“Maybe I should get some jeans,” she mumbled.
She felt Joe’s hand flex against her back, and realised he’d heard her. “Babe, if you want jeans, get jeans. If you don’t, don’t.”
Julia bit at her bottom lip, desperate to keep the words in her head from erupting. It didn’t work. “My grandmother is sexier than I am.”
“That isn’t possible,” Joe said without breaking his stride. “Nobody is sexier than you.”
Julia tripped over her own feet at his throwaway declaration.
“You spineless bastard!”
Julia’s head snapped up in time to see her gran slap a middle-aged guy. Ed was at her back, but he didn’t do anything to interfere. In fact, he was just standing there, his arms folded and a grin on his face.
“You couldn’t have stepped in?” Joe grumbled at Ed.
Ed shrugged. “She seems to have it under control.”
Marcus Delaney was rubbing his cheek and pouting. It wasn’t a good look on him. “What the hell? Patricia, have you lost your mind?”
Patricia pointed a finger in his face. “Where is my mummy? I know you have it, you snivelling excuse for a man. Where is it?”
The man’s eyes went wide, and Julia tried to figure out what had attracted her gran to him in the first place. He was pretty, the same way generic catalogue models from the seventies were pretty. Julia wondered—if he had been more charismatic, would it have transformed him from generic into handsome? She wasn’t sure.
“Mummy?” Marcus blustered. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Patricia turned to Joe as she pointed at her ex-lover. “Joe, knock his teeth out.”
Ed covered his mouth to stifle a laugh.
Joe shot the two of them a look of disgust before smiling at Marcus.
“You must be Marcus. I’m Joe Barone. It’s good to meet a fellow American.”
Joe held out a hand to Marcus, who had a distinct rabbit-in-the-headlights look about him. Hesitantly, Marcus shook Joe’s hand. Joe used the opportunity to tug the man off his stool. He patted him on the back and whispered something in Marcus’ ear. Julia couldn’t make out what was being said, but she did notice the effect. All colour drained from Marcus’ face.
Joe stepped back, slapped a hand on Marcus’ shoulder and grinned at him. “How about we take this outside, somewhere a bit more private? Good plan?” He nodded. “Good plan.” He smiled at the rapt audience. “Sorry to disturb your evening, folks.” He caught the bartender’s eye. “Refills for everyone. On me.”
That turned the worried spectators into friends. They slapped Joe on the back as he held Marcus’ arm and dragged him out of the French doors onto the patio.
“I like him,” Patricia told Julia as they followed. “If I were thirty years younger, I’d steal him from you. If I could.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Seems like he only has eyes for my Julia.”
Julia didn’t even bother dignifying that with a response. Instead she kept close to Joe, who was aiming for a table against a wall at the edge of the patio, far away from curious ears. He thrust Marcus into a seat. The man wobbled before tugging at his tweed suit jacket. Tweed. In the desert.
Patricia sat in a chair beside Marcus, crossing her long legs and glaring at him. Ed leaned against the wall behind Patricia, looking amused but watchful. Julia stood beside Joe. Well, slightly behind him. She wasn’t taking any chances. If Marcus was going to strike out, she knew he’d go for the weakest link. And as the weakest link, she would rather Joe was between her and the idiot her grandmother had slept with.
“Where the mummy?” Patricia demanded.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t the one who was jailed for stealing it.” The smug sneer gave him away.
Patricia pointed a finger into his face. “You were the one who filmed us while we were in that house. You sent that video to the cops. You were there.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Marcus held his hands out, palms up. Offering them nothing.
“Rubbish.” Patricia leaned forward and smacked him across the face again.
Marcus’ hand flew to the reddening skin. “Will you please stop doing that?”
Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. “What are you doing, Patricia?”
She gave Joe a look that suggested his IQ should be tested. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m interrogating him.”
Joe stared up at the dark night sky for a second before turning his equally dark look on Julia’s grandmother. “Stop it. I’ll ask the questions. No more hitting.”
“He deserves it.” She glared at Marcus, and the fool actually leered back. “He stole the mummy and framed us. He’s the reason I’ve been in a cell all week. He’s the reason Alice is in danger. Him! And for what? To appease his fragile ego.” She snorted her disgust.
“Ed,” Joe said, “hold her down if you have to.”
“My pleasure.” Ed stepped forward to put his hands on Patricia’s shoulders. She glared up at him, but only got a grin for her efforts.
“I really want to hit him,” she told Ed.
“I understand,” he said. “I’ve only just met him and I feel the same.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marcus blustered with what was clearly a lie. “Why are you here and why are you behaving like a bitch?” He leered at Patricia. “Oh, I get it. You’re put out because you didn’t get a repeat visit from little Marky.”
Joe groaned and shook his head. “I take it back. Feel free to hit the asshole.”
Julia tugged Joe’s t-shirt to get his attention. “Little Marky?” she whispered.
“His penis,” her grandmother practically shouted. “And it’s well named, little is exactly how I would describe it.” She pointed in Marcus’ face again. “For your information, I don’t want a repeat. I’m still trying to get over the nightmares I have from the first time.”
