Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(41)

“No, I think I’ll leave it where it is,” Max said. His strong cologne made her brain shrivel up and ache. “Miss Magnusson, I believe, has something of mine. And I want it back.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Astrid said.

“You were on the yacht after it docked, and you stole something that didn’t belong to you. A small blue statue. Sound familiar?” His voice was graveled and weary. Was he sick? She hoped it wasn’t contagious.

“Not really,” she said.

“I had a little chat with a police officer down at the pier who says differently.”

Officer Barlow. Dirty little rat.

“Does that jolt your memory, Miss Magnusson?” Max asked.

Bo gave her a guarded look. He didn’t want her to answer. Fine, she wouldn’t. But she really didn’t care for the way he slowly leaned to one side of the elevator car. He’d better not be trying anything heroic. It was far too cramped in the elevator, and there weren’t many directions a bullet could go. Two of those directions she wanted to avoid completely—hers and his.

Max could go hang himself.

“I don’t know what you think you’ll do with it,” Max continued, speaking against the side of her head. “It’s not worth anything in the antiquities market. If you want it for any other reason, you’ll find it’s quite useless if you don’t know what you’re doing. And I promise that you do not.”

A handful of thoughts popped into Astrid’s mind at once. The Wicked Wenches talking about human sacrifice. The burlap sacks from her vision. The old priestess in the red robe inside the ritual circle. Mrs. Cushing stopping to stare at Astrid when she was in the hospital bed. The Pieces of Eight Society.

Pirates.

God in heaven, just how old was Max? She knew he looked older at Gris-Gris! And for the first time, in her mind’s eye, she now saw him with blue paint smeared over his face.

Panic slithered down her scalp.

“You were on the yacht,” she whispered. “I saw you with the other survivors . . . and with the people in the burlap sacks.”

She had his attention now. He put pressure on the blade and forced her head back on his shoulder to peer down at her. She now saw the turquoise gleaming on his finger. She also saw Bo moving in the corner. Her fingers began to tremble.

“We don’t have access to it right now,” Bo said suddenly. “But we’re going to need something in exchange. Tell us what the symbol means and you can have the idol back.”

Max shook his head. “This isn’t a negotiation.”

“Not now, maybe,” Bo said darkly. “But wait until your back’s turned. I’ll see if I can’t change your mind.”

A loud noise outside the elevator made Astrid flinch. Running footfalls echoed in the hallway and someone shouted, “Here! I found him!”

Max mumbled under his breath as a dark figure squatted in front of the third-floor scissor gate and peered inside.

“Jesus Christ!” the real elevator operator swore through the metal grating.

Bo started to lunge but stopped short when Max swung the knife toward Bo’s stomach, quick as a snake. Metal gleamed. Bo dodged the strike, grunted, and feinted left to dodge another. But when Astrid tried to shove Max off balance, he grabbed her hair, pounded the heel of his knife-wielding hand on the lever, and pointed the tip of the knife against her ribs. The car jerked upward with a loud jolt, and her Jack Johnson operator disappeared from view as they rose.

There wasn’t even time for Astrid to draw in a shaky breath before Max used his elbow to push the lever again, this time slamming to a stop between floors three and four—mostly on four. Reaching up, he kept the knife on her while using his free hand to slide open the fourth-floor gate.

“I want what’s mine returned,” he said to Astrid. “This is not a game. If I don’t have it in my hands by the end of the week—”

More noise from outside the elevator. Astrid wasn’t sure which floor it was coming from. Max had to step up to the fourth floor. He put a hand on the open elevator doorway and peered down at them over the bloodied blade of his knife—my blood, she thought. And so much of it!

“By the end of the week, Cushing Manor, Presidio Heights,” Max said. “Or things are going to take a nasty turn.”

Max pushed away from the elevator, and as he turned on a heel, Bo spat out a string of angry words in Cantonese that sounded positively filthy. He pushed Astrid toward the floor and drew his gun on Max’s retreating form. Astrid covered her head as a shot exploded inside the cramped elevator car and spent gunpowder filled the air, along with a single, soft sound of success from Bo: he’d gotten him.

Astrid jumped to her feet and peered down the hallway. Max had been hit in the leg. But it wasn’t slowing him down much. He just pressed a hand over his thigh and launched into a hobbled run.

Bo wasn’t giving up. The elevator groaned as he leapt onto the fourth floor and took off after Max.

They’d kill each other!

Astrid stepped up onto the fourth floor to follow him. Damn, but he was fast. She saw Max disappear around a sharp corner down the hall directly in front of her, Bo trailing several yards behind, but gaining speed. A posted sign told her that Max was headed toward the stairwell exit. She sailed down the corridor, inverted triangles of light from chrome wall sconces blurring in her peripheral vision.