Free Midnight Sun by Rachel Grant

airport.”
    “And isn’t that strange? It was a small flight.”
    “I was a little preoccupied with tanking my career because a damn artifact wouldn’t leave me alone. I wasn’t exactly eager to be visible. What’s going on, Rhys? You were able to accept it an hour ago.” She crossed her arms and stamped a foot in annoyance. “Hell, two minutes ago.”  
    “It’s hard to believe, when everything is so… normal. I don’t usually believe the impossible.”
    She rubbed her shoulders as if she were cold. “I don’t know what normal feels like anymore.” There was hurt in her tone. She’d taken his doubt as rejection.
    But then, maybe it was. “Sienna, this is new for me. Of course I’m going to ask questions. You have to admit, this situation is insane.”
    Her chin tightened, and she turned away, heading toward the front door of the storage facility. She was taking his doubts harder than he would have expected. But then, he didn’t really know her, did he?
    Hell, what if she knew his name not because she’d happened to glance at his name tag on a bag, but because she had an agenda, and it wasn’t to return the mask? She could have checked his wallet and seen his ID while he was sleeping. For all he knew, she’d slipped him a heavy-duty sleeping pill and he’d sleep-sexed. If people could sleep-drive, they could sleep-sex. Hell, sleep sex sounded way more plausible than sleep driving.
    It had felt real because it was real.
    He’d never checked her credentials, which was a damn rookie mistake. When he’d called the hospital this morning, Chuck had been busy with tests and hadn’t yet called back. Rhys had yet to ask Chuck about Sienna Aubrey.
    Whoever she was, she’d just wormed an invitation into the storage facility to examine the collection. She could be here to cover up evidence of her crime, the supposedly haunted mask her ticket in the door.
    He set the box in the back of the SUV and slammed the rear door closed. With both fists planted on the bumper, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, going over everything in his mind, looking for magician’s tricks that could have fooled him.
    She’d planted the suggestion of the box being heavy by pretending to be unable to lift it. In contrast, when he picked it up, it had seemed extra light.
    Hooks in the trunk of her car could have latched the box down, explaining why he couldn’t lift it later. All she’d need to do was slide it off the hooks as she lifted.
    But the car would have bounced when he tried to lift it, if it had been stuck to the trunk. It hadn’t. Had it?
    “You sonofabitch,” she said in a cold voice. “You’re thinking I’ve somehow conned you, aren’t you?”
    He opened his eyes. She stood in the storage facility doorway with hands planted on her hips. Her amber eyes reflected both hurt and anger.
    “I have to consider the possibility. Otherwise, what kind of an investigator would I be? I can’t rule you out simply because I want to screw you.”
    “Last I heard, you aren’t an investigator, you’re a lawyer.”
    He could understand why his suspicion hurt, but the fact that she couldn’t accept that he had doubts when everything about this was insane… That sort of pissed him off. “Investigating the crimes I prosecute people for committing is a large part of what I do. And I happen to be good at it.”
    “I don’t need this crap. If you don’t trust me, search the damn artifact collection yourself. You wouldn’t want me tainting the evidence anyway.” She hitched her purse up on her shoulder and headed down the gravel driveway.
    “It’s three miles to Chuck’s house from here.”
    She glared at him over her shoulder, then turned back to the road. “I climb mountains for fun. I think I can handle three miles downhill.”
    Rhys watched her walk away, completely at a loss. Was this argument some sort of manipulation by the mask, or had he been insane to believe her in the first place? The idea of a