by CJ Lyons
Even if her father would probably lock her up in a convent after she got home. She pushed the thought away, feeling guilty about disobeying him for the first time in her life.
A handsome man in his late twenties pulled up in an open-topped Jeep and honked the horn. He hopped out without opening the door, one hand balancing lightly on the roll bar, springing to the ground, graceful as a cheetah. Or jaguar, Maria thought. There were jaguars here in Guatemala. Fear tickled her senses once more but was quickly overruled by excitement.
“Maria?” he called as he weaved through the other vehicles, his blond Hollywood features a strong counterpoint to the darker-skinned Spanish and Maya surrounding the tourists. Without waiting for an answer he hugged her, lifting her off her feet. “It’s so good to meet you! Sorry I’m late; the professor had me running errands. We don’t get into town very often.”
Maria struggled to regain her composure. He was even more handsome in person than he’d appeared in their Skype chats. She turned to her friends, proudly introducing him. “Prescott, this is Linda, Vicky, and Tracey.”
“Pleased to meet you, ladies.” He reached for Maria’s bag. She’d filled it with all the necessities for living in the primitive conditions of an archeological dig: sleeping bag, ripstop shorts and pants, mosquito netting, mess kit. Unlike her friends, who wore casual, bright-colored tourist clothing, Maria wore khaki shorts, hiking boots, a tank top, and an ExOfficio long-sleeved shirt wrapped around her waist above her fanny pack. Despite her dark skin, she even had a hat—a wide-brimmed squishable khaki-colored sun hat that she wore at what she hoped was a jaunty angle.
“Now, don’t you ladies worry about your friend here,” Prescott said as if reading their minds. “We have a satellite phone at base camp—as long as the weather cooperates, she can call her boyfriend, tuck him in for the night anytime she wants.” He laughed and turned to Maria, one hand pressed flat against his chest, mimicking a posture of lovesick despair. “But please, please tell me you don’t actually have a boyfriend; it will break my heart if you do!”
Maria blushed. “No, no boyfriend. Yet,” she added with bravado foreign to her usual introversion. She hugged her friends as Prescott carried her bag to the Jeep. “Remember, not a word to anyone,” she admonished as she gave Linda her cruise ship passenger ID. “And tell my parents not to worry.”
They smiled, enjoying the intrigue, and waved her off. “Have fun!” called Linda.
“Bring us back some treasure,” Tracey said.
“Be safe!” yelled Vicky.
Maria felt like a movie star as she drove away in the Jeep with Prescott at the wheel, weaving through narrow streets lined with brightly painted adobe brick and cinder block buildings. It was as if her life was finally starting. And what an exciting start it was, working with a world-famous professor on a dig that could change the way they viewed Mayan culture. Not to mention the treasure—if she was right, they could be talking about the location of the Dresden Codex’s lost gold, millions of dollars’ worth of treasure that had been missing for centuries. More than money, though, the treasure represented a glimpse into the ancient Maya, perhaps even solving the mystery of their demise.
“The professor is looking forward to meeting you,” Prescott said as he steered them around slower-moving trucks and brightly painted “chicken buses” filled with locals. He kept one hand on the wheel, the other draped casually behind her, resting on the back of her seat. “He was quite impressed with your theory connecting our site to the location mentioned in the Dresden Codex.”
Maria felt her cheeks warm as Prescott beamed at her. “Thanks. Anyone would have put the two together if you discounted the common belief that the codex is talking about Lake Izabel. And of course, I had modern satellite imaging to help me.”
She was actually quite proud of that not-so-small feat. By combining a unique series of image translation algorithms, she’d been able to confirm her theory about the river shifting its course after the earthquake two years ago, revealing evidence of a vast quantity of metals at a location just a few miles away from Lake Invierno. With further enhancement and using historical images to reveal how the terrain had changed over time, she realized she’d uncovered the location of a Maya temple, devoured by the jungle, hidden from human sight. Until now.
