The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(38)

You have no idea how dark, or how true, my dear.

“Well, Dr. Marin, since you have all the insights, do you know who wrote the blasted thing?”

She leaned back against the desk, arms crossed over her chest. “No. Your guess is as good as mine. The castle drawing, though, has always looked like a doodle to me. Like someone was drawing a view, not putting it in the manuscript on purpose. Or maybe we’re all wrong, and it’s the signature of the writer.” She shrugged. “Another mystery surrounding the manuscript.”

Roman stared at page 74. He had only a moment before she turned it over and gathered the loose pages very carefully together and slid them into a soft folder. He couldn’t wait to tell Radu, couldn’t wait to have the pages in his keeping.

“Make me a copy of these pages. I need to study them.”

Something in Dr. Bruce’s voice made gooseflesh rise on Isabella’s arms. His voice was too harsh, too intense, and he was standing too close, staring at her as if he was going to—what? She didn’t know, but she suddenly felt a bolt of fear and knew she didn’t want to be alone with him for another minute. Even if he was an expert and a friend of Persy’s, only an odd man, she still wanted to get away from him. Time to get him out of here. She straightened and closed the folder, took a step back.

Roman cursed to himself. He’d alarmed her, been too preemptory, sounded peculiar, obsessive. But he knew these pages were exactly what he needed—he knew it to his soul. He wanted desperately to touch them, to remove the protective casing and feel the gall ink under his fingers. There was blood in the ink, he was sure of it, mixed in with the berries. The blood of his ancestors, and their blood was calling, calling to him over endless expanse of time. He could almost hear their voices.

Roman could see her edging away, her beautiful face now set and pale. Had he said it aloud? His breath was coming faster. Her scent, her blood, the pages—get a hold of yourself!

He straightened, tried to look benign and a bit befuddled. “Forgive me, Dr. Marin. I’m overexcited by this incredible find. I would greatly like to study these pages. Perhaps I could lend my expertise, and together we could—”

Isabella shook her head. “I’m sorry, Dr. Bruce, but we’re not ready to free them into the wild just yet. No one is allowed to remove even the most simple facsimile of these papers from the museum. Not even me.”

“When will you go on your twin search?”

“I begin in earnest tomorrow.” Why had he asked? Again, she felt that tingling fear. Could he have stolen the manuscript? Could her plan have worked so quickly? No, surely not. He was simply an overeager scholar. Still, she hugged the folder to her chest. “Dr. Wynn-Jones asked me to show you the pages, Dr. Bruce, as a courtesy, but now I’m afraid I have to get back to work. Thank you for your interest. Good day.”

Roman pulled on his Dr. Laurence Bruce self again, all deprecating smiles, as unthreatening as a puppy. “It was wonderful for you to take the time, Dr. Marin, thank you. I’ll be keeping close tabs on you so I can share in your achievement when you publish. Congratulations.”

And he left the room.

Isabella stood frozen a moment, then calmed herself. She’d overreacted. She was walking a dangerous line and was going to see thieves and crooks in every face until the true criminal came for her. Still, she put the folder with the facsimile of the quires back into Persy’s safe, then grabbed her things. She wanted to leave, to clear her head.

“Phyllis, I’m going to head home early. I’ve overdone it today, I think, and I have a headache. Tell Persy I’ll see him bright and early tomorrow morning, will you?”

Phyllis wasn’t stupid. She saw something was wrong. Had Dr. Bruce said something? No, no, not possible. Dr. Bruce was a sweetheart, the prototypical absentminded scholar. She patted Isabella’s hand. “It’s been indeed a wild day for you. You deserve a nice dinner, maybe some champagne, too. Celebrate, Dr. Marin. You’re going to be even busier from here on out.”

“I hope so, Phyllis. See you later”—and she was out the door and racing up the stairs to her own office one floor above. She closed and locked her office door, opened her safe, much smaller and less grand than her boss’s, and from it, she lifted out the real pages wrapped in soft linen and put them carefully into her backpack. She hadn’t lied to Dr. Bruce. No one was supposed to take the quire from the museum. And as far as anyone knew, the originals were in Dr. Wynn-Jones’s safe. She couldn’t be separated from the pages.

She realized she did now have a headache. Too much stress and, yes, fear, all catching up with her. Still, she felt the remembered excitement of her very first press conference, remembered every fluent lie she’d told. It was probably online for all the world to see, and she was at center stage. And wasn’t that something? She thought of her mother, her small, delicate mother, who’d died only last year, the cancer taking her so very quickly. In her will, she’d requested Isabella to sell or donate everything she’d owned.

Except for the pages. And that’s where the precious quire and page 74 had really been hidden, not in the ridiculous British Museum but buried in her mother’s garden. She knew her mother hadn’t wanted her near the pages, but still, she’d obviously felt compelled to tell her daughter where she’d buried them. Why? So she could make up her own mind what to do with them.