My former advisor. The woman under whose tutelage I had embarked on my career. The woman who blamed me for taking what she saw as credit due toher.The woman who said I betrayed her, spat on her good name, and insulted her by my very existence.
The woman who hated me and didn’t make a secret of it.
Diana Regan.
“How?” A sense of betrayal welled up inside me. I thought about my notebooks, strewn around my office. The maps on the walls. The research. The record of every book I signed out from the Bodleian. Never once did it occur to me that she’d discovered this on her own.
The scope of a conspiracy like this… it was hard to grasp.
The last time Diana Regan had done research had been during the Cold War. She was a legend, and something of a trailblazer. In the 70s and 80s, she’d gone on digs along the Iranian border, skirting Soviet bloc countries. But by the time I got to Harvard, her years of active research and traveling to places that didn’t have five-star hotels were well behind her.
I remembered how impressed I’d been with her at first. The walls of her office were covered in photos of her. First, of her at work, or with the women’s track and field team, and later the archery team in the ’84 Olympics. The bronze medal the team had won in ’88 was framed in a shadow box. She still went to practices with the Crimson Archers, would walk out of lectures rather than show up late, and practice javelin throws with the track and field team.
Her later photographs were only distantly related to her work. Most were side-by-side pictures with foreign dignitaries, and even a president.
Diana was regal, tall, and strong. She was pushing seventy, and had let her dark hair go silver, but her face was smooth, and her posture as perfect as it had been at twenty.
But everything about her was pretend. Digging a little into her research, I found she had rarely been the one to do the grunt work. Instead, she would arrive at digs purely for photo ops.She hated to do the stuff that got her to the discoveries, and somehow, she’d managed to get credit when it was due other people.
It was another reason for her to hate me. I hadn’t let her take credit for my work. Hadn’t rolled over when I should have.
She’d gotten me back, though.
Hector took his phone from me, and I realized my hand was trembling. Backing up, I sat on the bed before my knees went out.
Mine.
Mine. Mine. Mine.These pieces were supposed to be mine.
“Who is she?” Hector asked.
“My advisor from Harvard—former advisor,” I added quickly. “Somehow she must have been getting word of my research. Following me. I don’t know how.” Standing abruptly, I searched for my bag. “I have to go.” I thought of all the other ways she could take from me. There would be a record of me at the Ashmolean. What if she was already headed to Whitby?
I should have been running to the station, instead I stood, frozen. Go to Oxford? Or go to Whitby?
I had questions that needed answers, and I swore to god, if one of those stodgy, tweed wearing, pipe-smoking…
Letting out a breath, I tried to calm my racing heart.
“Go where?” Hector asked.
That was the question, wasn’t it? As much as I would hate it, if Diana had found the shard based on research—her own research—I’d live with it. But if I was right, and she’d gotten access to my work?
That was a whole different matter.
“Whitby or Oxford. Whitby or Oxford?” I chanted beneath my breath, willing my brain to click into gear and work.
I imagined her holding the shard in her hands, staring down at the image of Orestes chased by the Furies, and having no appreciation of what she had.
That made my decision for me. “Oxford,” I lied. My voice was strong. There wasn’t a single shake. Telling them I was going to Whitby would result in another argument, and I didn’t have time for that bullshit. “I’m going to Oxford.”
Lifting my eyes to Hector, I made myself hold his gaze. His blue eyes studied me, roving over my face, to my neck, and back. I wasn’t warm, like I usually became when I lied. There was ice in my veins, moving from my heart throughout my body.
“I’ll bring you to the station,” Orestes said. Part of me expected him to offer to come back with me, but he didn’t.
Neither did Pollux.
And for that I was grateful.