Atlantis Endgame Read Free Page A

of thought: memories of their last meeting—a towering argument—and the e-mail she'd sent him just yesterday. A third track superimposed itself: what subtle measures did the mind use to mark a familiar face or form? He'd probably seen twenty thousand women—more—since he last was in Linnea Edel's presence, but he'd immediately known that precise tilt of chin as if he'd just parted from her an hour ago.
    "Yes, it is I," she said, getting off her bar stool and coming forward.
    Neither spoke as they looked at each other. Site's the same, he thought. Oh, older—and she didn't bother to hide it, either. Her thick cloud of dark hair was streaked with gray, and maybe her contours were softer, for she'd never been fashionably thin (or bad shown the slightest interest in fashion) back then. She was still short and round, and though age, and experience, and the inevitable effects of gravity had carved lines in her face, her Mediterranean bone structure was more sharply emphasized now, and he realized she was more attractive than ever.
    He tried a polite opener. "How was the drive up from New York?"
    "Slow. And then pretty." She gave him a rueful smile. "Gordon, I hope you're not mad at me. I realized after you sent your e-mail about meeting here—so neutral a place, like a truce—that maybe it seemed like I was threatening you, and it wasn't that, not at all."
    Nothing like the exigencies of work to snap the mind back to the here and now. Aware of interested ears at the bar, Ashe said easily, "Threaten me all you like. I have just as much back history to bore you with as you could have for me. But how about we get a booth first, and we can play catch-up in comfort?"
    Her eyes narrowed in a subtle signal of comprehension.
    She laughed. "Ah, but I came armed with family photos! Lead on."
    They were soon settled into a corner booth near the fireplace. A bar waiter appeared, and Ashe asked for seltzer on the rocks with a twist, just to get rid of the guy; he did not want alcohol clouding his brain now. As the waiter moved away, he looked at the drink Linnea had brought and realized she was drinking the same thing.
    "Before we start," he said, striving for normalcy, except what is normal when you haven't seen someone since a fight twenty-five years ago, and then she sends yon a sinister letter? "Do yon really have family photos? How is J.J.? And didn't I hear you'd had lads?"
    "Two." She raised her fingers. "Twins. Mariana is in the navy, doing something arcane with radar, and adores it, when I hear from her, which is about twice a year. Max is in Los Angeles at film school, working about twenty hours a day, which is what you have to do until you break into that business. I hear from him once a year."
    She had picked up her glass and was gently clinking the ice cubes round and round, round and round. She seemed to realize that she was doing it and set it down again, then tipped her head, that inquiring angle that had reminded him of a bird, and said, "J.J. died five years ago."
    "I'm sorry," Ashe said, hating how inadequate it sounded.
    "Don't be. It was sudden, over his breakfast coffee. Just like that. I was even there to be with him those last few moments."
    Ashe winced.
    She laced her fingers together, her wedding band winking with golden light in the reflection from the fire.
    "Best way to go, I think. No fear, and the doctors insisted there couldn't have been much suffering. Though it's hard enough on those of us left behind. So I became a hermit for a time, and then that time ended, and I looked about me, and realized that I was still alive, that my children were grown and didn't need me—and that I could, well, have a life of my own."
    Again the tilt of the head. "And you were right, by the way."
    Right? Was she talking about that last nasty exchange? Ashe's mind wheeled back rapidly, faster than light-speed. He was again on warm, dusty Crete, digging at Knossos. Two on the dig were J.J. Edel, twenty years older, and