by Ann Charles
“Have you ever witnessed Pedro in pain before? Does he tend to pass out?”
“I’ve seen him hurt himself here and there over the years, but I’ve never seen him pass out before.” She glanced at the tent flap and then back at Quint, lowering her voice. “Fernando told me that Benito thought he saw a dart next to Pedro when he and Jared first came upon him. But after Jared and he returned from getting help, the dart was gone.”
His brow wrinkled. “You mean like a tranquilizer dart?”
“Yes, and that would explain Pedro’s unconscious state, but nobody has been able to find it.”
“What about Steel? Did he see it, too?”
“No. Jared didn’t see a dart, but he clarified that with all of the blood, he barely looked at Pedro before having to turn away or throw up.”
“But Benito swears it was there?”
She nodded.
“Could Jared be lying?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Who knows with Steel.”
“I don’t think so. I think whoever is fucking with us did something to hurt Pedro.”
“You think they stabbed him in the thigh with the screwdriver?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. But they may have put something in his water bottle when he wasn’t looking.”
“So what do we do now?”
Hiding behind her hands, she knew the right thing to do no matter what it meant to her future. She peeked out between her fingers. “I’m thinking about sending everyone home with full pay.”
Quint’s jaw gaped. “What?”
She lowered her hands. “Hell, four of them are already skipping out first thing in the morning. They’d leave now, but they’re too scared to walk through the jungle at night.”
“If you do that, it means you won’t finish what you need to by the end of the dig season.”
“I’ve put everyone’s lives in jeopardy for long enough. I can’t risk any more for the sake of my future.”
“Would you be leaving, too?”
“Of course not.”
“What about Juan and Teodoro?”
“It’s up to them, but Dad will probably stay. I don’t know about Teodoro and María. They usually split their time between here and the village, coming to the site weekly during the rainy season to check up on it. They act as the caretakers. They may want to take a break until this all blows over.” She sighed in resignation. “Fernando may stay as well. That’s up to him.”
Quint crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving.”
She was too worn out to do more than glare at him. “You’ll go if I say you go.”
“Not without you.”
“Parker, don’t you understand what we’re up against here? I’m not talking about small time pranks like lighting firecrackers outside your tent at night. Whoever is behind these attacks is aiming to seriously injure if not kill.”
“That’s why I’m not going anywhere without you.”
She growled at the ceiling. “Why do you have to fight me on everything?”
He went down on one knee in front of her, capturing her hands. “Angélica, think about it. What if something happens to your dad in one of the temples? You can’t carry him out on your own.”
He had a good point, damn it. “I’ll manage.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’ve always managed on my own before.”
“Christ, you’re so damned obstinate!”
“Said the kettle!”
He stared at her long and hard. “Whether you like it or not, woman, I’m staying. You need my help.”
Why couldn’t he see that what she needed was for him to leave so he wasn’t the next one carried into Teodoro’s hut with blood pumping out of him? She didn’t want Quint to go, but she didn’t want him getting hurt or worse because of her determination to find that damned shell. This was her obsession, her madness. Not his.
She tugged her hands free of his grip. “I don’t need anyone,” she lied.
He grabbed her by the front of her shirt, pulling her toward him. She let him, wanting him to kiss her and make her forget about everything that had gone wrong this season, at least for a while. She watched him, waiting with her pulse pounding for what came next.
Mere centimeters from her mouth, he stopped, hovering. “Liar,” he whispered, his breath hot on her skin.
Then he was gone, zipping the tent flap closed behind him and leaving her alone with Rover and her worries.
Chapter Nineteen
La Verdad: The truth.
What a messed up dig season this had turned out to be.
In spite of all that had gone wrong, Angélica was breathing easier the next morning when she found out that Pedro was okay. Her father had confirmed Pedro was up and hungry as a bear when he’d met her coming out of her tent. She’d grabbed a plate of food from the mess tent and headed for Teodoro’s place in search of answers.
When she entered the hut, she found Pedro sitting up on the bed, arguing with her father. They both looked over when she shut the door behind her.
“How do you feel?” she asked Pedro, joining them, wondering what was going on between him and her dad.
“Hungry and mad!” He pointed at Teodoro. “He keeps poking me with sharp things and su padre refuses to let me go back to work this morning.”
She looked at her dad. “Don’t you two know better than to poke the bear?” She pulled out the plate of food from behind her back. “Especially when he’s just come out of hibernation?”
“¡Dios mio! You really are an angel,” Pedro said with a huge grin. He gave her a loud smooch on the cheek and took the plate from her.
Juan moved over next to her, putting his arm around her shoulder. “Whew! You saved us from getting mauled.”
Angélica turned to Teodoro, who was busy grinding something on a metate at the table. “I thought you said he was injured,” she spoke in Mayan.
“His leg is, not his stomach,” Teodoro replied in the same tongue.
Pedro tore off another huge bite, his cheeks puffed out with food.
“Look at that appetite, Teodoro.” Juan chuckled. “I guess we won’t have to take him out back and put him down after all.”
