“That’s why I’m here.”
Hunter reached into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts and pulled out the pictures of the missing artifacts. The photos showed the rubs and creases of careless handling, but the artifacts were quite identifiable.
Curious, Crutchfeldt leaned closer. Hunter yanked back the photos and held them like a poker hand, close to his chest. With an impatient sound, Crutchfeldt plucked one of the photos free.
A mask, shining like a smoking mirror, ringed with glyphs of power and death.
“Kawa’il,” Crutchfeldt breathed. For an instant the avarice of a collector gleamed in his eyes. Then the businessman took over. “What is the provenance?”
“My client wants the artifact,” Hunter said, “not the pedigree.”
“I don’t have either one.”
Hunter had known that the moment Crutchfeldt looked at the photo with the eyes of a man who wanted, not one who already owned.
“Who would?” Hunter asked.
There was a long silence. Then Crutchfeldt sighed. “I rarely give advice, yet…Dr. Taylor’s exquisite appreciation of my collection was very satisfying.”
Hunter waited.
“There are grave robbers on Reyes Balam lands,” Crutchfeldt said. “They take, but they don’t sell to me or anyone I know. Their leader is more ruthless than your Genghis Khan.”
“Who is he?”
“To speak his name is death.” Crutchfeldt smiled thinly and handed over the photo. “I prefer life.”
“Is he Mexican?”
Crutchfeldt nodded.
“Is he called El Maya?”
Crutchfeldt’s eyelids flinched. “Good day, Mr. Kerrigan. You know the way out.”
Hunter wanted to argue, but he knew a losing hand when he held it. With a smooth motion, he pocketed the photos and walked out, leaving Crutchfeldt and his collection behind. The sun seemed unusually hot and vital after the mansion.
Lina was waiting in the Jeep, frowning and biting her lush lower lip.
Hunter got in and started up the engine without a word.
“Well?” she asked after they were beyond the long drive.
“I’m thinking.”
“Think out loud.”
Hunter almost smiled despite the anger and adrenaline racing through him.
He didn’t want Lina anywhere near that kind of danger.
And he didn’t have any choice. Houston hadn’t provided safety for her. They had been followed to the city limits and would have been followed farther if Hunter hadn’t lost the tail. The fact that it was a lone follower had told Hunter that it wasn’t a law enforcement agency breathing down their neck. Even the dumbest cop knew that if the subject was alert, a single tail didn’t get the job done.
“Hunter?”
He flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “If I thought it would do any good, I’d turn around and hold Crutchfeldt’s face in the toilet until he talked.”
Lina’s eyes widened in shock. “Did he recognize the photos?”
“As in knowing where they were now? No. But he knew they came from Reyes Balam land.”
“How?” she demanded.
“Same way you did, even when you didn’t want to. A good eye.”
“What did he say?”
“That there are grave robbers on Reyes Balam land.”
She made a low sound. “I was afraid of that.”
“Apparently their leader is a real piece of work. Crutchfeldt was afraid to even say his real name. When I asked if it was El Maya, he invited me to leave.”
Lina’s long lashes lowered and she went back to nibbling on her lip. “Celia would have to know about him, wouldn’t she?”
“You own a lot of land. Rough land. Remote. Tough to get around in. I doubt if anyone could keep track of every acre.”
“But if she’s buying from grave robbers, she’d know.”
Hunter’s hands flexed on the wheel again. He didn’t like any of this, and everything he found out made it worse.
“Crutchfeldt said the grave robbers weren’t selling to anyone he knew.” Hunter’s voice was like his eyes, edgy.
Relief and frustration went through Lina. She was glad to hear that her mother wasn’t trading in black-market artifacts, yet the information didn’t get them any closer to the person who was.
The sounds of the tires and the road and the occasional cry of a seabird filled the Jeep.
“You’re thinking again,” Lina said finally.
Hunter didn’t answer.
“I can’t help if you close me out,” she said.
“I’m trying to decide between taking you to my uncles for protection—”
“No,” Lina cut in. “I don’t want to drag anyone else into this.”
Hunter glanced at her and knew that she was hearing bullets chewing through concrete, seeing Jase’s blood.
“They know how to protect themselves,” Hunter said.
“So did Jase.”
Hunter let out a low curse. “I don’t want you hurt.”
“Neither do I.” She looked out the window. “I’ll go to Quintana Roo. My
“What about the grave robbers? And El Maya?”
Lina shrugged. “They’ve obviously been in place for some time and nobody in the family has been harmed. Houston was where I was attacked, not the Yucatan. As for El Maya, it could be an American nickname, not Mexican. Besides…” Her voice died.
“What?”
“I’ve never felt watched in Quintana Roo.”
Hunter looked at his watch. “We have just enough time to make the next flight out of Brownsville.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SEA TURNED TURQUOISE IN THE AFTERNOON LIGHT, slapping lazily against the shore. Tourists were thick on Cozumel’s ground. Expensive hotels gleamed like high-rise wedding cakes, absorbing light and spreading a shimmering kind of brilliance. Backpackers and students swarmed over the other end of the tourist rainbow, sprawling on peripheral beaches or gearing up for jungle hikes. High or low, liquor flowed, oiling the machinery of commerce and culture.
Lina breathed in deep and bloomed like an orchid. Part of her was very much at home with the heat and humidity. A whole childhood of memories poured through her—prowling the jungle, diving and swimming in the cool cenotes that pocked the land, and eating exquisitely spiced food.
“Do we have time to eat?” she asked Hunter as they walked to a cheap rental-car place. “I’d kill for a good
“I’m supposed to meet Rodrigo at a place called La Ali Azul on Avenue Escobar. I’m sure they serve a mean
