Wood, Fire, & Gold

by Jackson, Pam

  “No, we’re going somewhere else—somewhere safe. And we’d better feed that monster growling in your stomach, too.”

  Andie cringed with embarrassment, but she was grateful that she could rest easy wherever they were headed. Knowing that Clay was with her and Tivoli couldn’t find her tonight had lifted enough of her anxiety to give her a new burst of energy. Tomorrow they would find that cave; she couldn’t wait to look over the map again with a clear head and fresh eyes. She was going to find Claudius’s cave, she could feel it—and she was so very grateful for her new guardian angel. How serendipitous that the same man who had saved her from sure death was also the owner of a map to the location.

  The map. She remembered the familiar but barely perceivable scent from the paper. Her head was still a bit foggy, and she knew she would remember the scent later.

  Then there was Luca Eberstark. She dismissed the creepy feeling that was gnawing at her senses. Did he survive? She didn’t actually see his ugly head sink below the water line and stay there, the way Clay had described his cousin Sean’s demise. It didn’t matter. Eberstark had no idea where she and Clay were headed, and he had no transportation to search for them. Luca Eberstark didn’t know this place like Clay did, and with that thought, she regained her confidence.

  “Oh, Clay, don’t forget your sunglasses.” She reached down into the snow and recovered the dark shades that he’d tossed aside. “Hmm,” she said to herself so Clay couldn’t hear her. “Bulgari sunglasses? Not bad on a military salary.” She was more of a Chanel girl herself. She shrugged and caught up to Clay with his sunglasses in her hand.

  “For you,” she said as she placed them into his hand, feeling his fingers caress hers and linger there for a second too long. “You look great in them—like a secret agent.” She winked at him and flashed her sexiest smile.

  “Nah, trust me, darlin’, I don’t have those mad skills. C’mon, we should be able to get to the hunting cabin before dark if we move it.”

  “Hunting cabin? Not back to your house?”

  “No, Andie, the house has been compromised. If Eberstark found us out here, he most likely was surveilling my house. Trust me, you’ll like this place. You can even take a shower.” He grinned wickedly. “Of course, it’s an outdoor shower—but I can melt up some snow for you and put it in a water bladder. You’ll be just like Wilderness Barbie.”

  “Oh, I get it. Let’s tease poor Andie. Just remember who saved your ass back there, buddy.” She loved this pleasant banter between them—hell, anything beat the untrusting, bad-ass Clay she’d grown accustomed to, and she couldn’t help but wonder why he had brought up the fact that the cabin had a shower. Damn. Suddenly, she could feel a knot of desire pulling tightly in her middle. All this, just thinking about the carved planes and ridges that most likely accentuated every part of him. And what about his words as they had sped through the woods on the snowmobile? Hard and ready for you—maybe it was just the adrenaline expressing itself through his penis. Maybe.

  ###

  The pristine, black Bentley pulled up near the waterfront warehouse. The bright lights of Manhattan that would normally cast long shadows across the width of the Hudson River at the New Jersey mud flats were now muted by a deep fog along the shoreline. Rivulets of water carved meandering valleys in the packed snow that covered the tin roofs of cinder block buildings.

  Giovanni Tivoli sighed with annoyance as he looked down at his Berluti loafers and cashmere pants, wondering why he hadn’t put on a pair of Timberlands before he left his warm penthouse. “Bloody hell! Duke, are you sure this is the address Vincente gave you?”

  “Yes, sir. Warehouse number 14, Jersey City industrial storage facility. This is it, but I don’t see anyone around.” Duke squinted his beady eyes to scan the desolate loading area of the warehouse and the decrepit wooden dock.

  “Of course they’re not around, fool. Civilized people are home, waiting for the snow to melt and recede into the river. Well ... what are you waiting for?” Tivoli trained his eyes on his valet as though Duke should be reading his mind. “Go ahead, get out. Go and find a door or something and see if Vincente is here so we can get this meeting over with.”

