Make No Bones About It ( a Dig Site Mystery--Book 2)

by Ann Charles

  Several shoves later, the block cleared the hole. Quint moved out of her way, peering down into the darkness along with her. Her flashlight beam didn’t reach far.

  What was down there? Was it a tomb belonging to a king from a Maya dynasty? Had this temple been built over another, older one? Was this the doorway into a buried past? Her mind whirled with so many possibilities.

  “That smell isn’t getting any better,” Quint said. “Do you see any boogeymen down there?”

  “It’s too dark.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  Cursing her foolishness, she reached in her dad’s bag and pulled out his air quality meter, handing it to Quint. “Do me a favor and make sure there’s nothing noxious blowing out of there.”

  “What do you call that underlying stench?”

  “The smell of life.”

  “It reeks more like death, if you ask me.” He played with the meter, checking for different types of gases as she collected her flashlight, gas mask, and the rope she’d brought along.

  “It’s all clear,” Quint said, lowering the meter. He directed his light down the hole. “It looks like it’s about a forty-five percent grade. What do you think they …” He turned and saw the rope laying on the floor next to her knees. “What’s that for?”

  “Me.” She slipped the mask over her head, letting it dangle from her neck.

  His eyes narrowed. “No, Angélica.”

  “I’m not asking, Quint.” She pulled her tactical rappel harness from the bag, sliding it through the belt hoops on her khakis, cinching it good and tight.

  He watched with a growing frown as she connected the leg loops and secured them in place. “Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve rappelled many times before. This isn’t my first rodeo.” She threaded and secured the rope as she’d done many times in the past before rappelling down into cenotes. “Can you grab my Taser out of Dad’s bag?”

  He gaped at her. “Do you hear yourself?”

  She grabbed the Taser herself, hooking it in the loop on her belt made for a firearm. She didn’t figure she’d need it, but it was better to be safe than sorry at this site. “I’ll tug twice on the rope when I need you to pull me up.”

  “This is bat-shit insane.”

  She took the air quality meter and looped it around her neck along with her mask. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Let me go down there first,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Your shoulders are too big. It’ll be a tight squeeze, and we both know how you feel about small spaces.” She secured her rappelling hard hat, tightening the chinstrap.

  “Then wait and let someone else go down. Lorenzo’s shoulders aren’t much bigger than yours.”

  “I can’t send any of my crew down that hole and you know it.” She grabbed her backup shatterproof flashlight and stuck it in the cargo pocket on the side of her leg next to her dad’s cheap digital camera. After doing a quick mental check that she had everything she’d need to scout out the sub chamber, she tugged on her rappelling rope-gloves.

  “God damn it, woman.” He blocked the tunnel with his body, leaning back against the wall with his long legs out in front of him. “I can’t let you do this. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Quint, listen,” she said, crawling over to him, straddling his thighs. She squeezed his shoulders, trying to reassure him. “I promise I’ll go slow and not do anything rash.”

  “We don’t know what’s down there.”

  “That’s why I need to go see.”

  “Your father would never let you go down there.”

  “He might try to talk me out of it, but he wouldn’t stand in my way if I insisted on going.”

  He shook his head, his face lined with worry. “What if you slip?”

  “I’ve closed the system.” She held up the end of the rope, showing the triple-barrel knot she’d tied there. “Plus, I have a friction hitch with a blocker knot below it.”

  “You’re speaking Greek to me.”

  “It means I’ll only fall a short distance before the rope stops me.”

  “What if the ceiling is unstable in there and you bring the whole damned temple down on your head?”

  “Then we’ll both be dead.”

  “That’s not funny, Angélica.”

  She took his hand in hers, kissing his knuckles. “I appreciate that you are concerned about me, but trust me, this isn’t my first time rappelling down a dark hole.”

  “That’s supposed to comfort me?”

  She smiled. “I’ll be okay. Admit it, deep down inside you’re curious what’s down that hole.”

