Raiders of the Lost Heart(3)

She walked out of the Oaxaca airport to a blast of hot, humid air and meandered under the shaded walkway, rethinking her decision to wear long pants and sleeves. The sticky heat invaded every nook and cranny of her outfit. She tossed her bags atop an empty concrete bench, then stripped down to a formfitting black V-neck undershirt while she searched her things for a clip to keep her hair off her sweaty neck. Not exactly the professional archaeologist image she’d been going for, with her boobs practically on full display, but red-faced and reeking of sweat wasn’t any better.

Who was she waiting for, anyway? The man with no name? Someone else? She glanced at the note one more time: We’ll find you.

Suddenly those words felt much more ominous than they had a few hours earlier. Everything about this seemed like a bad idea. Or, hell . . . maybe this was a super elaborate practical joke from the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology as a congratulations for making tenure.

Though that would be quite an expensive practical joke. Her colleagues had barely wanted to shell out ten bucks apiece to upgrade their coffeemaker a year ago. But with the passing of each excruciatingly long minute, the chances that this was a practical joke were more and more likely.

Forty-eight minutes. At what point would she call it and inquire about catching a return flight home?

You’ve been played, Dr. Mejía. Remember . . . there’s always a catch.

She closed her eyes and winced at her gullibility. God, this is embarrassing. It wasn’t like her to cry. No, tough chicas didn’t cry. So when the prick of tears formed behind her eyelids, she squeezed them tighter.

Always confirm the motives in advance. She chastised herself for failing to follow her grandmother’s advice and for falling back into her impulsive adventure-seeking habits. Had she asked a few more questions or demanded answers, maybe she wouldn’t be sitting alone on a bench in Oaxaca trying to figure out how she was going to explain this to the head of the department. Taking the semester off on such short notice had put a real wrench in the department’s curriculum. “This isn’t another one of your wild Lara Croft adventures, is it?” the department director had asked. After her last dig had resulted in an emergency evacuation, all on the university’s tab, they had a right to be concerned. This time, she’d practically had to beg.

But admitting she’d been duped and having to grovel to resume her original course plans? The idea made Corrie want to vomit.

One hour. One hour and then she’d call it. And she’d figure out how to grovel on the flight home.

Once the threat of crying subsided, Corrie slowly opened her eyes and noticed a blurry figure approaching. A man in sunglasses and a Panama hat came into focus as she blinked a few times to dissipate the tears. Not the man with no name. No, someone else.

Someone . . . familiar.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Dr. Corrie Mejía,” the man called out with a distinctive, friendly voice. A warm voice that had shared hundreds of laughs with Corrie over pints and cheese fries at the Village Pub during grad school.

A voice Corrie would recognize anywhere.

“Ethan!” she said, leaping from the bench and running toward her old friend. Her spirits lifted as he lifted her from the ground into a hearty embrace, sending his hat toppling to the ground.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as he set her on the pavement, though she refused to let go of him for fear that he’d vanish into thin air.

Her old compadre smiled at her with laugh lines that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him and a few grays streaking through his otherwise jet-black hair. She’d always thought he was good-looking—not her type necessarily, but still pretty cute—but time agreed with his features. God, it was good to see him.

“I’m here for the same reason you’re here, obviously,” he said with a wink. Like it was a secret mission.

Which, come to think of it, wasn’t an incorrect assessment.

“You mean, you’re here for”—she brought her voice to a whisper and checked her surroundings—“the dig?”

He laughed. “It’s not MI6, Corrie. Yes, I’m here for”—he shifted his eyes back and forth and crouched a solid foot to reach her level—“the dig.”

It was just like Ethan to tease her and her suspicions. Blame Abuela Mejía and all her warnings about motives and catches for that. But after thinking she was going to be kidnapped less than fifteen minutes ago, she’d take Ethan’s teasing any day. That still didn’t stop Corrie from punching him in the arm.

“Glad to see you’ve still got spunk. You’re gonna need it for this one,” he said.

“Why all the secrecy?” she asked.

“They’re worried about dig robbers. If anyone knew what we were doing here, we’d be screwed.”

Grave robbers were nothing new. Every high-profile dig had to contend with them. “No, I mean with bringing me down here?”

Ethan’s eyebrow quirked. “Er . . . we wanted it to be a surprise.”

A surprise? She’d been on top-secret jobs before, but she’d never been in the dark like this. And they certainly didn’t keep things from the archaeologists as a fun “surprise.” But, then again, Ethan had always had an interesting sense of humor.

“So where are we going? Aren’t the locals curious?”