Cabe remained in critical condition. He had survived the first round of operations, but he still had several more to go. The surgeons had to wait for the swelling in his brain to recede, and his doctors placed him in a medically induced coma for the time being.
Semele gasped when she saw him hooked up to so many instruments. She couldn’t bring herself to sit beside him, afraid that, just by being near, she might make him worse. She didn’t deserve a place by his side.
The accident had been intentional. There was no doubt in her mind. Someone had wanted the cards.
She needed to go to the police, but first she had to talk to Theo. She had a feeling he knew who was behind this. Her sense of helplessness was driving her mad.
She hovered in the doorway while Oliver sat beside Cabe and held his hand. Semele and Bren spent the early morning hours trying to comfort Oliver as best they could, bringing him water and coffee and Kleenex. There was nothing else they could do.
Then Cabe and Oliver’s parents finally arrived from Santa Cruz, looking travel-worn and teary-eyed.
Semele felt like an interloper, or maybe the guilt was driving her away. She needed to leave before she completely broke down. She told them she was going home to shower. The excuses tumbled out of her mouth.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Bren offered. She saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes, as if the night together had repaired the damage she had inflicted. He seemed willing to forgive her.
“No, I’ll be fine.” She watched his face fall.
“I’ll call you at the first sign of change,” Oliver promised.
Semele nodded and left, unable to fathom what that meant.
The minute she stepped out of the hospital she was hit by the sunlight. It woke her up and her mind burned with questions. Who had done this? What should she do? Ionna’s cards were now missing—no doubt taken by the same person who’d stolen the manuscript.
She thought back to what Raina had said at the hospital. Mikhail’s decision to pull her off the Bossard account was beginning to take on new meaning. He might be involved too. She didn’t want to believe it, but she wouldn’t know unless she confronted him.
For the first time Semele truly understood Marcel’s message. You can trust no one now. There was perhaps one person left, but first he had to answer one pivotal question.
* * *
Theo was waiting for her when she arrived at the Four Seasons. He stood up when she entered the restaurant. The concerned look on his face almost did her in. He left the table and hurried over to her.
“Are you all right?” He touched her arm.
Semele shook her head, realizing she must look a mess. She hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and her face was surely streaked with mascara from her tears.
“We’ll be dining in my room instead,” Theo told the hostess, and guided Semele out of the restaurant by the arm.
The private elevator whisked them up to the thirty-second floor. The Royal Suite had two bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, and a living room with an adjoining den. Semele glanced up at the ceiling and was momentarily trapped by a sense of surrealism. The chandelier was made of mother-of-pearl. What the hell was she doing standing under it?
She turned to Theo and saw his faced lined with worry. Clearly his actions were speaking for him now. He had come all this way to confide in her. Now she decided to do the same.
“Have you read the manuscript?” she asked him point-blank.
“Yes.” His eyes said more than that. Semele could tell he had read it many times.
“Did you know my name was in it? That it was meant for me?”
“Yes,” he said, searching her face. “There was a risk letting you take it back to New York, but the manuscript is yours. It’s always been yours.”
“But you were going to sell it.”
Theo shook his head. “I was planning to pull it from the auction. I was trying to give you time to read it. The theft changed everything.”
“Your father left me a note inside it.” She could see the shock on his face. So Theo hadn’t known.
She began to pace as the words spilled out of her. “I made a copy in secret. The night before I flew home, someone broke into my hotel and found the file. Then a man followed me back to New York.” She turned to him. “I saw him at the library the exact moment Ionna warned me. It was like she knew, she saw me, and now…” She fought to retain control.
“Have you read it all?” Theo asked, taking a step toward her.
“Everything but the missing pages. You took them out, didn’t you?”
“I had to,” he admitted.
Semele stared at him in disbelief, unable to stop herself from erupting. “Why? It’s a priceless manuscript!” She waved her hands around and yelled, “You don’t just take a surgical knife to two-thousand-year-old parchment!”
“I had to!” Theo raised his voice too, matching her passion. “I couldn’t risk anyone else reading those pages but you.” He tried to explain. “I was planning to give you the rest before the auction. I wanted to give you time to come to terms with what Ionna had written. But I can see now that wasn’t the best course.” He rubbed his eyes, clearly tortured.
Just hearing him say Ionna’s name, as if he knew her, made Semele’s anger dissipate. She sat down on the couch and tried to calm down. “Your father gave my father a copy of the manuscript.”
He appeared momentarily stunned. It seemed Marcel had kept secrets too.
“My father translated it.” She pulled out Joseph’s copy from her purse and showed it to him. “They were planning to meet the week he died.”
Theo digested the news. It was clear he hadn’t known. “I think it’s best if you read the rest of the pages first,” he said. “Then I’ll explain everything.”
Semele wondered what the pages contained that made him feel he had to defile the manuscript. She needed to tell him everything. “I have Ionna’s cards … had them,” she amended.
“You found the cards?” He looked taken aback.
“My grandmother left them for me. I gave them to a friend yesterday so he could examine them.” Her voice began to quiver, but she had to let him know. “He was in an accident last night and the cards were stolen. He…” She couldn’t go on.
Theo blanched at the news. He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. The simple gesture was so thoughtful it made her cry more.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Should I go to the police?”
Theo seemed to be measuring his words. “I’m afraid these people are beyond the police.”
“Who?” A heady rush of fear hit her. “Who are they?”
Theo walked to the metal attaché case on the table. He unlocked both electronic locks, scanning his fingerprint on a built-in thumb-pad. The case clicked open and he took out a folder and handed it to her. “I’ll order up lunch and coffee while you read. The table is cleared for you in the den.”
He had prepared the table for her, which meant he had already planned to bring her up here. What else had Theo Bossard been planning?
Semele felt as though she were being whiplashed, unsure of anything except that she had to read the pages. Without a word she went into the den and shut the door.
Her eyes stung from exhaustion and she couldn’t fathom the idea of having to decipher more Greek, but sleep wasn’t an option. She ducked into the bathroom to wash her hands so she could handle the parchment. Then she sat down on the couch and opened the folder.
Touching the leaves of the original manuscript again revived her and helped to bring her thoughts into focus. She hadn’t read from the actual pages since she was in Switzerland.
Ionna’s handwriting leaped from the page; every brushstroke was a living memory in motion. Semele traced her finger over the symbols with a feather-light touch and imagined Ionna at her desk, writing this to her—because Semele knew that Ionna had written this to her. And why Theo felt these pages had to be protected above all else was a mystery she was about to solve.
She opened her father’s copy to the same page. He had translated Ionna’s story word for word, and she could feel him with her. She wasn’t sure she would have had the courage to know what happened to Nettie without him.