Reaching his desk, he collected his backpack and saw that his notebook was still open. He paused just a moment to look at the photograph of his parents on the inside cover, then closed the notebook, shouldered his backpack, and headed toward the door.
At least he was done with school for a week.
Nothing could go wrong from here.
Jake hurried down the school’s marble steps in the bright April sunshine and headed to his mountain bike.
Bright laughter drew his attention to the left. Under one of the flowering dogwoods in the school yard stood his sister, Kady. She leaned on the trunk of the tree, dressed in the yellow and gold of the senior cheer squad. A match to the three other girls gathered around her, though clearly she was their leader. She also held the full attention of half a dozen upper-class boys, all wearing letterman jackets.
She laughed again at something one of the boys said. She tossed her head in a well-practiced flip, sending out a cascade of blond hair, only a few shades lighter than Jake’s. She stretched out a leg as if limbering up, but mostly, Jake knew, it was to show off the length of her leg and the new silver ankle bracelet. She was trying to gain the attention of the captain of the football team, but he seemed more interested in a shoulder-punching contest with a fellow teammate.
For just a brief moment, Kady’s eyes caught Jake’s approach. He watched them narrow in warning, marking off forbidden territory.
Jake skirted away. He quickened his steps, prepared to take a wide swath around the gathered elite of Middleton Prep. It was because of such a concentrated effort that he failed to see Craig Brask until he was almost on top of him.
A large arm shot out and slammed a palm into Jake’s chest. Fingers curled into his shirt. “Where do ya think you’re going?”
Craig Brask stood a head taller than Jake and twice his weight. His classmate’s red hair was shaved to a stubble, and his face had so many freckles it looked like he was always blushing. He had the sleeves of his school jacket rolled up to expose his apelike forearms.
“Let me go, Brask,” Jake warned.
“Or what?”
By now, others gathered. Snickers rose from the crowd.
As Craig turned to grin at his audience, Jake reached up and grabbed Craig’s thumb in a lock and twisted it. Over the past three years, Jake had studied more than just ancient civilizations. He had readied his body as much as his mind by taking Tae Kwon Do classes three times a week.
Craig gasped as Jake broke his hold. The large boy stumbled back.
Not wanting the fight to escalate, Jake turned and headed for his bike. But Craig lunged and grabbed the back of Jake’s collar, not letting him leave.
Jake felt the thin braided leather cord around his neck snap under the pressure. The weight suspended from it slid down his belly where his shirt was tucked into his jeans.
Anger flared, white hot and blinding.
Not thinking, Jake turned and snap-kicked Craig in the chest.
Craig flew back and landed flat on his back. Jake’s anchoring foot slipped in the grass, and he fell hard on his backside, jarring his teeth.
Someone called out, “Kady, isn’t that your brother?”
Jake glanced over a shoulder. The elite of Middleton Prep all turned in their direction, including the captain of the football team.
With a frown, Randy White headed over. Taking his lead, the others followed in tow, including Jake’s sister.
Reaching them, Randy pointed at Craig’s nose. “Brask, leave the kid alone.” The command in that voice did not invite debate.
Craig rubbed at his bruised chest and scowled.
Randy offered Jake a hand up, but he managed to gain his feet on his own. He didn’t want any help. He brushed off the seat of his pants. Randy shrugged and turned away, but not before mumbling, “Weird kid.”
As the elite drifted away, Kady remained. She caught Jake by the elbow and leaned close to his ear. “Quit trying to embarrass me,” she hissed between clenched teeth.
Embarrass you?
Jake shook free of his sister’s grip and returned her glare, eye to eye. Though they stood the same height, Katherine Ransom was two years older.
Jake’s face went even redder than during the fight. Unable to form words, he freed the broken cord from under his shirttail. The object that hung from it dropped into his open palm.
A gold coin. Actually it was only half a coin, the whole having been broken jaggedly in two, a Mayan image engraved on each half. The sunlight glinted and caught Kady’s eye. Her left hand rose to her own throat. Her half of the same coin hung from a fine gold chain around her neck.
The two coin pieces had been mailed in the parcel three years ago, along with their father’s camp diary and their mother’s sketchbook. Neither knew why the package had been sent or who had mailed it. Since then, the gold tokens never left Kady’s or Jake’s neck.
Jake stared down at the piece in his palm. Sunlight reflected off the burnished gold, making the symbol on his half of the coin shine brightly. The symbols were called glyphs.
The glyph on his coin represented the Mayan word be (pronounced BAY) or, in English, road.
For the thousandth time, Jake wondered what it meant. It had to be significant. Turning his back on his sister, he shoved the coin into his pocket and strode stiffly toward his chained-up mountain bike.
He was soon pedaling away. How he wished he would never have to return to this lame school.
But he shook his head.
No, his heart was too full of one wish to bother with any others.
One hand lowered to his pants pocket as he pedaled. He rubbed his palm over the coin through the jeans, shining it like Aladdin’s lamp.
There was room for only one wish in Jake’s heart: to discover what had happened to his mother and father.
It was why he worked so hard.
If he ever hoped to learn the truth about his parents’ deaths—to discover why they’d been killed—he must first become like them. Like father, like son. Follow in their footsteps.
With a renewed determination, Jake lifted out of the seat and fought his bike up the long hill toward home.
Nothing else mattered.
2
AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION
Just the smallest tap…
Jake lay on his belly as the sun baked his back. He had been down in the quarry behind his house the entire Saturday. The slab of rock under him was mostly flat, but by now, every slight bump in the surface had grown into a sharp knob.
His lips were stretched in a hard grimace—not from pain, but from his painstaking concentration.
Mustn’t harm the sample.
The Paleozoic-era fossil looked like a cross between a squashed crab and some alien spacecraft. He could even make out a pair of tiny antennae.