Always Emily. Mary Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ When she saw Emily, she waved.

      Emily leaned forward and cupped Maria’s face with her palms. “We became good friends, didn’t we?”

      Maria nodded. “Can you send me postcards?”

      It had become a game with them, that Emily would find the funniest cards in her travels and mail them to Maria. Also, because she’d loved the child so much, she had bought her a child-size violin and had taught her to play.

      “Yes, lots of postcards,” she promised. “Will you practice your violin?” Maria had great talent, more than Emily would ever possess.

      “Every single minute,” Maria shouted. Emily laughed and kissed her forehead.

      “Not that much, little one. Make time for fun.” She made sure she had eye contact before saying from her heart, “I promise you this. When you grow up and become a famous violinist, I will come to your concerts.”

      “You will come backstage,” Maria ordered. “I will give you a pass. You come say hello to me.”

      “I will. I promise.” Emily had to leave right away because if she stayed, she would cry, and that would sadden Maria. “In the meantime, I’ll send you a postcard of a bear from Colorado.” From home. Her longing overcame the sadness of leaving. She wanted home. Her family. Peace and quiet.

      Maria returned to her apartment. Emily watched until she was safely inside. Despite the clean break, bits of Emily would linger behind, with Maria, with her friends Penelope Chadwick and Les Reed, and with her impassioned colleagues. She had enjoyed her time with them all.

      But Jean-Marc? That connection was gone for good, severed as cleanly as though she’d taken an amazon’s sword to it. If not for the sweat seething from her pores, she would be on top of the world. Free at last.

      Only one more goodbye left. She went down to the second floor of the apartment building in which all of the archeologists lived. Penny answered the door when she knocked.

      Jean-Marc used to call Penelope Chadwick the Horse. Yes, she had a long face and those endless legs, but also a bosom most women envied.

      Her smile eased some of Emily’s apprehension. Penny, in her oversize T-shirts and baggy trousers, with her manly tramping about the toughest terrain on her muscled athletic legs, had been a dear friend, and Emily loved her every capable, unfeminine, not-too-attractive molecule.

      Penny was one of the good people.

      Behind Penny, Les Reed, her compatriot and lover, touched Penny’s elbow, the movement a subtle sign of possession and pride.

      Where Penny was tall, Les was short and rotund. When Penny held Les, her ample breasts would flank his face. Emily wondered if he ever felt smothered. Judging by his satisfied grin, he would die a happy man.

      She loved these people. She loved their honesty, loyalty and boundless integrity. Why couldn’t everyone in the world be like them?

      She fell into Penny’s enveloping embrace. “I will miss you so much.” Her sinuses ached. Why wasn’t life easier? Why couldn’t she carry her friends with her in her pockets, wherever she went, and take them out when she needed them? “I’ll write often.”

      “You’ll visit us in England when we’re at home.” From Penny, it came out as order rather than an invitation.

      “Yes,” Emily promised. “I will.”

      After copious hugs and kisses with both Penny and Les, and a too-brief goodbye, Emily was on her way to her new life.

      Fifty minutes later, she stood at the airport in a lineup that moved with glacial slowness toward security.

      At last second in line, she put her violin case onto the conveyor belt that would carry it through the X-ray machine.

      Sweat poured from her face and a pair of Japanese Kodo drummers hammered her temples in unrelenting waves. This had nothing to do with the heat of the desert. She was sick. Some kind of flu. Rotten timing.

      Suck it up, kid. Nothing would hold her back from getting on that plane.

      Unsnapping the buckles on her knapsack, she reached inside for her cosmetic bag, where she kept cotton hankies. Her hand touched something unexpected, something she hadn’t packed, and she froze.

      Whatever the object was, she hadn’t put it there. She peeked inside, keeping her actions unobtrusive. In her palm, she held a tiny ancient prayer book. She’d seen it before. On their dig. It was supposed to be under lock and key at the National Museum of Sudan, where every artifact they unearthed eventually found a home. So what was it doing in her bag?

      She dropped it back into the knapsack, but a tiny gasp betrayed her. Despite how insignificant that intake of breath, it drew the guard’s attention. He approached.

      Damn, damn, damn.

      Her mouth dried up like the Sahara. Too late to turn and leave. If she took her bag and violin from the belt, he would know something was up and would detain her. One way or another, her bag would be searched today.

      The penalty for smuggling artifacts out of the country was jail time. No questions asked. No leniency. No compassion. Too much had been stolen from these civilizations over the centuries. They’d been robbed blind.

      If she denied ownership, they would think she was lying. If she tried to tell them she’d been set up, they would think she was lying.

      There was no good outcome here. She was the most screwed piece of metaphorical toast on the face of the planet, and she knew whom to blame.

      Jean-Marc. Her open apartment door. He’d retrieved the relic from his apartment down the hall and then had slipped back into her place long enough to stash it in her things so she would be caught with it as she left the country. Vindictive piece of decrepit crap.

      I will ruin you. Yes, he had.

      Rage filled her, and not just because of what he was doing to her, but because this precious article shouldn’t have been in his possession. Why was it, damn him?

      The day she let Jean-Marc win was the day she rolled over and died. She had to get out of this airport and get the relic back where it belonged, with the people of the Sudan.

      Think. Think!

      What could she do?

      Sweat dripping from her forehead burned her eyes. She grasped the hankie in her hand and ran it over her face. The man in front of her in the lineup hadn’t bathed recently, and the smell made her ill.

      “Is something wrong, miss?” the guard asked, tone solicitous but eyes hard. “Are you nervous about your flight?”

      She shook her head. “Sick.”

      His brow furrowed. “If you are sick, you cannot fly.”

      “Have to. Need to get home.” She wasn’t thinking clearly. The fever was messing with her brain. She had to get out of the airport, not onto a plane.

      Her violin case and bag crept along the belt closer to the X-ray machine. They would question the СКАЧАТЬ