CHAPTER
1
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1925
Dead people were easy to talk to. It was the living ones that often gave Lauren trouble. Even her father.
No. Especially him.
Rolling her shoulders back, she headed toward the Central Park bench where he waited. At seventy years old, he’d diminished from the giant he’d been to her in childhood. And like the giants in her storybooks, her father had been just as fabled. Outsized in her heart and mind and not quite real.
Bridles jangled on a pair of horses pulling a carriage full of tourists. Lauren watched it pass, then crossed to the lawn spreading from the Egyptian obelisk erected by her employer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lawrence Westlake stood to greet her. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
She wouldn’t stay long. “You said there was something specific you wanted to ask me?” She sat on the opposite end of the bench from him, near a barrel sprouting orange chrysanthemums. Behind the obelisk, trees flamed with autumn’s glory beneath an azure sky.
He lowered himself to the bench. “There is. But first, how are you? How is your work?”
“Busy as ever. We’re expecting another shipment of crates fromthe team in the field any day now.” As assistant curator of Egyptian art, with the curator on an expedition, Lauren was doing the work of at least two people until the team’s return next spring.
“Anything exciting?” Lawrence’s eyes glinted. From a nearby pushcart, the smell of roasted pumpkin seeds and apple cider carried on the breeze.
After a quick glance at her watch, Lauren told him about the most recent mummy and coffin to arrive and felt herself relax. Lawrence Westlake might not have been the best father, but he’d been the one to instill in her a love for Egyptology. Aside from the curator, Albert Lythgoe, and the expedition director, Herbert Winlock, she couldn’t think of anyone else who might share her enthusiasm for the nuances of ancient Egyptian artifacts.
“I’m proud of you.” His smile brought a gentle tapping on the wall she’d built around her heart. Then he pulled a photograph from inside his jacket pocket. “Look what I found.”
Lauren took it and stared at the little girl in the photo, standing as close to the man beside her as he would allow. It had been taken twenty-seven years ago. She’d been five years old.
“How small you were,” Lawrence murmured. “Do you remember that day?”
“Of course.” She recalled every detail. Someone from a geographical society had come to their home to photograph Lawrence before one of his many trips. Lauren had pestered to be in one of the photos, and they’d finally appeased her. She’d wanted to sit on her father’s lap but hadn’t been brave enough to do more than hold his hand.
She fingered the torn corner of the image. “Do you rememberthisday?”
He frowned. “When you tore off the corner? It was an accident. Out of character for you since you were always so careful with your things. You treated everything as though it were in a museum even then.”
His expression held no hint that he remembered the circumstances. Lauren had been upset that he was leaving her behind again.Lawrence had tucked the photograph into the front pocket of her dress, saying that she was to keep the picture close, and in that way, they’d always be together.
Lauren had ripped the photo when she yanked it out of her pocket and thrust it back at him. She didn’t want a piece of paper. She wanted him.
“I’m going on another trip,” Lawrence announced above chittering sparrows. “To the field. Come with me.”
Snapping the photo into her handbag, she thought of the times he’d said this to her before. There was always a reason she couldn’t or shouldn’t come after all. But all she said was, “I thought you’d given up traveling.”
“I tried. Staying in one place won’t stick.” A sigh gusted from him as he leaned back against the bench. “How long do I need to do penance for missing your mother’s death?”
But it was thelifehe missed that bothered her most, both before and after her mother died. He didn’t understand that or didn’t want to.
“You had your aunt and uncle and your cousin,” he said. “You and your mother left Chicago to spend every Christmas vacation with them. Staying there after your mother died was best for everyone.”
She hadn’t said a thing about Mother, and still he argued, bringing up feelings and memories she’d rather leave buried. Was it any wonder she hadn’t sought his company during the last four months he’d been living in Manhattan?
Wind teased a strand of hair from Lauren’s chignon, and she tucked it behind her ear. “I don’t want to do this today.”
“It’s time to make good on a promise I made to bring you with me.”
