She had to find a way out of here. Get more information, which required that she be a diligent observer and listener and also strategic. Eric had his opinion of her. However, she had grown tremendously while in Guatemala, and he didn’t know that. She had discovered her spine of steel, which was encouraged and celebrated by Luca.
“Doctor…” Inés held the rusting door of the shower stall. “Pull the latch over there,” she said, indicating a molding rope in the corner. “Hang your sunglasses over the ledge.” She stared at Ari with open malice now that Eric was not around.
The shower consisted of corrugated metal walls on three sides and a door that could be locked from the inside. A small but functional showerhead extended up from one corner of the stall. Ari had privacy, yet she could see three hundred and sixty degrees around her, since the walls only came up to her chin. The lukewarm water, a good distance from the river source, came out in a trickle, and it felt great. Sweat and grime seemed to have embedded in all the layers of her skin. She moved to wash her hair. It was difficult because her hair was knotted and matted in places. And it was painful. She still had a significant headache, and the wound at her hairline began to bleed again.
Most of the activity was concentrated on the large hill. Limestone had been exposed by backhoes since she had been brought here, and now men were frantically digging with shovels. What did they think they might find? They worked fast but not carefully. The energy was manic.
Luca popped into her thoughts again. Fresh tears mingled with the water. She admonished herself to toughen up. Tears weren’t going to do her any good. The image of him disheveled, his camp shirt open, and he and Natasha embracing that night, flashed. Was there another reason he had his shirt open and she was there? He had tried to talk to her, warn her about assumptions. “Shit.” Ari winced after ripping off a thick scab from scrubbing roughly at her arm. The blood from it and her head added to the thickening muck under her feet. Her body wracked with silent sobs. God, it hurt.
“Hurry up, Doc. This isn’t a spa.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Ari lobbed back. She was only able to see the top of the woman’s dark head.
Inés’s voice was sharp. She asked loudly, “What?”
“Was I talking to you?” Ari’s voice rose in anger. She was pissed to be reminded that she was Eric’s prisoner.
Inés sounded unsure. “Weren’t you?”
“Is your name Sherlock?”
“No.”
Ari turned the water off and grabbed the towel draped over one of the walls. She squeezed the excess water out of her hair before patting herself dry. “Do you have lotion?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Well, you have soap. It makes sense that I would ask the question. I didn’t pack my wash kit because I had no idea I was being kidnapped.”
“No.” Inés sneered. “The Americano only asked me to get you soap. He said you smelled like shit.”
“Can you please ask the American asshole? I’m sure he has lotion. I recall he likes to primp. Enjoys the scented stuff, although out here anything scented is an insect magnet.”
“You are disrespectful. Watch your mouth. And no, I will not ask him.”
“Where are the clothes I’m to wear?”
Inés threw them over the partition. They landed in the rapidly disappearing muddy water.
“Thanks. So considerate of you,” Ari said hatefully as she put her arms through the sleeves of a lightweight shirt and began buttoning it. No undergarments. Shit. She would go commando. She splayed her legs to keep the oversized pants from falling back down her trim legs and onto the mud floor, struggling with the long belt, now slick from landing in the draining soapy water.
“You take too much time. I’m needed for lunch.”
Her voice full of anger, Ari shot back, “Am I a magician? You just threw them over the wall. You could do with some patience. I need my sandals. Please.” The last words came as an order. She ducked as her sandals sailed over the partition, only able to catch one as the other thudded to the shower floor, spraying muddy soap onto the borrowed pants. “Nice, Inés. You could have handed them to me.”
Mean laughter erupted from the other side. “Let’s go.” The shower creaked and snapped as Inés banged on it. “Now, Doctor. You are to see the medic.”
Ari took a deep breath, steeling herself for lunch and what might follow, and unlocked the door, pushing past Inés and toward the kitchen area.
