Buried Secrets (10 page)

She tilted up her chin. “I’m made of tougher stuff than you think. I’ll be all right.”

His gaze swept to the nick on her neck. He touched the spot. If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself, but her ardent tone made it perfectly clear she wouldn’t let him proceed without her. He couldn’t have her trying to find the codices on her own. The stubborn set of her jaw attested to that possibility. At least if they were together he could protect her.

“He hurt you there, too.” He stroked his finger under the small cut.

She covered his hand. “Just a scratch. It doesn’t even bother me.” She started to rise, swayed and collapsed back onto the couch.

“Yeah, sure, you’re okay.”

“Not yet, but I will be. That’s a promise.” Determination marked each word whispered in the quiet. “I just got up too fast.”

“Why don’t you stay on the couch and try to get some sleep? I can sit over there in that chair and keep an eye on you.” He gestured toward a lounger.

She shook her head. “You need your rest as much as I do. Especially if we are going to try and solve this mystery. As a doctor I know about the effects of sleep deprivation. I’ll be fine in the bedroom. They have what they want. I can’t see the partner coming back tonight.”

“You can’t go back in that room. The mattress is soaked with blood.”

“Then…” She scrunched her mouth into a frown.

“Here, let me help you.” He half expected her to protest, but when he put his arm around her and assisted her to stand, she didn’t say a word. “You’re going to sleep in the bedroom I was using. I’ll sleep out here.”

She sagged against him as he guided her down the hallway to the last door on the right. “Don’t let me sleep past seven. We have a lot of work ahead of us tomorrow.”

He went into the bedroom and checked to make sure the window was locked, then came back to the entrance where Maggie still stood. “Just a precaution. I don’t think anyone will be bothering us tonight, either.” The black circles beneath her eyes knotted his stomach.

She peered toward the bed. “I’m so exhausted I don’t think I’ll have any trouble sleeping in spite of what happened.”

Although she tried to act as if she would be all right, Zach saw the fear that shadowed her eyes. “I promise you’ll be safe tonight,” was all he could say.

He hated the feeling of helplessness he’d experienced in the wake of her ordeal. He caressed his finger across her cheek, wishing he could wipe away the evidence of the past few hours. But its mark was evident on her pale skin. No matter how invincible she wanted to appear, she wasn’t.

“Good night, and thanks for saving me.” She twisted around to enter the bedroom.

He couldn’t let her go like that. He halted her with a hand on her shoulder and swung her around toward him. “I can sleep on the floor in the room if that will make you feel safer.”

She chuckled. “No, you would be a distraction. But thanks for the offer.”

His hands framed her face while his lips whispered across her cheeks where the dark circles were. Then his mouth claimed hers, not in a demanding kiss but in a gentle touch, meant to reassure her.

When he released his hold, she backed away, her fingers grazing across her lips. “I’m supposed to sleep after that? You’re not playing fair.” Another chuckle peppered the air.

He grinned. “Good night, Maggie.”

After closing the door, he listened to her walk to the bed, then he retraced his steps to the living room, where he pulled the coverlet off the couch. He strode back down the hall and stretched out on the floor before the door where Maggie was. He had made a promise he intended to keep. No one was going to hurt her tonight.

The aroma of coffee awakened Maggie. She opened one eye to sunlight streaming through the slit in the curtains of the bedroom window. Bright sunlight! She bolted up and checked her watch. Nine o’clock!

Quickly she threw back the covers and rose. The sudden movement left her light-headed. She paused, gripping the bedpost. After the room stopped spinning, she carefully made her way to the door. When she opened it, she found Zach lying on the floor in the hallway, wrapped in a comforter, his head cradled on one arm.

His eyes blinked open. He smiled up at her. “Good morning.”

“It’s nine.”

He sat up. “It is?” He looked at his own watch while taking a deep breath of the coffee-scented air. “I guess we all overslept.”

Maggie stepped over his stretched-out legs. “We have a lot to do, and we’re already two hours behind schedule.”

She entered the kitchen with Zach right behind her. At the table Hawke sat with Evelyn, each holding a mug and taking sips. Maggie made a beeline for the pot on the stove and poured herself a cup. After she’d gone to bed last night, she had lain awake for a couple of hours before her mind had shut down enough for sleep to take over. Consequently she felt as if she were walking around in a fog.

“Did you find out anything useful from that man?” Zach asked Hawke as he sat next to Maggie at the table, his own mug full, steam drifting toward the ceiling.

“His name is Joe Bailey, and I think the Albuquerque police have a lead on the man he usually teams up with. They’re checking out an address and will call me when they find out anything.”

“So there’s a chance we’ll get the diary back?” Maggie blew on the hot liquid to cool it down. She needed caffeine, lots of it, and fast.

“Maybe, if he hasn’t handed it off to whoever hired him.”

“According to Bailey, he and his partner didn’t know who hired them.” Zach sipped his coffee.

“You don’t need the diary, do you?” Evelyn rose and walked to the pot to refill her cup.

“No, but it would be nice to be able to donate the journal to the museum, with the codices.” Maggie finally took a drink.

“I like your positive thinking,” Zach said with a laugh. “We could use some—”

The ringing of the phone cut off his next words. Hawke hurried into the living room to answer it. Maggie strained to listen to what Zach’s cousin was saying, but low murmurs were all she heard. When he reentered the kitchen a few minutes later, the look on Hawke’s face didn’t bode well for them.

“The police found Jeremy Huffman, Bailey’s accomplice, murdered in his apartment, and there was no sign of the diary.” Hawke eased into his chair and took a gulp of his drink. “Bailey might not know who hired them, but I wonder if Huffman did, and that was the reason he was killed.”

