Maybe. She hadn’t figured the thing out yet, so what made her believe anyone else could?

Online, Sneak had sounded like a layman who stumbled across an artifact while hiking with friends near a defunct dig site in Spain. And yet, that explanation didn’t feel right to Annja.

Add to the leery feeling the fact a lock-pick kit, drill and glass cutter had been on his person…

Annja knew when people hired others to handle artifacts and hand them over it was never on the up-and-up. Whoever had hired the sneaky guy may have also killed him.

But why? If the sniper had known the man carried the artifact on him, why then kill him and risk losing the skull in the river?

Annja envisioned a body found floating in the Gowanus Canal come morning. It wasn’t as though it never happened. Heck, the canal was rumored to have once been the Mafia’s favorite dumping grounds. But it had been cleaned up quite a bit since the Mafia’s heydays.

Annja considered her options.

Bart McGilly was a friend who served on the NYPD as a detective. He knew trouble followed Annja far more closely than she desired, and was accustomed to calls from her at odd hours of the night.

He didn’t know everything about her. Like at certain times she could be found defending herself with a kick-ass medieval sword. And after successfully dispatching the threat, the sword would then simply disappear into a strange otherwhere Annja still couldn’t describe or place.

What was it about the sword? Since she’d taken claim to it, weird stuff happened to knock on her door weekly. It was as if the sword attracted things to her. Things she needed to change. Things that required investigation. Things that could not always be determined good or evil, but, Annja knew innately, mustn’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

It was as if she’d become the crusader for lost artifacts and weird occurrences. World-changing occurrences. And that put a heavy weight on her shoulders.

Bart was also unaware she really could use a good hug every once in a while. With the sword came challenge and hard work and, oftentimes, danger. Survival and strength could only be maintained with good old-fashioned friendship. Of which, she had a few, but not a single person she could call a BFF.

Did she need a BFF? Probably not. Then again, probably.

With a sigh, Annja retrieved her mug from the floor and took a sip. Cold. But still, it was chocolate. Propping a hand at her flannel-covered hip, she leaned over the laptop.

The photo program allowed her to choose a few good shots of the anterior and lateral views, and close-ups of the gold on the fontanels. She cropped them to remove the background. Didn’t need anyone knowing her curtains were badly in need of dusting or that her desk was a disaster.

Signing on to her favorite archaeology site, Annja posted the pictures along with a note about a friend showing her the skull. She wouldn’t make up a story about finding it on a dig, because that could get her in trouble. She had no idea where this had come from, and if she guessed a wrong location, well, then.

She’d check back in the morning.

Before signing off, she searched the Carroll Street Bridge to see if it had security cameras. It didn’t. Which wouldn’t help her sleuth out who she’d spoken to, but proved excellent should the sniper want to track her.

On the other hand, if the sniper and the bald guy were indeed two different people, the sniper may have tracked her home.

Flicking aside the curtain, Annja scanned the street below. Car headlights blurred in the snow that had turned to sleet and rain. No mysterious figures lurking.

She picked up the phone to call Bart. It was past midnight, but she dialed, anyway. Bart’s answering machine took her cryptic message about swimming the canal with a stranger. He’d call her in the morning, for sure.

With one last inspection over the skull, she decided to forego doing an Internet search on random skulls. That would bring up more hits than her sleepy eyelids could manage.

Instead, she flicked off the desk light and wandered into her bedroom. It hadn’t felt so good to crawl between warm blankets in a long time. Annja dropped instantly to Nod.

4

In the meeting room attached to a fiftieth-floor corner office overlooking Central Park, a crew of three cameramen noisily went about setting up for a photo shoot. A top business magazine had declared Benjamin Ravenscroft CEO of the year. They wanted to flash his mug across their pages, and he was obliged to agree.

He’d gotten an e-mail that morning regarding the Fortune 500 list. Another photo shoot was imminent.

The entrepreneur’s company, Ravens Tech, had risen from the detritus of struggling dot coms over the past year. CNN had crowned him Master of the Intangible Assets. Ravens-Tech now held weekly cyber auctions for intellectual property rights, such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. They’d netted six hundred million dollars last year, and this year looked to double that figure.

Just goes to show what a little roll-up-your-sleeves ingenuity can do for a man. And the proper connections, he thought as he waited to be photographed.

“Ten minutes and we’ll be ready for you, Mr. Ravenscroft,” the photographer said.

Ravenscroft waved a slim black clove cigarette at the photographer, who then disappeared inside the meeting room.

Leaning against the edge of his granite-topped desk, ankles crossed and whistling the first few bars of Eine Kleine Nachtmusic,the businessman tucked the grit between his lips and inhaled. It made a faint popping sound.

He had the cigarettes imported from Indonesia. He preferred them over regular cigarettes for their intense scent. He’d become addicted to them during his college days when he’d sit through the night, eyes glued to the computer monitor as he shopped his way through available domain names.

He’d made millions nabbing domains. Another intangible. He loved buying and selling things a person could not physically hold, touch or see.

He tapped the calendar on his iPhone. He verified two meetings that afternoon: Accountant and Marketing. Both would be a breeze.

Another tap. The plans for the Berlin office were due to arrive before noon by courier. Where the hell were they?

He eyed his secretary’s desk through the glass wall that separated their offices. With a touch of a button on his desk the electrochromic glass would turn white, granting privacy. A necessary amenity.

Rebecca was on the phone; her red hair spilled over one satin-clad shoulder. She would notify him as soon as the Berlin plans arrived. Lunch with her in the meeting room—her legs hooked over his shoulders—was scheduled for twelve-fifteen.

He hadn’t scheduled Harris in, but he expected him before noon, as well. Not the best time to arrive, with the photographer in the next room, but Ben was anxious to get his hands on what Harris had retrieved.

He twisted and eyed the blurry photograph on the desktop. The skull had been removed from a glass display case, and a glare from the glass blurred part of the photo.

“Good things,” he muttered. “Soon.”

But the day would give him a migraine if he didn’t dose on Imitrex before facing the camera’s bright lights.

And tonight he had to leave the office early to arrive home in time to tuck his daughter in for bed. He and his wife had agreed he’d make a concerted effort to be home at least twice a week to do so.