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treasure?” I whispered.
    Rupert had certainly gotten himself into one big mess.

     

Chapter 6

     
    “Your friend wasn’t a maharaja, was he?” Lane asked.
    A day ago I would have thought it was a joke if someone had asked me if I was friends with a maharaja. I wasn’t laughing now.
    “It’s the real deal, then?”
    “It certainly is.”
    The chair squeaked beneath me as I took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling.
    “He was English,” I said. “Killed in a car wreck in Scotland. I don’t know how he got the bracelet, except that I’m sure it wasn’t a family heirloom. I don’t know anything else. I had to start somewhere, so here I am.”
    I wasn’t lying. Not really. Concealing certain facts isn’t quite the same thing.
    “I don’t know any more off the top of my head,” Lane said.
    “But I thought…” I trailed off as a sickening sensation washed over me. “From what you said before, I thought you knew more.”
    What I really thought was that there was no way I would have shown him the bracelet if I thought he didn’t have anything else he could tell me.
    My mouth went dry. What had I done? Someone now knew I had the bracelet. That was exactly what I had wanted to avoid. Why hadn’t I listened to Sanjay?
    “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to appear casual even as I found it difficult to speak. “You’ve been a tremendous help already. I owe you one. Let me know if you ever want a free dinner at the Tandoori Palace restaurant in the city.” I covered the bracelet and stood up.
    “Wait a sec,” he said, scrambling to his feet as well. “I can still help fill in the missing pieces. I just have to look up a few things.”
    We stood close to each other in the cramped space in front of the desk. I had to arch my neck to look him in the eye.
    “That’s really okay,” I said. “With what you’ve told me, I can take it from here.”
    “But you won’t know what to look for.”
    “I know how to do archival research,” I said. “I’m a historian.”
    That threw him off.
    “Oh,” he said after a beat. “You mean you’re a history major in one of Michael’s classes.”
    “I have a doctorate,” I said, more icily than I intended. Since I’ve only been teaching for a year, I get mistaken for a coed more often than I’d like.
    “You’re a professor ?”
    “A damn good one.”
    “Dr. Jones,” he said thoughtfully.
    “Yeah.” I sighed.
    “At least you’re not an archaeologist,” he said, smiling.
    I reached for the doorknob.
    “Wait.” Lane reached out a long arm in a gesture to stop me. “As a historian, you know how research works. You know how much easier it is to dig into something if you already know some facts about what you’re looking for.”
    I lowered my hand from the doorknob.
    “In your field,” Lane said, “what’s your expertise?”
    “The early foundations of British India. The British East India Company in its various incarnations. You know, trading power, military power, its dissolution when rule was assumed directly from the British Crown.”
    “So I bet you could tell me all about pirates on the high seas, but you couldn’t even identify this piece as a bracelet.”
    “If you have further tips, don’t hold back.”
    “You know the intangible nature of doing research like this. Even if I could tell you more about where to look, that narrows things down from a thousand haystacks to maybe a hundred. With my background, it would be easier for me to find something. I wouldn’t mind doing a bit more research.”
    Whatever historical origins Lane might be able to find, I needed them to lead to the more recent origins of where Rupert had gotten his hands on it. And now that Lane had told me of a larger treasure somewhere out there, I had a feeling I needed to work quickly. The idea of extra help was tempting.
    “I know a few things I can check out right away,” he added.
    “Why are you so interested in helping me?”
    “Can’t you tell?