Page 21 of The Mouse and the Maestro

“I don’t think I can top a clear elevator, but I’ll try to come up with something,” she said.

Their flight was only an hour. They arrived at the airport and hailed a taxi that would take them to their hotel and the museum, another hour. The cost would be exorbitant, but it was on the government’s dime.

“I love the smell of New York,” Jane whispered when they were safely tucked in the taxi.

“All I smell is man sweat,” Blue whispered in reply.

“That and old fish and garbage is New York.” She breathed deeply, smiling.

“I’m seeing a whole new side of you.”

“And the day has only begun,” she said. “See that building?” She ducked so he could see over her head, but it wasn’t necessary since he was so much taller. “That was designed by Evan Falcone. He won a contest and I had a few classes with him when I was in school.”

“What else can you show me? Give me the grand tour,” Blue said.

“Are you sure that wouldn’t be boring?”

“Again, extremely low threshold for what I consider boring, and I like knowing all the behind the scenes insider stuff.”

“Okay, here we go.” She took a breath and launched into an informative tour that lasted the entire drive. He had never heard her talk so much or so freely and he began to see what she must be like when she was in her natural element and at her best—intelligent, interesting, funny.

“Are you sure I’m not boring you?” she asked.

“Really, really not,” he said.

“To be continued after work,” she said.

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” he said, which might have been the understatement of the century.

Chapter 11

As before, the examination of the artifact took hours. Unlike before, Jane had only a professional rapport with her counterparts at this museum. While he waited for her, Blue did his homework on each person she met with, and the results were enlightening.

Dr. Andrew Stone, for instance, was on heavy doses of medication for depression and insomnia. He was also in the middle of a nasty divorce and had a history of gambling addiction. If anyone had motive to make extra cash, it was him. And he certainly had the knowledge, given that Blue only understood about every ten words he said, but the forgeries had taken time, effort, and energy. Dr. Stone seemed lacking in all three, given the massive doses of medication and lack of sleep.

Dr. Theresa Coleman had spent nearly a hundred thousand dollars on infertility treatments with no success. In addition to trying to conceive a child, she was in a near desperate search for a husband, if her ten cross postings on multiple dating sites were any indication. She also had a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt and was facing eviction from her apartment. She had to be desperate for cash but, again, would she have the time and energy for intricate forgeries?

There were two lab assistants. Jerome Calder had a sealed juvenile record for vandalism but had been clean since then. Marjorie Tanner was clean as a whistle as far as the law went but, going five years back, Blue found some unsavory racially charged postings on an anti-government site and nothing since. Either she had changed her views or gone underground and learned to cover her tracks.

And then there was Jane Dunbar. Invisible Jane with no record of any kind. As if she felt his thoughts on her, she turned and smiled at him. In his current suspicious mood, the smile could have been chilling, but it wasn’t. It was sweet and a tiny bit flirtatious. The combination kicked his heart into overdrive.I like her,Blue thought. If only he could quash the bit of lingering suspicion. Ten years of working in intelligence taught him everyone had skeletons. Sometimes, like him, they were early indiscretions, not indicative of lifelong character. Other times it was a slow boil, years of mistakes and broken laws culminating in a career of subversive behavior. He had never encountered anyone like Jane, a blank, a question mark. With no information, his mind was too busy filling in the blanks.

For lunch, the museum catered a meal. Blue found it interesting how easily everyone put up a façade—casual, happy, in control. In reality the assembled group had debt, infertility, mental illness, insomnia, and loneliness, among other things. Sometimes he felt like a voyeur, but it was his job to learn things about people, to dig into their pasts and find out what secrets they were trying to hide.

“Are you bored?” Jane whispered as lunch wore down and the museum’s employees returned to work.

“As long as I have my computer, I’m never bored,” Blue said. When he wasn’t snooping into other people’s lives, he sank into the virtual world, one of his own design.

“It’s not looking good with the artifact,” Jane continued in a whisper, leaning into him slightly. “I have a few more tests to run, but I suspect it’s a fraud.”

She was very close to his ear, leaning in to be better heard. He resisted the urge to tuck her hair behind her ear to better see her face, to touch her. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Blue offered, knowing the answer would be no. He was completely over his head in her world. He knew as much about ancient Egyptian relics as she did about coding and apps.

“Moral support. They’re not going to take it well,” Jane replied.

“I’m here for you,” he assured her and then, because he couldn’t resist anymore, reached out and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Her cheeks tinted faintly pink, and he smiled. When was the last time everything had clicked this way? When he had been attracted to a woman and she had felt the same? Jane was quieter, more conservative than his usual type. But she was also funny and intelligent, and he liked her, maybe a lot.

“I should probably get back to work,” she said, dragging her eyes away from him.

“You could phone it in, fake the tests, and we could be out of here in ten minutes,” he teased.

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