Undiscovered (Treasure Hunter Security Book 1) (10 page)

“Security secret. Busy day?”

“You could say that.” She pulled a face. “Lots of people are sick and I’ve had workers leave. They say the curse of the mummy is to blame for our bad luck.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

She rubbed her forehead. She was pretty sure she had dust smeared all over her face. “I’m planning to work on the scroll again this evening.”

He reached out and rubbed her cheek. “You’re working too hard, Rush.”

God, every time he touched her it set her belly jumping. “We’re behind.”

“Anders was spotted in Dakhla.”

The bottom of her stomach dropped away.

Declan’s face was grim. “Two young women, tourists, were found dead.”

“Oh.” Layne pressed a hand to her stomach. She felt sick.

“Get the scroll decoded, Rush, then I suggest we move it and any other valuables to Cairo.”

She nodded. “I’m heading to the work tent right now.”

In the tent, Layne set her Coke down on the workbench, and carefully pulled the scroll out of her pocket.

God, it was stunning. Looking at it, her shoulders loosened. Staring at this magnificent piece of history filled her with awe and fascination. The troubles of the day faded away.

Her mom and dad would have gotten a huge kick to see it. To see their daughter in charge of finding it and taking care of it. Layne’s hands shook and she pressed them to the workbench. She breathed in deep of the warm desert air, the scent nothing like the frigid chill of that long ago snowy day when she’d come home and found them dead.

She glanced over at the gold sarcophagus nearby. She wanted this dig to go well. It was the only way she knew to honor the parents who’d been taken too soon.

She turned back to the scroll. She needed to go over her translations again. She wasn’t going to let this beat her. She’d made a mistake somewhere, and she was going to solve it. She set to work, meticulously transcribing her notes down in her notebook.

Layne had no idea how many hours had passed. Outside the work tent, everything was quiet, except for the gentle sound of the desert wind blowing.

Ugh, it was all gibberish
. She sat back on her stool and pressed the heels of her hands to her tired eyes. All she had were small fragments talking about birds and the desert. It just didn’t make sense.

She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. It was late. She’d translated as much as she could and now her eyes were crossing. She needed some sleep.

Unable to stop herself, she reached out and stroked the center of the scroll, where there was the empty space and that lone glyph for fierce protector. It was almost like text was missing from here. She touched the strange grooves that Declan had commented on.

The empty space was about the size of her palm. She stared at the little grooves, and then she frowned, tilting her head.

They almost looked like…a dog.

Dog
. She froze. The set-animal amulet! She traced the space again. It looked like it was exactly this size.

A flood of excitement made her leap to her feet. She grabbed her radio. “Hey, whoever’s on, this is Dr. Rush. I’m heading to grab something out of the safe.” She snatched up her flashlight. The set-animal was in the small tent used to hide the safe.

Her flashlight cast a yellow glow on the sand. Beyond the glow, the camp was silent, all the tents dark. As she walked into the extreme desert darkness, her heart clenched. Images of Anders’ attack flashed through her head, making her chest tight.

Calm down, Layne
. She breathed in a lungful of air. Somewhere out in the darkness, Declan and his team were keeping an eye on things. She let the image of Declan settle in her head and she felt better.

He might annoy her and kiss like a sex god, but he had that dangerous protector vibe going on.

Those kisses…

No. Oh, no
. She started across the sand, heading toward the storage tent to get the set-animal artifact. She wasn’t going to think of hot lips, and the slick feel of his tongue, and the firm pressure of his fingers biting into her butt.

She stumbled over something and barely kept herself from falling. What the hell? Her flashlight rolled away and she scrambled after it.

When she grabbed it, she aimed the light at what had tripped her.

One of her local workers lay curled in the sand, the end of his jellabiya flapping in the breeze.

Anger surged. She’d had to kick one worker off the dig for drinking. If this man was drunk as well, he was on the first vehicle back to Dakhla, no matter how short they were.

“Hey.” She walked closer, shining the light toward his face. “Wake up.”

When she nudged him, he rolled onto his back, and all the air in Layne’s lungs turned to concrete.

His face was battered beyond recognition and blood soaked the front of his robes.