  He stared at her, his jaw rigid. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “You can go down that hole if you agree to go somewhere with me, no questions asked.”

  “Where?”

  “No questions asked,” he reiterated.

  Oh, secretive. Nice. As long as it was with him, she was game. “Okay.”

  “And I want that second kiss now in case you end up liking it down there and decide to stay.” When she didn’t agree right away, he added, “Deal or no deal, Angélica.”

  With a shrug, she cupped his face in her gloved hands. “Deal.” She kissed him, same as before, except this time he held onto her tighter, drawing out the kiss longer. When he let go, she sat back. Her lips tingled, among other areas of her body. “Parker, have I ever told you that you’re a marvelous kisser?”

  “You’re not so bad yourself, boss lady.” He shifted under her. “Now get off me and get that sweet little ass down into that hole.”

  She finished prepping for the descent, giving herself about ten feet of rope length to fall if her other safety measures failed. Quint double-checked her lines to his satisfaction and then wrapped his end of the rope around the big bottom altar stone for leverage.

  “Okay, sweetheart, you’re ready.”

  She climbed into the hole feet first and then flipped onto her stomach, sliding down so only her head was sticking out. She smiled at Quint, excitement churning in her stomach. “Don’t let go of that rope,” she ordered.

  “I got you, babe,” he sang in a falsetto.

  She groaned. “I’m going to kick your butt for that earworm when I get back up here.”

  “Be careful, Angélica,” he said, suddenly serious. “Let’s not repeat the past here today.”

  She blew him a kiss, slipped on the mask, and then inched backward down the smooth slope into the darkness. She’d tucked in her shirt to keep from scraping her stomach, but her elbows took a beating as she slid deeper and deeper.

  “How you doing?” Quint called down.

  “My feet just hit open air.” She let the rope hold her weight as her knees and then thighs joined her feet in mid-air. She stopped herself then, turning and shining her flashlight down past her legs. The stench was worse down here, making her wish she’d brought nose plugs.

  “Can you see anything?” he asked.

  “Hold on.” She squinted in the semi-darkness. The floor was about twelve feet below the edge of the hole—far down enough to get stuck if she didn’t have the rope to climb back out. Why was the floor blurry looking? Was that water? What was that piled in the far corner?

  Pocketing her flashlight, she slid fully out of the chute. The rope creaked as she dangled there in the dark. With a shove, she pushed away from the wall and turned so her back was to it. Before she scouted the chamber, she lifted the gas reader, punching the buttons, making sure she was in the green.

  Something bumped the rope hanging below her.

  She stilled, lowering the meter, listening in the darkness. What was that sound? It was like a smooth crinkling noise mixed with a soft swooshing.

  Plucking her flashlight from her pocket, she spotlighted the floor.

  There was no water.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  At the sound of her voice, the rattling started.

&nbs
p; * * *

  “It was an Indiana Jones moment,” Angélica said later that evening in their tent. “You should have seen all the snakes.”

  I’d rather not, Quint thought.

  He lay in his new hammock in a clean T-shirt and boxer briefs with his hands behind his head, listening as the crazy woman retold her adventures in that underground chamber to her father and Pedro.

  Her eyes sparkled as she paced back and forth in front of them. Her hands were animated as she described the various small piles of broken bones that she’d seen from where she hung at the end of the chute, safely out of reach of the slithering bodies and venomous fangs below.

  Juan shuddered, echoing Quint’s feelings about all of those damned snakes. “Dios mio, gatita.” Her father covered his face, speaking through his fingers. “You should have waited for me to get there as we’d planned. You’re going to be the death of your old man.”

  “That’s what I told her when I pulled her out of there,” Quint said, crossing his ankles. The hammock rocked gently, cradling him. Pedro was right. This was much better than a cot. Next he’d like to kick everyone out of the tent except a certain snake charmer and spend an hour or two ravishing the hell out of her in his new hammock.

