Out of Time

by Samantha Graves

  She frowned, trying to remember. Yes, he was the one who broke off the kiss. Why? A weird kind of disappointment settled over her. She should be relieved, so why did she feel disappointed?

  “Get over yourself, Jillian,” she said aloud. Besides, it was time to face reality.

  Never again, she vowed as she sat up on the side of the bed and adjusted to vertical. Never drinking again. Never touching alcohol. Ever.

  Slowly, she dragged herself into the bathroom. Ten minutes in the shower and three big glasses of water did wonders, but she still looked like hell in the mirror. At least the headache was down to a dull roar.

  Tequila was the devil. It was as simple as that.

  She dressed in a blue tank top and shorts and headed for some strong Mexican coffee.

  Of course, Simon was there, standing barefoot in the kitchen, looking fully rested and not hung over. Better than good, in fact, in a white collared shirt, loosely buttoned, and khaki shorts. Her dehydrated brain registered the muscled arms and powerful legs. If she was feeling better, she’d have come up with some kind of great fantasy. Right now, she just wanted to sit.

  Simon didn’t say a word, just handed her a big cup of coffee when she pulled up a stool.

  “Thank you,” she murmured and tried to act like she hadn’t made a complete fool of herself last night. Should she apologize for throwing herself at him? For playing dead? For whatever else she’d said or done? Like a blanket apology for the whole night.

  “Paulie still sleeping?” she said by way of focusing attention away from herself.

  “Yup.”

  An awkward silence followed, and Jillian noted that Simon was failing badly at hiding a smile. Damn.

  “So,” he said as he leaned back against the counter and studied her. “Nice underwear.”

  So much for distracting him. “Glad you liked it.”

  He nodded. “I really liked it when it got wet.”

  Her eyes widened. Oh, crap. “Good thing it was dark.”

  He grinned behind his mug. “Not that dark.”

  She felt her face flush. Just kill me now.

  Then Simon turned serious as he swirled his coffee. “How much of last night do you remember?”

  Please, kill me now. “A little.”

  “Do you remember the blue light?”

  She blinked at him as a scrap of memory floated by. The strange light in the sky. “Yes. It was coming from the south.”

  “I didn’t see any light,” he said, straight-faced.

  She stilled. “You didn’t?”

  He shook his head, but his gaze stayed on her for a long time.

  She gave him a weak smile and mumbled into her coffee cup. “Maybe it was the tequila.”

  He smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Maybe.” Then he hitched his head to the right. “Mancuso has something for us.”

  Thank God. She couldn’t handle any more humiliation today, and the day had just begun. She practically leapt off the stool and ran to Mancuso’s den. He stood when she walked in, looking no worse for wear, in his white linen suit with a red silk hanky in the pocket.

  He gave her a kiss on each cheek and peered past her to Simon. “I asked her to marry me, you know.”

  Jillian added, “Six times. He’s very focused.”

  Simon sat in a chair across the table. “Especially when it comes to women.”

  Mancuso clasped his chest. “Si, si. My weakness.”

  She took a seat next to Simon as they gathered around the pile of papers and the lens on Mancuso’s desk. A thick, worn tome filled with yellowed, dog-eared pages lay open in front of them.

  Jillian noted how Mancuso became serious as he turned the book to face them.

  “This is the legend,” he told them.

  A hand-drawn black-and-white picture showed an ancient people arriving by boats on the virgin shores of what must be Mexico. Proud and regal, they displayed classic Olmec features—wide-set eyes, generous lips, brown skin.

  Mancuso tapped a man standing on the beach, amid the boats and people. “The high priest.”

  He was the only one who seemed aware of the artist. His head was shaved and so were his eyebrows. His feet were bare, and he wore a simple white robe with a blue sash at the waist. He held scrolls tightly in his arms.

  But it was his eyes that mesmerized her. It seemed as though he was staring right at her. Right through her.

  Mancuso said, “Legend is told that members of a highly advanced ancient civilization landed on Mexican shores fifteen thousand years ago to escape the unrest and massive climatic change in their homeland.”

  She eyed him. “Sounds a lot like Atlantis.”

  “Perhaps it is,” Mancuso said with a broad smile.

  Maybe he was still drunk from last night. “There is no proof that Atlantis ever existed.”

  “Doesn’t stop people from believing it,” Simon pointed out.

  “This is true,” Mancuso agreed. “The ancients brought with them the entire legacy of their world—art, text, medicine, laws, ancient technology, weapons.”

  She studied the picture again. Sure enough, large pots and crates filled the boats and littered the beach.

  Mancuso continued, “They were the forbearers of Central American civilization and possibly the cradle of humankind.”

  She stared at him. Now he had her attention. Forget Pre-Columbian or Pre-Classic. This could be a root civilization. The answer to all the rising discrepancies that archaeologists and historians struggled with for how ancient man could have such developed technology.

  “What happened to them?” she asked.

  Simon answered. “The same thing that happens to most civilizations. Given the freedom to rebuild, they naturally blew it and began fighting among themselves.”

