Chapter 3
T hey hated her, of course. And why wouldn’t they? She had pepper sprayed one of them before the morning even began. And then she accused their leader of being a misogynist for using a term of endearment on his wife. Jane sat in the meeting room clutching a bottle of water, hands shaking, trying to get herself back under control. She had desperately hoped to go into this day with a clean slate, with no one realizing how incredibly awkward and different she was. Instead she had exposed herself to all of them within the space of five minutes. She had outed the secret herself: she was an outsider forever with no hope of fitting in.
Cameron Ridge stood at the front of the meeting room. His team became immediately silent as if he were the teacher and they the restless classroom. “Good morning, everyone. I’d like to introduce Dr. Jane Dunbar. She specializes in mid-east artifacts from the Middle Ages. She’s agreed to consult with us on our current case. Dr. Dunbar, is that how you prefer to be addressed?”
Jane couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her or if it was an honest question. “Jane will be fine, thank you,” she replied.
“Jane, let me introduce our team. This is Maggie Ridge, my wife and our information coordinator. Maggie compiles, controls, and maintains the flow of information for each case. She’ll coordinate everything you give her and put it into a workable database for us to have at our fingertips. She specializes in cross referencing which doesn’t sound like much, but when you maintain as much data as we do, it comes in handy.”
Maggie gave Jane a smile and a little wave. Jane gave her a nod of acknowledgement in return.
“To my left is Ethan, our field agent and a new addition to the team. He’s leaving for Iraq tomorrow, so you won’t see much of him. Our contact will be sporadic at best, so we like to have as much information ready to go at a moment’s notice whenever he gets the chance to check in.
“On Maggie’s right you’ll find Babs and Ellen, our data entry specialists. You do not want to go against them in a typing contest. Spoiler alert: it will end badly for you.”
The door opened and closed. Someone sat to Jane’s left. Ridge smiled at the newcomer. Maggie sputtered a laugh and bit her knuckle. “And joining us is Blue Bishop, our aforementioned hacker extraordinaire. You two will be working, ah, closely together. Any questions?”
Everyone looked at Jane and she could feel her heart pounding. She shook her head.
“Great, let’s get started with what we know.” Cameron Ridge reached for a remote and the screen at the front of the room popped to life. “2010 began the Arab spring, a series of uprisings that aimed to overthrow oppressive regimes. I won’t go into the other countless issues surrounding that because we’ll be narrowing our focus to one thing: forgery.
“All the instability in the region allowed looters and gangs to raid museums and libraries, stealing priceless artifacts and selling them on the black market. At the same time, they began doing a series of forgeries and selling those, too. Over the last year, we’ve begun to see two disturbing patterns. One, the forgers and thieves seem to have unified into one powerful group. Two, the money from those thefts and forgeries is being funneled into multiple terror groups, one of which has recently pinged on our radar in a major way.
“And now we get to our area of combined interest. Blue’s been tracking a series of posts on the dark web indicating an influx of both forgeries and real artifacts. They’re in the states and flooding the market. The forgeries are good, some of the best we’ve ever seen. Dr. Dunbar, Jane, is one of the few people in the world who can tell the difference. She’ll be assisting us as we try to get ahead of this thing. Jane, is there anything you’d like to add?”
There was a reason Jane worked with artifacts and not people. All eyes were on her again, and she felt the familiar panic creeping in. Say something, say something, say something. “The forgeries flooding the market are detrimental to our conservation efforts. I’ll do whatever I can to help.” There. Whew. She got out a complete phrase and didn’t bumble it too badly.
The meeting was adjourned a moment later. She grabbed her mug of coffee and turned to go, stumbling slightly when her sweater became stuck on the corner of the chair. She didn’t fall, but the motion was enough to send her hot coffee shooting out of her mug and directly into the lap of the man next to her, Blue, the tattooed guy whose eyes she’d pepper sprayed less than an hour ago.
He yelped and jumped. “Oh,” Jane exclaimed, attempting to spring free to try and help. Unfortunately he leaned forward at the same time she did and, mug in hand, she clunked him in the nose. Hard.
“Oh, my, I just, I, oh…” she flapped her hands helplessly a few times before spying the open bottle of water beside her. Intending to offer it to help clean his pants she grabbed it and spun toward him. Newton’s law had its way again and while the bottle stopped, the liquid inside did not. It sloshed out of the bottle and drenched the man’s shirt.
Her brain went into panic mode, searching for something, anything to say. “Nice to meet you,” was what it decided on.
