Chapter 20

Case finished his sandwich and wiped his hands on the napkins Se?ora Alvarez had provided along with the meat and bread. The bottled water he'd stashed here weeks ago was warm, and the safe house was hot enough to have perspiration forming on both their faces even this early in the morning.

This place was never meant to be a long-term hideout and was only provisioned for a couple of nights. It was an emergency stop, nothing more. If he were on his own, he could make it work longer, but Nyx was with him.

She started gathering up the garbage and wrapping it up in the paper Se?ora Alvarez had used for their food. Case kept his eyes on her as she stowed it in her backpack. She caught his gaze as she straightened in her seat. Her cheeks reddened, but she didn't look away.

"You've been quiet," Nyx said.

"Thinking."

"You're trying to decide what to do with me."

I know what I'd like to do with you. He didn't say that aloud, though. Even if she were willing, he couldn't afford to be distracted. It was a sure bet that once he had his hands on her, he wouldn't notice anything or anyone else until it was too late.

"I don't suppose you'd consider going back to Los Angeles?" She frowned, squared her shoulders, and sparks danced in her brown eyes. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"You knew I wouldn't abandon my teammates, so why bother asking?"

"Sometimes a long shot pays off."

"Usually they finish last."

Case ran a hand across his mouth, trying to wipe away a grin. This was a serious conversation. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Why can't we stay here?"

"Think tactically." He reached for his bottled water and took a sip.

She pursed her lips for a moment and then said, "There's too much cover surrounding the structure. Someone could come up on us from any side and we would never know they were there until they made their move. With only two of us, it's an indefensible position despite the concrete walls."

"What else? Beyond tactics."

"You're thinking of the lack of air conditioning and the fact we have no running water."

"And once our supplies are gone, we'll have to leave to get more."

"You set this up as a stop-gap measure if everything went to hell."

Case liked how quickly she put things together. "Do you have any ideas on where I take you next? And don't suggest the hotel the Paladin League is using in Trujillo. That's not happening."

"I know. It puts Frankie and Ellis at risk. Those are my teammates," Nyx explained.

He didn't need the additional intel. Case had met both women briefly. Since he wasn't supposed to know them, he nodded.

"What about a random hotel?" Nyx asked. "If we moved around every night, it would be hard to track us down."

"It's a possibility."

"But?"

"Vargas has his tentacles everywhere in Trujillo. If he decides he wants you back badly enough to send men out to find you, a hotel isn't going to keep us hidden long no matter how often we switch."

"So what are the options we haven't already discussed?"

Case shook his head. He'd run all of them through his mind and the only one he liked was getting her back home.

"I'll think some more," she said, "and so will you. Something will come to us."

He sighed but nodded. If nothing else worked, he would take her to the safe house. He could deal with the captain. Probably.

Moving to another topic, Case asked, "What were those papers you stole from Vargas's library yesterday?"

"Why?"

Her voice was neutral, not a single note of suspicion, but he was insulted anyway. "Because it could influence whether the man sends anyone after you."

"That's provided he even realizes those pages are missing. I don't think he ever looked at that stack of documents." They had a stare down. Nyx capitulated first. "Did you bring the pages I took? You didn't leave them, right?"

Case shook his head. "The jeans are in the bag."

Nyx bent over. He heard the backpack's zipper open and there were sounds of her digging around before her head reappeared over the tabletop. She held a folded wad of paper. She put it on the table and used both hands to smooth out the creases.

"I can't believe you folded up historical documents," Case said.

"They're not historic. Not unless you think twenty years is notable."

"Twenty years?"

"That's what the date on the top of the pages said. See?" Nyx turned them so he could see the writing. There was a date and a name scrawled beneath it.

"What are twenty-year-old papers doing in with two-hundred-year-old documents? And why did you take them and not something historic?"

She slid the pile back to her side of the table. "These pages are the notes another researcher made about the documents. He summed up—well, if not everything in the stack, close to it from what I saw."

"You trust some random researcher?"

Nyx's lips turned up at the corners, giving her a mischievous look, something Case didn't expect to see from her. "The researcher in question was Diego Ramos."

She said it as if he should know who that was. "The only Ramos I know was Vargas's predecessor as drug lord and his first name wasn't Diego."

"Diego Ramos worked at the Huarona archaeological site. He was the foreman for the dig, but he was more than that. The man loved the old legends of Puerto Jardin and he studied them extensively. Apparently, that included the Lost Treasure."

"The Huarona site. Those are the ruins near San Isidro where we got engaged."

