“Let me unlock your handcuffs.” Kellen smiled invitingly. “You run really well. Let’s see you run now.”
“Run so you could find the nerve to shoot me? You can’t shoot me in cold blood? I chose you as my opponent because I thought we were alike, that you were worthy. But you’re weak.” Mara raised her head. “Yes, go ahead and free me. I’ll kill you all and I won’t run—I’ll walk away with your hands in my pocket.”
Her vitriol wiped the smile from Kellen’s face. “Then I’ll leave you bound. Because, by my count, you’ve now lost two shipments of Central American tomb art.” She waited a beat to see if Mara corrected her, if Mara said she had recovered the second shipment. But she didn’t, so she hadn’t, and that meant it was still somewhere on the property stored in an ATV. Kellen continued, “At best, you’re done as a smuggler. At worst, your twice-disappointed buyer is going to kill you.”
“I have allies in powerful places. Tell your Nils Brooks that one of those allies killed his MFAA bitch. He’s still out there, and he knows who to hunt.”
“Your cruelty makes you a target to be destroyed. Your position leaves you weak. Allies abandon the weak.” Kellen turned the taunt back on her. “You’re weak.” The trouble was, Kellen didn’t completely believe what she said. Something about Mara lured and attracted, and she feared Mara’s allies would try to save her.
As Kellen returned to the entry, Mara muttered, “Snakes and phantom faces, indeed.” A small frisson slithered down Kellen’s spine.
When and how had Mara found out about her husband, about Gregory Lykke? That face outside the window had been his, and Mara had been so convincing in her indignation about the snake in the fruit bowl, the snake that had been native to Maine…
Nils was holding an ice bag to the back of his neck. She looked into his eyes and said, “Listen to me. You find that stone tablet with the hieroglyphic curse and you take it, and all the Mayan carvings, out of the resort. Get the curse out. This resort needs to be curse-free now. Today. Do you understand me?”
As if he was surprised at her forcefulness, he leaned away from her. “A curse-free resort. Right. I’ve got it.”
She glanced at Mara.
Mara’s smile was all barbed wire lips and bared white teeth.
Kellen said, “And I don’t care what it takes, you put that bitch behind bars.”
42
With that, Kellen’s flush of energy faded. She began to breathe laboriously again, and she leaned her head against the wall.
At once, Max walked over and slid his arm around her waist. “I’ve got a town car waiting.” He lifted her to her feet. “You need an experienced trauma center. I talked to Sheri Jean—Birdie’s alive, but she needs trauma care, too. A helicopter is on its way to take you to Seattle.”
Kellen nodded.
“After law enforcement gets here, I’ll send Nils to the emergency room, too.”
Kellen nodded again.
“No argument?” He assisted her as she walked slowly to the elevator. “That’s worrisome.”
The trip down the elevator wore her out; she couldn’t breathe deeply and wasn’t getting the oxygen she needed. Russell held the resort’s exterior door; she touched him lightly on the shoulder and he burst into tears. Outside, under the portico, the town car waited.
Max opened the back door and assisted Kellen into the seat, helped her lie down, covered her with the cashmere throw and turned on the seat heater. He said to the driver, “Pick up Birdie at the maintenance garage. Take the women to the airstrip. Wait for the helicopter, get them on board and come back. I might need you.”
“Of course, sir, I’ll do whatever you bid.”
Kellen frowned. She didn’t recognize the driver’s voice, but she certainly recognized her attitude. This woman was sarcastic and amused, and something about her set Kellen’s teeth on edge.
Before she could puzzle out that unpleasantness, Max rested his hands on her shoulders. Kellen opened her eyes. He was upside down, looking at her in exasperation and joy. “Listen to me. I see you. I know you. You know more than you want to admit. So in reply to your unspoken thoughts, let me say this.” Leaning over, he kissed her.
If Kellen had had time to think about it, she would have suspected that inept little Ceecee had fallen for Max because he was kind, protective, able to keep her safe.
Not so. When he kissed, nothing about Max Di Luca was safe. He was a daredevil who leaped with her into a free fall. He was a beast who dared her to take him in the roughest way possible. He was a dark lover, consuming her in wicked ways she had never imagined.
When he lifted his head, his lips slid across her cheek and rested against her ear. “Now we make more memories.”
Then he was gone. The car door shut. And despite the cashmere throw and the heated seat, she was cold.
The driver put the car in gear. The wheels rolled over the pavement in a soft, rhythmic hiss and Kellen drifted in a sea of pain and the past.
What did she know? What did she remember?
*
Nothing in Cecilia’s life had prepared her for the months on the Philadelphia streets. With no resources, no defenses, she drifted from one underpass to another, from an abandoned building to a homeless shelter to that place by the river where a gentleman in an Armani suit tried to rape her. She stabbed him in the neck with rusty scissors and ran again.
The only things she had, the only things she treasured, were Kellen’s identification papers carried in the worn travel wallet beneath her clothes. Keeping them safe obsessed her. They were her link to her cousin, the proof that Kellen had existed, the honored preservation of her memory.
She trudged along the streets, wrapped in rags and her own misery, until the day she saw that man dragging the little girl behind him. The child looked like him, like his daughter, but she was screaming, “No. No! I want my mommy. I live with my mommy. The judge says you can’t have me. I want my mommy!”
He turned and slapped her, one hard blow across the cheek.
The girl staggered and would have fallen, but he held her up by her arm and said, “Shut up, Annabella. Your mommy will pay to get you back.”
In that moment, Cecilia saw herself in the child and Gregory in the man, and she was livid. She couldn’t recall when she’d last eaten. Last night, she had slept on a pile of trash behind a restaurant. But from somewhere inside, strength born of injustice rose up in her, and she attacked. She ran, jumped on the man’s back, wrapped her legs around his waist. She pulled his hair, clawed at his face.
He let go of Annabella’s arm. He whirled in circles, cursing in languages she didn’t know.
People on the sidewalk gaped. She didn’t care. In a frenzy, she dug her filthy nails into his neck, smashed her fist into his nose. She screamed, “Run, Annabella!”
He pried her legs off and dropped her to the sidewalk.
She smacked hard.
He took a moment to kick at her, then raced after the child.
Cecilia shrieked like a banshee. “Stop him. He’s kidnapping that child!” She didn’t know for sure if it was true; she only knew he was abusing that little girl and she would not stand for it.
From down the block, another man was shouting, “Stop him. Stop him!”
“Save the child,” Cecilia yelled. She staggered to her feet.
The father captured the little girl again, picked her up by the waist and flung her over his shoulder. His face was bleeding, his pristine tie askew; his dark eyes were murderous.
Cecilia jumped between him and his town car.
He tried to block her with the flat of his hand.
She ducked beneath and butted him with her head. She nailed him, too, because he released Annabella and leaned over, holding his family jewels.
The kid knew what to do this time. She took off down the sidewalk, veered into traffic, dodging cars, using them as blockades and concealment.
Her daring stopped Cecilia’s breath in her throat.
The father ran after her.
Cecilia flung her weight into his back.