Page 61 of Raul
He nodded, still smiling. “There will be people within shouting distance, I assure you.”
As she walked beside him on the path to the cars, excitement twined with her uneasiness. She might be helping to find the missing dragon eggs. She slid a side glance at Ricardo. He strolled at a relaxed pace and seemed unworried.
As they got farther away and the noise subsided somewhat, she said, “I’ve only seen dragon eggs in display cases behind glass. To be able to touch one will be so cool.”
“The eggshells I’ve brought you are a particularly brilliant shade of teal,” Ricardo said. “I think you and your artist will be quite happy with them.”
They waited while a car passed and then crossed the road to enter the parking lot. She assumed some of Mikel’s people had followed them, but her nerves tightened anyway.
Ricardo led her past her own car toward a black midsize sedan parked in the far corner of the lot. The sedan was fairlynew but not flashy, so he wasn’t buying expensive cars with his ill-gotten gains. Her stomach clenched with tension when they approached the isolated car. For all Ricardo’s assurance that there would be people around, his parking space had clearly been chosen for its privacy. She cast a glance around and was reassured to see one of Mikel’s people strolling through the lot as though headed to a nearby car.
The doors unlocked when Ricardo touched the door handle and swung open the door to the front passenger seat. Pulling out a plastic food storage box, he put it on the hood of the car, flipped up the latches, and lifted off the lid. She glanced around to see that he had positioned the car so it shielded them from sight of the rest of the vehicles in the lot. He had definitely done this before.
Her mouth felt dry, even as she reminded herself that Mikel was watching over her.
As Ricardo turned back to her, he held the box in one hand and peeled back a layer of cotton batting with the other. Five startlingly blue-green fragments nestled on another layer of cotton.
Her exclamation of delight was not feigned. The luster of the shells gave the color a depth that she hadn’t expected. She brushed one carefully with her fingertip and found the surface satiny but with a pleasant texture made by tiny indentations. “These are stunning! And you guarantee that they are authentic Calevan dragon eggshells?”
“Yes, I guarantee it.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You are satisfied with my offering?”
“Very. I can’t wait to see what the artist does with them.”
Laying the cotton back over the fragments, he refastened the lid on the box and left the box on the hood. “You have the payment?”
She slipped the envelope out of her bag and handed it to him. He kept his hands low behind the car door as he counted the cash with swift efficiency.
“Muchas gracias.”He closed the car door and turned. For a moment, his genial façade disappeared, leaving his eyes hard and his mouth set in a thin, threatening line. “I would prefer you not mention who you got these from.”
Shock and a spike of fear made her stutter realistically. “I… No, of course not. I won’t say anything.”
He handed her the box, his smile back in place. “It was a pleasure doing business with you,mademoiselle.” Then he walked around to climb into the driver’s seat, and he was gone with a crunch of tires on gravel.
She stood for a few moments, breathing deeply to calm that last shock of fright, before she checked her watch. The whole encounter with Ricardo had taken about fifteen minutes. Now adrenaline surged in a good way. She had done it! Mikel’s people would be tracking Ricardo from now on. If he had the dragon, they would find it.
All that was left was to return to her apartment building and hand the eggshells over to Mikel.
“You are a natural at espionage,” Mikel said with a smile when she slid into his SUV in the lot behind her building. “Excellent work. We got everything on audio, including Bertucci’s guarantee that these are authentic. Of course, we will test them to confirm that. If he’s selling counterfeits, that makes him of less interest to us.”
A glow of gratification warmed her. Getting a compliment about her competence from someone like Mikel was huge. Especially since she thought of him as being like her father in his more heroic moments. She pressed her lips together in a small ironic smile.Still looking for my father’s approval, aren’t I?
She tapped her fingernails against the plastic case that she held on her lap. “They look real, but I’m far from an expert. They’re quite beautiful.”
“I’ll take a look when we get back to my office,” he said, steering out of her building’s parking lot. “El principewill not tolerate much of a delay in seeing that you are safe.” His tone was dry.
“I’m guessing that he didn’t like it when I went to Bertucci’s car,” Erica said with a little smile. She had almost forgotten that Raul was listening in on her conversation with the potential poacher.
“You would be correct.” His intonation was even drier.
“I wasn’t worried,” she said, not quite truthfully. “I saw your agent there.”
“Bertucci has no record of violence, or I would have stopped you,” Mikel said.
Soon, Mikel pulled into the private lot behind his building. The back door swung open, and one of Mikel’s people ushered her to the conference room, closing the door behind her.
Raul spun around. “Erica!” He covered the distance between them in two long strides and dropped his crutches to pull her into his arms. “Mi corazón,I could not believe it when you went with Bertucci to his car. Are you crazy?!”
“Raul, you’re squashing me,” she said into his chest, but her heart thrilled at his concern for her.
