Page 160 of Her Reluctant Hero
“I thought he’d quit.”
“Quit what?”
“Gambling.”
“These are gambling debts?” she asked in disbelief, checking the last column again. Some numbers were five and six digits! “When did he start gambling?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “I don’t know when he started, but I thought he’d quit. He got into some big trouble a few years ago, owed the wrong people too much money. He swore he would quit, that he’d learned his lesson.”
“It’s not that easy with an addiction.” She didn’t mean to sound accusing, but Adrian had to know the older man couldn’t overcome an addiction like this on his own. Did he not see these numbers?
He bristled. “He was a grown man, Mal. I wasn’t going to check up on him.” He dragged the cooling book toward him with the stick, flipped it open to look for more papers.
“No, of course not.” She took the paper. “Where did he get this kind of money? You said he took out a trust fund for this dig.”
“He did.”
“Are you sure it was a trust fund? Not a big win? Maybe if he’d had a big win, that would spur him to gambling more. And he would have lied to you to keep the gambling secret. Adrian.” She dropped her hand to her lap, suddenly weak with a realization. “You don’t think he owed someone money and they followed him out here and killed him?”
“No.” Adrian shook his head abruptly. “Why would they come all this way? And if they kill him, they’re not going to get any money, right?”
“I suppose.” Mallory had no experience with it, outside movies, but it made sense. Still, if someone had come to kill Dr. Vigil, that made the most sense. And if the others had seen him… They could be dead, too?
Adrian didn’t respond as he turned the charred book upside down and fluttered the pages. He did the same with the next book, and the next, his movements becoming more agitated when he didn’t find anything. Mallory reached past him for a book, opened the cover, smoothed a hand along the binding inside, front and back. On the third book she found what she was looking for. A pocket he’d made inside the lining of the back of the book.
A pocket with more spiral papers. More codes. More numbers.
Mallory’s stomach pitched as the darker side of Dr. Vigil was revealed.
“How did you know to find it there?” Adrian leaned over to skim the sheet.
“He showed me how to make that compartment when I was about twelve. I didn’t always have a diary, you know, in all the places we traveled, but that way whatever I wanted hidden was hidden.” She should have known he kept secrets of his own.
Adrian skimmed a finger down the last column. “Damn, Mallory, he owed something like a half a million dollars.”
Blood rushed out of her head, leaving her chilled. She couldn’t even envision that much money. Owing for her student loans had almost sent her into a panic. “That can’t be right.” She took the paper. “Maybe these are old debts.” But the dates didn’t lie.
“Mallory.” Adrian’s voice sounded hollow as he pointed to a date three years ago, then traced the row across to an addition sign. A big addition sign. One that wiped out all the previous minus signs.
“Three years ago,” Mallory murmured through numb lips. “Tunisia.”
Adrian flipped through the other papers faster, searching, searching. Mallory dove across him for the stacked books, sliding her hands over the inside covers, finding nothing. She pushed to her feet and ran toward the truck, where they’d stored the salvageable books.
If someone had paid him for information at Tunisia, had they paid him for information about this site? Had he betrayed Adrian not once but twice?
She’d barely flung open the passenger side door when Adrian ran up behind her, breathing hard, and not just from the exertion. With shaking hands, she reached for the first book, found nothing, flung it to the ground, reached for the second.
The sixth book had it, the damning evidence. Mallory recognized it for what it was before she drew it out a quarter of the way.
A check. For a huge sum of money.
Adrian sank to the ground at her feet, the uncashed check in both hands. A check made out to Robert Vigil, Ph.D. A check for six figures.
Betrayed. By the man he’d looked to as a father.
He barely heard Mallory asking him something over the pounding in his ears. She crouched before him, looked into his eyes, touched his arm and repeated the question.
“Who wrote it?”
