Unmasked Read online

  When the coffee was done, she took a cup and walked to the window. There was no patio, so the window would have to do. She studied the area of the dig. She could see buildings springing up all over the place. It truly amazed her. And yet, she was afraid to mention it, in case nobody else saw it.

  Chana eventually joined her at the window. “What are you looking at?”

  “The dig,” she murmured. “It’s so easy to imagine the glory of all the buildings as they must have been back then.” She slid a sideways look at her cousin. “What do you see when you look at it?”

  Chana snorted. “I see nothing but a dirt ground with some busted buildings and a gate. Don’t ask me questions like that before breakfast.” And grumpily she headed off to the kitchen to find food.

  But her answer had let Lacey know exactly what Chana could see and couldn’t see. She didn’t see the huge buildings rising up in the midst. She couldn’t see the stones visible, and yet, not visible. She didn’t see the walkways, the streets, the cobblestones, like Lacey did. What she could see was both magical and terrifying.

  She switched her gaze away from the dig site, now studying the rest of the inhabited town around her. But she witnessed no change in this scenery. No other buildings reared up from the streets. No other 3-D holographic buildings loomed atop anything. She looked back to the dig. And there they were still. She gave a happy sigh and just studied it, filling her with the bounty of the world that had been hidden. “Now if only I could capture all that,” she murmured.

  Mark wandered into the kitchen, groggy and unshaven. “Haven’t you done enough picture-taking and drawing for a while? You’ve drawn more images than I’ve seen in a long time.”

  “Drawn?” She turned to look at him. Surprised he knew about them. “Well, I’ve taking a ton of photographs,” she said cautiously.

  “Oh, I thought the drawings in the sketchbook were yours,” he said.

  “Ah, so you know about those.” She groaned. “Yes they are mine.” She returned to looking out over the dig site. She didn’t know how to explain this wonder, and she didn’t want to lose it. It was so fantastic to see that Old World city come alive. She wasn’t really seeing people or movement. More like she’d been an architect in another lifetime and saw the buildings as they had been.

  “Are you coming?”

  Startled, she turned to see Chana with her bag packed, ready to go. Lacey saw the team had all finished eating already. “Wow. I’ve been standing here in a daze?”

  They all nodded.

  She groaned. “Don’t suppose there’s any food to go with us there?”

  Chana frowned. “You didn’t eat?”

  She shook her head. “No. Just daydreaming.” She walked into the kitchen to see an open box of granola bars. She picked up three and opened one, eating it as she walked with the others. “You’re so lucky that you’ve been working here all this time,” she said impulsively to her cousin. “It must have been quite the experience.”

  Chana was in a less-than-jovial mood though. “Yes. But, like any job, it becomes a tedious chore after a while.”

  That, of course, wasn’t the way Lacey viewed it. But she was wise enough to keep her comments to herself.

  As they walked across the street, she stared up at the dig and gasped, seeing the open gate, the walls rising high above on either side, showcasing the buildings behind it. Just the vast size of the former city was amazing.

  Chana looked at her curiously. “You know it’s the same as it always is? You’ve been here several days now. I thought some of that awestruckness would have worn off.”

  Lacey deliberately tried to pull in her enthusiasm again. “Sorry. I guess I sound pretty pathetic to you.”

  “No, … I’m sorry. I’m just in a bitchy mood this morning,” Chana said. “Didn’t sleep well.”

  “Trouble with Tom?”

  Chana shot her a look and sped up. Tom was a nonsubject as far as Chana was concerned.

  At the site, Chana peeled off from the group and went to her corner, leaving Lacey feeling like she’d upset her cousin in some way. She wanted to apologize but figured, for the moment, it was better to stay quiet.

  She unpacked her camera and started with more panoramic pictures. She didn’t know why she felt compelled every day to take these broad landscape pictures, but it was like seeing minuscule progress, the weather change, the time of day change. It gave a snapshot look at life on this dig. As she checked the others, they were all much less than cheerful. As if something ugly had happened at the apartment that she’d missed.

  She caught Katie walking alone to where the packing boxes were and asked, “Did I miss something? Everybody seems to be a little grumpy this morning.”

  Katie chuckled. “Nah, they’re just jealous.”

  “Jealous of what?” Lacey asked.

  “You,” Katie said. “You appear to have bonded very well with the boss. Even though you just got here, you have a closer relationship with him than everybody else, and it’s making others feel a little uneasy.” She turned and walked away, picking up some tools on her way to where she’d been working.

  Hearing her own worries spoken out loud, and much faster than she had expected, Lacey didn’t know what to do. Would it help or hurt to let them know Hunter had been with them last night? She decided it would make it worse so stayed quiet.

  It was one thing to bury herself in work, but now she felt like she couldn’t even connect with the other people on the team. She really didn’t have any connection with the boss, at least not one she had tried to create. It all had to do with her drawings of her visions.

  But nobody knew that. And, even if they did, would that make them feel better or worse about her? Would they think she was making it up to be grandiose and to get more attention? That thought was enough to make her sick.

  She worked on the items on the table Katie had left out for Lacey to photograph. When she was done, she put away her camera gear, but Katie came back.