She screamed, the sound shattering the quiet night. She fell backward and landed on her butt. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision blurred, and even after she looked away, all she could see was the poor man’s face.

But worse than that, horrible memories of her parents’ deaths crowded in.

“Rush!”

A lean shadow raced out of the darkness. She tried to say something, but couldn’t do anything more than just shake her head.

Declan took one look at the body and cursed. “Logan, check him out.” Then Declan knelt before Layne, blocking her view.

“I’m…sorry.” God, her hands were shaking, her voice was shaking. “Just give me a second.”

“Breathe.”

She nodded, but she felt tears slipping down her cheeks. She couldn’t wipe the images out of her head. “Is he okay?”

“He’s dead,” Logan said.

Layne felt the color drain from her face. She swayed.

“Screw this.” Declan scooped her up.

Layne hadn’t been carried by anyone since she was a little girl. But he was so warm, all of that strength radiating off him, and she just buried her face against the side of his neck.

“It’s okay, Rush. Hang on.”

There was a flap of canvas and he ducked. She realized they were in her personal tent. Her sleeping bag was rolled out neatly, her duffel bag and books off to the side.

He sat and settled her into his lap.

“I’m sorry.” She forced herself to dredge up some control. “I don’t usually fall apart like this. It just reminded me of my parents.”

A big hand stroked her hair. “Take your time. Finding something like this is always a shock.” Another soothing stroke.

“God, I feel like a helpless teenager again.” But she wasn’t. She was a woman who’d forged a life for herself. A career. She wasn’t a terrified fifteen year old all alone. “My parents are dead.” Her breath hitched again and the old sorrow came roaring in. “They were killed.”

Fingers stroked the shell of her ear and for a second she wondered how such a big, tough man could be so comforting.

“It was a home invasion.” She shook her head. “I was fifteen. It was so damned stupid. We were poor and didn’t have anything. There was nothing to take, so the attacker took their lives, instead.”

“They catch the guy?”

“Yeah. He was a local, high on something and looking to score another fix. He obviously got angry they didn’t have anything valuable. I walked in after school and found them.” She still remembered the blood soaking the carpet.

“Shit. That’s tough, Rush.”

“They loved me. I never doubted that.” She bit her lip, just letting herself absorb the warmth of him for a second. “He’d beaten them beyond recognition.”

Declan’s arms tightened around her.

Slowly she felt her strength coming back, the horror receding. “That poor man.”

“Don’t think of it yet.”

“I’m fine now.” She reluctantly pulled away from him. In the tight confines of her tent, they were face-to-face. “Thank you.”

He touched her hair, pushing it behind her ear. “There you go, Rush.”

“I need to know who it was and what happened.” Her hands curled. “How did someone get into camp?”

Declan shook his head, his face grim. “No one did. Logan, Hale and I have been patrolling—”

“Someone snuck past you, then—”

“Not possible, Rush.”

“All right. Then we need to work out what the hell happened.” She rubbed the side of her face. “Everyone’s going to be scared. Theft is one thing…”

“Why don’t you stay here?” Declan suggested.

She straightened her shoulders. “Thanks, but no. I’m in charge, and it’s my responsibility to take care of my people.”

She thought she saw a spark of admiration in Declan’s gray eyes.

“Come on then.” He helped her up.

They walked over to where she’d found the man, and she saw Logan had covered the body with a sheet. A few of the local security guards milled around nearby.

Logan’s big silhouette appeared out of the shadows. He was holding a handgun. Hale and Morgan appeared behind him.

“Worker came into camp like this. I tracked his footprints out into the dunes. Looks like he met someone out there.”

Declan nodded. “So we probably saw him walking around, knew he was one of ours, and didn’t question it.”

“You’re saying he was in on this?” Layne wrapped her arms around herself. The desert breeze felt downright chilly now.

“Looks like he was poking around the work tent,” Logan said.

She closed her eyes. “So he probably saw the scroll.”

“And he met someone,” Logan growled. “And that someone beat the shit out of him.”

“He wandered back in here, maybe looking for help, but didn’t make it.” Declan scanned the shadow-soaked dunes. “What a fucking mess.”

