Gone to Dust

by Liliana Hart

  “I’m pretty sure he’s not married,” Tess said.

  “Then that’s even worse. That means he just up and changed his mind as soon as he saw me almost naked. If I weren’t so awesome, that kind of rejection could play hell with my self-confidence.”

  “Your body is awesome. And I’ve never known you to have issues with your self-confidence unless you’re talking about your books. Writers are so weird.”

  “Thank you.” Miller dropped down on the couch and wrapped her arms around a pillow. “I’m just pissed off, but I’ll get over it. I’ve never felt that kind of chemistry with a man before in my life. I don’t have time to analyze it to death. Clearly, I’ve got bigger issues to deal with than Elias Cole. He can go straight to the devil for all I care. Justin is my priority. This Cordova guy sent a finger, so there’s a chance Justin is still alive. And Justin’s a SEAL. He knows how to survive.”

  “It’s too bad you couldn’t see that half-written letter Cordova said he found in Justin’s backpack. What do you think he meant by saying there were clues in the letter?”

  Miller stood up suddenly and let the pillow drop to the floor. “Justin’s letter,” she said. “There’s a letter at the house. It came in the mail a couple of days ago, but I was working, so I just saw it on the table this morning. I’ve got to read that letter. I need to go.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Tess said, leaving the food and drinks on the coffee table in a very un-Tess-like move. “You still haven’t mentioned how you’re going to handle Cordova’s offer to help him find King Solomon’s table.”

  “Well, I’m going to go home and read Justin’s letter,” she said. “And then I’m going to pack a bag so I can go find my brother.”

  “I’M GOING TO get in huge trouble for this,” Deacon said, pulling up the camera for the parlor when Tess and Miller had moved from the kitchen.

  “Afraid of your wife?” Elias asked. His stomach was in knots. He’d spent the last two months trying to forget Miller Darling ever existed. He’d been doing an admirable job until he’d seen the terrified look on her face when she’d walked into Tess’s kitchen.

  “You bet,” Deacon agreed, grinning. “I don’t like sleeping alone. I’m just saying I don’t like intruding on their privacy like this.”

  They’d escaped to Gravediggers headquarters below the carriage house, and Levi and Axel were already downstairs, waiting for them. Dante had left for his weekend of debauchery.

  “That was certainly an unexpected turn of events,” Axel said once they’d coded their way into the secure room. He and Levi were already at the computers, the poker game clearly not of as much interest as the information Miller had given.

  “No kidding,” Deacon said. He immediately went to one of the high-tech computers and took the finger from the box. He pressed it to the scanner and waited as the fingerprint image was displayed on the computer screen so it could find a match.

  “Justin Darling,” Elias said, shaking his head. “That son of a bitch.”

  “Know him?” Deacon asked.

  “Very well. We were both on the same SEAL team. Went through BUD/S together. He’s got the training, but being a SEAL wasn’t his first love. He enjoyed the allure of Solomon’s treasure like his parents did. He missed a couple of ops that got called early because he was off doing God knows what. Nothing like going into a high-tension situation with a man down. He’d get called on the carpet, and he lost rank a couple of times because of his irresponsibility, but it never made much of an impact. He did his own thing. And now he’s dragging his sister into it.”

  Axel whistled. “Mate, after seeing the way she treated you just now, she’s going to be right pissed when she finds out you knew her brother and didn’t say anything.”

  “I didn’t have anything nice to say,” he countered. “Besides, I couldn’t blow cover by letting her know I was a SEAL. She’s too damned curious. She’d want to know how I ended up at a funeral home in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Somebody turn up the audio on the surveillance,” Levi said. “All I can hear is Miller’s mumbling.”

  Deacon winced, but turned up the volume. Elias knew Tess wasn’t a fan of the surveillance system inside the funeral home, but she also knew it was a necessity, just like the dozens of cameras they had on the exterior, and the main entry points of Last Stop so they’d always be aware if they were under attack.

  “Tess is not going to be happy about this,” Deacon said. “We made a deal never to listen during private conversations.”

  “There’s always an exception to the rules,” Elias insisted. “Miller might know something she didn’t say in front of us at the table. Justin has gotten her into a hell of a mess.”

  “No kidding,” Axel said. “Listen to this.”

  His fingers moved quickly across the keyboard and an image of a man came up on the big screen. He looked like someone you’d never want to cross. He was distinguished, his black hair peppered with gray and his mustache trim and neat. He might pass for handsome if it weren’t for his eyes. Anyone who had a lick of sense and saw those eyes would run the other direction.

  “Emilio Cordova, age fifty-one, born in Portugal. Mother is the only one listed on birth record. No father. Was in and out of juvenile detention until the age of sixteen. Then seemed to get smarter because he didn’t get caught again until he was twenty-two. Minor drug charges. Theft, battery, assault. And then at twenty-nine years old he meets a woman named Ana Cortez.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me,” Deacon said. “The Black Widow?”

