Unknown Enemy (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Michelle Karl

  Mr. Wehbe flicked his hand at the front door. “Saturday mornings usually are. We have several community groups coming through later and I assure you, it won’t be quiet once they arrive. Please, right this way.”

  They entered the curator’s office, where Dr. Hilden waited. Photographs spread across the table showed off the now-decimated tablets in their whole form. Dr. Hilden paged through a packet of papers, a frown on his wide face. Ginny’s insides tightened.

  “Professor Anderson,” he said without looking up, “the curator filled me in regarding the disturbing news about the tablets. Is it true that they’ve been destroyed?”

  Ginny sat, swallowing the lump in her throat that had been there since the moment she’d held the crumbled clay in her hands. “Yes. They’re gone. I hadn’t expected them to be returned to us anytime soon, but I’d rather they hadn’t shown up at all than for them to be returned in pieces.”

  “And you believe that whoever destroyed them, their intent was malicious?”

  Ginny almost laughed at the ludicrous question. “I can’t see how it could be construed otherwise. They were tossed into my office through the window. With the bag on fire. And there were bullets inside.”

  “What?” Mr. Wehbe blinked rapidly. “You could have been killed!”

  “Not exactly, but it appears that was part of the intention,” Colin said. “The rest of it was pure arrogance. There was no need to destroy the artifacts, but someone who believes they’re going to get away with everything would likely see it as one more blow to Ginny’s research and a way to get inside her head, shake her up even more and force her to back off in the event that the bullets didn’t kill her. Without the stolen tablets in our enemy’s hands, we have no real way of tracing the theft, either.” He held his hands up when Mr. Wehbe and Dr. Hilden looked his way. “Sorry. Staying out of it now.”

  Ginny took a deep breath and plunged forward. “I understand we’ll have to take extreme care in how we explain this to Amar, but we have the dig site photographs and my report. I have hope that this is not a complete loss. If we get one or two peers to agree with my supposition, I think we can apply for a dig permit for the site. We might even be able to send a team over by the end of the year. Perhaps over Christmas break.”

  “Wonderful,” the curator said, clapping his hands together. Relief washed over Ginny. Her relief lasted only a moment, until she saw the scowl on Dr. Hilden’s face.

  “So soon?” Dr. Hilden set down the stack of papers he’d been paging through and crossed his arms. “Dig permits. A bit premature, don’t you think?”

  Mr. Wehbe tut-tutted. “Not at all, and certainly not impossible with your support and advocacy with the Amaran government. If she can obtain validation and additional support from several peers—”

  “She hasn’t proven anything.”

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Mr. Wehbe said as Ginny’s heart began to sink. “We’re here to discuss her report on these tablets, the report you’ve been helping her put together thus far. You’ve given no indication that you don’t support her theories on the summer palace’s location.”

  “Her translations are incorrect. This paper cannot be published as it stands.”

  His words sliced like a sword to the gut. How could Dr. Hilden say that? He’d helped with and encouraged her work all week and had shown nothing but enthusiasm this whole time. They’d worked so hard all of yesterday afternoon and evening so that she could prepare this paper over the weekend. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a ridiculous assertion. It cannot be published and the Amaran government will not support it.”

  “I’ve already submitted my abstracts outlining the theory to several prominent publications.” Ginny glanced over her shoulder at Colin, whose impassive gaze had narrowed in on the Amaran representative. “I’m not here for permission to publish, I thought this meeting was to refine my thesis and argument within the paper.”

  Dr. Hilden swept a hand across the table and scooped up the photographs of the tablets. He collected them into a pile and, before Ginny realized his intentions, tore them down the middle. And then into quarters.

  “No!” Ginny lunged across the table to try to grab the pieces, but Dr. Hilden tucked the torn bits into his coat pocket and stood.

  “Retract your abstracts. I will be returning to Amar this afternoon. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Wehbe, Professor Anderson, but I’m afraid that my time is better spent elsewhere. Good day.” He walked around the table and headed to the door. Ginny stared after him in disbelief. Behind her, Mr. Wehbe sputtered in confusion.

  Before the man could exit the room, Colin’s hand shot out and grasped Dr. Hilden’s arm. “Who purchased the land?” he asked, his impassive expression unchanged.

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Hilden’s cheeks grew pink at the question. “What are you on about?”

  “The land that Miss Anderson thinks the summer palace might be buried on. It was recently sold. Who bought it?”

  Dr. Hilden shook his head and wrenched his arm from Colin’s grasp. “How should I know? I’m no soothsayer.”

  “But you work for the government,” Ginny said, rising from her chair. It was as if she saw this whole thing happening through a foggy lens. “And as a government representative on this project, surely you’ve been informed regarding the fate of the land relevant to this work.”

  “That’s where you’re mistaken, Miss Anderson.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Colin snarled.

