“Visiting.”
“Nice building, that’s for sure.”
“Yes. I might get a condo here one day.” Her eyelids lowered slightly—an indicator that she was telling an outright lie.
“Who were you visiting?”
A sly smile. “Are you jealous, Detective?”
“No, not at all.”
He watched as the smile faded from her lips.
Her features took on hard edges, and her energy became cold. “I do know my rights.”
“Only those who have something to hide worry about their rights.” He had her trapped.
Her features softened again as she tucked a strand of hair behind an ear, a move that struck him as more strategic than habit. “Oh, I apologize. I get nervous around cops.”
“Is that why you haven’t given me your name yet?”
“My name is Amber Watts.”
“Amber suits you well.”
Her head dipped forward in a thank-you. “When can I go?”
“Shortly. You will have to provide all your information to the officer first.”
“Something horrible has obviously happened. In the building, I mean. All this police presence and ETF?”
“It’s an open investigation, and I cannot discuss it.”
She placed her hand on his forearm. “I understand.”
He nodded. She made a huge mistake touching him. Humans were given more than five senses. There was a sixth, whether people wanted to accept it or not. It was intuition, and based on the fact that people were energy beings, with her touch, this sixth sense set off sirens. Any suspicions he had were confirmed. Of course, he’d have to let her go. It wasn’t like he could prove any of this. At least not yet.
-
Chapter 79
AFTER ACCEPTING THAT THEY DIDN’T have the luxury of exploring every inch of the dwellings, Matthew and the others split up to cover more ground and worked their way around the perimeter of the cavern, hacking through the overgrown grasses. The other houses that still hid below the foliage would have to be left for a second visit. The sunlight was fading fast.
Matthew was exhausted from all the machete swinging. His muscles took the brunt of it. His abs, his arms, and even his legs ached with each swipe of the blade. He stopped to catch his breath, finding irony in the fact that they had sought Paititi with such passion and now needed to get away from it as fast as they could.
“We need to call it a day,” he shouted.
“You stop once you find a way out,” Ian yelled back.
“The sun is setting. We might not even find a way out tonight. Besides, we are safer in here than out there,” Matthew responded.
“We keep going.”
Matthew’s lungs heaved, anger swirling in his chest. He thought of his friends’ welfares. The man had a gun, but Matthew had to call the shots. “We’re done for the day.”
“Matthew?” Cal’s voice was a mixture of panic and excitement.
Despite his tired body, Matthew jogged in the direction of his friend’s voice and came to a Banyan tree. It was as if it had missed the memo about keeping its roots beneath the ground and, instead, were a tangle along the tree’s trunk.
“Where are you?” Matthew asked.
“Over here.”
Matthew rolled his eyes as if Cal could see him. “And where is ‘over here’?”
“By the temple.”
Matthew hadn’t thought to look near or inside the temple. He’d figured that if there were a way in, it would be at the opposite side of the cavern so that when visitors arrived, or the Incas entered for worship, they would be instantly struck with awe.
“Do you think you found a way out?”
“I’m coming,” Robyn shouted.
Matthew heard Robyn breaking stalks as she approached quickly. There were no audible indications as to where Ian was, which surprised Matthew given the announcement they might have found the way out.
Matthew went around the tree and lifted himself onto the structure. Robyn caught up with him.
Her eyes said she was thinking the same thing he was: if Ian was nowhere around, and Cal had found a way out, they could make a run for it. If only there were somewhere to actually run. And even if they had found a way out, Ian could catch up, and when he did, at least one of them would pay with his or her life.
“Call out again,” Matthew shouted to Cal.
“The other side of the temple.”
Robyn glanced at Matthew. “The other side?”
Cal must have heard her, or developed a mind-reading ability, because he answered her question. “Yes. Past the dwellings.”
“We’re coming,” she said.
They kept walking across the front of the structure, past the residences to the far side. Over here, the building was tiered as it was on the temple side. Matthew stepped up onto the first tier and turned to help Robyn.
She looked from his hand to his face. “Being all chivalrous I see.”
“All in a day’s work.”
“Uh-huh.” She slapped her hand into his, and he hoisted her up.
They made quick work to move along the end of the structure despite the tiers being narrow, two feet wide at the most, forcing them to walk single file. Matthew imagined the petite Incas wouldn’t have had an issue traversing the structure.
“Call out a—”
Cal was against the cavern wall, up on the structure’s first tier. “See me now?” He did a quirky little wave.
“Of course we do, dumbass.” Robyn laughed.
“Hey.”
“Well, you say something stupid, and…” She shrugged.
There were many reasons Matthew liked her, but her sense of humor was definitely one of them. He periodically had to remind himself that they were better off as friends, though.
Cal gestured for them to hurry, as if they weren’t already moving as fast as they could. “It’s back here.”
Staying on the first tier, Matthew led the way.
