inky silhouette of a stand of organ-pipe cactus, black blots seemed to spew toward them, emitting tiny screams and squeaks. Bats. Lindsey raised her arms around her head, and the high-pitched noise rose and then apparently stopped as the bats’ echo-location went into an overdrive inaudible to humans. They veered off then, shy things that they were, perhaps scared up by a great horned owl.
She’d felt no panic, no pounding pulse. Lindsey had seen only one snake so far, a mildly venomous nocturnal lyre snake coiled in a rock crevice, its head raised. She’d not even blinked as she faced its stare and directed others to move back, and then, finally, moved away herself.
Athena and the desert had been good for her courage. Understanding the desert’s creatures had erased a lot of blind fears. Snakes. Bats. Coyotes. Scorpions. She understood them now, knew how to act and so had conquered the terrors they had given her at first. She could rappel down cliffs that once would have paralyzed her. She could handle guns and knives and wield a bow and arrows. Athena girls were being prepared to protect and defend as well as change the world for the better. She did have a fear, though, that she hadn’t admitted to anyone. Little eight-legged things. Even a picture of a spider sometimes gave her goose bumps. She’d been that way since childhood. But she loved it that the other girls considered her the most daring, so if this particular hang-up ever seriously threatened to freak her out, she would just use force of will to get past it.
She inhaled deeply. The pervasive sage and creosote smells had freshened with moisture. The team crossed what Lindsey was sure was Goat Canyon Trail. When they entered the wide wash of Dripping Spring Canyon, Lindsey knew her direction was true. If all went well, they were a mere hour from the amphitheater. By 4:00 a.m., they’d found the treasure underneath dried cactus wood beneath a park sign bearing the letter D. Lindsey noted that the letter, unlike the sign, wasn’t weathered. It had been placed recently. The sign explained the formation of the “white tanks,” natural stone cisterns sculpted by flash floods. Underneath some dried cactus wood, they found their treasure: chocolate bars and something shiny. The girls gasped at the beautiful gold pendants cast with the image of Athena.
Someone hissed, their secret sound for stop. Everyone crouched and froze.
“Voices,” Portia whispered, “eight o’clock.” Heads turned west. Nothing.
And then the chopper returned, following the bends of the wash. They eased into shadows, pressed into bushes, again losing time as the chopper whomped by.
The sounds gradually faded, the team heard voices more clearly. Portia hand signaled where she thought their competitors’ course lay. Lindsey calculated her options. Since, in true Athena thinking, no points would be gained in paint-tagging another team, only a point loss in getting tagged, she would not let them be sucked into losing time in an ambush. She signaled by pointing away from the voices and toward the rocks.
Soon they were nearing the area with the most vegetation. This would probably be a shorter route in the long run, anyway. And wasn’t there a cistern, up ahead, a “white tank”?
An image of the new sign posted above their treasure flashed in her mind. Had that been a clue, the key to success from that point? Lindsey felt a flush of certainty. Going through this region of tanks was the fastest way.
Dropping down the rock face by rope took less than ten minutes. They reached a passageway so narrow, only one girl at a time could go through.
“It’s black as starless space down there,” Crystal said.
Lindsey signaled the others to wait. She moved a limb of a paloverde tree, stepped into the passage, and switched on her flashlight. Left behind, the Dianas blended into shadows. Within ten paces she came upon a rock “tank” filled with water, a deep pool of ink. It would be cold, and no telling what things lurked in it, but they’d be heroes if they pushed through and down to the amphitheater in record time.
The edges gave no footing, so the only way out was through. She shined her light into the leafy gorge beyond and saw a sight that chilled her to the bone. The beam shimmered across dozens of giant gray spiderwebs. A scream rose in her. She bit her hand in time to keep the scream inside.
Above her shoulder, a spider dropped along the rocky wall from its line of sticky web, doing a little rappelling of its own. White speckles sprinkled its body. She scurried back to the team, grateful for the dark. Otherwise, they’d see a completely white face. Her hands were sweating and her heart’s beating throbbed in her throat.
“Can’t go that way. The…uh…water…something moving in it. Like a snake.” She couldn’t return her teammates’ look of surprise, her lie forcing her gaze to the ground. She was the designated leader from this point. The decision was hers to make. Moaning quietly and sulkily complaining of lost time, the girls climbed their way back out, and when they nearly reached the top, the Persephone team popped up, whooping.
“Kowabunga!”
Paint balloons flew at the Dianas, Lindsey taking the first hit. Persephones scurried away before Dianas could reach the top and fire back. A clean getaway.
It was all Lindsey could do to keep from crying. They came in well behind the Persephones, and because of the paint splatters, their score put them at third in the overall triathlon.
“We’re so proud of you, honey,” Lindsey’s mother gushed at the closing ceremony.
She stood there with some paint still caked in her hair, wanting to disappear.
“Third, huh?” Her dad patted her on the cheek. He swiped a finger over her bangs, noting the paint. “Let’s talk about this later, before your mother and I leave. See what you could have done differently.”
She’d failed. At the big party in the gym the other girls would talk. Her father would hear about the dark passageway and about her retreat.
For two days, Lindsey could scarcely eat, and her father’s disappointed pat dug itself a nasty little spot in her memory to remind her of the costs of fear.
Chapter 1
Perfect pizza!
So many reasons to come to Naples, Lindsey thought as she finished off the final bite of a slice she’d ordered while waiting to meet her backup man. The fabulous view of Vesuvius and the bay; masterpieces at the Capodimonte Art Museum that took her right out of the here and now and into a different world; an exciting air of danger and intrigue from the city’s long history with the Mafia; and, of course, the best pizza in the world.
Eager to get into action, she drummed her fingertips on her water glass. She was waiting for Marko Savin at a patio table in the restaurant across the street from the world-famous National Archaeological Museum where she loved to browse, on quieter days, the best finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum.
A sudden strong breeze stroked her neck. February winds off the bay could be quite chilly. Yesterday it had rained. She flipped up the collar of her black leather jacket, guessing the air temperature probably hung around fifty-six degrees. Billowy, gray clouds raced across the sky.
She pushed the plate away and took a drink of bottled water. A sturdy Chianti, as the waiter had suggested, would make the wait easier, but she needed to be at her clearheaded best for today’s buyback.
After a month of investigation and then wangling, wheeling and dealing with a thief, she would buy back a painting, a small masterpiece, for its rightful owner. She would purchase an exquisite work by Artemisia Gentileschi. The little-known oil—three