  Before Duke could open the leather paneled door, bare knuckles tapped sharply against Tivoli’s tinted window. Tivoli opened the door instead of rolling down the window to exchange greetings. He wanted this meeting over; he wanted this entire business deal over. Vincente Ospina was becoming more irrational and inflexible with every day that the Atros Fallis wasn’t delivered. Andie was supposed to have found its location and passed it on to him, but instead she had taken off with all the research and was now missing somewhere in the Ramapo Mountains.

  That little bitch will die by my own hand when I find her.

  A hulking, dark-haired man with a tawny complexion was standing next to the limousine. Without a word to Tivoli, the muscle man motioned for him to follow with Duke in tow like the trusted hound he was.

  A flickering fluorescent light illuminated a rusted metal door against the south side of the building. The words Keep Out—Biohazard Materials were freshly painted on it in large red letters. Tivoli looked at Duke and arched one of his perfectly manicured eyebrows with suspicion as they entered the dim warehouse.

  “Ah, my friends, so very glad that you could join me here on this miserable evening.” Vincente Ospina clapped his hands, and a broad smile crossed his face. A gold tooth sparkled beneath his top lip as he relayed orders to his bodyguards in Spanish. Ospina, Tivoli and Duke found themselves standing alone among crates and boxes marked Medical Supplies.

  “Well, Vincente, I would rather have met you at Harry’s Bar for a CC Manhattan on the rocks than at this rodent condominium you’re calling your office these days.”

  “Yes, my friend, I do agree with you, but then I could not have shown you my surprise. But first, why don’t you update me on the whereabouts of my precious book of spells? My chemists are waiting. With … ah, how do you say? Bated breath.”

  “Yes, it’s like I told you yesterday on the phone, my men are handling it. There was a slight snag in the retrieval of the Atros Fallis, but it’s being recovered as we speak.” Tivoli was lying through his pearly whites, and he prayed to whatever gods might hear him that Ospina did not see the sweat rising on his brow. He was no nearer to finding the Atros Fallis than he had been a year ago; the one person who had any definitive answers was the one person he had thought would never betray him. He had trusted Andie more than Duke, but maybe it was because he had never wanted to fuck Duke. Fucking Andie was the one thing Tivoli had always been denied.

  Tivoli had kept Andie close—mostly by intimidation—and he’d offered himself to her daily. He’d almost lost her once to a devoted lover, but Tivoli made sure that ended.

  “Yes, yes. All of this I know, but I need a time, Giovanni.” Vincente Ospina tugged at the wide, white lapels of his tailored silk shirt. He was dressed more for a night out in South Beach than for the mean, cold streets of New York. His eyes were narrow slits, and his dark stare penetrated deep into Tivoli’s blue eyes. He cracked his knuckles before turning to walk to a row of fifty-five-gallon steel drums. “Si, I need a time frame, sooner than later, of course, but I do need an exact time and date that you will deliver my property. Ah ... and as I recall, I did give you mucho dinero in advance for this book of spells. I am a reasonable man, Giovanni, but I do not enjoy being made to look like a fool.”

  “Of course not. I will have the Atros Fallis ... I mean, your book of spells, in two days. Like I said, my men are retrieving it as we speak.”

  “Are your men retrieving your little zorra, too?” Vincente Ospina’s smile widened, showing two more polished gold teeth gleaming in the dim light. “Your little vixen seems to have betrayed you, Giovanni. What are you going to do about that?”

  Tivoli was stunned. Anger surged through his bowels, both at Ospina for spying on him, and at Andie for placing him in this impossible and humiliating position. He ha
d to think fast, since any lie he told Ospina at this point could send him deeper down the rabbit hole. “I will handle her, she is my responsibility. She is not part of this equation. This deal is between you and me. And remember, you need me to translate the writing from Phrygian to whatever pidgin language your so-called chemists can comprehend.”

  Ospina laughed, his bellows vibrating off the cold cinder block walls. “Very good ... ah, very good, my friend. I like a man who can play the game as well as I can. I tell you what ... I will give you two more days, Giovanni, but remember, I will have no choice but to kill you if you don’t deliver.” His words were as dark as his stare. He clapped his hands and motioned for one of his gorillas to slide over a steel drum and open it so Tivoli could see its contents.

