Jillian said, “Seems strange that they would laser the surface yet hand-cut the edges.”
Yancy grunted agreement. He looked up at Simon. “Any idea how old it is?”
“Prehistory.”
Jillian shook her head. “That’s impossible. There is no archaeological evidence to support this level of technology during that time.”
Yancy said, “Perhaps there is and archaeologists just don’t want to accept it. Ancient lenses have been discovered before. Usually, they are dismissed as hoaxes, because they don’t fit conveniently into our current knowledge base. Or they screw up someone’s timeline.”
As Simon expected, Jillian stiffened and said, “Speculation is not science.”
Yancy chuckled. “You mean crackpot theories are not science. Everything begins with a theory. Whether or not the science follows is up to the scientist.” Then Yancy focused on the edge of the lens. “Is that writing?”
Jillian took the lens from him and turned it upright. Slowly, she rolled it like a wheel.
“Glyphs,” she said so reverently that Simon was mesmerized. She didn’t even look like she was breathing. “Mesoamerican, I think,” she added in a whisper.
Simon stilled. This damn thing might be authentic, after all. Crap.
Her voice rose in excitement. “We have designs in between each one. Intricately woven rows. I’ve never come across anything like this.”
Simon watched the color rise in her cheeks. He’d seen it before, from grave robbers and raiders when they struck it big. His gut twisted.
“Could be writing, but it’s almost too simplistic. Just lines,” Yancy added, sounding as winded as she did.
“How could anyone make such minute etchings by hand? Maybe they were added later? A forgery, perhaps?”
“Look at the wear here. You can’t fake that.”
Simon shook his head. Eggheads. “So what does it say?”
Jillian cut her gaze to him like she wished he would just go away. Fat chance.
“I’m afraid my books on glyphs are quite limited,” Yancy said, peering over the magnifying glass. “How long are you planning on being here?”
Simon asked, “You need more time, or are you trying to get rid of us?”
“Jillian can stay,” Yancy said without missing a beat.
Simon met her eyes. They were cool and blue. “No, I think she needs to stick with me for a while longer.”
“In that case, we’ll need groceries.” Yancy pushed back from the table and rubbed his eyes.
Jillian said, “I could use some clothes.”
“I’ll take you today,” Simon told her.
She frowned. “What if someone sees us?”
“No one followed us here. We’re safe for a while.”
She didn’t look too sure about that. Then a cell phone rang and Simon pulled it out of his pocket.
Jillian narrowed her eyes. “Is that my cell phone?”
He checked the number. “Who’s Paulie?”
“Friend of the family. I have to take this call, or you’ll get to meet all my relatives.”
She sounded serious and extremely annoyed, so he handed her the phone. “Speaker phone.”
She made a face and answered, “Hello?”
The voice of a young man came over. “Hey, Jillian. How you doing?”
She turned serious. “I’m fine. Is Raven okay? My father? Dax?”
“Oh, yeah. They’re great. They’re just out of calling range, and I’m kind of holding down the fort here. Thought I’d let you know so if you have any problems or something comes up, you can reach me on my cell.”
She gave Simon a smug smile. “Thank you, I’ll remember that. Any idea when they’ll be back?”
“Probably a week. Maybe less. Depends on how good the fishing is. So, what are you up to?”
She gave Simon a this-is-all-your-fault look. “Oh, you know, a nice, quiet weekend at home.”
Paulie asked, “And everything is okay? Because your sister left me in charge of you.”
Simon raised an eyebrow as her expression tightened.
“Everything is fine. I don’t need a babysitter.”
The intensity of her stillness spoke volumes. Anyone looking at her would simply think she was fine, but the fingers wrapped tightly around the phone told a different story.
There was a short pause on the other end of the phone. “Okay, sorry. Just wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Perfectly, thank you,” she said, a little too sharply. “When you see my family, give them my best. Good-bye.” Then she hung up.
Simon held out his hand for the phone. Jillian cut her eyes to him, and he could tell by the heightened color in her face that she was working for her self-control. There was a lot more to that conversation than he’d realized.
He withdrew his hand.
She spoke curtly, “You want my help? Then you have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone, babe.”
“Stop calling me ‘babe.’ Trust me or do this without me.”
They stared at each other for a few moments. Her blue eyes didn’t waver. He couldn’t bully her any harder. He needed her help to save Celina. “Fine. Keep the phone.”
“I’m going to call home for any messages. If that’s okay with you,” she said, one eyebrow raised in challenge.
“Whatever makes you happy,” he said.
“You don’t want to know what would make me happy,” she replied and walked out of the room.
Yancy grinned at him in triumph. “Never underestimate.”
Kesel stood beside a puddle of blood where Jackson had sat two hours ago. Two hours before he’d run out of this house and led Kesel all over Brooklyn. By the time Kesel caught up with him, he’d bled to death and the lens wasn’t with him. Which meant it was here or with someone who lived here. The problem was, he’d already checked the house and no one was home. A bad sign.
The foyer was dark and silent as he walked through the first-floor rooms to the kitchen. Jackson wouldn’t give the lens to just anyone. He’d pick someone who knew what to do with it, and Kesel needed the homeowner’s identity fast. He pulled on a pair of leather gloves and began going through the drawers.
