An Artifact of Death Read online

  Run. Cici’s legs tore across the ground, flying underneath her with a speed she never exhibited on the lacrosse field. Feet pounded behind her. She picked up speed, moving faster yet. Her heart hammered so loud, she almost couldn’t hear the person running behind her. Her chest burned like she’d swallowed lightning.

  “Go! Go!” the man behind her yelled, his arms out straight as if he meant to push her.

  Mr. Vasiliev. The man who’d stared down the barrel of the gun.

  They hit the edge of the parking lot with Vasiliev mere steps behind her—curse his long legs—and Cici veered toward her car. She popped the locks of her Subaru and slammed into the seat, trying to ignore how awkward her back was arched, thanks to her pack that she didn’t stop to take off. Mr. Vasiliev ripped open the passenger-side car door and buckled himself into the seat.

  Cici turned to stare at him, her breath ripping in and out of her lungs. “What are you—”

  “What are you waiting for?” Mr. Vasiliev growled. “You have to realize they aren’t the only ones in the area. Drive this damn thing!”

  He pulled Cici’s seat belt across her body and buckled her in. The nylon edge bit into the soft skin of her throat, causing it to sting and burn.

  “Now!” he barked.

  His tone—that same one Cici’s father liked to use—snapped her out of her stupor. She shoved the key into the ignition and gunned the engine as she reversed the car out of the lot.

  More fireworks, no those were gunshots, sounded behind them. One rock or bullet ricocheted off some part of the rear of her car with a sickening sound of grinding metal. Cici gripped the steering wheel and ducked lower in her seat so that she could barely see out the front windshield. The radio blared the last song she’d connected through her phone—Dan Tyminski’s voice warbled out about dogs and deadbolts.

  She reached toward the radio dial at the same time as the man, and they both slammed their palms on the volume button, leaving the interior of the car in ringing silence.

  She pressed the gas harder, straight down to the floorboard, ignoring the way her head bounced and the backend of the vehicle sprayed gravel before its tires caught and the car lurched forward. The Subaru gained speed at a rapid clip along the smooth one-way road that wound around nine miles of ruins. For the moment, Cici ignored the engine’s high-pitched whine and instead focused on putting as much distance between her and the men with the guns as possible.

  “Who the hell are you?” she snapped at the man sitting in the seat beside her.

  Mr. Vasiliev glanced back over his shoulder. Slowly, his hand reappeared from the pocket of his trousers. He slammed a fist on his thigh as he sighed.

  “The man who just ruined your life.”

  3

  Sam

  Worry not that no one knows you; seek to be worth knowing.― Confucius

  “She what?” Sam asked, his words clipped and hard, as he stared at Evan. The other man stood at even height with Sam, blond and big-boned to Sam’s dark hair and more lithe build.

  “Left a couple of hours ago,” Evan said, his eyes trained on Sam’s face. Looking for…what?

  “When, exactly, did she leave?” Sam asked, leaning against the doorjamb to Cici’s house, shooting for a level of nonchalance he most certainly couldn’t maintain for long.

  “I’m going to guess around dawn.”

  Hell. Even in September, sunrise came before six in the morning. Considering it was only eight now, Cici must have been prepped and ready for this trip.

  She never mentioned it to Sam. “I left her a message last night. Told her I’d stop by this morning.”

  “When I talked with her last night, she said she wanted to get to Chaco with plenty of daylight,” Evan said.

  “Last night? What time?”

  Evan scratched his chin. Of course, being a lawyer, Evan was clean-shaven and his hair was styled back. Nothing was ever out of place or mussed. Sam found that fact—everything about Evan—annoying.

  Not as damn frustrating as the fact Sam could no longer ignore: Cici was avoiding him. From what Evan had said, Sam couldn’t pretend it to be otherwise now.

  Not that he blamed her. Fine. Yes, he did.

  He’d hoped their hike today would be the time, finally, to air out the grievances she’d been harboring. Hard to do when Cici had sneaked off.

