Page 20 of What Doesn't Kill Her

“Looks good.” She relaxed a little. This operation looked legitimate and well armed. Horst was Army. She felt comfortable with him and his easygoing personality. But she didn’t tell him the truth about her weapons and her background; she had the scars to prove she’d been wrong before.

Horst went around to the back and shut the doors. He didn’t ask which one of them should drive. He assumed he would, because he was the man or because he was of higher rank, and Kellen didn’t tell him that she’d been a transportation coordinator in Afghanistan and Kuwait. She knew vehicles, she knew repairs, and yes, she knew how to drive.

But in her experience, at this point in any mission, it paid to sit back and observe. As she climbed into the passenger seat, she asked, “Will we make it to the airport in time?”

“If we’re lucky and the cops don’t stop us.” Horst put the van into gear.

Kellen looked in the rearview mirror.

Max stood in the driveway, watching her leave, and he looked...lonely.

Was that good news? Did she want him to miss her even before she left? She should have said goodbye to him and—

She sat up straight. “Damn.”

“Forget something?” Horst asked.

“I did.”

“Hope it wasn’t anything important. We haven’t got time to go back.” Horst turned onto the highway.

Max disappeared from view.

“It was important.” She hadn’t said goodbye to Rae. She hadn’t even thought about it. “But it is too late.”

7

Kellen’s phone rang. She unbuttoned her pants pocket and pulled it out, hoping it was Max and Rae, calling to say the goodbye she had forgotten.

But no, it was a Washington, DC, number, and that meant only one person—Nils Brooks, head of the MFAA, dedicated to halting the flow of purloined artifacts into the US and always willing to put her life on the line to do it. She answered, “Adams here.”

Nils didn’t take the hint. “Kellen, it’s Nils. I have a text that you’ve been picked up and are on your way to the airport.”

“That’s right.”

“Did Max tell you anything about the job?”

“That me and Horst from Richart Movers are picking up a mummy’s head at the airport and transporting it to some guy who’s going to restore it, he’s somewhere in the Olympics, and there’s going to be a hike.”

Horst shot her an inquiring look.

She smiled at Horst and shrugged.

Nils said, “Sort of. This piece is rare, one of those artifacts that’s going settle fights among the experts and start fights among thieves.”

“Valuable.”

“Priceless.”

Priceless.She never liked to hear that word.

Nils continued, “My courier was supposed to take it on the plane with him, never let it out of his sight.”

She could almost hear the drumbeat of doom. “And?”

“He died. In the airport. The official report said he was knocked down as he was checking in at the machine. He hit his head. Current medical diagnosis is that it was a brain hemorrhage.”

Kellen closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “Probably not, huh?”

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