*
A soft hum from the air conditioner in her bedroom prodded Maria awake. Opening her eyes, she had no idea how long she’d been sleeping. A long time, gauging from the nasty morning breath she tasted in her mouth. She had only faint memories of returning home, undressing, and collapsing into her cotton sheets.
With a start, she sat up in bed. Rod had been the one to bring her here. Horrified, Maria thought of the piles of clothes stashed in the corner of the room. He must think she was the world’s biggest slob. It usually wasn’t so bad. But with the murder investigation and the washer in her condo not working right, laundry hadn’t been a priority.
Maria was rubbing the sleep from her eyes when something in the corner of her bedroom caught her attention. In Maria’s reclining chair by her reading lamp, rested Rod. His chest moved up and down with steady breathing. With eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest, he resembled a statue of a pious saint guarding the doors to a small cathedral tucked away in some quaint Italian villa.
Rod must have sensed Maria’s gaze because all of sudden he awakened with a gasp. “Are you okay?” he asked. He, too, rubbed his blurry eyes that hadn’t quite adjusted to the morning sun coming through the windows.
Maria’s first thoughts were of how much she regretted losing her temper with him in his car yesterday. She’d jumped to conclusions about Tara, and that was tactless. Rod had dated the woman, so she must have some endearing qualities that Maria hadn’t gotten to see quite yet.
Second of all, as hard as it was to admit, Maria wasn’t exactly “just fine” as she’d insisted. Maybe she did need someone to worry about her, just a little bit.
At the same time, both she and Rod said in unison, “I’m sorry.”
They both started to laugh.
“Fight over?” he asked.
“Fight over,” she answered.
Getting up out of the chair, Rod said, “You’re going to die when you see your hair. So, instead of staying in here and continuing to mortify you, I’m going to fix breakfast while you shower. Come out when you’re ready.”
As he left the room, Maria couldn’t help noticing how completely adorable he looked in the morning, with the back of his own short, brown hair mushed on one side.
*
The shower felt like heaven. Brushing her teeth felt even better. However, easing the snarls out of her hair took a ridiculous amount of time, and she worried she’d taken so long Rod may have burned whatever he was cooking. She slipped on a pair of jeans and a simple white t-shirt and gathered her freshly lathered hair. She used an oversized clip to secure it to the back of her head.
Hurrying out of her bedroom and into the kitchen, she immediately realized there had been no chance of Rod ruining breakfast. There, on the counter, sat two bowls of bran cereal, topped with slices of banana, and a glass of milk to the side.
“I see your cooking skills rival my own,” Maria said.
Rod, who was bent down trying to get a better look into the fridge, clicked his tongue, and, while turning around, said, “I didn’t have much to work wi—.” He stopped talking when he saw her. “Wow, you clean up nicely.”
Maria grinned. “After a lightening-speed trip to Salt Lake, forty-eight hours without even lying down, a night in front of a fire in the canyons, and being dragged underwater by a delirious Aztec warrior, a shower did me a world of good.”
“I would have to agree.” Rod closed the fridge door. His gaze dropped from her face to the rest of her and then back up, meeting her eyes.
“So are you hungry?” He took a few steps closer to where she stood.
“Famished. So much so I think I may add a piece of toast to the menu, if you don’t mind?”
“Be my guest.” With his arms, Rod motioned her into the smallish kitchen.
As she slid by him, he didn’t move but stayed put, causing her to brush against his side.
As Maria searched a cupboard for a loaf of bread, she asked, “Did you and Jim get to talk a little bit yesterday? He’s man of few words.”
Rod leaned back against the counter. “We did. He told me some very interesting things, actually. He didn’t question my story about the scuba dive at all. In fact, he said he saw several Aztec ghosts there yesterday. It’s a hot spot of activity. That guy has a sixth sense.”
Maria turned abruptly and bumped into Rod’s arm. “I know, I thought the very same thing. He told me he thinks our Aztec ghosts are hanging around Kanab to guard something. Maybe a treasure. Maybe something else. But why can we see them and nobody else?”
