Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  “What look is that?”

  “The reporter-y, history nerd look.”

  “I’m not a history nerd,” I insisted. “Though if I was, I might mention that the network of ruins in Coba extends nearly fifty square miles—many of those ruins still under the cover of jungle. Or that the remote location and subsequent lack of excavation lend a mystery to these ruins that’s hard to come by in the overexposed, heavily-trod-upon world we live in today... Or that Nohoch Mul, one of the central pyramids in this complex, is the tallest on the Yucatan Peninsula. Or—”

  “Or, it’s creepy as fuck out there,” Monty interrupted.

  “Or that,” Solomon agreed. Sol patted my hand. “If we don’t die today, I promise I’ll listen to you ramble ad nauseam about all that crap. You should probably let it go for now, though.”

  “I just want to get out there already,” Monty said impatiently. I took Solomon’s point: No one gave a rat’s ass about the complexities of ancient Mayan civilization right now. “We need to find some higher ground, so I can figure out where I’m gonna watch this whole thing go down.”

  “I don’t see what the point in hiding is,” I said. “Jenny knows we’ll be here. She knows we have back up.”

  “She won’t know where that back up is, though,” Juarez pointed out. “I know she’ll have people here, as well, but I want to make sure if she has any big ideas about ambushing you to get the memory card, we’re there to stop her.”

  There was a pounding on the side of the door that nearly sent the whole crew into orbit seconds later. Carl peered at us through the window, grinning widely. Monty slid the door open for him and he climbed aboard.

  “Does anyone else feel like we’re in a lost episode of the A Team?” Solomon piped up.

  “Not enough explosives,” Monty said. “But I could probably fix that with a little lead time.”

  “We’ll pass on that,” I said. I was a little sensitive about explosives by then. “But thanks.”

  “What did I miss?” Carl asked. He was looking uncharacteristically chipper. I eyed him suspiciously. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “He’s just concerned about how upbeat you seem, considering we’re facing an imminent showdown with a psycho killer. Qu’est ce que c’est?” Solomon said.

  The reference went right over Carl’s head. “I know it is serious,” he assured her. “But it’s better to enjoy one’s work, don’t you agree?”

  None of us could find fault with that logic. It didn’t make his apparent gleeful anticipation any less creepy, though.

  “We’re just figuring out the layout,” Monty said. “You want to give us the grand tour?”

  Carl nodded, looking more eager than I’d seen him since the card game on Raven’s Ledge. “I have some ideas, actually.”

  He reached for the door. The others followed suit, while I sat like a lump beside Solomon. Juarez paused before he abandoned us completely, lingering at the open door.

  “This really is where we need you both most right now,” he said. “I know it doesn’t seem that way.”

  “You can go if you want,” Solomon said to me. “I’ll be fine here. It’s not like I’m not armed... You don’t need to babysit me.”

  Juarez looked at me expectantly. Time for me to man up, clearly.

  “You heard what they said,” I said. “We stay out of the way. Not just you. It’s not babysitting... At this point, it’s just being smart.”

  “Exactly,” Juarez agreed. “Shout if you need something, though—we won’t be far. And someone will be back soon to check on you. I don’t expect we’ll be long.”

  “Go,” I said. “Once you’ve scoped the place out, we’ll make sure we have everything else in place before Jenny gets here.”

  I watched him go with some regret—partly because being stuck in an overheated van for the next few hours wasn’t incredibly appealing; partly because I was honestly terrified at how exposed Solomon and I were out here.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me, kid,” Solomon said. Her hair was damp on her forehead, her eyes bright.

  “Looks like,” I agreed. I put the back of my hand against her forehead. It came away hot and damp.

  “It’s hotter than hell out there,” she reminded me before I said anything.

  “Or, your fever’s back.” I grabbed a spare t-shirt, rolled it, and set it on one end of the seat. Then, I got up and carefully helped her lie back. “You should sleep.”

  “All I do is sleep now,” she grumbled.