“What do you think, Ariana?” Eric shook out his paper napkin, as if he were at some nice restaurant, and placed it on his lap.
“What do I think of what? Dinner? Looks better than the beans I’ve been eating for days, but I lost my appetite when I knew I’d be eating with you.”
Eric’s fork paused midway to his mouth, his face taking on a deeper shade of color in the flickering lantern light. Annoyance sparked in his eyes, but it was gone just as quickly, as if she’d imagined it. “My discovery. It was quite a surprising find.”
“Your discovery? All by yourself? Really? And just what is this discovery? Why am I here? Answer me!” Fury seethed through her. “How did you finance this operation? I have an idea what you’re paid by the university. What the hell are you involved in, Eric?”
He leaned in. His heated words were measured as he spoke. “You’d be best advised to lower your voice and not bait me. My fuse with you is short, compounded by this fucking miserable weather.”
“Your bravado doesn’t impress or frighten me. Even if you are hell-bent on hitting and abusing me to convince yourself that you control me. I doubt you discovered the site by yourself.” Ari’s rage made her brave. She leaned in, almost nose to nose with him. “Because you just aren’t that smart. But if you did, it was just dumb luck. And God help you, you’re looting it!” She sat back, her heart pounding. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You consider yourself an archaeologist and anthropologist? What well-respected archaeologist and anthropologist loots? You know antiquity is reverent. You’re an embarrassment.” She snapped her fingers in the air. “Jesus, you had me abducted to figure out just what it was you discovered. You don’t have the expertise, and I do. You need me to explain just what it is you”—her hands swept the space around her in a circle—“have here. I’ll give it to you though. Apparently you have the muscle and the connections. What is it?”
“Shut up, Ariana. You always had a bitchy quality to you.” He lunged at her, spilling her untouched dinner.
She shot up from her camp chair and out of his reach, yelling, “Stay the hell away from me, you fucking prick.” She seethed at Eric. “Take me back. I will not help you.”
“You are not going anywhere until I determine you may do so. Is that clear? This is my operation. You will do as I say, when I say,” Eric said, glaring at her, and threw his napkin down onto his empty plate. “I will see you at 0700. Do not keep me waiting.”
“I won’t, only because I have no choice. But keep your distance, or else…”
He stepped close to her, standing mere inches from her face, dropping his voice, yet it was full of warning. “Or else what, Ariana?”
“I responded to your letters. Or should I say, I responded to your wife.”
He flinched and stepped back. “You’re full of shit. You wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Wouldn’t I? Have you ever known me to lie? Pull your leg?”
“Explain yourself.”
“Sir, yes sir.” Ari saluted, her anger quelling the fear biting at her ankles. “I wrote your wife.”
“You’re lying. You don’t know her name.”
“Am I? Have I ever lied, Eric? That’s your forte. You know the answer to that as sure as you stand before me. I addressed it to my ex-lover’s wife. How do you like them apples? I told her that was why I had to address her in that way because you conveniently left out the facts that you were married and the father of two beautiful teen girls. I explained how we met. How you pursued me. When we were first intimate and
that I broke it off immediately upon seeing you all at the ice-cream shop. I even sent her a few selfies of us in our favorite Japanese restaurant—you know, the one where you were nuzzling my neck. Oh, and one of you sleeping in my bed.” She snapped her fingers as if to recall something elusive. “Oh, and that one of you and me after the first time, me in that navy-and-white-striped button-down you are so fond of. Remember that one?”
Eric’s face paled beneath his tan. “What? You’re lying! You deleted those pictures.”
“You really are an imbecile. There’s a file for deleted images on phones. You didn’t know that? And guess what? I uploaded them to my computer for safekeeping, and a flash drive, which is with a trusted friend.” She extended her arm, palm up, as he moved even closer. “Step back, you bastard. I apologized to her for my part, but I wanted her to know what an asshole she is married to. And now I see you’re even more. A criminal, the scourge of the earth. You steal, lie, cheat, and hurt people. You get off on it.”