She only wished she could have found a way to join the professor’s expedition sooner. His team had spent the last month exploring her discovery, working to unearth the temple. Prescott had Skyped her almost daily progress reports, which had mainly consisted of getting the road built, supplies transported in, and the start of the surveying work. Still, how thrilling it would have been to be there from the beginning.
She’d been surprised by how quickly the professor had been able to get funding and permission from the Guatemalan authorities to start the project—the perks of being a world-famous archeologist. Maybe someday she’d be able to command such influence. As it was, she was lucky to be here now, even if it was only for two weeks as a volunteer.
There had been reams of paperwork: applications, followed by insurance waivers, health history forms, nondisclosure forms, forms to acknowledge that she wasn’t receiving any compensation or university credit, travel checklists, and liability waivers. No wonder the professor left all the details to his grad assistant—she was surprised anyone ever got any work done, mired down in academic bureaucracy. If the professor was pleased with her work, Prescott had promised her an actual for-credit internship for the summer—although it would mean plowing through even more paperwork.
After she returned home. For now it was two weeks of adventure, soaking up as much knowledge and experience as she could from one of the leaders of her field.
“The greatest minds in the world have been working on that codex since it was found during World War Two,” Prescott said. “But you’re the first who came up with the idea that the codex pointed to Lake Invierno. Much less found a temple that was previously undiscovered. If your theory is right, this find is going to be bigger than even the Brown University El Diablo discovery last year.” El Diablo was the archeologists’ name for a previously unknown temple of the Mayan sun god, painted bright red to catch the sun’s rays and create an incandescent display. Before the jungle swallowed the temple whole a thousand years ago.
Prescott paused, slowing the Jeep, checking all the mirrors. She twisted in her seat and looked behind them. The road was empty.
He caught her look of concern and said, “You can never be too careful.” For the first time she saw a hint of uncertainty cross his face. “Do you really think the gold is there?”
“Oh yes.” Maria forced herself to curb her enthusiasm and sound professional. “I think there’s a good chance. Wouldn’t it be thrilling if it was?”
They turned off the main highway, heading into the jungle and climbing the hills leading up to the mountains. The road was wide enough for only one vehicle, dirt and gravel, but not too rough. Then they came to a fork where the road narrowed and turned into two muddy trails, each barely wide enough for the Jeep. Prescott stopped the Jeep, looking down both paths.
“Are you lost?” she asked, suddenly aware that she hadn’t seen any other cars for the past hour. Without the breeze generated by the Jeep’s movement, the humidity closed in on her like a smothering blanket. They were alone in a wilderness filled with every shade of green imaginable, the only other color the occasional swath of blue sky overhead. But the farther they went into the mountains, the more crowded the treetops and fewer glimpses of sky.
“Is something wrong?” She reached for her phone. An urban instinct—there would be no reception this far from civilization.
Prescott turned away, scowling down the left-hand turn, then yanked the wheel to the right. “Nothing wrong. I just want to make sure we get there before dark.”
Made sense, she wouldn’t want to be caught on this road in the dark—even though it was just past noon, the jungle’s gloom was so thick that he’d already turned on
the headlights. This far into the mountains, night fell earlier than down in the lowlands. Prescott no longer looked at her or smiled. Instead he drove hunched over, swearing every time he had to slow down to avoid a fallen tree limb or navigate through a patch of mud as the road quickly devolved into something barely resembling a path.
Thank goodness for Prescott. She never would have made it here on her own. They rounded a sharp curve. A mud-splattered pickup blocked the trail before them. Men with machine guns flanked the truck, motioning to them to stop.
“Prescott!” Maria shouted as he wrestled with the wheel, steering them into a U-turn. The Jeep lurched and wobbled. Its wheels spun in the mud and they drove over some small bushes, but somehow he kept it upright. They sped back the way they came.
“Who are they?” She grabbed the door handle and ducked her head in case the men began shooting. Her heart pounded so hard, she felt it in her throat, but Prescott kept driving, cool and capable. “What do they want?”
“You.” He hunched over the steering wheel and looked both afraid and angry. They rounded the curve, leaving the men with guns behind.
