Uncharted

by Robyn Nyx

  Rayne looked over at Ginn and Tonyck. Tonyck had retaken her seat and they waited, respectfully, for Rayne to pick up the conversation. They’d only been working for her for a little over eighteen months, but they already knew when to keep quiet and not press further. She switched her mind back to Stan Turner and his promise of a lifetime opportunity. If what he’d sent her was genuine. If it was a tiny piece of a large map that could lead her to the Golden Trinity, she’d be foolish not to at least meet him to see what he actually had. On its own, it was nothing. It was a tease, with no intention of delivering anything more substantial. But if he’d somehow managed to discover a complete map and he’d called only her, it wasn’t something she’d be passing on.

  “I’m going to California for a couple of days.” Rayne folded the printed email and slipped it into her handbag.

  Tonyck’s gaze was searching. “Are we coming with?”

  Rayne shook her head. “It might be nothing. I’ll call you if it turns into something.” She called her assistant on the intercom. “Jenny, get me a flight to Los Angeles this afternoon, please. Call Turner and arrange a meeting for tomorrow.” The return flight? Rayne could look in on Chase at Stanford while she was in the area, lawyer’s advice be damned. “I’ll call you from LA to organize a return flight if I need one.” If Turner’s map turned out to be genuine, she’d be heading south of the border immediately.

  “No problem. I’ll send the details to your cell,” Jenny said. “Where would you like to stay?”

  Rayne ran through the list of her favorite city hotels; it was a short list since most of them were pretentious, overpriced, and lackluster. “Book me in at the Vervida.” She recalled her last stay there had included a thank you gift from Kera in the form of a cute butch with a terrible weakness for femmes in extraordinarily high heels. Kera had also provided a pair of killer six-inch Jimmy Choos in leather softer than a baby panda’s butt. Rayne couldn’t have done much walking in them, but the heel fit in the cute butch’s mouth perfectly, as did much of the rest of her over the course of that evening. Maybe when she called Kera later, she’d see if her friend was available tomorrow night. There was no better way to relax after a meeting than with a short-haired woman on her knees.

  “Who’s Turner?”

  Ginn’s question echoed distantly and returned Rayne to the room. “I don’t know yet. Speak to Jenny. She’ll give you the information she has on him so far. See what you can find because we couldn’t find anything of interest.” Rayne pushed out of her chair and picked up her handbag, eager to get home and pack the perfect outfits for the trip. “Email me whatever you unearth. Call me if it’s something I need to prepare myself for before the meeting. Jenny will give you the details when it’s organized.”

  “Be careful,” Tonyck said, her concern evident in the faint lines around her eyes.

  “It’s just a meeting, T.”

  Tonyck let out a short huff of breath the way she did when she doubted something.

  “It’s never just a meeting, lady boss.”

  Rayne touched Tonyck’s shoulder as she passed her. “I’m sure there’s no need for you to worry. I had my tracker checked after Africa. It’s working perfectly. You’ll always know where I am.” She winked, thinking about meeting with Chase. “Unless I don’t want you to know.”

  Tonyck sighed. “We can’t protect you if we don’t know where you are, Rayne.”

  Her serious tone made Rayne smile. It was rather nice having people so concerned for her welfare, even if she was paying them to do so. She stopped as she opened the door and smiled at the twins. “You know I appreciate your anxiety over my safety, but I’ll be fine. I’ll send word on the Batphone if I need your help.”

  Tonyck lifted her water bottle as if to throw it at Rayne. “You’re mocking us. Get out of here.”

  Rayne flashed a smile, closed the door behind her, and turned into a waiting Jenny.

  “Your flight is booked from JFK for two thirty p.m. You land at LAX at a quarter to six. Your usual driver, Adele, will be waiting for you at the gate and will take you directly to Vervida. I’ve sent the tickets to your cell.” She tapped off a series of items on her tablet and looked up. “I’ve booked your regular table at the hotel restaurant for the first two evenings with a hold on it for the following two evenings, should you choose to extend your stay. Chef Michaela will prepare your food personally.”

