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  “I know that, Ms. Marcellus, but who knows what or who we might come across on this adventure. I’ve hired my own team of ex-military personnel to accompany us.”

  Ex-military personnel. Read dishonorably discharged mercenaries, guns for hire with no compunction against doing whatever needed to be done. “And if we come across indigenous tribes?”

  His smile took on a more menacing edge. “Then they’ll need to get out of our way or take the consequences. You’re a raider of tombs; you have a reputation for getting your clients their commission regardless of what might stand in your way. Surely you wouldn’t let a few hermits stop you from finding the Golden Trinity? If something gets in my way, I chop it down. Logs, animals, people, what’s the difference? They’re just an obstacle to overcome or eliminate. I was under the impression you shared this philosophy. Am I incorrect? Do I need to contact my second choice hunter, Oscar Owen?”

  Rayne swallowed the ball of disgust that rose in her throat. Owen would think nothing of slaughtering innocent people to get the Trinity. Rayne had only had the misfortune of crossing paths with him once before, and before he knocked her unconscious, he told her that the only reason he wasn’t going to kill her was because she was too sexy to die just yet. “Get in my way again, and I might have to rethink my position,” he’d said before delivering a powerful backhand that knocked her off her feet and into a ten-foot ditch. Rayne had tried to convince herself she’d hired G&T to get ahead of Chase. Buried in her head was the truth that she’d done it to protect herself from Owen. She hated to admit being afraid of anyone or anything, but that vicious bully of a man warranted special attention. She wanted to think that in the same situation now, with Tonyck’s training, she’d be able to take him. She was faster. She didn’t have to be stronger. But no doubt he’d hide in plain sight alongside a gaggle of mercs with guns trained at her head like last time. Owen didn’t entertain the notion of a fair fight. To him, it was win at any cost. But if she could get him alone, she was sure it’d be a different story.

  “And I was thinking we could see if Chase Stinsen might be interested in joining us. I’ve been told that her grasp of ancient cartography is second to none. She’d be very useful in understanding the map, don’t you think?” Turner’s voice cut across the lengthy silence.

  Rayne nearly sprung across the table to take out Turner’s eyes with her thumbs. This world wasn’t Chase’s purview, and Turner’s words sounded more like a threat. Chase would say no to any approach by him, but Rayne wasn’t sure that would be the end of it. Would he take her by force? Christ, what was she supposed to do? If she took the job, maybe she and her team could prevent any bloodshed and minimize the impact of their expedition on any Brazilian tribes. There was no way she could allow Owen to go in her place. That would be more irresponsible than anything she’d ever done in the past. If she took the job and was successful, she’d be writing her name into the history books. Not only that, Turner was offering triple her usual fee with a ten percent bonus from the sale of anything they found over the total value of ten million dollars.

  “There’ll be no need for that, Mr. Turner. I have all the skills you need.” Rayne held out her hand over the briefcase, smiling as she took another glimpse of the map and Turner shook her hand. “You’ve hired yourself the best tomb raider money can buy.” She didn’t care much for the moniker, but if it was good enough for Hollywood, it was good enough for her. Who’d play her if her story was made into an adventure movie? She’d play herself. Acting in front of a camera couldn’t be that hard, she’d been acting in front of people every day of her life.

  Chapter Seven

  Chase hit the beat on the uppercuts on a strange autopilot.

  “Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two. Switch,” shouted the super-fit body combat instructor, barely out of breath.

  On days when Chase felt like this, it was the instructor’s face she envisioned pounding on. Not that she had many days like this, distracted by thoughts of Rayne. It had been over seven hours since Rayne’s meeting about the Golden Trinity. It wasn’t like Rayne had promised to check in or let Chase know how it had gone. She hoped Rayne didn’t think the hangover cure was a bribe and had taken it in the spirit with which she’d sent it.

  Which was what spirit, exactly? After Chase had tucked Rayne into bed, she’d wanted to purge both their heads of the entire night. Aside from the relatively major issue of the Zenobia article, they’d slipped back into flirty friend mode in no time at all. How had Rayne done that? She’d tempered Chase’s anger at her, not just for Florida, but for the loss of Joan of Arc’s skull too. Rayne had been unusually honest, and that had nudged Chase away from her regular method of dealing with Rayne and her charming bullshit. Especially disarming had been Rayne’s willingness to share intimate details of her relationship with her father with minimal prodding.

