More than she was willing to admit, but there was no way she’d let that stop her. “No. I’m fine. Just knocked the wind out of me, that’s all.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I think we done for the day. You freeze in here if we don’t get you out.”
Disappointment flowed through her. He was right, but she hadn’t found what she’d come for. “Since we’re already here, let’s do a quick sweep of this room first, then we’ll go.”
“I don’t think that a good idea.”
“Why not?”
He nodded toward his left and shone his light between a massive column and a broken stalagmite. “Last guy not fare well.”
Lisa’s gaze followed, and her adrenaline spiked first with fear, then with intrigue, as her light illuminated the human remains Simeon had already spotted.
Carefully, she stepped across the slippery rocks and knelt by the remains. The skeleton was leaning against a massive rock formation, pieces of tattered fabric stuck to its bones. Leather boots still covered the feet, and a large knapsack was near the right hand.
“He’s been here a while.” She fought the excitement, tried to think rationally. This was probably nothing more than an unlucky caver. But something in her gut said it might be more.
Simeon crouched next to her on the rocks, a wary look in his eye. “Bad spirits in this cave.” He glanced around. “Not good to disturb the dead.”
Barely hearing him, she lifted the front pouch of the sack and extracted a worn wallet. She opened the leather folder. “Donald Ramsey. Born in 1946. ID reissued in 1982.”
Simeon glanced at the license in her hand. “He been down here close to twenty years.”
“That’d be my guess.” She looked up and around again. “If he was caving alone and tumbled in here like I did, he never could have gotten out.”
And that was the reason a sane person never went caving alone.
Lisa pawed through the front pouch some more and pulled out a worn map and a few sheets of yellow paper. “Looks like the guy was a treasure hunter.” She showed Simeon the frayed map. “There’s even an X on that one.”
A smile twisted Simeon’s dark face. “X marks the spot.”
“Yeah, right,” she said with a slight grin. “Only in Hollywood.”
But her smile faded as she took a closer look at the aged papers. They detailed the location of a sunken Spanish galleon off the coast of Jamaica.
Her heart thumped against her ribs.
Fingers shaking, she opened the top pouch of the pack and peered inside. And her pulse beat frantically as she drew out a rectangular piece of marble roughly nine inches tall by twelve inches wide. When she turned it, the relief on the opposite side came into view, and she drew in a sharp breath.
The marble depicted a woman dressed in a Greek toga. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her gaze was fixed down toward her feet. Bare toes peeked out from beneath the robe, her bent knee indicating her weight was perched on one foot. Small wings jutted out of her back, and through her hair, snakes encircled her head like a wreath.
“Holy Mother o’God,” Simeon mumbled, looking toward the relief.
The cold of the cave slipped to the back of Lisa’s mind. “Trust me, this isn’t the Virgin Mary.”
She turned the relief in her hands, ran her fingers along the smooth back. The number one was carved into the bottom right side.
“It looks like there are cutouts on the side,” Simeon said. “Like it fits together with another piece.”
Perspiration tickled Lisa’s skin in the damp air, and she swallowed. Six trips to the Jamaican caves over the past fifteen years, and she’d never found a single trace of the Greek goddess now in front of her. And today she’d simply stumbled across it when the floor had caved beneath her.
“Two other pieces,” she said quietly. “It’s one of three.”
“Three? Where are the other two?”
Definitely not here.
Ignoring the question, Lisa shrugged out of her pack, extracted a thick piece of black fabric and wrapped it carefully around the relief. She slid the marble inside, latched the flap and stood as she slung the knapsack onto her shoulder. “It’s time to go.”
Wide-eyed, Simeon rose. He didn’t question her, simply let her step past him and move toward the rope. She was paying him enough to keep quiet about their little excursion and not ask questions, and he knew that.
With the pack secured to her back, she strapped on the harness and