LITMIR.BIZ

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people don’t know about ancient Rome,” he reminded her. “You might start wearing a toga to get their attention.”

      She glowered at him. “You never change.”

      “Sure I do. I’d smell terrible wearing the same clothes over and over again.”

      She threw up her hands. It was just like old times, with Nick cracking jokes while her heart broke in two. Except that now it wasn’t just her heart, it was her integrity and perhaps her professional future.

      He touched her chin and turned her to face his eyes. The mockery was gone out of them as he asked, “Tell me about it, Tabby.”

      She drew back from the touch of his hands, so disturbing to her peace of mind. “There was an old piece of Sumerian pottery that I was using to show my students while I lectured on the Sumerian Empire. It was a very unique piece with cuneiform writing on it.”

      “You’ve lost me. It’s been years since I took Western Civilization in college.”

      “Cuneiform was an improvement in the Sumerian culture, one step above pictographic writing,” she explained. “In cuneiform, each wedge-shaped sign stands for a syllable. There are thousands of pieces of Sumerian writings contained on baked clay tablets. But this writing,” she continued, “wasn’t on a tablet, it was on a small vase, perfectly preserved and over five thousand years old.” She leaned forward. “Nick, the college paid a small fortune for it. It was the most perfect little find I’ve ever seen, rare and utterly irreplaceable. I was allowed to use it for a visual aid in that one class. None of us dreamed that it would be lost. It cost thousands of dollars…!”

      “Only the one artifact?”

      “Yes,” she agreed. “It was on my desk. I had to tutor a student in the classroom and I was going to put it back under lock and key afterward. I wasn’t gone more than five minutes, but when I came back, it was missing. There was no one around, and I can’t prove that I didn’t take it.”

      “Can’t the student vouch for you?”

      “Of course, but not about the artifact. She never saw it.”

      He whistled. “No witnesses?”

      She shook her head. “Not a one.”

      “Anyone with a motive for stealing it?”

      “A find like that would be worth a fortune, but only to a collector,” she admitted. “Most students simply see it as a minor curiosity. Only a few members of the faculty knew its actual value. Daniel, for one.”

      “Daniel?”

      “He’s a colleague of mine. Daniel Myers. We…go out together. He’s honest,” she added quickly. “He has too much integrity to steal anything.”

      “Most people who steal have integrity,” he said cynically, “but their greed overrides it.”

      “That’s not fair, Nick,” she protested. “You don’t even know Daniel.”

      “I guess not,” he said, angered by her defense of the man. Who was this colleague, anyway? His dark eyes whipped down to catch hers. “Tell me about Daniel.”

      “He’s very nice. Divorced, one son who’s almost in his teens. He lives downtown in Washington and he’s on staff at the college where I work.”

      “I didn’t ask for his history. I said tell me about him.”

      “He’s tall and slender and very intelligent.”

      “Does he love you?”

      She shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think you need to know anything about my personal life. Only my professional one.”

      He sighed. “Well, you don’t have anyone to look out for you,” he reminded her. “I always used to when you were in your teens.”

      “That was then. I’m twenty-five now. I don’t need looking after. Besides, you’re only five years older than I am.”

      “Six, almost.”

      “Daniel wants to marry me.”

      “What do you get out of it if Daniel doesn’t love you?”

      “Will you take the case?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

      “Of course. But Daniel had better not get in the way.”

      “Oh, he won’t,” she said, but with unvoiced reservations. Daniel tended to be just the least bit superior. He wouldn’t like Nick, she decided. Worse, Nick already didn’t like him. It was going to be a touchy situation, but she was sick with worry. She had to have someone in her corner, and who better than Nick, who was one of the best detectives in the world according to his sister Helen.

      “I’d like to come around to the college tomorrow and get a look at where you work.”

      “Tomorrow is Saturday,” she stammered.

      “Classes won’t be in session,” he reminded her.

      “Daniel was going to take me shopping…”

      “Daniel can buy his clothes some other time.”

      “Not for clothes, for an engagement ring!”

      His eyes narrowed. He hated that idea. Hated it, for reasons he couldn’t put a finger on. “That will have to wait. I’m only going to be in town until next Friday.”

      “I’ll phone him tonight.”

      “Good.”

      She got up, smoothing her skirt, and Nick rose with her, his face solemn, concerned. “Don’t they know you at all, these colleagues?”

      “Of course. But it does look bad. My office was locked at the time. Nobody else has a key.”

      Nails in her coffin, he was thinking, but he didn’t say it. “Try not to worry. We’ll muddle through.”

      “Okay. Thanks, Nick,” she said without looking at him.

      “No need for that. I’ll call for you about eight in the morning. That too early?”

      She shook her head. “I’m always up at dawn.”

      “Just like old times,” he recalled. “I hope you don’t have plans to climb the drain pipe, just like old times, and climb in a bedroom window.”

      She caught her breath. “It was only once or twice, and it was Helen’s room I climbed into!”

      “You were such a tomboy,” he mused. “Hell with a bat in sandlot baseball, the most formidable tackle we had in football, and not a bad tree climber. You don’t look much different today.”

      She grimaced. “Don’t I know it.” She sighed. “No matter what I eat, I can’t put on a pound.”

      “Wait until you hit middle age.”

      “That’s a few years away,” she said with a faint smile.

      “Yes. Quite a few. Get some sleep.”

      “You, too. Good night.”

      He returned the sentiment and watched her walk to her front door. Old times. He thought back to warm summer evenings when he’d bring his dates home and they’d all sit on chairs on the lawn and watch Helen and Tabby, who were a few years younger, chase fireflies on the lush lawn. He supposed Tabby would watch her own children do that very thing one day.

      He didn’t want to think about that. He went back inside and tried to pick up his mystery novel again, but he’d lost his taste for it. He put it down and went to bed, hours and hours before usual.

      Tabby was dressed in a floral skirt and white knit blouse when he called for her the next morning just at eight. He wasn’t much more dressed up than she was, comfortable in slacks

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