Toad in the Hole (4 page)

T
he atrium’s colored-glass ceiling cast a muted aqua glow on the museum’s polished stone floors.
Snatching Travis’s hand, I pulled him forward.

“What was that about?”

Speed walking, my heart threatened to pump out of my chest. “How much is admission?”

Travis shook loose and stopped. “It’s free.”

Soggy weather turned the museum into a popular attraction. A table in the entrance was stacked with tri-fold brochures, including maps of the exhibitions. Grabbing two, I clutched Travis’s wrist and moved swiftly through a doorway. “We’re being tailed.”

“You wish. Let me guess, Bono spotted you outside and wanted your autograph?”

He could be so flippant. It was a quality that normally made me laugh, but at this moment, I wanted to hose his unhelpful commentary.

“Why are we walking so fast? We didn’t agree where to go first.”

“Our driver was Ahmed Sadid!”

“Is he related to Bono?”

Locating a set of steps, I jogged two at a time, pulling Travis behind me.

“Jesus, Rachael, you don’t honestly believe someone is after you.”

At the top of the vast staircase, I turned to scour the lobby below. I’ve had more than my fair share of experience with peculiar artistic types since freshman year and harbored some paranoid tendencies for avoidance in the categories of stalking and weaponry. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but scanned for any suspicious types. I’d learned the hard way, and now made more of an effort to listen to my gut and distance myself from wackadoodle types.

Travis searched my face. I wasn’t laughing and hadn’t said, “Sucker,” or “Fooled you.” On more than one occasion, he’d accused me of over-reacting and escalating situations. He also knew I was a magnet for trouble. We both peered down the stairs at the people that milled about. There was a group of Asian tourists with a translator who clogged the bottom of the steps. Beyond them a man with a walkie-talkie paced the perimeter walls of the hall.

Grabbing my hand, Travis pulled me away from the landing. His touch sent a jolt through my veins. We neared the China zone: swords, brass pieces, and cases of carved jade. Buzzing past the next room, we scanned a display on Siberia where according to a banner, the largest volcanic event of the past 500 million years had occurred. He slowed to gawk at the minerals on display: gold, zinc, lead. Precious and semi-precious stones were shown with examples of mines and techniques used to unearth the jewels. Rolling a twitchy eye in my direction, he read the placket next to the purple mineral amethyst quartz in its raw form. “The ideal grade is called Deep Siberian.” We both gawked at the dark purple stones set within the oyster pinned against my chest.

“O’Brien, what is it this time?”

Craning my neck, I searched for any sign of Ahmed. I thought it best for us to keep moving. “I don’t know exactly.”

Turning a corner, we stopped in front of Chinese Tang Tomb figures. My breath was erratic in a pre-hyperventilating kind of inhale, exhale.

“Let it rip.”

“Ahmed Sadid. I told you about him last year. I first met him at the Weatherspoon Gallery at school.”

Travis held a blank stare.

“I smoked a hookah with him before food poisoning kicked in from the suspiciously pink Dairy Queen burger I’d eaten earlier that day.”

In a feat of extraterrestrial-esque agility, Travis’s eyes rotated a full three sixty. “When ex-military bartender bird-boy took you to his apartment to seduce you?”

The inner me liked Travis’s interest in Stone’s intentions. With a dramatic huff, as if I’d told him a thousand times, I said, “You know damn well he didn’t take advantage of me.”

When Travis arced his brows, the skin around his eyes softened, making him look serious. In his moment of judgment, his dimples went missing.

“That night,” I mumbled. “When I wasn’t hurling into his toilet, I was too busy pressing my cheeks against floor tile. I was to sick to be seduction material.”

“Why is the Ahmed guy here posing as our driver?”

Analyzing the soaring ceiling, I searched for clarity. “He wants my oyster.”

“Give him the damn thing. We’ll all be better off.”

A protective hand instinctively flew onto my chest. “It was gift from GG. It’s an Asprey.” I checked behind my shoulder and whispered. “I think he suspects there’s something inside. That it’s more than a decorative pin.”

