Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

Rover’s roof.

“Who the hell is this?” Philip demanded through the open window. “What’s he doing on my land?”

“His land?” Hunter murmured. Who made him king of the Yucatan?

Lina gripped Hunter’s hand and shook her head. “Let me handle him. You’ll just make him more upset. And don’t take it personally. He’s rude to everyone.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She made the introductions through the open window. Other than a flat look from gray eyes, Philip ignored Hunter.

“You aren’t supposed to be out here,” Philip said to Lina. “Go back to the house right now.”

She blinked. “I was just—”

“I told you there was nothing out here worth looking at,” Philip said over her. “You have no business here.”

“But—”

“You heard me!” Philip shouted.

Hunter decided that he and Philip were never going to be buddies, so there was no point in playing nice. Begin as you mean to continue and all that.

“Lina is the Reyes Balam heir,” Hunter said calmly. “She’s also fully adult. She comes and goes as she pleases.”

She looked at him. “It’s okay.”

“Actually, it isn’t,” Hunter said.

Philip began yelling, telling Hunter to get the hell off his land before he shot him, then repeating it again and again with emphasis, as if he shouted loud enough, long enough, Hunter would get it.

“Philip,” Lina said, her voice sharp. “Hunter is my guest. Because of him, we made an astonishing discovery. Site number nine isn’t a tomb, it’s a temple. It’s beautifully decorated with polychrome art of a fineness that has to be seen to be believed. I don’t expect you to be grateful, but you can at least be—”

“You went inside?” Philip demanded.

“Yes, we—”

“You had no right. I have first excavation—”

“We didn’t excavate anything,” Hunter cut in. “And we’re not the only people who know about it. The passages and main room were clean. Candles were lit. There’s a shrine with fresh petals inside.”

Philip’s weathered skin flushed red, making his eyes appear almost white. “That’s my temple. Every scale on Kukulcan is mine.”

At that instant Lina realized that not only did Philip already know about the temple, he had studied it.

“You promised you wouldn’t explore it without me,” she said.

“Don’t be childish,” Philip said, dismissing her with a look. “We’ll discuss your behavior at the house. And don’t think I won’t check your car for stolen artifacts.”

With that, Philip threw the Rover in reverse and began the tedious process of turning the vehicle on the narrow track.

Hunter and Lina went back to the Bronco.

“So that’s Philip,” Hunter said as they both got in.

Flags of anger burned high on her cheekbones. “He’s in rare form.”

“That’s really special. Are we going back to talk with him?”

“Maybe he’ll have cooled off by the time we get there.”

Or maybe I’ll shove him in a cold shower, Hunter thought. But he didn’t say it aloud.

“I suppose I should apologize for not letting you handle it,” he said. His tone said he wasn’t going to. “Gotta say, you deserve better than him.”

“If life was fair, we wouldn’t invent so many religions.”

He gave her a sideways look and a gentle stroke along her tense jawline. “I’ll remember that.”

They drove in silence for a time. Then she smacked her palm against the dashboard.

“I can’t believe he dug without me,” she said. “Oh, wait. I can believe. It just makes me want to take a shovel to that limestone block he calls his head. And now I sound like Celia.”

“You sound like a woman who has been treated like a six-year-old.”

“I should be used to it by now. But…”

“But?” Hunter asked when she remained silent.

“It seems that every time I come back he’s worse. Well, not worse, just more like himself than I remember.”

“That would be worse.”

“Yeah.”

More silence and rough road.

“I keep hoping he’ll change,” Lina said finally.

Hunter didn’t say anything.

“Bad to worse is a change, right?” she asked.

“Not one I’d be happy about.”

He maneuvered around a washout just before the main road. Philip’s vehicle was nowhere in sight. Air flowed through the open windows, rich with the living breath of the jungle.

“Tomorrow morning we’re gone,” Lina said. “I’d leave now, but I promised Abuelita I’d be here for her birthday celebration. Unlike some people, I keep my promises.”

“It’s one of the things I really like about you.”

She looked at him. “Same goes. I’m sorry you had to see him like that.”

Hunter shrugged. “It’s not your fault. If anything, it’s mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“You told me to let you handle him. I just really didn’t like how he was handling you.”

“I used to get mad about it,” she said. “Then I figured it was a waste of energy. Today…he was way out of line.”

“He ever hit you?” Hunter asked casually.

She looked startled. “Of course not.”

“No ‘of course’ about it, sweetheart. It’s a slippery slope from verbal abuse to physical. He wouldn’t be the first man—or woman—to slide down.”

“He’s just blustery and rude.”

Silently, Hunter thought someone should have taught Philip manners a long time ago. Or at least fear. But kids were stuck with the parents they had, and loved them despite everything.

“I’ll try to behave better than he does,” Hunter said. “What time are we leaving tomorrow?”

“Early,” she said flatly.

“I’m going to be in your room again tonight.”

Despite her anger and frustration with her father, she gave Hunter a slow smile. “I’m counting on it.”

What Hunter didn’t say was that he’d be there even if he was sleeping on the floor. He didn’t trust Philip. Her father wasn’t lock-him-up crazy, but he wasn’t a poster boy for rationality, either.

Silently they drove to the compound, parked, and walked down a crushed limestone path to Philip’s casita. The morning haze hadn’t thickened into afternoon rain, though thunder rumbled far away. The Casita Cenote guesthouse where Hunter was supposed to be sleeping was barely a pale shadow beyond the fairly mannerly tangle of greenery.

Philip’s residence was a single-story, whitewashed L, with weathered storm shutters and a faded red-tile roof. Despite its occupant, Hunter liked the place a lot better than the mansion where Old World splendor reigned.

At least, he liked it until they knocked on the door and Philip opened it, looking like a wild man. Immediately he started cursing Lina for stealing his life’s work, his only entree back into the closed world of scholars, and the most valuable Maya artifact ever found.