Chapter 18 #2
Io had spoken to the Reverend Mother and been granted permission to use their library. Mother Teresita said she could stay until vespers, but that was hours away and Io’s eyes were about to cross. She wasn’t an archivist. She wasn’t a historian. She didn’t enjoy trying to decipher old handwriting.
And she was on her own. Cal was off somewhere with KW. She was used to being alone. It shouldn’t bother her. It still did.
She scowled, but he’d been acting strange for a lot of the day anyway, and after she’d gotten excited about the logbook, he’d become downright irritable. Of course he’d shut down the second she showed enthusiasm. He always did.
As if she had time for that bullshit.
Hiding the book hadn’t been an option. KW had reported it to Mother Teresita immediately.
Okay, yes, she got it. The book belonged to the convent, but couldn’t he have waited until the Paladin League found the treasure?
Didn’t the man understand that the players after the prize weren’t going to let the book being inside the abbey stop them from taking it?
The best way to keep the sisters safe was for Io to hang on to it until things calmed down.
She sat at a table, the captain’s journal in front of her and read another page. So many researchers at the League would be turning cartwheels reading about the life of an 1820s ship captain on the run from the Spanish authorities. Io was about to fall asleep.
Turning the page, she forced herself to scan the text. Her eyes were drifting shut, when she saw Radiante. She heard the door open, but she recognized the sounds of Cal’s footsteps and kept reading.
“Radiante.” Now she looked at Cal, unable to contain her excitement and wanting to share it with him. “It’s a painting of a religious figure surrounded by angels.”
“Sounds like a description of a million paintings.”
Some of her enthusiasm faded. “This corroborates the clue we found.”
He pulled out the seat across from her at the wooden table and dropped into it. “We don’t know if that clue was a setup or not.”
Io straightened. She’d held it together all day, but this? It pushed her temper to the edge. “What is your problem?”
“My problem? We are sitting inside a convent surrounded not just by Torres’s men, but also by Russian mobsters who nearly grabbed us—or at least you—in the market already. Yet you’re not worried at all about how we get back out of here without attracting their attention.”
Did he think she hadn’t considered that?
She was in charge and that meant his safety was her responsibility.
Keeping her tone level with some effort, Io said, “When I spoke with the Reverend Mother, I asked about the tunnel. When we’re ready to leave she’ll arrange for us to use it again and exit at the church.
Unless it’s changed, that should take us outside the Russian perimeter. ”
“You should have told me.”
The tone was accusatory and Io stiffened. “Let’s see, how much time have we been in the same room together since I talked to Mother Teresita? Would that be zero minutes? Why yes, I think it might be. Hard to tell you anything when you’re not around.”
“Why didn’t you text me?”
Not an apology, but had she really expected one? “Why? I figured you’d turn up sooner or later and I would tell you then.”
“What happened with being a team?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. I wasn’t the one who took off with my buddy without telling me why.
I’m the leader of this op. You should have kept me informed, but you didn’t show me even that much respect.
Then, when you finally return, again without telling me anything, you get pissed off at me for handling how we get out of here safely. ”
“You think I don’t respect you?”
“I know you don’t.”
Cal stood, the chair screeching across the floor from the quick motion. With both hands on the table, he leaned forward. “That’s total bullshit.”
Io pushed back from the table, too, and stood, but her movements were slow and deliberate. “First, you come into the library and you’re all uptight about getting out of here because you believe I never thought about it.”
She held up a hand, stopping him from interrupting her.
“Secondly, you didn’t bother to inform me what you and KW were doing. Thirdly, when I tell you I have our exit taken care of, you get angry because I didn’t immediately send you a text to keep you informed. Never mind that for all I knew you’d hopped on a shuttle to Saturn. And that’s just today.”
“And on the other days?” Cal growled the question.
He was furious. Tough shit. She was furious, too.
“And on other days you tried to get me to give up my career. Never mind that you knew who and what I was from the very beginning. Never mind that you never said a fucking word before we were married that you had a problem with my job. And when I didn’t jump to comply with your demands, you told me to get out of your life. You call that respect?”
“I call that wanting you safe. I call that protecting you.”
“I call that bullshit. If you couldn’t love me the way I am, you never should have suggested we elope. You should have gone back to Germany when your leave was up and left me the hell alone.”
“It hurt too much to leave you.” His voice was quieter now, but there was another emotion there, one Io didn’t understand.
“It hurt more when you told me to go back to LA.”
“Your job is dangerous.”
“My job isn’t that risky. If one of us has a career that’s dangerous, it’s you and I didn’t put any demands on you. Not because I don’t want you to be safe, but because I respect you and the choices you’ve made, including for your career.”
The silence hung like a guillotine, the blade poised over their throats.
“Don’t you get it, Io? I couldn’t stand by and watch you die.”
“Cal, I’m not going to die, not anytime soon.”
“I’m sure Elena thought the same thing, but I lost her. I wasn’t going to hang around to stand over your grave, too.”
“Who’s Elena?”
Instead of answering, Cal walked out the door.