  “Just hang on a sec, Lacey. Let me ID them. We’ll take photos again. Then it can be packed up and sent out.”

  Lacey waited silently while Katie put everything in bags and wrote down the identification number on them. And Lacey photographed them all again while Katie packed up the box. When they were done, Katie smiled breezily and said, “Well, that’s one job out of the way.” Then she turned and walked away.

  Everything seemed normal with Katie, as if she wasn’t holding anything against Lacey. But it was hard for her to forget Katie’s words. Was everybody thinking Lacey had done something, like slept with the boss, in order to curry favor? She wasn’t even getting paid, for heaven’s sake.

  Disturbed by the intrusion of the human element into her fantasy world, she walked to where she’d been and started photographing again. This time she focused on the outskirts where the pathways were. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just everything. She photographed about twenty feet of path, loving how the road’s stone blocks interlocked, how smooth they were, noting the little striations and marks that had been left behind over the years.

  When she was done, she turned her attention to what appeared to be a series of old gardens or some kind of an enclave that could have held animals. She liked the idea of gardens. As she took photographs, what she had thought of as in her mind’s eye became an actual garden. As she kept taking photographs, that same 3-D imaging system in her mind brought up outside her camera’s viewfinder whatever it was that her mind saw. She frowned, dropped the camera so she could stare at her surroundings and wondered just how much of this was her own visualization. She was here; her mind said it should be a garden, so she had created a garden. That certainly wouldn’t be very helpful if the garden didn’t exist in Pompeii before the volcano eruption.

  She continued to photograph anyway. The more she did, the more details she came up with. It was unnerving. She could see where animals might have lived, where people would have walked. She could almost hear the sounds of the
wind blowing through the area. She sighed happily as she stepped closer to a bush. She reached out a hand to touch a vibrant green leaf, only her hand went through it.

  She frowned and stepped back. “Good Lord. It looks so real,” she muttered.

  “What’s the matter with reality?”

  “What’s the matter?” She stiffened at Sebastian’s voice. “The reality is that everybody else is pissed off because you’re spending so much time with me. I really don’t need that. I came here to spend a couple weeks to live out my Pompeii dream. I didn’t want to stir up any trouble.”

  “Maybe you should have thought of that before you became some kind of a 3-D architect.”

  His tone was wry and humorous. He obviously wasn’t upset at her words. But his words bubbled laughter out of her. She turned to smile at him. “It’s also foolish. Isn’t that the way it is? Thousands of people died here. We are digging apart their lives, and I’m upset because the crew thinks I’ve done something to curry favor.”

  “You mean, like sleep with me?” he asked with interest. “Now that’s an idea.”

  She snorted, sure he was joking. “Hardly,” she said. “That’s definitely not happening.”

  “Well, not as part of the job, that’s for sure,” he agreed. “Doesn’t mean it can’t happen for other reasons.”

  She shook her head and picked up her camera, taking a picture of his face.

  He waved her away. “No taking pictures of the boss.”

  “Well, maybe if they see you upset with me,” she said, “they’ll calm down.”

  He seemed to realize she was serious. “Somebody said something?”

  “In passing,” she said, to protect Katie’s identity. “It’s my fault.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” he exclaimed. “You have a rare talent that I’m trying to understand. You’ve also been hurt, and I don’t want you to overdo it. Besides, I like you, and, if we spend time together, it’s nobody’s business but ours.”

  “But they don’t know why or what we’re doing.”

  “They don’t want to know the real reason why,” he said. “They’re hung up on their own lives. Don’t get involved.”

  She nodded. “I wasn’t planning on it. I just want to keep out of trouble.”

  He nodded. “That’s the best way to do it.” He motioned at what she had been taking photos of. “What do you see here?”

  She held up her camera so he could see the photos she’d taken. “See how beautiful and green the bushes are? I don’t understand the species of this plant, but it’s so vibrant and healthy, attracting the birds, now calling out to each other.”

  He stared at the photo, slid over to several more and then looked back at her. “So you can still see everything?”

  She beamed at him. “It’s stupendous really.”

  He nodded. “I wish I could see it.”

  She looked at her photos. “You don’t see it in my photos?”

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t see it here in your surroundings?”

  Again he shook his head.

  “Then what do you see?” she muttered, not knowing what to say.

  He glanced at her. “Just a partial ring here. Nothing in it, just dirt all the way around. No green bush. No sounds of birds singing.”

  She frowned, her fingers switching through the photographs. “Seriously?” She shook her head. “I was so sure. It’s so vivid for me. I even tried to touch it.”

  “That must be nice,” he said softly. “But I can assure you, nobody else sees what you’re seeing.”

  She spun around to see where the rest of the team was.

  He reached out for her arm. “Whoa, don’t go there.”

  She glared at him. “If somebody else can see it, it would make me feel a hell of a lot better. Although, if not, they will all think I’m crazy.”

  “That would be too bad,” he said. “But you can’t tell them. They won’t understand. They’re not of the same mind-set as you are. You need to keep this to yourself.”

