Beautiful Sacrifice

frowned, trying to remember. “Three weeks ago. Maybe four.”
    “Wow,” Lina said as she ran her fingers over the underside of the drawer. “You sure were working day and night on that translation.”
    “You will show respect to—” Philip began.
    “Why?” Hunter asked. “You sure as hell don’t respect her.”
    “I’m her father!”
    “Yeah. I have a hard time believing it. Makes me understand the whole idea of changelings and babies mixed at birth.”
    “Fuck you!”
    “Not even if you had tits,” Hunter said.
    “Found it,” Lina said before the conversation could degenerate any further.
    “Okay, so anyone with a brain and twenty-twenty vision could have found the combination,” Hunter said.
    “My study is always locked.”
    “Not a problem,” Hunter said. “I could get in without leaving a mark. Big locks don’t make a big difference.”
    “You’re in this with her!”
    Hunter told himself to be patient, he was dealing with a man under a lot of stress, a man who apparently hadn’t been too stable to begin with. He wondered if giving Philip another smack would settle his thoughts into more rational lines.
    Doubt it.
    But, damn, it’s tempting.
    Reluctantly, Hunter let go of the idea. “Lina, when was the last time you were here?”
    “End of July. Then I had to go back to Houston and prepare for my classes.”
    “It was you,” Philip said almost desperately. “No one else could have understood the glyphs. You always thought you were better than—”
    “If you accuse Lina again,” Hunter said, “I’ll turn you over my knee and spank your bony butt until you cry like your not-so-inner child. You hearing me?”
    Philip’s mouth flattened, but he nodded, which proved what Hunter had begun to suspect. Philip wasn’t truly crazy. He just needed someone to remind him of his manners frequently—someone stronger than he was.
    Hunter didn’t like the older man any better for the realization that Lina’s father was a bully with a side order of irrationality.
    “When was the last time Celia was here?” Hunter asked.
    Philip shrugged.
    Lina walked over to stand at Hunter’s side. “She came in October. Abuelita was ill.”
    Philip made a rude sound. “That crazy old bitch will live forever.”
    Lina shook her head and wondered if her father had always been this self-absorbed or if being unable to translate the glyphs from the codex had rubbed him raw. Or maybe he was just imagining the codex all along, a way to get back the academic respect he’d lost.
    She didn’t know she had spoken the last thought aloud until Hunter caught Philip’s hand just before it landed on her face.
    “You’re trying my patience,” Hunter said to Philip. “Now either fight me or put your hands in your pockets and grow up.”
    Philip glared at the younger man. When it came to strength, whether of will or body, there was simply no contest.He didn’t like it, but he took it. He lowered his hands and shoved them in his pockets.
    “It is good that you did not strike her,” said a voice from the doorway. “That would have displeased me.”
    “Carlos?” Lina said.
    He tilted his head in a gesture of respect. “It is time, mi prima. ”
    “What—”
    “You have many questions,” Carlos said over her voice. “I will give you the answers.”

C HAPTER T WENTY-TWO
     
    W HAT’S GOING ON ?” L INA DEMANDED THE INSTANT the casita door shut behind them.
    “Abuelita and Celia are waiting in my study,” Carlos said. “We will talk there.”
    “But—” Lina began.
    Carlos made a sharp motion with his head. “Patience, mi prima .”
    It wasn’t a request.
    Irritated, silent, Lina followed Carlos along the path of crushed limestone that led to the main house. The feel of Hunter’s hand resting at the small of her back was an anchor in the storm of questions and emotions seething inside her. She didn’t even notice the estate guards standing discreetly aside for them.
    Hunter did. Back at the casita, the six full-blooded Maya who had arrived with Carlos had neatly separated Philip from Lina and Hunter. Then the guards had shut the door in front of Philip’s face. Two of the men had stayed behind to make sure it stayed shut.
    Maybe they didn’t like the way Philip acted, Hunter thought. Or maybe Carlos ordered them to beat the hell out of him once Lina was gone.
    The men looked more than tough enough to do the job. In fact, several were bruised and scraped like they had been in a fight