Chapter Seventeen #2
“No, you can’t.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Don’t do anything stupid. Not after what was said.” He was referring to her mom’s warning, of course, but as they were in mixed company, he left it ambiguous.
She squeezed her eyes shut and cursed under her breath. He was right. She needed to be careful, especially out here alone with her father and his still-healing ankle.
And alone with whatever could be hiding in the shadows.
“Fine,” she said, opening her eyes. “I’ll take some quick rubbings of the carvings surrounding the entrance and then we’ll follow you guys.”
One dark eyebrow raised. “Are you lying to me?”
“Did my shoulder twitch?” He was still holding onto both shoulders.
“Nope.”
“Then you have your answer.” She held up her hand with her pinkie raised. “You want me to pinkie swear.”
“I’d rather we seal the deal with a kiss.”
Easily done. She went on her toes and brushed her lips over his. “Good enough?”
He grinned. “For now. I might need more assurance later, though.” His grin faded. “Please be careful, boss lady.”
She patted his cheek. “I will.”
“If you don’t show up at the wall within an hour after I get there, I’m coming back for you, and I’m bringing Daisy.”
“Why Daisy?”
“She’ll be able to find you. And if she can’t …” He touched her locket. “Someone else will.”
“I’ll be there,” she said and meant it. He was right. It would be foolish to take risks now that they’d finally found something that might give her the answers she needed. “Tomorrow, we’ll return with more tools and help.”
“Come on, Big Blue Bunyan,” Pedro called out. “This guy is getting heavy.”
She patted Quint’s chest. “Go, Parker.”
He kissed her on the forehead. Wrapping one of Dr. Fernel’s arms around his shoulder while Pedro did the same with the other, he nodded in her direction. Then he and Pedro half-carried the poor guy down the freshly cut path.
Her father caned his way closer to her as she watched them fade into the trees. “I don’t understand why the bugs went for him but not the rest of us.”
“Me either, but tomorrow we should all probably cake Teodoro’s repellent on doubly thick.”
“Maybe even triple.” He turned toward the ruin. “Let’s get these rubbings done and head back. I don’t know if I want to be here when it gets dark.” He pointed his cane at the entrance. “Something tells me there are going to be bats flying out of there come dusk.”
She scanned the surrounding jungle, nodding. “That would certainly explain all of these papaya trees.”
Bats were wonderful fruit tree workers, acting as pollinators first and seed dispersers later via their guano. She had a feeling that if she poked her nose inside that darkened doorway, she’d be surrounded by a strong ammonia smell, typical of most bat caves.
She slipped off her backpack, pulling out the rice paper notepad and a couple of pieces of charcoal for rubbing. “Okay, Dad, you rest and I’ll get busy.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, child,” he teased, stepping carefully through the papayas scattered over the ground, poking at several with his cane.
She walked past him, heading for the base of the single-story structure. The stones that made up the steps were worn and cracked with weathering, but still stable.
At the top, she paused to sniff at the mouth of the ruin, but stayed outside per her promise to Quint.
Underneath the eau de parfum of the surrounding jungle with its rotting fruit and decaying leaves, she could smell the earthy, stale air that hovered in the darkness.
The scent was similar to most other Maya temples and structures she’d been going in and out of over the years.
The Maya people had been amazing engineers, architects, and builders.
Thousands of years had passed, yet so many of their structures still stood in spite of time’s ravaging.
While many archaeologists and historians were head over heels for the Egyptians and their massive structures, that civilization’s stone achievements hadn’t taken centuries’ worth of beatings from humidity, rain, and vegetation that seemed determined to crack and dismantle anything manmade.
Angélica had always sided with the Maya as the more impressive builders of the two empires.
She set her pack down and carefully nudged aside several thorny vines, placing her palm flat against the square column on the left. The lichen-covered block was scratchy under her hand, warm to the touch.
Angélica closed her eyes, thinking of KuTu’s words, trying to feel if the stone was singing. Her breathing slowed as she waited for a vibration of some sort and listened for an earthy hum.
“What are you doing, gatita?” her father called out. From the sounds of it, he was over near the temple.
“Just getting a feel for this place,” she said. “Be careful around the rubble.”
Her father’s grumbling about her being as bossy as her mother made her smile. She wondered if her mom was listening in today. If so, she was probably laughing.