Across the room, Maggie Ridge laid her head on the table, almost shrieking with laughter.
Later, Jane sat in her office. The temptation was there to turn out the lights and rest her head on the table. Instead she kept the lights on and tried to work on clearing out her inbox, sending important messages she could no longer put off. Jane liked working with artifacts and antiquities. They were the heartbeat of her world, the entire reason she’d gone into her field. It was her bad luck as a human that working with other people also came into play.
She was bad with people. Abysmal, really. She had grown up in a different sort of family, one that moved and traveled a lot, never really allowing her to put down roots and make friends. In college she had finally warmed up to a handful of people enough to call them true friends, and they remained her only close friends to this day. She texted two of them now.
Am having the worst day in the history of time. Peed a guy’s pants for him. Might die.
The first to reply was Nick, a Brit who was in the US indefinitely, currently at work on his doctorate:
Brew tea. If it’s good enough for the queen, who are you to disagree? PS. Don’t pee his pants with said tea.
The second reply was from Emily, Jane’s roommate, a psychiatry resident currently doing her rotation at a mental institution:
There’s space for you here. LMK if you need a room or lobotomy. Family/friends discount for both. Bring a friend, two for one. (Also counts for multiple personalities.)
So deep was Jane’s despair their replies barely brought a smile. She set her phone aside as someone knocked on her door.
“Come in,” she called.
It was the blue haired guy. Her mind went into panic mode. What was his name? What was his name? She should know this, especially after she hastily grabbed a stack of napkins and tried to swipe coffee off a part of his pants she should only touch after marriage. Maybe not even then. After a few swipes, he had caught her wrist and shook his head. That was when Jane finally gave up and fled the room.
“We need to go over some things,” he said.
She ground her palms to her eyes. “I know. The coffee and the water and the napkins and the pepper spray. It was all…”
“Work things,” he said, holding his laptop aloft.
“Oh, right. Okay.”
He remained standing in the doorway, staring at her. “Is it all right if I come in?” His eyes roamed the room, probably looking for any sharp objects she might accidently impale him with.
“Yes.”
He entered cautiously and sat down. “I’d like to show you some of the pictures I’ve been able to siphon of some of the artifacts, get your opinion on them.”
“Okay,” Jane said. He set the laptop on the opposite side of her desk, typed furiously a few moments, and turned the computer to face her. She reached for it, and he backed away, removing his hands before she could touch him.
She leaned in, staring at the pictures, clicking through them and tilting her head for a better view. “If these are forgeries, they’re remarkable. I would only be able to tell with a hands on examination.”
“A museum in Philadelphia purchased one of them. I’ll see if Ridge can set up a showing.”
“The head of the museum there is a friend of mine. I’ll give him a call and set up a viewing,” Jane said.
“One of us will need to go with you to see what we’re dealing with,” Blue said.
“All right,” she said.
An awkward lull fell between them.
“About this morning. I’m sorry I pepper sprayed you and everything else that came after. I thought you…”
“You thought I was a murderer because I have blue hair and tats. I get that a lot,” he said.
“You were following me,” Jane said.
“I was not, I was merely heading here for my job.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
“Because you made assumptions. Because I have blue hair and tats.”
“I am five feet and three inches. I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds on a good day. You’re what, six feet, six one?”
“Six two,” he said. “And, for the record, I have been to prison.”
She flinched with shock.
“Oh, you’re surprised by that? I thought it would have been a given in your mind.”
“I think you’re being a bit hard on me,” she said.
“You pepper sprayed me for sharing an elevator with you,” he said, pointing to his still-swollen eyes.
“Again, I’m very sorry. But I thought you were following me. I was frightened. What if you had been a killer? Should I have waited until you clubbed me over the head so I didn’t come off as judgmental?”
“Whatever,” Blue said. He stood to gather his laptop. Unfortunately it was the same moment Jane decided to smack it closed, smashing his fingers inside.
“Oh, come on,” Blue exclaimed, withdrawing his fingers and shaking them in the air.
“You should probably go,” Jane said, pressing her thumb to the middle of her forehead.
“I’m leaving, and rest assured I haven’t stolen anything from your office.” He collected his laptop and stormed out the door.
Jane picked up her phone and texted Emily.
If lobotomies erase memories, sign me up for two of them.
She set the phone aside and peered outside her office. No one was in the hallway. Satisfied no one was watching, she crawled under her desk and cried.