Free Pockets of Darkness by Jean Rabe Page A

holding the case, but she was not interested in him at this moment, just in the treasure inside.
    Who would think to look for a relic inside this piece of junk? A common thief would not have looked, and Bridget had only been drawn to it because her senses honed in on something very old. She would throw the briefcase away in tomorrow’s trash. But at the moment, the briefcase was a box of Cracker Jacks, and she was going to find the prize inside.
    The clasp was curious, tarnished silver with bronze inlay. Looking from one angle like a twisted face, from another like a gang symbol. She dismissed it; the clasp and the briefcase were not important—only the contents mattered. She unhooked it, opening the case and not yet letting herself look inside.
    Savor this. Go slow.
    She closed her eyes, fingers hovering above the opening, trying to block out the smell of dead fish which she attributed to the leather rotting and which had somehow gotten stronger. Her mind bore in.
    Just a taste at first. Tease me.
    Again she felt the heat of the desert. Bridget welcomed it; the imagined warmth helped to shake off the cold that had seeped into her bones from the climb up the apartment building wall. She had never physically been to Egypt, but her mental forays there because of her psychometry felt as real as if she’d stood on the sand long centuries ago. She owned several objects that had been culled from the Valley of the Kings, each precious because of the images stored, none obtained through legal channels. Each had given her many hours of pleasure as she absorbed the rare histories. It was like experiencing multiple and significant lives, a child’s game of “let’s pretend” become reality.
    What are you, very old treasure? What? What?
    Stone. She could tell that much, that the object inside was carved stone. The briefcase had certainly felt heavy strapped to her back, hinting at something substantial.
    From which dynasty?
    She couldn’t tell that, despite her initial probing, and so she finally reached in, hands grasping and pulling out a limestone statue about thirteen inches tall. It was thick and had filled the entire briefcase. She automatically registered a value: one-point-two million, though to her such a treasure was without price.
    How had Elijah Stone come to own such an interesting, valuable thing? And why hide it in a hideous briefcase rather than set it out to be admired? To own a thing and not be able to look upon it was foolish. In the same instant she asked the question, she answered it. The statue, like the shabti, had been stolen from the Egyptian Museum; her quick reading of it revealed that. Of course its new owner would hide it, at least until it could be displayed somewhere without fear of being recognized as an important antiquity. Or perhaps Elijah Stone was a smuggler or trafficker in goods like Bridget and had intended to resell it. One-point-two million would be a key haul for just one piece.
    “It doesn’t matter how you came to be in that apartment,” Bridget said aloud. At least it did not matter at this moment. The important thing was that she held this wonderful, ancient relic. This piece of the past belonged to her now. Later, much later, she might check into this Elijah Stone. The man’s source for very old things might need to become Bridget’s source.
    So beautiful in its simplicity, this statue.
    She placed it reverently between herself and the briefcase. It was a rendering of a man in a wrap-around skirt in marvelous museum-quality condition. The man was seated in a high-backed chair that could have represented a throne. His garment was short. In the Middle and New Kingdoms men wore longer skirts or pleated ones, so this piece dated to the Old Kingdom, she was certain. About twenty-four hundred BC, Bridget placed it, probably the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty. She would narrow it down to the precise year it was carved much later. The statue was made to show elaborate jewelry and a