Travis stared, making me feel self-conscious and I tucked wayward hair behind my ear.

“You weren’t bullshitting me at the pub? It has a compartment?”

I’d begun to notice that he had a habit of retaining the not-great details of my mishaps and completely blanked on the important stuff. His strong hand took hold of my elbow. After passing a row of display cases we stopped near an Olmec stone mask. I couldn’t help reading at the informational plate.
The first major civilization in Mexico, the Olmec flourished during Mesoamerica's Formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500 BC to about 400 BC.

“Rachael, quit sightseeing.”

“Sorry.”

“Show me the engraving.”

I unpinned the brooch and held it in my palm. It was like a Rubik’s cube and I had to splay my fingers and press the two large amethysts to open the shell.

He read the inside.

Walzy,

You are my today and my tomorrow

Lost or lonely, you can find your way

54 02 – 01 37

When he looked up, he stuck a finger in his mouth and made a fake vomit noise. “Who’s Walzy? And what are the numbers?”

“GG said it was willed to her by a Mrs. Simpson.”

Normally Travis’s voice was deep, manly, but next to the Olmec mask it squeaked. “Wallis freakin’ Simpson? The American that got tangled in a love romp with…”

I covered Travis’s mouth with my hand. “Shush.”

He continued ranting an octave lower. “The king abdicated for her. This, this pin was a gift to her? From him?”

“Simpson is a common name,” I whispered,

“What did GG say?”

My soggy loafer stitching had begun to unravel and the decorative bow drooped.

Fingers lifted my chin. A dripping “ha, ha” gurgled deep in his throat. “You haven’t told her.”

“My grandmother’s a busy lady.”

His arms crossed and the tap of his foot echoed off the marble floor.

“She travels. A lot. Attends auctions, propagates orchids. I didn’t want to bother her with mundane, unverified assumptions.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“What do you mean?”

He gripped my shoulders and another jolt of warmth rippled down my core. “A Turkish dude has been following you since last year. That’s not normal!”

My voice shrunk “Stone thinks the digits are longitude and latitude. I looked at a map before we left. They pinpoint a castle in the north of England, pretty near to where we’re going.”

A sarcastic gasp-like choking started in the back of Travis’s throat and I became concerned until the noise transformed into uncontrollable laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

His arms flailed in the air. “You! The brooch. A castle. This trip. It’s all so convenient. When were you going to tell me your plan?”

“I’m telling you now.”

His face reddened.

“I’m not feeding you bologna with a side of hooey pie. I’ve tried to ask GG about it, but she’s evasive. Like maybe she knows something and doesn’t want to tell me. I don’t want to offend her and keep asking about it if it makes her sorrowful about her losing her old friend.”

 “Ahmed not only appeared at the Weatherspoon Gallery opening, but as I recall, later at the New Bern charity auction soirée.” His fingers made tracks through his hair and he began to circle me. “He was on the board at the interview that determines the Art History scholarship winner.”

A shudder of over-heated, re-circulated museum air exited my lungs.

Travis dropped the brooch into my hand and I re-fastened it to my tuxedo shirt. His eyes darkened with concern. “He’s offered to buy it. If you don’t sell it to him, he’s going to take it.”

“How’s he going to do that?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

I knew I should’ve told GG about the inscription before the trip. I’d tried to convince myself there just hadn’t been the right moment. The truth was, I adored my newly-found grandmother, especially the way she beamed at me when we were together. The whole oyster-brooch-Walzy thing could have an easy explanation. But down deep, my gut wasn’t sure. On some level, one that I hid from myself, I worried that the oyster could destroy the relationship we’d begun. She was the only family besides my dad that I currently had in my life.

“Rachael.”

I met Travis’s eyes.

“I’ll tell her when we get back.” Doing my best impression of a reassuring smile, I said, “Promise.”

“So where do you think they’d put artifacts from the Crimean War?”

“Why?” Travis growled.

Moving down a corridor, I pondered which direction looked more promising. “Ahmed mentioned it in our brief chat. I think it might give us a clue.”