  Rayne smiled, recalling the last time she’d tasted Chef Michaela’s food, and later, Chef Michaela herself. With the delightful combination of her and the cute butch, that weekend had been a particularly good one.

  “Mr. Turner would like you to join him for lunch tomorrow at two in his penthouse suite at the Rodeo Grande.”

  Rayne raised her eyebrow. A private meeting was standard. That Turner was residing at the Grande indicated he had more means than she and Jenny had given him credit for. Or he was ramping up a horrific credit card bill that he’d be paying off for the next decade. Or he was just a damned fine con artist, and he’d be leaving without paying the bill at all. Rayne wanted to know which scenario she was walking into. “Call the Grande. Check who’s in the penthouse.” She glanced back at her closed office door. G&T wouldn’t be impressed she was having a closed meeting without them present when they hadn’t done a thorough background check. “Let me know as soon as you find out.” If he was a conman, she’d still take the meeting, of course, but she might borrow a bodyguard from Kera for company.

  “Is there anyone else you’d like me to contact for a meeting while you’re in the area?”

  Rayne shook her head. “I’ll look in on Kera Espinosa if I have time, but I’ll call her myself.” She neglected to mention that she might call in on Chase while she was there; she didn’t want her, the twins, or her lawyer knowing about that possibility. And if Kera’s cute little butch friend or Chef Michaela were free, maybe Rayne wouldn’t be tempted to follow through anyway. There seemed little point pursuing a rekindling of their friendship. And yet, the guilt wouldn’t allow Rayne to put it behind her either. Rayne had made her choice a decade ago, and she’d made her fortune since, just as Lauren had predicted. Chase hadn’t let Florida go, and if saving her life didn’t convince her to leave the past behind, Rayne suspected that nothing would.

  Chapter Five

  “I’m sorry, Chase. But we can’t afford to have a shark like Teri Harper coming after us. I need you to cut any reference to Rayne Marcellus or anyone connected with her.”

  Chase rubbed the palm of her hand hard across her forehead. How was it that Rayne was nearly three thousand miles away and still managing to mess with her life? “I don’t understand why, Barry. Every word of the article is true.”

  “Unfortunately, Chase, that’s irrelevant. It’s your word against hers, and you have no proof that Ms. Marcellus was anywhere near Palmyra or Zenobia’s tomb. Our lawyers aren’t budging on this, and the publisher isn’t prepared to take the risk. This isn’t the Washington Post. If you refuse to rewrite the feature, none of it will be printed. It’s that simple.”

  “Fine. I’ll take it out.” Chase hated having to compromise her integrity, but she wanted it published. She wanted to share the photos of Zenobia’s tomb and the 3-D model they’d created at Stanford with more than the student body. “When do you need it by?”

  “End of next week, latest.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “And thank you, Chase. You’ve made the right decision.”

  Barry ended the call before Chase could respond.

  “I doubt that.” The right decision for them to avoid legal action, maybe. Chase scrolled through her phone contacts to Rayne’s office number in New York. She should call and tell her exactly what she thought about her latest stunt. She couldn’t believe Rayne would threaten to sue the magazine. Chase recalled that she’d said as much in Cyprus, but she thought Rayne was bluffing.

  She placed her cell on her desk and turned to the window to enjoy a little summer sunshine. A lone student who had
n’t gone home for the summer trekked across the grass and copped a squat beneath a willow tree. She pulled a book from her backpack and settled against the willow’s trunk, apparently instantly absorbed. Part of her would’ve liked to have been back in their shoes, her whole life in front of her again. She wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting Rayne again, that was for sure. She rocked back in her chair and grabbed her stress ball. Who was she kidding? She’d fall for Rayne’s charm in any parallel universe in any circumstance, no matter how many chances she got to have a do-over. When they met, Rayne was everything Chase felt that she wasn’t: beautiful, intelligent, fascinating. Her self-esteem had improved plenty since Florida, and she now knew her own worth…though she’d never call herself fascinating…or beautiful for that matter. But she was intelligent. And she had a certain appeal to enough women to keep her from being a completely clichéd professor, married to her work and with no time for anything else.

