Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  More gold and silver objects—figurines and jewelry—were carefully displayed against black velvet with pinpoint spotlights shining down, making each piece appear special, breathtakingly unique in its perfection.

  “Nothing familiar here,” Jase said very quietly.

  “There’s some pottery where Lina is standing. Masks, too.”

  Slowly both men worked their way through the gallery aisles to where Lina was. Along the way they saw ancient jewelry, cloth, pottery in striking shapes, and figurines in everything from gold to clay. New World jade gleamed with ancient reverence. In another aisle there were chunks of limestone with broken pre-Columbian designs etched into them.

  Jase might not have had a Ph.D., but he was a long way from stupid. Nowhere did he see anything that made his professional instincts quiver. Knives, yes. Obsidian, occasionally. But no knife was made from a single piece of obsidian. Masks, yes, many of them. One had a few obsidian inlays, as well as jade and what could have been shell. But no mask had enough obsidian to come close to the one in the photos. Pieces of cloth, yes, but no stained bundles. The only artifacts that gave him pause were in a long case. Clay censers of various degrees of intricacy were illuminated from within.

  “Nope,” Hunter said softly.

  “Not even close?”

  “Right function. Wrong time and design.”

  “Damn. I haven’t seen anything useful. Have you?” Jase asked.

  “Not yet.”

  As the men drew close to Lina, she lifted an eyebrow questioningly.

  “Damn few Late Terminal Classic Yucatec Maya artifacts,” Hunter said.

  “I’m glad you said it,” Jase muttered. “I couldn’t have.”

  Lina almost smiled. “Exactly. Artifacts from that place and time period aren’t thick on any ground, especially high-end galleries. My mother’s galleries have the most and the best of that type of artifacts, yet she was asking me if I’d heard anything about some spectacular new artifacts.”

  Silence, then Jase nodded glumly. “Point made. I’m outta here. I’ve got better ways to waste my time.”

  “Philistine,” Hunter said.

  “Want to see my T-shirt?” Jase asked.

  “What about the Happy Meal, boy wonder?” Hunter retorted.

  “I’m getting that real soon. Later, old man. Or sooner if you come up with anything useful.”

  Jase headed out.

  Shaking her head, Lina looked at Hunter. “Are you two always like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Pushing and shoving and loving it.”

  “Ever since we met. He was four and I was a month older. I never let him forget it either. I called him ‘boy wonder.’ Now he calls me ‘old man.’”

  Smiling, Lina wondered what it would be like to have a friend like that. Close. Lifetime close.

  “Anything else you want to do here?” Hunter asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “I’d rather cook something for us at home than eat at Shandy’s.”

  Hunter paused an instant before he opened the gallery door for her, a courtesy she appreciated rather than resented.

  “Shandy’s doesn’t take reservations,” Lina explained. “It’s loud, you wait for a table at the bar, and the service is slow because they want you to buy overpriced drinks. I’d rather be able to talk in a normal tone of voice and not starve to death waiting for food. Okay?”

  When she looked up at him, Hunter’s smile was the kind that melted ice.

  “Need to shop before we cook?” he asked.

  “We?”

  “My parents both worked and they both shared the home jobs. I’m not a chef, but I can clean a kitchen good enough for a health inspection.”

  “I’ve got food,” she said. Then, carefully, “As long as food is all you’re expecting…”

  “Food is always good. Dessert is your call, Lina.”

  She studied his face and knew he meant it. “I like a man who doesn’t think with his package.”

  Hunter laughed. “Don’t kid yourself, sweetheart. My package is real interested.”

  “But you can still think and talk like a civilized being.”

  “My mother did her best.”

  Lina’s laughter made Hunter grin. He took her hand as they walked into the parking garage. Across the garage he saw Jase’s van backing out of a parking slot. An SUV idled down toward the exit, passing them as they reached the Jeep. Hunter had just handed Lina into the Jeep when he heard vehicle doors open hard. Footsteps smacked and scuffed on the textured concrete, people walking fast, nearly running.

