Ryan raised his I-am-quoting-a-quote index finger. "a.s.sumption is the mother of screw-up."

"You made that up," I said.

"Angelo Donghia."

"And he is...?"

"It's on the Internet. Simpson's Quotations. Google it."

I made a note to do just that.

"The Ferris autopsy was February sixteenth," Ryan said. "When he gave you the photo, did Kaplan say how long he'd had it?"

"No."

Back to the records. Several lines down I spotted a vaguely familiar number preceded by an Israeli country code. I got up and checked my agenda.

"On January eighth Ferris called someone at the IAA."

"Who?"

"I don't know. It's the main switchboard number."

Ryan sat back. "Any idea why he'd do that?"

"Maybe he was offering to give the Masada skeleton back."

"Or sell it back."

"Maybe he was looking for doc.u.mentation."

"Why would he want that?"

"To rea.s.sure himself of the skeleton's authenticity."

"Or to goose its value."

"Authentication would do that."

"When you first made contact, did Blotnik mention knowing about the bones?"

I shook my head.

Ryan made a note.

Another half hour pa.s.sed.

The fax was fuzzy, the numbers and letters barely legible. My neck ached. My eyes burned. Edgy, I got up and paced the room. I told myself it was time to quit. But I rarely listen to my own advice. Returning to the desk, I plowed on, hearing each breath in cadence to the pounding in my head.

I saw it first.

"Ferris phoned Kaplan again on the tenth."

"Someone at Ferris's warehouse phoned Kaplan again on the tenth."

Maybe it was the headache. Maybe it was the tedium. Ryan's pickiness no longer amused me.

"Am I being a liability here?" It came out sharper than I'd intended.

Ryan's eyes came up, blue and surprised. For a long moment they looked directly into mine.

"Sorry. Can I get you anything?"

Ryan shook his head.

I went to the minibar and popped a Diet c.o.ke.

"Kaplan received another call from Ferris on the nineteenth," Ryan said to my back.

Dropping into my chair, I found the outgoing call on Ferris's warehouse record.

"Twenty-four minutes. Planning the big score, I guess."

The vessels in my head were now hammering with heavy thumping strokes. Ryan saw me press my fingers to my temples. He laid a hand on my shoulder.

"Knock off if you've had enough."

"I'm fine."

Ryan's eyes roamed my face. He brushed bangs from my forehead.

"Not as heart-pumping as surveillance?"

"Not as heart-pumping as mitosis."

"But meaningful detecting."

"Really?" I was full-out cranky now. "In five hours we've learned what? Kaplan called Ferris. Ferris called Kaplan. Big deal. We knew that. Kaplan told us."

"We didn't know Ferris called Morissonneau."

I smiled. "We didn't know Ferris called the monastery. monastery."

Ryan raised a palm. "We be good."

I slapped a lifeless high-five.

And upended my c.o.ke with an elbow. The Real Thing made a real mess, soaking the desktop and rolling cheerfully onto the floor.

We shot to our feet. While I ran for towels, Ryan plucked up and shook the phone records. I mopped, he blotted, then we lay the sheets flat on my bathroom floor to dry.

"Sorry," I said lamely.

"Drying time," Ryan said. "Let's eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"Gotta eat."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"You sound like my mother."

"Nutrition is the key to good health."

"Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which to die."

"You stole that."

I probably had. George Carlin?

"Gotta eat," Ryan repeated.

I gave up arguing.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, the mood in our little alcove stiff and unnatural. My fault. I felt jammed, my nerves tight.

We talked around things, his daughter, my daughter. No murder. No skeletons. Though Ryan tried his best, long silences played across the table.

Upstairs, Ryan kissed me outside my door. I didn't ask him in. He didn't press.

It took a long time to fall asleep that night. It wasn't the headache. Or the muezzin. Or the cats brawling in the street below.

I'm not a joiner. I don't sign on with the Junior League, the garden club, or the Sweet Potato Queens. I'm an alcoholic who's never hitched up with AA. Nothing against alliance. I'm simply a self-help sort of gal.

I read. I absorb. Bit by bit, I crack the mystery of me.

Like why, at that moment, I wanted a bellyful of Merlot.

AA dubs us once and future alcoholics. Others, naively, call us recovered. They're wrong. Capping the bottle doesn't end the alcoholic dance. Nothing does. It's in the double helix.

One day you're queen of the prom. The next you lack reasons to get out of bed. One night you slumber the sleep of the newborn. The next you're awake, anxious and tossing, and uncertain why.

That night was one of those nights. Hour after hour, I lay staring at the minaret out my darkened window, wondering for whom the spire reached. The G.o.d of the Koran? The Bible? The Torah? The bottle?

Why had I been so short with Ryan? Sure, we'd spent hours and learned almost nothing. Sure, I'd rather have been solving the mystery of Max. But why take it out on Ryan?

Why did I want a drink so badly?

And why had I been such a klutz with the c.o.ke? Ryan would have a field day with that one.

I drifted off after midnight, and dreamed disjointed dreams. Phones. Calendars. Disembodied numbers, names, and dates. Ryan on a Harley. Jake chasing jackals from a cave.

At two, I got up for water, then sat wearily on the side of the bed. What did the dreams mean? Were they simply a replay, brought on by headache and the afternoon's tedium? Was my subconscious attempting to send up a message?

Eventually, I slept.

More than once I awoke, bedding twisted hard in my fists.

33.

I CAN'T SAY CAN'T SAY I I WAS UP WITH THE MUEZZIN WAS UP WITH THE MUEZZIN. BUT IT WAS CLOSE.

The sun was rising. The birds were singing. The headache was gone.

The demons were gone.

After clearing papers from my bathroom floor, I showered, then went the extra mile with blush and mascara. At seven, I called Ryan.

"Sorry about yesterday."

"Maybe we can get you into a ballet cla.s.s."

"I don't mean the c.o.ke spill. I mean me."

"You are a gentle flower, a winsome sprite, a creature of loveliness and-"

"Why do you put up with me?"

"Am I not the most gallant and wonderful being in your world?"

"Oh, yeah."

"And s.e.xy."

"I can be a pain in the a.s.s."

"Yeah. But you're my my pain in the a.s.s." pain in the a.s.s."

"I'll make up for it."