Unmasked Read online

  “Still, I need a copy of them.”

  “Right. Legal departments and all that.” She wrote down the numbers of the images. “When I download them later this afternoon, I’ll send them to you.”

  He nodded. “And make sure you watch what you take pictures of, right?”

  She beamed happily. “No problem.” As she bent to put her notepad in her bag, she caught her breath as she moved the wrong way. There was a sudden silence around her. She realized that, up until then, he’d completely forgotten about her injuries. She grabbed her camera bag, straightened and put it on her shoulder, deliberately not letting him see any kind of reaction as she moved. “Maybe I’ll start today on this segment.”

  He shook his head. “No, a lot of pottery pieces need to be photographed. Start over there and catalogue every piece we’ve unearthed.”

  “I can do that,” she said with a bright smile. She stepped up to his level and walked past him as he grabbed her arm.

  “How are you?” he asked softly.

  She threw him another cheerful smile that she knew didn’t fool him in any way. “I’m feeling much better. The painkillers and the muscle relaxants overnight helped a lot.”

  He nodded. “Don’t do too much today. And keep taking your pills. Especially the relaxants.”

  “I will.” She pulled her arm free and walked away. She really wanted to turn back and see if he was watching her, but she instinctively knew he was. And that was unnerving in itself.

  Back at the dig site where they had tables laid out, Katie worked on the samples.

  “Sebastian wants me to take photographs of all the pieces found so far,” Lacey said.

  Katie nodded. “Everything that we pull out, we name, tag and bag, and then you can take photographs of them.”

  “I can do that.” Lacey changed out her lenses, adjusted her focus and set up for the first piece. After several discussions back and forth with Katie, Lacey changed and tweaked her process a little bit, and then, when they agreed the photos were good, Lacey went ahead and took serious photographs. Not just one but four or five of each piece.

  When they broke for lunch, she looked up in surprise, completely stunned that so many hours had gone by. “It can’t be lunchtime already.” Her gaze went from one of the crew to the other.

  They all looked at her in surprise. “Don’t be too eager and too efficient here,” Tom said. “The boss won’t let you go if you do that.”

  Pleased, Lacey just smiled at him. “Not likely to happen but I’ll do my best regardless.”

  They sat in the shade and ate sandwiches. She looked at the sandwich Chana had handed her and said, “I didn’t even see you make these.”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “Sebastian brought them. It’s time for a break anyway, so we might as well eat. It’s supposed to get very hot this afternoon, so we’ll work as late as we can. But, once that heat hits, we may have to break for a while.”

  “For a while?”

  Chana shrugged. “What I really mean is, we’ll be done for the day. Could work on paperwork back at the apartment.”

  “I can get behind that,” Lacey said. “I have to sift through a few thousand photos.”

  “Are you really taking that many?” Tom asked. Honest curiosity was in his voice.

  “Not quite,” she said, “but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I wasn’t up over six hundred already.”

  “That’s still a ton,” he said. “It’d be nice to think we could get caught up. We need your photos to document boxes and boxes of materials we’ve found.” He turned to Katie. “Where is all that stuff?”

  “It’s all still in our apartment because we didn’t know where else to send it. We can’t ship it to the foundation until it’s been cataloged, and we didn’t want to leave it here with the trouble we’re having on the site.”

  “In that case maybe I should go back with you this afternoon,” Lacey said to Katie. “I could get on that cataloging.”

  Katie shrugged. “You could. I know Sebastian has plans to set it all out on the table and get you to work on it.”

  “Do you have a big table in your apartment?”

  She shook her head. “Sebastian does. His apartment is just down from us.”

  “In that case I’ll talk to him when he comes over.”

  “Except I’m already here,” Sebastian said in exasperation. “That’s twice you’ve said something along that line today.”

  She chewed the bite in her mouth as she thought about how to respond, but he just waved at her.

  “Make sure to take your muscle relaxants with that food. Minimize any chance of a stomachache. You’ll also find the heat hits you a whole lot worse this afternoon, so I want you to knock off by three o’clock at the very latest.”

  “Katie said boxes of samples and retrieved items to be catalogued are at our apartments. I thought I could work on that when we leave here.”

  “No,” he said, his tone curt. “When the day is done, the day is done. I don’t want you overdoing it, particularly when you’re not feeling good.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  At her tone everybody else went silent.

  She sighed. “Okay, so I’m not a hundred percent fine, but I’m feeling much better.”

  “Good,” he said. “In that case we aren’t going to push it, are we?”

  She just rolled her eyes at him. “Do you worry like this about everybody?” she muttered.

  He nodded. “I do.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half or so.” He stopped and looked at Lacey. “I’ll come and collect you at that time.”

  “Do you want me to come with you then too?” Katie asked.

  “Yes. Pack up what she has already photographed here. We’ll take that back to my place, sort it out and ship it on to the foundation.”

  It seemed like almost as soon as he’d left, he was back. Lacey straightened, groaned at her sore muscles and walked over to a cooler spot in some shade. Sitting down, she pulled out her water and painkillers. She didn’t want anybody to see what she was doing because she didn’t want anybody to question her about it, but she was hurting. She’d love to go back to the apartment, have a shower and collapse in bed, just letting the painkillers work.

