Secrets and Lies

by Selena Montgomery

  In the heavy black of evening, unbroken by streetlights, Katelyn Lyda rushed down the cobblestone walk, head down, the burlap sack clutched to her chest. She could feel her heart pounding beneath her ribs, her lungs aching to breathe without sobbing. Every few seconds, she lifted her head, as though scenting danger. When none materialized, she ran on, tears blinding her vision, but her feet sure on the uneven ground.

  At the edge of the postage-stamp-sized town, she reached the gravel road that led to Canete’s valley. She’d hidden her Jeep in the dense tangle of verdant green and brush, per Tio Felix’s orders. Quickly, she descended into the wash, oblivious to the scrape of rock and sand against her skin.

  Nothing could be sharper than the pain of grief, so her mind focused on escape only, on reaching safe ground. To think of anything else would be fatal. She needed desperately to believe that the ambulance she’d summoned had arrived and would save him. That leaving the knife in place had held his lifeblood inside, but she knew better. Had known when the blood poured out, despite her ministrations. Tio Felix was dead, and she had run, leaving him to the mercies of another madman.

  Katelyn clambered inside the cab, slid against the cracked leather of the seats. She struggled to start the ignition in the aged vehicle. After a couple of sputters, the Jeep left the valley floor, climbing toward the foothills of the Andean mountains that ran parallel to the coastline, on the eastern edge of Bahia. Wild sounds pierced the evening—bats waking for their nocturnal journeys, the call of macaws to their mates. More subtle sounds caught her ear as well. She could hear the wind rustling through the muña and scattering the white flowers of the Cabello de Angel. Guided by memory, she sped along the trail.

  When she had pressed high up to the formations of stone creating cliffs and sheers and crevasses that swallowed people whole, Katelyn stopped. She bounded out of the truck and carried her pack and the burlap bag to the campsite she’d set up earlier. Felix had forbidden her to register in town or to come too close until he called. With her caramel skin proclaiming her African-Latina heritage, she was what the locals called a morenita and, therefore, memorable. At the time, she’d chalked up his cryptic instructions to the mild paranoia she associated with her favorite relative, but she knew better now.

  If she had been in town, had arrived earlier, would he still be alive? she wondered miserably. But Kat doggedly pushed the thought aside. Anguish and remorse could wait, she thought, until she’d figured out her next move. When a moan caught in her parched throat, she pressed her eyes shut.

  “Don’t give in, Kat, not yet,” she murmured to herself. “Focus.” Opening her eyes, she fumbled in her pack for her canteen and took a deep swig. She nearly reached for the cell phone in her pocket, but she wouldn’t be able to reach her parents in Africa, and talking to anyone else was more than she could manage. Besides, what would she say? I’ve stumbled into a sixteenth-century nightmare. Come and get me?

  Exhausted, she sat with her back propped against a quina tree, which she found sadly fitting. After all, it was stories like the legend of the quina that had brought her to Bahia. Days ago, she had been delivering a lecture to a crowd of hundreds at a medical conference in Halifax. Her topic, the medicinal properties of blue cohosh, hadn’t exactly wowed the gathered doctors, but she was used to the glazed eyes and suspicious scowls from physicians. Native plants as legitimate medicine were only a step above witchcraft and voodoo in their estimation.

  But Katelyn knew better. From the time she was two, she’d studied the shape of flowers, the sap of trees. Flora and fauna were her life. Because of them, because of Tio Felix, she had become Dr. Katelyn Lyda, an ethnobotanist. And what she had been given by her dying uncle might prove to be her undoing.

  Slowly, she opened the burlap satchel she carried everywhere and removed two items, which she laid gently on the ground. A small, leather-bound notebook was cinched tight by a length of string. Reverently, she lifted out a larger manuscript, also bound in worn leather, the frayed pages stained by the passage of time, its cover scrawled in Latin. Katelyn read the words she’d been too frightened to examine earlier, and she gasped.

  In faith, thou shalt find salvation. In devotion, thou shalt find peace. In the least of these, He places eternity.

  With shaking hands, she opened the pages, the musty smell rising to her nostrils, telling her of history and agelessness. The Cinchona.