  Lina’s eyes widened as she looked over Hunter’s shoulder. One hand dove into her purse, fingers searching frantically.

  Hunter spun around in time to take the first man down with a kick to his gut. The momentum of Hunter’s spin carried though as a punch to a second man’s throat. The man tucked his chin in time to save his trachea, but took a solid hit to his nose. Blood sprayed as the man staggered back. Voices shouted in a language Hunter didn’t understand. He went down beneath the third man and heard Lina scream. The second man piled on.

  Lina kept on screaming, telling anyone with ears that something was wrong in the garage. At the side of her vision she saw strangers scrambling away from the area, running for the exits. One of the women was shouting into a cell phone.

  A broad, powerful hand wrapped around Lina’s arm, yanking her out of the seat and onto her knees on the concrete. She looked up into the sweating face of the man Hunter had kicked. The attacker was cursing nonstop in a mixture of Mayan and Spanish as he yanked her up to her feet.

  Adrenaline sleeted through her as she aimed the pepper spray, turned her head aside, and pressed hard. The man went down, clawing at his eyes with one hand and yanking her back onto her knees with his other. Her teeth sank into his wrist and her elbow into his diaphragm.

  With a desperate lunge she wrenched free of the groaning man in time to see Hunter buck off one attacker and grapple for the gun the other had drawn from beneath his jacket. She still had some pepper spray left. She rushed forward.

  “No, Lina!” Hunter shouted, wrenching at the gun with all his strength. “Run to the gallery! Now, NOW!”

  The driver of the SUV kept yelling the same Spanish words over and over again while two more men leaped out. The dull flash of gun barrels told Lina that her pepper spray was about as much use as spit. But Hunter was down and it was all she had.

  One of the men from the van barked something. The man with the gun leaped away as his friend took aim at Hunter.

  A shot exploded, echoing in the parking garage. The man who had been drawing down on Hunter staggered back and dropped bonelessly to the ground.

  Jase drove the white minivan with one hand and shot through the open windows with the other. He braked hard between Hunter and the attackers, who were scrambling to use their dark SUV as a shield from the unexpected gunfire pouring from the white van.

  “Get her out of here!” Jase yelled as he slapped in a new magazine.

  He aimed at the SUV, firing to keep the shooters from hitting Hunter or Lina. Bullets punched through the driver’s-side window of the SUV, making a snapping, crackling sound. The driver flinched and the SUV bucked.

  Bullets started ripping into Jase’s white van, an endless roll of deadly thunder. Bullets whined and caromed off the concrete floor and pillars. Car alarms shrieked. Human screams echoed.

  Submachine pistols, Hunter thought. Bastards must have learned to use them watching TV, because they’re blasting everything from the oil stains to the ceiling lights.

  The bitter smell of powdered concrete rose from the spray of bullets.

  Jase yelled, “I’m hit!”

  “That one is a cop, you stupid goats!” yelled the driver in Spanish. “We have to get out of here!”

  More shouts in the language Hunter didn’t understand but that sounded like the Yucatec Mayan he’d heard. The attackers turned and scrambled back into their dark SUV. Someone pushed
the SUV’s bleeding driver over the console into the passenger seat. The rest piled in the back, dragging anyone who couldn’t walk. The SUV roared down the aisle as its doors started slamming shut. The stink of burning tires mingled with gun smoke. The SUV pulled into traffic amid a blare of horns and squealing tires as people braked frantically to avoid an accident.

  Slowly Jase slumped over the wheel of the van. Red bloomed along his upper body.

  “Stay down and call 911,” Hunter shouted at Lina as he ran to Jase’s van.

  The smell of blood rolled over Hunter. Bracing Jase with one hand, he opened the door with the other. No sign of an exit wound on his back. He eased Jase against the seat to check his front. He was breathing, but not easily. Same for consciousness, barely there.

  “She…okay?” Jase managed.

  “Yes, thanks to you, boy wonder. Now shut up and let me see how bad it is.”

  Jase smile slightly at the old nickname. Then his eyes rolled white and he passed out.