  “Tell me about it. Now, be a good girl and close your eyes.”

  She glared at me. “Once I’m healed, you’ll pay for that.”

  “I look forward to it.” I kissed her forehead, and left her to rest.

  It was close to seven o’clock when I got out of the van to stretch my legs. I took in the jungle and the limestone road, the nearly-deserted parking lot and the setting sun on the horizon. There was a warm breeze blowing in. Compared to the heat of the day, it was heavenly. A couple of tourists, sweaty and spent, eyed me curiously before they climbed into their car. A year ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to start a conversation with them. Now, I hung back with my chest tight until they drove away.

  How the mighty had fallen.

  Chapter Thirty - Kat

  There was no trapdoor in the room Lee put them in this time. No secret escape hatch. There was a dirt floor and solid walls and barely any light. Hell, there was barely any air. And the room was not unoccupied.

  In the corner, her face bruised and bloodied, sat Cameron’s daughter. She kept her eyes locked on the floor when they came in. Cam spared barely a glance at his surroundings before he went to her.

  “Jenny?”

  She looked up. Somehow, she managed to look resentful even with the state she was in. Cam sat down beside her, touching her chin gently to guide her gaze to his. Her eyes remained hard.

  “Lee did this?” he asked.

  “I betrayed the Project,” Jenny said evenly. “You knew as well as I did there would be a price.”

  “I didn’t expect this. I thought...” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I thought. Where else are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. Lee knows how to inflict pain without doing real damage. It looks worse than it is.”

  “They make mistakes,” Cam said. “You should know that by now. Let Katherine look at you.”

  Jenny sneered at them both. “Not on your life. I told you: I’m fine.”

  Cameron looked over his shoulder at Kat. She was still standing at the door, watching curiously. The father-daughter business held no interest; the fact that Jenny clearly needed medical attention was hard to ignore, though. Kat walked the three steps it took to cross the room and knelt beside the girl. Jenny scrambled backward like a caged thing.

  “Stay the hell away from me.”

  “Jenny—” Cameron said.

  “Relax,” Kat said smoothly before he could intervene. She shot Cam a look. He got the message: Back off. He fell silent and took a step back.

  “You can murder me in your sleep the first chance you get,” Kat said. “I promise. But in the meantime, how about we make use of all that cash my father shelled out for medical school, huh?”

  Jenny’s shoulders relaxed slightly. Kat moved in closer, going as gently as possible when she palpated the girl’s swollen cheek, ran her hand along her bruised jaw. She was right: It looked bad, but there were no broken bones. Her right eye was bruised and swollen, but there was no orbital fracture.

  “Congratulations,” Kat said dryly. “Your friend beats women like a champ. Your face will be fine—maybe a couple of scars, but nothing disfiguring. What about the rest of you? Any body blows?”

  “A couple,” Jenny said. “Nothing bad.”

  “Did he rape you?” Kat kept her focus on her hands as she continued searching for injuries, her voice notably casual. The room fell silent. She could almost feel the tension radiating from Cameron, though he stood behind her now.<
br />
  “No,” Jenny said after a second.

  “You sure about that?” Kat asked, still casual. She looked Jenny in the eye.

  “I think I would have remembered,” Jenny said flatly.

  “Probably,” Kat agreed. “But maybe you don’t want to say something with dear old Dad with us. He’s a big boy, though—he can handle it. I need to know if there are injuries I’m not seeing here.”

  “There aren’t,” Jenny said.

  The women’s gazes remained locked for another few seconds, while Kat tried to figure out whether or not Jenny was lying. She didn’t think so. It was hard to be certain when you were dealing with someone trained in the art of deception since birth, of course, but, in this case, Kat was reasonably sure she was getting the truth.

  “Good, then,” Kat said. She straightened. Jenny’s posture relaxed a little more. “Looks like you’re right: You’ll live to fight another day. Or get the snot beaten out of you, as the case may be.”