  She’d heard the name before, from Tio Felix. But not as the title of a manuscript. No, to her, the cinchona was a plant, one described in the books on botany he’d gifted. Summer visits had stoked a child’s love of nature, and her fascination with the cultures she’d encountered grew as she devoured stories of people she’d never heard of. Catholic scholars and histories of Spanish conquest and fables from ancient lands crowded on tall library shelves in the magnificent house Tio Felix built in Canete. There, he’d taught her about her mother’s native land and taken her on treks across its face, from the craggy beaches to dense jungle and towering hills. Bahia.

  She’d been summoned a week ago by a telegram containing the words: Fides. Salus. Studium. Quiesco. Aevum. Venga rápidamente.

  Faith. Salvation. Devotion. Peace. Eternity. Come quickly.

  Now, Tio Felix lay dead on the floor of his house, and she hid in the forest with an ancient diary and a centuries-old manuscript etched with familiar words.

  And his blood on her hands.

  In Washington, DC, a short, squat redbrick building hid in the shadows of taller spires of chrome and glass. The spindly, gray-haired man keyed in his code, and heavy metal doors swung open on airless hinges. He rushed inside, not waiting to sign the logbook or chat with the security guard. The guard did not stop him, too used to the pell-mell pace of the building’s inhabitants. She recognized Dr. Clifton Burge, a researcher for the National Institutes of Health. Quietly, she scratched his name onto her pad.

  Oblivious, Burge sped along the tiled corridor, his heels striking in uneven syncopation. At his office door, he entered another set of digits and slid his pass through the crease in the black security panel. Once inside the tight, claustrophobic space loftily described as his office, Burge ignored the reams of pages that spewed from his printer. He’d once dreamed of gleaming laboratories and miracle cures, but fate and his own limitations had intervened.

  But he had one last shot at glory, at finding what he required to survive. Unless he failed in that too. With trepidation, he reached for the telephone, where a red light blinked furiously, and lifted the receiver with a shaking hand.

  “Once more chance,” he begged of the caller on the other end.

  “We had a deal, Dr. Burge. You have failed to deliver.”

  Burge felt the salami roll he’d eaten lurch greasily in his gut. “We’re close. I swear it.” He stared at the printer and its rows of data, incomprehensible to most. Fear had bile rising in his throat, and he choked back a plaintive wail. “Please. One more chance.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know the truth.” Burge turned a sickly green and sank into his chair, but he made the threat. “Cut me out, and I’ll tell,” he whined.

  “Good-bye, Dr. Burge.” The line disconnected.

  Chapter 2

  “It’s not here.” Sebastian resisted the urge to smash the black-and-white photograph of young Japanese children taking calesthenics. The photo by Ansel Adams had concealed a lead safe tucked into the wall in Estrada’s bedroom. The contents had been riffled through and only personal effects of no discernible value remained. Sebastian had no doubt his manuscript had been there not an hour ago.

  Now, the manuscript that was supposed to pay for his retirement was nowhere to be found. Instead, what he had for his endeavors was a dead body and a missing cat that might have the answers he needed.

  A cat that he could find no evidence of in Estrada’s house. No cat food, no drinking bowl, no cloying hairballs. Only the empty safe, the dead man and bloody red footprints tracked throughout the house.

&n
bsp; For the second time in as many minutes, Sebastian cursed himself for letting the killer slip away. Had he been even fifteen minutes earlier, he would have been able to save Felix’s life and secure the manuscript. Sebastian had little doubt the knife would have found a more suitable resting place. Now, his only lead was a phantom cat.

  Turning, Sebastian caught sight of himself in a skinny mirror hanging opposite the safe. Blood had been transferred to his cheek, and he swiped at the darkened patch, his throat constricted. Murder pissed him off. Killing a mark was the stuff of amateurs or the sport of miscreants. He was neither, and he didn’t work with those who were.

  Grimly, Sebastian pulled out his phone and quickly dialed. The clicks on the other end signaled that his call was being routed through a couple of substations, following his client’s normal protocol. No calls at the office. A clean phone for every job. A new e-mail account with untraceable IP addresses. She was a stickler for security and privacy. Sebastian appreciated the mild paranoia, respected it.

