Fatal Tide - Iris Johansen [32]
God, she wished she could stop shaking.
He didn't call back.
She gave up and went to take a shower when the first light of dawn broke over the horizon. The hot water felt good on her chilled body, but it didn't relax her tensed muscles. Nothing would do that until the waiting was over. She should have expected him to draw it out.
Waiting had always been a form of torture for her. He would know that. He would know everything.
Kelby was sitting in a chair and nodded at the carafe on the table when she came out on the lanai. “I made fresh coffee when I heard you stirring.” His gaze raked her face. “You look like hell.”
“Thank you.” She poured the coffee. “You don't look very spry yourself. Have you been out here all night?”
“Yes. What did you expect? When you ran into that room, you looked like a Holocaust survivor who'd been thrown back into Auschwitz.”
“And you were curious.”
“Yeah, you could say that. If you don't want to give me credit for concern. Are you going to talk to me?”
“Not yet.” She set her phone on the table before she sat down on the lounge chair. She stared out over the water. “He . . . has my files. I told Carolyn things I've never told anyone. He knows exactly what will hurt. He's trying to find a way to manipulate me.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Isn't that why you followed me from Athens? You needed to find a hook to make me tell you about Marinth. He wants the same thing you do.”
“I don't believe I appreciate you comparing the two of us.”
“No, there's no one on earth as low as this bastard.”
“How comforting.”
She should probably apologize. She was so exhausted it was difficult to think. “I didn't mean— It's just that I'm caught and I have to fight my way out. I don't know who or where to— I wouldn't have told you I wanted to come to terms if I'd thought you were like him.”
“Then the offer is still open?”
“Yes, did you think I'd let him intimidate me?” Her lips tightened. “I'd never give in to him. I'll never let him get what he wants.”
“We don't know what he wants yet.”
“Marinth. He told me.”
“Archer is a big-time arms dealer. I don't know how he could even have become involved. I can see him skimming some cream off the top of a very rich find, but he's—”
“He's an arms dealer?”
“Yes.” His gaze narrowed on her face. “That struck a note. Why?”
“Because I may know how he became involved. Phil needed money for the expedition. I'm sure that's why he wanted to contact you. But Archer might have heard about Phil and got in touch with him.”
“Heard what?”
She didn't answer for a moment. It was difficult to trust anyone when she was so used to protecting Phil. But Phil was dead. She didn't need to protect him any longer. “We . . . found tablets. Bronze tablets. Two small metal chests, but they were both filled with tablets.”
“In Marinth.”
“They weren't with the ruins. We didn't discover the ruins. Phil thought they'd been separated from the city by the force that destroyed it. Or maybe the tablets had been secreted there even before the cataclysm. It didn't matter. Phil was over the moon.”
“I can see why.”
“They were written in hieroglyphics, but they were a little different from any seen in Egypt. Phil had to be very careful to choose a translator he could trust, and it took over a year for him to get them deciphered.”
“Jesus.”
“That excites you. It excited him too.” She paused. “Me, too, at first. It was like discovering a brand-new world of knowledge and experiences.”
His gaze narrowed on her face. “But something turned you off. What?”
“Sometimes new worlds aren't all that they're cracked up to be. But Phil was happy. He'd been studying thermal vents on the ocean floor, and one of the tablets gave him something he thought would change the world. A formula for creating a sonic apparatus that could tap the vents and possibly the magma at the earth's core. It would furnish geothermal power