The Death Relic by Chris Kuzneski Page A

from his car – but he never returned. I waited there for an hour. I even ordered a second drink, but he never came back.’
    ‘Did you look for his car?’
    She nodded. ‘It’s still outside my hotel.’
    ‘What hotel?’
    ‘The Fiesta Americana.’
    Payne whistled. ‘Nice place.’
    As a connoisseur of fine hotels, he was familiar with its extravagance. Although he had never stayed there, he knew it was the type of resort that had security guards and hundreds of cameras. That meant that if Hamilton had been snatched from the property grounds, the odds were pretty good that someone knew something. With the right amount of persuasion, Payne was confident they could get to the bottom of things in less than an hour. Maybe two if they needed a translator who wouldn’t faint at the sight of blood. Sometimes they were tough to find.
    ‘Maria,’ Jones said as he re-entered the conversation, ‘we can worry about your boss later. For now, I need to make sure you’re not in danger. Are you safe in your room?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
    ‘Why don’t you know?’
    She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. ‘When I came back here, things had been moved around, like someone was looking for something.’
    ‘Could it have been a maid?’ Jones asked.
    ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘It wasn’t a maid! My room was tossed. My clothes are everywhere. And my passport is missing. Someone took it from my nightstand.’
    ‘Your passport was stolen?’
    ‘As far as I can tell – unless it’s buried under this mess.’
    Payne tried to reassure her. ‘Don’t worry about your passport. It happens all the time. We’ll contact your embassy and get you a new one. No problem at all.’
    Maria shook her head. ‘I’m not worried about my passport, I’m worried about Hamilton. I think someone grabbed him when he went to his car.’
    ‘But you didn’t see it?’
    ‘No, I didn’t see it.’
    ‘Then why would someone grab him? Is he rich? Does he have enemies? What can you tell us about him?’
    ‘Not much,’ she admitted. ‘He called out of the blue and hired me for a job that he refused to discuss on the phone – instead he hinted at a major discovery. We were in the middle of discussing the specifics when he disappeared.’
    ‘Hold up!’ Payne demanded. ‘You met the guy today?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Are you sure he didn’t ditch you?’
    ‘Believe me, that’s the first thing I thought when he didn’t come back to the restaurant. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. He was in the middle of telling me about my role in things when he went to his car to get some documents. But his car is still here
and
he left his briefcase at the table. If he was ditching me, surely he would have taken both.’
    Payne agreed. ‘You’re probably right.’
    ‘Couple that with my room being tossed and …’
    ‘You’re right. It seems suspicious.’
    Jones interrupted them. ‘Speaking of your room, if someone searched it, there’s always the chance they might come back. Did you barricade your door?’
    She nodded. ‘With everything I could find.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘Same with the glass door to my terrace. I rolled up newspapers and wedged them in the track so the door can’t slide open.’
    ‘That’s smart. How high is your room?’
    ‘Top floor.’
    ‘Good. That’ll be tough to access from outside.’
    She took a deep breath. ‘What else can I do?’
    Jones shrugged. ‘Not much, unless you want to call the police. But I’ll be honest, the police in Mexico are pretty damn corrupt. I know that from personal experience.’
    ‘No,’ she admitted, ‘I prefer this. I feel safer already.’
    Jones appreciated the sentiment but felt helpless being so far away. ‘You know, it’s funny that you called when you did.’
    ‘Really? Why’s that?’
    Jones snatched the phone from Payne, then turned off the speakerphone so he could talk to her in private. ‘Because Jon and I were looking for