“I don’t think Lowe’s problem is a lack of feelings,” Adam said carefully. “Just the opposite, in fact. When he makes mistakes, he’s so focused on righting the wrong, and so overconfident about his ability to fix it all, that he loses sight of the big picture and ends up making things worse.”

She looked away to gain some control over her wayward emotions and dug an envelope out of her pocket. “Here,” she said, handing it to Adam. “For his bail. He’s being held at the Richmond precinct station. I wrote down the captain’s direct telephone line inside.”

He tried to give back the envelope. “You do it. Go talk to him.”

“Did he tell you why my father wants the amulet?” she asked in a rough voice. “Did he tell you . . . about me?”

Adam seemed genuinely confused. “I know the amulet pieces are hidden around the city, and I know how much your father is willing to pay Lowe to find them.”

“My father is very ill, and that amulet might save his life.”

Adam blew out a long breath. “You know how Lowe’s parents died?”

She nodded. “Car accident. That is, I only know from the newspapers. Lowe never talks about it.”

“Not surprising. It was a bad time. But you do know that his brother, Winter, was the one driving the car?”

She nodded once.

“Winter took it hard. Blamed himself. Lowe, on the other hand, spent a couple weeks grieving before taking off to Egypt. Thought he could outrun it, you know. And maybe he did, for a while.” He shrugged. ‘But I guess my point is that Lowe would not under any circumstances choose money over your father’s life. He may be a lot of things, but he’s not a monster.”

She ducked her head and twisted her jaw to stop from crying.

After a few moments, Adam slid the third crossbar toward her along with the real amulet, affixed with the first two crossbars. “Take it. If you sort out things with Lowe and still want to copy the rest of it, you know where to find me. And if not?” He gave her a wry smile. “Well, let’s just say he owes me.”

“Are you sure?”

He made a shooing gesture with his hand. “Take it,” he insisted, placing the amulet’s copy inside the box.

“Then you keep the crocodile. After all, you made it.” She pocketed the amulet. “That is, if you want to risk holding on to the thing. I made sure I wasn’t followed here, but Monk Morales might have ears to the ground.”

He slipped the crocodile inside the box before closing it and rapping his knuckles on the lid. “This old gal will keep it hidden. Velma said the iron alone would probably do the trick—people have hidden things in iron for centuries. But her magic makes it doubly safe.”

Hadley smiled tightly as she pulled on her gloves. A thought stilled her hands.

Iron.

She knew something made of iron. Something right in her own family’s backyard. She mentally summoned the pictograms on the last urn—the one they couldn’t crack or match up to any names on the list. It was the right number of letters, but she’d been through every possible interpretation a thousand times.

Every interpretation but one.

Funny how one wrong letter could change a word so completely.

“Are you all right?” Adam asked.

“No, I’m really not,” she mumbled as a buzzing brightness filled her mind with a singular, enormous idea—one that was so distracting, she failed to notice the dark car parked across the street, or the man who stepped out of the driver’s seat, as she sped away inside her taxi.

THIRTY

LOWE COLLECTED HIS THINGS from the holding window and nodded at the captain before heading upstairs to the police station lobby with Bo.

“Thanks again,” he told Winter’s assistant.

“You should’ve called last night,” he chastised, his slender, sinewy body outpacing Lowe’s as they ascended into dreary midday light filtering in from gray windows. “If Chief Ryan knew they had a Magnusson locked up on trumped-up charges, he would’ve gotten out of his bed to come here and personally haul their asses over the coals.”

Lowe straightened his necktie and attempted to brush out the wrinkles in his suit jacket. His back was killing him. He’d dozed off in the jail cell once or twice, only getting enough sleep to make him grouchy. He was also vaguely aware that he hadn’t had anything to eat since yesterday’s lunch. And yet, none of those discomforts matched the unyielding heavy ache in the pit of his stomach.

Monk wanted him dead.

Levin was eager to expose him for a forger and rip away any credibility he had as an archaeologist.

The hunt for the crossbars was now hopeless, so he’d certainly voided his payout from Bacall. And in the process, he’d likely resigned the man to his death, thereby leaving his daughter exposed to his dangerous ex-partner’s dark magic and unhealthy obsessions.

And—the worst of it all—he’d not only lost Hadley; he might very well have ruined her reputation and career.

“Christ, Bo. I’ve fucked up.”

Bo tugged the brim of his newsboy cap and agreed heartily, confirming his fears with an enthusiastic expression in Cantonese that Lowe could only guess meant “thoroughly.”

“I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t tell Winter about this,” Lowe said.

“I’m sure you would,” Bo agreed. “You’re a decent man, despite your faults, and I like you. But my loyalty is to Winter, and you know that.”