Rod watched Maria as she opened the bread bag, pulled out two pieces, and inserted them into the slots on the toaster. “I have no idea, but what I do know is that you are very good at making toast. You do it with such grace. A true finesse, really.”
“Knock it off.” Maria teasingly shoved him. “I could have cooked scrambled eggs if I’d wanted to.”
“Yes,” Rod leaned toward her and smirked, “and I could have cooked some too if you’d had any eggs in your fridge. What do you think I was looking for when you walked in? Steak and potatoes?”
Laughter filled the kitchen. Maria could get used to this banter. Rod kept her on her toes, and she liked it. She liked the way he didn’t give in, and she liked the way he didn’t mind her not giving in either.
The toast popped up, and both Rod and Maria reached for it at the same time. Their hands met midway. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. But feeling his fingers on top of hers sent tingles up her arm. It was almost laughable. But then again, not really. Maria’s face warmed, and it wasn’t from the heat of the toaster.
“Here’s yours,” she said, handing Rod the first piece of toast she pulled out.
“Thanks.” However, before Maria could get the next one Rod had it in his hand. “And this one, Miss, is for you.”
Maria sneaked a close-up peak at Rod’s face. His stubble had turned into a very short beard, one that looked less trimmed than normal. He obviously hadn’t gone home the whole night but had stayed, watching over her as she slept. He must have been more than a little bit uncomfortable in her undersized chair. It wasn’t made for men his height.
“Were you the one who pulled me out? Of the lake, I mean?” asked Maria.
Rod nodded. “I … I was so worried. I heard you shout, and then I ran down the path. When I didn’t see you on the zip line I knew you’d fallen into the water. Where he was.”
He, of course, was the chubby Aztec ghost who had tried to kill her. Rod’s nemesis since high school.
Maria’s breath hitched in her throat. “But you jumped in anyway?”
Rod smiled.
“After almost twenty years of never getting in the lake?” Maria had not yet realized until that very moment what Rod’s rescue had really meant. For her … and for him.
“Of course I jumped in. You needed me.”
Maria tried to think of a way to say thanks that didn’t sound so trite.
Rod grinned. “Not to mention the day was getting hot, and I needed to cool off.”
Maria loved his quips. Nothing could make her feel more at ease. Especially now that their lips were only inches from each other.
Rod’s turquoise eyes held Maria captive. He moved even closer to her and stopped. He certainly knew how to take his time with these sorts of things.
Maria waited. And wondered. And worried. She knew what was coming, and she was terrified. It had been so long. So much had happened. Would her guilt, her overwhelming hatred of what she had done in Tehran, allow her this pleasure?
Rod reached behind her head and undid the clip in her hair. Her wet strands fell onto her shoulders. She breathed in his musky smell. Her mind spun in circles. Perfectly formed rounds of never-ending wonder.
Rod closed the last, small gap between them, and, beginning with her forehead, pressed his lips where her hair met skin. Moving downward, he kissed her temples, her left cheek, her right.
And then her lips. Soft and gentle.
/> Maria’s self-doubt exploded with thoughts of betrayal, of pain, of loathing for herself. But she pushed them aside, focusing only on Rod. On his hands that cupped her jaw. On his short breaths in between long, tender kisses.
Rod paused a moment and then wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. One that said as much as the kisses had of his desire for closeness. Maria turned her head and rested her cheek on his chest. His heart pumped in a solid pattern. His lungs rose and fell in a constant rhythm. The intimacy of it all felt safe and natural, like coming home to her favorite pair of slippers and spot by the fireplace.
Rod murmured something, hushed and low.
Maria lifted her chin. “What did you say?”
“I said,” whispered Rod, pulling his head a few inches back to look into Maria’s eye, “that I’ve wanted to do that since tenth grade.”
A throaty laughter filled the air around them. Maria pushed onto the tip of her toes, kissed his lips once more, and then said, “Let’s eat. I’m starved.”
