Unexplored (Treasure Hunter Security Book 3) (2 page)

Granger Industries? Logan had a vague recollection of real estate, or construction, or something. Just to piss Darcy off, Logan put his boots up on the coffee table. “Where’s Cal?”

“On a trip with Dani. She’s photographing the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe and Cal went with her.”

Another man who couldn’t stay away from his woman. Logan still couldn’t believe his friends had gone and fallen in love. Dec and Cal—two of the toughest guys he’d ever known.

He heard footsteps, and since he hadn’t heard the front door, he knew it was Dec. Actually, after years together on the SEAL teams, and now working together at THS, Logan could pick out Dec’s footsteps anywhere.

“Darce. Logan.” Declan crossed the large, open space of the converted warehouse.

Logan glanced at his friend. Dec was tall, muscled, with piercing gray eyes. He still looked the same as he always had, but these days, he seemed different. More relaxed, more at ease.

“Who’s our new client?” Dec asked.

“Sydney Granger of Granger Industries.” Darcy looked at her watch. “Her plane should’ve landed about an hour ago. She should be here soon.”

Dec nodded and headed toward the small kitchenette in the corner of the space. He opened the fridge and pulled out a soda.

“Diet Coke?” Logan raised a brow.

“Layne is addicted to the stuff.” Dec shrugged. “I’ve developed a taste for it.”

Logan shook his head. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that you want to do lunch, or go out for a damned manicure.”

Dec’s gray gaze narrowed. “No, but I’m thinking about kicking your ass.”

Logan snorted. “You can try.”

“Shush,” Darcy said. “She’s here. Try to look professional.” She knocked Logan’s boots off the coffee table.

Logan followed Darcy’s gaze to the wall of flat screens at the end of the warehouse. That was Darcy’s domain. She might look like she’d stepped out of a magazine, but the woman was a genius with computers. On the far screen, he saw security footage from the outside of the office. He saw what looked like a rental car parked near his truck, and caught a glimpse of blonde hair as a woman walked toward the front door of the warehouse.

The next thing he heard was the click of heels on concrete. Logan turned his head. And then he straightened.

The woman was tall, slender, and wearing a navy blue skirt that slicked over her gentle curves and a crisp white shirt. Blonde hair the color of champagne was caught back in some sort of complicated twist at the back of her head, accenting a face that was downright beautiful. She had a slim nose, perfectly formed lips, and high cheekbones. Pale-blue eyes skated over the room.

The woman had money and class written all over her.

Logan shifted on the couch. She was
so
not his type.

“Hi, Ms. Granger.” Darcy stepped forward and held out her hand. “I’m Darcy Ward. This is my brother Declan.”

“Thank you for seeing me. And please, call me Sydney.” She shook hands with Darcy and then with Declan.

“Nice to meet you,” Dec said.

“And this is one of our top security specialists, Logan O’Connor.” Darcy gestured at Logan.

Logan didn’t bother standing, just lifted his chin.

Sydney Granger gave him a cool stare before her gaze moved back to Declan and Darcy.

Yeah, he’d been dismissed by the Ice Queen. He was surprised he didn’t have freezer burn.

“I need your help,” Sydney said. “My brother needs your help.”

Darcy gestured to the conference table off to the side. “Why don’t you sit down? You wouldn’t give us any details over the phone—”

Sydney Granger nodded. “I wasn’t sure if it was safe.” She sank into a chair. “My brother left for Peru several weeks ago. He has a history degree, and he wanted to explore an ancient culture down there—”

“Inca?” Dec asked.

“No. Have you ever heard of the Warriors of the Clouds? They’re also called the Chachapoyas.”

Logan frowned, and watched Darcy and Dec shake their heads. Darcy reached over to tap on one of her keyboards, clearly planning to do a search.

“I hadn’t either,” Sydney answered. “But I did some research on the flight out here.”

“They’re from
Raiders of the Lost Ark
,” Logan said.

Pretty blue eyes blinked at him. “Yes.”

Yeah, I’m not just a big, dumb idiot.
Logan was used to people taking one look at him and deciding he was big and dangerous but not very smart.

“The gold idol that Indy’s after in the beginning of the movie—” he looked at the others “—you know, when he’s escaping from the big, rolling boulder. That belonged to these warriors.”