  She realized suddenly that he already knew this. Elwood must have told him, and Simon never told her. Part of her hardened. He’d lied to her about more than Celina. Was everything a lie? What about last night?

  Mancuso broke into her thoughts. “Precisely. Just before they decimated their numbers to the point of extinction, the priests hid their archives in Mexico. According to the legend, a Seer will arise before self-destruction threatens mankind anew. Before we die out and start over again.”

  She felt like the air had been sucked from her lungs. His words echoed in her mind until they settled. No. This couldn’t be. Not her.

  “This Seer will bring forth the archives. They will be our one chance to break the cycle of death and rebirth that humankind has endured for thousands upon thousands of years,” Mancuso said, his eyes locked on hers. “And to enter into a great age of peace.”

  I don’t want this, she thought fiercely. I don’t want to be the one. This was too much. The responsibility, the weight—

  Mancuso put his hand over hers. “Are you the Seer?”

  She could barely speak. “I don’t know.”

  He pressed his lips together, a look of concern on his face. “Then may God be with you.”

  Simon stood on the patio and watched Jillian pace anxiously. She was beside herself, and he knew that it wasn’t all from the legend. She was tied to that lens in some way he couldn’t figure. Some way that went deep to her soul. They were linked, and he was beginning to worry what would happen once she and the lens were separated forever.

  “There has to be another way,” she said. “Something else we can give the kidnappers in exchange for Celina.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “They were pretty specific. The Archives of Man.”

  She shook her head a few times. “This isn’t just a turquoise cup, Simon. If this is true, there is an entire civilization in those archives. One we know nothing about. Do you have any idea how historically significant this could be?”

  “Do you have any idea how historically dead we’ll be if we don’t hand it over? Forget Celina for a minute. These guys know about you and the lens. Kesel knows about this. It’s only a matter of time before someo
ne else comes looking for us.”

  She stopped in front of him. “So we just hand it over to them and all this goes away?”

  He shrugged. “If the legend is true, and it’s one lens and one Seer, then yes. You should be safe. They would have no further use for you.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. “You knew all this in Boston. You knew what you were asking me to do then.”

  Simon took a deep breath. He couldn’t lie to her anymore. “Most of it.”

  The look of betrayal on her face made him feel like crap. He knew betrayal, had experienced it so often that it had become a part of him. And now he’d done it to her. Somehow, that felt worse than being the one betrayed.

  “I know I lied to you, but it doesn’t change the situation. This is our only hope. We use it as our way out—as Celina’s way out—or we all die.”

  Her eyes closed. “You don’t understand, Simon. I was chosen to find this. To give it to the world, not to a bunch of thieves.”

  Like me, he finished silently. Simon clenched his jaw. “How many lives is that worth to you?”

  He hated saying it as much as he hated seeing her flinch. This would tear her apart, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  “The world has gotten along just fine for the past fifteen thousand years, Jillian. I doubt one cache of ancient wisdom is going to change anything,” he added softly.

  “You say that because you have no faith,” she said.

  He blinked at the certainty in her statement.

  “This is more than knowledge,” she continued, her voice cracking a little. “There’s a danger here. Something in the wrong hands—” She stopped and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  She looked away, out at the waves crashing in the midday sun. Away from him. She was shutting him out; he could feel it even where he stood. In truth, it was better this way, anyway. At least for her.

  When she turned back, her entire expression had changed. The warm blue eyes were gone as she looked at him. A cool, detached gaze met his. “Where do we start?”

  He should have felt relieved, but there was something in her eyes that set him on edge. “Mancuso said we should follow the Olmec ruins. The three major sites are Tres Zapotes, San Lorenzo, and La Venta. He thinks those would be our best chance of finding something.”

  She nodded, but her mind was elsewhere, and that bothered him more than he cared to admit.

  “We need to leave soon if we want to see Tres Zapotes today. If we find nothing there, we’ll spend the night in Catemaco and then head on to San Lorenzo,” he said.

  “I’ll call the museum and ask for a few more days,” she said.

  Simon watched her. “That might be a good idea. As for Paulie—”

  “Paulie stays here,” she cut in sharply, surprising him with her firmness. “He can’t do anything for us, and I don’t want him in the line of fire.”

  There was something else at play here. “You don’t think we’ll make it.”

  Her gaze flickered from his, giving her away. “He said he tapped into a solid wireless connection here. If we need him, he’s just a phone call away.”

  “Fair enough.” Simon handed her a piece of paper. “Paulie found Lance’s phone number. We need to call him and set up a meeting, if possible.”

  If he hadn’t been paying attention, he might have missed her wince. “We?”

  “I want to be there.”

  “I’d rather you weren’t,” she said. “Besides, what difference does it make now whether or not he told anyone?”

  “Depends on who he told.” He waited for her reaction.

  She swallowed. “I can ask him that on the phone.”

  “We need to talk to him in person,” Simon pressed. He wasn’t leaving any lead unchecked. Besides, Simon wanted to see who Jillian thought would be the perfect man for her. Because it was pretty obvious she’d never gotten over Lance.

  Her eyes cut to his. “We already have a mission. This would only take us out of our way.”