*
Maria wasn’t sure what ambrosia of the Greek gods was supposed to taste like, but it couldn’t have been any better than her bowl of bran flakes and bananas. Sitting on her patio chairs that faced the rugged red bluffs next to town, Maria and Rod ate their cereal. Barefoot, Maria relished the sun’s heat on her toes. Side by side, she and Rod talked of all the places they wanted to explore together in the gorgeous country that surrounded them—the Vermillion Cliffs, the Wave Trail at Coyote Buttes, and the list went on.
At the exact moment Maria convinced herself to take the day off—it was the weekend after all—her phone on the kitchen table inside the house rang.
Rod looked at Maria, his eyes seeming to ask, “Are you going to get that?”
“They can leave a voicemail.” Maria reached out her hand and squeezed Rod’s arm. It was time something else besides work was important to her.
Rod leaned over and playfully kissed her on the lips. “It kills you doesn’t it?”
A little surprised and excited about the casual, comfortable way he’d just kissed her, Maria responded, “Are you kidding? My phone ringing doesn’t even faze me.”
However, after the sixth phone call in three minutes, even Rod was twitching with the need to see who was trying to get a hold of Maria. He growled, “If you don’t get that, I will.”
Maria didn’t need to be told twice. She leaped out of her chair, ran through the patio doors, and looked at the number on the screen. It was Ryker.
“Hi,” Maria said, breathlessly.
“Maria!” His voice boomed on the other end. “How are you doing this morning?”
“Much better, thank you. I appreciate all of your help yesterday. It was quite the strange … experience.”
“Yes it was,” he agreed. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. And there’s more today. We broke through the cave-in and found something else.”
Maria’s heart sped up. “What was it?”
“A body.”
Maria was confused. “You mean a skeleton?”
“No,” answered Ryker, “I mean a body. The person died a long time ago, but it was naturally mummified by the conditions in the cave.”
“You’re kidding!” exclaimed Maria. “Any idea who it is?”
“I believe …” Ryker waited a moment to finish his sentence—probably for dramatic effect. “… it’s Freddie Crystal.”
[Many have] pondered the historical location of Aztlan, the mythic homeland of the Aztecs. In a 1768 map of North America [are] found tantalizing directions. Where present-day Utah would be are the words: “From these desert contours, the Mexican Indians were said to have left to found their empire.” That cryptic message is one clue among many. “Some don’t believe [Aztlan] was true, like Atlantis or the Garden of Eden,” says a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. “But I’m convinced it’s in Utah. The evidence is very compelling.”
—The Salt Lake Tribune. “Bits Of History Suggest Utah Is Location Of Mythic Aztlan,” by Tim Sullivan, November 17, 2002.
Chapter 27
FOR THE TENTH TIME in just over a week, Maria parked her car at the head of the trail that lead to the cave where the mayor had been murdered. She’d gotten two texts while on the road, and she needed to check them now since she’d lose cell service once she got started on the hike.
The first text was from Dr. Butler, the coroner who was also helping Maria with forensics. The message was simple: Hair DNA sample was a match.
The second text was much longer. It was from Sue Tuttle at the library. Maria loved the fact that the woman had a cell phone and actually used it. Of course, her text was written like a short essay and must have taken a while to type:
Maria, The Salt Lake Tribune ran a news story about a major embezzlement scheme involving Kids Who Count, a government-run agency for children with learning disabilities and autism. Implicated in the scheme are Senator Emerson and the late Mayor Hayward. Whitney Thatcher works at Kids Who Count. I thought you might be interested.
Love you. Sue
Maria contemplated the significance of both messages. They both pointed to the same fact. Whitney Thatcher was in trouble.
Maria had an eyewitness (Beth) who put the young mother in the mayor’s truck the day before he turned up dead. Forensics had confirmed that Whitney had been in the mayor’s truck recently, the same truck he had driven to the place he was murdered. And now there was a possible motive. If the mayor was helping Senator Emerson embezzle money from Kids Who Count, and if Whitney had found out about it, what would she have done to stop him? Kill him? Things were not looking good for her.