  Cameron lowered himself to the floor again, close to his daughter. Jenny may have relaxed for a minute or two, but her tension was back in spades the second Cam came near.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “But it’s a good lesson. This is what they do, Jenny. This is who they are. It doesn’t change.”

  “This happened because I tried to help you,” she said. Her voice remained flat. “I was fine… I’ve been fine, for a long time with them. You were, too. You just chose to forget.”

  “I didn’t forget.”

  She looked at him. “You sure about that?”

  “I loved my life with you and your mother,” Cameron said. “I didn’t love what they did to you both. What they did to me. The price we paid whenever we disagreed. They took too much from us… From you.”

  “They gave me everything,” she said. Her voice got tighter, her body taut as wire. “What did you give me? Everything started with them: the roof over our heads, the food on our plates. I’ve lived my life for them. So have you. They clothed us. Fed us. Trained us. Gave us something to work toward; something to believe in.”

  “They gave us lies,” Cameron said roughly. “They gave us shit. They gave us nightmares and murderous impulses and a sense of right and wrong so skewed I didn’t know for years what all the blood on my hands meant. How the hell is that a gift? You wanted me to stay with them, for that? To thank them for it?”

  “And now you think you can just put the white hat on, and all that blood on your hands won’t matter anymore?” she said. “You’re an idiot. You’re blind.”

  “I know there’s no redemption for me. I accept that. That’s not why I’m doing this. But you...”

  “I didn’t ask for redemption!” Jenny screamed the words, her body tightening with fury and a pain so deep Kat could feel it in the air around them. Tears spilled now. Jenny seemed unaware. “I just want them. I want my life. I want J. You forced me to choose—”

  “I didn’t ask you to let us go,” Cameron reminded her.

  “No—I could have stood by and watched them torture you. Peel everything away until I didn’t even recognize you anymore—until all you were was a mass of exposed nerves. They know how to do that, remember? We know how to do that.”

  “Jenny—” he tried again.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head violently. “It doesn’t matter. He said I have one more chance. That’s it. Get the information tonight... Don’t interfere with whatever they have in store for you, and I can go back. I’ll be safe.”

  “You know you’re never safe with them,” Cam said quietly. He reached out and ran a gentling hand along her cheek. “We can make this right. If you work with us, we can make it right.”

  When she met his eye this time, Kat was certain she’d never seen anyone harder. Anyone colder.

  “Get away from me,” Jenny whispered. “I don’t need you to make this right. I don’t need you at all.”

  Cameron removed his hand.

  He didn’t reach out to her again.

  Chapter Thirty-One - Diggs

  At nine-fifteen that night, things started happening. With the six of us crowded in the van with a tropical rain pouring buckets outside, we went over the last of the plan before we set everything in motion.

  “It won’t be easy out here,” Monty said. “This is a whole lot of land, and the biggest structures are those goddamn ruins. It’s not like we can find higher ground to watch what’s going down.”

  Carl nodded as Juarez continued. “You’ll need to be far enough up that you’ll have a good view of everything happening below. Jamie will be at the head of the road—”

  “You don’t need to keep me out of the way,” Jamie protested. “I can handle myself.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Juarez said evenly. “But I need someone I can trust who’ll let us know when Jenny arrives, and whether Willett shows up.”

  “You think he will?” I asked.

  “He seemed pretty determined when we met in Kentucky,” Juarez said. “I have a feeling he’ll find his way here. If he does, he can’t know I’m here this time or I’m out of a job… and probably facing charges.”

  “All right, fine,” Jamie said. “I’ll play lookout. Monty, you have some brilliant way we can all stay in touch?”

  “As a matter of fact,” he said with a grin, “I’ve got that covered.”

  He retrieved a large duffel bag from under his seat and rooted through until he came out with a cardboard box. From it, he removed five small plastic cases containing an earbud and a microphone the size and shape of a tie clip. He handed out cases to Juarez, Jamie, Carl, and me, keeping the last for himself.

