‘No problem at all, Lester. If you need me for anything else, I’m more than happy to help. Although Eddie might be a bit reluctant! But if you want me to assist with the translation of the Secret Codex, I—’
He shook his head. ‘That won’t be necessary, thanks.’
‘Are you sure? I know the Atlantean language as well as anyone, and—’
He cut her off again, more brusquely. ‘The Secret Codex is now an IHA security matter. You’ll be able to read the abstracts as they become available, of course, but we need to keep the actual translations classified for now. Talonor visited a lot of places; we can’t afford to have treasure hunters ripping potential sites apart before we have a chance to investigate them. You know the rules.’
‘Yes, I know the rules,’ she snapped. ‘I wrote most of them!’
Blumberg puffed out his chest. ‘That’s as may be, but you don’t work for the IHA any more, so you don’t have clearance to see the Secret Codex before we’ve determined what’s safe for public release. I appreciate your help today, but you’ve done everything you can for us. So you should probably go pick up your daughter. You wouldn’t want to be late.’ He gave her a smug little smirk.
Nina stood, scowling. ‘You know you’re kind of a patronising jerk, Lester?’ One of the IHA technicians stifled a giggle.
Her host was not amused, however. ‘Thank you for stopping by, Nina.’ He turned away, issuing commands to those aboard the research ship.
‘Asshole,’ Nina muttered as she headed for the operation centre’s exit.
Despite her best efforts to rush through Manhattan, she still arrived fifteen minutes late at the Little Petals nursery. The elevator was old and slow and frequently out of order, the building undergoing renovation work, so rather than wait for it, she simply ran up the stairs to the second floor.
‘Oh hi, Nina,’ said Penny Lopez, as the redhead hurried into the cloakroom. Even though the teacher was smiling, there was still a critical undercurrent to her greeting. ‘Look, Macy! Here’s your mommy.’
‘Hi, Mommy!’ squealed Macy Wilde Chase, running to meet her mother. Nina hugged her, noticing to her dismay that her daughter’s coat was the only one left on the hooks. ‘We painted pictures today! I painted a ship, because Daddy’s on one. Do you want to see?’
‘I’d love to, honey,’ Nina replied. Macy skipped away to get it. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ she told Penny. ‘I was helping with my old job at the United Nations, and Eddie . . .’ She remembered the couple’s discussion after he escaped the temple. ‘I had to make sure he finished what he was doing.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Penny. ‘But it’s not going to be a regular problem, is it? We’re more than happy to have some flexibility around parents’ schedules, but we need to know in advance.’
‘No, no, this was a one-time thing. It seems.’ She tried not to sound too despondent about being cut out of what had been her profession.
‘Have you considered hiring a nanny? I can recommend some good people.’
‘I don’t think we’re quite ready for that, thanks,’ Nina said as her daughter returned bearing a large sheet of paper. ‘Is this your painting?’
‘Yes, it is!’ Macy said, pointing out aspects of her finger-painted masterwork. ‘That’s the sea, and that’s the boat Daddy’s on, and that’s a fish, and that’s a sumb . . . sub . . . submarine!’
‘Wow, that’s really good,’ Nina told her. For a three-year-old, it was quite advanced, everything Macy indicated a distinct object rather than a splodgy agglomeration, though rough circles and triangles were the limit of her artistic talents. ‘Is Daddy there too?’
‘He’s on the sumbarine!’ She jabbed at a pink thumbprint.
Nina smiled. ‘It’s a very good likeness. I’m sure he’ll want to see it when he gets home. Let’s put on your coat.’
‘When is he coming home?’ Macy asked.
‘He’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow!’ The little girl looked stricken. ‘But he always reads me a story for bedtime!’
‘I’ll read you one tonight, hon. The one Daddy wrote for you, about the eggs?’
‘But Daddy does the funny voices. You can’t do funny voices.’
‘Daddy has an advantage because he’s got a funny voice,’ said Nina. She put Macy’s arms into her sleeves. ‘Okay, are you ready? I’ll take your painting, and you hold my other hand. Say bye-bye to Penny.’