“Yeah, right,” the idiot scoffed.
“Enough!” Joe barked, making Julia jump. She stupidly took a step closer to Joe, the guy who’d startled her. With a silent groan, she put distance between them again, hoping no one noticed her dumb move.
“Did you take the mummy?” Joe’s voice was a low, menacing growl.
Marcus’ eyes darted around, and he licked his lips nervously. “Yeah, yeah, we took the mummy. So what? It isn’t like it’s worth much. Mummies like that are a dime a dozen.”
“I knew it!” Patricia shot to her feet and leaned over him. “You only took it to spite me.”
“We took it to stop you from embarrassing the mummy community with your pathetic excuse for research. A treasure map? Really? Do you listen to yourself? You think you’ve found secret directions to El Dorado. Written. On. A. Rug.” He threw up his hands in disgust.
“Not a rug—textiles. And it isn’t El Dorado either, you stuck-up prick. It’s El Toro de Oro.”
“The golden bull.” Marcus barked out a mocking laugh. “The only bull you’re dealing with is bullshit.”
Joe leaned forward, placing his hands on the armrests either side of Marcus, whose laughter suddenly evaporated.
“I’ve about run out of patience with you. You want to see what happens when I do, keep acting like an asshole.”
There was silence as Marcus visibly swallowed. He shrank back into his seat.
“Who is we? Who helped you?” Joe stood up straight to loom over the man.
Marcus had difficulty meeting Joe’s eyes. “Couple of other guys from the mummy group. We were fed up listening to Lucy and Ethel boast about their theory. About how they were gonna take the world by storm. How they’d be famous. For fuck’s sake, they’ve only been hunting mummies for a few years.” He slapped a hand to his chest. “The rest of us have dedicated our lives to this study. We struggle to be taken seriously, and it’s because of people like them. They waltz in with their half-baked ideas, attracting attention they don’t deserve, and give the rest of us
a bad name.” His chin jutted out. “We were making a stand for serious research.”
“By stealing a mummy?” Julia couldn’t keep quiet any longer. This was absolutely too ludicrous to believe.
“Who the hell are you?” Marcus snapped.
And just like that, Joe’s fist shot out and Marcus’ head snapped back. When he righted it, there was blood dripping from his nose.
“Don’t ever speak to her like that again. Hear me?”
“Yeah.” Marcus wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smearing blood over his cheek. “Yeah, I hear you.” He kept his eyes averted from Julia.
Patricia was grinning. “I take it back, Joe. You can definitely do the interrogating.”
Joe ignored her. “Where is the mummy now?”
“We sold it.”
Patricia was outraged. “Why sell it? If you only intended to disrupt our research, why not replace the thing once I was arrested?”
Marcus sneered at her. “We wanted it gone. We didn’t want you to get to it at a later date.”
“And you wanted the money.” Patricia sneered back. “You’re nothing more than a grave robber.”
Marcus started to bluster, but Joe leaned into him, cutting him off.
“Who did you sell it to?”
“A middleman.”
“Who?”
Julia didn’t know it was possible to infuse so much menace into one word.
“Juan Pablo de Santos.”
“The mummy is in Bolivia?” Patricia was outraged.
The look Marcus shot her was smug and nasty. “If he still has it. You know how fast he likes to sell things on, especially seeing as it was wrapped in a priceless treasure map.” The idiot actually laughed.
“You plan to deal with this asshole?” Ed seemed to have lost all humour.
“Oh, yeah,” Joe said.
“Then we’ll be in the bar.” Ed hooked his arm around Patricia’s waist and steered her into the building as she struggled and shouted at Marcus.
Marcus shifted nervously, squirming in his seat. “Are we finished?”
Joe hung his head for a second. “Oh yeah, we’re done.” And in a move too fast for Julia to track, he punched Marcus on the jaw. He slumped in his seat, out cold.
From the doorway into the bar, Patricia clapped. “He is the best! I love him. You should definitely keep him.”
“I could have done that,” Ed grumbled.
Julia wasn’t paying attention. She was staring at Joe, who had propped Marcus up against the seat to make it look like was sleeping. Then he took Marcus’ wallet out of the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and pulled out his credit card. He replaced the wallet before grabbing Julia’s hand. Pulling her along behind him, he headed back into the bar. Julia was still staring at the unconscious man and wondering if she should do something. What, though, she didn’t know.
Joe tossed the stolen credit card onto the bar as they passed it. “I got some great news,” he announced to the room. “Food and drink are on me for the rest of the evening. Enjoy.”
There were cheers and a distinctly undistinguished stampede for the bar. As they pushed their way to the front door, one of the bartenders intercepted them. He was huge, muscled like a rugby player, with close-cropped hair.
“That card doesn’t belong to you.” He had an Australian accent.
Julia froze as Joe seemed to increase in size. “You got a problem with that?” His tone was low and mean.
A slow smile lit up the bartender’s face. “Hell no. But I thought you’d like to know that your friends caught some attention during their party last week.”
“What kind of attention?” Joe said.
“The kind you don’t want to attract. Know what I mean?”
