The Bone Chamber

with the truth, or come up with a reasonable lie as to why she was canceling dinner. She punched in his number, deciding that when it came to her ex, a lie was the much better option.

Zachary Griffin hefted the large box to one side as he opened the office door of the Anthropological Division of the National Forensic Institute. The day had started off bad, and now the forensic artist wasn’t available because she was taking vacation in the middle of a month he’d just as soon eliminate from the calendar. As a result he was forced to come up with an alternate solution-something he hadn’t anticipated-and that was a mistake he shouldn’t have made.

He refused to acknowledge that he’d had his mind on other things-this being November-and even if he did admit to that reason, it was not an acceptable excuse. There were no excuses, he thought, as he walked into the office. He nodded at the secretary, a round-faced, middle-aged woman with short blond curly hair, who was busy sorting through a box of papers. She smiled at him, then picked up the phone and called her boss’s extension, saying, “Zachary Griffin’s here…Very good. I’ll send him in.”

The secretary disconnected, whispered, “FYI. She’s a bit frazzled from her trip. Something about a curse on the tomb.” She angled her head toward the office door. Zach, figuring she was joking about the curse, crossed the reception area as she got back to her filing.

He stepped into the large office, one wall of shelves filled with reference books, the other filled with rows of labeled boxes-each containing bones, each waiting for IDs. Much like the box he now carried. “Your plan backfired, Tasha,” he said. She seemed not to hear, intent on whatever it was she was reading on her computer screen, and he crossed the room, then stopped in surprise at her appearance. He hadn’t seen her since her return from Egypt, only talked to her on the phone. The secretary’s assessment was an understatement. Frazzled was not the word he’d use to describe her, he thought, noting the dark circles beneath her bloodshot blue eyes as she worked at her computer. Usually neat and meticulous, her blond hair was pulled back in a hasty ponytail. Her lab coat was wrinkled, and beneath it she wore a sweatshirt and jeans, also wrinkled, as though she’d grabbed everything from the bottom of some pile in her closet. “You did get my voice mail? Your friend is refusing to do the drawing. I don’t suppose you have a Plan B.” Because he sure as hell didn’t.

“Already in the works. I got off the phone with Sydney not five minutes ago,” Tasha said, glancing up from her computer. When she saw the box he held, she sank back in her chair, looking even wearier. “God, please tell me that’s not what I think it is?”

“About your friend?”

“We’re going to dinner tonight. Trust me. By the second bottle of wine I’ll have her convinced to delay her flight to San Francisco and work with me on that drawing, though I think it would have made a hell of a lot more sense just to let her in on some of the details. This whole thing of you and me pretending not to know each other seems a bit much. If you would have let me just pick up the phone, tell her I had a job for-”

“That’s not an option. Your work for me stays out of the public eye. Especially on this matter. Besides, it’s a little late for that. She thinks I’m another agent, and I don’t want the FBI involved beyond the means to complete this drawing.” The only reason he even approached Special Agent Fitzpatrick was on Tasha’s insistence that she was the best forensic artist on the East Coast. And-more importantly-Fitzpatrick had been in San Francisco the last six months, too embroiled in the case involving her father’s killer on death row to have paid any attention to what was going on in the capital with any real interest. Her return to the D.C. area a few weeks ago made her the perfect candidate. She wouldn’t be up on the political scandal running in the newspaper a few months back, accusing a congressman of having an affair with a student at the University of Virginia. “For now,” he said, “we will continue with things my way.”

“Fine,” she said, giving him an exasperated look. “As long as you realize you’re a bit too paranoid. Surely you can trust the FBI?”

“I don’t know who I can trust. And what I need is an identification without recognition.” Anyone in this area during that time was bound to recognize Alessandra from those newspaper photos-should Alessandra end up being the victim. His gut told him that it was her skull in the box, though he wanted to believe otherwise. “So no government agencies. The last thing I need is to have Alessandra’s name linked to the congressman, which could lead back to me.”

Tasha eyed the box, taking a deep breath. “You really believe it’s Alessandra in there?”

“I hope not. But until we know…How soon can you get on this?”

“I’d rather wait until I get Sydney on board.”

“I’m not sure we have that luxury. Get started on the ID now. At least get me a preliminary report. Whatever it is you can determine from a skull. Tonight, convince your friend to do the sketch for identification, make it out like it’s a random murder victim-let’s hope that’s what it turns out to be-and we’ll be that much farther ahead. If you can’t get her on board, I’m going to have to take your report elsewhere and find another artist.”

Zach set the box on her desk. Her phone rang, and she jumped, then gave a nervous laugh as her secretary picked up the other extension.

“You sure you’re okay?” Zach asked.

“Fine. Simple jet lag.”

That was when he glanced over, saw what she’d been looking at on the computer screen. Egyptian curses, just as the secretary had mentioned. “Tell me you’re not serious?”

“Maybe just a little on edge. I was, after all, digging in an Egyptian tomb reputed to have a two-thousand- year-old curse. Half the time I was there, I felt like someone was watching my every move. The other half was exhaustion over the constant charade while I accompanied a crew who thought me nothing more than an anthropologist associated with an academic research dig.”

“Do you think anyone suspected you?”

“Does it even matter? Because of that dig, Alessandra is missing, and now you’ve found a body and-”

Her secretary poked her head in the door. “Some professor from the American Academy is on line one for you.”

“The American Academy?”

“In Rome. Professor Francesca Santarella.”

“Do me a favor. Take a message and tell her I’ll get back to her.”

“You sure you don’t want to take it?” Zach asked. “I can wait.”

She shook her head. “I contacted so many academic types on that dig that I can’t recall if I should know the name. And the way I feel right now, I don’t have the energy to keep playing my part.”

Definitely stressed. He wondered if perhaps they were asking too much of her. “Tell me again about the Egypt trip.”

She glanced at her computer, then back at him. “As I explained on the phone, more dead ends. If Carlo Adami set up that dig to cover for something, then he did a damned fine job. It looked like the real thing to me. Alessandra even thought so.”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Every person on the team was some sort of scholar. Frankly, I think Adami set up the dig as a way to deflect attention from something else. Maybe somewhere else. I was there for two weeks. The only weapons I saw were small-caliber pistols by the night security guards. As for a makeshift lab? Nothing in the vicinity that we could see. They definitely weren’t shipping anything in or out. If there were any bioweapons, they were well-hidden among the artifacts being dug up, most of which would fit in the palm of your hand.”

“And no idea why Alessandra left the dig for the States?”

Her gaze flicked to the box on her desk as she shook her head. “Alessandra said she wanted to check on some archeological facts.”

They’d gone over all this before, but he was worried that maybe they’d missed something that might tell them what had happened to Alessandra. “What sort of facts?”

“I wish I could remember,” Tasha said, looking troubled. “Something about three keys…The third key? Whatever it was, she said not to worry, that it was archeological research. Some biblical thing, I thought.”

“Third key? You didn’t mention that the first time.”

“It was just such a strange conversation. At the time it meant nothing. Do you think it’s important?”

He gave a shrug, brushing it off. “When did you last hear from her?”