Viper's Nest (21 page)

Suddenly the door burst open, the chair flew across the room, and Cate raised her arm to strike – then pulled back in surprise.

‘Ritchie!’ she cried, relief flooding her body as he fell into the room, banging his head on the low door frame as he did. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

He turned to her, rubbing his head ruefully. ‘I could ask you the same question, Cate.’

‘How did you know I was here?’ Cate persisted. The relief that it had been Ritchie, not Novak Dabrowski, made her feel almost giddy.

‘Nancy Kyle,’ he said. ‘You said you were with her in your text. And my uncle has her number.’

Cate mentally kicked herself for not being more careful. She’d forgotten how every celeb seemed to know each other – and that Nancy had even been at Johnny James’s party.

‘She was a bit cagey when I rang her,’ Ritchie continued, ‘but as soon as I explained who I was she couldn’t have been more charming. She said she hadn’t got a clue
where you were and that you’d cleared off without telling anyone where you were going and your mum was furious. Apparently it had taken three head massages and a bottle of Moët to calm
her down. Actually, they assumed that I was meeting you somewhere! But then Nancy remembered that, when you were having dinner, you had mentioned that you wanted to visit “some historical
thingy” as she put it.

‘There aren’t that many sites close to Veracruz so I put two and two together. I rang a hostel – there aren’t that many after all – and struck lucky with the first
one I tried. The receptionist said you had checked in and I tried your cell, but the call just went to voicemail.

‘When I got up here your room was empty – in fact the door wasn’t locked and it seemed like you’d left, but the receptionist said you’d paid for a week. She said
you’d talked about getting a lift to Paplanta, but she wasn’t sure how you would find one.

‘I went to the museum and the other hostels – I even checked on the site itself in case you were wandering around there. Finally I stumbled across this place. Amber said they were
living in a remote hut, and so I reckoned this must be it – and of course I wanted to have a look. I should have guessed that you would have found this place before me!’

They sat down at the table and Ritchie produced some chocolate from one of the many zipped pockets on his khaki jacket and offered it to Cate. ‘I think Maria thought I was a boyfriend,
running after you to propose or something.’

Cate flushed. Michel was back in her life, but she was surprised at just how happy she was to see Ritchie.

‘Don’t worry,’ Ritchie laughed, ‘cute as you are, it wasn’t exactly my idea to come here. It was my uncle’s. He was worried about you and suggested I try to
track you down. And when I worked out you were in El Tajin, well, that was the push I needed.’ He looked sombre. ‘I should have come down earlier, to look for the twins myself. I wanted
to, but my uncle told me to leave it to the professionals.’

He smiled then. ‘Cate, let’s work on this together. I kinda think that we would make a good team. I’m beginning to realise that there’s more to you than meets the eye.
For instance, why did you leave Veracruz in such a mad rush after you’d only just got there?’

Cate looked at Ritchie thoughtfully. Usually she worked alone, trusting in her own wit, with Arthur and IMIA as a backup. But it would be good to have a partner, especially one so reassuringly
large and strong as Ritchie.

‘Nancy convinced Mum and me to come with her and Lucas to Veracruz to keep her company,’ she said finally. ‘When I learned how close we were to El Tajin, I couldn’t
resist coming here to have a look for myself. It was a spur of the moment thing, really. I knew Mum wouldn’t want me to, so I didn’t tell her.’

She wasn’t lying, but of course she couldn’t – wouldn’t – confide in him completely. Some things had to be kept secret. Including the fact that she had been sent
here as a spy for IMIA.

‘I thought I might be able to find clues that would help locate the twins,’ she said. ‘And here I am.’

‘And have you found anything?’ asked Ritchie eagerly.

‘I’ve had a good look around the site, I’ve searched the hut, I’ve even gone through old maps and charts. Nothing. Maria the receptionist believes that the attackers
didn’t come or go by road, but I’m not sure how accurate that information is.’ She sighed and took a bite of chocolate. ‘Ritchie, can I ask you something, about your Uncle
Jack?’

‘Sure,’ said Ritchie.

‘Did you know that Amber and Jade weren’t the only people he was sponsoring in Mexico? That he was also covering the costs of digs in about ten sites all over the country?’

