Page 3 of Wicked Suspicion

Ski grunted and turned his attention to Oz. “What about you, Wiz?”

“No change on my end, either. The only new wrinkle is my message for Lurch.”

Case put down the beer bottle he’d been lifting to his lips. “What’s the message?”

Oz frowned. “Señor Vargas requests the honor of your presence—those were the words he used, the honor of your presence—on Saturday at the ruins near San Isidro. Two p.m.”

Case stiffened. “Where Vargas’s boss was assassinated last year.”

“Same,” Oz confirmed. “You’re supposed to come alone.”

“That can’t happen,” Ski immediately said. “BD will want some of the team there to back him up.”

“No one will be able to get close enough to be any help,” Oz said, leaning forward in his seat. “Arrangements have already been made to patrol the area, and if someone gets picked up, Lurch will pay for it.”

“Even if someone just gets spotted, I’ll pay for it,” Case said. “It’s better if I go alone.”

Ski shook his head, the motion emphatic. “It could be a setup to murder you. You know that, right?”

“Odds are against it. He wants me to acquire the precision-guided rifles. He’s not going to kill me and lose a potential source for the weapon.”

“You already told him you can’t get them,” Ski said. “You’re at risk.”

“I’m always at risk. It comes with the job.”

Ski’s use of profanity was creative.

Case waited until he finished. “Vargas is applying pressure to Torres to work with me. He’s the only inroad I’ve got to the boss. We can’t piss him off.”

“The Big Dog isn’t going to be happy.”

“Lucky for me, I don’t have to tell him,” Case said as he stood. “You do. Let BD know I’ll be at the meeting and I’ll check-in with someone when I return to Trujillo.”

He walked toward the exit, but Ski stopped him. “Lurch?”

Case looked over his shoulder but didn’t turn.

“Don’t get dead. Understood?”

Waving to show he heard, Case headed for the door.

Chapter 2

Nyx Templeton stared down at the paper in front of her and then back at her teammates. Ellis Vandenhoff was a wunderkind who’d gotten a doctorate in art history before turning twenty-four, but despite how book smart she was, she’d been sheltered and lacked street smarts. She even looked waifish with her pale blonde hair and big blue eyes.

Francesca Lewis had long auburn hair and deep blue eyes. The team leader and an archivist, she was the one pulling together the data that Nyx and Ellis would act on. It was obvious that Frankie believed in this so-called decoded message as much as Ellis did.

Glancing back down, Nyx reread the words scrawled in Frankie’s handwriting: Hidden high. Hidden low. Secrets deep. Ruins. San Isidro.

Random words that made a kind of sense. That’s all this was. It seemed it was up to her to bring the reality check. But both women looked so excited. Nyx walked to the kitchenette, pulled a can of soda from the fridge, and sipped at it to buy herself time.

With a quiet sigh, she returned to the table.

“Well?” Ellis demanded as soon as Nyx sat down.

She hated to be the killjoy, but someone needed to be the voice of reason. “I think that while this is an interesting theory, this is only a collection of words that make sense by chance, not design.”

“I believe there’s a code in Mother Bonifacia Emilia’s diary,” Frankie said, and there was no mistaking her conviction.

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