NOTE TO SELF

The brooch won’t leave me alone. It’s not even that stunning. More like granny jewelry, an oyster shell with the top covered in amethysts. Not even a pearl inside.

T
he
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ady
w
ith
t
he
L
amp

T
here was a rumble of chatter in a distant corner. I checked our backs and Travis double-checked. Walking goofily, he rolled his steps to the outer soles of his feet.

“Are you impersonating the Pink Panther?”

“Do you see the Ahmed dude anywhere?”

“No, I don’t see him.”

We’d hauled ass down the south staircase and passed through the Ancient Egypt collection. We—as in Travis—were briefly distracted by the statue of Ramesses II and the Rosetta Stone before landing in the Middle Eastern wing.

Travis’s stomach grumbled. “I know you and your family are into antiques and history and stuff, but I don’t remember studying the Crimean War. Are you sure artifacts would be here in the Middle Eastern wing?”

I let out a brain dump. “The Crimea is a peninsula on the Black Sea. Ukraine rests just above it and Russia is around the corner. In the mid-eighteen hundreds, Russia had a naval base there. The Turks and the Russians got in a huff over control of the land. Turkey made some concessions to France that pissed off the Russian Tsar Nicholas, and under a muddle meant to preserve the Orthodox Church, all hell broke loose.”

“Rachael, this is crazy. I’ve got my shit together. I go to a top-notch school with a kick-ass basketball team and a cutting-edge science department. I’ve got a bright future.”

“Stop blabbering and get to the point.”

“The point is—I want to study the dead, not become one of them.”

“Maybe I’m overreacting,” One of us had to keep our wits and the more weirded-out Travis acted, the more focused I became.

We passed dozens of glass cases, none of them displaying anything from the Crimean War. Spotting a man in wire-rim glasses and a British Museum emblem on his blazer pocket, I smiled. “Excuse me, I was looking for a display on the Crimean War. Can you tell me where that might be?”

“You’re looking for the lady with the lamp,” he said in a throaty singsong accent.

“The Crimean War,” I said slowly so he could understand my English.

Tilting his head downward, his eyes glared above his wire-rim glasses that indented a red mark on the bridge of his nose. “The Florence Nightingale Museum is a short walk from here. Near the Houses of Parliament, on the grounds of St. Thomas’s hospital.”

“We’re not looking for Florence Nightingale,” Travis said. “We’re looking for artifacts from the Crimean War.”

“Right,” he said briskly. “She nursed the sick during the Crimean War. The museum has the largest documented war display of the period.”

My mind swirled as I processed what he’d said. Under the accent, had I understood him correctly?

Travis swatted my arm. “Florence Nightingale. Of course. Thank you.”

The gentleman in the blazer sneered at us.

“I’m starving and to be honest, freaked. Let’s find a fire exit and get back to the hotel in a taxi.”

“After we go the museum.”

“Don’t tell me you think Florence Nightingale was involved with the brooch.”

“I’m not sure.”

NOTE TO SELF

Have an inkling that something about the Crimean War will spark clarity and connect the link between Ahmed and the brooch. Regardless, I’ll spill the beans about the engraving inside the brooch to GG. Not that I have a choice. Travis knows and it’s not likely that he’d let that conversation slide.

D
eeds
o
f
G
oodwill
a
nd Knavery

L
ondon’s streets were puddled,
but the rain had let up for now. We were pretty sure we exited from both of the museums, unnoticed, and as fear submersed, hunger had gained the upper hand. Tucked into the far corner of a busy pub, we eyed menus posted behind the bar. That is, I stared at the menu while Travis stared at my chest. Easing my shoulders back, I pretended not to notice while the inner me meowed.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“You’re staring at my chest.”

“I just glanced at the brooch.”

“I can tell the difference. Have you decided?”

Making a show of examining the menu, he said, “Ploughman’s lunch.”

“I’m having the Bedfordshire Clanger.”

“Do you know what you’re ordering?” he asked.

“No idea. You?”

“As long as it’s hot, I don’t care what it is. I’m starving.”

Standing with my back arched, I lingered at our table and tilted my left shoulder down, accentuating my chest. “Anything to drink?”