  She waved him off. “Go find somebody else to talk to. They all need some boss love. I have work to do.”

  “I want you to sketch what you see. Please?”

  She noticed he had several sketchbooks in his hand and a box of pencils. He handed them to her.

  “Which is more important, the photographs or the drawings?” she asked curiously. “I already photographed a box of items Katie had laid out, which is why I’m now shooting pictures here.”

  “Try to find a balance between the two.” He nodded and turned away. He took several steps, then stopped, slowly turning back. “Did you hear that?”

  She frowned at him. “I didn’t hear anything. What did you hear?”

  He studied her face for a long moment as if he didn’t believe her. Then he looked around, slowly pivoted, searching the area around her. “I’m not sure what I heard. But I didn’t like the sound of it.”

  “Don’t say that and leave me alone. I’ve never seen anything here that was scary.”

  “That’s good, at least in my book. The thing is, stuff out here is scarier than anything you’ve ever imagined. I don’t want any of it brought to life.” He took off again, heading toward the others.

  She plunked to the ground cross-legged, unnerved by his words. She didn’t get it. She didn’t want to. She couldn’t hear anything scary. Everything she saw was light and bright and breezy. It went along with who she was. Everything she saw made her smile, had her gasping in awe. And yet, he seemed to live in a world of darkness and fear.

  She opened one of the sketchbooks to the first page and snatched up a newly sharpened pencil. She didn’t quite know what she was supposed to draw. A lone bush was hardly exciting. She sketched the garden plants around it too, but it wasn’t a whole lot in her opinion.

  Only after she was done did she catch herself drawing some weird design in the left corner. She didn’t know what it meant. She walked away from it and then came back, and it still didn’t give her any enlightenment. She sat back down again, turned the page and began the second drawing. This time her pencil moved on its own. She watched in amazement as Sebastian’s face showed up. And then Hunter’s beside him.

  But her hand kept moving. It drew a temple behind them. She almost laughed because it could be a dig anywhere in so many different parts of the world. But obviously her mind seemed to think she needed a picture of the two men.

  Just as suddenly her hand stopped. She smiled, turned to a clean page and said, “Now what?”

  But nothing came. A little unnerved after having so many instinctive artistic ventures, she realized how much she had done and maybe she needed a break.

  She pulled out her camera, putting the sketchbooks on the ground, and proceeded to take more pictures. She was looking for any bits of nature, even bugs. She bent close to the ground, studying, looking to find the soldiers of today versus those of the yesteryears.

  Lost in her own thoughts again, taking photographs as the others came and went, doing nothing in particular and just letting her instincts turn her work alive, she finally realized that somebody was calling for her. She turned to find Chana standing there, holding one of the sketchbooks in her hand. “Are you doing more sketches again? Not photos?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, I am. Does that bother you?”

  “Is that why you’re spending so much time with Sebastian?”

  “He wanted them for something,” she said casually. “You know how I feel about my art. It’s not really good enough. So I told him that he could just have them. I wasn’t going to sell them to him.”

  Chana flipped over to the next page, and her breath caught. “Did you do this?” she asked in amazement. “It’s really good, but, Jesus, it’s scary as hell.”

  Lacey stood to take a look at the drawings, and she stopped, her throat choking down hard. “No,” she said, “I didn’t draw that.”

  “You just said you did.”

  She stared at the fac
es of the two men but with dark evil-looking masks on both faces. “No,” she said. “I only sketched their faces. Not like that but nice pictures. You know me. I don’t do ugly and nasty.”

  Chana nodded slowly, but her gaze never left Lacey’s face. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Lacey dropped the pencils and stepped back from the sketchbooks. “I have no clue,” she cried out. She held up her hands as if to ward off Chana’s approach. “I didn’t do that. I promise I didn’t do that.” Her cries were creating a commotion.

  Suddenly Sebastian was here. He held out his hand for the sketchbook. “May I?”

  Chana reluctantly passed it over. Sebastian looked, his eyebrows raised. “Well, it’s incredibly powerful,” he muttered. “Not very nice but incredibly powerful.”

  But Lacey was having none of it. “I swear I didn’t draw it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded frantically. “I wouldn’t have. That’s not me. That’s not the style I draw in. I can’t stand scary stuff.”

  His gaze never left the sketches. “I’ll close this and put it away for now. It’s obviously upsetting you.”

  “Of course it’s upsetting me,” she said bitterly. She bent down and packed up her camera. “I’m going to work in a different area today.” She turned and walked away.

  *

  Chana asked, her voice low and contained, “What’s going on here?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “I’m not exactly sure. I think she did draw these. I don’t think she’s aware she did though.” He opened the sketchbook again and shot Chana a look. “I’m not taking advantage of her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m thinking. But I don’t want her to come to any harm.” She tapped the sketchbook in his hand. “This is not Lacey. She’s literally sunshine and butterflies. This is nasty.” She was at a loss for words. “So you tell me. How did she go from drawing pretty lilies and flowers, sunshine, roses and rainbows to something horrific like this?”

  He studied the drawings. The longer he looked, the more he realized the power behind them. “She’s incredibly talented.”