  Hunter ripped open his friend’s ruined shirt. Blood flowed heavily from the wound on Jase’s left side, but didn’t pulse.

  Not an artery.

  The lack of bloody froth on Jase’s lips or around the bullet hole told Hunter that if the lungs were involved, it wasn’t critical.

  Yet.

  But the blood. God, the blood.

  Quickly Hunter balled up the ripped shirt and applied pressure to Jase’s chest wound, trying to slow the bleeding.

  Too much blood. Way too much.

  “Don’t you die on me, Jase,” Hunter growled. “Don’t you damn die!”

  As the car alarms slowly gave up, Hunter heard the yelp and wail of approaching sirens. Slowly he became aware that Lina was standing next to him, had been talking to him.

  “…on the way,” Lina said. “What can I do?”

  “Hold this while I check for other injuries.”

  She didn’t hesitate. She simply pressed her hand over the bloody rag and watched sweat run down Hunter’s face. And tears. She doubted he even knew it, any more than he knew he was cursing and praying nonstop under his breath as his hands went gently, quickly over his friend.

  “He took another one, more a burn than anything else,” Hunter said. “A third wound is clean, just muscle. Is he still breathing?”

  “Slow, but there.”

  Something dripped off Lina’s chin. Vaguely she realized she was crying, too. It was better than the screams that wanted to rip through her throat.

  Hunter’s hand covered her bloody one. Together they kept pressure on the wound and listened to electronic wails that suddenly stopped on the street outside. Emergency lights flashed in the gloom. The sound of vehicle doors and powerful engines idling, running feet. Spotlights glared, casting stark, conflicting shadows.

  Lina flinched.

  “It’s okay,” Hunter said. “These are the good guys.”

  “Yes.” But that didn’t stop her from shuddering at the sound of shoes slapping concrete, rushing toward them.

  “When they question you, you don’t know anything except that Jase wanted a tour of a high-end pre-Columbian artifact gallery, so I brought him to you.” Hunter’s voice was low, cold. “I’ll talk to ICE myself. Got that?”

  She glanced at his drawn, grim face. “Yes. Gallery. That’s all I know.”

  He turned to the men rushing up. Some had weapons drawn, but they were pointed at the floor.

  “Man down,” Hunter said. “Bleeding bad. Let those med-techs through now!”

  Being talked to in their own language reassured the cops. The guns disappeared.

  “Any unsecured weapons?” asked one of the cops.

  “One on the floor of the van,” Hunter said. “The wounded man is with ICE.”

  “Any other wounded?”

  “No.”

  “You’re both bloody.”

  “Jase’s blood,” Lina said, her voice strained.

  Someone passed a signal and the med-techs pushed through to the van. Very quickly Jase was hooked to an IV, field-dressed, and loaded into an ambulance for a screaming ride to the hospital.

  “His wife is pregnant and he has two small kids,” Hunter said. “She should be with him.”

  “We’ll take care of it.”

  “Now,” Hunter said. “After you’re done questioning us might be too late.”

  The cop started to object, then looked at Hunter’s face and the blood that covered him.

  The officer’s partner said to Hunter, “Give me her number. You ICE, too?”

  “Not anymore.”

  As soon as he had Jase’s home number, the second officer withdrew. Other officers scattered out to secure the crime scene and question everyone who had been crazy enough to hang around after the shooting started.

  “What happened?” asked the first cop. “You first, ma’am. Begin with your full name.”

  Lina answered that question and the following ones while leaning against Jase’s van. Hunter and another cop with an agenda walked fifty feet away and began the Q-and-A process. When crime-scene techs asked Lina to move, she and her questioner went to a pillar beyond the yellow tape that was being strung around the parking garage like some kind of perverse Christmas wrap.

  “How long have you known Agent Jason Beaumont?” the officer asked without a pause.

  “I don’t really know him. He’s Hunter’s friend. We came to the gallery so that Mr. Beaumont could get a feel for what’s available in the high-end artifact market.”

  “How long have you known Hunter Johnston?”

