It was not a far leap from the notion of an untimely death to all she’d been pondering related to Joe Petrosino, and then to her Joe. Lauren hadn’t seen him since Christmas. They’d spoken on the phone since she returned from Newport, but there was a strain to the conversation. She could tell he was deeply troubled by something at work, but he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Keeping secrets was part of his job. But not the worst part.
With Greta’s story of Adelina Petrosino fresh in Lauren’s mind, she acknowledged that her own Joe’s life could be cut short anytime, and the days he had left belonged to the NYPD and the cityof New York for as long as he was a detective. That was a hard truth to live with.
But living without Joe, when they loved each other, seemed a criminal waste of time. After all, what relationship didnotpose a risk? There was no guarantee for anyone’s number of days under the sun. Death was a part of life, and no one could predict its coming. “Died untimely” could happen to anyone.
Loving Joe would mean bracing herself every day for the possibility of losing him. Unless she could figure out a way to live without surrendering to dread and fear.
Wind whipped the hair from her pins and brought water to her eyes. Putting her back to its chilling blast, she headed back inside the museum. Whatever she needed to resolve in her mind and heart could not be done on a ten-minute break anyway.
Smoothing her hair back into place, Lauren couldn’t resist a quick visit to Hetsumina’s coffin in the New Accessions room. Less than a week ago, she’d been here with Sal and Greta, confiding that she hoped to find the twin. Joe’s parents had expressed more interest in all things Egypt than Lauren had ever expected. She smiled to think that now Greta owned a piece of antiquity herself, thanks to her father’s Napoleon Society.
Her smile faltered, however, the more she thought of that horse-and-rider carving. Something had struck her as slightly off that morning, but Lauren hadn’t been able to determine what.
But now...
The provenance. The provenance had identified the carving as being from the fifteenth or sixteenth dynasty. Was that right? When had Hyksos introduced horses from Asia into Egypt?
Five minutes later, she was in her basement office, looking it up in a textbook she’d kept from her studies at the University of Chicago. According to Dr. Breasted’sA History of Egypt from the Earlier Times to the Persian Conquest, Hyksos brought horses to Egypt in the seventeenth or eighteenth dynasty, which meant that carving couldn’t have been produced before then.
She rubbed at a swelling headache. Maybe she’d misremembered the date on the provenance. Or possibly it was a typographical error. She had to be certain but didn’t want to alarm Greta or Sal, especially given that Sal had been swindled before.
Surely she was being paranoid. That artifact had come from the Napoleon Society, after all, and they procured items directly from Egypt. Then again, Ray Moretti’s papyrus had obviously been forged before crossing the ocean.
Picking up the telephone, she asked the operator for Joe's exchange at police headquarters.
“Lauren? Is everything okay?” His tone was distant and preoccupied, and suddenly she felt as though she were intruding.
“I’m fine,” she told him, deciding to get straight to the point, “but I need to see that carving of your mother’s along with the provenance. The sooner the better.”
He paused long enough for her to wonder if they’d lost connection. At last, he spoke. “Don’t tell me my father lost another sum of the family’s money by buying a fake from the Napoleon Society.”
Lauren bristled in defense of the father she’d been so quick to mistrust last week. Hadn’t she promised she’d never jump to conclusions again?
“I don’t know,” she replied truthfully. “That’s why I need to see it. I want to check the dates again.” Dread coiled in her middle. “Can we meet somewhere?”
“I’ll come to you,” he said, but the words were more weary than warm. “I’ve got some things to take care of first. I’ll be at the Beresford sometime after dinner.”
She agreed to the plan, hung up the phone, and breathed deeply to calm her nerves.
If something was wrong with the horse and rider, it wouldn’t be her father’s fault. He’d find a way to make it right with the Caravellos, of course, and yet it would be another stain on his society.
After work, the hours piled up until “sometime after dinner” seemed as though it would never come. But he’d warned her aboutthis. Here was a chance to practice taking his delay or cancellation in stride. When the clock struck ten, she gave up waiting, changed into her pajamas, and braided her hair into a loose plait for the night.
The knock finally came at a quarter past ten. Lauren wrapped a robe around her, resolving not to ask where he’d been as she rushed to open the door.
“I got here as soon as I could,” he said. Half-moon shadows hung beneath his eyes.
After closing the door behind him, she stepped into his open arms, then quickly stepped back again, nose wrinkling. “Why do I smell gin?”
Joe rubbed his jaw, which was in need of a shave. “I was working on a case, and that’s all I can tell you. Trust me.”
She folded her arms over her robe and felt a small distance wedge between them. She would have to get used to this part of his job as well. It would be a challenge since Lauren’s inquisitive mind wanted to know everything there was to know about the subjects that interested her.
And she was more than interested in Joe Caravello.
“I wasn’t drinking,” he added, “but I had to get close to those who were.”
“How close?”
