Stolen Chances (4 page)

“Bullshit.” She wasn’t buying it. He’d never tried to get her on one of his digs before. She’d had to bully her way into the last one. And that had ended so badly, he’d never asked for her help again. “I’ve been out of the field for a damn year. You could have gotten anyone. And seeing as you have a dive specialist in Thad, you don’t really need me now, do you?”

“I wanted you. And I need Thad. Maren, this isn’t about the two of you, it’s bigger than that.”

“I don’t care what it’s about.”

Patrick let out a deep sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “I think we’ve found
La Malinche
.”

Her blood froze. And in a flash, it all made sense. His underhanded method to get her here. Her mother’s insistence she go. Even Thad’s unexpected presence.

As soon as she’d seen Thad at the airstrip, she should have realized that was what this was all about, but she’d been so shocked by the sight of him, she hadn’t been able to think straight.

Her heart pounded hard as she thought about the relic that had haunted her for so many years. The statue of a heartsick woman who’d been jilted by love. As legend went, Doña Marina, the Aztec woman who’d been sold into slavery by her parents and who’d eventually become not only Hernando Cortés’s interpreter during his conquest of Mexico, but his lover, had cast the gold statue in her likeness when Cortés left her to return to Spain and his wife. Then she’d cursed it and vowed any man who attempted to covet her again would suffer a fate worse than death. Maren didn’t necessarily believe in the curse, but if you followed the myth, every person who came in contact with the statue from that point on suffered a horrendous fate.

“Yes,” Patrick said quietly.

Maren lifted her brows and checked her emotions. “I thought
La Malinche
was supposedly lost somewhere in the northern part of the Yucatan?”

“That’s what most people think.” A slow grin spread across his face. “But she wasn’t.”

He moved to a map laid out on the table in the middle of his hut and pointed toward the water. “As you know, there’s very little record of
La Malinche
after about the mid eighteen-hundreds. It changed hands several times after Cortés left for Spain. The last known handler was an explorer by the name of Carlos Leonard, who happened to dock along the Yucatan Peninsula and prospect. Documents show the statue was last seen somewhere in the Yucatan, and the belief for years has been that Leonard may have found it and hidden the relic in one of the many cenotes on the northern peninsula to safeguard its existence.”

Maren knew that wasn’t true. They’d searched every cave they could find and had come up empty. “You were wrong.”

“Yes. I, and everyone else, was wrong. But do you know
why
we were wrong? Because we didn’t have this.” He reached for a weathered book sitting beside the map.

“What is it? Another book about local folklore?”

Patrick ignored her sarcasm. “This is a journal written by Zantum Leonard, son of the famed explorer Carlos Leonard. And inside, it describes, in detail, their last voyage together. And one small, gold statue of a woman dressed in flowing robes, weeping, with arms outstretched.”

Maren’s pulse sped up, but she shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her in the least.

“For years,” Patrick went on, handing it to her, his voice filling with excitement, “those of us with an interest in Mestizo culture knew the Leonards were probably the last men to have come in contact with
La Malinche
. Carlos Leonard befriended a local woman in the interior of Mexico during his search for golden treasures, and she may have been the one to pass the relic on to him. He died during their last voyage together, but his son survived. What I want you to look at is the last translated journal entry, written by Zantum Leonard.”

Maren frowned and stared at her father. When he motioned for her to open the book, she finally sighed and flipped to the end.

November 6, 1678

My father is not well. I fear the disease that has ravaged our crew will claim him soon. Unrest is prevalent on the ship. Something dark hangs over us all. A storm brews on the eastern front. We are boxed in by time and weather and illness.

She calls to me. I feel it in the air, in the depth of my soul. The woman in gold is a danger to us all. I try to avoid the voices in my head, but I cannot ignore them completely. My father is protective of her. Of what he says she stands for. He is worried. I see it in his eyes when I go into his quarters to bring him food he will not eat. He has warned me nothing good will come from what he senses lies dark beneath my heart.