  Ginny stepped between Colin and Dr. Hilden. This wasn’t supposed to be how it happened. Why had Dr. Hilden changed his mind? “What I think we’re trying to understand is what changed your opinion of our research. If it’s coming from outside pressures, that’s fine, but it would help us to determine where to go from here. As I know you understand, this is a very important project. For Amar, for myself and for history as a whole. Surely you want what’s best for the country and its people.”

  But Dr. Hilden only shook his head, glared past Ginny at Colin and walked out of the room.

  Behind her, Ginny felt Colin lunge forward, but she stepped a few inches to the left to stop him. She blinked back the tears that came from shock. This was no time for an emotional reaction. Only logic would determine what had just happened here.

  “Mr. Wehbe, do you think you could call your contact at the Ashmore Museum? See if they know whom you should contact about Dr. Hilden’s visit to us? Maybe we can get through to someone in Amar’s government or even at the university there. They might have an idea as to why Hilden would change his mind so quickly. There’s got to be some explanation for this.”

  Colin tapped his foot on the floor and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “I’d hazard a guess that it has something to do with that land sale. Maybe it was finalized and he’s upset about it. Maybe access to the land has been denied somehow.”

  “Not if the summer palace is there. There are policies in place that give finds of historical value precedence over any other use of the land, at least until the area’s been dug and a full report has been given. Amar and its policies have always cooperated with UNESCO’s world heritage protection efforts in that regard.”

  Colin grumbled something about trying to get international organizations to cooperate with anything, but Ginny stopped paying attention when she noticed the camera on the other side of the room.

  “Mr. Wehbe, can I use your computer? We loaded the condition-verifying set of digital photos of the tablets onto your computer after taking them, did we not?”

  Mr. Wehbe stood, pulling a set of keys from his desk drawer. The museum curator’s computer was kept in a separate locked room from his main office, for the sole purpose of giving off the impression that the whole museum was, in a nutshell, a piece of history. Having a piece of modern technology sitting in the office tended to dis
courage the atmosphere of days long past.

  Ginny followed the curator into the computer nook, which was about the size of a large supply closet. Several ceramic jugs with tags were lined up along high shelves, and paintings sat with their backs facing out so as to not risk damage to their surfaces. Museum curatorship was a more difficult and arduous job than most people gave it credit for, and she didn’t envy Mr. Wehbe’s work one bit.

  He woke up the computer and clicked around, opening and closing files. After several minutes, he dropped his hand from the mouse. “How strange. I can’t find them.”

  “Check the trash,” Colin suggested, leaning against the entrance to the computer nook. “See if it’s recently been emptied.”

  The curator did so and looked back over his shoulder at Colin. “Twelve hours ago. Before we closed for the evening last night.”

  Ginny closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Who has access to this computer?”

  “Only myself and one or two members of my staff, but they have no interest in this project.”

  “What about the memory card in the camera? Did you clear it?” Colin stepped out into the main office and picked up the camera. He slid the memory card out of the slot and handed it to the curator. “If you didn’t back it up in another way—which you should have, and we’ll talk about that later—maybe the images are still on here. I’d think someone getting rid of the images would have also stolen the memory card instead of leaving it here for us, but maybe they were in a hurry and didn’t see the camera in the corner.”

  The curator inserted the memory card into a card reader plugged into the computer. Within a few minutes, Ginny’s stomachache began to subside. The images were still there.

  “Let’s back these up,” she suggested, taking over as the curator slid aside. “And then lock up the memory card somewhere safe, just in case.”

  It didn’t take long before the three of them were back in the office, the memory card safely locked away and a set of the images backed up in several places. It was a relief to know the history of the tablets hadn’t been completely lost, but Ginny still couldn’t fathom how the curator and Dr. Hilden were going to explain this to the international community.

  “I hate to be the pessimist here,” Colin said, breaking through Ginny’s worries, “but we still have someone on the loose who clearly has an agenda not to see Ginny’s theories brought to light. Based on Dr. Hilden’s reaction when we came in here to discuss her work, I’d say that whoever is behind these attacks and the tablet destruction has also gotten to the Kingdom of Amar’s government. They’re running scared. We need to figure out what’s happening so we know whom to go after. It may not give us all the answers, but we need someplace to start.”

  “You really ought to try keeping yourselves up-to-date,” came a voice from the doorway. Ginny whirled around and immediately cringed, hoping her reaction hadn’t been too obvious. Beverly Dorn stood in the doorway, hands folded across the front of her immaculately tailored blazer and skirt. Ginny swallowed hard at seeing the perfectly coiffed woman stride into the room with confidence. She glanced down at her own wrinkled cotton pants and purple blouse. The tiny coffee stain on the bottom of her blouse hadn’t seemed like a big deal this morning, but standing next to Beverly...and why hadn’t she bothered to run a brush through her hair before tossing it up in a messy half bun?

  Heat rose to her cheeks as Beverly glanced at Ginny with a sidelong gaze. “Professor Anderson, tenure is not so casual a posting. I expected better from someone with your education and publishing record, though I can’t say I’m disappointed. It simply paves an easier path for myself.”

