Authors: Isla Whitcroft
Amber nodded, still too dumbstruck to speak. Stefan was right. If word got out about their find, the place would be swamped – media, tourists and dealers would be all over the site in
hours.
But it was hard, so hard, to keep quiet about something as stupendous as this, particularly when Stefan told her it would take a few days for the professor to fly over from a remote dig in
Ethiopia. It was only natural that she sneaked back there once or twice over the next few days. And completely natural too, to make a map of the cave and the blocked entrance. Unable to resist
rummaging around the debris, she found a precious stone and what looked like an ancient dagger, which she took away and hid safely in the hut. After all, it was human nature to want to ensure that
the world knew it was she, Amber, who had been the person who unearthed this amazing hoard.
Thank God she could at least share her excitement with Jade. That was the brilliant thing about having a twin. Amber could tell Jade absolutely anything and know it would never, ever, go any
further.
The hut was nearly silent now. There was only the sound of gentle breathing and sleepy grunts as Amber’s companions finally succumbed to sleep. Soon even Amber was
drifting off, exhaustion finally getting the better of excitement, her final thoughts of the precious package lying just below her.
So no one stirred as the four men, their faces obscured by ancient death masks, their bodies shrouded in black, crept out of the tunnels which scored the interior of the pyramids and made their
way carefully down the worn stone steps and across the main site.
They didn’t hear the quickly subdued shout as two security guards and their dogs were overpowered. Nor, thanks to howling wind, did they hear the gunshots as the intruders showed the
guards no mercy.
It was only when they awoke, starting with terror to see the demonic faces looming over them and the feel of cold shotguns at their necks, did they understand that they were at the beginning of
a nightmare.
Sitting at a vast window, perched high above Los Angeles International Airport, Cate Carlisle watched spellbound as yet another glinting metal giant powered down on to the
baking-hot tarmac, swaying and rocking as it landed, before thrusting forward along the runway in a seemingly unstoppable surge.
As the red-white-and-blue jumbo finally pulled to a halt, Cate put her fruit cocktail down on the table, sat back in the white leather cocoon seat and sighed. The Encounter restaurant was
stunning – with lava lamps on the bar, beaten metal covering the walls and a stupendous three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view – but this certainly wasn’t how she had imagined she
would spend the first day of her Easter holiday in LA.
It was whilst Cate had been waiting for her suitcases to appear on the luggage carousel that her phone had rung.
‘Sorry, darling.’ Her mother was, as usual, abrupt and to the point. ‘Burt and I have been on a business trip to Mexico and it’s taken longer than we thought to drive
back to LA. Queues at the border.’
‘Hang on, Mum,’ Cate shouted, a hand over one ear to try to cut out the hubbub of the hundreds of passengers milling around her. ‘Who’s Burt, and where are you
again?’
‘Burt? Burt Tyler – he’s my new partner, darling,’ her mother said, sounding surprised that Cate didn’t know already. ‘And we’re in Mexico. We’ve
got a deal going with the locals to buy some gorgeous stuff. Sorry, darling, got to go. Go and grab a bite to eat and we’ll pick you up as soon as we can. Can’t wait to see you –
and Burt is dying to meet you too.’
Then she was gone, leaving Cate silently fuming as she struggled to lift her two leather suitcases from the carousel. Driving from Mexico? Surely that would take most of the day. This was so
typical of her mother. She hadn’t seen her in well over a year and now she couldn’t even make it to the airport to pick her up on time. She was so disappointed too; she had spent the
last few hours of the journey psyching herself up to greet her mum and now . . . well, now it was all just a huge anti-climax.
Cate yanked grumpily at the smaller of the cases, half dragged it over the edge of the carousel and dropped it neatly on to her sandal-clad toes. Pulling a face and biting her lip to stop
herself from yelling out, she managed to lever it on to her trolley and turned back to the carousel and reached for the other one. As she was hauling it off, her phone rang again and she struggled
to balance the case and answer at the same time, only to drop that case too, as the call rang off.
‘Here, let me help.’ A large, tanned arm came over Cate’s shoulder and pulled easily at the heavy case before placing it carefully on the trolley. She looked up in surprise and
then further up again to see a very tall, tousled-haired boy, eighteen or nineteen, wearing a faded green UCLA Football T-shirt and grinning down at her.
