Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

“No. Even one of those artifacts would create a sensation in the archaeological world. All of them together? A dream. Just a dream.”

“If you hear of anything, you will call, yes?”

“Call? I’d scream it from the rooftops.”

“No! You would keep it very, very quiet and call me.”

For a moment Lina didn’t say anything. She was remembering the feeling of being watched. Followed. Perhaps her mother wasn’t the only one who thought Lina had an entree to some incredible black-market Maya finds.

“I’ll show you everything in the museum,” Lina said. “You’ll see that there’s nothing like what you’ve described. Please tell everyone you know.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Not one thing,” Lina said distinctly.

“Then I won’t waste any more time. I have other sources to check, but you were my best hope. Promise you won’t miss Abuelita’s birthday. Only a few days.”

“Four.”

“Promise.”

“Yes, I’ll be there,” Lina said. “I can’t stay long because I have a lot of work to—”

“So do I,” Celia interrupted. “Good-bye, see you soon.”

The line went dead.

Lina laughed in the empty car. Celia in pursuit of exceptional artifacts was a force of nature.

After a glance around the parking lot—still alone—Lina popped the locks and got out of the car. Beginning a class at seven in the morning wasn’t Lina’s first choice, but many of her students worked for a living. The museum scheduled its classes accordingly.

Lina locked the car and headed quickly for the staff entrance. As she walked, she looked over her shoulder.

Twice.

There was nothing to see in the shadows and early sunlight, no visible reason for the haunted, hunted feeling that made the skin on the back of her neck prickle. There was no one behind her, no one on either side, nothing but a hot, lazy wind stirred on the grounds.

Maybe I’m getting paranoid, like my father.

But Lina didn’t feel crazy. She felt watched.

Hurriedly she entered the code on the electronic pad beside the staff door. It clicked open, a loud sound in the hushed acreage surrounding the museum’s ziggurat building. Such land was very expensive in metropolitan Houston, but the Reyes Balam family was nothing if not smart about where to put its money for maximum business impact.

She walked quickly through the open door and closed it firmly behind her. The second security door ahead of her was heavy glass, reflecting a young woman of medium height, dark hair, large dark eyes, full lips, and a black silk business suit that struggled to hide her curves.

Lina barely noticed her reflection. She had accepted long ago that she would never be tall, skinny, and blond. She punched in a different sequence on the number pad beside the glass door. It opened softly, closed with a solid sound behind her.

Slowly she let out a long breath. She didn’t feel as watched now. Or maybe it was just the two security doors between her and the city outside.

The inside air was cool, dry, comfortable for humans, and excellent for the artifacts that were the heart and soul of the museum. She glanced at her watch. She would be barely on time. She hurried toward the small wing that held meeting rooms and a cramped lecture hall.

She told herself that her bubbling impatience had nothing to do with the chance of seeing Hunter Johnston again, then admitted that it had everything to do with hurrying. The man was both fascinating and exasperating. In the past few months they had talked after her classes—when he managed to show up—occasionally shared coffee, and circled each other with equal parts desire and wariness.

Then two weeks ago Hunter had disappeared. He’d missed classes before, but not for so long a stretch. Maybe he’d tired of the subject matter. Or her.

She shook her head and told herself that Hunter didn’t matter. She had a class to teach. She was down to the homestretch, racing toward the coffee and time off waiting at the finish line.

CHAPTER TWO

YOU THERE, MAN? I NEED YOU.”

Frowning, ignoring the fatigue that kept dragging at the edges of his vision, Hunter Johnston listened to the message. He had known Jase for a lifetime, yet he’d never heard quite that sound from his friend. He prayed it didn’t have anything to do with Jase’s wife or kids. Especially his children. Kids were so innocent, so fragile.

The thought made Hunter open the apartment window with a vicious snap. It was the eighteenth of December, and Houston had to be seventy-five degrees already in the simmering morning. Summer simply hadn’t given up.

Better than the Yucatan, he told himself. No one shooting at me.

Hot air bathed him, bringing with it the smell of the city—gas, diesel, asphalt, concrete, dust, a whiff of stuffed Dumpster, and dueling Mexican and Chinese take-out joints. Hunter preferred the mixture of odors to his stale apartment and food that had been forgotten in his rush to get to Mexico in time to keep a young woman from being bought and sold like tamales on a dirty street corner.

A world away from Dr. Lina Taylor’s safe, well-lighted classroom.

Dream on, fool, Hunter told himself. I had to run out on our last sort-of coffee date. I’ll be lucky if she speaks to me.

Business and apartment lights glimmered against the hazy sky. Across the city avenue, Jase’s apartment already had the windows open and the blinds lifted to catch every breeze. A woman’s silhouette paced past one window, holding an arm-waving toddler. Ali, Jason’s high-school sweetheart and his wife, mother of his children.

Hunter both envied and feared what Jason had. The pain of losing what had once been part of his soul would always haunt him.

In the faint breeze, the gauzy privacy curtains by Hunter’s face did a shy and languid dance, like the last girl watching the last boy from across the gymnasium, that tantalizing moment of will I or won’t I?

He’d met Suzanne’s mother on a day like this. Seven years after that day, both mother and daughter were dead.

Get past it. The world sure has.

It had ended almost eight years ago, and it still cut like broken glass.

The breeze danced over Hunter like laughter, like memories, burning. He slammed the window down. The curtains hung, lifeless. No more dance, no more shyness.

No more.

He picked up his cell phone and punched in a text message to Jase. Border Patrol types stuck together, even when it was officially called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even though Hunter had quit years ago. He hadn’t liked having his hands tied by orders from on high while the bad guys ran free. ICE’s ropes were covered in velvet benefits, but they still cut his wrists after a while.

Are your wrists bleeding, Jase?

Somebody knocked on the apartment door. Hard. Jase’s voice came in, low and urgent.

“Hunter, you in there? I saw lights.”

Three long strides took Hunter to the door. When he opened it, Jase stood there, a thick manila envelope under his left arm. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his feet in worn leather sandals, his thick, short hair