The Reincarnationist (28 page)

Rome, Italy—1884

S
tanding in the garden, looking out over the city, leaning against him, feeling his arm encircling her waist, Esme was relieved that his depression of the past two weeks was lifting. Blackie, who had been so attentive and wonderful to her since she'd first met him months ago in New York at one of her uncle's soirees, had changed so much recently, becoming temperamental and distant. She'd been planning on ending the affair if his moods continued. His exuberance now was more of a relief than the breeze that was cooling off the intense Roman heat.

She was glad Aunt Iris, her chaperone, had retired early for the night—as usual—so she could be alone with her lover.
Her lover.
She still thrilled at the idea.

Not many of the women in New York society whom her mother preferred her to spend time with would dare to be with a man this way. But the group
she
preferred, whom she studied painting and drawing with, flaunted being avant garde, considering it de rigueur to break the rules and defy convention if you were a true artist.

“And to think, before today, for more than a thousand years this treasure was a secret that almost no one knew existed.”

Blackie, a mature and very successful railroad magnate and twenty years her senior, was acting like a child, laughing and kissing her and asking her if it wasn't the most wonderful news she'd ever heard.

For the past few weeks he had been complaining bitterly that he'd been fooled, that in fact, all of the members of the club had been and that Wallace Neely must be robbing everyone blind.

How different a man becomes when he's accomplished what he's set out to do.

“Tell me what he's found,” she said after they'd left the terrace and sat down inside to cups of the bitter but wonderful Italian espresso that she'd become addicted to.

“The tomb is very small, which doesn't suggest it was the burial place of someone important. And yet, it holds one of the most important treasures that have been found in the last century.”

“Did you actually see it?” she asked.

“No, but Neely is bringing it here tonight. He didn't want to—he has his protocols—but I told him we weren't having a celebration dinner without the objects that we are celebrating.”

“Have you telegrammed the members of the club to let them know?”

“That can wait, at least until I've see seen the objects. Touched them,” he said, looking down into his hands as if he was already grasping it. “They say this treasure holds the secret to past-life regressions.”

She didn't understand his or any of the club members' preoccupation with the study of transmigration of souls. All of them had such extraordinary, successful present
lives, why did it matter to them who they were before? If there was a “before.” Wasn't it enough that they had everything they wanted and were the most influential men in New York? In America, some said.

Even her brother, Percy, had been obsessed with this excavation in Rome, but unlike the others, it was because he feared the imbroglio that would erupt if the archeologist found what he was looking for—what they all wanted him to find. She had received disturbing letters from him that summer. With a shaky pen he filled page after page with his suspicions regarding their uncle, now also their stepfather, and concern over her own well-being. He was often ill, he'd written, with sudden and violent stomach problems that the doctor couldn't diagnose. The letters had arrived regularly until three weeks ago when they suddenly stopped. Maybe, she'd hoped, he was traveling. Maybe on his way to see her in Rome, to convalesce here.

“Aren't you curious to find out who you were in the past?” Blackie asked.

“Jesus was resurrected. Mother says that's all I need to know about the dead coming back to life.”

“But you are a little curious, aren't you?”

“Maybe a little.”

He laughed and pulled her to him and, in the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the drapes, kissed her full on the mouth. The pressure of thinking he'd been wrong about the dig must have been preying on him, she thought. It had been too long since he'd made love to her.

His lips traced a line from her mouth down her neck while he harshly pulled down the bodice of her lavender dress, exposing her breasts. She shivered. He licked the skin around her nipple, and when the breeze blew in through the windows it felt cool where it was wet.
Cupping both her breasts, he held them as if they were precious jewels. “You are so lovely,” he whispered, then leaned in and kissed her mouth.

Blackie was married and had three children and claimed that until he'd met Esme, he had never taken indiscriminate lovers just to prove his prowess. He had a moral code that he'd adhered to, unlike so many other men of his class and position.

She'd laughed at that and had called him an ethical criminal.

And this was when she was happiest with him, when he fought and lost against his principles. She loved to watch him become powerless in her thrall. Men really had so little control, although they thought just the opposite.

“You make me into a heathen,” he told her, his words thick with passion. “A pagan,” he shouted. He pointed to the windows. “Out there are ancient Roman temples where the true pagans once worshipped,” he whispered, “but I worship you.”

* * *

The archeologist arrived at the villa in an understandably upbeat mood. A small man with sunburned, weather-beaten skin and tousled brown hair, he wore an ill-fitting suit that was badly in need of an ironing and shoes that needed to be shined. Dressing and grooming himself took too much time away from his beloved vocation. Wallace Neely, Esme knew from the previous times they'd met, couldn't carry on a conversation unless it had to do with ancient Egypt or Rome and the work he did on digs. That night it didn't matter; no one wanted to discuss other things. Blackie put on quite a show, bowing to him and plying him with the wonderful wine and rich food the villa's staff had laid out. He entertained Neely
the way he made love to her, holding back on the climax until he couldn't bear it any longer.