He has asked to go back to shore. I fear he is going to hide her away for his very own. He is too weak to make the journey alone, and I do not trust myself in such close proximity with the golden woman. There is no one else to take him though, and I fear I am his last hope.

There are caves on the land. Big enough to hide in. Small enough to disappear into. Some deep enough to bury a man. They are filled with cold, bitter liquid that could swallow you whole if you let it. Death is imminent. I feel it coming. I sense it on the horizon. I know by taking him there, he goes to his watery grave. Either by my hand or hers. And yet, I feel powerless to stop it. To stop myself…

Maren stared at the words with a mixture of dread and disbelief.

“Zantum Leonard showed up in Spain years later,” her father said quietly. “But he never spoke or wrote about what happened to his father or the woman in gold on this voyage. He refused to discuss it. Maren, this is the
La Malinche
we’ve been searching for. This is everything we’ve both been waiting for.”

Slowly, she set the book on the table. Curling her fingers into her palms, she stepped back, wanting to put as much space between her and that journal as possible, and checked her emotions. “This doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t even reference the statue by name.”

“Are you going to stand there and tell me you don’t believe, even after you’ve seen?”

Maren didn’t know what to believe. She wanted it to be
La Malinche
. Yet at the same time…she feared that reality more than she feared the life she’d been living the last nine years. “
La Malinche
is a fable. And this journal doesn’t say Carlos Leonard threw the statue in any cenote. For all we know, his son killed him and took it for himself.
If
that’s even the statue they had, which I seriously doubt.” Her gaze snapped to her father’s. “How did you get someone to fund this project if this is your only evidence, anyway? You’re a joke in the academic community. We both know it.”

He stiffened as if she’d slapped him, and she regretted the words immediately. He’d been obsessed with finding
La Malinche
most of her life, and she’d just stomped all over his dream. But part of her didn’t care. He’d tricked her into coming down here, and her emotions were dangerously close to the surface.

“This,” he said, closing the book, “isn’t the only evidence. As you know, Leonard was reputed to have other artifacts onboard his ship, the
Conquistador
, including Mayan and Aztec relics he removed from Mexico on his voyage. Historical documents verify Atticus, what most suppose was the equivalent of a category four hurricane today, decimated the Yucatan days or mere hours after this last entry.”

“No way,” Maren muttered, understanding dawning. “You found his ship, didn’t you?”

A victorious grin spread across Patrick’s weathered face, and his eyes took on an excited gleam, much like Isabel’s on Christmas morning. “Almost. I knew the
Conquistador
had been docked near the inlet of Isla de Techal during their last exploration, and that because of the storm and changes to the sea floor, she could be anywhere, but after years of searching and coming up empty, I finally found this.”

He reached for a long wooden box from a shelf behind him and set it on the table. When he opened the lid, the silver sword inside gleamed in the light streaming through the window.

Carefully, he lifted it out of the box and handed it to Maren. The metal was cool to the touch and heavier than she expected. The sword was dull, roughly thirty inches long, with a decorative handle and wrist guard. And along the side, Spanish words were carved into the sword. Ones Maren had to look closer to see.

No me saques sin razon; no me enbaines sin honor.

“’Draw me not without reason; sheath me not without honor,’” she mumbled. She knew it was a popular phrase that had been engraved on Spanish swords for quite some time, starting with Coronado in the sixteenth century, but to her it still didn’t prove anything.

“Yes,” her father said. “But this”—he turned the sword so Maren could see the hilt closer, and the one word etched into the metal—“is the good part.”

Castillo.

Confused, Maren looked up, and her father’s smile widened. “Juan Castillo was a Spanish officer in the 1673-1679 expedition commanded by Carlos Leonard.”

Holy shit…

Patrick stepped closer and squeezed Maren’s upper arms. “I believe, without a doubt, that
La Malinche
is in one of two places. She’s either with the wreckage of the
Conquistador
, or hidden in one of a handful of cenotes just onshore. If Leonard took her to the caves like his son implied, then it’s possible she’s still there today.”