‘I thought you girls were supposed to be good at multitasking,’ he said, in an unmistakable Californian drawl. ‘You know, talking on the phone and lifting luggage at the same
time. What happened to you?’
Cate’s mouth dropped open. For a few seconds she didn’t know whether to be annoyed or laugh at his cheek, but the amused glint in his brown eyes won her over.
She smiled back at him. ‘I’ve been clumsy all day – I managed to drop my dinner into the lap of the snoring bloke sitting next to me when I was trying to change the film. He
was pretty mad, but not because of the mess. My dinner was lamb cutlets and apparently he was a vegetarian. But at least it stopped the snoring.’
‘Aha,’ laughed the boy. ‘A beautiful Brit. With a British sense of humour. Welcome to LA.’
He stuck out a large hand and shook hers enthusiastically. ‘The name’s Ritchie, by the way. Ritchie Daner. Second-year med student at UCLA and all-round knight in shining
armour.’
‘Cate – Cate Carlisle,’ said Cate. ‘Studying for A-levels at a school in London. Not normally a damsel in distress. Anyway, thanks for the help with the bags and, er,
maybe see you around.’
‘Where you headed, Cate?’ Ritchie asked. Easily six foot four, he towered over her by nearly a foot, but somehow Cate felt reassured rather than intimidated by his size.
‘Actually,’ she began, ‘I’m not quite sure. Well, that is, I’m going to have something to eat while I wait for my lift. My mum’s supposed to be picking me up,
but she’s been delayed for a few hours.’
She flushed with embarrassment, more for her mother than for herself. She was under no illusions about how unreliable her mother could be, but she really hated other people to know about it.
Even when, all those years ago, her mother had suddenly upped and left Cate and her younger brother Arthur at their home in London to ‘find herself’ in LA, Cate had not been able to
bring herself to talk to her friends at school about what had happened.
Ritchie was fiddling around with his iPhone. ‘I knew I recognised your name!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘I was trying to remember where I’d heard it before. You’re
that English friend of the twins. They told me you were coming to LA for a trip. And I’ve seen you on Facebook, on their pages too. Look, here you are.’
Cate stared at him blankly and then down at the tiny screen to see herself tagged in a grainy picture with smiling identical twins.
‘You know,’ he continued, almost jigging up and down with excitement, ‘the twins? Amber and Jade. Curly dark hair, always talk at the same time. Didn’t you hook up with
them somewhere in Australia this winter?’
This time Cate’s mouth did drop open. The Californian twins, wacky, funny and friendly, had been working at a turtle sanctuary with Cate and they had indeed stayed in touch through email
and Facebook since then. In fact, a few days before she left London, Cate had messaged Amber to tell her that she was on her way and asking if the three of them could meet up.
‘I’ve known the twins for years.’ Ritchie laughed as he put his phone back in his pocket. ‘Same school in West Hollywood and now we’re at UCLA together.
They’re on an archaeological dig somewhere in Mexico but they’re due back in town pretty soon. They said they were hoping to see you before you flew home. Just wait till I tell them
I’ve seen you. Small world, huh?’
Cate grinned back at him. ‘Amazing!’
He paused. ‘Hey, do you want me to stay with you, keep you company, till your mom arrives? I’m in no hurry.’
Cate was sorely tempted to take Ritchie up on his offer, but then pride – and exhaustion – got the better of her. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said stiffly.
‘I’ll just get something to eat, and wait for my mum. I’m pretty used to travelling on my own, I’ve been doing it for years, so you really don’t have to worry about
me. But hey, thanks, Ritchie. Maybe another time.’
‘OK,’ said Ritchie. ‘But take my phone number and when you get to your mom’s, if you’re at a loose end, give me a call. I can show you around, take you to a few
parties maybe? I’m only up in West Hollywood. I’d be happy to help out if needed.’
Cate had already decided she was going to wait for her mother in the Encounter Restaurant. She’d been struck by its space-age look every time she passed through LA
airport and had always wanted to see inside.