Ahead of Matthew, the blocks were slightly set in from the surrounding brickwork, in a pattern roughly the size of a door. Matthew laid his palms against it and pushed left, then right.
“I already tried that,” Cal said. “It doesn’t budge. But you agree? It looks like a door, right?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
Robyn had gone up to the next level to see it, as Matthew was otherwise blocking her view. Cal moved up one more tier.
“So how do we open it?” Cal asked.
Matthew surveyed the area. “This is definitely a door.” Then he gasped. “Do you feel that?”
Cal leaned down and put his hand near Matthew’s. “A draft.”
“Did you look around for any of the gold emblems?”
“Yeah, I did, but I didn’t find anything,” he reported. “Hey, where is Ian?”
Matthew turned, and Robyn waved her hand in the air. Now was the time to share their plan with Cal.
“Tonight when Ian falls asleep, we’re making a move for his gun,” Matthew said.
“Making a move?” Robyn used his words against him. “You better sure as hell hope the move is successful because if it’s not—”
Matthew put a hand on hers to stop the wild gesturing. “We will get his gun. Is that better?”
“Much.”
Matthew run his hands along the stone, then around the framework. “First it would be nice to figure out how to open this thing. The trigger mechanism has to be around here somewhere.”
-
Chapter 80
CAL CLIMBED UP THE TIERS, inspecting every crack. Robyn did the same.
Matthew stayed in front of the door. There were no gold emblems nearby. If only it were as easy as the modern day keyless entry.
Wait… That was it!
He
raced past the dwellings and into the temple. The only illumination now was his flashlight and the faint glow of the moon. He directed the beam to the left wall, and there was one of the symbols they’d found earlier that looked like a button. Efforts to push this one and the others had resulted in nothing happening. The symbols must need to be pushed in sequential order.
It had to be connected, and with the Incas love of misdirection, it was actually possible. Matthew looked at the symbol carefully. What he had failed to identify previously was now blatantly obvious: the number three thousand depicted as it would appear on a quipu. So it was a vertical line—representing the string—with three circles, representing the knots, drawn toward the top with an empty space beneath them.
The gold disc remained in the center of the room where it had settled after emerging from the wall. He considered pressing the gold seal to make it retreat, but would check out something first. He maneuvered into the space where the disc would be concealed when the wall was closed.
His light revealed his suspicion as fact. On the inside wall, where the disc would retreat against, was the number two. Two knots in the hundreds position, with a blank line coming out beneath it.
His heart was racing as he searched for the symbol representing the number nine. He found it on the right wall.
Now, he needed to find the fourth symbol, which also needed to be the number four. Where was it?
“Cal! Robyn!” He cried out for them, not caring if Ian heard, and when they found him in the temple, they gave him a quizzical look.
“Shouldn’t we be finding a way out of here?” Robyn said.
“I think I might have found something. I’m not sure if it’s the way out or not, but it’s worth a try.”
“What is it?” she asked, moving toward him.
He swept his light around, starting with the first symbol and making his way around the room. “When I was in the first dwelling, a quipu was hanging on the wall. You both know what that is?”
“Yeah.”
“Not a clue,” Cal said.
“It’s a device that the Incas used to record numbers,” Matthew explained.
“Okay.”
Matthew smirked. Cal’s ignorance was amusing, especially when Matthew was on an adrenaline high. “The number on the quipu was three-two-nine-four.”
“We pushed the symbols when we first got in here,” Robyn said.
“Yes, but not in the right order.”
“Okay, well, that sounds worth a shot, but we only found three symbols. If you’re right, there needs to be a fourth, and it needs to depict the number four as it would on a quipu.”
“Right. That’s where I’m stuck. I’m open to ideas, guys.” It was by saying it aloud that he realized what he’d missed. When Robyn had pushed the gold seal that brought the disk out of the wall, it had been such a quick discovery that it had sidetracked him. But if he remembered correctly…
He walked to the gold seal in question. “Stand back, guys.”
He pressed it, and the gold disc made its way back and was concealed behind the wall.
Robyn crouched down in the center of the room, exactly beneath where the disc had been. “The number four.”
“So, it’s not a four-digit combo. It’s actually six, if you count the gold seal as a digit.” Matthew paced. There were a couple of variations they could try. For example, they could press the three, then the gold seal to reveal the number two, then the two, then the nine, then the gold seal again to put the disc away and reveal the four, then the four. Or it could go gold seal, three, two, nine, gold seal again, four. There were more variables, but it all seemed to come down to the timing of pushing the gold seal.
“Matt?”
He explained to them what he was thinking. “I say we just keep trying until we get it right and hope there aren’t any penalties if we get it wrong.”
“Do you think this will open the door we found?” Cal asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine, but it’s an idea.”
Cal nodded. “All right, well, let’s try it.”
The three of them stood there, taking deep breaths.
Matthew pushed the gold seal to bring the disc out again. “Okay, Cal, push the three on the left wall.”