Maren’s pulse was a roar in her ears.
La Malinche
. So close. She couldn’t deny what her father had found could finally be the key, but fear kept her excitement in check. Could she do this? Could she go after that damn relic again? It had ruined her life once before. Though she didn’t believe in curses, she couldn’t deny that the pain and anguish she’d suffered the last nine years could be blamed on that damn statue.

“If you find her onshore, she won’t belong to you.”

Patrick frowned. “Have you ever truly believed I want her for myself?”

Maren looked back down at the sword. No, she didn’t believe that in her heart, but over the years it had become easier to tell herself he cared more about fame and glory than science. The father she’d known as a child, though—before he’d decided his work was more important than being a parent—had taught her to respect the integrity of an artifact, not its value. And though she knew finding this one had become a personal obsession for him, she didn’t doubt if he ever did unearth it, he’d give it to the Mexican government for preservation.

“What about your investors?” she asked. “I did read that correctly, didn’t I? This is a privately funded dig? They won’t be so happy to hand over their find to the Mexican authorities.”

“Martin Leonard Howling is one of the investors backing this little expedition. We have three, including myself. Whatever we find in nonterritorial waters belongs to the investors, though Martin feels as I do, that culturally important artifacts must be preserved, not hoarded.”

“And the other investor?”

“He’s a silent partner. In it purely for the gold, of which there was reportedly much on that ship. He cares nothing about
La Malinche
or a handful of Aztec relics.”

A treasure hunter. Her father had partnered with a treasure hunter. That didn’t sit well with Maren. But then, knowing he’d never be able to get a grant for his obsession, he’d had little other option.

“We’re well stocked for a six-month dig if it should come to that, Maren. We’ve got top-rate recovery equipment on the way, and as I think about the people outside, the best in the business. I know this matters to you. I can see the excitement you’re trying to hide. I called you here because after what happened nine years ago, you have as much at stake in this as anyone else. And because I want you here when we find
La Malinche
. All you have to do is say yes.”

Yes…
It sounded like such an easy answer, but to Maren it meant the end of everything she’d been protecting and the start of something she couldn’t control.

Her mind flashed to Isabel, and the excitement faded.

She looked up at her father's expectant face and set her jaw. “Did you tell him? Did you tell Thad about Isabel?”

“No.” Patrick dropped his arms. “I didn’t. But I’d hoped maybe you would.”

He was playing peacemaker. On top of everything else, he was trying to manipulate her again. “Don’t.”

“He’s her father, Maren. He has a right to know about her.”

She couldn’t believe he, of all people, was giving
her
parenting advice. “He has no rights when it comes to her. He relinquished those rights when he left me in Cancun and disappeared into thin air. I spent years looking for him, and I have my own reasons for not telling him now. Just because you think you need him, because you tricked me into joining both of you on this stupid dig, doesn’t change any of that.”

Patrick frowned in disapproval, and a wave of guilt washed over her. He was right, and she knew it. No matter what Thad had done to her, he deserved to know about his daughter. But Maren couldn’t back down now. Too much was riding on this. Her safety, Isabel's safety, their future. And she wasn’t willing to risk her daughter’s life on one stupid relic.

She lifted her finger. “You say one word to him about her, even one, Patrick, and I’ll make sure you stay as distant in Isabel’s life as you’ve chosen to be in mine.”

Patrick’s face paled, but she refused to let it bother her. He loved his granddaughter, always had. And that knowledge hurt Maren more than anything, because it made her realize just what she'd been missing.

She turned for the door and tried to steady her quaking pulse. “I’m not staying. I’ll catch the first plane out tomorrow.”

“Maren—”

She grasped the screen door and pulled. “You and everyone else can do whatever the hell you want, but I’m not playing a part in it. I told you before I’m not an archaeologist anymore, and I meant it.”

She let the screen door slap closed behind her and skipped down the front porch, heading back to the Jeep where her bags were now sitting on the ground. Thankfully, Thad and his sidekick were gone. Glancing around, she spotted Lisa standing on the porch of a nearby casita. She picked up her gear and walked toward the small building.