“Wait!” She reached between the mattress and the box spring and pulled out the travel sleeve which held her laptop and notebook, then grabbed her pack from the chair next to the bed.
Shane took her pack and shuffled her down the hall to their room. Oakley closed and locked the door, pushing a chair under the handle as an extra precaution.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Kinley asked.
“Not this time,” Ghost said.
“There’s no such thing as coincidence,” Oakley said.
“Agreed.” Shane shoved clothes into his brown duffel.
Kinley’s gaze jumped from one man to the other, trying to keep up. “What’s not a coincidence?”
“The carjacking. This attack. They’re looking for something,” Shane said.
“The question is, what do they want?” Ghost asked.
Blood pulsed through her body and her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. She looked down at the case cradled against her chest and worked her jaw side to side.
“This.” She unzipped the case and pulled out her notebook. “They’re looking for my notebook.”
“Why?” Oakley asked.
Kinley took a deep breath. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think it’s because I deciphered the Lago Azul text.”
Two…three seconds of still silence. “You say that like it’s important,” Ghost said.
“The Lago Azul texts predate current deciphered Mayan texts by two to three hundred years,” she said. “They’ve never been deciphered until now.”
“Okay,” Shane said. “I can see why that would be a big deal, but why would someone try to steal it?”
“Because within the text is what people believe are directions to a fabled Mayan city—the same city I’m supposed to go to tomorrow.”
“Why would someone try to steal a book with a map for a city they’d already found?” Ghost asked.
Kinley sat on the edge of one of the beds and rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the pressure building behind her eyes. “There’s a myth about a powerful Mayan ruler named Aapo who poisoned and killed all his people and then buried himself with his earthly riches so he could take them to the afterlife with him. The myth says the burial chamber is at the very center of the great pyramid of this city and the key to opening the burial chamber is contained in the Lago Azul text.”
“Which you deciphered,” Shane said.
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“How many earthly riches?” Ghost asked.
“All of them,” Kinley said. “Basically the Mayan version of Croesus.”
Oakley leaned over to Shane and stage-whispered, “Who’s Croesus?”
Shane shrugged.
Kinley couldn’t stop the small smile. “Think El Dorado, but ten times bigger.”
Oakley and Shane nodded and looked suitably impressed. The illusion was ruined when Oakley leaned over again and whispered, “How big was El Dorado?”
Shane pushed him away. “How many people know you broke the code?”
“My mentor, and she shared the sample I sent with all the team leads because some of them didn’t think I’d really done it,” Kinley said.
“How many people is that?” he asked.