  “If he’s close to Tres Zapotes tomorrow, it’ll be worth it.” And it’d be a hell of a coincidence, he added silently. Which would move Lance to the top of the hit list.

  “And if not?”

  “Then find out where he is,” Simon told her. “And ask him—point-blank—who he told.”

  Her expression strained. “If he told anyone.”

  “Right.”

  She looked at him, and he could see the sadness and regret in her eyes. He wanted to kill Lance for whatever it was he had done to her. Maybe that was the real reason he was hoping Lance was close by.

  “Okay,” she said and then she stared out over the ocean one more time before going inside.

  Simon dropped his head back and closed his eyes. How did he get himself in this much trouble? All he wanted was to live a quiet life, have a few meaningless relationships, and leave all this crap behind. Mow his lawn. Get a dog. Read a damn book.

  What he didn’t want to do was get tangled up with a woman who would challenge him every step of the way without so much as raising her voice. Who could make him feel like shit every time he hurt her. Who could make him feel, period.

  Footsteps brought him around. Mancuso walked up and handed him a few sheets of paper. “Here are the glyph translations.”

  Simon scanned the images and the text Mancuso had written beside them—“moon,” “shut eye,” “simple circle,” “hand,” “new sun.” A bunch of lines all linked together.

  “Not much to go on,” Simon pointed out.

  Mancuso stepped up to the railing overlooking the beach and gave a sigh. “Si. It was the best I could do. This is an unknown script. I could not decipher the lines. Perhaps they will mean more when you take the lens to the sites.”

  Simon folded the papers and put them in his shirt pocket. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”

  Mancuso turned to him, a rare frown on his face. “What Jillian is looking for. You will see nothing. But if she can view the past—” He paused. “You know what early civilizations were like. Human sacrifice. War. Atrocities.”

  He didn’t even want to consider what that would do to Jillian. “I don’t want her here, either, but we have no choice. Celina’s in trouble. I can’t walk away from that.”

  The old man nodded and clapped Simon on the back. “You never could. That is why you are a good man.”

  Right, he thought. That’s why I’m dragging an innocent woman through Mexico. That’s why I’m breaking her soul every step of the way.

  “I won’t let anything happen to Jillian,” he said after a few moments of silence.

  “That might be difficult. This is much bigger than you can imagine,” Mancuso said. “Many would kill for this. I have guns and ammunition in the house. Anything you need is yours.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mancuso turned to look at him, his old eyes appearing more weary than usual, and Mancuso had seen his fair share of pain and struggle. “Trust no one, Simon.”

  “I never do.”

  “Only Jillian.”

  An uneasy feeling swept over Simon, and he shook it off. It was a feeling he’d experienced many times just before everything went to hell.

  “I don’t have much of a choice there.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  Jillian sat on her bed and stared at Lance’s phone number. The map of Mexico was stretched out on the bed with the locations of the three ruins circled. Her fingers practiced the buttons on her cell phone.

  The numbers blurred. She’d trusted Simon. Last night he told her he was saving her, not Celina. Was she just an idiot? Apparently so.

  He can’t be saved.

  She closed her eyes.

  I wish he could.

  But she wasn’t the one to save him. She couldn’t. It would hurt too much. He knew what he was asking of her. He knew what would happen to this treasure, this gift to mankind, and the burden that placed upon her. The choice between one life or billions.
It wasn’t fair.

  It’s not his fault, this choice.

  She bit her lip. In her heart, she knew that. That’s not what hurt. For a precious few moments, she’d thought perhaps she’d finally found someone who understood her. How lonely she felt and how different. But he was only using her. He didn’t understand at all.

  For the first time, she realized that Raven was right. The gifts they possessed were a curse. Raven had been lucky enough to find a man who accepted and supported her. Understood that her gift was a part of her that couldn’t be ignored or shamed or tossed aside.

  Jillian’s fingers stilled on the phone as she thought about calling her sister. But even if she wanted to bring Raven into this, it would be pointless. Her sister’s gift was touch, not sight. Raven couldn’t help her out of this. Not this time. She was on her own.

  She took a deep breath and punched in Lance’s phone number. He answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

  The sound of his voice brought back a lot of painful memories, but it was all relative now, and she shoved past it. “Lance? It’s Jillian.”

  There was a long pause. “Jillian? My God, honey. How are you?”

  She wanted to laugh. I’m the Seer for man’s salvation. How you doing? “Fine, thank you. How are you?”

  “Great. It’s so nice to hear your voice.”

  All you had to do was call, she thought. “I heard you left Arizona in a big hurry. I got worried.”

  He laughed, deep and soft, like old times, and her chest tightened. “Always looking out for me. No problems. Believe it or not, I’m in Mexico. I’m surprised you were able to track me down. I changed phones when I got down here.”

  Jillian stilled. “Just did a little detective work.” She continued before he could ask for details. “So what are you doing in Mexico?”

  “An archaeological crew is excavating a new site, and they wanted an expert on hand. It’s a real small project but worthwhile. This could be an important discovery, and I want to make sure the pieces find a good home with the Mexican people.”