“Of course. Because you came late to the party, so to speak, and didn’t benefit financially from your bloodline as others have, we’re prepared to make you a monetary offer. If you are successful in your pursuit, we’ll arrange for one million dollars to appear in your bank account.”

“The IRS will love that.”

“They’ll never know it happened. Neither will the bank. As far as humans are concerned, it will have always existed, so no red flags.”

“And if I’m not successful?”

“Then no amount of money would make a difference.”

“How long do I have?”

“Our best estimate is a week.”

“You want me to solve a centuries-old puzzle in seven days.”

“Give or take.” He gave her a hopeful look.

Marina stared out the window at the slow-moving tide on the bayou, the last few days rolling around in her mind. Then the last twenty-eight years with Harold. Then her childhood with Mother of the Year.

Could she make things any worse?

Chapter Ten

Marina bounced out of bed the next morning, feeling better than she had in forever. Which was amazing given the amount of physical labor she’d endured the day before and the amount of wine and Cheez-Its she’d consumed that night. But when she went into the bathroom that morning and looked into the mirror, the exhausted, stressed face that she was used to seeing wasn’t there. Instead, tight skin with no wrinkles stared back at her, not a single gray hair at her crown. The offensive chin hair had even disappeared.

She leaned forward to take a closer look at her chin but couldn’t even see a pore, much less a hair. This entire charade might be worth it for the elimination of that hair alone. She’d showered the night before, so she ran a brush through her hair, which was unusually untangled and glossy. But at the point where she normally would have reached the end, she kept brushing. She pulled a lock of hair from her back to her front and realized that it was a good two inches longer than the day before.

Marina had always wanted long luxurious hair, but no matter what product she tried, her hair started to break and thin out once it got past her shoulders. Now she had thick, soft, shiny auburn hair as you only saw in commercials. She stared into the mirror several seconds longer, the reality of the situation sinking in.

“Alexios was telling the truth,” she said out loud.

Because there was no other explanation for the changes. People didn’t get younger—at least, not naturally. Getting younger required a serious investment in a plastic surgeon. And you could still only push it so far before you started looking like the Joker. But no plastic surgeon made gray hair turn back to brown and grow two inches overnight. And her skin didn’t have that slightly stretched look of surgery or Botox. It simply looked the way it had fifteen years ago, before all of life’s BS had finally registered and she’d started dangling off the aging cliff.