“You sure it’s him?” Epstein called down the shaft.
“Yeah, yeah the ring…it’s Ciccone’s ring, the one with the gold seal.” He swore. “Geez, his finger bones just fell off when I touched him.”
“I want to see for myself. Wait there—I’m coming down.”
Another wave of goose bumps chased over Lex’s skin as he saw Epstein draw a handgun from a holster at his ankle, check it, chamber a round and replace his weapon. Damn, the bastard was going to kill Markowitz? When? Once they got the bones bagged and back up into the SUV?
Lex’s brain raced.
He needed the evidence to remain where it was. And he couldn’t call for backup now. They’d hear. He needed to find a way to incapacitate these two, maybe trap them down in the shaft with the remains of Ciccone. Hold them until help arrived.
Epstein began to lower himself carefully into the shaft, the beam of his flashlight catching dust that floated up from the disturbed tomb below.
“Careful, Mr. Epstein. It’s steep and not very secure. Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“What about Duncan—what if he arrives while we’re down here?”
“We’d already have seen him coming miles away on that road. We can set an ambush for him once we’ve got Ciccone bagged.”
Lex waited for Epstein’s head to sink below ground level. The minute he was down there, Lex would make for the heavy grate, seal them in from the top.
But just before Epstein was swallowed by the earth, Lex’s phone buzzed loudly in his pocket. He swore to himself, jerked back, fumbled quickly in his pocket. He was about to click it off but saw the number in the green glow. Lex put the phone to his ear. “Yes,” he whispered, quiet as he could.
“Special Agent Duncan, it’s Agent Savalas. We’ve got a situation—”
Lex tensed.
“There’s a security guard down at the Rothchild mansion, and security footage shows a man in a black balaclava firing a weapon into Agent Perez’s vehicle. He then got into the vehicle and left the scene.”
His heart twisted violently. “Jenna? Perez?”
“He’s got them.”
“Are they injured?” Lex whispered, hoarse. In the back of his mind he heard the men in the mineshaft go quiet—God, they’d heard him!
“We don’t know. And we have no fix on the vehicle—”
“Perez’s vehicle is fitted with GPS. Track it. Call me as soon as you have a location. I’m coming in.”
He killed the call.
Silence rung loud in his ears. Just the thud of his heart.
Lex swore to himself, panic whispering seductively at the edges of his consciousness. Was it the same man who’d fired at her during the car chase?
Footfalls crunched in dirt, advancing. The two men were coming for him. They must have scrambled back out of the shaft when they’d heard him, and he’d been distracted.
Lex heard the rack of a rifle.
Fire boiled into his blood. He refused to lose. If he did, Jenna would die.
A gunshot pinged suddenly off the side of the boxcar, near his head.
Lex ducked down. They definitely knew he was here. Alone in the desert. Two against one. Lex scurried along the base of the boxcar, dashed in a crouch across a gap and tucked in behind a shed, staying low and quiet. Those two men were a good deal older than him. And he was now fired with raw determination like nothing he’d known, a passion that was consuming him whole. All those men were to Lex now was an obstacle in his way to saving Jenna.
She was his priority.
Not Epstein.
Not the man who’d killed his mother—not any longer.
Lex had reached a tipping point, and he’d gone over the edge, seen what lay on the other side. A future. With a woman who’d bewitched him within three minutes flat—the duration of the song that had played on the dance floor only four nights ago, before the big clock in the Ruby Room had struck twelve. Lex had known it back then, deep down, that he was toast.
Blame it on The Tears of the Quetzal curse. Blame it on Vegas fate, chance, luck, magic. Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let Jenna go now. He was going to be her protector 24/7. For the rest of his life. And these bastards were simply in his way.
Another shot pinged off the boxcar where Lex had been just seconds ago. It gave the gunman’s position away. Lex peered round the shed, squeezed off two shots. Immediately gunfire returned. Lex ducked, aimed again, this time the shooter went down with a grunt and thud in the dirt. It was Markowitz.
Lex now aimed for Epstein, who was running for his vehicle. He fired into dirt at this feet. Dust kicked up in a small explosion. Epstein kept running. Lex stepped out from his cover, weapon aimed at Epstein. “Halt! FBI!”