Look What the Wind Blew In (46 page)

She flipped the skeleton off. “You paranoid freak.”

In spite of the missing shell, she still had lots of work to do documenting this burial chamber. The Mexican government would be happy to hear that she had found the king. Maybe happy enough to overlook the tasks she hadn’t accomplished and the problems with keeping her crew intact and safe this year.

Something shifted down by the feet of the skeleton. When she shined the flashlight in that direction, two tiny eyes twinkled.

“You little shit.” She grabbed a paintbrush from her tool belt and leaned further into the tomb, careful not to crush anything under her palm. She tried to scare the mouse toward the opening. It cowered against the far wall.

Grabbing the lid of the tomb, Angélica braced her foot against the wall and tugged on the stone slab. It scraped open a few more inches, sliding off the back corner, making another hole big enough for the mouse to escape.

She set her light next to the skull and stood on tiptoe as she leaned over the dead king, reaching toward the foot-end of the tomb. If a skeleton hand grabbed her boob, she was going to piss her pants.

“Get out of there.” She nudged the mouse with her paintbrush. It let out a squeak and shot out through the opening she’d made.

She drew her arm back. Thanks to the shadows caused by the angle of the light, she noticed a small, irregular lump under the pelvis bone. Carefully she reached down and pulled out what felt like a wad of scratchy cloth from under the skeleton. Something clicked in the cloth as she moved it away from the pelvis.

Back flat on her feet, she pulled the wad several inches toward her and smoothed it out, doing her best not to disturb the rest of the skeleton. Whatever was inside, it must have been part of a burial cache, or maybe even attached to what was left of the king’s robe. Her fingers brushed over something hard under the tattered fabric. She moved the flashlight closer. It was probably a bone tangled in the cloth. She’d seen that too many times to count.

Pulling a pair of tweezers from her tool pouch, she pinched the very edge of the cloth and pulled it back.

Her breath bottled up in her chest.

Holy crap!

She scrambled out, her heart taking a turn around the Indy 500 track.

She’d found it! She’d finally found the …

Something scuffed across the floor in the outer room.

Her heart did a tailspin, screeching.

What was that? Or rather, who? She opened her mouth to say Quint’s name, but then realized he would most likely call for her right off.

She strained, listening for more scuffs or crunches from the loose pebbles that littered the floor.

Or breathing.

There! She heard it again. Another scuff.

Someone was on the other side of the wall.

Glancing around for her weapon, she swore under her breath—so was her machete.

* * *

Quint carried the stone across the chamber and placed it on top of the pile of others. In his hurry to get to the hat, he wasn’t wasting time with the wheelbarrow this morning and was paying for it already in his lower back.

The hat was almost within reach.

After a few back stretches, he lifted a stone about the size of a concrete cinder block and almost dropped it on his foot when he saw what had been underneath it.

A hand.

Or at least what was left of it. More like bones with some dried flesh barely holding it together.

He tossed the block aside and squatted down to get a closer look at the cracked, yellowed bones. What was a hand doing here?

More importantly, whose hand was it?

This wasn’t another one of Juan’s practical jokes was it?

He touched one of the finger bones, grimacing. It felt real enough.

Hauling away another large stone revealed a tattered, faded, blue shirtsleeve.

The next stone he moved exposed the shoulder joint.

Quint blinked the sweat out of his eyes. He pushed onward, his back twinging as he hefted rocks aside, uncovering the remains grunt by grunt.

The chest cavity had been flattened by one big motherfucker of a rock. The skull had a partially crushed eye socket. He used a pencil to sift through a tuft of dusty hair. His sweat dripped down into its gaping jaws.

Whoever it was must have been in this chamber for a long time. The fabric covering the body was chewed on and holey with dust permeating the weaves of the material.

When Quint rolled a large stone out of the way near the feet, he found a pair of square-rimmed wire frames. Crushed glass sprinkled the dirt and stone.

He stood there huffing in the dusty chamber, dread chilling his blood. He knew those glasses.

Lifting the wire frames by the nose bridge, he carefully placed them off to the side. Hefting two more stones to the side, he cleared the left foot, fibula, and tibia. A boot lay in pieces around the ankle, the thread seams rotted away.

When he cleared the last of the remains, his knees gave out. He leaned over the remains of the right leg, sucking in deep breaths to get rid of the lightheadedness that was making him sway.

Grabbing his flashlight, he shined the beam down at where the right foot should have been but wasn’t.

Mrs. Hughes’ words clanged in his thoughts:

… a boot with his name scrawled on it (an old Navy habit) was found close by on the jungle floor. Some of his foot was still in it (mostly bones). They figure an animal dragged away what was left of his body, because they couldn’t find it.

Quint scrubbed his hands down his face, his heart beating a bass drum in his ears, loud and hard.

He’d found Dr. Hughes.

Until that moment, a small part of him had believed in the fantasy that Dr. Hughes had suffered from amnesia for the last two decades and was down here growing old under a different name. He’d wanted to have something good to take home to Jeff and his family, something uplifting.

Not this. Fuck, not this.

Mrs. Hughes had been right. Her husband hadn’t been on that plane. Some rotten piece of shit had cut off Dr. Hughes’ foot, probably years after he was dead judging by the lack of any blood remnants around the bottom of the leg, and planted it there to fool the authorities. Someone twisted and demented and desperate, and Quint had a good idea who.

And so had Mrs. Hughes.

He heard the rasp of a shoe slide across the pebble-covered floor and lunged to his feet, reaching for his machete.

Something hard slammed into the back of his skull.

A bolt of pain streaked through his head as he fell forward. The floor kissed his cheek goodnight, and the lights went out.