Ritchie shrugged. ‘No. But Uncle Jack has a huge charitable foundation that funds hundreds of projects all over the world. He wouldn’t tell me about all of them – no reason to.
In any case, he probably loses track himself. Ned, his lawyer, deals with most of the details as far as I can see.’ He grinned. ‘My uncle has a short attention span.’

As she took another bite of chocolate, a vision came into her mind of the lawyer whispering something to Novak Dabrowski as he stood, like a soldier, guarding the entrance to Johnny
James’s panic room.

‘Ritchie, have you ever been inside that panic room – the one in the basement close to his office?’

‘Not for a while,’ he said. ‘We used to go in quite often. He keeps lots of valuables there – cool stuff from his art collection. He absolutely loves art, as you probably
realised when you saw his house. But in the last six months or so, whenever I’ve asked he always seemed to put me off. I think that weird-looking guard made him beef-up his security –
and that meant not allowing people in to see it.’ He gave Cate an odd stare. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Cate truthfully. ‘Don’t worry about it, Ritchie, I’m just thinking aloud.’

Ritchie stood up. ‘How about we start searching properly tomorrow first light? As a team. Two pairs of eyes are better than one. In any case, the twins’ mother isn’t going to
leave it to the Mexicans for much longer. She’s talking about going public, launching an appeal for information, for money to fund a search. I don’t think they’ll be able to keep
a lid on it for much longer.’

Cate suddenly felt a wave of despondency washing over her. ‘Amber and Jade and the others have been missing for nearly a week. We should have come down earlier, shouldn’t we? If they
are alive, we have to hope they’re being properly looked after, with food and water and shelter, otherwise they are going to be pretty close to . . .’ She left the words unsaid.

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Ritchie said suddenly. ‘If they had wanted them dead then they would have killed them on the site. There’s still been no ransom
request, but there must be a reason that they took them alive. And we have to hope that they still are.’

He put out a hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Come on. I’ll walk you back to the hostel and you can get a good night’s sleep. Things will feel a lot better in the
morning.’

Cate stood up. ‘I guess we may as well,’ she said, feeling under the bunk for her rucksack. ‘At least we won’t have to use those horrible chemical loos.’

She tugged at the strap of her rucksack, but it stayed put. Cate got down on her knees and slipped her arm underneath and, catching hold of the bag, gave it a good yank – but it refused to
budge.

‘Dammit,’ she grumbled. ‘My rucksack is stuck on something. Ritchie, do you mind moving the bed a bit? I think you might find it a bit easier than I would.’

‘No problem.’ Ritchie was at her side instantly, his large arms tensing as he lifted the bunk bed up and away from the side of the wall.

Cate crouched down, shining her torch into the darkness, and instantly spotted the problem. The metal tag on the front of her rucksack had somehow got stuck under a loose floorboard and, as she
twisted and pulled at the tag, the board lifted and came free, leaving Cate staring in amazement at a small metal cash box.

Over her shoulder she heard Ritchie draw in a breath. ‘What the hell is that?’

Cate said nothing, but pulled the box out. It looked new, hardly used and the lock was secure. She reached into her rucksack and retrieved the laser from her spy kit. She held the top against
the lock.

‘Where the heck did you get that?’ Ritchie exclaimed. ‘It looks like one of the laser wands plastic surgeons use to get rid of wrinkles.’

‘Close,’ said Cate, putting on her Raybans for protection and turning it on. ‘Same principle, different uses. But don’t ask where I got it. Now, just look away for a
minute.’

There was a crackling, sizzling sound and the smell of burning. ‘Done.’

She used her penknife to flick away the charred metal. Pulling the lid open, she tipped the contents carefully out on to the bed. There was a coloured stone and a small bronze dagger, slightly
corroded but still unmistakable in its shape. Cate touched it reverently, running her fingers over the red stones on the narrow handle, feeling along the blunted blade.

‘Incredible,’ Ritchie breathed above her. ‘Do you think it’s for real?’

‘I have no idea,’ Cate said quietly. ‘We need to get it to an expert. But what’s this?’

She picked up a piece of folded white paper and stared down at it. It was a simple map, signed in Amber’s flamboyant signature. Ritchie sat down on the bed and peered at it over her
shoulder.