  The stench of death was overwhelming, and Duke nearly went down to his knees as both men peered into the depth of the drum. It was Andie’s longtime friend and confidante, Dr. Samuel Nassir. Duke had tried the day before to contact him, but there was no answer at his home or at his museum office. If anyone might know where Andie was, it was Dr. Nassir. Much to Tivoli’s chagrin, she’d been consulting with him about the legend of King Midas and the Atros Fallis.

  Poor bastard, Tivoli thought, but with no remorse. Nassir was collateral damage in this deal with the devil.

  Although, Samuel Nassir wasn’t as innocent as he was perceived to be by everyone at the Middle Eastern Antiquities Department at the museum. He’d met Andie and Tivoli at an illicit auction held in London for second millennium B.C. Bactrian fertility objects. He too understood the complex system for recovering objects from countries that were corrupt with money-hungry officials who would sell off precious pieces of their ancestral history for a shiny nickel. His position at the museum was well established and unquestionable, and he was extremely productive at enhancing museum exhibits that brought in large sums of money—of course, all in the name of historical preservation.

  We are the same, Dr. Nassir. I just wear better suits. Tivoli smirked at the irony as he stared at Nassir’s lifeless body stuffed into the steel drum. Nassir’s throat had been cut, and he seemed to have been beaten as well. The marks on his face and hands were red and ulcerated. Then, to Tivoli’s horror, he noticed the softball sized, lime green rocks that filled most of the drum around Dr. Nassir’s bloodied body. The acrid odor of hydrochloric acid was burning into Tivoli’s sinuses as he realized the wounds were not caused by a brutal beating—they were burns from the acid and the radioactive rocks that had been dumped into the steel drum. The same radioactive rocks and acid needed for the gold formula. Now, they just needed the Atros Fallis to put the ingredients in order. Bloody hell, the things we do for money.

  “This is my present to you, Giovanni Tivoli. I know how much you were displeased by Dr. Nassir’s friendship with your little zorra, so I got rid of him for you. Sí, now you owe me.”

  Chapter 12

  “Outstanding, Paul, right where I told you to leave it,” Clay said under his breath. He rummaged through the black duffel bag, which was similar to the one he had lost when his snowmobile went over the cliff. Everything he needed was here, even toothbrushes with toothpaste. He closed the closet door and pushed the torn and weathered sofa back in front of it. The cabin was narrow and extra space was at a premium, but it would be the Taj Mahal compared to sleeping outside in a primitive shelter.

  “Hey, look what I found.” Clay held up the toothbrushes and toothpaste, waving them jubilantly in the air like he had just won an oversized stuffed animal at the county fair.

  “Well, I hope there’s more than that in your bag of tricks, because I don’t think dining on minty-fresh toothpaste is going to cut it.” Andie smiled and stepped forward, taking in the interior of the hunting cabin.

  He smirked as he watched her scan the cramped space. “It’s not like my house, but it’s safe and warm. Luke Myers owns it, but when I’m home, Paul Krause and I use it for hunting. There’s a wood burning stove, and I know that Luke and his sons just bought a new queen-size mattress to use in the back bedroom.” He pointed toward the narrow back end of the lodge. “The mattress is probably more for Luke’s boys. I once caught his eldest son, Troy, trying to make the moves on his girlfriend out here on the sofa bed.” Clay’s face lit with amusement at the recollection. “See that?” He lifted his eyes to the hand-sized hole above them. “There’s a broken plank in the roof, and I knew he was in here with her, so I very quietly climbed on the roof and shouted through the hole.”

  “What did you say to them?” Andie was intrigued by his juvenile prank, but she felt terrible for the young girl in that compromising position.

  “Oh, just something along the lines of being the young girl’s father and that I would shoot him in the ass if he didn’t take his hands off of her.”

  “You’re awful, Clay, a mean, mean man,” she said with laughter.

  “You have no idea, Andie. But sometimes I can manage sweet.” He flashed a devilish grin and a wink, then continued his guided tour. “There’s an outhouse and a shower stall along the side of the cabin, and like I said before, I’ll melt some snow on the stove and you’ll be in business to get cleaned up.” His tone went flat. “Of course, the bed is yours, and I’ll make myself comfortable out here.” He patted the dusty sofa bed, which creaked under the weight of his large hand.