Joe nodded. “I still need a name.”
The guy looked around before lowering his voice. “There was a dinner meeting going on. Bunch of lieutenants in Esteban’s army.”
Julia didn’t recognise the name, but Joe clearly did. Every muscle in his body grew tense. “Carlos Esteban.”
The guy nodded.
“They show any interest in the topic of conversation coming from the partiers?”
“A whole heap of interest.” The bartender took a step closer. He cocked his head at Patricia. “The MILF announced to the room that she’d cracked the Incan code on some mummy wrapping. She said it’d lead to a pot of gold. She announced that she’d be famous, rich and the best mummy hunter on the planet.” His lip quirked. “She planned to donate it all to a museum, but she wanted a statue in central London for her efforts. She wanted Michelangelo to carve it, which shows you how trashed she was. That dude died a long time ago.”
“She might as well have painted a target on her forehead.”
“Sorry, man, I would have stopped it if I’d known it was real. I thought she was a nutty tourist.” He looked down at the stolen credit card and then back at Joe. “Does the arsehole need a doctor?”
“Not this time. You might want to advise him to head stateside when he wakes up.”
“Will do. In the meantime, I’ll make sure this card gets a good workout.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Anytime.” The guy turned, then looked back over his shoulder. “You need help, call here and ask for Michael.”
Joe gave him a chin lift.
By the time they’d headed back outside to their SUV, they were all in a sombre mood.
“Is the treasure real, Gran?” Julia was beginning to side with Ed and believe it to be so.
“We did a lot of discreet investigating,” Patricia said from the back seat. “The map doesn’t lead to El Dorado, but we’re sure it leads to some sort of hidden cache of gold. We kept hearing about a golden bull. Whether that’s actual or symbolic, I don’t know. I do know that it was common practice for the Incas to hide their treasure, especially after they cottoned on to the Spaniards’ lust for their gold. Every now and then someone discovers some hidden stash. Even conservative estimates would suggest that there is still a lot to be found.”
“I thought the Spaniards had taken it all back to Europe,” Julia said.
“No, not all.” Patricia sounded thoughtful. “What’s left is very rare and priceless. Even a small cache would net someone millions.”
“That’s why the interest in the map,” Julia said. “There’s nothing to lose if it turns out to be a wild goose chase, but everything to gain if it isn’t.”
“Millions to gain,” Patricia said.
There was silence as the car wove through the crowded traffic into the dark Lima night.
“That guy called me a MILF,” Patricia said suddenly. “I don’t know whether to be insulted or honoured.”
Ed started laughing, and Joe shook his head. Julia looked up at him. “What’s a MILF?”
“You really don’t want to know.”
And because of that, she really did. Discreetly, Julia pulled her iPad from her messenger bag and made a note to look it up later.
“This guy, Esteban,” Julia said. “You recognised his name, Joe. Who is he?”
“Bad news,” Ed answered for Joe. “Bad, bad news. I’ve had some dealings with him in the past. He’s hard to avoid when you work in Peru.”
“He’s cartel.” Joe’s grip was white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “We ran into his army years ago when I was working an op here with the Marines.” He glanced at Julia before turning his attention back to the road. “He’s worse than bad news. He’s ruthless, resourceful and relentless. If he wants something, he doesn’t stop until he gets it.”
“And he wants the treasure.” Julia stared out into the black night as car lights flickered in front of them.
“Yeah, he wants the treasure.” Joe reached for her hand.
Without thinking, Julia met him halfway. “We need to head to Bolivia.”
“Book flights for the morning, baby. We need sleep.”
“But Alice—”
“We’re no good to anyone if we’re de
ad on our feet. Patricia hasn’t slept for a week. The morning is soon enough.”
“I wish…” She looked into the night. She wished the whole mess was over. She wished Alice was safe. She wished her gran had never become a mummy hunter in the first place. Most of all, she wished she was braver and more capable.
Joe squeezed her hand and held it tight as they drove through the night.
Chapter 8
Callum McKay was in his office when Benson Security’s resident computer expert rushed in. Callum and one of his three business partners, Rachel Ford-Talbot, looked up from their notes to frown at the blue-haired woman.
“I know.” Elle held up her hand—the other one was clutching her laptop. “No interrupting, but this is serious stuff.”
She plopped the laptop on the desk and her fingers flew over the keyboard.
“What’s going on?” Lake Benson, the original owner of the company and ex-SAS soldier, demanded from the phone in the middle of the desk.
Elle gave it a guilty glance. “Were you having a conference call?”
Callum glared at her while he spoke to Lake. “Elle’s got some important news.”
“About?” Lake asked.
Callum cocked an eyebrow at his hacker.
“The situation in Peru,” Elle said before looking back at her screen.
“We’re calling it a situation now?” There was an unvoiced groan in Lake’s words. “The London office isn’t even officially open and you guys are on your second case. Second unpaid case. The building, which we were in the middle of renovating, already needs to be redone because the last unpaid case caused someone to set off a bomb in it. I’m beginning to regret expanding the business.”
“Not as much as I regret being dragged into your expansion,” Callum grumbled.
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