  As she sat here, she picked up her camera and studied the area where she had seen the people before. She took several more photos and put down her camera, resting her head against the rock. She took several deep, slow relaxing breaths but heard bushes crackling behind her. She didn’t think much of it, but, when heavy footsteps came closer, she froze and wondered what animals were around here. She glanced at her team, but they were busy working away. The sounds came from the right. She slipped down to a ledge below, holding up her camera.

  She waited, clicking several images just for reference, until it sounded like the crunching brushes were closer and closer. She frowned and then heard a branch snapping in two. Her fingers clicked her camera madly, but she hadn’t seen anything.

  Suddenly Tom called out to her, coming up on her left side. “Hey, you okay?”

  He’d come around the bush from where she’d been watching. “Hey. Sorry. I heard you crashing around in there,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I thought maybe I was about to get attacked by some wild animal.” She held up her camera, waited a minute and said, “But obviously it was just you.”

  He chuckled, jumped down and said, “It’s a sign you’ve been here too long when you see the boogeyman around every corner.”

  She gave a one-arm shrug. “Well, I am tired. However, I’m heading back with Sebastian and Katie soon.”

  A whistle ripped across the open pit. She turned and winced at the movement, jarring her leg. She caught the side of the stone wall for a moment, catching her breath. There was Sebastian, waving at her.

  Slowly she clambered back up to where she had been sitting originally, grabbed her bag, smiled at Tom and said, “The boss calls.”

  Tom walked bac
k with her, slow enough so she wasn’t pushing herself. When they reached Sebastian, he grabbed a big box.

  Katie grabbed another one. “Let’s go. Otherwise we won’t have any time to work today.”

  She exchanged a glance with Katie. “Was I late?”

  Katie just chuckled with a nod to Sebastian. “No, he is.”

  “Oh, okay.” As Lacey left, something caused her to turn and to stare at the spot where she’d heard the noise. She hated to think her nerves were getting the better of her, but she swore something was coming toward her, and she thought she’d heard a branch break—not just bushes rustling—but that was stupid as she never saw a person or any animal.

  Because nothing could make a branch break and not be seen. Right?

  Back at the apartment they carefully lowered the boxes on a large dining room table in Sebastian’s apartment. He told Lacey, “You’ll have to adjust your lights and filters. The light in here is pretty bad. I’d rather do it outside, but, with all the problems on the site, we decided it was better to bring everything inside.”

  She nodded and sat in a chair at the table, fiddling with her camera. She took several photographs, adjusted the light again and then decided on a different lens. By the time she was ready to go, Sebastian and Katie had a good forty different items laid out. Standing carefully in front and leaning down over the top of the items, Lacey clicked several photographs from a few different angles to make sure she had a good visual identification of what the item was. Then it was flipped, exposing a card identifying what it was and where it had been found, along with its ID number.

  By the time she had taken six photographs of every one of the items, Katie came behind her, packaging up the finds and checking off each on her datasheet with matching ID numbers found there. And, just for safe measure, Lacey came behind her and took photographs of each of the items now numerically marked and resting in the box. With the table completely empty, everything collected and boxed, they laid out another whole set.

  Lacey lost track of time as they did table load after table load after table load. Finally she straightened and gasped as her back seized up.

  Katie rushed to her side. “Are you all right?”

  Lacey took a deep breath, let it out slowly and gasped. “Straightened too fast. I forgot how sore my side is. But I’m fine.”

  Sebastian walked over and handed her a large glass of water. She took the first sip and then couldn’t seem to get enough. She completely emptied the glass, then handed it back and asked, “May I get a refill please?”

  He raised an eyebrow but went to refill the glass for her. When her second glassful came back, she drank half and just held it close for a moment.

  “I hadn’t realized how dehydrated I was getting,” she said.

  The two of them stared at her with odd looks on their faces.

  “What did I say?” she demanded.

  “You’ve been drinking all afternoon,” Katie said. “I’m surprised you haven’t been running to the bathroom every thirty minutes.”

  Lacey chuckled. “Now that you mentioned it …” She looked around the apartment, then back at Sebastian. “May I use your washroom, please?”

  “Of course you can,” he said, pointing down the hallway. “It’s over there.”

  She made her way to the bathroom, used the facilities and, when washing her hands, she looked into the mirror and grinned. Her face was still dusty from working onsite earlier. She didn’t even remember getting so dirty. She took a moment to quickly wash her face. But, when she looked up again, it looked like she’d only smeared the dirt.

  Doing a more thorough job with her second washing, she thought she should get down the hall to her place and have a shower. She looked a little closer at her face in the mirror and noted big baggy bruises underneath her eyes and an odd look to her at the moment. She stood, figuring out what was off. There was something, but she didn’t know what.

  Shrugging, she walked back out again to see Katie packing up the last box and saying, “We’re done. Sebastian will send the rest of this to the foundation tomorrow morning, and we’ll be back on the dig site.”