  Stuck holding the rope in that sardine can called a tomb for too many sweat-filled minutes as Angélica risked life and limb down in the darkness had pushed his calm to the limit. Her rope tugs to haul her back up hadn’t come soon enough for his sanity. He’d dragged her out of that hole and hugged her long and hard, until she’d gasped for breath.

  “How many bones are we talking?” Pedro asked.

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t tell. There were too many snakes moving around, covering the bones. It was hard to get a handle on how many skeletons might be down there.”

  “We’re lucky you didn’t add one more today,” Juan said dryly.

  “Dad, I told you that I made sure I was safe.” She pointed at Quint. “Plus, Parker here was at the other end making sure I wasn’t going anywhere but up.”

  Quint had wanted to haul her out of there as soon as she’d hollered up the hole that the floor was covered with rattlesnakes, but she’d insisted he let her scope out the space some more and try to take a few pictures. Pictures that turned out blurry and dark, of course, since all she had was her dad’s cheap digital camera.

  “Tell them about the wall,” Quint said, letting the sway of the hammock soothe him after an afternoon that had probably taken ten years off his life.

  The depth of his fear about losing Angélica down that hole had made him realize how far gone he was when it came to her. While he sat there holding that damned rope, he realized there’d be no leaving the Yucatán now, at least not for more than a few weeks at a time. High humidity, bugs, and howling monkeys were going to be a way of life. He was going to have to figure out if he wanted to sell or lease out his place up in South Dakota.

  “There was a walled-up hole down there,” Angélica told Pedro and her dad. “It reminded me of the wall in the mine. The style was similar with stones and grout.”

  “You could see the grout from your wall perch?” Juan asked doubtfully. “What are you? Part hawk now?”

  “Of course I couldn’t see it clearly, Dad, but I could tell there was grout between the stones.”

  Pedro leaned against the center pole, crossing his arms over his chest. “You think the mine and the Chakmo’ol Temple are connected by some underground passage?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.” She grabbed her canteen from the floor. “Maybe not. But the similar building style of that wall could link the underground chamber to the mine on the Maya timeline. I’d have to go down in there again and take a grout sample to be certain.”

  “No!” Juan beat Quint to the punch. “You are not going in there with all of those snakes again, gatita. I forbid it. If something were to happen to you, we’d have no way of getting you out quickly.”

  Angélica’s eyes narrowed, her mouth tightening at her father’s heavy hand.

  Quint and Juan appeared to be reading from the same playbook, only Quint had known better than to out-and-out say “I forbid it” to the stubborn woman. His solution was to squeeze down in that hole himself next time. He’d let her hold the damned rope for once. No, better yet, Pedro.

  Before Angélica started spitting and sputtering at her father, Quint prompted her with, “Tell them about the snakes.”

  She glanced in his direction as she unscrewed the cap on her canteen, her gaze traveling the length of his bare legs before returning to his face. “What about the snakes?”

  “How they were getting into the chamber.”

  Turning back to her dad and Pedro, she explained, “There was a stone-lined tunnel about a foot in diameter at the base of one of the walls. It was full of snakes.”

  “Stone-lined?” Juan asked. “So it was meant to be a drainage of some sort.”

  She nodded. “Either the chamber used to flood or they purposely created an entryway for the snakes.”

  “Why would they create a way for snakes to get in?” Pedro asked.

  Quint had wondered the same thing, imagining how it would feel to be stuck down in that chamber with an open-door policy set up for rattlesnakes.

  “I don’t know,” Angélica said, “but on that carving in the other room, the image of Yum Cimil is sitting on a throne of snakes, remember?”

  “He’s also outlined by snakes,” Quint said, repeating what Angélica and he had discussed while she slipped out of her rappelling gear and stowed it all back in her father’s bag.

  “Two walls,” her father repeated, apparently still focused on that part of her tale. “What were they walling inside the room?”

