Page 123 of The Prize

“Doubt it.” He leaned forward and examined the canvas. “Hey,Mona Lisa, your job is done.” He frowned as he noticed something on his watch. “The GPS isn’t coming from her.”

A jolt of fear hit me. “You don’t think they found it?”

“It’s pinging in this vicinity.”

I threw him a wary glance because something felt wrong with her or perhaps everything felt right. The mystery reflected inMona Lisa’s gaze was uncanny, the way she followed me as I walked around Tobias to take a closer look at her, the way her perfection screamed authentic.

Tobias’s fist shot toward the canvas—

I punched his hand to redirect it and almost knocked him off balance. He steadied himself and glared at me in disbelief, and then his expression turned to horror. “No way.”

“I’d need my magnifier but...” Shaking my head. “She looks real.”

“Jesus, I nearly punched a hole through her face. I thought she was ours.”

“She’s the otherMona Lisa. She really exists.” My words came out full of awe.

“Thank God for you, Leighton.”

“Eli must know ours is a fake?”

He shrugged. “There’s meant to be three that Leonardo painted. Maybe Eli wanted the other one?”

“Where’s the GPS coming from?”

Tobias raised his wristwatch to look at the screen. “That way.”

“Shall we take this with us?”

He examined the frame. “Sure, why not? Let me make sure she can come out easily first. We don’t have too much time.”

Within a few minutes he had the canvas rolled up and tucked inside his rucksack. Following the blip on his wristwatch, he led me toward the only other door in here other than the one we’d come through. With a turn of a handle it opened and we stepped out onto what looked like a high ramp that led to a stairwell.

Impossible; I blinked to take in the vast view of what looked like a giant roller coaster without a tram, trying to grasp what I was looking at as my gaze scanned the enormous cavern beneath it, all the while recalling the large wheel in Arizona.

What lay ahead was monstrously spectacular in comparison, the profound life-size design of a Rube Goldberg constructed in steel. This contraption was so complex with one mechanism promising to cause a domino effect on another should it be triggered. This was where all the steel had been used and it could only be navigated on foot.

We’d never make it to the other side.

My pulse quickened when I saw the enormous steel ball that was at least six feet in diameter. It looked like it was designed to come rolling along after you to knock you into the endless chasm.

“It’s impossible.” I let out a shaky breath.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

TOBIASTURNEDTOface me. “Go back.”

“Together or not at all.”

His gaze swept over the design. “We’ve come this far, right?”

“What is this?”

“Part of their elaborate safe system, I suppose. That wheel back in Arizona looks like Eli was dipping his toe in the water of what was possible. This looks new.”

“This looks finished.”

Tobias pointed to the end where, should one be lucky enough to survive this madness, there was a doorway that might just lead to a vault. Oh, God, we’d come so close.