Opening her eyes, Angélica pushed up onto her tiptoes and slid her hand higher up the stone column.
Fern fronds dangled from where the plant had rooted on the ledge above the entrance, hiding the long block bracing the top of the entrance from view.
Thankfully, most Maya people had been on the shorter side and their buildings were designed with their height in mind, so she was able to reach quite far up.
There were definitely more carvings in the stone up there.
“Get your hand out from under there, child,” her father said, much closer now. “There could be snakes or scorpions hiding under that fern.”
Chuckling, she pulled her hand away, settling back on her heels. “Do you recognize any of the imagery in these carvings?” She looked down at where he stood on the bottom step, leaning on his cane, sweat dripping down his cheek.
He rubbed his jaw, inspecting the entrance for a few beats, then shook his head.
“Not really, but they’re hard to see with the vines and ferns covering most of them.
Not to mention the lichen coating. Maybe after we clear away the vegetation.
” He swatted at a fly trying to use his nose as a landing pad.
“You’re the ace at glyphs, though. Do you recognize any of them? ”
One looked a little like a mix between the face of a monkey and a bat. “I’m not the ace. Mom was.”
He waved her off along with the fly. “We’ve done this dance before, gatita. You’re better than you think at reading glyphs.” The smile he aimed up at her had a melancholy tilt at the edges. “Your mom would be proud of you and all you’ve accomplished.”
“I haven’t managed much since she died,” Angélica said, extracting rice paper and charcoal from her pack.
“You have, too.”
“Not enough.”
She needed to make up for her mother’s lost time.
If only she’d gone on that last trip. Maybe she might have been able to keep her from getting on that damned helicopter so they’d be here at this site together.
Well, actually, it seemed her mother was here. Partly. Ethereally. She glanced around, wondering if Marianne was standing right next to them, or maybe back in the trees.
“She’d be proud, period, Angélica.” He spoke with that no-nonsense tone he used when he was feeling extra fatherly.
She knew better than to argue with him and changed the subject. “I’m going to try to get rubbings of these carvings on each side of the entrance and then we’ll head back. I can scan through INAH’s database tonight after supper and see if I can find any close matches.”
Dammit, she should have had Quint leave his camera behind with her. That would have saved them time and allowed her to do a more refined search later.
“Don’t mind me,” he said, cresting the steps. He held up a flashlight. “I’m going to step inside and take a look around.”
“What?” She paused in the midst of tearing off a piece of rice paper. “No, you’re not.”
He clicked on the light. “Yes, I am. We need to know the structural integrity inside this place.”
“Dad.” She caught his arm as he tried to walk past her. “I promised Quint I wouldn’t go inside without him here.”
One eyebrow shot upward. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“That’s a change.”
“What’s a change?”
“You listening to someone else before running headlong into a tomb. Who are you and what have you done with my obsessive daughter?”
“I’m not obsessive, Dad.” When his other eyebrow headed north to join the first, she added, “I’m just very passionate about my job.”
“You’re passionate, all right.” He snickered. “Sounds like someone has been bitten by the lovebug to me.”
Her cheeks warmed. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s it like then?”
She sighed, swiping away the sweat running down from her forehead. “I don’t know. Must we talk about this right now?”
“Yes, we must.” He crossed his arms. “You like the boy, right?”
She snorted. “I think that’s obvious.”
“You have certainly been laughing quite a bit since he showed up. More often than you have in years.”
“So what? So have you. Quint’s a funny guy. He makes it easy to laugh more.”
“He sure does, and he’s pretty to look at, too.”
She eyed him for a minute, wondering if he was channeling her mom somehow. “Maybe a little too pretty.”
He chuckled. “He’s clearly crazy about you.”
God, she hoped so, because she was having trouble imagining her life without him. “He seems to like me, but ‘crazy’ is a strong word.”
“Why else would he subject himself to a place like this?” He held his hands wide. “Especially knowing he’d be spending most nights in the same tent with your old man.”
Guilt sucker-punched her out of the blue. She turned away, unable to hold his gaze as the truth of what she’d done welled up her throat.
Jesus, what an asshole she was.
Quint had known about her lie since its inception. Yet he’d followed her here, anyway, waiting for her to tell him the truth day after day.
She grimaced, holding the sudden ache in her side.
She’d let her obsession with her career outweigh everything else.