It was odd to think that Ritchie knew the twins. The summer before, Cate had been offered a dream job on a yacht moored in the south of France. This job had dragged her into a hotbed of criminal
activity and she was drawn into working as an investigator for IMIA – the International Maritime Investigation Agency – a shadowy group of investigators who never appeared on government
lists, seemed answerable only to themselves and who were called in as a last resort to solve complex crimes all over the world. At the Australian turtle sanctuary, Cate found herself working for
IMIA again – unbeknownst to her colleagues there, including the twins. IMIA considered her the perfect undercover agent because, as a sixteen-year-old girl, she could go places where men
would almost certainly raise suspicions.
Cate had just finished her seafood salad when her phone rang.
‘Mum,’ she said eagerly, ‘are you nearly here?’
‘Sorry, darling.’ The signal was poor, her mother’s voice crackly and sharp. ‘Burt’s just got a call from a supplier. He’s been offered some stock at a
rock-bottom price and it’s just too good an opportunity to miss, so we’ve got to make a detour. We’ll be with you tomorrow now, not today.’
Speechless, Cate sat back in her chair, a toxic mix of hurt and anger beginning to churn in her stomach. Why oh why was nothing ever straightforward with her mother?
‘Look, darling . . .’ Her mother was using her placatory tone. ‘. . . Book yourself into a hotel at the airport and we’ll be with you as soon as we can. I know your
father always makes sure you have plenty of money in your account for emergencies when you’re travelling, so you can pay by debit card and I’ll reimburse you.’
Cate finally found her voice. ‘Mum, I’m only in LA for fourteen days. I don’t want to spend one of them in a smelly old airport hotel while I wait for you to get back from
wherever you are.’ She could hear her voice rising. ‘I’ve come all this way to be with you. Can’t you just leave Burt and get back to me now?’
Her mother tutted sympathetically. ‘Calm down, darling. I know it’s a shame, but it’s only for a few hours really.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘Darling, I have to go now.
Call me when you know where you’re staying and we’ll see you tomorrow.’
Cate slammed her phone on to the table and stared back out of the window. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to burst into tears or kick her suitcases out of sheer frustration. Instead she
picked up a beer mat and crumpled it viciously into a tiny, unrecognisable ball.
‘Something wrong?’
Cate started. She hadn’t noticed the petite Asian woman who was sitting just to the left of her. How long had she been there? she wondered.
‘Oh nothing,’ Cate muttered awkwardly. ‘Just that my lift is going to be late. About twenty-four hours late.’
‘I heard you talking about needing a hotel.’
The woman was dressed casually in slim jeans and a beige top, but there was something about her businesslike attitude that Cate warmed to. Cate usually hated telling other people her problems,
but right now she needed to talk.
‘My mum was meant to pick me up but she has got delayed until the morning. So I’ll have to spend the night in some vile airport hotel. I’ve been in grey old London for months
and I’m desperate for a bit of surf and sun. I want to see the beach and the people and visit a cool coffee shop.’ She stopped, aware that she was bordering on ranting. ‘Well . .
. you know what I mean.’
The woman looked thoughtful. ‘As it happens,’ she said slowly, ‘I know somewhere that pretty much fits the bill. Have you ever been to Santa Monica?’
Cate nodded. She had always loved the vibrancy of that part of LA – the street artists, the surfers, the beautiful people chilling out.
‘There’s a great hotel there, right on the sand, just south of Venice Beach. The Erin. I often go there for coffee and I know people who’ve stayed. It’s got a rooftop
pool and apparently the bedrooms are incredibly cool.
Much
better than the airport hotels.’
‘Sound amazing,’ said Cate. ‘Just perfect, but a bit above my budget, I expect.’
The woman rummaged in her neat black handbag. Cate noted the distinctive Chanel logo on the clasp. ‘I’m sure I’ve got their card in here.’ She pulled out a business card
and waved it at Cate. ‘Tell you what, why don’t I call them for you? They know me there and I might be able to get you a good rate.’
‘Wow,’ said Cate, cheering up. ‘That’s really kind. Are you sure you don’t mind?’
The woman smiled and picked up her phone. ‘You go and order us both another drink and I’ll make that call.’
Sitting in the back of a cab as it crawled slowly down Santa Monica Boulevard towards the ocean, Cate could hardly contain her excitement. The huge Hispanic cabbie who had
chatted about his seven children all the way from the airport along the snarled-up three-lane Lincoln Boulevard, had mercifully fallen silent, leaving Cate free to enjoy her first glimpses of the
Pacific Ocean.