  When the call abruptly dropped, he disconnected the phone and punched in a new series of numbers. After four rings, he terminated the call. Thirty seconds later, the phone shrilled for his attention.

  “Caine.” Sebastian propped his hip on the dining-room table, his long fingers drumming against the wood. “You didn’t mention there’d be company.”

  An ocean away, a terse oath singed the air. “What?”

  The imprecation spoke volumes, Sebastian realized. Helen Cox wasn’t given to displays of actual human feeling. In fact, in their years of collaboration, he’d never heard more than a succinct “good,” which often passed for effusive praise. Once, he’d managed to elicit a more satisfying response, but he made that kind of mistake only once.

  The lack of praise didn’t bother him. He required little else from his employers than a timely payment for his troubles and quality intel on his target. He’d gotten the first, which made him wonder what happened to the latter. “The package isn’t here. And the previous owner is dead. Something you want to share?”

  “Your implication?”

  Sebastian looked at the red stain on his fingers, the smudge on his cheek. “The implication? That you don’t trust my ser vices and decided to hire a secondary team. If so, that’s your prerogative. But I don’t do murder for hire, and I don’t play with those who do.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re developing a conscience, Sebastian. I’d find it hard to believe you,” the creamy voice drawled.

  Sebastian smirked, an unamused slash of white in the darkness. “Conscience has nothing to do with it. I’m a firm adherent to the principle of survival of the fittest. People in my line of work are less inclined to kill you if they know you won’t kill them. Having a dead body turn up on one of my jobs will damage my reputation.” He didn’t add that the murder of a good man had the galling ability to edge into that space where his conscience had once resided. Like vertigo, it was a sensation he didn’t care for particularly. “If I’ve got company, we need to renegotiate the terms of our partnership.”

  “I didn’t hire anyone else, Sebastian. I thought you were the best. If my confidence has been misplaced…”

  The threat wasn’t lost on Sebastian. Again, he thought about the invisible cat and the bloody footprints. The murderer had substantial lead time and his target, but Sebastian was an excellent tracker. “No, your investment is well placed. I promised you the package by Sunday, and I’ll deliver.”

  “Sunday, Sebastian. I’ll expect an update in two hours.” The line went dead.

  With a click, Sebastian shut the phone and tucked it into his pocket, not quite satisfied but having little choice. Given the manuscript’s apparent value, Helen Cox probably wasn’t the only person after it, which made his job infinitely more difficult. What should have been a routine grab had become a treasure hunt. He frowned, considering his options. Other than breaking into Estrada’s home, how exactly was he to go about finding a sheaf of papers when he had no idea what was written on the pages and who else wanted to possess their contents?

  Start with the last person to see Estrada alive. The owner of the bloody footprints, who appeared to have also taken off with the man’s cat. Time to go.

  With quiet, competent motions, he checked for any trace of his visit. Thin black leather gloves separated his skin from contact with surfaces hungry for prints or human oils. The cropped black hair curled beneath a black ski cap. He could do little about the blood that had soaked into his cotton pants until he returned to his truck.

  The stains on the floor were another matter. To erase evidence of his presence and to limit clues, he swabbed at the hardwoods where his ministrations to Estrada might have offered a hint as to body weight or height. He used a bleach solution to wipe away the footprints as well. Satisfied, he prepared to leave the mansion where Estrada grew colder.

  The black-draped form lay still and damning where he’d found him. Estrada was expected to be gone for another two weeks, according to Sebastian’s intelligence. Two weeks before a nosy neighbor discovered his remains. Two weeks too long.

  Cursing himself for the weakness, he fumbled on the table for another piece of cloth. He wrapped it around his gloved hand for extra protection and lifted the landline. An operator with a lilting greeting offered assistance. “Senor Estrada is hurt. Send an ambulance,” he told the operator in easy Spanish.

  “We have already dispatched,” the operator replied quizzically. “We have unfortunately been delayed. What is his condition?”