  To avoid talking to him.

  “I spoke to her about ten,” Evan said.

  Sam’s hands clenched into fists. He’d called Cici and left her a message about a half-hour before she’d called Evan.

  Mona, one of Cici’s large Great Pyrenees, stuck her white head under his hand and looked up at him with those soulful brown eyes he couldn’t resist.

  “Yes, I’ll walk you, sweet girl,” Sam muttered to the dog. With a sigh, he gave her black-edged ears one last stroke. “Go get your leash.” The dog pranced back with an excited yip.

  Turning back, Sam focused on Evan again. “Did she say anything else?”

  “Nope. But thanks for walking the dog. She’s got more energy than her brother. He only made it around the block when I took them earlier.”

  Sam didn’t care about that. He rocked back on his heels, unable to keep from asking, “So, you have no idea why she up and left?”

  “Oh, I have an idea,” Evan said, the annoyance Sam detected in Evan’s voice stronger now.

  Sam gritted his teeth. “Care to share it?”

  “Care to tell me why Jeannette was at your place, drinking beer and looking all cozy when you’d asked Cici over for dinner—you know, a date.”

  “Did Cici tell you that?” Sam asked, anger beginning to burn in his stomach. Then, he processed the rest of what Evan had said. A date. Cici had considered their time together a date.

  Sam wanted to take Cici on a date. He’d never asked her out—never romanced her—before.

  “No, fool. I heard it from Jeannette. Boy, was she pissed at you.”

  “I don’t see what my relationship with Jeannette has to do with you,” Sam said, voice and posture stiff. Or how Jeannette was allowed to be ticked off when she was the one who ruined his evening—his whole week, apparently—with Cici.

  How and when had Jeannette and Evan started talking? He’d save that tidbit for later. Right now, he needed more information about Cici skipping town.

  Evan chuckled. “I’m going to hope you came here today because you want to know how to fix the hole you dug by inviting Jeannette over. Here’s the thing: you can’t.”

  “The hell I can’t!” Sam snapped back. He swallowed the irritation lashing up his spine and throat. No way was he accepting that he couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with his relationship with Cici. That was…well, any chance of Sam not getting to spend time with Cici was… unacceptable. And scarier than any thought but losing her. “And I didn’t invite Jeannette over,” Sam added in a mutter.

  “You hurt Cici, man,” Evan said. His voice was lower, but Sam heard the underlying censure there.

  Mona ran back toward the front door, her brown leather leash dangling from her grinning mouth. She skidded to a halt just short of knocking Sam in the legs, dropped her leash, and thumped her butt down in a sitting position, her long, plumed tail wagging in feverish excitement.

  “All right,” Sam said, trying to man up under the unpleasantness of being told off by his best friend’s ex-fiancée. “Let’s go, Mona.” He raised his gaze to Evan’s. “We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “Sam?”

  Sam turned back to face Evan, whose large body fidgeted in Cici’s doorway.

  “She, ah…she said she’s not sleeping. And, well, when I came by last night with dinner, Cici looked like she’d been crying.”

  “She has been,” Sam said on a sigh. “A lot.”

  “Right.” Evan cleared his throat. “I mean…well, these past few weeks have been like losing Anna Carmen all over again, now that we know the why.”

  Sam eyed Evan’s bleak expression. Anna Carmen’s dea
th might be solved, but none of the people who loved her felt better knowing her killer was also dead because both Sam and Evan knew the drug syndicate would find another path into Santa Fe soon enough.

  “And then there was the whole situation with the Bruins’ baby.”

  Sam’s lips curved down as he dipped his head. So much had happened in such a short span of time. He dropped his sunglasses onto his nose.

  “Sam?” Evan’s voice dropped a little lower. Possibly a warning. “She has a letter from a church in Portland.” Evan’s words hammered against Sam’s chest. “With a job offer. She asked me to look it over today. It’s a pretty good one.”

  Before Sam could think of a suitable reply, Evan slammed the door shut. Mona pawed at his leg, clearly ready for a long walk.