  “Wow, that went faster than I thought,” Lacey said in surprise. “Nice.”

  “We’re all heading out to dinner in half an hour,” Katie said to Lacey. “The others are already in the showers in our apartments, so that doesn’t give you time for a shower.”

  Lacey shrugged. “I guess I’ll have mine when I get back. It depends on how bad I look though.” She glanced down to see a fine layer of dust all over her. “I don’t understand how I got so dirty,” she said in amazement.

  “You can stand out on the porch, and I’ll brush you off. Then, if you put on a clean T-shirt, you’ll be good to go.”

  And that was what they did. Fifteen minutes later Lacey came out of her bedroom, now dressed in a clean shirt, her hair brushed out and rebraided, ready for dinner. Her stomach growled as she walked out. The others looked at her.

  “Did you eat lunch?”

  She nodded. “I think it must be all the fresh air,” she said. “I’m not usually this hungry, but I am right now.” She glanced up and caught Sebastian’s lightning-quick frown. “What? Now I can’t eat either?”

  The others looked confused.

  He shrugged and said, “She was drinking enough water earlier that I wondered if she was okay.”

  “Not used to the heat,” she said lightly. She glanced at the door and everybody sitting around. “Are we leaving?” She tried to interject a note of humor in her voice. “Otherwise I need a shower. But I’d really like food first.”

  At that, they all jumped up and headed outside. She stepped in front of Sebastian and felt a zap as he reached forward. She jumped back and said, “Wow, that was quite the electrical charge.”

  Chana glanced at her in surprise. “That normally only happens when there is carpet underfoot.”

  “Lately my body and my senses seem to be reacting off the wall,” Lacey said. “Who knows what the hell is going on.”

  “Maybe it’s just your change in location,” Chana said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried,” Lacey said, but, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, her gaze flew up to land on Sebastian. And the look in his eye had her really worried now because he looked terrified. She opened her mouth to ask him, but he gave a sharp shake of his head, cutting her off.

  She frowned and followed Chana out. But she couldn’t help but turn and look back at the apartment. For the first time since she’d arrived, she sensed something was going on here that she didn’t know anything about. And she didn’t think anybody else would let her in on the big secret.

  *

  The changes in Lacey were definitely worth watching her closely, to see if things got worse. Her extreme thirst and growing appetite reminded him of the guys on Mayan site—before they died. Yet Sebastian didn’t want to scare Lacey or his other interns. Obviously she had been outside, working physically in a job she wasn’t used to. But a hell of a lot more was going on in her aura now than before.

  Her energy had a blur, almost a cloudiness to it, but that could be from all the excitement going on in her system.

  As he well knew, sometimes entities affected people by just being around them and could make them hungrier, thirstier or angrier, changing their moods, changing their energy. He’d seen it happen before. One of the team members he had worked with in the Mayan excavation had gotten extremely thirsty to the point they couldn’t stop him from drinking too much water so fast, and they were seriously worried he would kill himself via water intoxication. Then the same guy started gorging on the food. It was like he couldn’t squelch the appetites inside him.

  He was the first one to die.

  After her traffic accident, Sebastian had observed Lacey today, with several items of note, but it was her latest comment about being “hungry” that had made his heart freeze. Yet her symptoms weren’t as severe as those seen on the Mayan sit
e. Thankfully.

  Once everyone was seated in the open-air café where they took up two tables, Sebastian sent a message to Jeremiah. Are you still coming?

  Be there before you go to bed tonight.

  Next he texted Hunter again. He’d tried three times but this time his response was instant.

  I’m already in town. You’ll see me tomorrow.

  With relief, Sebastian sat back as large plates of pasta were delivered. He ate slowly, keeping an eye on the rest of the crew, looking for any signs of something being off. He felt protective about this group.

  He’d worked with them several times, knew most of their personal issues. Chana and her mother never seemed to see eye to eye and fought on the phone once or twice. She’d had a boyfriend who she had dumped before coming back out here this summer.

  Katie was engaged to be married and wanted her future husband to move to Italy so she could continue working on the dig. But he was a student back in New York, and it looked like they would continue their long-distance relationship for a while. He came back and forth when he could, sometimes spending weeks at a time with her.

  Mark … well, Mark was an interesting one. He was a new intern to the area, but he held a fascinating interest into the history of Pompeii, almost a macabre interest. That alone was enough to set off the warning lights. But he appeared to be normal—a laughing, enjoying-life young adult. He was maybe twenty-four, twenty-five. Sebastian would have to check his file to get a better idea.

  When he glanced around the table, his gaze landed on Lacey. A woman who was still interested in more than she should be, for her own safety here. She glowed with an unearthly glow from the inside. She lit up with every conversation that touched on her passions; otherwise she had this muted soft warm light. He didn’t know how to describe it, but, if you were looking for the good people in the world, she was it. He hadn’t met too many like her, and, as such, she was someone he wanted to stay close to, if only to experience what it was like to be around her. She teased and joked, but her jokes were always funny and gentle. Everybody else could get crude and rude, and she would smile and laugh, not be offended, so she wasn’t prissy to be around by any means.