Page 2 of Luthias

“Why are you writing?” he asked as he came to hover over her and peer at the screen. “You should be doing the data transfer.”

“I finished everything two hours ago.” Emery vaguely gestured at the tidy stack of printouts in the outbox. “Where does the museum keep the fourteenth-century Scottish weapons?”

“On display in the Highlander Exhibit, mostly.” The other intern thumbed through the printouts. “You typed all of them, really?”

“Really.” She put her notebook back in her messenger bag and got up. “How do I get to that exhibit?”

“You go upstairs and follow the signs.” Gordon sighed as he picked up the printouts. “Putting this in the database was supposed to take days, you know. What am I going to do for the rest of the week?”

“Maybe you should clean off your desk.” As Emery went to the door she glanced at the mess. “It looks like a vending machine threw up on it.”

“Hey, I have low blood sugar,” he called after her.

On her way upstairs she passed her supervisor’s office, and smiled at Buc, who was on the phone and gave her a thumbs-up. She stopped a few steps away when she saw a sticky note on the carpet someone had dropped, and bent to pick it up.

“I’ve got something special that just came in,” she heard her supervisor say in a very low voice. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The end is shaped like flames. No, not the blade, the handle or hilt or whatever. It’s from the fourteenth century. Of course it’s verified. Would I call you if it wasn’t?”

Emery slowly straightened and tiptoed back to stand beside the door, hoping to hear more.

Buc’s voice dropped to a whisper as he said, “I’m telling you, a private collector will pay megabucks for this piece. This is the one I can retire on, buddy. Yeah, I can bring it tonight.”

She felt her stomach knot, and absently tucked the note in her pocket before she quickly went down the hall to the elevator. A few minutes later her supervisor came to stand beside her, obviously unaware that she’d eavesdropped on him.

“Did you have dinner yet?” Buc said, and frowned at her. “You look a little pale. Aren’t you feeling well? This is probably a lot to take in. Has George been giving you crap? That kid is such a slacker. Don’t let him make you do all the work.”

“I’m fine, sir.” Emery wondered how many artifacts her new supervisor had stolen and sold to the guy on the phone. The unique sword he’d talked about might even be worth millions. “I need to stretch my legs, so I thought I’d have a look at the Highlander exhibit.”

“You’ll love it,” he predicted. “We ordered reproduction plaids custom-woven in Glasgow as backdrops for the sword displays. I thought we should put those, you know, those skirt things, on the life-size warrior manikins, but apparently these guys didn’t wear them until much later on.”

“Really?” So he was stupid as well as a thief, Emery thought, and followed him into the elevator. “You know so much about history.”

“All part of the job.” He beamed at her. “So what are you planning to do once you finish your degree? Work at someplace nice like the Pelton, I bet.”

Emery shook her head. “I hope to get a position as a forensic anthropologist at an archaeological foundation.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him check his phone, and decided to needle him a little. “If I can’t find an opening I might apply to work for the police or the FBI.”

Buc suddenly choked and coughed, and by the time he finished the elevator doors opened.

“I’m late to a meeting, Audrey, so talk to you later.” He hurried away.

“Not if I see you first,” she muttered under her breath.

Emery considered going to the personnel director and telling her what she’d overheard, but without proof it would be her word against Bill Buchanan’s. As this was her first day she doubted administration would believe her over the assistant curator. While she followed the signs to the Highlander exhibit she wondered if she could find the sword he’d been planning to steal. A blade that old and unique would be virtually priceless, and if she could take photos of it, that would prove it had arrived at the museum. She might even be able to convince the museum staff that Buc was stealing once it disappeared, but by the time the police got involved the sword itself would probably be sold off on the black market.

Yeah, I can bring it tonight, Buc had told the guy on the phone.

A towering figure made Emery stop in her tracks, and she looked up at the fierce features of a scowling warrior manikin. Whoever had constructed the life-size model had done an excellent rendering; from his wig of long, shaggy red hair to his fur-trimmed leather boots he looked as if he had just arrived from the Middle Ages. From what she could see his garments were also historically correct, and the heavy red, gold and black tartan draped over him had a strange, almost menacing diagonal pattern that reminded her of shooting stars against a primordial night sky.

Fourteenth century Scottish Highlander, a small gold plaque beside the giant figure read. Unregistered tartan pattern; attributed to Clan MacRoss.

“MacRoss.” Emery took a step back from the manikin and frowned as she looked him over again. She’d done extensive research on medieval Scottish highlanders, but she’d never heard of a clan by that name. “Maybe they meant the Ross. Does anyone know history around here?”

At any other time she would have wandered blissfully through the exhibit to admire all the swords, daggers, war hammers and shields on display. A part of her wanted to forget what she’d overheard and do that, too. She’d been hired as an intern, not as a security guard.

Still, if she let a sword as special as the one Buc had described be stolen when she could have done something about it, then she might as well be an accomplice. Emery looked up at a display case that had been emptied, and a sign on top of it that said the swords had been temporarily relocated to another exhibit in the Medieval Warfare Wing.

“Of course, they moved them somewhere else before I could see them.” She went still. “Wait. They moved them.”

Emery hurried back down to the underground level, where she found Gordon eating corn chips and watching a surfing video on his computer. She suspected her supervisor wouldn’t have put the blade he intended to steal in his office.