FOUR

AFTER SLEEPING IN TENTS and dirty hotels for the better part of the year, Lowe found his beloved feather bed on the second floor of the Magnussons’ sprawling Queen Anne to be everything he’d remembered: luxurious, comforting, and safe. Moreover, his en suite bathroom was blessedly clean, the polished floors of his room smelled like orange oil, and all of his things were just as he’d left them. But after catching up with his family and staff—and after their housekeeper, Greta, bemoaning the loss of his pinky finger, stuffed him with a homecoming feast of Swedish gravlax and dilled potatoes—he woke up the next morning feeling restless.

Maybe it was Winter’s warnings about Monk Morales that did it. Or maybe it was the cursed djed amulet burning a proverbial hole in his soul. He needed to get that thing to a safe place, and fast. But before he could, he supposed he’d better let Archibald Bacall have a look. Maybe the man would like the damned thing so much, he’d triple his offer. Or quadruple it.

And perhaps while visiting Dr. Bacall, Lowe might see Hadley again. After the way she’d left him at the train station, it might be in his best interest to avoid the woman. Why he was still thinking about her, he didn’t understand.

The train company delivered his luggage early that morning. He looted it for gifts he’d brought back from Egypt before dressing in a freshly pressed suit and tie—possibly the cleanest clothes he’d worn in months. But old habits die hard, so he tucked his pants into knee-high brown leather boots and skipped the suspenders, opting for a belt. More comfortable, and it gave him something on which to anchor his curved dagger. He’d never admit it to Winter, but after the thugs with the guns in Salt Lake City, he wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to march around the city unprotected. So he checked that his short coat covered the weapon and headed out.

“Oh, Lulu baby,” he cooed to the poppy red Indian motorcycle gleaming in the late morning sunlight. God, he’d missed her. Conspicuous, yes, but also small and nimble; she could fit into places a big car couldn’t.

He adjusted the fuel petcock and chock, and with one good kick-start, the engine rumbled to life. Beautiful. After tugging down the brim of his favorite brown herringbone flatcap, he maneuvered around Winter’s limo and sped out of the gate. Sweet freedom! Everything disappeared but Lulu’s weight beneath him and the road ahead.

The ride reacquainted him with the city’s steep hills and the sweeping views of the sparkling Bay, an oasis after the prison sentence he’d served digging under Egypt’s blistering sun. He was home, and he wasn’t going to leave. Ever. He repeated this promise to familiar buildings as he passed until he’d crisscrossed his way through downtown.

No one seemed to be dogging his path, so he stopped at his favorite barbershop to rid himself of the itchy whiskers and have his mop of sun-bleached blond curls trimmed and pomaded back into manageable waves. Astrid would stop complaining now.

Feeling lighter, he zigzagged up through southwestern Pacific Heights past the old Laurel Hill Cemetery grounds to Golden Gate Park. The de Young Museum sat on green lawns and a palm-lined concourse. Throngs of people soaked up sunshine in front of the building’s Spanish Plateresque facade. He zipped around the side road to the administrative offices.

Austere wood paneling and a pretty strawberry-haired receptionist greeted him.

“Why, hello,” she said, flashing a dazzling smile as she chewed a piece of gum. “How may I help you, sir?”

“Mr. Magnusson to see Dr. Bacall.” He handed her a business card and waited while she excused herself to announce his arrival. A few minutes later, she returned to lead him down a narrow hall past several closed doors to one of the bigger offices in the back.

Book-heavy shelves and numbered boxes lined the walls of the musty room, and paperwork collected on a corner conference table. Dust motes hung suspended in a slice of sunlight framing a thin, elderly man slumped behind a desk. More than elderly—on death’s door. The man looked as if he were minutes away from drying up and blowing out the window.

“Dr. Bacall . . .” the redhead prompted.

“Lowe Magnusson?” the man answered. His head turned in Lowe’s direction, but his eyes didn’t see him. They were eerily blank. Albino white—no iris and barely a trace of pupil.

He was blind.

Good lord. What the hell had happened to Archibald Bacall?

Lowe cleared his throat. “Ah, yes, sir. It’s good to meet you.”

“Come in, come in. I have trouble moving around these days, so you’ll have to forgive me.” He lifted his head and spoke to the receptionist. “Miss Tilly, can you show him a chair, then close the door, please? This is a private meeting. No interruptions.”

As the door snicked shut behind him, Lowe removed his cap and studied the old man. Sagging, mottled skin. Frail bones. Balding. Liver spots. He’d seen fairly recent photographs of the man in archaeology publications—he’d had a head full of hair and didn’t look a day over fifty.

“It’s good to finally meet you after all our correspondence,” Bacall said in a half-British, half-American transatlantic accent. The one Hadley shared. If Lowe remembered correctly, Bacall was from some titled English family or another—he’d married the gold rush heiress after moving here from across the pond.

“You, as well.”

Could the man see him at all? Anything? Lowe waved his hand in the air. Bacall stared vacantly toward the back of the room.