  A firm shove to her shoulder knocked her out of her musings and back into the studio.

  “What’s with you? Are you just doing your own thing?”

  Chase looked sideways at Noemie and shrugged. “It’s been a weird couple of days.”

  “Tell me about it after class.” Noemie gave her another shove. “Concentrate.”

  Chase laughed at the swap in roles and picked up the moves again. Used to be that Chase was the one demanding that Noemie focused on her training. Now that she was in the army, it seemed the tables had turned.

  She managed to keep herself focused on the remaining tracks. After the cooldown, she retrieved her towel and water and headed for the showers with Noemie shadowboxing Chase’s kidneys.

  “So what’s with you? Some egghead at the university?” Noemie asked through the glass that separated the shower cubicles.

  “You won’t be impressed when I tell you,” Chase said as she lathered her peppercorn body wash across her stomach. The definition of her abs made her smile, and she was glad no one could see her being so vain.

  “Then it can only be Rayne Marcellus or Lucy Dawson. Which is it?”

  Chase didn’t answer for a moment. Lucy Dawson was a name she hadn’t heard in a long time. Unpleasant memories of their few years together flashed in her mind. Noemie hadn’t liked Lucy from the start and told her so, which made for a rocky relationship. Lucy had quickly grown incredibly jealous of Chase’s bond with Noemie and tried to make it as difficult as possible when she spent time with Noemie. And her jealousy wasn’t limited to the kid. She’d hated Chase being with anyone but her, including friends and colleagues. By the end of it, Chase had become a veritable hermit, so she finally pulled the plug.

  “Wow. Lucy Dawson. She didn’t go quietly into that good night, did she?” Chase said.

  “That’s an understatement. She was batshit crazy. Didn’t she try to keep everything you owned and everything you’d bought together?”

  Chase laughed as she let the water run over her head, and she rubbed the sweat from her hair. “She was a good lesson for you. Run away as fast as you can the moment they start getting possessive.”

  Noemie tapped the glass. “You didn’t learn the lesson too quickly. How was I supposed to pick it up?”

  She had a point Chase couldn’t argue with. “Did I ever tell you she tried to tear up all the cards you gave me?”

  Noemie hit the glass again, this time a little more forcefully. “No way? Tell me she didn’t do it.”

  The slight change in Noemie’s voice would have gone unnoticed by anyone else, but Chase felt it as sure as if she’d seen Noemie’s big brown eyes tear up. Chase pressed her palm flat again the glass. “Don’t be crazy. She was never getting her hands on those,” Chase said, sweeping away Noemie’s subtle emotional moment. Noemie wasn’t one for overt shows of sentimentality and preferred them to be ignored on the few occasions her tough shell slipped to reveal her marshmallow underbelly. Noemie had pretty much hated school, especially English, so when she wrote anything, it was important and it was from the heart. Chase treasured every one of her cards. She knew Noemie
well enough not to talk until she’d processed her episode of vulnerability so she waited for Noemie to open up the conversation in her own time.

  “So that means it’s the Marcellus woman,” Noemie said after a few moments of silence while they finished showering.

  Chase wrapped her towel around herself and opened the shower door to see Noemie already waiting outside, her arms crossed, and the kind of serious look on her face that always made Chase laugh.

  “I thought you hated her after what she did to you?” Noemie asked.

  Chase put her arm over Noemie’s shoulders and guided her back to the lockers. “Hate is a very strong word, Noemie. I don’t think I hate anyone. Takes up too much energy, you know?”

  Noemie rolled her eyes. “I know, Mother. But still, isn’t she, like, your number one enemy?”

  Chase shook her head as she retrieved her kit bag and tossed it on the bench. “We’re often in competition, yes. Is she my enemy? No.”

