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He shrugged. “I haven’t heard it yet, but it’s Julia.”
“Aye.” Callum gave a wry smile. “That woman ever cottons on to just how smart she is, we’ll all be in trouble.”
“Yeah.” Joe smiled. “We’re working on it.”
Callum felt a stab in the vicinity of his heart and dismissed it as quickly as it happened. Jealously. Loneliness. He had no room in his life for either.
“You’re gone on her,” he said, somewhat in awe that the man could give himself over like that.
Joe cocked an eyebrow, his smile wide. “What happened to not gossiping like silly wee lassies?”
Callum hung his head in shame. “Bloody Lake and his touchy-feely company. It’s sneaking up on me.” He looked up. “I apologise. I don’t give a crap about your personal life.”
“That’s more like it.” Joe slapped him on the shoulder as he passed. “Let’s go hear what Julia’s come up with.”
They left the room together.
“Elle and I had a chat on the plane ride from La Paz,” Julia said as she looked at her teammates. Her friends.
They were scattered around the furniture in the living area of the suite her grandmother was using. It was a small space, but they made it work. The mood was sombre. So much so that Ryan wasn’t eating his way through the meeting and everyone was conscious of Patricia, sedated and sleeping upstairs.
“Ah, this is why you two had your heads together for most of the flight,” Ryan said. “I wondered.”
“Don’t let him distract you, babe,” Joe said.
Ryan wasn’t the one who was distracting her. Joe was sprawled in an armchair, his legs stretched out in front of him and his arms folded over his impossibly muscled chest. A flash of how those muscles felt under her fingers, her lips, her tongue, made her blush. She frowned at him, making him grin. There were times when she was sure he could read her mind.
“Anyway,” she said to the rest of the room, “Elle and I thought we needed a backup plan in case there wasn’t any treasure. Or in case we couldn’t find it.”
“You thought you needed a plan. I only did as I was told,” Elle teased, and Julia realised she was standing at the front of the room, the focus of everyone’s attention, and she hadn’t even noticed until that point.
“Get on with it,” Callum snapped.
Strangely, his usual grumpy attitude reassured Julia, breaking the momentary freeze her realisation had caused and forcing her attention back to the iPad in her hands.
“The theory is that we can cut out Esteban’s need for my gran by handing him the treasure instead of the mummy. And that we would hopefully retrieve Alice in the trade.” Her voice cracked at the memory of what Alice was suffering. Her eyes sought Joe’s, and he smiled with encouragement. “Elle and I decided that, even if there wasn’t any real treasure, it would be best if we still had some to trade.”
“You’ve lost me,” Ryan said.
“No surprise there,” Elle told him, and he tossed a cushion at her head.
“Elle has a friend who works in CGI—that’s computer-generated imagery,” Julia said. “They do special effects for movies.”
Ryan sat up straight and a sudden awareness rippled around the room. She had everyone’s attention now.
“We thought that if we could make a video showing Gran with the treasure, we could convince Esteban we had the real thing.”
The silence was heavy, as the idea sank in.
“You have this video?” Callum said.
Julia nodded at Elle, and images appeared on the white sheet they’d hung as a screen from the mezzanine.
“This is amazing,” Patricia exclaimed as she lifted a golden chalice. “I can’t believe we’re part of history like this. It’s the greatest discovery to happen in a century.” The camera panned to show a segment of an Incan cave in the low light of the portable storm lamps. It was thick with dust and dirt, but filled with ceramics, stone carvings and gold sculptures. “This is unbelievable. I wish Alice were here to see this.”
The screen went suddenly blank, and Elle opened the curtains, letting light into the room.
“How?” Callum said, looking astonished.
