Page 4 of Monsters in the Museum

Chapter two

Nora marched down the hallway at work an hour later than she normally liked to arrive at the office. She clutched a full cup of black coffee in one hand. While her eyelids drooped with exhaustion, she was buoyed by vindication of her normal insistence on not going out on a work night.

When she reached the door to the basement office, she paused with her hand on the knob, looking down the hall to where she’d spotted the strange man the night before. In the bright, florescent lights and the hustle and bustle of her coworkers arriving, it was easy to believe she had imagined him. Still, the image of him frozen in the alley stuck in her mind.

Shaking her head, she pushed into her office to face her workday.

Nora’s morning kept her busy enough that she didn’t have time to ponder the incident beyond a cursory assurance to her officemates that the security breach had been dealt with. Despite feeling exhausted after an eventful night, Nora threw herself into finishing the projects still on her workbench and completing her inventory of all the weapons and artifacts being worked on by her team. She needed to prioritize the restoration of the classical Greek sword and spear due to arrive the following week.

She was torn away from the task of cleaning a twelfth-century longsword by a friendly voice.

“Nora, are you going to take a lunch break, or are you just going to keep plowing through like there is no tomorrow?”

Nora’s coworker, Mandy, stood propped against the edge of her workbench. She folded her arms across her chest, but her thin, dark eyes were full of kindness.

“You should definitely take a lunch break,” Mandy continued. “You look like you’ve been run over by a dump truck.”

“Thank you, Mandy,” Nora said drily. “But haven’t you heard? It’s all the rage. Everybody is trying to look like they just crawled out of a sewer.” She began pulling off the gloves she’d donned to clean the sword and shoved some escaped curls from her face.

Mandy let out a chuckle. “No, I just meant that you seem like you could use a break. Seriously, you were looking really glazed over. You feeling all right?”

Nora shrugged. “I’m fine, just had to come in late last night to deal with that security alert. Didn’t end up getting very much sleep.”

Mandy frowned. “I was hoping you were going to tell me that you had a wild night on the town—or maybe that you went on a date last night.”

“Well, I was actually out celebrating with my sister before work interrupted.”

“Odelle finally manages to drag you out for some laughs, and the first chance you get, you run back to the office.” Mandy pursed her lips in disapproval. “Do you even know how to take a break?”

“I was enjoying myself, but I’ll never pass up an opportunity to get ahead and make a good impression.”

“Get ahead? Nora, you have the department head position in the bag. You don’t have to solve every single problem for everybody.”

Nora shrugged and tugged at the hem of her chunky sweater. It had been knit by her mother, Irina, but despite the exquisite craftsmanship, threads were starting to come loose from years of wear. “I’ve been passed up for opportunities for stupid political reasons before.”

Mandy gave a long-suffering sigh. “Well, they aren’t going to pass you up for a promotion for taking a lunch break. Now go and take your time. I’ll hold down the fort around here.”

Nora gave Mandy a mock salute before pushing her way out of the cramped basement office. She made her way down the narrow hallway to the stairs and climbed up into the museum proper, considering making her way to the cafeteria. It was Tuesday, which meant they’d be serving tacos, and melty queso sounded fantastic to Nora in her exhausted and irritable state.

As she wove through the crowds of visitors milling about, it struck Nora that she hadn’t spent any time in the exhibits while they were open to the public in weeks. She momentarily let herself drift with the crowd toward the section under the banner reading Ancient Arms and Armaments. She made her way past the familiar cases filled with all manner of arrowheads, daggers, and antique revolvers—many of which had been restored by her own careful hands—until she found herself propped in a doorway across from the case containing artifacts originating from Greek and Roman empires.

Nora observed the people milling through the exhibit, and her attention caught on a tall man paused in front of the case containing the hoplite armor. He had been standing there for longer than was typical for the casual museum patron, and the crowds were forced to part and flow around him as if he were a boulder in a stream. Nora pushed off the doorway she had been leaning on and took a step closer to the man. She told herself she was doing her job as a museum worker by answering patron’s questions about artifacts, but something in the set of the man’s shoulders drew her in.

As she stepped up next to the man, she commented, “It’s a fascinating collection, isn’t it?”

Apparently, her attempt at a casual conversation starter was off base because the man started violently. He jumped backward, and his hands flew to his bag as if prepared to draw a weapon of his own. Before Nora could apologize for startling him, however, his wide, russet eyes softened, and the tension in his stance faded.

“I was not expecting you,” the man said, as he smoothed the lapels of his tweed blazer.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” Nora apologized, tilting her head up to meet his eyes, something she wasn’t accustomed to given her stature. “I promise I don’t make a habit of sneaking up on unsuspecting museum patrons. This is a one-time thing.”

The man’s eyes narrowed behind his round glasses, “Museum patrons? Do you work here?”

“I’m one of the weapons experts.”

“Do you happen to be Nora?”

It was Nora’s turn to be startled, and she shifted from foot to foot. “Have we met?”