should listen.”
“I know.”
Only a few minutes later in a private booth, Annja nursed a large hot chocolate and a huge platter of food Maria had assembled.
Annja watched the television mounted on the wall. The story about the shooting in Brooklyn had lost out to an apartment fire that had gutted a building. The scenes on the television were grim, and Annja’s heart went out to the people who’d lost their homes.
She didn’t know what she’d do if something like that occurred to her loft. It worried her even more that the men who’d tried to kill her wouldn’t hesitate about setting fire to her home. The unpleasant thoughts took some of the enjoyment from the meal.
She wanted to know what was going on, and she wanted to know what she had to do to get her life back in order. She wished Bart would call.
Maria bustled about her, keeping Annja company only briefly because she was keeping watch over the restaurant and training two new servers. The restaurant opened six days a week, closed on Sundays because that was God’s day, and Maria worked every one of them.
The other television was set to ESPN, covering the baseball spring-training camps. Maria wasn’t a baseball fan, but she knew Annja was.
“So how come you’re eating alone?” Maria asked. “You should have a nice man for lunch.”
At that announcement, Annja nearly choked and had to get a sip of hot chocolate, which had just been refilled and was too hot for drinking. She burned her tongue.
Maria looked at her with concern. She was always trying to play matchmaker for Annja.
“All the nice men I know are busy,” Annja replied. There weren’t many of them. She took another bite of beef enchilada covered in sour cream sauce. The portion melted in her mouth.
“Hmph,” Maria said. “You waited too long. A woman who wants a man, she has to move quickly to take what she wants.”
Annja just smiled. Her line of work didn’t lend itself to long-lasting relationships. There was too much separation while she was out on dig sites for a long-term relationship. Unless she found someone who had the same interests she had. So far, that hadn’t happened.
“I’m doing too many things in my life right now,” Annja replied. “I don’t want a man I’ll be tripping over, or one that I’m going to feel guilty about leaving every time I have work to do.”
Still, it would be nice to have someone to share her successes and the things she learned. That kind of thinking led her to think about Bart McGilley again. Bart wanted someone in his life who would be there. That was why he was engaged to someone else.
But he was her friend, as he’d always been. She wished he would call.
As she ate, Annja divided her time between the television sets and the magazines she’d picked up at the newsstand earlier. She wanted to be home working on some of the material she’d gathered about the Calusa Indians. Maybe Chasing History’s Monsters intended to insert a digital shark in her segment, but there were other publications that had already responded favorably to her queries about doing articles. And she was supposed to write three chapters for a book on the Calusa Indians.
The phone rang several times during her meal. Most of the calls were congratulatory in nature, thanking her for one episode or another on the television show. It was almost enough to take the sting out of thinking about the phantom shark.
Then Nikolai called.
7
“Annja,” Nikolai said dramatically, “you would not believe the day I’ve been having. First, these hoodlums started stalking the shop. Then they are shooting in the streets. My God, it is almost too much.”
“I know,” Annja said. “I was the one they were shooting at.”
That brought Nikolai up short. “Oh. That’s right. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Where have you been?”
“At the police station. Looking at mug shots. You know, in the detective shows, the police bring a man in, give him a coffee and sit him in a chair, then give him this enormous book to go through and—voilà!—he puts his finger on the face of the man the police are looking for.”
Annja couldn’t help herself. She liked Nikolai, but his fake Russian accent got on her nerves when he got it wrong. “That’s the wrong word,” she pointed out.
“What word?”
“Voilà. That’s French, not Russian.”
“Ah, borscht.” Nikolai gave up the pretense. “I used it with the cops.”
“Maybe they’ll think you’re a Russian who spent some time in France.”
“Probably not. They called my mom. She doesn’t speak like a Russian. I swear, Annja, people just don’t realize how much fun an accent can be. I love getting away with saying inappropriate things. You wouldn’t believe the looks, or the help, that I get.”
“I take it you’re not at the police station anymore?”
“No. I was getting bored. I told them I’d come back tomorrow and look some more. I don’t think they really cared. I got the impression they think these guys have left town.”
“They haven’t,” Annja said.
“How do you know?”
“I found two of them.”
“Jeez, Annja, you need to tell the cops.”
“I’m waiting for Bart McGilley to call me.”
“He’s your cop friend?”
“Yes. If I try to talk to anyone else, things are going to get too confusing.” Given her past history with situations involving police agencies, Annja didn’t want to deal with anyone else. After being raised by nuns, Annja didn’t like dealing with authority figures if she could help it.
“The police are looking for you,” Nikolai said in a quiet voice.
“Why?”
“Because I had to tell them about you. Someone got a picture of you when you ran into the bus with the Letterman ad. This detective—a real jerk, I tell you—told me if I didn’t tell him the truth he was going to put me in jail.”
“He couldn’t do that.”
“He sounded like he could.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Nikolai. The police can only arrest you if you’ve done something wrong. The only way they can get you to offer testimony about something is to get you in court and have a judge order you to answer questions.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t. So you told them about me?” Now Annja knew why the police were at her loft. At least it wasn’t anything that had to do with Mario.
“They already knew about you,” Nikolai said. “Someone identified you from the television show.”
Annja took a deep breath and let it out. “Did you tell them about the package?”
“No.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I can get it.”
“ We’ll get it. I need you to meet me. Do you know where Digital Paradise is?”
“Of course I do.”
“Meet me there.”
“When?”
“Now. I’ll be there before you are. Be careful.”
“Why?” Nikolai sounded nervous. “Do you