And then when Neely was relaxed and Blackie couldn't wait, he asked Esme if she'd excuse them. Before she could protest, he took Neely into the library.

Watching him close the double doors behind him, she stomped her foot in frustration. He didn't think he could stop her from seeing this so-called treasure, did he? Not after she'd suffered through listening to him worry about it for all these months.

Aunt Iris would scold her for going outside bare-armed, but Iris wasn't going to know. She was already upstairs, retired for the night.

From the terrace, looking through a slit in the library curtains, she watched as Blackie lit a second candelabra and brought it over to the desk. The flames illuminated the archeologist in chiaroscuro as he bent over and opened an old leather sack, unfolding it, corner by corner. Then, just as he exposed its contents, Blackie stepped forward to get a closer look, blocking the cache from her view.

“This filth is what we've been waiting for?” Blackie asked derisively.

He reached for the discovery, then his goblet, and poured his wine over whatever he was holding, right there in the library, not caring he was ruining the desk's fine leather top.

“No, no, you can't. That's not protocol.” Neely reached out to grab Blackie's arm but Blackie shoved him away with a violence she'd never witnessed before. Now she could see what he was looking at: a fistful of gems, wet with wine and glistening in the light, shining like pieces of broken stained glass.

Neely, having regained his balance and some of his
dignity, stepped up to the desk. “I insist, Mr. Blackwell.” He put his hand out. “You've compromised our find. Please give those back to me.”

Ignoring the small man, Blackie continued to stare down at the emeralds, sapphires and the single ruby. Each stone was almost as big as a walnut—they must be worth a fortune—precious gems that large!

“Mr. Blackwell, let me have the stones back. I insist.”

Straightening up, smiling as if nothing untoward had happened, Blackie returned the stones to Neely.

Hurrying, Esme rushed back inside in case they came looking for her in the parlor where she was expected to be. And where she was, but just barely, when the two men returned. Blackie with a calm expression on his face, Neely with his lips set in a hard line.

“Before you leave, let me make a final toast to you and your find with a glass of port, Wallace. It's a night to celebrate, not to be churlish.” He turned to her. “Dear, may we have some of that fine Madeira?”

Fetching the wine, she thought of her brother for a moment. Port was his drink of choice. How she wished he was here, so she could tell him what she'd just seen, how Blackie was acting, get her brother's advice.

For the next hour, as the professor discussed pagan religious beliefs, burial practices, Christianity in the fourth century, the tomb he'd found, the methods he'd be using to date the treasures and translate the markings the wine wash had revealed on their surface, he drank, and Blackie kept the port flowing—continually refilling Neely's empty glass while only topping off his own.

Blackie seemed to hang on to Neely's every word, even when those words became slurred. By the time the archeologist had talked himself out it was well past midnight and the man was quite inebriated.

“Let me help you up, old chap. I fear it's time for you to go home,” Blackie finally suggested.

Staggering to his feet, tightly clutching his parcel, Neely tried to straighten out his jacket but only managed to twist it worse. He looked ludicrous as he stumbled to the door.

“Will he get himself back to his rooms all right?” she whispered to Blackie. “Shouldn't you take him back with you to your villa? It's so late and dangerous on the roads, I really—”

Blackie gave her a severe, silencing stare; his light blue-gray eyes looked icy cold. Never before had he been so dismissive of her. Between the curt look and his brutish behavior to Neely in the library, she didn't quite recognize him. Tonight, for the first time, she'd seen a part of his soul she didn't like very much. For all his declarations of love, she'd glimpsed, in that fraction of a minute, how unimportant and expendable she was. Worse than that—how unimportant and expendable everyone was to him. The moment broke open so wide and so deep, so quickly, a wave of nausea came over her, and she was sure she was going to get sick right there. How could she have been this wrong about him? How could she love someone who didn't deserve it? No, she must have misinterpreted the look he'd given her.

As Blackie helped the professor out, she went upstairs to her bedroom, where she sat down at her desk, picked up a pen, dipped it in the inkwell and started a letter to her brother. She'd tell him everything that had just happened, he'd explain it to her. But she didn't feel well. Putting the letter aside for later, she walked out onto the balcony, hoping the breeze would restore her.

It was there two or three minutes later that she heard voices and looked down to see Blackie escorting Neely out of the house.

“Good night, Professor. Job well done.”

Neely gave a small bow from the waist and tottered off toward the carriage that was waiting for him in the driveway.

Blackie turned and headed toward the villa. Wasn't he leaving also? Had he left something in the library? Did he want to say good-night to her? She was afraid to go downstairs. What if she saw that look in his eyes again?

Below her, the tipsy archeologist swayed as he waited for his driver to come around and help him into the carriage.

“But you're not my man,” Neely said, in a thick voice loud enough for her to hear.

Not responding, the driver grabbed Neely by the arm and pulled him forward. It was a strange dance the two of them did. The drunk archeologist leaning in, groping for support, then pulling back, while the driver held on, not letting go. A glint of moonlight reflected off the driver's silver coat button, no, not his button, something he was holding as he pulled Neely closer.