His cell phone rang, and he answered with a curt, “What?”
Carlos started swearing in Spanish and then switched to English. “We lost her. It’s over. We have nothing without her.”
Kesel took a deep breath and let Carlos’s paranoia roll off him until he was once again centered.
“Explain. Slowly,” he finally said in a lull of swearing.
“Franco checked Talbot’s apartment. She wasn’t home, but he found her passport.”
Kesel pulled out drawer after drawer, finding nothing. No phone book, no address book, no personal information. Interesting.
Carlos continued, “So then he went to where she works and waited until she came out.”
Kesel opened the refrigerator. It was nearly empty, containing only condiments and beer. Nothing perishable.
“And?” he prompted Carlos.
Kesel made his way through the rooms looking for the crap that most people kept in their homes. But there were no photos on the walls or tables. No mementos. No toys. No sentimental touches.
“He had her in his hands, and then a man attacked him and took her away.”
Kesel stopped in the middle of the living room and stared at a stone statue of the Hindu god Ganesha sitting on the mantel.
Carlos broke into Spanish again. “Franco said he was pro, and one of his men recognized him.”
Kesel walked over to the statue. “Give me a name.”
“Simon Bonner.”
Bonner. He should have guessed that. He hadn’t heard that name in many years. Not since they’d come to blows over a find that Kesel needed for a very persistent customer. Bonner had gotten lucky and won that one, leaving Kesel empty-handed. A rare failure.
Carlos continued, “And now Bonner has her, and we don�
�t.”
Kesel moved to the stairs. “And he has the lens, too.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m in his house looking at the spot where Jackson gave it to him.”
Jackson would have told him everything he knew about the lens and the legend attached to it. So what would Bonner do next?
“He has her and the lens?” Carlos starting swearing again.
Kesel wandered back to the kitchen. He was missing something. “Relax, Carlos. He still has to put it all together. I doubt Jackson even knew what he really had.”
Carlos moaned. “If only I hadn’t trusted Celina in the first place.
Kesel clenched his teeth. “That’s what you get for letting your dick think for you. Next time you decide to play footsie with the hired help, keep your mouth shut and your inventory locked up. Because one way or another, someone is going to pay for Celina stealing my lens out from under your care. Starting with you.”
“I know, I know. I was sloppy,” Carlos said quickly. “What do we do? Bonner could be anywhere. Hell, he could be in Mexico by now.”
That much was true, and highly possible.
Kesel spotted the phone in the kitchen. He picked it up and pressed Redial. The last outgoing phone number began dialing. The date was yesterday, and the digital display read “Elwood Yancy.” Kesel hung up before the phone started ringing.
Elwood Yancy. An expert in antiquities. The perfect man to hide Bonner and help him figure out the mystery of the lens. If Bonner went there, it meant only one thing—he was going after the archives.
Kesel let himself out the back door and removed his gloves. “I’m heading back to Mexico. Tell Franco I have another job for him, and this time, he better not fuck it up.”
CHAPTER
6
It was early Saturday afternoon when Simon stepped through the kitchen doorway with Jillian hot on his heels. He dropped the groceries on the counter.
“I realize you owe me for the whole kidnapping thing and for just plain being a jerk, but tell me again why I couldn’t use my own charge cards?” she asked.
“We don’t want to leave a trail someone can find.”
She’d stopped just inside the doorway, her hands full of Macy’s bags.
Her face was set in a frown. “What about your charge cards? Someone could trace those.”
He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. Damn, she was gorgeous when she was mad. What else could he pick a fight about? “They know who you are, but it’ll take them a while to identify me.”
Suspicion flashed in her eyes. “And why would that be?”
He wasn’t ready to give her that much yet. “Let’s just say that I know how to keep a low profile.”
For a few long moments, she stood there studying him. “I will repay you for my purchases as soon as possible. I won’t be beholden to you,” she said and then walked out of the kitchen.
She didn’t want to be beholden to him? Huh. He started putting the groceries away.
As much as he had enjoyed this afternoon, it was tougher to read her than he had originally thought. When she closed up, there was no telling what was on her mind. That could be a problem down the road. He lived by instincts and the ability to read people. The ones he couldn’t read always seemed to be the ones who bit him in the ass.
One thing he had discovered was that when Jillian Talbot focused on something, she focused one hundred percent. She’d purchased her clothes quietly and decisively. Nothing frivolous, nothing extravagant—jeans, two tops, a pair of shoes, a jacket, and some intimates he’d tried really hard to ignore but failed.
Black lace bra. Bikini panties. Satin pajamas.
A vision of Jillian’s long legs and silky skin in black lace lying on a bed, flashed in his mind. Blond hair fanned across the smooth sheets. Blue eyes hooded and watchful. She smiled that Mona Lisa smile and crooked a finger at him.
He paused while putting the cereal in the cupboard. He was getting a hard-on just thinking about a woman in sexy lingerie. How pathetic was that? He shoved the box onto the shelf. As soon as this was all over with, he was going to start dating and getting laid on a regular basis like normal men.
“Need any help?”
