Beautiful Sacrifice

said quietly. “That’s brave.”
    “Hey, don’t forget Hunter,” Jase said. “He was good, really good.”
    “Of course,” Ali said. “He has been trained, been in battles. He’s a cop.”
    “Ex-cop,” Hunter reminded Ali.
    She sniffed. “Like your job is any safer now.”
    Amused, Lina bit her lip against a smile and realized that Ali must have been Hunter’s friend for almost as long as Jase had.
    “Put it on pause,” Jase said, interrupting them. “The baby kicked. Damn! I know it’s a girl now.”
    Ali just shook her head and ran her fingers through Jase’s hair. “It’s too soon.”
    “It’s a girl,” Jase repeated, smiling a very satisfied kind of smile. “About time, too.”
    Ali stroked his cheek and said to Hunter, “Go on.”
    “Not much more to tell,” Hunter said, smiling when Jase’s hand settled on Ali’s rounded stomach. “We walked out of the cenote, and walked back to the main house. Didn’t see anyone on the way.”
    “When we got there,” Lina said, “Abuelita was dead. Heart attack, stroke, old age. Nobody official cared. Celia—my mother—was frantic. She had stayed with Abuelita until the end.”
    “So the local authorities really bought your no-frills version of what happened?” Jase asked, looking at Hunter again.
    “Two men settled old grudges with machetes at the edge of the cenote during the end of the Maya year. Both were injured. Both fell in. Both drowned. Too bad, how sad, countyour money, and on to the next job.”
    “Did they recover the bodies?” Jase asked.
    “Celia told the authorities to leave Philip and Carlos in peace in the cenote,” Lina said. “After a suitable amount of money changed hands, the authorities did. Abuelita had a private burial in the family cemetery. Celia assumed the reins of the Reyes Balam businesses and disappeared into her work.”
    “Nothing floated up in the cenote?” Jase asked, cop to the core.
    Lina winced.
    Hunter took it in stride. “Nope. The disappointed worshippers cut everyone so thoroughly they sank like limestone blocks and stayed at the bottom.”
    Remembering a rain of bodies as she struggled to stay afloat, Lina closed her eyes. That time seemed unreal, like a nightmare.
    And yet it was as real as her own heartbeat.
    “None of the artifacts were found?” Jase asked.
    Lina opened her eyes. “Nothing. By sunrise, even the altar had vanished.”
    “So the cause of all the fuss got swept into the cenote with the two wack jobs,” Jase said.
    “Jase,” Ali chided.
    “What? They were crazy and now they’re dead as Geronimo. Tiptoeing around it won’t change it.”
    “I’m sorry,” Ali said to Lina. “He’s hopeless.”
    Lina smiled sadly. “He’s also right. Carlos and Philip weren’t sane. And they’re dead.”
    Sometimes she wept over the loss of the man she would never please. Sometimes the child in her refused to believe he was dead. And Abuelita, the woman whose smile and affectionate pats were like bright embroidery stitching through her childhood…
    Maybe it was a nightmare after all.
    Yet Lina knew it wasn’t.
    Gently Hunter stroked her hair. He could feel the wave of sadness in the tension of her body. The waves would come further and further apart, but they would never go away entirely.
    “Some of the villagers live in the same Maya fantasyland that Carlos and Abuelita did,” Hunter said.
    Lina sighed. “They believe there will be a new Maya world someday.”
    “They’ll have a long wait,” Jase said.
    “They’re patient,” Lina said. “Frighteningly so.”
    “Or nuts.”
    Hunter shook his head. “They’re just different, Jase. It’s a whole other world back in the jungles of the Yucatan.”
    Lina ran her fingers through Hunter’s hair. He kissed her palm and pulled her even closer, breathing in the scents of cinnamon and heat and woman.
    “Are you done with the cross-examination?” Ali asked, caressing her husband’s cheek.
    “For now. I’m a cop, after all. I always have more questions.”
    “Make a list. We’re going home,” Ali said firmly. “You’ve been up too much.”
    Despite his drawn face, Jase grinned and said, “You never complained before.”
    Ali punched his good shoulder lightly, got to her feet, and turned to help him stand.
    “I’ve been out of the hospital for a week,” he grumbled. “I’m not an invalid.”
    “The doctors really wanted to keep you.”
    “Shows you what they know.” Jase stood carefully. “You’re