“No, it’s not okay. And it won’t work for long. Get me that phone so I can talk freely to him, or it won’t work at all.” She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Now both of you get out of here. I have to start to work.” She got to her feet and strode over to the row of leather boxes on the shelf. “Did I tell you how much I hate these boxes? But no more than I hate everything else that happened here.” She took down the box with the skull of the six-year-old girl that she’d set aside in preparation. “Her name is Mila. She has a right to expect my full attention, but instead I’m making her part of this charade.”
“You’ll make it up to her,” Jill said quietly as she got to her feet. “And I believe she wouldn’t mind that she has a role in catching the man who did this to her and her friends. Do you, Eve?”
“No.” Eve opened the box and gazed down at the small, blackened skull. “Very clever, Jill. Just the right thing to say.”
“Not clever. It’s what I feel. From now on, that’s what you’ll get from me.” She headed for the door. “Now I have to get back to my apartment and change. I’m supposed to be back here for that press interview Gideon has set up for this morning.” She smiled as she stopped at the door. “It’s good that you’ll be in the midst of working on a new reconstruction. I’ll be able to be admiring and ask dozens of questions.”
“Not dozens.” Eve was frowning with exasperation. “And I completely forgot about that damn press interview.” Too much had been going on that was more important. “I have to work. Tell Gideon to get everyone in and out within an hour.”
“Don’t worry. It will be just long enough to make me appear to be only another journalist out to get a feature story. Along with trying to convince Zahra that it was Gideon and not me who was behind bringing you here.”
“Zahra’s going to be at the interview?”
“It would surprise me if she wasn’t,” Novak said as he joined Jill at the door. “She seems to be ever present. She’ll want to take some of the media attention away from you and focus it on herself.” He glanced at Jill. “And her agent, Bogani, is still following Jill everywhere she goes.”
“She’s being followed?” Eve frowned. “Why? Just because she’s trying to keep Zahra from swallowing up this village?”
“Interesting question,” Novak said. “I’m looking into it. I’ll see you this evening, Eve.”
Eve turned to Jill as he left the museum. “Why?” she repeated. “Novak may be ‘looking’ into Zahra Kiyani, but I think she’s weird as hell, and I want more than a look. I wouldn’t put anything past her and her ‘food tasters.’”
“Gideon told me about that conversation.” Jill shrugged. “Novak’s ‘looks’ are very thorough. But I agree she’s a piece of work. It seems to run in the family. Remind me to tell you about Kiya and her journal. It’s enlightening.” She lifted her hand in farewell. “I’ll see you at the press interview. You won’t have to suffer through it for too long. Gideon is a master at this kind of bullshit. He was trained from childhood to be head of the Gideon financial empire. This is nothing.”
“No wonder Zahra wanted him as prince consort,” Eve murmured. “Well, all I want is for him to get those reporters and Zahra out of here and let me keep on working.”
“He’ll do it.” Jill turned to leave. “One hour. No more.”
* * *
One hour.
Jill had kept her word, Eve realized, as she watched Gideon whisk the six reporters he’d invited out the door. He’d managed to get them all individual interviews with her that were at least five minutes long, and he hadn’t allowed them to take control or ask her any awkward questions. More important, he’d made Jill just one of the crowd with no special privileges, and Jill had played her part to perfection. She’d been eager, intelligent, and no one would have been able to guess she’d ever met Eve before today.
Then he’d turned the spotlight on Zahra Kiyani and switched the reporters’ focus to her. Thirty minutes of Zahra’s