  “Dead.” Before the operator could press him for details, Sebastian disconnected the call. What kind of murderer called for an ambulance? He replaced the receiver and, as he spun away, caught sight of an answering machine. Realizing the messages had already likely been erased, he started to leave.

  “What the hell?” he said softly. With his hand still covered, he pressed the play button on the answering machine.

  Two messages played, one reminding Estrada of a dental appointment and a second offering him a seat on an excursion to the Yucatán. Sebastian heard a long pause, then a third message played. The voice that spilled into the dining room was female and feminine, strong and heady and filled with the mysteries Sebastian preferred to avoid in women. The lightly accented voice slid out of the machine like silk, winding around Sebastian and sinking into him. Disregarding the punch of desire, he focused on the message. “Tio Felix? It’s Katelyn. I’m leaving Lima now. I should be arriving as scheduled tonight, probably by seven o’clock. I can’t wait to see you. It’s been too long.”

  Katelyn. Kat. “Damned Kat,” Sebastian muttered as realization dawned. He jabbed the delete button and hastily checked his watch. The digital readout told him that Felix’s niece had probably been around for his murder. More than likely, she’d been holding the knife.

  No wonder the dying man had begged him to find her, Sebastian realized. Find Kat, and he would not only get his retirement back, he’d be able to hand Estrada’s killer over to the authorities. Maybe even collect a reward.

  In the distance, Sebastian heard a car backfire and remembered his ill-advised call to the authorities. The ambulance would be there in a few minutes, with the police soon to follow. Quickly, he moved past Estrada’s body, murmuring an apology for the sacrilege. The wet stains from his cleanup glistened. The police would have to use special equipment to find the residue and link it to the murderer’s escape, and Sebastian didn’t doubt that they would. Especially with the stink of chlorine to warn them. But erasing the footprints would give him a lead on the missing Kat and her ill-gotten gains.

  Sebastian retrieved his rented truck from the alley three blocks away. He climbed into the cab and rummaged through his duffel bag for a change of clothes. Reaching over the seat, he snagged a discarded plastic bag and brought it to the front of the vehicle. The sticky patches of his blood-soaked clothes peeled away with effort. Sebastian yanked his shirt free, oblivious to the play of muscle that had enticed more than one w
oman. He wadded the dirty shirt and shoved it onto the floorboards. Squirming a bit, he shucked his jeans and awkwardly pulled on a fresh pair of pants. The bloody clothes went into the bag, which he shoved inside the duffel’s interior. He’d keep the clothes until he had a chance to incinerate them. DNA had become too effective a trace to run any risks.

  “I hate murder,” he muttered to the empty car. Killing was messy and led normally sane people into the trap of revenge. Not him, he reminded himself as he turned over the truck engine and aimed for the beach. He’d find Katelyn and take the Cinchona and escort her to the nearest authority. Let the people paid to care about justice sort out her punishment.

  Without clear tracks to follow, Sebastian took a guess that she’d probably flee toward the uninhabited parts of town. He drove swiftly, competently, down near the beach, where the sand slid into valleys that rose into the edges of the mountains. There, his astute brown eyes caught where footprints became tire tracks, despite the gathering dark. He jerked the steering wheel, aiming the truck at the base of the mountains. Even with her head start, there were only so many places to go.

  As the truck bounced over rocks and gripped at the rocky soil, Sebastian wondered how he’d come to be chasing a murderess in the Andes. Recovering the manuscript should have required picking a few locks, cracking a safe or two, and catching the next flight out. Instead, he was chasing a—was there a word for a woman who killed her uncle, he thought absently. He cranked down the window, the cool night air providing a little respite, and he cursed the elusive Kat.

  He despised when simple became unnecessarily complicated. This job was to have been his last hurrah. A final, straightforward caper to send him into glorious retirement. Maybe find another way to fill his time. To relieve the restlessness Estrada had accurately identified.

  In recent days, he’d been forced to reexamine his life, a habit he hoped to break soon. He made it a policy not to be too introspective. Still, after watching two of his friends struggle to regain control over their destinies, he’d become preoccupied with the irksome notion that his line of work might not be as fulfilling as it once was.