They started for the exit. At the door, Nina paused, feeling a strange sense of incongruity. Less than an hour ago she had been involved in an archaeological expedition deep beneath the sea, and now she was collecting her daughter from school and discussing bedtime stories.
There was another feeling, too. It took her a moment to work out what it was, and when she did, guilt joined her emotions.
The abrupt return to everyday normality had left her disappointed.
3
‘I’m back!’ Eddie called as he entered the apartment.
‘Daddy!’ cried Macy, rushing to hug him. ‘You’re home!’
‘Hi, love!’ He kissed her. ‘Where’s Mummy?’
‘Mommy,’ his wife and daughter corrected as one as Nina joined them. ‘I am so happy to see you. Safe and well.’
‘And in one piece,’ said Eddie. He scooped Macy up. ‘Wow, look at you! I’m away for a couple of days and it looks like you’ve grown another inch.’
‘Did you see fish in the sea, Daddy?’ she asked.
‘Quite a few. They went like this: bloop-bloop-bloop.’ He mimed a big-lipped fish blowing kisses. Macy giggled.
‘Did they bring the Secret Codex back to the IHA?’ Nina asked as they went into the lounge.
‘Yeah, Nerio took it. He was supposed to work at Atlantis for a few more days, but after what happened, they decided to give him a break.’
‘It was a close call. I wish I’d been there with you.’
Eddie sat, Macy hopping off his knee and running from the room. ‘Did you actually just say those two sentences one after the other? “You almost got killed. I should have been there so I could almost get killed too!”’
‘Okay, maybe I needed more of a segue there.’ Nina sat beside him. ‘But I did want to see Atlantis again. For real, not on a screen.’
‘I’ve seen that place way too—’ Macy returned. ‘Flipping much,’ Eddie concluded.
Nina grinned. ‘I’m still impressed by that. You said you weren’t going to swear any more once Macy was born, and I thought you just meant in front of her. But you kept it up. Except when you called Lester something rude, and I’d consider that justified.’
‘Yeah, it’s funny that you swear loads more than me now.’ Macy proudly displayed her painting to him. ‘Hey, that’s good! Is that the sea?’
She showed off the points of interest. Eddie made approving comments, then, as the little girl left to bring more drawings, looked back at Nina. ‘So you didn’t get to go there in person, but they still found something new thanks to us.’
‘Thanks to you,’ she said, with a hint of petulance. ‘And as Lester took pleasure in pointing out, they didn’t need us at all. Once they opened that tunnel, anyone could have explored it.’
‘So what? It doesn’t mean you weren’t a part of it. Maybe you’ll be able to add it to your new book.’ He glanced at the desk, where a stack of pages sat next to Nina’s laptop: the proofs for the second volume of her tales of discovery.
‘It won’t be much more than a footnote, though.’ She leaned forward, feeling deflated. ‘And I’d much rather be doing something new instead of just writing about what I’ve already done. Although I started by finding Atlantis, and finished by finding the Ark of the Covenant! It’ll be hard to top that.’
‘Who says you’re finished?’ Eddie objected. ‘And you don’t ha
ve to do something massive and world-changing. You can still do something that’s important to you.’
‘I suppose. I’ve got no idea what, though.’
‘You’ll think of something,’ he assured her. ‘Besides, it’s not like you haven’t got other stuff to do. There’s Macy, for a start.’
He could tell from the way Nina stiffened that she had not taken the remark as he’d intended. ‘Yeah, I’ve got Macy,’ she said tersely. ‘You get to go and explore Atlantis, while I’m stuck here picking her up from playgroup!’
‘I would gladly have stayed here if you’d had your dive certificate.’
‘That’s not the point! You’ve gone off to do other things before – you’ve got your consultancy work for your army buddy’s company, and there was that business in the Canary Isles last year.’
‘Someone needed my help,’ he protested.
‘And what if I’d needed your help? Or Macy?’
He held up his hands. ‘Why’re you getting mad at me? I’ve only been back five minutes.’
