Dead Girl Running (Cape Charade #1)(74)

“Very good. It’s an original Jacie Merideth. I imagine when she did the painting for the resort, she was an unknown. Now this is worth tens of thousands.”

Kellen shook her head and handed it back to him. “I thought you were stealing toilet paper.”

Carson threw back his head and laughed loud and long. “Now you know. You wouldn’t believe the decorations hidden away in storerooms here. No one ever goes through it. No one ever throws anything away.”

Kellen thought of the car manuals Birdie was tossing. “I would believe it.”

“Searching through the junk—and it is mostly junk—satisfies the archaeologist in me, because every once in a while, I find a treasure. Two years ago, I decorated my suite in 1950s kitsch.”

“Annie knows you’re doing this?”

“Of course. Miss Adams, I’m not a thief. Nothing ever leaves the premises. It simply gets redistributed.”

“What about these?” She gestured at the stone statues, fierce, sexual, powerful.

“Those are an anomaly. I can’t imagine who brought them to the resort in the first place.” He propped the painting on his dresser. “It’s not standard hotel room decoration, not in any era. All I can figure is one of the suite residents was a wealthy collector and died either without heirs or with heirs who cared for nothing but the money, and these got stashed and lost forever.”

“Then you do know what they are.”

“Absolutely. It’s looted Central American tomb art. Probably been gathering dust for years.” He lost his patina of sophisticated amusement and became, for a few minutes, serious and a little impatient. “Don’t worry, Miss Adams, I wasn’t going to keep them. After I admired them for a few months, I was going to take them to Annie and have her donate them to the appropriate museum. I didn’t play Indiana Jones, but I agree with him. These belong in a museum.”

“Actually, these have only been at the resort since September.”

Carson must have caught a whiff of ominous, because his voice grew sharp. “How do you know that?”

“Are you aware of smuggling activities along the coast?”

“Right out there.” He gestured toward the dock. “I have the wraparound deck, I’m eight stories off the ground and I’m not blind. But I assumed…drugs?” He looked at the art. “Of course not. Why bother with drugs when you can make more with artifacts looted from World Treasure sites?” He swung to face her. “Why September?”

“Priscilla…”

“That girl? She was smuggling? No.” He was very certain. “She didn’t want to do the work to get rich. She wanted to sleep her way into it.”

“We speculate that she stole those items from the smugglers and—”

He caught on at once and finished the sentence for her. “They murdered her.”

“And drugged Lloyd Magnuson when he was to drive her body to the coroner and took the body before it could be examined.”

He looked again at the art and said in an astonished tone, “Damn. I could be in trouble. It’s all the fault of the tablet.”





34

“Tablet?” Kellen counted the pieces on the shelf. They were missing one.

“The last piece of the collection is a tablet chiseled from the tomb wall. Very rare find.” Carson’s enthusiasm began to rise. “Most Mayans wrote on paper called amate, made from the wild fig tree.”

Kellen widened her eyes at him.

“And…you don’t care.” He sighed and got back on the subject. “I don’t read Mayan hieroglyphs well, so I brought it back here with the others and used my college textbook to translate the symbols. It’s a curse, and I’m superstitious enough to not want to be tormented by a long-dead Mayan lord, so I returned it to the storage room.”

“The way things are going, I don’t know if you replaced it quickly enough.” She gestured at the statues. “Can we package these up? I’ll take them to Max for safekeeping. That’ll be one worry relieved.”

“Of course. I’ve got the parcel they came in.” He went to his closet and came out with an oblong box filled with Bubble Wrap.

Together they wrapped the tomb art.

“I would think the last piece is safe enough in storage. We’ll get it when we’ve secured the situation.” She offered her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Lennex, you’ve solved half the crime.”

He took her hand and held it. “What’s the other half?”

“Who’s doing this.”

“One scary bastard.”

“We need something a little more definite than that, but I believe we’re getting close. Let me get these off your hands, and we’ll move on to the next step.” The box was heavy for its size, and knowing what was inside, she used both hands to carry it.

He escorted her to the elevator, pushed the button to summon it and said with some humor, “Next time I find you in my bedroom, can I assume you’ve come on a less deadly quest?”

“Of course, Mr. Lennex. Please be careful. I’m not the only one who knows you had the artifacts.”

“Who else?”

“Mitch Nyugen.”

“He works in maintenance and he drives for the resort. He’s a friend of yours.” Carson was very well-informed. “Are we suspicious of him?”