  Cici had never hinted to him she was leaving today, never mentioned anything about a job offer. When had she interviewed?

  Sam mulled over the potential options based on what he knew of her schedule these past few weeks. Must have been while he was wrapping up all the paperwork from the last case. Cici would have had time to fly out to Portland and fly back during the past few weeks.

  Not that Cici needed to say anything to Sam about her job. But this was the first time since he’d picked her up from the airport after her sister’s death that Cici kept something from him. Cici wouldn’t approve of his hovering. She was independent, capable. Sam respected those qualities in her, especially, even as they annoyed him. Which those traits did now.

  She was four hours away in desolate country—alone.

  Sam turned toward the path, Mona’s leash clutched tightly in his hand, as he tried to make sense of Evan’s words…and his own jumbled thoughts.

  All he knew for sure was that the feeling in his chest was an awful lot like panic.

  4

  Cici

  It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.― Confucius

  “What?!” Cici gasped. “Why are you trying to destroy my life? Oh my…I don’t even know you.”

  Shouts and shots directed toward them, though thankfully, still distant. But the men would reach their vehicle soon and speed after Cici and the mystery man in her passenger seat.

  Cici gripped the steering wheel so tightly her whole hands turned white and vibrated against the stiff leather. She shot down the road, hoping against hope this madness would stop.

  Mr. Vasiliev sighed as the engine revved even louder in protest.

  “Because you are now an accessory to my…let’s call it an investigation. And, though us being shot at should make this apparent, today, in case you were under some false pretenses, I managed to royally piss off the Russians I was supposed to be gathering intel on.”

  “No way. I don’t want to be involved.” Cici struggled to maintain some semblance of rhythmic breathing. Between the mad dash to her car and the hyperventilating realities Mr. Vasiliev threw out there, Cici half expected to pass out and blow her car into a fiery crash before they made it out of the national park.

  At least that would be less painful than what the men now following them seemed to have in mind for this man. And her.

  She glanced over, trying to take in as much of him as possible while maintaining the necessary focus on the road. Mr. Vasiliev was attractive. His light brown hair lay smooth against his skull in a conservative cut. Slashes of dark brown brows sat over deep-seated, always-roving coffee-brown eyes. Strong jaw, stern lips.

  “Get out of my car,” Cici said. Though it was a half-hearted attempt—more of a hope he had a better plan than sticking close to her. No way Cici would permit the man to get shot.

  “Wouldn’t do me any good to leave now,” Mr. Vasiliev said, his voice calm and much too reasonable considering the direness of their lives’ current trajectory. “Would do you less. I’ve been with you. Best I can do now is make sure you stay alive. Because my…well, I guess we can call them associates will not allow you to live. They’ll worry I gave you something or told you something.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Mr. Vasiliev shrugged. “Men of that caliber won’t take the chance.”

  “One vacation,” she grumbled, glancing up at the sky. “That’s all I wanted. I wanted two days to myself.”

  Her heart stuttered as she considered what her problems were an hour ago. Stay in Santa Fe or go to Portland. Now, Cici hoped she had the opportunity to make that decision.

  “Nice driving back there,” Mr. Vasiliev said.

  Cici yanked her gaze from the road to her passenger, much as she yanked her mind back onto the task at hand. “Thanks. Learned it from a congregant just before we almost got ourselves killed in Taos.”

  Cici’s voice rose as she spat the last words. Five puny weeks and she was right back in a life-or-death situation.

  Not cool, Aci. Cici scowled as she thought of her identical twin sister. Guardian angels are supposed to keep their charges’ lives boring and death-free.

  And, oh, Lord! At this pace, she would be dead in mere months. Much as she missed her sister and mom, dying had not been in her plans. Yet, thanks to her current crazy world, she was on a month-long cycle of falling into ever-more-dangerous situations.

  Mr. Vasiliev turned his gaze from the rearview mirror to study her much as an entomologist studied a specimen before he pinned it to his board.