“That’s right,” Sydney Granger said in her cool, cultured voice. “But the movie isn’t factual. The Chachapoyas weren’t metalworkers, so they didn’t have any golden idols. But they built cities and fortresses high in the cloud forests of the Andes. My brother estimated that only a small portion of their sites have been found so far. The Cloud Warriors fought off the Inca for years, and even helped the Spanish fight against the Inca. They were famed for being beautiful, and many of them were fair-skinned with pale-colored hair and eyes. Several of their mummies have been discovered, and some do have pale hair, and several descendants of the Chachapoyas today still have blonde hair, and blue or green eyes.”

“Were they not native to the region?” Darcy asked. “Perhaps they came from somewhere else?”

Sydney tilted her head. “There are lots of theories. That they had come from Europe prior to the Spanish, that they were descended from the white, bearded god, Viracocha. Recent DNA testing shows they are from the Andes, indistinguishable from the others living in the area. They are from the cloud forests.”

“What happened to the Cloud Warriors?” Logan asked.

“They held out, but eventually the Inca conquered them. They were forced to leave their cities, and then disease brought by the Spanish wiped them out.”

“Okay, so what do these Warriors of the Clouds have to do with your brother?” Dec asked.

Logan watched the woman as she lifted her chin. Staring at her face, all he saw was icy perfection. No emotion, no distress, nothing. Yeah, she was a real cool one.

“I got a call at my office last night. A group says it has my brother and they want five million dollars in ransom. They said I have to go to Lima, Peru to carry out the transaction.”

Logan shook his head to himself. Forget cool, she was ice all the way. Man, the woman didn’t even look like her pulse jumped when she talked about her brother being held hostage. Ice water in those veins.

Dec was frowning. “We don’t do a lot of ransom demands. We have interceded when some archeologists have been snatched off digs—”

Interestingly, Logan saw Sydney press her hands together on the table. Her fingers flexed, then relaxed. “I came to you because the group who have Drew…they call themselves Silk Road.”

Now, Logan pushed to his feet.
Aw, hell.

Chapter Two

“I know you’ve had some experience with Silk Road,” Sydney said, desperately controlling the emotions rolling inside her. “That’s why I came to you.”

“You could say that.” Declan Ward exchanged a glance with the big bear of a man named Logan. “They’re a black-market antiquities ring. They have money and no conscience.”

His words made Sydney’s skin go cold. And these people had Drew. “Will you help me? My brother is the only family I have left.” Grief and fear melded together inside her, and she fought back a shiver. Suddenly, she was very cold. She dug her nails into her palms to keep from letting any of it show on her face.

She saw Declan share another look with the intimidating Logan.

Darcy stood. “Why don’t you let me run some searches? Let me see if we can find out what’s going on down in Lima.”

“I’ve tried to contact the authorities—”

Darcy nodded. “It’s difficult, I know. Distance, language barriers, different systems. Let me see what I can find.” The brunette shot a look at Logan. “Logan, can you get Ms. Granger a drink?”

“A drink?” The big man looked confused. “I’m not a waiter.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t need you to shoot anybody for me right now, so get her a drink.” Darcy strode over to the computers.

Sydney cleared her throat. “I’m fine—”

He made a noise, stomped over, and pulled out her chair. “Come on. Kitchen’s this way.”

Seeing no way of politely getting out of it, she reluctantly followed him. Another shiver wracked her. The shock of everything that had happened was hitting her all at once. She rubbed her arms. She’d left her suit jacket in the car.

“What do you want to drink?”

The gruff, ungracious question came from the direction of the small, organized kitchenette tucked away in a corner of the large room.

“Water, please.”

He snorted, and she watched as he grabbed a mug from a cupboard and a pot of coffee off a coffee maker.

“Didn’t you hear me?” she asked.

“You’re cold. You need something to warm up. Cream? Sugar?”

His overbearing tone made her bristle. “Black.” She liked sugar in her coffee, but she’d be damned if she’d tell him that.

He shoved the mug at her. It was chipped on one edge and had World’s Greatest Shot emblazoned on it.

“Sorry. This isn’t high tea at the Ritz,” he said.

Sydney bit back a smart retort and forced herself to calmly take a sip. As she did, she watched him start unbuttoning his shirt.

