was all very good to say that, I had absolutely no idea of what to do about it. Brian might be keeping his eyes open for identity theft, but he was purely in denial about Tony. It was up to me.
I might be able to fight, but I couldn’t find an enemy to attack. And my fighting skills were theoretical, at best.
I had brains, but Tony was at least my match. Probably a lot smarter, and he had an agenda, which now looked like it had been planned over the past four years.
Hell’s bells, chica. You’re starting to make me scared. You’re acting like you’re weak, that you’re not up to the task. What would you say if someone—not you—called you weak, ineffectual?
I’d tell them to get stuffed.
Right. So, what else did I have?
A mortgage. The love of a good man, even if he wasn’t on the same page as me. A more than passing familiarity with the local constabulary. A burgeoning interest in criminalistics.
Not bad…keep going.
A kickass collection of reference material. Degrees with honors from a couple of prestigious universities. Tenure.
There you go. That’s a lot, right there.
Oh, yeah, maybe for when they ask me to submit to Who’s Who. But how am I supposed to make archaeology work for me—?
I hadn’t even finished that thought when the answer came to me so suddenly that I had to sit down.
It’s just what I’m always telling people: I reconstruct things that happened in the past. If I can’t figure out where Tony is now, I can start from the last time I definitely saw him.
Penitence Point.
I had been staring at my blank computer screen when the thought first hit, and now it was like watching a movie of the events that dark afternoon so long ago. I watched, up to my waist in freezing water, body broken and bruised, as Tony fled into a storm with a bag, probably bags, of gold. Later, the wreck of that motor boat had been discovered and Tony presumed lost, but there was also a missing sailboat from a nearby marina. The authorities, rightly having no other evidence to go on, couldn’t assume that there was a connection, but I had always believed I knew better. Tony had survived the storm and had headed for parts unknown.
This was nothing new, my balloon-bursting internal editor reminded me. You still don’t have anything to work with.
I do. I never thought to try and follow him from that point, so to speak. I had been too easily reassured that he was gone for good and life had taken over from there.
I look for clues to events that happened centuries ago. Now I’m going to see how good I am at tracing a four-year-old trail.
I dumped the cat unceremoniously onto the floor. Right, Brian says he wants evidence, wants to get some solid evidence? Me too. Time to cross some names off the list.
I got in the car and headed for campus. Every once and a while, when my concentration slipped and I remembered what I was actually doing, the knot in my stomach tightened unbearably. It was no surprise that I’d found it difficult to eat over the summer, and I couldn’t plead the heat as an excuse, even. I’d made a bit of progress while on vacation, when everything seemed unreal and I could pretend that I wasn’t coming home to real life and anxiety. If one more person told me how great I looked, that I’d lost so much weight, I’d kill them. Weight loss sometimes seems to be the only hallmark of good looks in this society. It’s not even near the best one, not when combined with bags under eyes and short temper. I didn’t like feeling like this, and didn’t like knowing that my disturbed state of mind was starting to affect me physically.
I found a parking space readily enough, and headed down the main path on the quad toward a group of buildings I usually had no business with. Actually took pains to avoid, truth be told, for what they represented to me, not just with that business last semester, but in general.
A knot of young men stood outside the frat house, and seeing me, a couple of them gazed frankly, no trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness on their faces. I could have chalked it up to basic male chemistry—a tolerably fit, unmistakably well-endowed, nearly youngish woman in shorts and a T-shirt might reasonably expect a few glances—but they didn’t turn