Page 185 of Her Reluctant Hero
She got the message, terror thrumming through her veins. If he didn’t need her, she might as well be dead. “I can—look, but unless you have a reference book or something, I don’t know how accurate I can be.” Though she did want to get a closer look.
“I have some books.”
She thought he sounded relieved, but it could have been her imagination. Even as he gave the order to the man standing behind him to get the reference books, Mallory moved toward them. Maybe if she concentrated on this, she wouldn’t worry so about Adrian, though God knew how she could help him. Maybe keeping Valentine distracted would be enough.
She crouched beside the first casket, well, the last one, the one he’d pulled up here, if the sediment still clinging to it was a clue. When had he recovered it? The others had been carefully cleaned, but this one was duller than the others, crusted with salt and sand. A wave striking the boat knocked her off balance and she caught herself with one hand against the surface of the casket. Warm, not what she’d expected, especially not out in this weather. She eased away, brushing her fingertips over the scalloped edges.
“I need more light,” she murmured, and Valentine snapped out an order to make it happen. She turned toward him. “What do you think the symbols will reveal?”
He squared his shoulders. “I don’t want to influence you by telling you what to work for. I want the truth.”
“As near as I can get it.” Her hand trembled as she reached over to the next case. “Could I—would it be possible to get something to eat? I haven’t had anything all day.” Neither had Adrian, and after the swim and the blood loss…he couldn’t hold out much longer.
“When Linda comes back.”
Okay, clearly he didn’t want to leave her alone. Perhaps he only had Linda and one man at his disposal. Where were the others? With rest and a plan, she could get away. How far she could get was another question. And if it would be too late for Adrian was the bigger one.
Aware Valentine was watching her closely, she gave her attention to the chests and drew upon her own fears to look grief stricken. Tears blurred her vision and she wiped her hand over her eyes. “They’re all different. Did you notice that?”
“I did.” He crouched beside her, more colleague than captor. He stroked his fingers lovingly across the same casket she was inspecting. “What does it mean?”
“Not sure yet.” Regret punched the breath from her body. Adrian should be here. He believed in this. He deserved to see it. She wished she could look over and see the light in his silver-blue eyes, could see his hands moving over the finds with reverence. She never should have walked away from a man who felt so deeply.
Her throat burned as she moved to the next chest, the one that had been damaged when Valentine brought it up off the coast of Florida, and indeed a large chunk was missing. No telling what those symbols could have revealed.
And then she came to Adrian’s casket. She recognized it right away from his drawings. God, she wished she’d trusted him before, that she’d believed in him, that she’d helped him study the symbols, the legend.
Three years wasted and they might never get to make up for the lost time.
She pressed her hand to the carvings, letting the sharper edges bite into her palm.
“Does any of this mean anything to you?”
She shot Valentine a glare. “You’re the one who’s had three of the chests. Why don’t you know?”
He scowled, traced a carving of a ship as Linda returned with a clamp-on light, which she attached to the overhang. “I’ve had to keep them in a safe place. I didn’t have the luxury of studying them, not without drawing attention to what I had. What do I have, Mallory?”
With a shaking finger, Mallory traced a circle on the beveled edge of the chest, with four leaf-shaped indentions spreading out from a point in the center. “In Assyria, this symbol meant the four directions of the sun.” She glanced over. “What do you know about the meaning behind four chests? Why did they divide her? And why four?”
“They divided her ashes and set them to sea so her followers wouldn’t try to resurrect her.”
She sank back on her heels. “But Constantine was Christian. Surely he didn’t believe anyone but Christ had that power.”
He inclined his head in concession. “They’d seen Mavaris do some things even Christ hadn’t done. And seeing is believing. Which is why they killed her.”
“But why four? Seven and three are the numbers of Christianity. Typically the number four is pagan—earth, air, water and fire, which fits with the legend. But why would a priest choose that number instead of the holier numbers?”
“The legend as I heard is that they separated her heart, her head, her eyes and her reproductive organs. They believed that was the only way to keep her from coming back.”
Mallory turned her attention to the chest. These caskets hadn’t been carved by a Christian. They were full of pagan symbology, the chaos star, the uroborus—the snake eating itself—and symbols of earth, air, water and fire.
“I need verification from you that these are authentic, and I’ll need explanations of each of the symbols before I make my sale.”
She sat on her heels, folding her chilled hands in her lap. “And if I’m not inclined to help the man who killed my husband make his fortune?”
Valentine snorted. “His own paranoia killed him, just as it destroyed him in Tunisia. Once you do this for me, you’re free to return home.”
She stiffened in disbelief. “To tell everyone you killed Dr. Vigil and Adrian.”