  “One and the same,” Axel said. “If Justin has put Miller in the Black Widow’s line of sight, she won’t have a chance. She needs protection.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Elias said. He’d never felt panic, even during the most harrowing missions, but the thought of being alone with Miller for a prolonged period of time was enough to send him right over the edge. “She hates my guts.”

  “I noticed,” Deacon said. “I don’t suppose you want to shed some light on that. The last time I saw the two of you together it was everything I could do not to tell you to go get a room.”

  To make things more awkward, Miller’s voice rang loud and clear through the monitor, and Elias dropped down into one of the seats at the conference table. He should’ve gone with his gut and turned the monitor off the second Miller had driven up. He’d still be playing poker without a care in the world.

  “All I know is I’d trust Justin any day over someone like Elias Cole.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but a couple of months ago, you two were setting so many sparks off each other I thought you were going to catch fire. You went home with the man, and then wouldn’t mention him again. What happened?”

  “He didn’t want me.”

  Three pairs of eyes turned in his direction and stared incredulously. He didn’t squirm under the scrutiny, but he felt his skin flush hot. It would do no good to try and explain why he’d done it. It wouldn’t matter that walking away from her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. All that mattered was that he had walked away.

  “Any other information about Cordova?” he asked. “He said Miller would be met in Baltra. What’s the connection there?”

  Axel quirked a brow, but he didn’t say anything about the conversation happening inside the funeral home.

  “A few years back, the Black Widow and the Sinaloa Cartel in Colombia had a territory disagreement that led to millions of dollars in missing drugs and a hell of a lot of dead bodies. She ended up with a price on her head, so she fled to Europe and has mostly stayed there since then. But she instructed Cordova to move the organization and do whatever he had to do so they became the most powerful drug cartel in the world. He’s damn near accomplished that goal too. Cordova is a hell of a businessman.

  “He moved their main operation to the Galápagos Islands. It’s run by the Ecuadorian government, and they need the money the cartels can bring in. And the thing is, the Ecuadorian peopl
e love him. He’s like Robin Hood. And the islands aren’t overrun by tourists, so they don’t have the U.S. Embassy breathing down their necks if the occasional tourist goes missing. The island airports make it easy for drugs to come in and out and be dispersed where they need to go. They’ve basically got control of the entire country, and several other pockets of South America.”

  “… I don’t know how he managed to walk three blocks with a hard-on the size of Nantucket.”

  Elias groaned at the sound of Miller’s voice again. Tess’s laughter was easily heard through the speakers, and there were various snorts of laughter from his brothers as they stared at him again like he’d grown a second head. Assholes.

  Tess’s next comment just added insult to injury.

  “That was going to be my next question. I was thinking maybe he couldn’t—”

  “Oh no. He most definitely could. But I’ve got my suspicions. I think he’s married and he had a change of conscience.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s not married.”

  “Then that’s even worse. That means he just up and changed his mind as soon as he saw me almost naked.”

  “I’m throwing a punch at the first person to say one word,” he said.

  “I agree with Tess,” Deacon said, grinning unashamedly. “I think you’re an idiot.”

  “I’ve got my reasons, okay? Just leave it alone. And leave me out of this whole mess, come to think of it. Justin and Miller Darling aren’t my problem.”

  “… I’m going to go home and read Justin’s letter. And then I’m going to pack a bag so I can go find my brother.”

  “Of course she is,” Elias said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Because it makes total sense for her to walk into cartel territory with that body and smart mouth, without any viable survival skills. I’m not getting involved in this mess. I’m going to take my boat out and go fishing.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, brother,” Deacon said. “In the meantime, I’m going after my wife. I’d rather not find out the hard way that Cordova doesn’t trust Miller to come to him of her own free will.”

  Elias dropped his head back against the chair, and then did it again for good measure. “Well, fuck,” he said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Miller and Tess hunkered together on the floor of her closet, a box of her brother’s letters in front of her and the newest one still sitting unopened.

  There was something comforting about being in there with Tess. They’d done the same thing as girls, playing in closets and anywhere else their imaginations had taken them, whether it was Narnia or Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

  The carpet was soft and they leaned against the long, padded bench that sat in the center of the closet. Clothes hung from every available rod. She didn’t wear most of them—with the exception of the large section dedicated to yoga pants and muscle shirts with pithy sayings, also known as the writer’s wardrobe. She had an equally impressive shoe rack, but most of her Jimmy Choos had unscuffed soles.

  She really needed to get out of her comfort zone more. Working her ass off was all fine and good. She was a bestselling author and she was more than financially solvent. But she wasn’t exactly experiencing life by heading to the city for the occasional girls’ night out or to the gym a few days a week. Of course, she didn’t really have time to experience life for the next year and a half. At least not until she’d fulfilled all the books in her contract.

  Besides, with as much research as she did, it was almost like she was living the adventures she wrote about in her books. Only she didn’t have to worry about things like getting seasick or dysentery, or losing her passport. Or getting robbed by gypsies, which had happened to another author friend of hers.

  Her gut clenched at the thought of even attempting to rescue her brother—a SEAL—who couldn’t even manage to rescue himself. She’d barely been out of the state of Texas, much less out of the country.

