Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

deadly cold. He wished he had the right to simply go to her, hold her, feel her living warmth. “Do you have a sketch pad and a pencil?”

She smiled. “That’s like asking if I’ve worked on digs.”

She opened a desk drawer and pulled out a sketchbook, plus three grades of pencils, and handed them to Hunter.

He caught her hand and the pencils, holding her, breathing her in, eyes half closed. Her swiftly inhaled breath told him she liked it. Slowly he took the pad and pencils, drinking her warmth through his fingertips.

Jase gave Hunter a sideways look that told him he could feel the heat.

“Thanks,” Hunter said to her, his voice deep. Forcing himself to focus on something other than his blunt hunger for Lina, he opened the pad and flipped past sketches of glyphs and artifacts—some of which he recognized—until he found an empty page. As he began to sketch, he asked, “Have you made any progress on your end of the artifact chase?”

“No.” She leaned against her desk for the simple reason that her knees wanted to shake. The hunger she’d felt radiating from him was more complex than plain old sex. “When I mention new artifacts, everyone wants to buy them but nobody has them. My father, who has been on a dig in Belize, hasn’t heard anything. Mercurio de la Poole, who is the only other recognized expert on the cult of Kawa’il, was coy. He wouldn’t say anything unless I was there in person.”

“Do you think he has them?” Jase asked instantly.

“I don’t know,” Lina said. “Mercurio has no particular motivation. His museum is run by the state of Quintana Roo with money from the Mexican federal government and artifacts from Reyes Balam land channeled through state and federal governments. He has his own digs in Belize, where he has found some indications of the cult of Kawa’il. Since the government funds him, if he had your missing artifacts he would study them, publish, and take his bows.”

“How well do you know him?” Jase asked.

“Quite well. He and my father worked together for years. I spent summers, vacations, and every moment I could beg from Celia on the digs where Philip and Mercurio were.”

“How did de la Poole and your father get along?” Jase asked.

“Nobody ‘gets along’ with Philip,” Lina said. “You just go along and understand that he won’t ever change. All you can do is control your own response to him.”

Hunter heard what she didn’t say, the child hoping and trying and always failing to find approval. My uncles would love her to death, he thought. So would his mother, if she hadn’t been killed by a hit-and-run driver in a crosswalk ten years ago. His father had been with her. He had lived a day in ICU. Then he died of his injuries.

“So you don’t think de la Poole stole the artifacts from your father,” Jase said, “for revenge, professional jealousy, plain old spite?”

“If Mercurio had done that, Philip would have tracked him down, cornered him, and taken the artifacts back.”

“But you don’t think that’s likely,” Jase said.

“Nope.”

“Describe Philip in three words,” Hunter said without looking up from the sketch pad. He didn’t trust himself to. He wanted to hold Lina so much he ached.

“Curt, obsessive, brilliant,” Lina said.

“Mercurio?” Hunter asked, needing to know, yet his voice was neutral.

“Charming, ambitious, very smart.”

Hunter relaxed. There was nothing particularly affectionate in her voice.

“That’s why I don’t think he has the artifacts,” Lina added. “He can’t publish them, can’t display them, can’t sell them. They’re of no use to his ambitions and he’s smart enough to know it.”

“Your mother?” Hunter asked, still not looking up.

“Gorgeous, shrewd, formidable businesswoman.”

Hunter sketched, listening to what was said and what wasn’t. Her words told him that her childhood hadn’t exactly overflowed with love and approval. He heard respect, understanding, and little else. He wanted to ask whether she enjoyed or avoided her mother and father, but Lina’s emotions had no bearing on finding the artifacts, so he kept quiet and let Jase work.

“How about your mother’s competition in the artifact sales game?” Jase asked.

“They’re all variations on Celia’s theme. Few have her connections when it comes to accessing legitimate Yucatec artifacts from the end of the Maya rule and the continuation of Maya life under the Spanish rule, so Celia’s pretty much at the top of her heap.”

“Where does she get her artifacts?”

“Reyes Balam lands. Family lands.”

“So your father’s digs are on private land.”

“With the full blessing of the Mexican state and federal governments,” Lina said.

“Did your family buy the land because of the ancient ruins?” Jase asked.

“No. The family lands are from the time before the Spanish came.”

“How’d you keep them?” Jase asked curiously. “Damn few natives did.”

“The Balam family was among the first Maya nobility to accept the Spanish rule and sign formal treaties with the Spanish king,” Lina said. “In return, the Balams were granted a good chunk of the Yucatan and a Spanish noble title. Thus the Reyes Balam line began.”

“Your ancestors were Maya royalty,” Jase said. “Wow. Should I bow?”

“Only if my mother was here. And she would tell you about the minor Spanish royalty who married into the Balam family to exploit New World wealth.” Lina’s voice was wry. “As for me, I really don’t care. I’m American.”

“Huh. I’m a mix of Spanish, indio, Irish, and Japanese,” Jase said. “But I sure ain’t no royal.”

“Neither am I,” Lina said.

“Japanese?” Hunter said. “I never knew that.”

“My grandfather was half Japanese. By the time it got to me, it didn’t show.”

“It does in your sister,” Hunter said, remembering. “Beautiful almond-shaped eyes.”

“But they’re blue,” said Jase.

“It’s the shape that matters,” Hunter retorted.

Lina felt some of the tightness flow out of her, and only then realized that both men had been humming like high-tension wires when they walked in. She wondered what had happened. Maybe Hunter would tell her later…if she could get him alone.

Or maybe they’d do more interesting things.

He’s almost a blackmailer, she told herself.

So what? herself snapped back.

“Do you think your mother’s competition has the artifacts?” Jase asked.

“If they did,” Lina said, “Celia wouldn’t have come to me asking about them.”

“Not even to throw you off the scent?”

Lina paused, considering. “Celia can be manipulative as the devil, but she doesn’t treat her family that way. Whatever she’s feeling about family, she’s in-your-face about it. Certainly with Philip and me. Carlos, too.”

“Who’s Carlos?” Jase asked.

“Mi primo,” Lina said. “Americans would say second cousin.”

“Also royalty, huh?” Jase asked with a smile.

“Carlos Porfirio Chel Balam,” she said. “And proud of it. He’s an international businessman of Mexican citizenship, but he never forgets his royal Maya heritage.”

“Powerful family you come from,” Jase said, meaning it.

Lina shrugged. “On paper. These days, ‘nobility’ puts tortillas and beans on the table by working just like real people.”

Jase grinned, liking her. “I’ve met some who don’t look at it that way.”