He grabbed her by the wrist and bent it, forcing her to her knees. She cried out in pain. “I like you on your knees, Ariana. We never got to do this, did we?”
“Fuck you.”
He pinched both sides of her face between her jaws as he held her there. The pain was excruciating. Her mouth began to bleed again. He let go and grabbed her by the throat.
“Do you want to?” His breathing was rapid, unsteady. Eric reached to his zipper, before dropping his hand to his side. His voice shook with fury as he spoke. “You little bitch.” He applied more pressure, forcing her to a prone position. “You’re a liar. People who lie to me don’t fare well.”
She struggled onto her hands and knees, wiping at the dirt and blood on her face, shaking with fear as much as from anger. Her wrist throbbed in pain where he had grabbed her, and her throat was raw from the pressure of his choke. She looked up at him through her tears, her voice scratchy. “Try it. It’s stamped and ready to be mailed from Flores if I am out of contact longer than two days. It’s been longer than that. How many days, Eric?” she taunted. “When’s the last time you spoke with your wife?”
He laughed and shook his head. “You really are good, Ariana. You had me going. But there is a big hole in your story. You had no idea I would be here.” He threw his hands out, palms up, and shrugged his shoulders, laughing again, harder.
“But I did. You said you would see me, in your letter, not the one that waited for me when I arrived in Antigua, but the one in Flores, somehow delivered to me without a postmark. It got me thinking, and I acted.” She righted herself onto her knees and struggled up to her feet. “I wanted nothing to do with you ever again. I felt guilty for my part in our relationship. To forgive myself, I told the truth. I wrote it in Antigua, and I did feel better. I thought about the letter all the way up to Flores, and I read it to several of my women colleagues to see if they felt the tone was correct.”
“You what?” Eric exploded, slapping his forehead. “You told others about us?”
“Imagine my guilt. Oh, I’m sorry. You couldn’t possibly—”
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up! You will keep your mouth shut. These are my people, and they follow my orders. Take your walk and don’t be late tomorrow morning.”
“And then what?”
“That remains to be seen.”
She flipped him a bird with both hands and turned on her heel, her head pounding again. She ran to the kitchen, now vacant. Everyone else had eaten before she and Eric. The humming generator kept it softly lit. She put a hand to her hairline, then looked at it. No blood. The glue the medic applied earlier still held. The acetaminophen was wearing off; she had more in her tent. Her body quaked from what it had taken to spin a story of lies. She prayed that her courage and her fibs held together.
“Are you okay, Doctor?”
Ari jumped. Harry and Beto appeared out of nowhere, looking genuinely concerned. Harry said, “Your mouth is bleeding.”
“Where did you come from?” She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her borrowed shirt. “I will be.”
“The American sent us. You are to be walked back, but Nes is waiting for me. Beto will take you.”
“I’m not going back to my tent. I can’t leave here, but I can refuse to be in his presence.”
“He left, super pissed,” Beto said. “You shouldn’t make him angry, Doc. He does bad things to people when they get him as mad as you made him.”
“I just want to get out of here. I didn’t ask to be here. I was kidnapped. What the hell is wrong with all of you?”
“He employs us. We do as he says. No questions. The American didn’t tell us anything other than to get you and bring you back, pronto.”
“How did he know where I was?”
The men exchanged a look between them. Finally, Harry spoke. “I gotta go.” He left and quickly vanished in the dark.
“The word is he initially planned on heading your project but pulled out of it after this discovery happened last summer,” Beto shared.
“He said it was his discovery.”
“Did he? Interesting.”
“It wasn’t?”
He slowed, stopping and turning, wrestling with his conscience. “Doctor, there was a group of people who made this discovery last summer. The American was part of it. The others… the others vanished.”
“Wh—”
He shook his head, his eyes turning hard. “No more talk. There are many ears in this camp. Come on. Let’s go.”
