Forgotten in Darkness by Zoe Forward Page A

touched her hand self-consciously along the left side of her face, which still flaunted vivid scars hidden beneath the bandage she’d applied earlier. Her left eye had developed a cataract secondary to the trauma. Despite the surgery they’d performed to remove the clouded lens in South America, the eye remained non-visual. The implanted lens gave her left eye an eerie lighter green hue than the right. She’d hidden like a hermit for the past few days since her hospital release, hating the odd stares her healing face attracted. But her need for intel drove her to meet with her advisor.
    He took a sip from his oversized plastic to-go cup and asked, “What can I do for you?”
    “I have a question about something related to my research project.”
    “You discovered something new about magi in South America? Did you find the relic or jewelry piece you were looking for?”
    “I’m close to proving they existed, but I didn’t quite get the proof I needed.”
    “Ready to tell me what happened in Cartagena?”
    “I told you before when you visited the hospital. I got mugged and then they threw me into the water.”
    “Really?” He looked at her over the top of his reading glasses, clearly skeptical.
    “I did see something odd while I was down there.” She chewed on her lower lip.
    “Does it have to do with the pyramid symbol and ring that you were researching? Sounded like you were close to a lead.”
    “Sort of. I was at Kent Spieler’s dig site just outside the city, and they were finding some interesting pottery shards. One of the shards I was most interested in had a logo similar to the pyramid symbol. A guide told me a church in Cartagena had a captain’s log with an entry describing the symbol and a piece of jewelry.”
    “So, you went to look. Is that when you had your little incident?” He waved at her face.
    “Sort of.”
    “Like that phrase, don’t you?”
    “I did go to the church. It was locked, but I got in. I just didn’t have time to wait since I was scheduled to go south to the other dig site the next day. When I entered I saw something. I just don’t know if it was real or a hallucination because of my head injury.”
    “You picked the lock? And broke in?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Does anyone else know about this?”
    “I don’t think so.” An image of him floated through her mind as it had about every few minutes since she’d awaken from the coma . Long black hair with fine streaks of a lighter color flowed over thickly muscled shoulders. And that tat on his fierce face—stylized hieroglyphs. She didn’t understand why she’d been compelled to help him with the monster he fought, or why she couldn’t stop worrying over what had happened to him.
    “Sha-aay.”
    Oh, boy. A two-syllable name meant he was ticked off.
    He pushed his glasses up his nose. “This is almost as bad as when you broke into the restricted area at the Cairo museum. That took months to smooth over.”
    “I did not break into the storage area. I simply slipped in before the door locked.”
    “Semantics. Your recklessness almost got you killed this time.” He paused to purse his lips and glare disapproval.
    Reckless. A new one to add to her ever-growing list from him. What else had he called her over the past three years? Impetuous, impatient, rash. That Cairo incident earned her a whopper, hot-headed . And a twenty-minute diatribe on the virtue of restraint and going through proper channels.
    He exhaled loudly. “Although I’d love to think this episode will teach you to be cautious, I somehow doubt it. Exercise some self-control next time. Please. So, what did you see when you got into the church?”
    Her magnificent warrior she refused to discuss. Anytime she thought of him, her body’s core temperature rose. She silently cursed and reminded herself that beautiful men equaled disaster for her. Look where meeting him landed her.
    But he’d been amazing when he’d easily swung a hefty,