Maggie crossed her arms and rubbed her hands up and down them to warm her chilled body. Whoever wanted the codices didn’t care who was murdered in the process.

“Maybe Bailey knows and isn’t saying.” Zach emptied his mug.

“I’ll have another word with him this afternoon. First, I need some sleep.” Hawke shoved his chair back and rose. “I’m so tired this coffee isn’t phasing me.”

“Use my bedroom, son,” Evelyn said.

Zach’s cousin nodded and left the room while Evelyn went to the refrigerator and opened it. “I’m fixing a big breakfast. We’ll need brain power to solve the mystery.”

“May I help you?” Maggie asked, and started to stand.

Evelyn waved her down. “No, I’ve got it taken care of.”

While his cousin began preparing the food, Maggie speared Zach with a look, drawing his full attention. “Thank you.”

He lifted a brow. “For what?”

“Camping outside my door last night. I went to the bathroom and almost tripped over you. I couldn’t sleep, but when I got back to the room and lay down, I went right to bed. I knew nothing else would happen to me.” She hadn’t realized how much his presence, even on the other side of the door, meant to her until she’d awoken this morning, having gotten six hours of sleep.

“I’m glad I could help.”

“Have you decided about the reception yet?”

“Since our two assailants have been taken care of, I think we’ll be safe. I owe it to my team to make sure we have the funding, so yes, I’m going.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Want to blow this joint with me?”

“By this evening I’ll probably be stark-raving mad and will need to get out. But again, the question is, what am I going to wear?”

“I’ll call one of my nieces and come up with something. You don’t need to worry about that.” Evelyn stirred the egg mixture in the skillet on the stove.

“See? That’s taken care of.”

She wished her other troubles were that simple to solve. She was beginning to think the mystery of the codices wasn’t her biggest problem. No, it was definitely her growing attraction to the man sitting across from her. Their whole situation was surreal. What was going to happen when reality came crashing down on her?

Maggie stared at the map on the coffee table, her eyes burning with fatigue. Something was wrong. She couldn’t shake that feeling. The whole day she kept being drawn back to the map, a nagging sensation in the back of her mind she couldn’t quite grasp. She was missing an important detail.

“So we agree the cave is tucked away in a mountain range?” Zach rose and stretched, rolling his shoulders.

“Well, let me see.” Maggie tapped her chin. “How many mountain ranges are there in the Southwest?”

He groaned. “Don’t remind me. As I said yesterday, a needle in a haystack.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Or a grain of sand in the Chihuahuan desert.”

“That sounds even worse.”

“I’ve got it.” Evelyn strolled into the living room, carrying a black dress on a hanger. “This should fit you perfectly.” She paused near the coffee table. “Any more leads?”

“A mountain range riddled with caves.” Zach shut down the laptop.

“That sounds like a half-dozen places. In our state alone we have the area around Carlsbad Cavern,” Evelyn said.

“Yeah, didn’t they find the deepest cave system in the United States in the 1980s near Carlsbad?” Zach strode toward the front window.

“Lechuguilla. A group of cavers broke through to the cave in 1986. They’re still discovering parts of that cave.” Evelyn shifted the dress to the other hand. “Hawke would love to get a chance to explore it, but it’s restricted.”

“That was only twenty-one years ago.” Maggie shook her head. “It seems hard to believe something that big went undiscovered for so long.”

“My point. If Lechuguilla was just waiting to be found, so might your cave.”

Zach pushed the curtain to the side and peered out the window. “What about the Guadalupe Mountains near Carlsbad?”

“That’s a possibility. It still has remote places.” Evelyn draped the dress over the back of a chair.

Zach plowed his fingers through his hair. “Even if we narrow down the mountain range, we’ll still have a lot of ground to cover. We need more.”

“While you two are at the reception, I’ll go over your notes and see if anything sparks an idea. What about the Bible verses?”

Zach faced Evelyn. “That was a dead end. At least we think so. The verses had no common theme. Nothing but misspelled—” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it! That’s what’s been bothering me. In Father Santiago’s Spanish part, which is the majority of the diary, he comes across as very educated in his word usage and sentence structure. He has four verses in Latin interspersed throughout. They probably came straight from the Bible he used. So why so many misspelled words? At the time I just thought it was because he wasn’t as knowledgeable about Latin. But that may not be the case. Maybe he did it on purpose.”

Zach hurried across the room to the laptop and booted it up. “What if he purposefully did it to leave a clue? The legend said only a worthy one would find the treasure.”

Maggie scooted down the couch until she sat next to Zach, and peered at the computer. Earlier Zach had listed each verse in order, with the Latin version first then the English one. Now Zach highlighted the words misspelled.

“Refectionis consolata appropinquaret praecidit-quo fugerunt tenebris.”
Zach scowled. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Maggie pointed her finger at the laptop. “What letter was left out of each word?”

“
O, L, A, E, G,
and
N.
”

Evelyn moved behind the couch and looked over Zach’s shoulder. “That doesn’t make sense, either.”

“What if it’s a scrambled word? Because Father Santiago was well-educated, I should have figured the misspelling meant something.”

Maggie touched Zach’s arm. “We’ve been at this for hours, days, really, with little rest. I think you can cut yourself some slack. Between fighting off assailants and running for our lives we’ve been kinda busy.”

Zach tore off several pieces of paper and handed one to Maggie and one to Evelyn. “Let’s each play with the letters and see what we come up with.”

While Evelyn sat across from them, Zach bent over his blank sheet and went to work.

Maggie did likewise, but every combination spelled nothing, until she hit upon a word. “I’ve got one.
Galeon.
Isn’t that the Spanish word for
galleon?
”

Zach looked up. “That’s got to be it. A ship. He would have probably come to the New World on a galleon. Definitely a word he would be familiar with.”