  “It was a good idea to bring the wine,” Tess said, pouring the last of the bottle into their glasses. “I’ve never drunk wine in a closet before.”

  “I have,” Miller said. “Sometimes I like to think in here. It’s pretty cozy.”

  “Do you still try to find the passage to Narnia behind your coats like you did when we were kids?”

  “Every damned time,” she said with a sigh. “It’s a real disappointment. Adulthood sucks.”

  “I’ll take it over high school any day,” Tess said. “I think I’m a little buzzed. You should open the letter while I can still think coherently. This carpet is really soft, and I kind of want to take a nap.”

  “It’s a good napping place,” Miller agreed, feeling a little buzzed herself. “My thinking sessions usually turn into naps. That’s one of the good things about being an adult. I can take a nap in my closet if I want to. And I can dream and let my imagination run wild, without getting robbed by gypsies.”

  Tess looked over at her quizzically. “I was with you up to that point. I didn’t realize closets were being targeted by gypsies.”

  “I have an unusual fear of being robbed by gypsies,” she said.

  “You have an unusual fear of quite a few things,” Tess said. “But it’s good that you recognize these things. And chances are you’ll be mostly safe from gypsies in Last Stop. Now open the damned envelope and stop stalling.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  She picked up the letter that had Justin’s neat block lettering on the outside, and tried to ignore her shaking hands. There was no reason to be nervous. It was just a letter. She slid her finger under the flap and the glue gave way easily. She pulled out the paper and unfolded two sheets. And then she read aloud:

  Hey, Sis,

  Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve been home. Retirement has been interesting, and I needed to take some time and understand what life was going to be like outside the military. I think I’m at that point where realization has sunk in and I don’t know what the hell to do with myself. I’m thinking of coming home for good, but there are some things I need to do before I can.

  I’ve gotten the opportunity to travel to a lot of places in the past couple of months. Meet a lot of people. Discover things that Mom and Dad could only dream of. I found their plane in the Galápagos Islands.

  “Ohmigod,” she said.

  The blood drained from her head and when her lungs started burning she realized she was holding her breath. She sucked in air and the words on the page blurred. She felt arms around her and realized Tess was holding her tight. At some point, hot tears had started falling down her cheeks.

  “That can’t be right,” she said. “They told us their plane went down somewhere in the West Indies. They’d gotten information that part of the temple had been taken by the Spaniards and carried with them on their voyages to discover the new world.

  “He’s got to be wrong. Authorities never found the wreckage. They said they either crashed in an area that was too deep to see the wreckage, or they crashed somewhere off course from their flight plan. There was no sign of a crash on any of the surrounding islands. The Galápagos Islands are nowhere close to the West Indies. What would they even be doing there?”

  “Keep reading,” Tess said.

  I always thought they were crazy for going on that last trip. It seemed like an impossibly wild-goose chase. Why would King Solomon’s treasures be hidden in a group of Spanish islands? I thought for years that maybe they hadn’t been telling me the whole truth when it came to that last trip. They’d received information from somewhere, and they were secretive about it, and I don’t know if you remember, but they left in a hurry. That was the night Dad gave me the ring. I asked him where they were going, but he wouldn’t answer me. He just told me to take care of you and to let you know they’d be back soon. Of course, they never came back.

  I went back and looked at their journals and notes, but there was nothing I could find. Just uncharted maps, made distinctive by the crude landmarks drawn on them. Dad knew how i
mportant the secrets of Solomon’s treasure were, and that others would kill for the slightest bit of information. He was always very careful with his journals and findings. You might remember he only recorded things in his journals that were easy enough to prove.

  The history of Solomon’s people and his treasure are well recorded in many texts. God brought chaos to Israel after Solomon’s death, but chaos can only last so long before there is complete destruction. Years later, Solomon’s temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzer, many of the treasures stolen, including the Ark of the Covenant. But there was significance in the rings Solomon passed to the leaders of the twelve tribes. Those who held the rings were said to be prophets and protectors. It was an inheritance of great importance and sworn to upon the price of death. And it was a lineage to be passed for generations.

  These protectors were able to hide many of Solomon’s treasures, through the destruction of Babylon and the conquering by Alexander the Great. By then, there was no united Israel, and the chosen had fled for their lives. Many adapted to other ways of life, other cultures, just to survive, but they never forgot their promise to their king and their God.

  Many of them joined the ranks of Alexander the Great. His people were great seafarers and sailed the earth long before the Spaniards. Their journeys took them to far-off lands, where they settled and continued their legacy.

  Do you remember when we were kids and you and Tess would try to follow me when I took LeeAnn Hooks out to the field to park? I could hear y’all a mile away, and see your wide eyes through that crack in the rock. You were always a horrible spy.

  “I don’t know how he could hear us a mile away,” Tess scoffed. “LeeAnn Hooks sounded like a cat that got her tail stepped on every time she got close to an orgasm. Your brother was hot, but he always had horrible taste in women.”

  “I don’t think that’s the point of that trip down memory lane,” Miller said. “Remember what Cordova said about clues in Justin’s letter.”