  Ginny swallowed a rude retort that bubbled to the tip of her tongue. This woman was her colleague, no matter how frustrating or annoying she happened to be. “I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with other matters these days.”

  “Someone may have tried to kill Ginny a few hours ago,” Colin added, his words clipped. “So you’ll have to excuse us if we’re not on top of the morning news.”

  “Oh! My apologies.” Beverly’s eyebrows lifted and dropped with feigned repentance. “I’ll let you get on with it, then. Curator, I’m here for our meeting to discuss the upcoming European masters gallery exhibit.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course.” Mr. Wehbe nodded to Ginny and Colin in turn. “You’ll have to excuse us. Please do let me know of any updates. I will do my best to contact the Ashmore and to speak again with Dr. Hilden. Perhaps we can amend the relations there.”

  Colin left the room with a final glare over his shoulder at Beverly, but Ginny remained planted. Beverly clearly had information that Ginny didn’t have and was going to make Ginny beg for it, placing her in the woman’s debt for helping her out.

  Pride told Ginny to get out of there and figure this out on her own, but after the events of the morning, could she really afford to let pride get the better of her? No matter how rude Dr. Dorn acted or how intimidating her appearance, there was more here at stake than personal feelings.

  “Beverly,” Ginny began, her stomach churning once again, “you mentioned there’s been some kind of news update this morning that’s relevant to my work? As I’ve been otherwise occupied dealing with an attempt on my life, would you mind enlightening me to lessen the blow?”

  The woman’s smile was smug and shameless. “Of course, Miss Anderson. The details of the land sale were released today. It’s been sold to Empress Oil.”

  An oil company? The bottom dropped out of Ginny’s world. Oil companies dug and drilled, and if they dug up the land before she’d had a chance to tell the world about the summer palace, it would be lost forever.

  THIRTEEN

  Colin followed Ginny as she stormed out of the curator’s office. Confusion and fury marred her typically serene expression, and he didn’t blame her. He’d verify the reports, of course, but if the land in Amar had been sold to an oil company, they had a whole other set of problems. No wonder the details of the sale had been private; there’d likely have been massive upset over that kind of a sale on potentially historic land. The offer to the Kingdom of Amar’s government must have been a size it couldn’t refuse. As much as it frustrated him to think Amar would accept an offer from an oil company for protected land that potentially housed a massive trove of archaeological history, he couldn’t fault it for accepting an offer that would immediately benefit the country and its infrastructure.

  Ginny had made some fair points on that issue and he was beginning to see her point of view, as unfair as it seemed in the moment.

  At the edge of the museum parking lot, Ginny’s steps faltered. She stumbled and he lunged forward to catch her and guide her to the grassy strip between the edge of the museum driveway and the parking lot. “Take a breather, okay? There’s a lot to process right now.”

  Her breath hitched with each inhale. He sat down next to her on the grass. She tucked her knees up to her chin and plucked at blades of grass by her feet, twining the green strips together in a loose braid. She tossed them into the soft autumn breeze. “I’m spent. I have nothing left. I’m not made for this like you are, Colin. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  He caught her gaze and held it, jolted by an undeniable truth. Virginia Anderson was tenacious and beautiful, intelligent and driven. He liked everything about her, and it was quickly becoming so much more than like. His affection had deepened with everything she said and did, and despite his constant efforts to shove the moment from his memory, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been tempted to replay the moment he’d kissed her over in his mind since the moment his lips had left hers.

  If only they’d met at another time, in another place, under different circumstances.

  A sudden theory formed as he watched her twist more blades of grass together. Would the details of the land sale make a difference? “I want to think that this might end now. That al
l these attacks on you and on the tablets were designed to prevent you from finding out more about the land sale. If you’d known, you might have contacted the Amaran government with proof that the sale shouldn’t go through.”

  She shook her head. “But I had no proof, not really. It wasn’t cohesive until I put my report together. No one would stop a sale of that size without concrete evidence.”

  “But if your work hadn’t been delayed and interrupted by everything that’s happened this week, do you think you might have been able to present concrete evidence?”

  “You mean put together my results and then have someone from the University of Amar head over to do an emergency survey and test pit? It might have been possible, but no guarantee.”

  She let the second grass braid float away on the breeze, but she looked so dejected that his arms rose on instinct, ready to draw her into a comforting hug. Instead, he pulled them back down and sat on his hands. “We should try to contact Dr. Hilden. If he’s had a few minutes to cool off, you might be able to speak to him and get a more logical explanation for his reaction.”

  Ginny nodded. “That’s a good idea. Since it doesn’t look like I’m going to be getting that help for my report, I should contact the University of Amar and let them know about my findings. I don’t know if it’s still possible to send someone out on the land now that it’s sold, but—”

  The soothing tones of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons broke through their discussion.

  “Autumn?” Colin thought he recognized the concerto, and was relieved when Ginny nodded and pulled her phone from her purse. “Ah, a ringtone. How thematically timely.”

  “I don’t recognize the number, but I should get this.” She held the phone up to her ear. “Good afternoon, Virginia Anderson speaking.”