He pushed it.
“Robyn, push the two on the back wall.”
“Okay.”
“Now, I’m going to push the gold seal again.” They waited for the disc to return to its hiding spot. Robyn was now in front of the nine. “Press it.” She did. Then he took a deep breath. “Are you guys ready?”
He walked over to the symbol on the floor and pushed it. The sound of stone grating against stone, shifting, echoed through the temple, and the ground beneath them began to shake.
Matthew jumped back as the floor to the left of the number-four symbol parted. Much like the pocket wall that concealed the disc, the floor gave way, but nothing was coming up. Instead, there were stairs leading down. They had guessed the right sequence the first time.
“You weren’t thinking about leaving me behind, I hope.”
They turned to find Ian, his gun leveled on them.
“Would you put that thing away?” Robyn advanced toward Ian. Matthew was able to reach her to stop her from moving any closer to him.
“Now, now,” Ian said. “Take your boyfriend’s advice.”
“He’s not my boy—”
“I don’t really give a rat’s ass. Is this the way out?”
“Not sure about that, but we definitely found something. Why don’t you lead the way?” Matthew secretly hoped there were more traps waiting inside, and he was more than happy to let Ian clear the path.
Ian studied Matthew’s face. “You must think I’m really stupid.” He waved the gun at Robyn. “Ladies first.”
-
Chapter 81
SOPHIE WATCHED THE KNOB TURN, and then the door opened. The man entered, his gun pointed at her, and she pinched her eyes shut.
Seconds passed as she anticipated the bullet, crime shows playing through her mind. The bullets would fire and the video would continue in slow motion, frame by frame, until the bullet met its target… She couldn’t finish the thought. It was her head she was thinking about here, her life.
Why hadn’t he done it already? Was he delaying to drag out this torture even longer? It wasn’t enough that she’d been held here for days, against her will, tied to a bed, given just enough food and water to survive, and no opportunity at all to bathe. Her human rights had been reduced to basic necessities and nothing more.
She took a deep, staggered breath and opened her eyes. “Please, don’t kill me.”
He smiled at her, and it chilled her to the bone. He had more on his agenda than simply following orders. The woman was gone, and here she was alone with this man.
He holstered his gun, and she almost wanted it back in her face. A quick death would be more welcome than what he obviously had in mind.
As he approached the bed, he unbuttoned his jeans and then unzipped his fly. He leered at her, the corners of his mouth lifting. “You are going to get a gift before you leave this world.”
The coldness in his eyes froze her insides. The scream bubbled up in her throat, longing to be expelled. She had nothing more to lose anymore, did she? With the woman gone and this man with his pants almost literally around his ankles, he’d be impeded if he tried to carry out his earlier promise to kill anyone who dared help her.
He unclasped his harness and holster and set it on the end of the bed.
She heaved for oxygen, her chest visibly expanding. His smirk filled out as if her terror turned him on more. He was truly mad.
If only she could somehow get her hands on the gun. If she did, though, was she ready and willing to kill a man? She’d have to be.
As her conscience struggled with the
moral implications, her instinct responded with a resounding affirmative. If it meant the difference between life and death for her, she could justify it, couldn’t she?
He needed to get closer if she was going to pull this off.
God give me strength.
As he lowered himself to the edge of bed, his fingers sought out her flesh. He caressed the base of her neck, tracing down to her collarbone. She wanted to vomit.
But she tried to focus. She needed to fix her foot around the harness and maneuver so she could reach the gun.
“I’ve never been with a black woman before.”
She fought to make herself smile at him, to be seductive, to distract him from any movement she made with her legs. “There’s a first time for everything.” Acid roiled in her stomach as she said the words.
“Yes, there is.” He leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers.
His tongue pushed into her mouth, hungrily and greedily trying to possess her. She tried to allow the situation, to place herself out of body, but it was getting harder and harder to do so.
Her foot found the loop of the harness, then, and she was lifting it up the bed. She had to open her legs to do so, and he took it as an invitation to place his hand on her thigh. He seemed oblivious to the fact she was bringing the gun closer with her movements.
She forced out a moan, and it encouraged him further. She’d never be able to shower enough to wash this man’s touch off her.
Her one free hand brushed his cheek. She opened her eyes and was sickened by this man’s intentions. His eyes were shut as if savoring every second of violating her.
Her hand fell to the harness that wound around her heel. Just another couple of inches and she’d be able to get a grip on it. She moved quickly now, in a jerky motion. Her strength was almost depleted. Enough was enough.
She pulled the gun free of the harness and pressed it to the side of his skull. The weapon was heavy in her hand, her adrenaline all that made it possible to hold it there.
He stopped raping her mouth immediately and pulled back.
All he’d have to do is swipe the gun away, her wrist felt so weak… But would he chance that when she could just pull the trigger?
City of Gold Page 27