“You act like someone who’s afraid she’s being followed.”
“No ex-anything, including stalker.” She went back to staring at the entrance.
Hunter waited, watching her.
“Okay, I know this sounds crazy,” she said after a minute, “but sometimes I feel like I’m being followed.”
“How long has it been going on?”
She kept watching the garage entrance. “A month, maybe more. It didn’t happen all of a sudden. Just a sort of gradual awareness until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”
“You ever see anyone?”
“No. Unless a shadow here and there counts. Nothing I can put a face to. Just a…feeling. An almost-itch on the back of my neck. Maybe Philip’s paranoia is catching.”
“Or his caution,” Hunter said easily. “Sounds like your father made a few enemies along the way. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m sure I’m not everyone’s best friend forever, but enemies? Not that I know of.”
“Think about it.”
“I have,” she said, narrowing her eyes as another car came in.
Like a lot of the vehicles in the lot, it was a dark SUV with tinted windows. It turned down a different aisle and vanished.
Jase found a parking spot a few rows over. He got out, locked up, and threaded himself between parked cars until he reached Hunter and Lina.
“Let’s go get a dose of education,” Jase said, walking toward the garage exit.
Lina shook her head at his tone of voice. “Such enthusiasm.”
“You’ve only been on this case for two days,” Jase said. “I’ve spent enough time that I’m getting really cheesed about tiny steps forward, big steps backward, and most of the steps running round in circles until I feel hungover.”
Hunter looked at his friend. He knew that underneath the easy tone of voice, Jase was tight, exhausted, feeling time dripping away like blood.
“Anything new turn up from the basement?” Hunter asked.
“We’re up to ten bodies now. Is that new?”
“I meant from processing the gangbangers that were arrested.”
Jase smiled grimly. “Oh, we learned boatloads, but nothing that applies to this case. Snakeman has never been in our system, or in any of the law enforcement databases we’ve accessed. He’s clean except for a lack of immigration papers. Given that his lawyer is slick as snot, he’ll get off with deportation.”
“That’s fu—ah, crazy,” Hunter said, looking sideways at Lina.
Jase made a sound that could have been a laugh. “It’s scary, is what it is.”
“That, too,” Hunter agreed.
“All but the last body—LeRoy—died without mutilation,” Jase continued in a casual voice. “Well, they were beheaded, but still intact otherwise. From the tracks the gangbangers left in the legal system, we should be giving them medals for skimming scum off the cesspool. Except for LeRoy—who had only minor stuff in his record—I’d have done them myself for free.”
“I so don’t want to meet your ‘clients,’” Lina said.
Jase’s smile was all teeth. “Every day is a new lesson in dickheads.”
After the gloomy heat and conversation in the garage, the street looked like heaven. The gallery was located on Houston’s answer to Rodeo Drive, where money, fashion, money, jewelry, money, cars, and money were on display inside and outside of the shops. The gallery itself went for an ambience of exceptionally classy artifacts for exceptionally discriminating multimillionaires. Pools of white-gold light haloed objects that would be sullied by the very thought of a price being attached to them.
In that, the gallery wasn’t so different from the gory basement. Just better lighting.
A woman approached, a thin blonde who had pushed ordinary good looks as far as she could with skillful makeup and clothing. She was seductive, but kept well back from the edge of the cliff called trashy. Green eyes, unlikely boobs for such a thin frame, artfully cut hair, expensive-looking clothes, and gold jewelry with pre- Columbian designs.
“I’m Ms. Arkan. If you have any questions, I’m at your disposal.”
“Thank you,” Hunter said. “Right now we just want to look around.”
Ms. Arkan nodded and went back to a small, elegant desk tucked against the far wall. In the corner nearest the door, a man stood quietly, watching nothing and everything.
“Classy rent-a-cop,” Jase murmured. “I’ll bet he’s Houston PD working a second shift to put tortillas and beans on the table.”
“Hope so. That would mean that he knows how to use the gun that’s under his coat.”
Lina tried to be invisible. Unlike her mother, she didn’t make a habit of trolling pre-Columbian sales galleries. Guilt by association was an established truth in academia.
Wandering off, Jase stared at a breastplate made of what appeared to be solid gold. The pectoral and abdominal muscles were suggested by squared-off shapes that managed to be graceful. The pedestal holding the breastplate spun slowly, like a runway model strutting haute couture.
“This thing is giving me a boner,” Jase whispered after Hunter wandered over. “Is that normal?”
“If it lasts more than four hours, call a doctor.”
Jase snickered.
Under his breath, Hunter muttered something about triumph, subjugation, and plunder. He would rather have seen the artifacts for sale in a back alley in Cozumel. But that was his prejudice. Smart people with money didn’t go into a dark alley. They came to places like this and paid for the lighting and protection.
More gold and silver objects—figurines and jewelry—were carefully displayed against black velvet with pinpoint spotlights shining down, making each piece appear special, breathtakingly unique in its perfection.
“Nothing familiar here,” Jase said very quietly.
“There’s some pottery where Lina is standing. Masks, too.”
Slowly both men worked their way through the gallery aisles to where Lina was. Along the way they saw ancient jewelry, cloth, pottery in striking shapes, and figurines in everything from gold to clay. New World jade gleamed with ancient reverence. In another aisle there were chunks of limestone with broken pre-Columbian designs etched into them.
Jase might not have had a Ph.D., but he was a long way from stupid. Nowhere did he see anything that made his professional instincts quiver. Knives, yes. Obsidian, occasionally. But no knife was made from a single piece of obsidian. Masks, yes, many of them. One had a few obsidian inlays, as well as jade and what could have been shell. But no mask had enough obsidian to come close to the one in the photos. Pieces of cloth, yes, but no stained bundles. The only artifacts that gave him pause were in a long case. Clay censers of various degrees of intricacy were illuminated from within.
“Nope,” Hunter said softly.
“Not even close?”
“Right function. Wrong time and design.”
“Damn. I haven’t seen anything useful. Have you?” Jase asked.
“Not yet.”
As the men drew close to Lina, she lifted an eyebrow questioningly.
“Damn few Late Terminal Classic Yucatec Maya artifacts,” Hunter said.
“I’m glad you said it,” Jase muttered. “I couldn’t have.”
Lina almost smiled. “Exactly. Artifacts from that place and time period aren’t thick on any ground, especially high-end galleries. My mother’s galleries have the most and the best of that type of artifacts, yet she was asking
Silence, then Jase nodded glumly. “Point made. I’m outta here. I’ve got better ways to waste my time.”
“Philistine,” Hunter said.
“Want to see my T-shirt?” Jase asked.