Pedro finished the last bite, dropped the plate on the chair next to the bed and sighed, smiling contentedly at her as he lay back on the bed with his hands behind his head. “Life is good.”
“Except for the hole in your leg.”
He waved her off. “That’s better than a hole in my head.”
Angélica could use some of his optimism this morning. As much as she’d like to relax along with him, she needed those answers now to help her make a final decision about keeping the rest of the crew or sending them home.
“Four more men left this morning,” she told the three of them as she sat down on the end of the bed, careful not to bump Pedro’s leg. “I need to know what happened yesterday, Pedro.”
Pedro’s eyebrows drew together. “I was making my way through the rocks, trying to be careful because I’d twisted my ankle there last dig season.”
Angélica nodded. “I remember.”
“Then it felt like something stung me on the back of my neck.” He was silent a moment, appearing lost in thought. Then he shrugged. “The next thing I know, I’m waking up screaming.”
Angélica shot Teodoro a frown. “He was screaming?”
“Not screaming,” Teodoro clarified. “Crying, like your father when he needs fixing.”
“I have never cried.”
Teodoro harrumphed.
Juan’s face darkened. “Okay, maybe once. But you didn’t have to stab me with that extra-long needle there. You could’ve put it in my arm.”
Teodoro was smiling when he returned to his grinding. “Pedro can work after lunch,” he said in Spanish over his shoulder. “He needs more sleep first.”
“What?” Pedro sat up. “I’m fine now. A moment ago, I was walking around here with barely a limp.”
&nbs
p; “After lunch,” Teodoro iterated, putting his shoulders into his work.
Grabbing her hand, Pedro implored her with his dark eyes. “You need me, Angel. I’m fine. Let me help this morning.”
Why was everyone around here telling her what she needed these days? “I need you strong and healthy,” she told him, pushing him back onto the pillow. “I also need another answer from you.”
After wrinkling his nose at Teodoro’s back, Pedro looked up at her. “Shoot, bebé.”
“Benito said he saw a dart in the rocks next to you, but when we got there, it was gone. Do you think that sting you felt could have been from a tranquilizer dart?”
“Maybe. That would explain why I blacked out and didn’t wake up even when I fell on my screwdriver.”
“My thoughts exactly.” She exchanged a worried glance with her father.
“Why shoot me with a tranquilizer? Who would do that?” Pedro rubbed the back of his neck at the base of his hairline. “Why not just shoot me with a bullet?”
“I don’t know. Someone is getting more serious about getting rid of those of us still here.” She rose from the bed and crossed the room, keeping her face averted as several “what-ifs” flew through her thoughts.
When she turned back, Juan was checking the area on the back of Pedro’s head. But it didn’t matter if they found a dart hole or not. She believed Benito. It made sense with the way Pedro had blacked out.
“Why do you have to have so much hair?” Juan grumbled. “Maybe we should shave him bald again.”
“Get away from my head.” Pedro slapped at Juan’s hands. “I still haven’t paid you back for that last time.”
“You’re the one who wanted a Mohawk.”
“I was drunk on balche when I told you to cut my hair.”
“That made two of us. The next time we reenact the Barber of Seville, we should probably at least start out sober.”
Their banter lightened the bleakness in Angélica’s heart, but it didn’t make the task in front of her any easier.
“You know what this means, Dad.”
Juan looked at her, his expression growing somber. “Maybe we should let this set for another day. Make doubly sure first.”
“Sure of what?” Pedro’s brow lined as he searched each of their faces in turn. “What are you talking about?”
Fuck. She’d worked so hard for so long to get her own dig site, to prove herself. Fury burned in her chest at the cowardice of whoever was behind the sabotage.
“No, I have to let them go today.” She blinked back tears of frustration.
“Oh, gatita.” Juan crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. “It’ll be okay. We’ll make it through this together.”
“Let who go?” Pedro asked.
She closed her eyes, burrowing into her father’s arms.
“Everyone,” Juan answered for her. “She’s going to shut us down.”
* * *
Quint stopped in to check on Teodoro’s patient after breakfast. While Teodoro’s back was turned, he slipped Pedro some tortillas in case he needed a snack.
“Gracias, mi amigo.” Pedro stuffed the tortillas under his pillow. “How do you like working with Juan in the Dawn Temple?” His face split into a big fat grin as soon as the question left his lips.
Quint shuddered and told Pedro about Juan’s batting practice. “If I ever have to step foot back in that over-sized coffin it will be one damned day too soon.”
An hour later Quint stood inside the Dawn Temple once again, sweating his ass off, cursing at the cracks in the ceiling.
Oh, the irony.
From up on a stepladder, Juan held out his hand for some nails from the box Quint was holding for him. “I need a few more.”
He dropped the nails in Juan’s hand.
“Okay, now hold that right there while I sister this onto the header,” Juan muttered through the nails sticking out of his mouth. He hammered a nail through the board Quint was holding up overhead.
Flinching with each pound, Quint ducked his head, keeping the board pressed against the cracked header beam. The echoes reverberated off the chamber’s crumbling walls and ceiling, making him sweat even more.