“Me? Why me?” Panic surged through her as she remembered every urban legend involving rape and kidnapping female tourists. Then she realized. The treasure. They thought she knew where the treasure was. No, that couldn’t be it. How could they know?
The Jeep fishtailed into a skid as Prescott slammed on the brakes. Maria looked up over the dash. A large yellow Land Rover blocked their escape. A man stood in front of it, arms crossed, leaning against the bumper casually, as if waiting for a date. He was Spanish, his handsome chiseled features marred by a pale scar slashing across his right cheek.
The Jeep stopped, twisted diagonally across the road, the driver’s side closest to the man. Prescott blew his breath out and narrowed his eyes at Maria. “Wait here. Don’t move. Do exactly what I say.”
How could he be so calm? Crouched down in the wheel well, she nodded. None of this felt real. It couldn’t be happening, not to her. Nothing ever happened to her. Her life was even more boring than her parents’.
Prescott climbed out of the Jeep and warily approached the man.
“I think you made a wrong turn,” the man said. His voice sounded almost cheerful, but when Maria edged her gaze above the dash, his scowl appeared deadly.
Despite Prescott’s admonition to stay put, she inched her door open. Whatever happened, she wanted to be ready. Her side of the Jeep was on the edge of the road, surrounded by bushes and ferns; if she ran, she’d be swallowed by the wilderness in a few steps. Of course, she’d also be hopelessly lost.
Hoping it wouldn’t come to that, she slid out of her seat and planted her feet on the soft ground, hiding behind the door. Prescott knew what he was doing; he’d get them out of this. Soon, they’d be sitting around a cheery campfire with the professor and his students and workers, laughing at their adventure in the jungle.
“You had one job,” the man said in the tone of a father scolding his wayward child. “Bring her safely to el doctor. But you got greedy.”
“I’m sorry,” Prescott said, arms stretched wide in surrender. He sounded scared—which escalated Maria’s own panic. And what did that man mean, “greedy?” Maybe Prescott wouldn’t be able to talk them out of this after all. All those questions about the treasure—could Prescott want it for himself?
Following her instincts for survival, she pushed her confusion aside and sidled toward the edge of the door, ducking low as she slid between large leaves of some kind of ferny type of bush. Moving very slowly, creeping an inch at a time so the leaves wouldn’t rustle and betray her, she crouched behind a palm tree, angled so she could see the men standing on the road.
The man with the scar nodded at Prescott’s apology. He even smiled, showing his teeth, as if all were forgiven. Prescott’s posture relaxed.
Then the man drew his gun and shot Prescott in the head.
Everything moved in slow motion. Prescott’s body jerked, then sagged, finally dropping to the ground.
Maria screamed but it was mainly in her head because her throat had spasmed shut with terror, swallowing the sound. She couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder at Prescott even as her feet moved her away from the horror.
The man walked past Prescott toward the Jeep. Like a thunderclap, time began to move forward again. Maria turned away from Prescott—he was obviously dead, there was nothing she could do for him—and she ran.
Head ducked low against the possibility of bullets flying, arms held in front of her, branches and leaves and vines slapping against her body, she ran as she’d never run before. Wished her father were here to save her, to protect her.
Why had she ever left home?
CHAPTER THREE
During the eight-mile drive to the sheriff’s station, Caitlyn counted seven barns and three houses. The only people she spotted were an Amish farmer and his sons plowing a field in the distance. Their horse-drawn plows kicked up a cloud of dust that made the March sunshine shimmer gold. Hard to believe they lived in the same reality as Caitlyn.
She wondered if the Amish ever accepted converts. Specifically semi-atheist FBI agents with blood staining their souls. Probably not.
She rounded a curve, and the farmers with their horses and tranquility vanished from sight. The sheriff’s station was in a town named Blue Ball. A village of less than a thousand souls, it was created when an intrepid trader built a hostel at the intersection of two Indian trails two hundred years ago.