  If she thought about it long enough, and she’d thought about it plenty in the ensuing decade, Rayne had broken something inside her when she’d betrayed Chase and she’d never cared to fix it. She was happy enough, and her work did keep her too busy to have anyone long term in her life, as a lover or a friend; both required more time and attention than she had to give. The only person she always found the time for was Noemie, and since Noemie had joined the army a few years ago, she demanded less attention than she had as a rootless orphan teenager.

  Chase glanced at the picture of Noemie on her desk, taken on the day she passed her basic training. Chase’s pride had been beyond containment on that day. It wasn’t as though Chase raised Noemie—she’d done that herself against all odds—but she’d been there for the past nine years when no one else really had. She’d been a kind of adopted mum, though she would’ve preferred to have been identified as an adopted sister. But that wasn’t what Noemie needed. She needed a parental figure where none had ever been before. The students who asked if Noemie was her little sister always got preferential treatment over those who asked if she was Chase’s daughter. There was only a thirteen-year age gap, for God’s sake.

  Chase’s phone vibrated on her desk with an unknown number. She hated those when Noemie was on active duty. Every unknown number that rang during those times raised an army of ants in her stomach that made her nauseous.

  “Chase Stinsen.”

  “Hi, Chase Stinsen.”

  Think of the devil and she calls. Why did she always address her with her full name? Even Rayne’s telephone voice was smooth enough to…to what? Chase pushed the unfinished sentiment away. “Have you called to gloat? Because if you have—”

  “Whoa, slow down. Gloat about what?” Rayne asked.

  Her surprise sounded genuine enough but that didn’t change the facts.

  “I just got off the phone with the editor at Archeology Today. You won, like always.”

  Rayne sighed. “I did ask you not to include me and my team. My client would’ve sued me if anything had gotten out about their involvement. I know you don’t rate what I do, but I take my client’s privacy very seriously.”

  Chase noted Rayne’s non-gender specific use of a pronoun, just as in Cyprus. Either her client was gender-fluid or more likely, she was being clever enough not to reveal even the slightest detail about them. Whatever Chase thought of Rayne, her professional discretion had always been beyond compromise. It was a shame Chase wasn’t able to say the same about her professional morality. “That’s probably because they’re criminals and would end up in jail if you revealed who they were.” Chase knew she was being inflammatory, but she was damn sore about her article, and Rayne was to blame for all of it.

  “Wow, that’s very judgmental and completely untrue. Well…not completely.”

  There was a playfulness in Rayne’s voice that almost made Chase smile. At least it wasn’t a video call; Chase didn’t want Rayne knowing she could still make her laugh. “I’m mad at you.” She hadn’t intended to be so matter-of-fact about it, and it sounded childish. Rayne had a knack of getting her to say exactly what was on her mind without ever asking directly.

  “Saying it aloud is the first step to getting over it,” Rayne said, sounding like she was making no effort at all to control her amusement.

  “I don’t want to get over it, Rayne. This is my career, my profession. Editing you, the tank twins, and your Cleopatra descendant client out of the story is going to make it impossible to write.” Chase paused. She wouldn’t have a full scan if it hadn’t been for Rayne’s presence and actions. She softened slightly. Rayne could’ve gotten considerable kudos for her inclusion in Chase’s article, had she been able to tell the full story. Maybe Rayne hadn’t acted completely selfishly.

  “I’m sure that whatever you write will be perfect, Chase. You don’t need me in it. You found Zenobia first, and it’s possible that if it hadn’t been for the ISIS patrol, which may or may not have occurred as a result of our presence, you would’ve gotten everything you needed and escaped undetected. Tell that story.”