Her eyes widened, and she fought not to sputter her coffee everywhere. Underneath the well-worn blue shirt, he wore a gray T-shirt. It was stretched to breaking point across the large, hard planes of his chest. He shrugged his button-down shirt off, and then reached out and slipped it around her shoulders.

“What are you doing?” She hated that her voice sounded like a squeak.

“You’re cold.”

“I’m fine.” Then the warmth from the fabric hit her. God, the man must run really hot. It felt so good on her chilled body. Her gaze moved over his muscled forearms and the gray fabric straining over his massive biceps. He shifted and she saw the backs of his arms were covered in tattoos. They looked like…the scratches of bear claws. He had claw marks tattooed on his arms. She quickly took another sip of coffee. She wasn’t used to men like Logan O’Connor.

“You’re not fine. You’re shivering. You might have ice in your veins, but I won’t let you freeze to death right in front of me.”

She narrowed her gaze on him, hearing the contempt in his voice. “Ice in my veins?” She felt her temper spike. “I just got here. You don’t know me.”

“I know enough. Your brother’s missing, and you’re talking about it without a flicker of emotion. Like you couldn’t care less. That’s cold.”

She took a deep breath. “You’d prefer to see me rant and scream and cry? Maybe I should throw in some hysterics for good measure?” Why was she even bothering with this man? He was a stranger. “Forget it. I don’t have to deal with judgmental strangers who look like they just wandered out of the woods.” She spun away from him.

With some relief, Sydney spotted Darcy waving them over.

“I can confirm that your brother was staying in Lima.” Darcy’s fingers flew over a keyboard. “He had a room at the Hotel San Antonio. No one has seen him there for the last twenty-four hours.”

Sydney closed her eyes.
Oh, Drew
. She opened her eyes and saw that Logan was watching her.

“I’m running some searches now for any police reports,” Darcy was saying. “Yes, I’ve got something. A few people reported an American man running down the street, being chased by a group of other men. That’s all the details I have. We’ll know more on the ground there.”

“You’ll help me?” Sydney’s voice was a quiet whisper. She felt all the THS people watching her.

“Yes.” Darcy reached out and pressed a hand to Sydney’s arm. “My brothers and my adopted brothers—” she shot Logan a look “—drive me crazy most days, but I’d move heaven and earth to help if they were in trouble.” A wry look crossed her face. “Actually, I’ve done it on numerous occasions.”

Dec had a faint smile on his face. “Former Navy SEALs here. Usually we can rescue ourselves.”

Darcy snorted. “It’s a macho SEAL thing. They like to believe they’re superheroes and don’t need any help.”

A small laugh escaped Sydney. She realized they were trying to cheer her up. Their easy camaraderie was nice…she loved Drew, but they didn’t have a relationship like this. “So what happens now?”

“Logan and Declan will run this op. Along with two of our other specialists—Morgan Kincaid and Hale Carter.”

Logan
. Sydney tried not to show any reaction to that. When she lifted her gaze, it met the big man’s startlingly golden eyes. His eyes made her think of her father’s favorite Scotch. Or the eyes of a big, lazy lion ready to hunt.

Sydney schooled herself to show her most polite smile. “Wonderful.”

“I’ll call ahead to have our jet fueled and prepared,” Declan said. “And I need to call Morgan and Hale. They’ll meet us at the airport.”

Logan nodded. “I’ll need to stop by my place on the way. Get changed and grab my stuff.”

Declan nodded. “I’ll do the same and say goodbye to Layne. You can take Sydney with you, and I’ll meet you guys at the airport.”

Logan made a noise that reminded Sydney of a wild animal. An untamed beast.

After that, things moved fast. Sydney called out goodbye to Darcy, and found herself being ushered out of the warehouse. Logan led her over to a huge black truck with enormous tires. They stopped for a minute while he grabbed her bag out of the back of her rental car.

“Darce will make sure the rental gets returned.” He lifted her Louis Vuitton suitcase and tossed it in the back of his truck.

Sydney opened the truck’s passenger side door and eyed the height to get in. How the hell was she going to climb in with a pencil skirt on?

Suddenly, large hands circled her waist and she found herself boosted up onto the seat. Logan stared at her for a second, then stepped back and closed the door. Sydney sat there, pondering the fact that Logan O’Connor’s hands could span her entire waist.