For a moment the two men were fixed in position. Motionless. An owl hooted far off in the woods. There was no other sound. And then, slowly, Neely collapsed, sinking down in what seemed like slow motion.

It was disturbing but not that unusual. He was drunk, after all.

The driver reached down. Good, he was going to assist Neely. But he was handling him so roughly! Shaking him. Neely wasn't moving. He let him drop. What was going on? And then the driver kicked him! What was he doing? He kicked him once more and when Neely still didn't move, the man plucked the satchel out of Neely's hands, hurried to the carriage and swung himself into the seat, turning his back on the archeologist's broken and bleeding body, which lay on the grass in the front of the villa.

“Help him!” she shouted out.

The driver cracked his whip.

“Someone, please, help him!” But her voice was drowned out by the sound of the horses' hooves filling the night.

New Haven, Connecticut—Tuesday night, 9:55 p.m
.

G
abriella spent the next half hour trying to get through to Alice Geller, an expert in ancient languages who taught at Princeton University, and who, Gabriella was sure, would be able to read the markings on the stones. She called her every ten minutes, becoming more frustrated and panicky as time passed.

“When Alice gets home and gets the messages, she'll call back,” Josh reassured her.

“I can't wait. I'm not waiting. I'm going to drive up there and bring her the photos.”

“Wouldn't it be faster if you e-mailed them?”

“She doesn't have a computer at home, and I can't wait till she goes to the office tomorrow.”

“Okay, then I'll go with you.”

Three hours later, Josh and Gabriella reached Princeton, New Jersey. He'd insisted on driving, hoping to use the time to convince her she should call the police, but she was as relentless as the rain, repeating that all that
would do was put her daughter in greater jeopardy. She made him promise he wouldn't tell anyone.

“If you'll call your father and let him come home and be with you.”

Peter Chase had left early that morning to give a series of lectures in Spain. “He has a heart condition,” Gabriella said. “This is the kind of news that could kill him while he's thousands of helpless miles away. He dotes on Quinn.” She stared out the window and was silent for a minute. “Besides, there is nothing he can do to help. There is nothing anyone can do to help except translate the markings.”

Alice took one look at Gabriella when she opened the door and wrapped her friend in a hug. Josh was afraid that the physical comfort was going to break her.

“What are you doing here this time of night?” Alice asked as she ushered them inside. “I've been so worried since I heard what happened in Rome. You must be devastated.”

Gabriella's eyes filled with tears, but she shook them away. “I can't describe how horrible it's been.”

Josh knew how true that was. He put his arm around her, and together they followed Alice from the front hall into the living room.

Tall and big-boned, Alice was wearing several layers of clothes, all their edges showing, like hints of secrets. Her home was as eclectic as she was, a showcase for the ancient art and artifacts she'd collected during her long career. While Alice made them all tea, Gabriella stood in her kitchen and explained that she needed help with a translation that was critical to an excavation she was working on. Alice wasn't buying that that was the whole reason, but she obviously cared for Gabriella and knew her well enough not to push.

They all sat down at the kitchen table with their mugs. Gabriella spread out the assortment of photographs she'd brought with her.

Alice inspected the shots that Josh remembered seeing in Gabriella's apartment in Rome. Damn. Why hadn't he realized what this was about when he heard about the second break-in? He could have warned her, and she would have been able to keep her daughter safe. Of everyone, Josh should have known how desperate someone would be to get this information. He knew how desperate he was, didn't he? And he didn't want to use the stones for power or money, only to prove what seemed unprovable.

“It's difficult to see some of the edges of these markings. Do you have any shots with different lighting?”

“No.” Gabriella's panic was close to the surface. The calm was a facade.

“That's okay.” Alice left the room and came back ten seconds later with a magnifying glass.

A few minutes went by, then a few more. Slowly and methodically, Alice examined each photograph. The rain splashed against the windowpanes in a steady pattern. Neither Josh nor Gabriella spoke.

“If I could just shine a light under one of these…”

“It's my fault. I should have taken tighter shots. I should have lit the stones better.”

Alice touched Gabriella's arm. “Second-guessing yourself is never very productive.” She looked back at the photos. The waiting was so difficult for Josh, he could only imagine what torture it was for Gabriella. He took her hand and held it.

“I haven't seen anything like this before. It might be a form of Sanskrit, but I'm just not sure. It might be Indus…and if it is…I'm not going to be of much help. I
haven't worked with that language at all. Almost no one has.”

“No one?” Gabriella's voice shook.

“Let me make some phone calls.”

“Now? Will you call now? I need you to do that.”

“Well, it's late, and I don't know if…”

“Please, Alice. This is very important.” There was no mistaking the plea. The desperation in Gabriella's voice sent chills down Josh's spine. It was the sound of a mother's passion.

He watched Alice react. It didn't matter if it was conscious or unconscious, she bowed her head for a second as if prayer was the only possible reaction to Gabriella's voice.