Lover in the Rough (34 page)

“Still good,” he said.

She stared back at him with eyes gone dark.

“Look,” he said. “We need privacy or you’ll be facing another scandal. My apartment isn’t far way. Neither is yours.”

“How do you know?” she asked, torn between anger and a fear that made her even more angry.

“Same way I know a lot of things. I checked you out. It’s what I do. Find things, especially if they’re lost in Mexico. I’m private. Very private. But if a public badge would make you feel better, I can call my friend. He’s with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I’m working with him on these.” Hunter tapped the photos on the edge of the table.

“My office,” Lina said tightly. “I know men there with badges.”

Rent-a-cops,
Hunter thought sardonically.
But if they make fear go away from those beautiful eyes, rent-a-cops are my new best friends forever.

“Your office,” he agreed.

A few minutes later, Lina locked her office door behind her and watched Hunter fan the damning photos over her mostly clear desk. The locked door was a signal to students and professionals alike that she didn’t want to be disturbed.

But she was more than disturbed. She was scared.

If Hunter was lying to her about keeping his silence, her career was over. And if he wasn’t lying to her, her career probably still was over. From the little she had seen in the photos, they could easily have been the pieces her mother had been sniffing after this morning.

Celia, what have you done now?

With an expertise that came from years of experience caught between her warring parents, Lina smoothed all expression from her face.

“These pieces were seized at the border by ICE,” Hunter said again, figuring she didn’t need to know about DEA and the beagle brigade.

“You can prove that?”

“If it will reassure you, I can bring in an ICE badge. Depending on where Jase is, it will take about half an hour.”

“Jase?”

“Jason Beaumont,” Hunter said. “My closest friend.”

Lina walked over to her desk, trying not to stare at the photos.

Failing.

The fear that had rooted in her kept growing. Fumbling slightly, she slid into her office chair without looking away from the photos.

Hunter studied Lina’s face as she studied the photos. Unlike the flash of panic or disgust he’d seen in the coffee shop, she appeared entirely composed now. Since she came from a high-test family, he wasn’t surprised at her calm. The Reyes Balam bloodlines were as blue as they came, New World and Old combined.

“What do you want from me?” Lina asked.

He wanted more than information, but that was his personal problem. It wouldn’t get in the way of his professional needs. Or Jase’s.

“First and foremost,” Hunter said, “a promise that this goes no further than the two of us.”

“Why?”

“A man’s job hangs on finding those artifacts. Fast. He has two kids and another on the way. To help him, I need the kind of knowledge you have.”

It wasn’t what Lina had expected to hear. She blew out her breath. “Just the two of us. And that goes both ways, Hunter.”

“Three. Jase already knows I was going to contact you.”

“Is it his butt on the line?” Lina asked bluntly.

“Yes.”

“All right. The three of us. If this gets out, I’m ruined.”

“Just for talking to me?” Hunter asked.

“There is no shade of gray in the academic view of unprovenanced items. You’re pure white or you’re garbage waiting for the disposal to be turned on.”

“The Caesar’s wife syndrome?”

“Exactly. My family’s reputation wouldn’t survive another scandal. Neither would mine. As you well know,” she added coolly.

“The sooner you help me find these artifacts, the quicker you’ll be left with the purists.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes dark and measuring. Then she looked at the photos. “Do you know where the artifacts came from?”

“All I know is that the plates on the truck caught at the border were from Quintana Roo.”

“The driver?”

“The same.”

“Has he mentioned any specific area or ruins?” Lina asked without looking up. Holding her breath. “Q Roo is a big state.”

“He’s dead,” Hunter said. “He didn’t talk about anything but getting shuck of the artifacts. He was afraid of them, or of whoever would take delivery.”

“You’re not making this any easier,” she said under her breath.

“Easy or hard, it’ll get done. Somebody knows where those artifacts came from. Somebody looted them, sold them, maybe they were resold a few times before they were packed in bags of cement mix and taken north. When I find the looters or the middlemen, I’ll find the name of the end buyer. Somewhere along that line, someone will talk. Someone will know about these artifacts.”

Lina was still caught on the bags of cement. “Was it a commercial load in a commercially licensed truck?”

“No. I had a source check it out. The truck was stolen from a building site on the Riviera Maya.”

Thank God,
Lina thought. “You know that part of my family’s business in Mexico and the U.S. is cement?”

Hunter nodded. “The bags weren’t from Chel Balam International.”

Not that the wrapping proved anything. Buying bags of cement mix was about as complex as buying tortillas.

“Yet you still came to me,” she said.

Silently he watched her, waiting for her to realize there was no way out.

“This is extortion,” she said. “You want me to walk away, I’ll walk,” he said, reaching for the photos.

“And talk, no doubt,” she said bitterly, smacking his hand away from the photos.

“Does that mean you want me to stay?”

“It means that I have no choice. And we both know it.”

“I’ll pay for your time and expertise,” Hunter said, letting out a hidden breath of relief.

“I’m not a whore with a Ph.D. Now shut up and let me concentrate on these photos.”

Hunter shut up.

About the Author

Elizabeth Lowell
’s acclaimed suspense novels include the
New York Times
bestsellers
Blue Smoke and Murder, Innocent as Sin, The Wrong Hostage, Always Time to Die, The Color of Death, Die in Plain Sight, Running Scared
, and
Moving Target
, as well as four books featuring the Donovan family:
Amber Beach, Jade Island, Pearl Cove
, and
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
. Lowell has more than thirty million books in print. She lives in Arizona and Seattle, Washington, with her husband, with whom she writes mystery novels under a pseudonym.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Also by Elizabeth Lowell

Death Echo
Blue Smoke and Murder
Innocent as Sin
The Wrong Hostage
Whirlpool
Always Time to Die
The Secret Sister
The Color of Death
Death Is Forever
Die in Plain Sight
Running Scared
Moving Target
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
Pearl Cove
Jade Island
Amber Beach

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1984, 1993 by Two of a Kind, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or here-inafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2001 ISBN: 9780061801181

Lover in the Rough with Bonus Material edition Copyright © April 2012 ISBN: 780062208880

Excerpt from Beautiful Sacrifice © 2012 by Two of a Kind, Inc.
Lover in the Rough with Bonus Material Edition © March 2012 978-0-06-220888-0

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