to the door to try it and was lucky. It was open. The ancient desk, polished and holding nothing but a blotter and a charger for his phone, stood beside a low wooden file cabinet. And there it was, just above the file cabinet—the map of Manchester, the
third of the trio. Though he'd signed it out, the sight of it here, in his locked study, was enough to stop her in her tracks.

It was hung on a spot on the wall that had formerly been blank. The frame in which it had been displayed in the map room had been plain and black. The frame it was in now was ornate, intricately carved wood and at least three times as thick as the former one.

The only lamp turned on, the one between the bed and the bath, cast a small circle of veiled light. She could see the cartouche, but not clearly. There was another lamp on the file cabinet. She reached up and lit it with a faint
click
.

The file cabinet was fairly deep, however, and the map was hung high enough to make examining it from where she stood difficult. She cleared a path on top of the file cabinet, pushing two heavy Chinese lion-dog bookends closer to the lamp and a tray that held paper clips in the other direction. Then she kicked off her shoes. She hoisted herself up on top of the cabinet and twisted herself around so that she faced the map. She wanted to pull it off the wall so she could lay it flat to look at it. She grabbed the lower corners and discovered, to her surprise, that they were bolted to the wall. Then she saw the wire extending from the frame at the far edge and fastened at regular intervals down the wall.

Jesus Christ, it's set with an alarm!

She ignored for a moment what this said about Rogan and decided to do her examining while it was on the wall. She was finally close enough to the cartouche to see it. In most aspects, it was like the other two, with the same
design and odd dashes. But there were several extremely fine lines of Latin around the outside, drawn in a different ink. She'd taken four years of Latin in high school, and she caught a few of the words, but she needed to get closer. She brought a foot underneath her and braced it against the dog bookends to leverage herself into a slightly higher position. She stretched and stretched. She needed just a couple more inches—

Hugh saw the light flicker and go out and heard the faint sound of glass breaking, and his heart jumped into his throat.

In six steps he was across the street and up the steps to the door. He flung the door open and raced up the stairs, half conscious of the sound of water, fighting the pain in his shoulder and terrified for Joss. Halfway to the third floor, he heard the water stop and the word “Joss?” He froze. The voice was Reynolds's.

He held his breath, waiting for her answer.

“Oh, crap, sorry,” she said. “I was trying to surprise you.”

“What the hell's going on out there? Are you okay?”

“Um—”

The slight pause reignited his anxiety. He kicked off his shoes and flew up the remaining steps, two at a time.

She was waiting for him when he entered, a finger up to her lips. Then she pointed to a room off the bedroom. She formed a word with her mouth:
Rogan.

On the floor in the room behind her were a few deco
rative pieces. Had she and Reynolds had a fight? A lamp lay broken on the cabinet top, and the map was on the wall.

“I'm fine,” she called, apparently to Reynolds, though she looked at Hugh. “I knocked some books off the bedside table.” She picked up the pieces and put them next to the lamp.

“What are you doing home from Vegas?” Reynolds called back to her.

“I ended up not going until this morning. Then, my connection in Charlotte kept getting delayed. When they finally canceled it, I decided to head home. I moved the meeting to tomorrow afternoon.”

“That sucks.”

“Tell me about it.” She looked at Hugh and shrugged.

He went to her wordlessly and leaned in to her ear. The faint floral scent she gave off was mixed with fear. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

“Join me in the bath,” Reynolds said. “I'll make you feel better.”

She nodded to Hugh, but he noticed her hands were quaking.

“Give me a minute,” she called. “I'm going to look for a snack.”

Hugh could see her pulse in the hollow of her throat. “Is that the map?” he asked.

She nodded again.

“Can we take it?”

Her head gave a little shake. “The frame's locked to the wall,” she said, barely forming the words. “I was trying to lift it off. That's what happened.”

“How are you feeling?” Reynolds called from the bathroom. “I talked to Di. That sounded like a miserable stomach bug.”

Hugh murmured, “Is there anything unusual on it?” He knew there wasn't much time.

“Oh, Jesus, I was puking my guts out!” she shouted. She looked around the room, darted to the bed and came back with a pen, whispering, “Yes. Words. But they're in Latin. There are a lot.” Her breath tickled his ear.

“Latin? I don't read it.”

“I do, a little.”

He gazed around for paper, but saw none. He held up his palms in a question. She tried the desk drawers but they were locked. He could hear the sounds of washing. Soon, Reynolds would be reaching the end of his bath.

Joss's eyes flicked from the bathroom door to Hugh. She handed him the pen, a light, slim black thing, then turned away and pulled off her shirt.

Hugh didn't know which struck him most, her courage or that fine porcelain back. She looked at him over her shoulder and pointed to the area of skin above her shoulder blade.

Hugh shook his head. “He'll see it.”

“No. I'll put on a nightgown. Hurry, there's a lot. I'll translate.”

