Victim of Love by Darien Cox Page B

to stay behind with me, but tried not to read too much into it.
    But his presence was palpable, as was my awareness of him as he stretched back, one hand tucked behind his head, the other holding his book. I took my shirt off and slathered myself with my turbo sunblock, then pulled my own book out.
    “What you reading?” Beck asked.
    “Ah, the new Dennis Lehane novel. You?”
    He showed me his book. “Mummification and Death Rituals of Ancient Egypt.”
    “Oh. Yours sounds a bit heavier than mine. I’ve just been really looking forward to some escapist reading. So many years reading nothing but science text books while I was in school. Crime thrillers are about my speed these days.”
    “Hey,” Beck said. “Never apologize for what you like to read. Most people never crack a book after high school. Besides, I get it. After I got my MFA I spent an entire month in my underwear watching reality television.”
    I glanced at his profile. “You’ve got an MFA, huh?”
    He nodded.
    I set my book down, more interested in the man beside me than the crime kingpins in my novel now. “Laurie said you used to work in a museum.”
    He glanced at me, then set his own book down. “I was a curator.”
    “And now you do...what is it that you do?”
    He grinned, looking out at the water. “My sister had it pretty close. I find weird shit for weird people who want weird shit.”
    “I don’t really understand. But that’s okay. I don’t mean to pry.”
    Beck shifted onto his side and looked at me, propping his head on his palm. “I was working as a curator for a long time. One day this guy comes to me and he’s got this item he wants the museum to buy. He had all this verification paperwork and was quite adamant about its authenticity. But I told him no, we didn’t want it. Maybe it was the real thing, maybe it wasn’t, but either way, it was too...tacky. And kind of appalling. I’d had a...blow in my personal life that year and was just...different then. Now I’m not so sensitive anymore. Tackiness goes a long way toward paying the bills.”
    I shrugged. “So what was it? What did the guy have?”
    “The shattered neck bone of Mary Queen of Scots. Supposedly stolen from her grave when the body was moved.”
    “Get the fuck out of here.”
    He shrugged. “I found out a while later that he’d sold it to a private collector for a small fortune. Found a buyer through an agent who handled such things. Guy called Quinn Penza.”
    “Quinn. The guy from the antique store?”
    “The same. I looked him up. Quinn helped me break into the business. Then I got addicted. Then I got better at it than him. Then we weren’t friends anymore. And that’s about it.”
    Beck’s eyes glinted in the sunlight, little flecks of gold around the pupil. I knew because I was making an effort to maintain eye contact and not look at all that tawny flesh now that he’d taken his shirt off. “So what changed?” I asked. “If you were appalled by that sort of thing, why did you decide to change careers and start doing that very thing?”
    Beck held my eyes for a long time, then faced front, sighing as he stared out at the sea. His silence continued for so long I grew uncomfortable. I determined I’d crossed a line, and decided to let it drop, picking up my book. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t have to explain.”
    Then Beck groaned softly as he stretched back, linking his fingers behind his neck. “Sometimes a life can become so unbearable that there’s no fixing it,” he said. He glanced at me. “Know what I mean?”
    I shrugged. “Not really.”
    He smiled and faced front again. “Good. I hope it stays that way for you. There’s nothing for it but to throw in the towel or get a new life altogether. The day that man came into the museum with his centuries old murder trophy, everything changed. Because when he left, I thought, I could never be like him. Insensitive. Immune to the horror. And I was jealous of him.” He