“Is it Anders?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Declan’s tone was hard. “But I’m going to damn well find out. Right now, though, I need to call the authorities and deal with finding the dead man’s family.”

She nodded. “And I need to wake everyone up and tell them what’s happened.”

Her long night was about to get longer.

***

In the early hours of the morning, Dec faced his team. “Report?”

“We scoured the dunes,” Logan said with a frown. “Nothing.”

Dammit
. “Anders is out there. I contacted Darcy. She’s looking into the dead worker. Name’s Karim Abasi. If he’s received any payments from anyone, she’ll find it. Police out of Dakhla are on the way. They’ll take the man’s body.”

“So it was probably this Karim who sabotaged the scaffold,” Hale said.

Dec shrugged a shoulder. “Probably. We have to assume he’s been feeding Anders information as well. And Anders knows about the scroll.”

Dec looked over to where Layne was talking to her people. Everyone was shocked and horrified. The local workers were huddled together, whispering. Rush looked exhausted.

“All right, Morgan and Hale, you’re on shift. Make sure no one gets in. You see anyone moving around, anything suspicious, call me.”

“You got it, boss,” Hale said.

Morgan nodded.

“Logan, grab some shut eye.”

His friend tossed him a lazy salute.

Dec headed toward Layne. He grabbed her shoulders. “Okay, Rush. Bed.”

Her eyes widened.

“Not with me.” Images tried to crowd into his head, but he regretfully shut them down. “In your tent. You’re asleep on your feet.” He herded her toward her tent.

“I still need to grab the set-animal artifact. That’s where I was headed when…” she swallowed. Then she grabbed Dec’s wrists. “Declan, before I found Karim, I realized what the fierce protector hieroglyph and those small grooves on the scroll mean. The set-animal amulet…I think it fits into the scroll. I think it’s the key to decoding the scroll and whatever is written on it.”

All the tiredness had washed off her face. Like it did every time she talked about her work.

“Okay, Rush. That’s pretty interesting, but you need some sleep.”

She frowned. “Are you my mother now?”

“Hell, no. But you need sleep before you fall down. You can test your theory tomorrow.”

She cast one longing glance at her work tent.

Dec’s gut clenched. Hell, that look on her face, the longing. It got to him. Made him wonder what he needed to do to make her look at him like that.

Damn. He was getting hard.

“Oh, I left the scroll on my workbench—”

“I’ll lock it away myself.”

They walked down to the personal tents. Everyone was heading back to their sleeping bags. Outside of her tent, she hesitated.

“What is it?” he asked.

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. “I’m not sure I can sleep. Finding Karim like that…”

And the memories of her parents. Hell, he’d seen the file on her, knew her parents were deceased. But it hadn’t mentioned that she’d found their bodies, or carved a career and a life for herself, all on her own.

He touched her hair. “The adrenaline will fade soon, and you’ll crash. You’ll find you can’t stay awake.”

She tilted her head. “Speaking from experience?”

“Yeah.” He reached out and stroked her jaw.

Her eyelids fluttered. “I used to have nightmares, after my parents. That their killer would come for me.”

Her soft voice made him want to sweep her into his arms. “I’ll watch over your tent, Rush. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

With that reassurance, she unzipped her tent. “Declan, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He pushed her inside. “Now rest.”

Chapter Eight

Layne headed over to the kitchen tent for a coffee. She’d slept surprisingly well, but she guessed she had Declan to thank for that. Just knowing he was outside, watching over her like…well, not a guardian angel. Declan Ward didn’t inspire images of halos and wings, more like a fallen angel. He had a face perfectly suited for that, a fallen angel ready to sweep a girl into sin.

She shook her head. Okay, maybe she didn’t get as much sleep as she’d thought. And the dull headache was a reminder of what had happened the night before.

“Hey, Doc, are you all right?” Piper appeared, concern stamped all over her face.

“I’m fine. Declan and his security team did their job very well.”

“I can’t believe you found Karim like that.”

Layne stepped around Piper and entered the tent. She poured herself a black coffee and studiously tried to
not
think about that moment when she’d found Karim.