Night came early in the jungle. Before joining the men around the fire, Tomás walked the perimeter of their small campsite, asking the gods for safety and guidance.
Luca held out a steaming dish of beans, plantains, and zapote upon his return. “Are you hungry, Tomás?”
“Gracias, Doctor. Where did you find the zapote?” He lowered himself to his blanket and balanced the plate on his knees.
“Next to the river. I am not sure if it is fully ripe. It looked like it and peeled easily but…”
“I will eat it and not complain. Gracias.”
“Gus?” Luca spooned food onto the camp plate.
“Coming. I added more to the fire. It should be good for a while.” He rubbed his hands together in an effort to rid them of excess dirt and wood fibers before taking his plate. “Gracias, amigo.”
Luca filled a plate and sat down with the three men around the fire. After several bites, he said, “Let us plan. What ideas do we have to rescue Dr. Antony?”
“Tasty.” Gus licked his fingers and smacked his lips. Nodding, he said, “This is what I think. We need to observe for a day or two, and then we make a plan. We only arrived late afternoon. We do not know the routines they have in place. We need to note them and plan accordingly. I want to count people and have a better idea of the scope of their organization and the site and tent village.”
“No. Tomorrow. Reconnaissance early in the morning, plan, rescue. We need to get her out and away as soon as possible. And we need to talk to Dr. Jordaan ASAP.” Luca said.
“Sí, amigo. But we must think with our heads and not our hearts.”
Through the partially destroyed roof, the sky was a beautiful robin’s-egg blue. Ari removed her sunglasses and slicked the water from her nose and under her eyes. Perspiration mixed with her wet clothing, plastering it to her skin, resulting from the sudden monsoon shower that began as soon as she’d left her tent and subsided when she was twenty meters from where she now stood. She was miserable, hot, and steaming like some fish being cooked in parchment paper. Steam was literally rising from her clothes.
It was hard to believe that Eric’s people had opened the temple. They had razed the ground, ripping trees, vines, and other vegetation to reveal the impressive building. Who knows what they might have destroyed in the process. She looked down, following the steps until they were engulfed by the murky shadows, and closed her eyes to adjust to the darkness, wondering again why she was kidnapped to be here. He had yet to reveal exactly. Her eyes had adjust
ed when she reopened them. Eric was some distance below her. Every once in a while, she glimpsed a glow of light from his headlamp.
His voice boomed, echoing off the ancient pocked walls on either side of her. “Ariana, I’m waiting!”
The steps were scarred, uneven, and huge. Her heart jackhammered in her ears, and fear made her cautious. One misstep and who knew how far she would tumble before landing. Or breaking her neck. She ached to place a hand on one of the ancient walls to steady herself, but disturbing the past went against everything she believed.
She wanted only to spend time here to study the temple and uncover its mysteries. Once-vibrant paintings and numbers in Mayan were evident from paint fading and flaking on the building’s plastered walls. Reverence filled her. To her right and left was history she had never seen in her studies and research of the Maya—damaged yet detailed and extensive Mayan glyphs for as far as she could see. Ari knew that Franciscan missionaries had destroyed most of the Mayan codices during the mid-sixteenth century, yet she was sure that these glyphs were indeed part of a codex. A new codex but on the walls instead of bark-paper books. If Matt were here he would know and could translate it, explaining what deities and astrological events it chronicled.
Eric bellowed again.
Annoyed that she had been pulled from her musing, Ari yelled back, “I’m not coming down without a flashlight or headlamp, you asshole!”
Fast, closing steps indicated Eric was coming back up, returning to where she stood. He arrived, huffing and puffing in her face. Two Maya accompanied him. She glared into his pale-blue eyes. How had she ever found them remarkable? Now she agreed with the Ajal’s gossip. His eyes were glacial, ghostly. She shivered.
Afraid to Fall (Ancient Passages Book 1) Page 24