‘There’s us here,’ Cate said, placing her finger on the crudely drawn hut. ‘And . . . what’s this?’

She pointed to a triangle, highlighted with a red asterisk, sited a kilometre or so north-east of the dig site, in the rainforest. On the east side of the triangle Amber had marked two green
lines as intersections and behind it a blue splodge.

‘Must be some sort of building. A ruin perhaps?’ suggested Ritchie.

‘Dunno,’ said Cate, trying hard to contain her excitement. ‘Let me try something.’

She pulled out the old map from her rucksack, unfolded it and looked at it alongside Amber’s map.

‘Bingo,’ said Cate triumphantly. ‘Look, this old map shows a pyramid in the same place that Amber has drawn her triangle.’

‘Amazing!’ said Ritchie admiringly. ‘What are those green lines on Amber’s pyramid, do you think?’

Cate stared down at the rough map, looking at the two green marks running parallel with each other, cutting into the centre of the pyramid. ‘I think Amber found the entrance to a lost
pyramid,’ she said softly.

As they set off, the wind was blowing hard, wailing and moaning through the trees, and a light drizzle of rain fell across their faces. Above them, the howler monkeys were busy
living up to their names and, faraway, Cate heard the sinister call of a coyote.

Despite Ritchie’s burly frame striding beside her in the darkness, Cate felt uneasy, weighed down by a sense of foreboding she just couldn’t shake.

Why? After all, this had been the breakthrough she had been longing for – and yet something felt wrong, so wrong that she had been all in favour of waiting till morning before they set out
for the pyramid.

‘We can go for help,’ she had argued, as Ritchie had buttoned the map carefully into his coat pocket. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t do this alone.’

He grabbed her by the hand. ‘Time’s running out. There might be some clue to what happened in this pyramid place.’

Cate stared at his anxious eyes and nodded. ‘OK, Ritchie, you win.’

They walked silently, concentrating on making a pathway through the jungle rather than conversation. It was hard going, with only the narrow beam of their torches to light their way. They had to
push aside thick vines, duck and weave around overhanging branches, and try to avoid the meanest-looking plants in the undergrowth. Ritchie tripped, falling on his hands and cursing quietly as he
pulled out sharp thorns from his palms.

Then, above the noise of the wind, they could hear the unmistakable sound of rushing water.

‘It says there’s water next to the pyramid,’ said Ritchie consulting Amber’s map. ‘We must be nearly there.’

The pair looked at each other, the unspoken questions hanging between them. Would they find any sign of the twins?

The jungle began to thin out, the overhanging trees became less dense, the undergrowth easier to walk through.

‘A path!’ said Cate, playing her torch on the narrow strip that ran in front of them towards what looked like a low grassy mound. As they got nearer, they saw it was triangular in
shape, thirty or so metres in width, and almost completely hidden by the jungle that had grown into and over the crumbling stonework.

‘Awesome,’ breathed Ritchie as they reached the base. He tugged away at large vines to reveal the stepped stonework and Cate ran the torch upwards. The pyramid was in very poor shape
– it was barely identifiable as a pyramid.

‘You OK?’ said Ritchie, noticing her expression. ‘It
is
kinda spooky, but you know it’s only old stones. Nothing to worry about.’

‘You’re right.’ Cate smiled at him gratefully and then sat down on a large chunk of stone. She shrugged her rucksack off over her shoulders.

‘How did the police miss this place?’ she asked Ritchie. ‘I thought they had dogs searching for the students?’

‘It’s a big jungle,’ said Ritchie, patting his pockets. ‘They can’t search everywhere, I guess. And unless you knew what you were looking for, it would be almost
impossible to find. Sorry Cate, I’m going to have to go to the loo – I’ll be a few minutes.’

Cate gazed round what remained of the pyramid as she waited for him, listening to the wind rocking the trees far above her. The place felt desolate, sad, unfriendly even, as if it didn’t
want her there. She shook her head. She mustn’t let El Tajin get to her.

She retrieved the spy kit from her rucksack and slipped it into the inside pocket of her denim jacket. She had a feeling she was going to need it in the hours to come.

A soft bleep came from her pocket, a text from Arthur.