CHAPTER 45
Xander wasn’t sure what worried him more: the fact he’d heard gunshots, or the fact they had stopped.
Despite the cold and the snow, he’d kept a steady pace all day. He’d followed Father Marcus’s directions and any tracks when he could find them. The terrain didn’t make his journey easy. Red stone, dusted with white powder—it was the same every direction he looked. To make it even more difficult, the farther he went, the more vague the instructions became.
At first the tracks were clear in the snow. Sometimes there were deliberate patterns. Stars, hieroglyphs. Obviously Leila’s handiwork. But as night fell, he only had a flashlight to find the remaining traces of the softened footprints and symbols. The clouds had cleared and the air had begun to warm. The snow was melting.
The last hour, he’d seriously thought he was lost. No tracks, no signs of life. Only clumps of wet snow dripping all over the rocks.
The gunfire that echoed between the mountains had gotten him back on course. Now that they had gone silent, he could only guess which direction they had come from. He stood among the serrated boulders and looked up at a mountain peak, its tip leaning east. He studied the silhouette for a moment, trying to decide if that could be significant or if he was trying too hard, when a wail reached his ears. High-pitched, shaky, almost nonhuman. He froze, listening.
Silence hung over the valley. A soft gust of wind was the only thing that disturbed the calm. He surveyed the mountain top. That was where the scream and gunshots had come from. Now he was sure of it. Judging by the distance, he could make the climb in ten minutes.
He dug through his backpack one more time to grab additional ammo. Leaving the bag open on the ground, he stood and started up the almost non-existent path. He shoved the extra ammo into his pocket, even though he hoped one bullet would suffice.
Near the top of the mountain, the path curved, climbing toward the peak. He slowed his steps, straining to see in the darkness anything that might be waiting around the bend. Despite the near-freezing temperatures and his open coat, sweat slid down the sides of his face.
Something wasn’t right. It was too quiet. He paused and swallowed down the hardness in his throat. It did nothing to calm his mind from imagining what kind of scene he was about to walk into.
The atmosphere shifted. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was he sensed. As if something unseen had moved. He took another step forward—he stopped again. A breath. A shadow. Someone was close. He flung himself against the wall of rock and flattened his back. His finger slid over the trigger of his gun, his gaze focused on the curve in the path.
A soft clatter, like a falling pebble, came from ahead. Then something clicked above him. His heart froze. That was a sound he knew all too well. It was followed by a frigid voice, one he hadn’t heard in years. One he’d never forget.
“Drop the gun.”
Xander’s stomach hardened into a rock. Shock kept him rooted against the cliff face, his hand still tightly clamped around the gun. His mind was useless, still too busy processing this new information to move his limbs. It had been ten years since he’d heard that voice. And with it, all the missing pieces came together.
“I said, drop the gun.”
As if the gun had zapped him with electricity, Xander tossed it to the ground.
“That’s better.”
Stone clattered down the cliff, pelting his shoulders. A moment later, the man stood next to him, pressing the barrel of his gun into his side. “I didn’t plan on things ending this way,” he sneered, jabbing Xander with the barrel. “Move.”
Unflinching, Xander trudged down the path, his back to the gunman.
“I wanted to drag this out as long as possible,” the man went on. “Months. Years.”
To keep silent, Xander clenched his teeth. Now would not be a good time to provoke the nutter.
“I started planning for this the moment I heard you survived.”
How could Xander not have suspected something like this? He swallowed down the desire to turn around and break the man’s neck. He wouldn’t get that far, anyway. Not with a gun at his back.
“I wanted to torment you for as long as you’ve tormented me.” The man’s voice shook with hate. “After everything you did, you deserve to suffer.”
The ground leveled out as the path curved toward a cave. No sign of Leila. Maybe, by some miracle, she’d gotten away. The black opening loomed in front of him and before he left the light, he stopped. Slowly, he turned to face this demon of the past and stared into eyes of ice.
David Weston’s eyes.
The last time he’d seen them was ten years ago, when he and Leila broke into the Weston Manor and stole the ancient Egyptian papyrus from the basement. After that, he’d never attempted to explain himself to David. They had been friends, but Xander had used the keypad code the Westons had trusted him with to break in. He had taken advantage of them. And now it was much too late to make amends.
Even though he didn’t trust himself to speak, Xander tried to as calmly as possible. “It doesn’t have to be this way, David.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way?” David wheezed and took a step forward, his eyes wide with fury. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” He was shouting now, holding his rifle against Xander’s chest. “You ruined us. You and your stupid girl. The girl you left behind to get mauled by the dog. And we would have dealt with her ourselves—” David jabbed his finger over Xander’s shoulder, and he resisted the urge to look—“but a neighbor called the police. As soon as they left with her, do you know what happened then?”
Xander blinked against the spittle that flew into his face, but didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t know.
“My father put a gun to his head. Can you imagine, having to see something like that? Having to deescalate that situation, when you’re barely an adult yourself? Amir was able to talk him out of it. He persuaded Dad to find the papyrus and get it back. His plan worked, for the most part. But it was too late. Dad had been reported for theft, possession of stolen property and illegal antiquities, and black market deals. Our lives fell apart.
“Then Amir and Faris vanished—they wouldn’t help us. My father lost everything. And the second time he did it, put a gun to his head, I wasn’t there to stop him.”
Xander pressed his lips together, feeling sad, angry, and sickened all at once. But what did David want him to say? Exasperated, Xander shook his head.
“This isn’t my fault.”
“What is it you don’t understand? You did this. You broke into our house. You stole the papyrus. You—”
“It was your father’s choice to work for Faris,” Xander said, more aggressively than he meant to. It was impossible to stay calm and listen to this. “He knew that trading illegal antiquities was wrong but he did it anyway. Faris used your father and then left when he was of no more use. He’s the one you should be angry at.”
“Oh, Faris will get what’s coming to him,” David snarled. “But if it hadn’t been for you, none of this would have happened.” He lowered his voice, almost to a whisper. His eyes flared, a crazed grin spreading over his face. “I began eight years ago, after my father’s death. The letter bomb. That was me.”
Xander’s parents… Vivian. His body went rigid, his insides hardening into ice.
“It was all too easy. Put it in a box and let the postman do the rest.”
Visions of his childhood home flashed before Xander’s eyes. The front door gone, the brick blackened, ambulances parked in front. The police had searched for the culprit among his father’s poker friends, but after months of investigation, everyone was cleared. After all these years, no one had ever suspected David.