She pulled into the station, a utilitarian cement block building, behind Sheriff Holdeman and parked her car beside a familiar Harley. Her lips quirked into a smile that she fought to suppress and failed. What the hell was Carver doing here?
She followed the sheriff into the station, her feet practically dancing a jig as she scoured the reception area. No sign of Carver.
The staties and Holdeman’s deputies began processing Schultz and his daughter. Sheriff Holdeman paused in the open bullpen, watching as the door to the holding area closed behind Schultz. She eyed her few remaining deputies, all men.
They didn’t applaud or do anything overtly demonstrative, but each man sat up straighter and met the sheriff’s gaze, most with a small nod of satisfaction and acknowledgment.
The sheriff nodded back. Mission accomplished. Then she opened her office door.
At least Carver had had the good grace not to take the sheriff’s chair, Caitlyn saw as she followed Holdeman inside. Instead he lounged in one of the spare chairs, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, a self-satisfied smirk creasing his face.
“Carver, what are you doing here?” Caitlyn asked. She hated the way the words came out in a rush, as if she cared.
“When you said you were working a public corruption case in Blue Balls—” He drawled the colorful town name with a grin.
“It’s Blue Ball,” Sheriff Holdeman corrected automatically. “Singular.”
“No, I’m pretty sure both my—”
“Don’t encourage him,” Caitlyn cut him off, but she didn’t bother hiding her smile.
Carver’s gaze roamed over both women, spending more time on Caitlyn. She and Holdeman were dressed alike in tactical gear, were both redheads, about the same height, five-six, although Caitlyn definitely had more curves.
“I think you ladies might be the cure for my unfortunate condition,” Carver continued, his voice practically twinkling with restrained laughter. “I’ve always had this fantasy about twins—”
“Unless that fantasy includes handcuffs—,” Holdeman warned, fighting back her own laughter. Caitlyn had noticed that about the sheriff. She took her work seriously, the people she was there to protect and serve always foremost in her mind, but she had a wicked sense of humor. Probably how she’d lasted so long in a job where testosterone ruled.
Carver nodded eagerly. “Handcuffs are good.”
Caitlyn had work to do, and now that Carver was here, she had even more reason to get it done qu
ickly. “Cut the crap. Sheriff Mona Holdeman, this is Special Agent Jake Carver, who—despite his adolescent demeanor—is one of the FBI’s top forensic accountants.”
“They stole me away from the IRS.” Carver flexed his biceps as he bent his arms behind his head. Until two months ago he’d been deep undercover with an outlaw motorcycle gang, precisely for the reason that he looked like anything but an accountant. Now, wearing his leathers for the ride up from Virginia to Pennsylvania, he was reprising his role of sexy outlaw hunk.
“Seriously, Carver, why are you here?” Caitlyn asked again.
He was supposed to be crashing at her place in Manassas, safely out of sight from grudge-holding bikers, while the Assistant U.S. Attorney debriefed him on his year and a half of undercover activities. The preliminary hearings for the first of the biker defendants were scheduled to start soon and the AUSA wanted to make sure his star witness was ready to go.
Carver stared at her, a tiny sigh escaping his lips, quickly covered by another smirk, but she saw the truth: He’d missed her.
Even more surprising, she felt the same way about him. It wasn’t the reaction she expected—or wanted—so she quickly masked it. Hopefully before he noticed. Otherwise, she’d never hear the end of it.
“I finished early with the AUSA, figured most public corruption cases are won by following the money, so thought I might be able to help. Tell me about your case, Sheriff.” He glanced at Caitlyn. “And call me Jake.”
As Holdeman laid out her case against Schultz, Caitlyn moved to take the seat on the other side of the office. She never called him Jake. She wasn’t sure why—after all, they’d been sleeping together for the past two months and he was practically living at her place.
Except somehow it didn’t feel like living together. Not with her constantly on the road, working cases in her new position as the Bureau’s Local Law Enforcement Liaison—a fancy title for a job that basically meant helping communities unravel crimes they didn’t have the resources to handle but that also didn’t strictly fall under federal jurisdiction.
