he explained. “I love to feel power beneath me, and I have a fondness for old cars.”
“I guess it beats riding donkeys or walking.” She followed him to his classic 1968 Corvette.
“Don’t get me wrong. I like the jungle. There’s something about it that keeps drawing me back.”
That fit him. Zach Collier had a way of stripping away civilization to its primeval core. His lean power, leashed at the moment, made her wary. He was a dangerous man on more than one level, different from anyone she had met. She knew his partner had tried to kill him, and he had survived.
Seated in his car, Maggie let the silence linger between them as he weaved his way through traffic. She didn’t look at him, but instead concentrated on the view to her side. Although she’d said they could talk on the way to the restaurant, she was tired, plain and simple. That was the only reason this man was getting to her. After spending part of the morning researching him on the Internet, she was beginning to wonder if there was anything he couldn’t do. He had several doctorates and knew many languages. His interests were varied—from finding a new drug in the wilds of the rain forest to spending time with an isolated tribe of Indians. He had come into her grandfather’s house yesterday, stared down the barrel of a rifle and not flinched.
She leaned back, letting the smooth ride lure her into a semiconscious state. If she could just catch up on her sleep, she was sure she would be her old self again—confident, in control, her thoughts neat and organized, not centered on the man next to her.
When Zach pulled into a parking lot at a Mexican restaurant in the foothills of Albuquerque, she didn’t want to get out. That meant she would have to listen to him tell her why he thought her grandfather had been murdered. Suddenly the thought of someone deliberately causing Gramps’s riding accident knotted her stomach. It also meant, if Zach was right, that she was in danger from some unknown source because she had the diary, and she suspected that someone knew it. Was that the person who’d followed her last night? In the back of her mind, she’d hoped it had been Zach.
“After you left last night, what did you do?” She climbed from the Corvette.
The mention of the evening before caused his eyes to become diamond hard. “Went home to nurse my wounded pride. I never thought I would have such a difficult time convincing someone she may be in danger. Of course, I’ve never been arrested before, either.”
Maggie paused at the entrance into the restaurant. “You didn’t follow me into Santa Fe?” She was ninety percent sure of the answer, but she needed to hear it from him.
“No, I live here.” When she started to open the door, he placed a hand on her arm and swung her around to face him. “Why? Did something happen after I left?”
The feel of his fingers on her momentarily captivated her attention.
“Maggie, what happened?”
“I was followed into town.”
“That must mean the person doesn’t have the diary, then.”
“It’s not at my grandfather’s house.” She couldn’t tell him everything just yet. She couldn’t shake off the years of hating the name Collier overnight. She wasn’t even sure if it would ever be possible to completely trust someone with that last name, however irrational that might sound. By his own admission Zach had been close to Red Collier, and that man would have given anything to have the map and the diary, had tried years ago to be the sole owner of both. Was Zach fulfilling a deathbed wish to get the monk’s journal and solve the mystery of the lost Aztecs and their codices? Her thoughts chilled her. She normally wasn’t a person who mistrusted and questioned every move someone made, but after the day before, she would be doing that more. Her life might very well depend on it.
“If they have the diary, then why follow you?” Zach asked after they had been seated and the waitress had taken their orders.
“That’s the first question we can ask them when we find them.” She hoped her flippant answer would keep him from probing any deeper, because she couldn’t out-and-out lie to him. She’d never been a good actress.
He rubbed the back of his neck, his forehead furrowed. “This whole business doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Our grandfathers have had the map and diary for years. Why the interest in them now?”
“Exactly. I’m still not totally convinced anything is going on.”
“What will it take to convince you?”
“You say you weren’t the one who followed me, but—”
He bent forward, his eyes pinpoints, anger slashing his face. “Do you have to get killed to believe me? Something is going on, and the person behind it won’t stop until he gets what he wants. As to why now, I’m not sure. It wasn’t common knowledge that our grandfathers had the map and diary. Maybe one of them talked.”
“In recent years Gramps had decided the rumors he had heard years ago were just that, rumors based on legend, not facts. He didn’t think the diary was important to anyone but him. He retrieved all the information he needed for his anthropological study of the Aztec Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest, but he never discussed the diary with anyone but me and my father. I don’t even think my mother knew about it.” She folded her arms and glared across the table at him. “Gramps didn’t say anything.”
Zach averted his gaze for a few seconds. “I can’t say that about my granddad. He had a stroke a couple of months ago, and he would sometimes ramble on about the past. He could have said something. But most people probably wouldn’t have realized what he was talking about.”
“But maybe one did?”
He nodded.
“Do you know who visited him?”
“Not for sure. A lot of his old colleagues from the college came to see him, but the rehabilitation center didn’t keep a list of visitors. I asked.”
She was well aware that Red Collier had gone on to garner quite a reputation in the field of archaeology, and had taught at the same college as Zach. “Too bad. We could have started with that.”
“We can try interviewing members of the staff and see if anyone remembers anything.”
“That might be a good idea.”
“Whoever is after this legend won’t be giving it to any museum. It has to be a private collector.” Anger cut deep into his features. “I can’t tolerate knowledge lost for private gains.”
She thought of what her grandfather had hoped to glean from the information written on the deerskins about the lost sect of Aztecs, if indeed, they had fled to the Southwest ahead of the Spanish conquerors. “I know one of your areas of expertise is anthropology, like my grandfather. It could sure enhance your reputation if you discovered the codices and evidence of the lost Aztec tribe who tried to preserve part of their culture from the Spanish conquistadors.”
The harsh glint in Zach’s eyes stabbed her. “The reason you can say that, Dr. Somers, is because you don’t know me at all. Was that comment made because I’m a Collier? Do you judge a man without getting to know him?” The taut lines of his body transmitted his feelings more than his quiet words, spoken with a lethal edge.
Her
