It was almost ten. Annja was likely still awake, but he’d wait until morning. The music wanted his attention.

HIS RUBBER-SOLED RUNNING shoes made no sound on the old tiled floor in Schermerhorn Hall. It was dark, save for a few lights toward the end of the hall, two coming from consecutive doorways, another across the hall from the first.

Ravenscroft’s orders had been clear. He’d likely find this strange skull in the anthropology building. He’d found a name of a teacher associated with the TV chick and had tracked his teaching schedule.

The building should be empty of students as well as professors, especially with the holiday weekend. But Jones had been given the all-clear to take matters into hand should he run into anyone wanting to ask questions.

Sliding his leather-gloved fingers inside his jacket, Jones drew them the length of the knife tucked inside a narrow pocket.

As each step drew him closer to the lighted rooms, he got a sense for the one on the left. Just a feeling. Must be like that intuition his girlfriend was always yapping about.

Stopping at the first door on the left, he read the syllabus taped outside on the wall. It was signed by Professor Danzinger. Bingo.

He knocked lightly. The door, not completely closed, swung inward.

“Professor Danzinger?”

He entered the quiet room. A bright lamp beamed over a lab table. A computer, textbooks and various tools and papers scattered messily across the stretch.

And a skull. Sitting there on an open box with tufts of wool cradling the small cranium.

Ravenscroft had said he might need to mention a woman’s name. “I was given your name by Annja Creed.”

“Yes, Miss Creed.” The professor removed his glasses and set them on the countertop. An acoustic guitar lay on the table before him, the neck propped by a textbook, one unwound string coiled at the base by the sound hole. “And you are?”

“Jones,” he offered. “Bill Jones. I’m a colleague of Miss Creed’s. I see you’ve got the skull. Annja and I are eager to learn what you’ve discovered about it.”

“Yes, well, the interior mapping isn’t finished. As for the date…” He leaned over the skull and tapped the thin gold tracing around one eye socket. “I’d give it a good millennium. Perhaps. I’m no expert, more a fascinated learner.”

“That’s intriguing.” Jones moved to the professor’s side. When the man straightened and looked him over, he placed a gentle palm to his shoulder. “Looks like just another skull. What’s so special about this one?”

He felt the man’s muscles tighten under his testing touch. “How did you say you know Annja? She didn’t mention—”

“I’m surprised she didn’t mention me, but then Annja is always so busy.”

“Yes, with her show.”

Show? Jones filed that one away. “I’ll bring it back to her.”

“But I said I’m not finished yet. Maybe I should give Annja a call?”

“Sure, certainly. You play, Professor?”

Jones stroked the guitar neck. Three strings were strung.

“Since I was a boy. You like guitar music?” Danzinger asked.

Jones picked up one of the thicker, bronze-wrapped strings and unwound it curiously. “Music is not one of my talents.”

“You don’t need to be able to play to appreciate. I’ve got a phone in the office. If you’ll give me a minute—”

Fitting his arms over the man’s head and tugging the guitar string, Jones choked off the man’s protest. The wire dug into flesh. He pulled hard, sawing it slightly until he smelled blood.

As he felt the man’s weight sag, Jones decided he couldn’t wait. Taking the professor’s head between his palms, he gave it a smart jerk, separating the spinal disks. The spinal cord severed, the body slumped and dropped.

Jones stepped back, dragging his feet from under the professor’s sprawled limbs. He dropped the bloody string across his chest. Leather pants and a shimmery leopard-print shirt? What kind of professor dresses like an aging rock star?

Dismissing the thought, Jones bent forward, bringing himself eye level with the skull.

“Kinda ugly, if you ask me. The thing’s cranium is bigger than its face. Must be deformed. But is that gold?”

He grabbed the skull, and when it wouldn’t fit inside his pocket, he tucked it in the box filled with wooly stuff.

22

“Wait!”

Annja rushed ahead of Garin’s long strides down the hallway of the Schermerhorn building. She pressed a hand to his shoulder, feeling resistance in his straining muscles. He was in too big a hurry for this to feel right.

“Right here,” she said, pointing to her eyes. “Look at me.”

He tilted his head and met her gaze. Dark, emotionless eyes. Not at all kind as he’d displayed earlier at his penthouse. That’s what Annja was afraid of. The man tended to alter his alliances faster than she could blink.

“Tell me this isn’t a trick. That as soon as you see the skull, you’re not going to push me out a window and take off with the thing.”

“I would never push you out a window, Annja.”

“Yeah? Not unless it served your purposes. Just tell me the truth. Right now. I already know what the answer is, but I want to hear it from you.”

The imposing man pressed his knuckles to his hips, widening his stance. And his gaze didn’t get any less fierce.

“You think you know me? You think I’ll harm anyone, kill,to get what I desire?”

“I do,” she offered, sure of it, though it pained her to believe such truths.

Garin tilted his head. Then, swiping a palm over his mouth, he shook his head. “Isn’t everyone out to protect number one? Since you’ve come into my world, Annja, the game has changed. I have…uncertainties. I want to make them certain once again.”

“Then why not go after the sword?”

“Because I like you, Annja. Believe it or not. And, as you are aware, the sword is not an attainable goal. So until you hand it to me, with blessings and tied with a bow, then I’ve got to resort to other means.”

Aha. He’d just, in a roundabout way, confirmed her suspicions. He was after the skull. Though what it could do for him was beyond her imagining. Ifit possessed power.

His story about he and Roux holding it in fifteenth-century Spain was believable enough, but really, he had no proof. It had killed. Didn’t sound like a giver of all good things to her. And if it did grant some magical wishes, didn’t Garin already have it all? And what he didn’t have, he could buy.

Unless good thingssomehow meant giving him access to her sword. In which case, she should, and would, fight to the finish for this skull.

Swinging about, she took the lead down the hallway. With Garin hot on her heels, she couldn’t reach the anthropology lab fast enough. She was going to lead him directly to the skull. Was there any other choice? She’d known from the moment he’d pulled her from the grave he possessed ulterior motives.

The lab door was open. Annja’s heart dropped to her gut. Rushing inside, the room was empty, but the light was on over the professor’s worktable.

“Professor?” Annja didn’t track the room for the skull.

Garin prowled in behind her. He would do that search.

“Oh, hell.”

An arm stretched across the floor behind the freestanding counter. Blood spattered the professor’s face and the front of his leopard-print shirt. It had begun to pool beside his cheek and shoulder.

“He’s dead,” she said.

“Ya think?”

She cast Garin a sneer.

He put up his palms. “Sorry. Is he still warm?”

As Garin shuffled glass jars and books about, Annja bowed her head and pressed her open palm to the professor’s cheek. “Yes.”