  Noemie wagged her finger. “I know what’s going on here. This is colleagues to friends to almost lovers to enemies to friends and maybe to lovers, isn’t it?” She did a little dance as if she’d just figured out an age-old riddle. “This is like the stuff in those books you were always trying to get me to read, isn’t it?”

  “You’d like them if—”

  “If I’d just give them a try,” Noemie parroted in her best Chase impression. “I know, I know.” She sat on the bench and pulled on her jeans. “Am I right?”

  Chase tucked her tank top into her sweat pants and zipped up her bag before answering. “No, that’s not it…exactly.” She shoved her feet into her sneakers and stood. “C’mon, soldier. I thought you have to be able to get dressed in the time it takes a sparrow to fart?”

  Noemie sighed as she quickly pulled her stuff together. “I do. So when I’m not on duty, I like to take my sweet time.” She swept her long jet-black hair over her shoulder theatrically. “Looking this good takes time.”

  Chase shook her head at Noemie’s vanity, before silently reminding herself that she’d just been admiring her own body parts in the shower. What the heck? She’d worked damned hard to get those abs. Pride could be a virtue as well as a sin. “Let’s go.”

  They made their way back to Chase’s truck and got in. As usual, Noemie made a big show of the passenger door sticking.

  “When are you going to buy a new truck?” Noemie asked, strapping her belt on.

  “Never.” She turned the key, and the truck took a little extra time before it kicked into life as if to warn Chase against trading her in. “I’ve told you, as soon as you roll that puppy off—”

  “The lot, you lose a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  “Knowing didn’t keep you from putting a down payment on a brand new Mustang with your first army paycheck though, did it?” Chase asked, not even trying to rein in the motherly chastisement.

  Noemie grinned and flashed the look of supreme cuteness that she’d mastered in her early teens. It was a look that usually meant Chase forgave her anything, including the time Noemie had totaled her previous truck during the one and only driving lesson Chase ever gave her.

  “Enough about me. Back to you and the Marcellus woman. What gives?” Noemie asked, clearly unwilling to let it slide.

  “You could just call her Rayne.”

  Noemie shook her head. “That implies a friendliness I don’t feel. What gives?”

  Chase pulled out of the lot and headed home. “We went for dinner last night—”

  “Dinner?” Noemie slapped the dashboard. “Hadn’t she just left you stranded on some remote Greek island?”

  Chase had to laugh at Noemie’s reaction. She’d always been a black-or-white kind of girl. There were no shades of gray. Cross her and she’d slice you out of her life with the precision and finality of a cutthroat razor.

  “Cyprus isn’t remote. It’s one of the larger islands. There were commercial flights leaving every day.”

  “I don’t need a geography lesson, thanks, Mom. I’ve been traveling the world for the past few years too, you know? Tell me how you got from deserted to a hot dinner date?”

  Chase swung her truck into the strip mall and parked at Crunch to get them a healthy, post-workout takeout. She could’ve argued that it wasn’t a hot dinner date, but Chase couldn’t deny that thinking of it that way hadn’t crossed her mind. In another time, or maybe in a parallel universe, maybe it could’ve been exactly that.

  “I’ll tell you everything over a big box of falafel and poached eggs.”

  They made small talk with the owner, who it turned out happened to have been born in Cyprus. Noemie could talk the hind legs off a donkey, and by the time their order had been freshly prepared, they had his whole life story and why he’d opened his little business. Chase had been going there for six months and only knew his name was Andreas. She smiled at how far Noemie had come from the almost mute kid she’d met over a decade ago. Simultaneously, she wondered if she’d gone the other way and stopped communicating with people outside her academic circle. Why hadn’t she thought to ask about his life? Because she was always so preoccupied and insanely busy, she didn’t have time for small talk. She was always rushing from one place to another and usually ordered and paid online and picked up at the side kiosk. But the way Andreas had lit up when Noemie engaged him made her think she’d cut herself off from the wider world. No doubt Andreas was delighted someone as exotic and beautiful as Noemie had bothered to talk to him, but either way, it was something for Chase to think about.