  That was the closest Chase had ever come to receiving a compliment and a confession from Rayne, and she had enough sins to keep her saying Hail Marys for at least a year. “What have you called for? I’m busy.” She checked the time. “I have a class in five minutes.” It was an obvious lie, and she didn’t care to analyze why she’d felt the need to fabricate a fantasy lecture. Rayne was on the other side of the country and still she affected Chase in ways she didn’t appreciate.

  “Aren’t all your students on summer break?”

  Chase glanced across at the student still beneath the tree. “Some stayed back for extra instruction. What did you call me for?”

  “Teacher’s pets. Do you they bring you shiny red apples? I’d bring you a shiny red apple.”

  “And it’d probably be poisoned. What did you call me for, Rayne?”

  “Ouch. But anyway, I called to invite you to dinner. I’m in Frisco for a meeting about the Golden Trinity. I wanted to talk to you about your article to see if we could come to a compromise, but that’s a moot point now… Still, dinner at the Vervida should be hard to turn down, no?”

  The Golden Trinity? She marveled at the way Rayne dropped that into the conversation as casually as if she were talking about something as everyday as the fog over the Golden Gate Bridge. And the Vervida? Perhaps the most exclusive and sought-after reservation in the city. It cost more to dine there than Chase made in a month. And the cherry on the cake, Rayne had wanted to talk about a compromise?

  “It’s not a moot point. I’d like to hear your thoughts on making the article hang together without a huge chunk of the truth included.” Chase sounded more combative that she’d wanted to. Dinner at a fancy restaurant with an even fancier—perhaps the fanciest—woman was a rare treat. And maybe it would yield a positive spin on her article, which, until Rayne had called, was feeling very daunting.

  “How is it that you manage to make an acceptance sound like a rejection?”

  Chase could hear the amusement in Rayne’s voice again. It wasn’t easy to offend her, though Chase knew exactly how to smash that button if she wanted…and sometimes even when she didn’t, like in Cyprus. “I’m sorry,” Chase said, adopting a formal accent. “I would simply love to dine with you. What time were you thinking?” The sound of Rayne’s free laughter reminded Chase how much she used to love making Rayne giggle just to hear it.

  “How does eight work for you, Madam Chase?” Rayne asked.

  “Perfect.”

  “Shall I send my driver to pick you up?”

  Now it was Chase’s turn to laugh. Rayne had a driver. Chase had a beat-up Chevy truck. “And have you know where I live? I don’t think so. I’ll meet you there.”

  “You think I don’t already know where you live, Chase Stinsen?”

  Rayne hung up before Chase replied. She didn’t know whether Rayne was messing with her or not. It was exactly how she felt Rayne liked her to be—constantly on her toes and unsure of herself.
So why am I meeting her for dinner?

  * * *

  Chase held her tie up while she released her seat belt. She let it go and smoothed it down. There was no way she wanted a pull in this tie. Even in the outlet sale a year ago, it had been an extravagant purchase. It had hung on her tie rack since, waiting for the perfect occasion to warrant a hundred percent mulberry silk appearance. As the Vervida valet tugged on the door of her truck to open it, Chase was confident this was definitely the occasion for her fancy tie.

  She stepped out onto the steaming sidewalk, the unseasonal heat evaporating a quick shower, and left her door open for the valet to climb in after he’d given her a ticket. He looked neither impressed nor hopeful of a decent tip as he struggled to navigate the stick shift, grinding the gears and making everyone look their way. Chase didn’t know whether to be more embarrassed for herself, rocking up to a top-class hotel in a low ride pickup truck, or for him, who was growing redder by the second.

  Chase left him to it and smiled at the doorperson as they opened the door. She couldn’t read their expression, a skill no doubt essential in their line of work, and she tried not to let her sense of not fitting in creep in. She’d been invited, she looked smart enough, and she was meeting one of their guests. Chase belonged here…at least for the next couple of hours.