“What?”
“He talked about the gold when he was delirious with pain. He said that you would be coming. He has suffered greatly because of those words.”
“I won’t just let him die. There has to be something we can do!”
“There is nothing to be done. In the beginning, Arturo paid for the best doctors. He wanted to keep King alive so he could find the gold. When the doctors failed to cure him, Arturo used torture. It made your grandfather weaker and sicker, until he was in no state to talk at all.”
Abby bit back a sob.
“King believed you would come,” Zuma said. “He worried himself nearly to death for fear they would hurt you, but the hope it gave him also kept him alive. If you love him, you will take him out of this evil place. You will make sure his last days are comfortable.”
“No . . .” Abby said, shaking her head. “There has to be another way.”
Gage approached. “We need to go, Abby. I’ll carry your grandfather.”
Her eyes met his. There was strength there she could count on. Gage was right. As long as they stayed in this place, they were in danger. And Edge might decide they needed rescuing—which they might if they didn’t leave.
“All right, let’s go,” she said.
Gage went into the cell and lifted King into his arms, carrying him like a baby. Once a vigorous hundred-and-seventy-pound man six feet tall, her grandfather couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and forty now.
Tears blurred her vision. He couldn’t die. She had only just found him again. She took a shuddering breath and wiped away the wetness on her cheeks. As she followed Gage down the hall, she felt the other woman’s presence beside her.
“I am going with you,” Zuma said. “King needs me. I will not fail him now.”
The words brought a lump to Abby’s throat. She had suspected there was something between Zuma and King. She could see it now in the woman’s dark eyes. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”
They reached the top of the stairs, and Gage carried King along the wide central corridor toward the front door. Paulo stood waiting. He followed them outside to the SUV they had arrived in.
They settled King on a blanket in the far back. Abby climbed in beside him and took hold of his hand. Zuma slid in next to Gage in the rear seat, while Tomás got in behind the wheel and Paulo sat in the front passenger seat.
They didn’t bother with hoods this time. A deal had been struck, the warning delivered. They had a partner in the hunt—and like the venomous snakes in the dry forest, that partner was deadly.
* * *
From a spot in the dense foliage outside the Posada Utsil, Edge watched half a dozen men sitting around a campfire, laughing and joking, drunk on henequen liquor, a potent brew similar to mescal. Two men slept on the ground nearby, and another two stood guard in different places around the building.
The men who had followed Gage and Abby back to the hotel had added to their cadre, hiring locals from the cantina, cartel members willing to earn a little side money. His brother and Abby were back in their room, a buxom Mexican woman and Abby’s grandfather, King Farrell, in another.
Edge heard a faint sound and turned to see Trace moving out of the shadows to join him. The two men eased back into the forest where they couldn’t be heard.
“Looks like our cushy security job has finally gotten serious,” Trace said, his eyes on the men surrounding the hotel.
“Serious as a heart attack,” Edge said. “We’ll take turns keeping watch. I’ll take the first shift, then you, then Skye. Gage and Abby will be heading out to the dig site in the morning.”
Trace looked up at the menacing pitch-black darkness overhead, the stars covered by a thick layer of clouds. A storm was moving in, and it was predicted to be powerful.
“What happens if Gage finds the gold?” Trace asked.
“Good question. We’ll need to be ready for anything.”
“Roger that,” Trace said and blended back into the scrubby forest.
All of them were used to sleeping wherever they could. Edge moved into a position where he could watch the guards as well as the drunks. His gaze went in search of Skye, but he couldn’t see her.
She doesn’t need your protection, he told himself. She was as capable at taking care of herself as any woman he had ever known. And yet he couldn’t rest until he made sure she was all right.
So far, the men didn’t seem to have the least suspicion they were being watched. Maybe they hadn’t expected Gage to bring in security. Whatever the reason, the fact they were unaware helped even the odds.