  Lina was on the hard downward spiral of an adrenaline jag, and she had answered all the questions at least three times. A fourth time was twice too many.

  “As I’ve told you many times,” she said, her tone as impatient as she felt, “Mr. Johnston has audited several of my classes over the last year. We’ve had coffee and conversation. Now, if you don’t have any new questions for me, I’m exhausted and would like to at least wash my hands.”

  Hunter must have reached the same point in the questioning process because he was striding through the various remaining cops toward her. He was close enough that he heard her last sentence.

  “Unless you’re going to arrest us,” Hunter said, “we’re leaving. She’s a civilian and she’s kept it together better than anyone has a right to expect. She needs to chill, not to be grilled.”

  “You know that we’re required—” began the cop.

  “To ask questions,” Hunter cut in. “Once, twice, fine. Three times because you’re pissed. Now you’re just wasting our time.”

  “With what you’ve given us, there’s not much chance of catching the shooter,” the cop snarled.

  “No shit. Now let us leave or read us our rights.”

  Someone with higher rank moved in. “Thank you for your cooperation,” she said to Hunter and Lina. “If we make any arrests, we’ll need you to identify the suspect or suspects.”

  “You can reach me on my cell phone,” Hunter said.

  “You have my cell number,” Lina said wearily.

  “Your cooperation is appreciated,” the woman said, smiling professionally.

  Hunter and the cops all knew that devils would be ice-skating in hell before there was any arrest. If the SUV was found on this side of the border, it would be stripped, likely reported stolen. Every description of the occupants boiled down to short, swarthy, and similar. More indio than Mexican. Like thousands of other Houston residents.

  The description was useless for catching anything but overtime.

  Hunter nodded to the cops, took Lina’s arm, and led her to his Jeep. It had escaped the bullets. The Mercedes parked in the next slot over hadn’t been as lucky. The rear window was blown into thousands of grainy, sparkling pieces.

  Before Lina had fastened her seat belt, Hunter called the hospital Jase had been taken to, only to be told that Jason Beaumont was none of his business. Swearing, he called Ali’s cell number.

  “It’s Hunter,�
� he said as soon as she picked up. “How is Jase?”

  “In surgery,” Ali said, her voice raw. “He won’t be out for—hours. It’s—very serious.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” As soon as I wash Jase’s blood off me.

  A hot darkness wrapped around the Jeep as it nosed out of the garage into traffic. Christmas lights sparkled everywhere in storefronts. Lina felt like she was dreaming.

  Must be shock, she told herself.

  “Your apartment is closer,” Hunter said.

  Lina shivered. “Yes.”

  “Cold?”

  “No.”

  “Hang on, sweetheart. I’ll get you home.”

  “No,” she said tightly. “I can’t go there. Those men were after me.”

  “What?” Hunter said, giving her a fast look.

  “They were speaking in a Mayan dialect. They wanted me.”

  Hunter’s eyes searched surrounding traffic and the driving mirrors with quick glances. “You sure?”

  “I grew up with Spanish and English as my primary languages. The Mayan dialect those men spoke was my third language. My great-grandmother prefers it, though she speaks Spanish very well. In case you didn’t catch it, the driver only spoke Spanish. He knew Jase was a cop.”

  “I got that.” Hunter wove through traffic, checking mirrors, watching for any vehicle matching his maneuvers. “What did the others say?”

  “They screamed at the shooter not to hurt me or El Maya would eat their balls and tear out the heart of every living relative they had.”

  Hunter’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that a usual curse?”

  “No. They yelled variations of the threat and made it clear that they wanted to…take me. El Maya wants me intact and unharmed.” Tears welled from her eyes and silently streaked her face, shining trails in the streetlight. “It’s my fault. All that blood, Jase’s blood, my fault.”

  “You weren’t holding the guns. The blood is all on the shooters’ ticket. Did you tell the PD?”

  Silently she shook her head while the city’s petroleum-scented wind turned tears cold on her face. “No. Was that wrong? Should I have told them?”