“Okay, that should do it.” Juan climbed down. “Now just the two jack studs on each side to support that reinforced header and the entryway should hold for a few more years.”
Eyeing Juan’s work, he doubted even rebar and concrete would keep this place from crumbling for a few more years.
“Angélica wants to send everyone home,” Juan said. “Including Fernando and you.”
That had come out of left field. “Does that mean her theory about the tranquilizer dart is true?”
“She told you about that, huh?” When Quint nodded, Juan smiled. “Interesting.”
“We talked about it last night in her tent.”
“Even more intriguing.”
“What? That she told me her theory?”
“Yes, and that you made it in and out of her tent alive. That place is one dirty sock away from becoming a superfund site.”
Quint chuckled. “Does her eviction order include you? Or are you staying?”
“Staying, of course. We still have work to do. What about you?”
“I’m not leaving. Not unless she goes, too.”
“Excellent.” Juan patted his shoulder. “I was counting on you being too bullheaded to obey her order.”
“Although,” Quint said, stepping out into the passageway and lifting one of the studs with a grunt, “I’m sure she’ll put up a fight.” He glanced over at Juan as he carried the timber over and hefted it into place. “What about Pedro?”
“He’s staying and so is Fernando, whether she likes it or not.” Juan climbed up the stepladder and pounded several nails into the steel bracket that fastened the jack stud to the header.
“What about Steel?” Quint asked when Juan finished.
Juan flexed his hammering hand. “He’s staying, too.”
“Shit.” Quint collected the other stud from the hall. “That man is like a tapeworm.”
“Or a tick. He sure sucked the lifeblood out of my daughter.”
Quint smiled as he carried in the timber. That was one of the things he liked most about Juan—his mutual dislike for Steel. He set the jack stud in place. “At least their marriage didn’t last long.”
“Yeah, but it changed her. She used to be more carefree. Not such a workaholic.”
Really? He would have liked to have seen her then.
“And this whole distrust issue of hers now drives me nuts.” Juan pounded nails into the bracket holding the other jack stud in place.
“You mean she hasn’t always been that way?”
“Nope.” Juan climbed down off the stepladder. “She used to have a lot more faith in people.”
Shit. This didn’t make telling her about his search for Dr. Hughes any easier.
“Nowadays, she trusts only those closest to her, the ones she really cares about.”
So what happened if she cared about someone and then found out he’d been hiding part of the truth from her? Would Angélica ever trust him again?
While Juan inspected his work, pushing on the jack studs, studying the walls and ceiling, Quint pondered why earning Angélica’s trust mattered so much to him.
He wasn’t sure he liked the answer.
“You’ve got it bad, don’t you, boy?”
Quint grimaced. “Is it that obvious?”
“Well, you do get pretty bristly and territorial around her.” Juan pulled a pair of leather gloves from his back pocket. “Play your cards right, and you might win.”
He’d be smarter to fold and walk away.
It was time to change the subject. “So, what’s next in here? We move to another chamber?”
Juan clapped Quint on the shoulder. “Unfortunately for our backs, Mr. Photojournalist, we get to spend the rest of the day moving these rocks out of here.”
Studying the huge pile of limesto
ne pieces taking up two-thirds of the room, Quint tried to figure out Juan’s goal. “How are you going to keep the ceiling from caving in further?”
“Using those timbers outside on the ground. We’ll shore it up as we go.”
“And you’re sure that’s safe?” Quint scrutinized the cracks riddling the ceiling.
“Safe is a term I like to use loosely.”
“Great.” He really hated this temple. “I’m a dead man.”
“Think of it as a new weight-lifting routine to build your upper body strength.”
“I’d rather stick with lifting a panucho to my mouth.”
“Pedro would agree with you wholeheartedly.”
“How long ago did this cave in?”
Juan shrugged. “I don’t know. It was like this when we started working at this site. We haven’t gotten around to cleaning it up until this year.”
That was typical of Quint’s luck. He should have come a year earlier.
“Normally, there would be about four more men working on this with us.” Juan kicked a small baseball-sized stone toward the pile. “As it is, we’re it.”
Quint’s back ached just looking at the pile. “Where do we start?”
“Grab that wheelbarrow I left around the corner. We’ll take a load of rocks out and bring in the timbers.”
Quint went out in the passageway, making sure the path outside was relatively smooth. When he wheeled back into the room, he found Juan standing off to the side of the pile of rocks, a perplexed look on his face.
“That’s curious,” Juan said.
Quint parked the wheelbarrow next to him. “What’s curious?”
Juan pointed his flashlight beam at where the pile butted up against the wall, about twelve feet back. “Near the very bottom there—do you see that?”
Quint leaned forward, noticing something lighter in color than the rest of the rocks around it. “What is it?
“I think it’s a hat.”
* * *
Finding what looked like a hat in the Dawn Temple was the top story at the lunch table. Who knew a hat could rouse so much excitement, Quint thought, as he described what it looked like to Pedro, which was mostly a dust-covered, smashed, barely recognizable hat. Juan figured it belonged to a member of Angélica’s crew from years before, maybe even from when her mother and he had run the site.