  “Thank you. This is more than hospitable, Clay. I like the decor, really. My Uncle Mike had a place like this in northern Georgia. He wasn’t a blood uncle, but a fellow Ranger with my dad. As kids, we enjoyed admiring his hunting trophies and the Confederate and Union Army artifacts he found while walking the woods. It’s probably one of the reasons why I love history so much.”

  Her senses were on overload as she looked with amazement at the antiques and old maps that littered every shelf and all available wall space. This place looked more like a chart house for a clipper ship than an old shotgun shack. Although, there were still enough weapons in here to support a small militia. She observed the large serrated knives and the crossbows that surrounded fox pelts and deer heads proudly mounted to the red clapboard walls. Every available space was consumed with survival gear—there were even several tomahawks wedged into exposed wall studs.

  As the sun faded through two small windows at the front end of the cabin, Andie watched Clay reach for a rusted chain to turn on a low-wattage bulb that hung from the center of a deer antler lighting fixture. His body was crowding the cramped space between them as his cotton shirt lifted at the waistband of his jeans, revealing creamy, smooth skin and sculpted muscles with a trace of soft, dark hair that swirled around his navel and disappeared into the blue denim. Dotted like a treasure map, all the way down to X marks the spot.

  Andie quickly looked away, her cheeks blazing, and she realized Clay was watching her reaction.

  “Do you like the antlers?” he asked with a prolonged gaze into her eyes.

  “Uh ... what?” she gasped, trying to collect herself. “Oh. Yeah, it’s kitschy.”

  “Speaking of antlers, don’t be afraid of Murdoch tonight while you’re sleeping.”

  Oh, shit, she thought. What kind of freaky funhouse did he bring her to? No sleep for her with anything named Murdoch lurking around.

  “Who or what is Murdoch?” She scrunched her brows together, her imagination getting the best of her. “Please tell me it’s not some evil troll living under the house, or worse yet, a clown. I hate clowns, especially evil clowns.”

  She was making light of the situation; she definitely wanted to veer away from the fact that just thirty seconds before, he’d caught her sneaking a peek at his lovely package stuffed in his fitted jeans.

  A mischievous smile lit up Clay’s face as he grasped Andie’s hand and pulled her toward the back bedroom. Before she could mentally process whether this was Clay’s quirky way of getting her to bed, her eyes fell upon it—the strangest piece of taxidermy she’d ever seen. It was the head of a large brown bear, and fastened to the top of its fury forehea
d were enormous caribou or elk antlers. The ends of the antlers were sharpened to spear-like tips that were covered in some kind of casted silvery metal. To top it all off, it wore a heavy-duty leather studded collar. It looked like a creature straight from hell. From its sheer size, it took up ninety percent of the wall space where it hung.

  “Uh, maybe you should take the bed. I’ll be very comfortable on the sofa bed.” Her bewildered gaze left the hideous beast and moved to a queen-sized mattress with comfortable flannel sheets. There was no frame, just a box spring and the mattress. Christ, she thought, I’ll sleep on the floor before I sleep in here with that thing eyeballing me all night.

  “We’ll talk about it later, Andie. I can heat up some water if you would like to take a shower.” He reached out and stroked a long finger against her cheek, removing some dirt that remained from their encounter with Eberstark and his men. His eyelids were heavy and hooded, his stare never leaving her face.

  Her hand met his, and she wiped away the crusted mud and dried wood pulp. For Andie, the silence between them was more frustrating than uncomfortable.

  “Okay, sure,” she said, trying to get out from under his seductive stare. “I think I could use it after two days on the run, and definitely one of those toothbrushes, too.”

  He removed himself from the cabin without a word to retrieve some fresh snow. Moments later, there was a red-hot fire behind the glass door of the potbelly stove. A large, cast-iron pot filled with water was beginning to steam, and Andie could feel her sore muscles craving the warm water.

  “Take your time, we’re safe here. There’s nothing to worry about.” He handed her the full water bladder for her shower. “Just hang it on the plastic hook and open the release valve when you want the water to flow.”