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I think yesterday made me realise how long it’s been since I actually went into the field and did some, y’know, archaeology. Being stuck at a computer writing books about it isn’t the same.’
‘It helps pay the bills, though. And there’s the film coming up; you might be able to blag a trip off the back of that.’
‘Oh, the film!’ she said, keen to change the subject. ‘I just remembered, I got an email from Marvin.’ Marvin Bronze was the producer of the movie based on Nina’s book, and the business partner of their friend Grant Thorn, Hollywood action star. ‘They’re having the premiere here in New York next month. He sent us an invitation.’
‘Tchah!’ Eddie exclaimed in mock outrage. ‘I was hoping we’d get an all-expenses-paid trip to LA!’
‘I haven’t replied yet. We’d have to fix up a babysitter for Macy. It runs quite late.’
‘I keep telling you, we should ask my niece while she’s over here. She loves Macy, I’m sure she’d look after her.’
Nina smiled. ‘Wait, you mean . . . we might actually be able to have a grown-ups’ night out on our own? Although if we’re going to see a Grant Thorn movie, I don’t know if “grown-up” is the right term. I mean, they didn’t even use the title of my book.’ She gestured at a framed print of its cover above the desk, the words In Search of History and her name superimposed over an atmospheric photograph of a golden statue on the seabed. ‘The Hunt for Atlantis? It’s not exactly subtle.’
‘They’ll have changed a load of other stuff too,’ said her husband. ‘It’s Hollywood; they always do. They’re not even using our names for the main characters.’
‘Which makes me nervous from the get-go. They can have them do anything and we can’t complain about it, because they’re technically not us.’
Macy returned with more pictures. ‘Oh, what are these?’ her father asked. ‘Are these fish too? They’re really good!’ He looked back at Nina as he perused the crayoned artworks. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. Grant’s a big star, and Marvin’s a successful producer. They know what they’re doing.’
‘I know,’ she said, trying to reassure herself. ‘I just hope they didn’t change too much . . .’
A month later, Nina had her answer.
‘That was,’ she hissed to Eddie as the credits began to roll to teen-friendly rock music, ‘the biggest pile of . . . of shit I have ever seen!’ As the other audience members applauded, she hurriedly stood and headed for the aisle, pulling her husband after her.
Eddie grinned. ‘See, you do swear loads more than me now. I really enjoyed it, myself. Didn’t like that they changed me into an American, but that’s Hollywood for you.’
‘You liked it? It was . . . it was idiotic! It was even more ridiculous than Grant’s stupid car movies, and I didn’t think that was possible. At the end, when they jump out of the jet without parachutes? There’s no way they could have survived!’
‘We actually did that,’ Eddie pointed out as they exited the auditorium and started down the stairs to the lobby.
She glared at him. ‘Yes, but – but it didn’t happen that way. Then there was that ludicrous action sequence where you – I mean Jason Mach’ – a snort of contempt – ‘steals a train and chases after me, or rather Eden Crest?’
‘That happened too.’
‘Shut up! And Eden Crest, what the hell kind of a name is that? Sounds like an environmentally friendly toothpaste. Also,’ a deeper scowl, ‘I really hated that they made you into the perfect hero and turned me into the damsel in distress who always needed rescuing.’
‘Yeah, I wasn’t keen on that either,’ he admitted. ‘Hopefully they’ll fix it in the sequel. You should have a word with Grant at the after-party.’
‘I don’t want to go to the after-party,’ she protested. ‘I just want to get home and see my little girl.’
‘After all that time you kept saying how great it’d be to finally have a night out without Macy, now you can’t wait to get back to her?’
‘This wasn’t what I had in mind.’
Before he could ask what she did have in mind, they’d passed through the lobby doors – and Nina stopped in her tracks. Many of the members of the press attending the premiere had made a beeline for the foyer to catch the celebrity guests as they emerged. ‘Oh God,’ she moaned. ‘Please don’t let anyone ask me what I thought of it.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I accepted that clause in the contract about not publicly bad-mouthing the movie. Marvin might seem friendly, but I bet he’d slap me with a lawsuit in three seconds flat if I told a reporter what I really thought about it.’