Shit. She was right behind him.
He took a deep breath, cursed his gender, and turned around. “I’m almost done.”
She had changed into a pair of hip-hugging jeans and a floral, fitted blouse that showed off a bit of black lace bra. Gone was the professional curator. She’d transformed into one sexy woman.
It registered slowly in his head that that was bad.
Think about something else. Baseball. Getting hit in the groin with a baseball.
“Thank you for using your charge card for the clothes. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. But I will repay you,” she said.
“Whatever you want.” It came out a little rough.
She stepped closer, and he noticed she’d put on a little lip gloss and mascara that gave her blue eyes a smoky, sensual quality. Her hair cascaded down over her shoulders, brushing the long line of her throat. A little peek of cleavage showed through the V of the button-up blouse every time she took a breath. And he wasn’t getting any less hard.
He moved to put the island between them.
She tilted her head a fraction of an inch as she watched him. “Are you okay?”
He had never noticed how amazing her lips were. Damn. He needed to get rid of her before he embarrassed himself. “Yancy should have something for us by now. I’ll be there in a minute.”
With one final puzzled look, she walked out of the kitchen, leaving him to his self-induced torture. He gripped the countertop. What the hell was wrong with him? He was a sucker for a beautiful woman, but this was unusual, even for him. It was more than a little scary how easily the fantasies were popping up with her. She was not his type. Not even close. Too uptight. Too conservative. And too damned righteous.
He blew out a long breath and thought back over the long string of disastrous relationships he’d had since he discovered women and what they were good for. The ones who had landed him in debt or in jail or in the hospital. The ones who had lied through their teeth so sweetly that he couldn’t resist the trap. The ones who had broken his heart and shaped a cynicism that now defined his every move.
By the time he was done, he could walk again.
“Works every time,” he muttered.
Jillian still couldn’t believe Simon bought her clothes without even asking her. Just told the cashier to put it on his card before she even had a chance to get that far. But she couldn’t risk making a scene in the store. He didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart, she knew that much, and it was going to make her crazy until she paid him back. Maybe he’d take a check.
And then there was the incident in the kitchen. She wasn’t sure what happened, but it had gotten really warm, really fast. She was too young for hot flashes, which meant trouble in a big way. There was a kind of attraction for him like she’d never felt before. Lusting after a man who was going to ditch her the moment he didn’t need her anymore—not in her best interest.
At least she’d gotten her phone back. It wasn’t much, just a cell phone. But that small victory made up for Paulie’s babysitting crack. She’d call him if he was her only and last choice. Until then, she could take care of herself.
Jillian found Elwood Yancy at his desk, buried in a thick volume of glyphs, mumbling to himself.
“How are you doing?” she asked, crossing the room.
He rubbed his eyes and looked up at her. “I found as much as I could.”
She leaned over to read his notes but couldn’t make any sense of them. “What does it say?”
“At first, I thought the glyphs were Olmec. They are close, but I believe far older. The closest I could get was Epi-Olmec.”
Jillian blinked at him in disbelief. Pre-Olmec. Good God. This was easily the oldest object she had ever worked with. Jil
lian picked up the crystal and studied the glyphs. Many of them had been worn off, nearly illegible without magnification. “Were you able to decipher anything?”
Elwood looked at the notes. “Not really. I think we might have an eye and a hand glyph, but I can’t be certain. And I have nothing at all on the linear images in between. This is not my area. You need Mancuso.”
Simon walked in, and Jillian felt her body tense automatically. He gave her a strange, humorless look and walked over to them. What was his problem?
“Who’s Mancuso?” Jillian asked.
“An old friend in Mexico,” Simon chimed in.
Elwood added, “And an expert on the Olmec civilization,” then looked directly at Simon. “All roads lead to Mexico. If you want answers, you’ll need to go there.”
Jillian frowned. “Go to Mexico?”
“You’re positive?” Simon asked.
“Afraid so.”
She shook her head. “Why can’t we just fax or e-mail Mancuso?”
Elwood chuckled. “Not Mancuso. He doesn’t like technology. He doesn’t even have a phone.”
Simon glanced at her. “It’d just be a quick trip. I’ll pay for everything.”
She pursed her lips. “That’s not the point. I can’t simply take off and go to Mexico. I have a job, and Monday morning they are going to expect to see my smiling face.”
Simon grew serious. “You don’t get it. You can’t go back to work until this is over. You won’t be safe. Call them and tell them you’re taking a few vacation days. I’m sure you have some. In fact, I’ll bet you have a lot.”
Jillian glared at him, angry more because he was right than anything else. She hadn’t taken a single day off since she started the new job. But that wasn’t the issue. She couldn’t leave the country on a whim just to show a man a lens. She’d never done anything like that in her life.
She looked at the piece of glass in her hand. All this for one lens. Was it worth it? She didn’t know, but if she wanted an answer, she didn’t have much of a choice.
She asked Elwood, “You’re sure this is absolutely necessary?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“We have to be back Wednesday,” she said to Simon. “That’s it.” Of course, she had no idea what she’d do if they weren’t back on Wednesday, but she had three days to figure that out. At least by then she’d know more than she knew now.
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