Relentless (Benson Security 2)
Page 21
“Yeah, right,” the idiot scoffed.
“Enough!” Joe barked, making Julia jump. She stupidly took a step closer to Joe, the guy who’d startled her. With a silent groan, she put distance between them again, hoping no one noticed her dumb move.
“Did you take the mummy?” Joe’s voice was a low, menacing growl.
Marcus’ eyes darted around, and he licked his lips nervously. “Yeah, yeah, we took the mummy. So what? It isn’t like it’s worth much. Mummies like that are a dime a dozen.”
“I knew it!” Patricia shot to her feet and leaned over him. “You only took it to spite me.”
“We took it to stop you from embarrassing the mummy community with your pathetic excuse for research. A treasure map? Really? Do you listen to yourself? You think you’ve found secret directions to El Dorado. Written. On. A. Rug.” He threw up his hands in disgust.
“Not a rug—textiles. And it isn’t El Dorado either, you stuck-up prick. It’s El Toro de Oro.”
“The golden bull.” Marcus barked out a mocking laugh. “The only bull you’re dealing with is bullshit.”
Joe leaned forward, placing his hands on the armrests either side of Marcus, whose laughter suddenly evaporated.
“I’ve about run out of patience with you. You want to see what happens when I do, keep acting like an asshole.”
There was silence as Marcus visibly swallowed. He shrank back into his seat.
“Who is we? Who helped you?” Joe stood up straight to loom over the man.
Marcus had difficulty meeting Joe’s eyes. “Couple of other guys from the mummy group. We were fed up listening to Lucy and Ethel boast about their theory. About how they were gonna take the world by storm. How they’d be famous. For fuck’s sake, they’ve only been hunting mummies for a few years.” He slapped a hand to his chest. “The rest of us have dedicated our lives to this study. We struggle to be taken seriously, and it’s because of people like them. They waltz in with their half-baked ideas, attracting attention they don’t deserve, and give the rest of us
a bad name.” His chin jutted out. “We were making a stand for serious research.”
“By stealing a mummy?” Julia couldn’t keep quiet any longer. This was absolutely too ludicrous to believe.
“Who the hell are you?” Marcus snapped.
And just like that, Joe’s fist shot out and Marcus’ head snapped back. When he righted it, there was blood dripping from his nose.
“Don’t ever speak to her like that again. Hear me?”
“Yeah.” Marcus wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smearing blood over his cheek. “Yeah, I hear you.” He kept his eyes averted from Julia.
Patricia was grinning. “I take it back, Joe. You can definitely do the interrogating.”
Joe ignored her. “Where is the mummy now?”
“We sold it.”
Patricia was outraged. “Why sell it? If you only intended to disrupt our research, why not replace the thing once I was arrested?”
Marcus sneered at her. “We wanted it gone. We didn’t want you to get to it at a later date.”
“And you wanted the money.” Patricia sneered back. “You’re nothing more than a grave robber.”
Marcus started to bluster, but Joe leaned into him, cutting him off.
“Who did you sell it to?”
“A middleman.”
“Who?”
Julia didn’t know it was possible to infuse so much menace into one word.