Page 84 of Deadly Charade

Victor shoved her aside. “Where is it? Where is the treasure?”

She needed to keep her distance from him, but the ledge wasn’t big. If Victor got mad, she and Sophia might wind up knocked into the abyss. His desperation came through in his frantic movements. She needed to keep him from becoming unhinged with a gun.

“There has to be something here,” Kira said, keeping her voice soothing, praying she kept her terror hidden. “Otherwise why protect it with complicated keys?” She continued to explore the cavern, passing her light over every surface. The lamps ended in the tunnel, and it was hard to make out anything in the dark cave.

Finally, a glimmer reflected back. She focused the light in the area. The ledge extended along the rock wall, and she saw the outline of something to her left, hanging across the chasm. “There,” she said. “What’s that?”

Victor hovered next to her as they stared at the most unstable-looking bridge that connected one side of the cavern to the other.

With nothing underneath it but darkness.

Victor stopped, turned, and nodded at Kira, then at the ancient structure. Her hand trembled and she tightened her grip on the flashlight. She knew what was coming.

Victor was going to force her to go across that death trap.

The bridge had single wood panels for steps, about a foot wide with another foot-wide gap between each board. The thick brown rope holding the boards in place appeared to be sturdy, but the bridge swayed even with no air circulating through the cavern. Bolts anchored the ropes to the cave wall on either end.

“This must lead to the treasure room,” Victor said, eyeing the rickety contraption. “There must be another door on the other side. I think there is a ledge like this one on the other side as well.”

With both flashlights aimed at the bridge, she counted twenty steps across.

Kira aimed her light in the area at the end of the rope bridge. If she squinted, she could see the faint outline of a doorway in the rugged rock. Or was it her imagination? Either way, her stomach sank at the prospect of crossing that thing.

As if reading her mind, Victor aimed his gun at her. “You’re going to cross and find out for us.”

Bryce sucked in a deep breath. Fire shot through his shoulder, reminding him he was alive. His mission came back to him with crystal clarity. Save Kira.

Pain sliced through his arm. His head pounded. “Ow.”

“Hold still,” a voice said. “I’m trying to bandage you up. The bullet nicked you, so I’m trying to stop the blood. But you hit your head when you fell. Our captors are standing guard at the entrance, but at least they left us alone for a few minutes.”

Memories pierced through the fog in his mind. They were in a cave, in the middle of nowhere. Armed men. A buried treasure. And he thought he’d heard a scream.

“Kira!” He sat up and regretted it.

“Hold still.” Alex was on the ground with him, wrapping his shoulder with material torn from the man’s own shirt.

“So now I’m supposed to believe you are one of the good guys?” He squinted at Alex, who had flecks of blood in his beard.

Bryce’s blood.

The man sighed, the sound echoing in the locked chamber room of the cave. “I’ve done some bad things and worked for some very bad people. I hired Ivan to help me find my son. He was going to steal the statues to give us a bargaining chip. It’s my fault.” The man’s voice broke. “I should never have started working for Victor. But the money was good. I had never met the man until the auction. I had always taken calls from a woman.”

Alex applied pressure on the wound and Bryce winced. “Thank you, Alex.”

He nodded. “I’m going to need you alive to help me get Sophia back. I’m relieved you are FBI and not a criminal art dealer.”

Alex helped Bryce to his feet, and he braced against the wall for support until his head stopped spinning.

Alex pointed to the rock wall. “The door closed behind Victor, Kira, and Sophia. One of the men—Peter, my supposed security guard—took one of the statues. I think the rest of the men are waiting for more people to arrive, now that they may be close to finding the treasure room.”

Bryce studied Alex. “They had their own men as your security?”

He nodded. “We were prisoners in our home. They watched our every move. But I never suspected Peter.”

“We’ve got to get that statue back,” Bryce said. He was going after Kira.

He swayed and went to his knees to keep from falling. Alex put his hand on Bryce’s good shoulder and gave him a gentle shove to go the rest of the way to the ground. “You’ll be more useful if the guard thinks you are still out cold. Maybe you can get the jump on him.”