Hugh gazed at the pen uncertainly, then tugged at it. It separated into two pieces: a top and a body. Would it write on flesh?

She turned and nestled against him, putting her mouth near his ear. “I'll do the best I can. I'm not great. Write
what I say.” Hugh tried not to let his eyes linger on the wanton slips of ethereal fabric covering her breasts.

“My mother's beside herself about you,” Reynolds said. “Do you think it's too late to call?”

“Yeah, probably. I'll ring her in the morning.”

She leaned over the file cabinet and began to translate in a hushed voice. Hugh wrote.

“‘Laocoön followed by a wide—no, large—crowd. Very large.'”

Hugh was amazed at the rapidity with which the point made its way over her skin. When he got too close to the band of satin, she pulled away and brought her fingers to the clasp at the center of her back and unhooked it. She pulled the straps free and let the whole thing drop to the floor. He swallowed dryly.

“‘Ran from the fort.'” She ran her finger along the words. “‘And cried—shouted—O unhappy citizens, what fury have you?” ' Oh my God!”

Hugh jerked, realizing her exclamation was not a part of the translation. “What?”

“This is from the
Aeneid
. It's the Trojan Horse.” She ran her finger along the lines around the cartouche until see reached the end. “See? ‘Trust not their presents nor admit the horse.' Dr. Hulick would kill me if I'd forgotten this.”

“Is anything different?”

She looked at each line carefully. “I'm not sure exactly. I don't think so. It looks like the standard text.”

He heard the gurgle of a drain being unplugged and the rush of water that followed. She froze.

“Go,” she said, panicked. “We have enough.”

He handed her the pen, and she scrabbled at the closure on her breeks. He padded to the top of the stairs to the sounds of Reynolds toweling off in the bath. Hugh hurried down the steps, and his last vision of Joss was as she dropped the breeks to the floor, lifted a cotton nightgown over her head and let it fall over her naked body.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-FOUR
 

The whole thing had happened so fast, Hugh thought, it had taken on the form of a dream in his fever-weary brain. Had she been afraid as he left her? Had Reynolds's voice carried the false casualness of a man who intended his fiancée harm? Would she bed him? Had Hugh forced her into a situation in which she was left no other choice? Or would she find the assurance she needed in her lover's arms? Above all else, Hugh prayed she would not discover the truth about Rogan.

He paced the night shadows across from the silent house, holding his aching shoulder and thinking about the Trojan Horse. He knew the story well enough. It had been one of Maggie's favorites, after all. And his brother had always loved Virgil's tales of the sailing Aeneas. But what could the story of that cunning stratagem tell him about the lost map? Had Brand hidden it in a horse? Or did Reynolds represent the Greeks, who were not to be trusted?

He held his arm tight against his side and waited for something—anything—to happen that would give him
a reason to fly up the stairs again and carry her away.

But none came. And when the moon reached its zenith, he dug the pills out of his pocket, swallowed two as Joss had instructed and settled onto the cold ground to wait for morning.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-FIVE
 

Joss emerged into the cool Sunday morning air of Fourth Street feeling as if she were leaving a life behind. Rogan had been perfectly wonderful, but she'd felt like she was lying in bed next to a stranger. So much had changed in the last two days, it was if she'd been set adrift in some vast ocean and forced not only to find her way but to depend on instincts she didn't even know she had.

Which is why she'd wakened him at five to tell him she wanted to delay the wedding.

He'd been shocked, and had tried to coax a reason out of her, but he had to settle for a tearful “I don't know. It just doesn't feel right.” And he
had
settled for it, telling her he'd put her up at the William Penn Hotel until she decided what she wanted to do. So she'd dressed, bade him a regretful good-bye and started out to find what the next few days would bring.

The translation, or at least the start of it, was still on her back. She'd taken care to keep that side of her out of Rogan's view all night and now found herself eager to find Hugh—more eager than she would have expected—to
figure out what, if anything, the excerpt from the
Aeneid
meant.

The idea that helping Hugh find the missing map would lead to an earth-shattering change for her did not scare her anymore. Sometime in the night, she'd found peace with the notion that she'd be setting to right the wrongs of her father. It was something she had always wanted to do, and life, at last, had brought her the opportunity to do it.

The only part that hurt—the only part—was the idea that somehow she'd been wrong about Rogan. She thought back to that chance meeting in the diner. The man she'd met there, the man who met her outside the hospital the next morning—that man could not be capable of violence against another. Of that she was as certain as she was about anything she had ever known. Something had changed. She didn't know what.

She wasn't willing to let go of Rogan, but she wasn't willing to move forward with him, either. She didn't know what she wanted. But something told her that helping to right the wrongs of the past would give her some answers about the future.

She lifted her lapels against the wind. For the first time, she set off for the day not knowing where the carefully mapped path of her life was leading. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.