Effigy (40 page)

When he dared to look at Lori he felt the pangs of her distrust penetrating his soul. She backed away from him, the betrayal on her face exposing a corrupted ingénue.

“You lied to me,” she snarled. “That day in the car. You flat-out lied to me.”

“Still want to believe his intentions are purely academic?” Derek goaded. He smiled wickedly. “Course, I’m sure he’ll gladly hand out an A for top performance.”

“Shut up, Derek!” Peet snarled, lunging across the dying fire.

Derek was too fast. With a ratcheting cackle he leaped to his feet and found refuge at Lori’s side. His grin taunted him through the waning light. Lori was still glaring at him in utter disbelief.

“I can’t believe I was so naive,” Lori blurted, planting her fists against her temples.

This was turning into a complete mess. Peet took an imploring step forward. “Lori, it’s not the way he’s making this sound…”

He reached for her arm but she jerked away. “Keep your slimy hands off of me!” She spun around and pushed past Derek.

“Lori—”

Derek sprang into his face as she marched away, her figure dissolving into the darkness beyond the ember light.

“You heard her,” Derek snarled. “Keep away, teach.”

Peet nearly quivered with anger. “All this over a missed grade? Seems pretty low, even for you, Derek.”

The boy shrugged with a cocky grin. “Hey, I’m just reporting the facts. You really shouldn’t make this so easy for me.”

Peet grabbed his collar and slammed him against the cave wall. “And you shouldn’t make it so tempting to beat the hell out of you.”

“Go ahead,” Derek challenged. “I’m sure that’ll impress Lori.”

A shallow grunt echoed through the darkness. Then another. Peet released his grip and rushed to the central altar above which Lori had climbed the root and was pulling herself out of the hole above them.

“Lori, wait up!” Derek called after her.

Before Peet could pull him back, Derek leaped off the altar and snared the thick length of root. There was a heart stopping snap but the root held, creaking and swaying under Derek’s weight. Like Tarzan mastering the vine, the boy pulled himself out within seconds. He stood over the hole like a malevolent shadow backlit by the climbing sun.

Peet took hold of the root.

As he started to climb he became aware of a dull thumping above his head. It sounded like a giant stomping the ground above him. No, it sounded like chopping. Derek was hacking away at the root!

“Derek!”

It was too late. Just as his call echoed around the cave, the root broke free and he found himself crashing to the stucco floor. The length of the root collapsed on top of him. Derek’s coy laughter echoed after him as he threw his chopping stone aside.

“
Adiós
, Quickie Peet.”

Peet gathered himself and glared at Derek’s silhouette. “What do you have to gain from all of this?” he asked in a beseeching tone.

Derek hesitated. He shifted just slightly, as though glancing after Lori and then sneered back down at him.

“It’s simple,” Derek said. “I finally get her to myself.”

With that, Derek stepped around the hole and vanished out of sight, leaving Peet with a broken root and a dead fire fifteen feet below.

Teotihuacán

It was the wrong day to act on an emotional impulse. Lori knew it the minute she heard the search dogs braying in the distance. It wouldn’t take the Mexican police long to find the observatory cave. She had to get away from there as fast as possible, except there was a problem.

“Where’s Dr. Peet?”

Derek’s face was drawn tight with urgency. “He chose to stay behind,” he said, grabbing her arm and spinning her back around with his momentum.

“They’re going to find him,” she said, trying to match Derek’s pace.

“He should have thought about that when he made the decision. Keep moving.”

They frantically hurried through the brush, clinging to the sporadic pepper trees whenever possible. Lori silently cursed herself for her erratic behavior. She hadn’t intended to hurt Dr. Peet. She certainly hadn’t planned on leaving him behind. She just needed a moment to sort her thoughts—to think things through. Surely Dr. Peet had a reason for lying to her about that student he’d met at the spring exhibit. Maybe he would have explained had she not been so hasty to walk away.

But it was too late to worry about that now. The damage was done and there was no going back to amend her actions. Obviously Dr. Peet was upset enough to place himself in danger rather than escape with her and Derek.

They were nearing the southern ruins of
Teotihuacan
when Derek suddenly slowed his pace. “Keep it cool,” he said.

“The car’s at the other end of the park,” Lori said in a hushed voice.

“So are the cops.”

“Where should we go?”

Derek stopped and scanned the immediate area. He pointed to a parking lot not far away. “We have to go there.” He gave Lori a quick once-over before snatching the bandana off her head.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

He ripped the Oakleys off his face and shoved them into Lori’s hand. “It’ll help if you looked more like a tourist and less like an archaeologist,” he said, shoving the bandana into his back pocket.

Lori slipped the glasses on her face and Derek took her hand. “This way. Just look touristy.”