First thing tomorrow morning, Maria would call Whitney to come to the police station for questioning. Maria needed to know if Whitney had an alibi that could hold water.
One item that continued to bother Maria, however, was that she hadn’t been able to track down the owner of the cell phone, who had been the last person to call the mayor. The call had been from an unlisted, pre-paid phone that appeared repeatedly on the cell phone bill. The attorney general’s office had taken on the job of tracing it, but so far nothing had turned up. But Maria really needed that information. If Whitney was the owner of the unlisted cell phone, the woman had dug her own grave.
The thought of arresting Whitney didn’t excite Maria like she thought it would have a week ago. She wanted to find the mayor’s killer, but she didn’t want it to be someone like Whitney Thatcher. That was the problem with police work. She couldn’t choose who the good and the bad guys were.
As Maria skirted around boulders and climbed up ridges to get to the cave, she forced herself not to convict Whitney in her mind before she had a chance to hear the woman’s alibi. To distract herself, she tried to recall all the information she could about Freddie Crystal from the news articles in her grandpa’s memory box and the affidavit Sue Tuttle had found at the library. Freddie Crystal had disappeared in 1922 after his efforts to find Montezuma’s gold didn’t pan out. Now, ninety years later, his body had supposedly showed up in the very cave in which a man with an Aztec tattoo was murdered. Could the mayor and Freddie somehow be connected?
Already, the old prospector had left quite a story in the town of Kanab. But maybe the story wasn’t done being told quite yet.
Checking her watch, Maria had another fifteen minutes before she reached the cave. It was time to start doing some empowering visualizations. If she was about to see a dead body, chances were her ghosts would come back and she wanted to be ready for them. The way Ryker had described Freddie’s body had made it sound like he looked like a charred pig that had been barbequed whole in a pit. Not an attractive sight.
Arriving at the site, Maria was met by Ryker. He wore a caving helmet and head lamp, as well as a jacket and long pants. He handed Maria gear for her to put on.
“Are you ready to see something that will amaze you?” Ryker was flushed. Excited. Ecstatic. “I owe you for getting me involved in thi
s, Maria. This is how I’ll be known in the history books.”
Maria, who had once almost been swayed by the idea of becoming a forensic archaeologist, felt her own excitement build. Even if there was a dead body in there, it might be worth the panic to see something few had ever seen before.
“Before we go in,” said Ryker, “I want you to know we are leaving everything exactly as we find it. I hope that meets with your police needs. Tomorrow I’m leaving to go convince the top archaeologists in the nation to come out, and I want the cave virtually undisturbed until they can get here. Deal?”
“Deal,” said Maria. “Besides, I have no idea how any of this could possibly relate to the murder.”
Armed with lanterns, headlamps, and a carbon dioxide detector, Maria and Ryker entered the cave. Jim was already inside. He nodded to Maria. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you.” What she didn’t say was that she had so much going on in her brain it felt near explosion level. Yesterday’s run-in with the Aztec warrior loomed over her as well as the possible discovery of Freddie Crystal’s 90-year-old corpse. The new information about Whitney was unsettling, and then there was the kiss with Rod. Maria would never admit it, but the memory of his lips on hers was taking up more of her thoughts than it should, especially at a stressful time like this in her investigation.
She shook her shoulders back and forth a few times to clear her mind. “Never felt better.”
“I have taken a few … precautions … so you will not be disturbed by any others in the cave today.” Jim said it as casually as if he were discussing taking out the garbage.
“Others?” Maria asked even though she had a pretty good idea of what he meant by it.
“Visitors from the other side.”
An alarm sounded in Maria’s mind. Jim’s words shot a bullet of hysteria into her that traveled up her legs and into her arms and neck.
Visitors from the other side.
Which visitors did Jim mean? Her hallucinations of mangled corpses, or the two Aztec ghosts that seemed to be in a different category all together?
Robbed of Soul: Legends of Treasure Book 1 Page 20