“Pretty lucky this room wasn’t booked for tonight, right?” Sully asked, as if their good fortune had some other significance.
“Sometimes luck is just luck,” Jada said.
Drake nodded. “True. But we don’t usually have the good kind.”
Sully ran a hand over his face, smoothing his mustache, and then slipped the key card through the lock. Drake felt the weight of his gun against the small of his back but wouldn’t draw it without an immediate threat. The door clicked, and Sully opened it, nodding to Drake even as he held out a hand to indicate that Jada should remain in the hall. She looked as if she might burst with anticipation, but she crossed her arms and waited while they entered and did a quick check to be sure nobody was lying in wait.
“Okay, you can come in,” Sully said.
Jada strode into the room, letting the door swing shut behind her. As Sully started to speak again, she stiff-armed him, shoving him back onto the bed, and Drake burst out laughing.
“That’s the last time you treat me like the damsel in frickin’ distress,” she said, looking fierce despite her diminutive stature.
“That ain’t what it’s about, kid,” Sully said. “Nate and I-we’ve been in situations like this before.”
He started to rise, an apologetic look on his face, and she shoved him down again. Drake laughed, but he shut up when Jada shot him a bristling look. Then she drew her gun, and none of it was funny anymore.
“I know how to fight, Uncle Vic. And I know how to shoot. He might have been your friend, but he was my father. As far as I’m concerned, this little trip is my mission, not yours. I don’t work for you. I don’t take orders from you. Yes, I’ll defer to your experience, especially if whoever wants us dead takes another crack at us. But for the last time, don’t protect me. I’m not a goddamn liability, I’m an asset.”
Drake leaned against the bureau, trying not to smirk as he studied Sully. “I tried to tell you, but noooo-”
Sully glared at him. Drake shrugged.
Jada glanced back and forth between them. “We’re a team on this, or the two of you should just wish me luck and move on to your next bit of thievery for hire.”
Sully stared at the gun in her hand. Drake couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t pointed it at Sully-the barrel was aimed at the headboard-but any time an unholstered gun was in the room, you wanted to know what it would hit if someone pulled the trigger.
“Admit it,” Drake said. “We’re just so damn charming that you can’t bear the idea of being parted from us.”
Jada started to grin, then looked even more irritated that he had succeeded in defusing her righteous fury.
“You’re a couple of scoundrels,” she said.
“But charming scoundrels,” Drake replied.
When it was clear that Jada didn’t plan to shoot him, Drake started searching the room, whistling the Seven Dwarves’ work song from Snow White. Jada laughed and returned the small gun to the holster she wore under her flowing beige blouse.
“Is it safe to get up now?” Sully asked, hands raised as if he were under arrest.
“Shut up and get to work,” Jada said, wearing half a grin.
Sully stood, but as she moved away, he reached out and grabbed her, pulled her in close, and kissed the top of her head.
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable,” he said, his voice a rough whisper Drake could barely make out.
“I know,” Jada replied.
Drake thought of half a dozen wisecracks but said nothing. The mirror above the bureau was bolted to the wall, but he had run his fingers around it. Now he was searching the drawers, down on his knees so he could see if Luka had taped anything to the bottoms. It didn’t seem likely. If he really had expected Jada to be suspicious enough to come looking or send someone to investigate, he wouldn’t have hidden anything someplace that could easily be discovered by accident.
Sully checked the closet and then went into the bathroom. Drake heard him moving around, heard the scrape of the toilet tank lid being removed and replaced. Jada busily stripped the bed and then started to shove the mattress aside. Drake couldn’t check under the bureau-there was no room even to slide his fingers beneath it-but he dragged it out to look behind it.
As Sully emerged from the bathroom and he and Jada started going over the nightstands, Drake worked on the entertainment center. He had his hands behind the television when he realized the others had stopped working. He glanced over to see Jada and Sully staring up at the ceiling fan, but when Jada climbed onto the bed to search, she found nothing.
“He’d have been in a hurry,” Drake said, glancing around. “Nothing too elaborate. Somehow he snuck into this room. He’d have put whatever it is somewhere it wouldn’t be found easily or quickly, but he’d have known that nobody would be searching this room, so it might be he’d put it somewhere he could be sure it would be found eventually.”
“Not the safe,” Jada said. “I’m sure it’s left open before a new guest checks in.”
Sully narrowed his eyes, then turned to look at the air-conditioning unit beside the window. He hurried over to it and knelt down, prying the face panel off the machine. When he removed it, a small bundle fell to the floor.
“Bingo,” Sully said.
He picked it up and tugged off the thick rubber bands around it, and the bundle separated out into a small sheaf of folded pages and a shabby journal of the sort sold in any office supply store in the world. A piece of hotel stationery fluttered to the ground, and Sully snatched it up, gave it a quick, grim scan, and then handed it to Jada, who climbed down from the bed.
Her hand trembled a bit as she took it, but when she read, her voice was steady.
“ ‘To whom it may concern. Upon your discovery of these documents, please contact my daughter, Jadranka Hzujak, and arrange to see them delivered to her.’ ” Jada glanced up at Drake. “He’s got my address here. Nothing more.”
Sully had unfolded one of the papers and now laid it on the bed. The three of them stared down at the map of Crocodilopolis on which Luka had drawn the location of the labyrinth of Sobek and what he suspected were its dimensions and basic design. There were scribblings on the map as well, most of them apparently references to the lengths of corridors but some evidently comparisons to the labyrinth at Knossos on the island of Crete.
“Here. You should be the one,” Sully said, handing Jada the journal.
She opened it and began to read, but immediately her expression turned to disappointment.
“What is it?” Drake asked.
Jada frowned, turning and scanning pages. “Notes, mostly. I was kind of hoping it was a real journal, y’ know? Something that would lay it all out for us. But it’s his notes to himself.”
She moved between them, turning so that Drake and Sully could peruse the pages with her. Drake saw what she meant. There were drawings of labyrinths, some larger and some with more intricate details.
“Is that a trap?” Sully asked, indicating one sketch. “Like something from the pyramids?”
“Looks like,” Drake agreed.
There were scribbles about Daedalus. “Knossos first,” Luka had written. “Then Croc City-and then, where’s number three?”
“So he’s confirming that Daedalus designed three labyrinths?” Drake asked.
“Yeah,” Jada said, flipping two pages back. “It’s right here. ‘Fundamental design of Cretan labyrinth used three times. Honey a constant.’ ”
“Honey?” Sully grumbled. “What the hell does he mean?”
None of them replied. Jada flipped a few more pages, pausing only momentarily to study the small maps Luka had drawn in the journal. They depicted the progress of the dig on the labyrinth of Sobek. One of the maps had another reference to honey: a design that seemed to indicate four separate routes that led into a single location in the labyrinth. Beside it, with an arrow, Luka had scrawled the words “Honey Chamber location differs from Knossos, but command is the same-Mistress of the Labyrinth must be given an amount equivalent to all other gods put together.”