  Cici swallowed down bile as she whipped around an RV chugging along. She gunned the engine, causing her sweet little station wagon to scream in protest as they hit the end of the loop and a Jeep heading toward her in the opposite direction laid on his horn. Cici whipped back into her lane, breathing hard, ignoring the angry gestures from the Jeep driver.

  If anything, Mr. Vasiliev’s interest became keener, more focused. Cici grabbed her Camelbak straw and shoved it in her mouth, sucking down longs gulps of much-needed fluid.

  “Taos…You’re that woman? The…what was it? Preacher? You helped solve one of the biggest drug cases in the country a few months back―that’s why you looked familiar. I read about you in the paper.”

  Cici shoved the straw out of her mouth with a thrust of her tongue as she slowed but did not stop at the intersection that led away from the park. For one long, painful moment, Cici glanced right, then left, her heart fluttering. NM-57 would lead them north, toward Nageezi or even Farmington. Her body screamed for her to be anywhere but here.

  “Don’t go out of the park. The dirt road always shows rooster tails and will give away our location.”

  Cici nodded as she whipped back onto the loop for a second time. The only other chance was to head back onto one of the hiking trails that led farther into the valley. She swallowed, wondering if her tires would make the trip over cholla and hot, dry sand.

  “You are, aren’t you?” he said again. “Jesus. Didn’t the DEA director call you?”

  “No, he didn’t.” Cici tilted her head back and forth, trying to ease the growing tension there. “I received a commendation, not a phone call. Not that a pretty medal helps today.”

  “We can’t involve the police,” Mr. Vasiliev said. “Or the DEA.” His voice remained forceful.

  “Of course, we can!” Cici snapped back. “That’s who you call when someone is trying to kill you.”

  “No. The police and DEA are the ones who get killed in droves when an international crime syndicate has decided to take me—and now you—out. I don’t want those deaths on my conscience, Preacher.”

  What should she do? Call Sam, for sure, no matter what her new Russian-named non-Russian non-friend said. Sam would figure out a way to help her.

  He always did.

  “I don’t wish to be ‘taken out’ as you so coyly put it, and for the record, I’m a reverend,” she muttered. That one mistake about titles—semantics, whatever—that people made always got under her skin.

  He snapped his fingers. “That’s right! Reverend Cecilia something.”

  She ignored his fishing for her last name. “I don’t want innocent people to die,
” Cici said. This man was playing her—using her emotions against her. She was sure of it.

  “You’re a preacher”—at Cici’s sharp look, he smirked a little—“reverend who listens to ‘Southern Gothic,’ huh? Isn’t that against godly code?”

  “Why?” Cici asked, her voice sharp. Why did people think because she lectured about the Bible she had no life or interests outside it?

  “That song’s about the hypocrisy of religion. The woman screwing her neighbor when her husband isn’t home. You know.”

  “Or,” Cici said as they bounced over a set of intense ruts. “It’s about how there’s so much other noise and sin in the world that God’s message can’t get through.”

  “Mmm.” Mr. Vasiliev tapped his fingers against his lips.

  “Now that you know my name”—Cici stepped into the silence before he spoke again—“how about you tell me yours. And don’t think I’m buying the connection you barfed out to those guys in the Bratva back there.”

  He went quiet, almost as if he were unhappy with what he had to say. Cici glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

  “It really is best if I don’t tell you anything about myself, Reverend Cecilia.”

  Cici scowled harder. Probably, if those guys with guns caught up, her face would freeze like that: she’d get shot and die with her face in that ugly contortion. “For whom? And why?”

  “Because this situation in which you are now embroiled with me is much bigger than some Russian mafia.”

  Cici swerved around another RV. How many of the darn things were out here?

  “So, I’m not supposed to know you’re a spy?” Cici asked.

  This time, Mr. Vasiliev did the veering by grabbing her steering wheel and forcing the car off the highway and toward a long row of crumbling adobe walls—while Cici screamed.

  5

  Cici