The Reincarnationist Read online

  “She needs help,” Josh said, and ran toward her.

  Once he reached her side he knelt down next to her. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “They wouldn’t let me go with them.” She sat on the grass, eyes peeled on the vehicle as it disappeared.

  “They didn’t have room.”

  “But he’s alone,” she said, sounding dazed.

  “He’s going to get the best care they can give him.” It was like talking to a child.

  “Is he going to be all right?” She turned to Josh for the first time. As a photographer, he’d looked into thousands of anguished faces, but her pained expression ripped at him in an intensely personal way, which he couldn’t understand.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Are you sure you’re okay, though? That was a tough fall.”

  She didn’t seem to understand his question.

  “You fell.”

  She looked around, noticing where she was as if for the first time. Then, brushing off her hands, she stood up.

  “I’m okay,” she said to Josh.

  “You sure? You seemed pretty out of it there.” He handed her the knapsack she’d left on the ground, forgotten.

  “I’m okay. I am. I just need to find out—”

  By now, Charlie Billings had made his way over. “Gabriella?” He reached out and touched her arm. “What happened here?”

  “Not yet, Charlie,” she said.

  Josh was surprised that she knew him, then he remembered that Rudolfo had said she’d been talking to the press.

  “Not for the record, then?”

  “I don’t think she’s up to it. Give her some time,” Josh said.

  “You’re really racking up those favors, you know?”

  Josh offered his old colleague a nod.

  “Can you tell me how the professor is?” Charlie asked Gabriella, still trying to get something for his story.

  “He’s in critical condition, that’s all I know.”

  Charlie scribbled something on his pad, and Josh took advantage of the moment to take Gabriella by the elbow and steer her away from the edge of the road and the reporter to her car. As Josh helped her into the backseat, Malachai, who was behind the wheel, said, “Josh, hurry up and get in. I think it would be wise to leave now and avoid the circus while we still can. Gabriella, do you have the keys?”

  Focused on Josh, she didn’t answer.

  “I just realized who you are. You’re Josh Ryder, aren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “You were here the whole time?”

  “I was. I’m sorry.”

  “Where did all this happen?”

  “We were in the tomb when—”

  “You were in the tomb with him?” she interrupted. “This happened inside the tomb?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to go down to the site…I need to see it.” Pushing past Josh she got out of the car. Both Josh and Malachai got out and followed her. Catching up to her before she got too far, Malachai put his arm around her shoulder and stopped her. “It’s better to leave all this to the police. We’ll take you to the hospital. Come back to the car with me.”

  “Not yet. I need to see the site first,” she said, shaking free.

  “Let me go with you, then,” Josh said, concerned that she not be alone when she saw the blood, the broken artifacts and the state Sabina was in.

  Not answering, or waiting, she took off, but before she had gone five feet, two policemen intercepted her.

  The conversation appeared to go smoothly for the first three or four questions, until one of them must have asked something that agitated her, because she gestured wildly to the road, then turned, pointing back toward her car, inadvertently including Josh and Malachai in her gesture.

  The policemen followed her glance.

  Thirty seconds later, the two carabinieri approached Josh and Malachai.

  “Mr. Ryder?” the younger one asked, looking at Malachai.

  “No. I’m Josh Ryder.”

  He asked him something in Italian.

  Josh shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

  It seemed as if he’d said that to a dozen people already that morning. The language barrier was frustrating. He wanted to tell the policeman not to waste time with him when there was a man out there somewhere who had a gun and an ancient treasure and who was getting farther and farther away, but there was no way he could communicate that.

  While this was going on, the carabinieri had their back to Gabriella and so they didn’t notice when she broke away. There were other police on the scene, busily interviewing people in the crowds, but, curiously, none of them were paying attention to the real scene of the crime—Gabriella’s destination, the tomb.

  Of course not, Josh realized. None of them knew that the shooting had happened underground.

  The policeman, who was still trying to talk to Josh, noticed him glance away and looked to see why. When he saw Gabriella, he called out to her.

