The Reincarnationist

“I don’t understand. Why would Rudolfo let you do this?”

“Listen, I couldn’t understand anything anyone was saying up there. I’ll tell you everything that happened, but first, tell me, what did the medics say about the professor? How bad is it?”

“They won’t know until they get him to the hospital. But the bleeding had stopped and that’s a good sign. They said if he lives, that you’re the one who—” She stopped talking, reached down and picked up something off the mosaic floor.

“Why is this broken?” Her voice shook and so did the hand that held the piece of shattered fruitwood box. “Where is the rest of this?” She was back on her knees, frantic again.

“Gabriella.” Josh knelt down beside her and put his hand on her shoulder, to stop her, to comfort her, to prepare her for what he was going to tell her. Her skin felt warm through the shirt. “The security guard took what was in the box with him. That must have been what he came for. I’m guessing what that means is that he took what you and the professor think might be the Memory Stones.”

Her face distorted into two expressions at the same time, something Josh wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before: her eyes showed utter devastation, but her mouth set in a line of cold fury. She stared down at the pieces of wood she still held. Two seconds went by. Five. Ten. Finally she lifted her head up. All the vibrant rage and deep sadness had left her face. Only a look of resolution remained. He was surprised at her resilience.

“There’s no time to talk about this now,” she said. “Too much to do. The police are going to figure out another way to get down here and are going to want to know what happened.” She looked back at the broken body and the wood fragments and splinters. “I need to get to the hospital. They wouldn’t let me go with them in the ambulance. I’m not family, they said.” She shook her head as if she was clearing her thoughts, and her curls danced. Josh thought of Sabina’s curl, escaping from her braid during the robbery.

“Before I leave I need to make sure I get rid of anything that might make them ask too many questions about this area… .”

She peered into the tunnel’s blackness. “Do you have any idea how you’ve corrupted this site?” She took a deep breath, then turned to him. “What made you start digging there, anyway?”

Her eyes bored into him. There was no way he could explain it all to her now, even if he wanted to—and he didn’t know if he did. “I saw the discoloration on the wall and there was something about the size and shape of it that suggested there was something beyond it.”

Josh wasn’t sure she believed him, but she didn’t press him. “Will you help me close up the tunnel? I don’t want them traipsing through here. Who knows what they might disturb.”

They worked side by side as quickly as they could, shoveling dirt back into the opening, packing it down, piling on another layer. Between digging this out the first time and then crawling in the tunnel, the skin on Josh’s palms was shredded.

“I don’t care about anything now except that when the police talk to you about what happened down here, you lie, make up something, say anything you want, but don’t tell them about this tunnel. No one can go in there who isn’t connected to the dig before we get in there ourselves. When they come down, somehow we have to make sure they get their samples and photos and get out. I need to seal off the site until … If you say anything, if you suggest there’s a passageway here, they’ll insist on examining it. No one has been in that tunnel since this tomb was closed. Anything we might find in there will be priceless. A totally unique find. Can you do this, please?” Her voice was huskier as she elicited her promise, as if even voicing it had to be done in secret.

“Since the tunnel won’t help them find out who did this, no, I won’t tell them.”

“You promise?” She was still concerned. “Where will you say you were during the shooting?”

“I’ll say I was outside. Heard the gunshot, saw the guard running away and came down here to help.”

She nodded and went back to work.

Now both Malachai and Gabriella had asked him to lie to the police. He wasn’t eager to become involved with the investigation either, but not because he was trying to hide anything.

He wasn’t as sure about either of them.

“Josh, hurry. Please. We can’t have much time left.”

Despite his lacerated hands he went back to scooping up the dirt, packing it down and then piling on another layer, wondering if the woman who had been buried had known there was an escape route so very close by. He breathed in some of the dirt—coughed—thought about how amazing it was that no one had discovered the tomb or the tunnel for sixteen hundred years, and wondered how many secrets were buried here alongside Sabina’s heartbreaking form.

Chapter 14

The scraping sound emanated from the opening. They both looked up in time to see an aluminum ladder descending. One black loafer on the top rung. And then another as the man appeared from the bottom up.

“I’m Detective Alexander Tatti with the NTPA,” he called down in better English than any of the other policemen had used. “And we have a new ladder, as you can see,” he added as he proceeded to climb the rest of the way down.

“The Nucleo per la Tutela del Patrimonio Artistico protects Italy’s art, finds and retrieves stolen works,” Gabriella explained to Josh as she moved away from the freshly refilled alcove and got down on her knees by the mummy.

“Thank goodness you’ve come,” she said to the detective in a voice dusted with sugar. “Thank you for bringing the ladder. I’ve been going crazy stuck down here for the past forty-five minutes. I need to go to the hospital. Do you know how the professor is? Do you have news?”

Tatti finished his climb with surprising agility for a man who appeared, from the lines in his face, to be near retirement age. “He’s in intensive care. They won’t let you in yet. So you might as well stay and help me out on this end. All right?”

She nodded.

Unexpectedly, he didn’t barrage either of them with questions. Not right away. Instead, he made a slow and careful examination of his surroundings with an expression of reverence on his face. Josh liked him right then, for noticing where he was, for paying it some sort of tribute before he proceeded to defile it further.

After he had made a 360-degree circle, his glance returned to Sabina. He took six steps to her side and crouched down so he was on her level.

“How old is she, would you say?”

“We estimate she was buried here in 400 A.D.,” Gabriella answered. “Or do you mean how old was she when she died?”

“I mean when she was buried and when she died. Both.”

“There’s little wear on the few joints that we were able to see. We’re guessing about twenty-two.”

“Was she disturbed during this morning’s incident?”

“Yes, very badly.”

“Yes? How?”

“She was completely intact when we found her. Last night when I left … it was extraordinary … Now …” Gabriella looked at Sabina. “Now she’s broken apart, here and here … .” She pointed to the mummy’s waist, her neck and her right hand. “She had been holding on to that box. Or what’s left of it.”

“What box?”

Josh could see Gabriella flinch. She hadn’t meant to draw the detective’s attention to the broken receptacle. But now she was trapped. She pointed across the room to the splintered wood.

“What was in it?”

She shrugged. “It was sealed. We hadn’t opened it yet,” she lied. “Now you know everything I know. Can I go to the hospital?”

“As I said, the professor is in intensive care. His wife is with him. As soon as there is news, they will call me and I will tell you. Or if we are done sooner than that, you can go over then. In the meantime—” his accent was pleasant, giving a lilt to the English words “—you expect me to believe that you found this mummy holding on to a box and you didn’t open it?”

“Yes. We have protocols. We go slowly. Everything was a surprise. One more could wait. We wanted to examine the seal before we destroyed it.”

He turned around to Josh, flinging questions so fast there was no time to duck. “You are?”

“Josh Ryder.”

“The man who called the ambulance?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Ryder, what was in the box?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” Josh’s turn to lie.