  Quint draped one bare leg over the edge of the hammock, swinging it slightly. “Or were they keeping something out? Something they dug up deep in the mine?”

  “You’ve seen too many movies, Parker.”

  That was true, but he’d also seen a few inexplicable things in his travels. Things that gave him chills when he witnessed them. But those tales were for another time.

  “You’re sure the bones were broken?” Pedro asked her. “In the same condition Quint described in that catacomb back in the mine?”

  She nodded, taking a drink from her canteen. “Those I could clearly see were broken. There was a small pile of them stacked up in the corner, including several skulls, which appeared to be missing chunks or were broken in half.”

  “Do you think they were holding prisoners captive down there?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Juan frowned at her. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Look.” She picked up her notebook and held it out to him, pointing at a part of the carving she’d copied down on the paper. “See that right there? That’s the baak glyph. It stands for ‘captive.’ “

  Juan took the notebook, grimacing down at it. “You’re sure about the meaning of this?”

  “Yes, and I’ll tell you something else. If you were to slide down that chute, you’re not getting back out without a rope or a pair of tall shoulders to stand up on.”

  “Unless you went out through the tunnel they walled up,” Pedro said.

  “Well, yes, there was that escape.”

  “But there were skeletons in the room,” Juan said. “So not everyone escaped.”

  “Maybe those were the snakes’ victims,” Pedro said.

  “Juan.” Quint looked over at the older man’s lined face. “Have you ever heard of the Maya keeping their sacrificial victims in an underground prison?”

  “No. But I suppose it could have happened.”

  “Broken bones?” Pedro asked again. When she nodded, he looked at Quint. “And you’re positive the ones you saw were broken, too?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why? What are you thinking?” Angélica asked him.

  Pedro grimaced. “Years ago, I remember reading an article about a tribe of cannibals in the Amazon. Human bone marrow was a delicacy for
them. The article said that after they finished with the flesh, they would break the bones and suck out the marrow. The journalist called it their dessert.”

  “Cannibals?” Quint glanced over at Angélica. “What do you think, boss lady? Could you have picked a site with an even more grisly past than human sacrifices?”

  “There certainly are a lot of broken bones at this site.” She sat down on her cot. “But what’s with all of the snakes, both now and in the past?”

  “Maybe the ruler at the time all this was going on had a snake fetish,” Pedro suggested.

  “What do you think, Dad?”

  Juan puffed his cheeks and blew out a breath. “I don’t know what to think. Add to this that cache of conquistador armor and all of the artifacts Daisy keeps finding …” He snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. I have something for you, gatita.” He opened his footlocker and pulled out the locket he’d shown Quint earlier, dangling it out toward Angélica.

  “What’s this?” she asked, taking the locket. She opened it, staring down at the pictures. “Where did you get this, Dad?” she whispered, swallowing visibly.

  “Daisy found it in the weeds at the edge of the ballcourt. You’re lucky she stumbled onto it.”

  Angélica’s face seemed to pale, her eyes widening. She closed her fingers around it, her gaze flitting to Quint’s. Something in her expression made him stop rocking. “What’s wrong?”

  She chewed on her lower lip. “Nothing. I’m fine. It’s … it’s nothing. I just miss my mom.”

  “I told you this place was going to be tough for you, gatita.” Juan pulled on his red scorpion socks. “Lord knows it’s getting under my skin, making me imagine all sorts of crazy stuff.”

  “I need to use the restroom,” Angélica said suddenly, sliding the locket under her pillow. She grabbed her machete and flashlight. “Parker, do you mind walking me down there?”

  “I can go with you,” Pedro offered.

  She patted his shoulder. “Thanks, but I’d sort of like a little alone time with Quint, if you know what I mean.”

  Her reply made Quint sit up. What was going on? First of all, Angélica had used the latrine when they’d gone down to shower before this little get-together in their tent. Second, she’d normally not be so blatant about wanting to get him alone.