  She turned. There was fierce determination in her eyes, tear marks and dirt smeared on her face, dust on her clothes. She yelled back something Josh couldn’t understand and then descended into the tomb she had been responsible for discovering.

  Josh’s heart lurched as she disappeared. He was desperately worried for her. There was no time to wonder why he was reacting so strongly to a stranger because, at that moment, two things happened almost simultaneously: the group of onlookers broke free from the sawhorses, and all the police took off to contain them.

  Josh took advantage of the distraction to race toward the crypt.

  “Stop, Josh. Let’s get out of here. Don’t—” Malachai shouted.

  “She shouldn’t be down there alone,” he yelled back. He kept going, not knowing if the police were behind him or not. Not caring.

  He was only a foot away when he heard Gabriella’s scream coming up from the ground. It was sharp and ragged, and so pained it sounded as if she were being tortured.

  Chapter 13

  She was on her knees in the corner of the crypt, kneeling beside Sabina’s broken body, emitting a low, keening cry of grief. It took Josh a few seconds to understand that Gabriella was saying the word no over and over; it sounded like a prayer.

  He knew he was looking right at her, but he was seeing the tomb on another day.

  A flash of a white robe.

  Red hair.

  Dark green eyes, filled with tears.

  Sabina.

  He wanted to reach out into the darkness, grab the specter and make her tell him what was happening here.

  Gabriella’s voice, insistent, dark, brought him instantly to the present moment. “Kick the ladder out. Kick it hard and break it,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Quick! The ladder, pull it away from the wall.”

  Still under the spell of his memory lurch, Josh did what she asked but didn’t understand why he was doing it.

  “Now snap off the rungs. Use this—” She threw him a shovel. “Please, help me, buy me some time.”

  Attacking the wooden ladder with a vengeance, he’d broken the top six rungs by the time the police arrived at the opening. He didn’t need to understand the language this time to know they wanted access to the tomb.

  “Show them the broken ladder,” Gabriella said.

  He wanted to smile at her clever, quick thinking, but he refrained. The man who had questioned him earlier looked from the ladder to Gabriella and then at Josh. Then he said something that caused the other officer to laugh and made Gabriella curse under her breath, “Pigs.”

  Josh didn’t need to know what they’d said.

  “You said you were down here when it happened?” she asked Josh as soon as the carabinieri were gone.

  “The whole time. It happened too quickly for me to do anything…to stop him….”

  She wasn’t looking at Josh anymore, but beyond him, examining the state of the tomb. It was the first time he’d really had a chance to study her with
a photographer’s eyes; he noted the long neck, shoulder-length, wavy hair, full mouth and strong bones. It was her nose, aquiline with a hint of a bump, that turned a woman who would otherwise have been typically pretty into someone intriguing. She was wearing jeans and a white shirt with the top two buttons open, and Josh was shocked, in the middle of all this madness, to find himself wishing she’d left the third unbuttoned, as well.

  “You said you saw who shot the professor? Who was it?”

  “A security guard. Or at least he was dressed like one.”

  “Did you take a picture of him?”

  “No, it happened too fast. I was trying to get to the professor…I wish I had.”

  She seemed baffled for a moment. “Why didn’t he shoot you, too?”

  “I was in there.” Josh pointed at the tunnel, and a rush of images assaulted him: moving slowly through the space, the feeling of the dirt under his hands, the panic of the narrow space, the sense that something was terribly wrong and the urgency to get quickly to the other end.

  For a second he was confused. Were these fresh images of what had happened an hour before or were they part of the mind movies?

  Gabriella walked over to where he had pointed and noticed the tunnel for the first time. “What the hell is this?” She peered into the darkness. “Who dug this out?”

  “I did.”

  “Rudolfo allowed you to do this to our site?”

  “He tried to stop me but…that’s why I couldn’t help the professor—I was pretty far back in there.”

  “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?”

&nbs
p; “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.

  “What were you doing down here?”

  “I had just met the professor, he was telling me about the find.” Damn, had he screwed up? Had he just admitted he was in the tomb?