  “This isn’t the kind of equipment you typically see on the open market,” Juarez said, eying the earwig he’d been given. I couldn’t tell whether that was admiration or angst in his voice. Probably a healthy dose of both.

  “A man’s got to have his hobbies,” Monty said. “If Uncle Sam’s gonna keep his eyeballs on everything I do, I’m damned sure gonna have the equipment to eyeball him right back. Anyway, these’ll keep us all connected.”

  “We should have a code word, in case anything goes wrong,” I said. “Right? If someone says that word, we’ll know things have gone to hell.”

  “Dragons,” Solomon said absently. She watched the path to the ruins, barely acknowledging the rest of us. “For a password, I mean.”

  “It should be something we can work into casual conversation,” Juarez said.

  “I can work ‘dragons’ into any conversation,” she said readily.

  “Right,” Juarez said with a faint smile. “Of course you can. So… ‘dragons’ it is.”

  Monty took another minute to explain the details of our equipment, but time was winding down fast; we were all anxious to move. He and Carl got out first, wearing camouflage plastic ponchos that hid a seriously intimidating arsenal. If the cops happened to make their way out here tonight, we would all be facing time in a Mexican prison. I’ve already done that once; I’m not anxious to repeat the experience.

  The rest of the group piled out of the van next, shoulders slouched miserably in the rain. Juarez went to the driver’s side window, where Jamie waited.

  “Remember the code word,” Juarez said seriously.

  “I don’t think that will be a problem. I’ll be fine, Jack. Just worry about yourself, hmm?” She leaned out and kissed him on the cheek. Solomon turned and looked at me, one eyebrow arched, but remained quiet. “See you on the other side, Agent Juarez,” Jamie said.

  She drove away, leaving us alone in the muddy, dark parking lot.

  “Told you she was sweet on you,” I said to Juarez when she was gone. Solomon just sent him a knowing smile.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Juarez grumbled. “Let’s get on with this, or I’ll unleash the dragons myself.”

  Before he left, he scooped Sol up in a careful hug. I realized suddenly that this was the only goodbye we would get—once we had Kat, we would be headed in opposite direction
s. I had no idea when we would see Jack Juarez again.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  When he let go and pulled back, Sol’s eyes were wet. I was reasonably sure it wasn’t just from the rain. “I’ll see you again soon,” she said. “We’ll figure out… everything. All those things we’ve forgotten—we’ll figure out what they were. Why they took those memories.”

  “I know,” he said. “You can count on it.”

  I was next. He wrapped his arms around me and held on. I thought suddenly of the brother I’d lost so many years ago.

  “Be good to yourselves,” he said to me. “You know how to reach me if you need anything.”

  “We do,” I agreed. We parted, and I clapped him on the back in as manly a gesture as I could muster at the moment. “We’ll be back, man. Don’t worry. Now, let’s move—they’ll be here soon.”

  After Juarez had disappeared into the jungle, leaving Sol and me to travel the muddy path to the pyramid on our own, I took a slug of water and handed the bottle to Solomon. We started out in silence, rain still pouring down, the trees a canopy of deepest black over our heads. Monkeys and tropical birds screeched above us. At least the rain kept the bugs at bay.

  Solomon’s face was flushed, the rain plastering her hair to her forehead. The fever was back, and then some: 101.6 when she’d taken her temperature back at the van. I didn’t harp on it, knowing that right now nothing could be done. It didn’t make any of this easier, though.

  To our right, I pointed out a Mayan ball court recently excavated, but otherwise untouched by modern hands.

  “We should come back here sometime,” Solomon said. “When we’re not running for our lives, I mean. It would be nice to explore out here.”

  “I’d like that. I’ll even try to steer clear of my reporter-y history nerd zone.”

  She bumped up against me, slipping her arm through mine. “I don’t know. To be honest, I kind of like it. It’s very Indiana Jones.”

  “Does that mean I can start talking about the wonders of Mayan civilization now?”