  “Tell me about your latest conquest,” Chase said after they got back in her truck. So started an epic, blow-by-blow, text-by-text description of Noemie’s most recent love interest. As Chase pulled into her drive, Noemie ended the tale with a final-sounding, “I’ve had enough.” Chase was sure Noemie only meant she’d tired of the antics of this one, and she was ready for the next adventure.

  “I’ll see Eve when she’s back from Fiji, anyway. I liked Eve.”

  Chase liked the appropriately named Eve too; Noemie’s first taste of lesbian lust was also an army girl. And she’d kick-started Noemie’s long-held ambition to do something meaningful with her life. Neither she nor Chase knew what that might turn out to be, but serving her country definitely fit that description. Eve was a few years older than Noemie, but Chase approved of her in a way none of the subsequent ones managed.

  Noemie unlocked the front door, grabbed plates and drinks from the kitchen, and launched herself onto the couch. Chase put their takeout boxes directly onto the plates, and they dug in. Chase hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she saw she’d polished off half the box without taking a break. When she looked up, Noemie sat cross-legged, staring at her between bites of food.

  “First of all, it wasn’t a date.” Chase pointed her fork at Noemie to preempt her inevitable interruption. Noemie sighed and motioned a zipping of her lips. “Second, we have a lot of history together, and that makes it easy to slip into old patterns of behavior. Third, it was a business meeting of sorts. I’m about to publish an article about Zenobia—”

  “The Warrior Queen in Syria?”

  You remembered? I’m impressed.”

  Noemie snorted. “You went into a war zone with nothing to shoot but a camera. Of course I’m going to remember.” She gently poked her fork into Chase’s thigh. “Losing you…that’d be the end of me.”

  Chase swallowed the bowling ball of emotion that surged up her throat from her heart. They looked at each other for a long moment before Chase broke the gaze and pulled Noemie into a hug. Memories of many days and nights in Noemie’s teenage years flooded Chase’s mind and threatened to escape in the form of tears. All those times when Chase had run out of words to comfort and reassure, Noemie’s favorite thing had always been record-length hugs. She always held onto Chase so tightly, as if her very existence and sanity, as if her tenuous link to a better life, depended on it. These days, her hugs tended to be only a little lon
ger than the average one, but this one harked back to those times. Chase had come to understand that it was Noemie’s preferred method of communicating. She blinked away the soft burn of her own emotion, aware that every period of army leave resulted in their past resurfacing.

  Noemie eventually pulled away, and Chase resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened. “Her lawyer threatened to sue the magazine if I didn’t remove all mention of Rayne and her tank twins. So the magazine is being chickenshit. They won’t publish it at all unless I edit them out. I was hoping I could change Rayne’s mind…”

  “But?” Noemie asked and shoveled a half ball of falafel into her mouth.

  Chase shook her head. “It was a fool’s errand. Rayne has to protect the client who commissioned her to retrieve the tomb. She has to protect her own reputation.”

  “Huh. What about your reputation?”

  Chase ran her hand across her forehead. Rayne didn’t concern herself with that small detail, so why was Chase making excuses for Rayne? The fact was that if the magazine wasn’t cowering behind their legal department, Chase would have no reservations in publishing the article as it stood. To hell with Rayne’s reputation, though she didn’t see how it could be damaged given how heroic Chase had written her. At least up to the part where they packed Zenobia up in a crate and shipped her off to a shady claimant of ancestry rather than a museum where her story could be told and would live on. Chase wished she had a lead on Rayne’s client. She would’ve loved to play a part in reclaiming the tomb for the Syrian people.

  “Rayne’s a bit short-sighted when it comes to the needs of other people.” As the words left her mouth, she wondered why and how Rayne had managed to slide so easily back beneath Chase’s skin. She’d been angry with her, so why had she tipped the staff and made sure Rayne had a wake-up call and a hangover cure? Making sure Rayne made it to bed safely had been only right. The state Rayne had drunk herself into sealed Chase’s responsibility to get her back to her hotel room without the possibility of being accosted by some unscrupulous sort, and there’d been plenty of interest in Rayne over the course of the evening. But Chase’s aftercare? Where the hell had that come from, and why? Rayne paid for an expensive dinner. So what? She could afford it, and it didn’t mean Chase owed her something in return.