Lori let him lead the way into a crowd wandering along the row of ruins, anxiously keeping an eye out for the police. It wasn’t long before she spotted a masked officer. She held her breath.

“Keep it cool,” Derek murmured.

He snatched a folded park brochure from a man’s back pocket and immediately faced the nearby crumbling cobbled wall to leaf through the pages. Lori huddled in close and together they feigned interest in the structure as the officer walked by.

“Let’s go, dear.”

Derek angled toward the parking lot where a tour bus bound for
Mexico City
was just pulling away.

“Dammit!” he spat under his breath.

“There’s another bus over there,” Lori said, pointing across the wide plaza of a rather unimpressive pyramid mound. Just beyond stood a visitor’s center and another parking lot with buses exchanging visitors.

“Think we can make it?”

“A bus leaves for
Mexico City
every half hour. We’re bound to catch one somewhere.”

They started across the plaza, blending as best they could with different groups of tourists, but they tended to move against the flow of foot traffic, a detail Lori became acutely aware of.

The pyramid, which seemed to draw the focus of everyone’s attention, was little more than a mound of erosion save for a few tiered facades carved with relief characters, including the menacing heads of Quetzalcoatl protruding in between.

“Shaman Gaspar’s great temple,” Derek somberly announced.

Lori couldn’t help but marvel at the rows of feather-collared, dragon-like serpents gaping from the facades. “They look just like the effigy,” she said as Derek hurried her past.

“Keep moving.”

To Lori’s disappointment, she didn’t have time to appreciate the archaeological wonder they’d just flown by. Derek had his sights set on a bus just ahead.

“
Ciudad de México
?” he called to the driver as they reached the bottom of the steps.

The driver nodded. “
Sí. México
.”

Derek grabbed Lori’s arm. “This is our ride.”

The bus was only half full, each seat alternating with wonder-eyed visitors and sun-weary travelers. Hardly a word was spoken over the eerie hum of the bus’ electrical system. They passed an elderly couple seated in the third row. Derek chose a pair of seats behind a lone Mexican woman, letting Lori slide in beside the large tinted window.

Lori removed the sunglasses with trembling fingers. Derek noticed the gooseflesh along her bare arms.

“Air conditioning too cold for you?” he asked with that cocky grin of his.

Lori shook her head. “Just a little nervous. I’ve never run from the law before.”

Derek leaned back into his seat. “Don’t worry. You get used to it.”

She looked at him quizzically. “You don’t say?”

The heavy footsteps of another boarding passenger caught Lori’s anxious attention, but when she looked up she immediately spotted the bulletproof vest and black hood of an AFI officer, and he was casually scanning the rows of passengers.

“They’ve caught us!” she gasped.

“Keep your head down.”

Lori ducked behind the seat in front of her. The officer’s footsteps slowly continued up the aisle.

“He’s going to see us, Derek!”

Her heart was suddenly racing and she couldn’t hide the panic in her voice. There was no escaping the confines of the bus. They were trapped. Lori held her breath and realized Derek was holding his too as they listened to the footsteps drawing closer.

“We’re going to jail!” she whispered.

“Shut up!” Derek hissed.

“They’ll do to us what they did to John and Eva!”

The officer was upon them now and just when Lori spotted his shadow in the aisle at Derek’s feet, she felt a hand grab her chin. Before she had time to react, Derek’s lips smothered hers.

Lori tried to pull away only to have Derek lean into her, pressing her against the bus window. His lips were moist and passionate now, his breath hot against her face. A low, fervent groan rose from his throat, imploring her to relax, and that’s when she realized the officer was standing over them.

She wrapped her fingers around Derek’s ears, pulling him into her. The officer waited, as if uncertain or unwilling to pull them apart. Lori feared he might wait them out, so she responded to Derek’s lips more compliantly.

The officer cleared his throat and tapped Derek’s shoulder. Derek leaned into Lori more feverishly. She felt herself slipping beneath his weight, but she didn’t pull away. Derek reached under her shirt, his touch sparking shivers along her skin. An arrant whimper escaped her throat and transmitted through her lips in exchange for a smothered groan of his own. Lori couldn’t breathe.

Their shameless display was not lost upon the officer for after another awkward moment or so, he chose to let them be and continued to the couple at the back of the bus. Derek didn’t let up until the officer had completed his inspection, marched back to the front and waved the driver on as he stepped off the bus.

Gasping, Lori finally pulled away and straightened her shirt. She sheepishly looked around. The old couple near the front seemed oblivious to what they’d been doing behind them, as was the Mexican woman who had turned to a crossword puzzle in her lap. A quick glance behind them and Lori realized that even the couple seated in the back were preoccupied with their own amorous affections.