‘I can say whatever I want, though,’ said Eddie. ‘I didn’t sign any contract.’
‘Yeah, but you liked the damn thing!’
He squeezed her to him as more audience members thronged past them into the foyer. ‘Come on, love. It wasn’t that bad. And it’s a Hollywood action movie! What did you expect?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know. I guess I’d hoped it would be more like Gorillas in the Mist than some pulp mash-up of James Bond and Indiana Jones!’
Eddie laughed. ‘You do remember all the stuff we’ve been through, don’t you? Like how we first met? I pulled you out of a car at the bottom of a river!’
‘I could hardly forget it. Although a lot of it, I’m still trying really hard to.’ Her expression became serious, even downcast. ‘To be honest, I almost walked out right at the beginning. That opening, where Eden Crest’s parents were murdered just as they found a clue leading to Atlantis? It hit way too close to home.’
‘That’s what was bothering you?’ he asked with sympathetic concern.
Nina nodded. ‘It’s not just that it was a dumb movie. It was a dumb movie that used my life for plot points – it took the worst thing that ever happened to me and reduced it to a way to get a character the audience’s sympathy. It . . . it hurt, you know? My parents were all I had, and that scene brought back how it felt when I lost them.’
Eddie was silent for a moment, then took her hand. ‘You’re right, we should go home. Macy’s probably still up waiting for us.’
‘I told Holly to put her to bed at seven.’
‘Macy never goes to sleep at seven for us; why would Holly do any better?’
They turned to leave – only for Grant Thorn to hurry across the lobby to intercept them. ‘Hey, there you are!’ drawled the Californian, looking sharp in a tuxedo. ‘I was hoping to catch you. What did you think of the movie?’
Nina was about to let him know her true feelings, but the sight of Marvin Bronze and several journalists arriving in his wake – as well as the actor’s puppy-like expectancy – persuaded her to be more diplomatic. ‘It was . . . interesting,’ she managed.
‘Guys, this is Dr Nina Wilde,’ Marvin said exuberantly to the reporters, ‘the author of the book the movie’s based on. You wanna find an ancient legend, you call her! She discovered Atlantis, King Arthur’s tomb, even the Lost Ark of the Covenant. That was a few years back, though, so Nina: what’ve you done for us lately? Joke,’ the tanned little man added on seeing her startled expression. ‘So, how much did you love the movie?’
The redhead recovered her composure. ‘Well, you changed a lot from my book, which was what actually happened, but it was all still very . . . exciting.’
Marvin chuckled. ‘You didn’t tell us everything, did you? All classified, very hush-hush,’ he clarified for the journalists. ‘We had to fill in some of the details ourselves. But we stayed with the spirit of the story, didn’t we?’
‘Insofar as Atlantis was being hunted for, yes . . .’
‘You did a great job,’ said Eddie, stepping in to save his wife. ‘Some of the story was different from real life, but you can’t have too many explosions, right?’ A couple of chuckles from the group. ‘But I just had a message from our babysitter saying our little girl’s missing her mum and dad—’
‘Mom,’ Nina corrected automatically.
‘—so we need to get moving. Family comes first, right?’
‘Aw, man, that’s a shame,’ said Grant. ‘You’re not coming to the party? We got celebrities there, Masta Thugg’s gonna do a set . . .’
‘Afraid not.’ Nina had rolled her eyes during the movie when she saw that Matt Trulli had been replaced by a wisecracking fictional character played by an American rapper. ‘We have to get back to Macy.’
The name caught Grant off-guard. ‘Macy. How . . . how is she?’
‘She’s great, thanks. She’s three now.’
‘Three! Man, has it been that long?’ He seemed about to add something, but then eyed the recording devices nearby. ‘I’m happy for you guys. And, y’know, calling her . . . It would have meant a lot to her.’ Nina and Eddie’s daughter had been named in memory of their friend, and Grant’s girlfriend, Macy Sharif, who had died trying to prevent a group of Nazi war criminals from finding the secret of eternal youth.
The Midas Legacy (Wilde/Chase 12) Page 5