* * *

Angélica was starting to lose it.

There’d been nobody in the outer chamber when she’d gotten brave enough to peek out through the hole, not even the stupid mouse.

All of the stress she’d been dealing with for so long had her brain all cattywampus. At least that excuse made her feel less skittish as she clambered up the last ladder leading away from the king’s tomb and jogged through the passageway toward the temple’s exit. Every so often, she’d glance behind her to make sure nobody was following her.

She shot out of the temple and down the steps, one of the two shells the king had been buried with wrapped in the piece of cloth clutched in her palm. She went straight to Quint’s tent, eager to share the news of her find.

His tent flap was unzipped at the bottom. Rover must be outside, probably rooting around in María’s garden. She grimaced. That was not a good habit for him to get into.

“Quint,” she called as she opened the flap the rest of the way, ducking inside. Nobody was home.

Where was he? The mess tent? She walked over to his desk. The photos they’d found in the Dawn Temple were there, partially wadded up. Why’d he do that to them? He wouldn’t have gone back in the Dawn Temple again without her, would he?

Back outside she slowly zipped the flap closed, debating where to look next. A whisper of fear nipped at her. Had someone gotten to him while he was sleeping? No, she would have seen a sign of a struggle, a turned over cot, something. Wouldn’t she?

He was fine. She needed to keep a lid on her panic for a little bit longer until they’d hiked to the village and called Pedro to come and get them. Quint was probably messing around back in the Dawn Temple again, that was all. Something to do with those pictures Dr. Hughes had left behind.

She turned around.

Jared stood there, not five feet away, wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday. Only they looked like they’d been worn for twenty-four hours in a jungle, all dirty, sweaty, and wrinkled. Very un-Jared like.

She squeaked in surprise, echoing the mouse in the king’s tomb. “Jared? What are you doing here?” Where was everyone else? Was her father okay? Had the helicopter gone down?

“Hello, darling.” He pulled a handgun from behind his back and pointed it at her face. “Did you miss me?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cimic: To die; death.

Quint opened his eyes, blinking several times to bring the world into focus.

A skull stared at him, its jaws wide in a silent scream.

He jerked back, groaning as a bolt of pain shot through his head, and quickly lay flat on the floor again.

His right cheekbone stung as he lay there in the dirt. He tried to lift his hand to touch his face only to realize his wrists were tied together behind his back. His ankles were bound, too.

Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what had happened … footfalls … someone coming up behind him … he’d reached for the machete. That was it.

There’d been only one set of footfalls, he was pretty sure. That didn’t mean an accomplice wasn’t hiding outside in the tunnel though.

Angélica!

Oh, Jesus! He had to find her, warn her. He struggled to free his hands. The rope dug deeper into his skin.

“Fuck!” He stared into the skull’s empty eye sockets, swallowing back a wave of panic.

He lifted his head off the floor to look around and felt something sticky on the back of his neck. It pulled on the hairs there when he moved. That couldn’t be good.

His flashlight lay next to Dr. Hughes’ pelvic bone, about two feet away. The beam of light lit up a piece of limestone. Was it dimmer than before? How long had he been out?

If he could find a sharp edge on one of the rocks scattered around him, maybe he could free himself before whoever had hit him returned for more batting practice.

He rolled onto his back, lying on his bound hands, maneuvering so his head was pointing toward the exit. Another shot of pain made him grit his teeth. When it eased, he pushed with his heels and inched across the floor, bumping against his flashlight as he passed. The light spun around, pointing to the entrance to the chamber. Pausing to adjust his hands, he twisted as much as he could to look in the direction of the light.

Something hung down in the chamber entryway. What in the hell? He twisted further. It was an ax handle. The blade was buried in the main support beam overhead.

Quint’s blood chilled.

Dirt trickled from the ceiling, settling onto his neck and chest.

He looked up. A large section of the support beam directly above him had been hacked away, the remaining timber was ragged from the ax blade.

Another creak of splintering wood filled the room, followed by a low rumble.

A handful of grit and dust fell from the weakened ceiling, dusting his chest and the floor next to his shoulder.

“Hells bells,” he whispered.

* * *

Angélica stared at the gun aimed at her chest. Jared’s steady grip gave her the chills. She lifted her chin, holding his gaze. “What do you want from me, Jared?”

He smiled, his eyes gleaming with contempt. “To start with, I’ll take that shell.”

“No!” She clutched the shell tightly against her stomach and took a step back.

“You didn’t think I knew about your little treasure hunt, did you? You shouldn’t try to hide things from your husband, darling.” His hand snaked out and grabbed her arm, yanking her toward him. “What’s yours is mine. Now give it to me.”

She hesitated. Her mother had worked so hard for this find, putting her reputation on the line.

He pressed the cool barrel of the gun up under her chin. “Don’t be stupid.”

She held the shell out toward him. He snatched it from her, keeping the gun jammed under her chin. “That’s my girl.” He tucked the shell into his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap.

Fury balled in her chest, burning. After all she’d worked for the last three years, he thought he could just walk onto her dig site and take the spoils from her.

“Now comes the fun part.” He lowered the gun, and then swung her around so her back was to him. The barrel jabbed into her upper spine. “Let’s go see how your boyfriend is doing.”

Quint!
“What have you done, Jared?”

“You’ll see soon enough.” He shoved her forward, toward the Dawn Temple.

As they neared the temple steps, the bushes at the jungle’s edge rustled. Rover waddled out into the morning light.

She stopped, not wanting the javelina to follow wherever Jared was leading her. But as soon as Rover saw her, he trotted over, rubbing his snout against her leg.