For a moment, she looked surprised, and then Nyx laughed. The sound caressed him and made his body come back alive after he'd worked so hard to tamp down the arousal.

"That's the place. Anyway, Diego Ramos is well known in archaeological circles among those interested in pre-Columbian civilizations. His notes are probably more important than the documents I left behind in the library. It's too bad he passed away years ago. He would have been a big help in the search for the treasure."

"Do you think he was looking for it?" Case asked.

Nyx shrugged. "I can't say for sure since I never met him."

Case weighed what she said and scowled. "You read the notes in the library before taking them, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah. I wasn't going to risk setting off a firestorm without a good reason."

"What did you find? The location of the treasure?"

Nyx shook her head. "That would be too easy."

She was answering his questions without saying much. Case didn't like it. "Be more specific. What did you read?"

Nyx stiffened and her cheeks flushed. She looked angry, and for a minute, he thought she was going to go off, but she took a few deep breaths and her expression cleared. "I'm not lying to you." Her voice was tight. She was still pissed. "I didn't find anything concrete, but I think Se?or Ramos found something. There was a change in the tenor of his notes about two-thirds of the way through. He became cagier. Less forthright."

He thought about it for a moment. "If there was nothing in his notes, why take them? Why not take some of the documents his notes are based on?"

"Because Frankie would harangue me every time we saw each other for the rest of my life if I folded two-hundred-year-old documents. Besides, I didn't know which of the papers were important or if the notable ones were even on the table. Maybe there's a second stack that Vargas would have brought in later."

"You didn't find anything in what you read." It wasn't a question.

"No, and you didn't either because you would have said something if you had." Her voice sounded more normal now, a sign she was gaining control of her emotions.

"Why take Ramos's notes?" Case asked again.

"Because I think he left hints and I need more time to comb through them."

Nyx pursed her lips briefly, provoking a fantasy about her mouth wrapped around his cock. Heat swamped him and Case couldn't find his voice. Luckily for him, she continued talking, oblivious to his thoughts.

"And because I want Frankie to look at them. She understands research at a level far beyond me. I view it as a necessary evil. She actually enjoys it."

Now Nyx looked at him, waiting, and when he remained silent, her eyebrows went up. Case cleared his throat, searching for something to say. "We're going to assume Vargas is coming after you. It's the safest course of action. If he's aware of those notes, and if he knows you took them, he's going to want them back. You, too."

She frowned. "I don't understand why everyone is suddenly interested in this treasure. It's been missing for more than two hundred years. People have searched for it from nearly the instant it disappeared. The odds of finding it now are minuscule, even if a brooch reported to be part of it went up for auction."

"Wait. What?"

"Which part are you asking about?"

Case leaned forward. He had multiple questions. "Let's go chronologically. What do you mean everyone is interested?"

"Not everyone, of course, but a lot of people."

"Nyx," he said, a clear warning in his voice. She didn't appear intimidated.

"My teammates were in danger from a Norwegian treasure hunter a couple of weeks ago. I had to stay out of the way, up in Rosario, and Frankie and Ellis ended up being protected by Frankie's ex. Although I guess I could say her current since they're engaged now."

Frankie was Captain Nguyen's woman. "Who else?"

"Well, this is the interesting part. Someone named Jorge Torres is chasing it."

"Torres?" Jorge Torres, an international arms dealer, wanted the treasure? Why the fuck didn't the Big Dog tell him this? It was a sure thing the captain was aware of it. Sometimes this need-to-know bullshit went too far.

"That's what Frankie said. Apparently, his men are surrounding the convent where the brooch was discovered, but they haven't made any moves."

"That you know of."

She nodded. "That I know of."

His team had been on multiple missions to end Torres's empire. It was difficult to get to him because he never left his estate. Could they use the treasure to lure Torres out?

Nyx watched him closely, and he put the idea aside. He'd have to discuss it with BD. "Two groups interested in the treasure isn't everyone ," he pointed out.

"The Paladin League makes three. Archer, my boss, wouldn't have sent us if he didn't think we had a chance of finding it. There are too many other historical treasures to be saved. Something is going on."

"You said a brooch that was part of the treasure is being auctioned off?"

"It was auctioned. Frankie filled me in. Archer didn't inform any of us. Some friend of Frankie's fiancé located it last year in the abbey."

Kyle Winter. He'd been assigned to work undercover at the convent last year and was there again on this mission.

Damn, his op was becoming more and more tangled with the treasure. That put Nyx at even greater risk.