The Bone Chamber

personal questions…

Sydney got up, walked to the window, stared out, seeing nothing. With the clarity of hindsight, she realized that Tasha had been worried about something, no doubt this dig she’d gone out on. Tasha probably had no idea the depths to which it ran, or the dangers involved. Nor was she trained to deal with such matters. Griffin, however, did know, and Sydney turned, glared at him. “How could you not tell me?”

“What good would it have done, except make you worry?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Make me trust you a little more from the get-go? What the hell else haven’t you told me?” He simply looked at her, his face unreadable, and that infuriated her even more. She paced the room, tried to think…“How long did you know she was involved with Alessandra’s case?”

“From the beginning.”

She thought of the implications, tried to determine what all this meant. “And yet you let me suggest her name for that drawing?”

He hesitated, looked away a moment, and she wondered what kind of bullshit excuse he was going to give her. “The information was classified. I couldn’t tell you.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t? Maybe if you’d trusted someone else besides your goddamned self-”

“At least I trust myself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t answer.

Suddenly she wondered if he’d known how much confidence she’d lost in her own judgment ever since her father’s murder investigation. And then she recalled that he’d done a complete background on her, decided he knew exactly what he was saying. “You’re a bastard.”

“You’ve established that on more than one occasion. It doesn’t change the fact I could not tell you.”

“I went to dinner with her, for God’s sake. She was clearly worried about whatever this was. I could have talked to her. Maybe found out something, helped her.”

“It was out of your control, Sydney,” he said, his voice so quiet, she barely heard him. “Just like everything that’s going on right now is out of my control. All we can do is work with what we have right here, right now.”

And he was right. They had one objective right now, and that was to find Tex. “Fine. But when this is over, it’s over. I never want to run into you or anyone from ATLAS again.”

“At least we agree on something.”

They took the early morning train to Naples, and Sydney was glad for the chance to relax, even if only for the next couple hours. Griffin continued to query the professor on this Prince of Sansevero and his missing map, and when that line of questioning was done, he moved on to why she insisted on keeping something like this from him when she knew that Alessandra had been killed over it.

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Francesca sighed, leaning her head against the train window, staring out at the long unbroken series of arches of the Roman aqueduct, with the green cascading plants sprouting from the ancient bricks. “I cannot sit idly by and allow your government to get in the way of something I’ve devoted my life to discovering.”

“And yet you’d risk your life, and the lives of the rest of us around you?” Griffin looked at Sydney. “Watch the professor. I’m going to check the train, then find us some coffee.”

He left, and Francesca leaned back in her seat, seeming resigned to her fate. “I suppose you must think I’m a calloused academic, obsessed with myself and my glorious goal of publish or perish.”

“What I think,” Sydney said, “is that your goal is getting in the way of your common sense. These people who are after whatever this is, they’ll kill you and anyone around you without batting an eye.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. Your friend was murdered, brutally, and then my friend was killed as part of the investigation looking into that murder. We won’t even go into the number of attempts on my and Griffin’s lives as a result, never mind the attempt on your and Dumas’s just, when? Day before yesterday? Does that mean nothing to you?”

“Of course not.” Francesca had the grace to look somewhat humiliated. “But this is my life’s work.”

“And your life’s work won’t mean a thing if you’re dead.”

“But my work will still be here.”

“I’m sure that means a lot to Alessandra and my friend Tasha.”

“I did not ask Alessandra to become involved. She and I merely shared some of the same academic interests which happened to involve ancient burial sites.”

“How do you know it wasn’t your interests that got her killed?”

Francesca’s brown eyes glistened. “I’ve thought of nothing else. Or maybe I’ve tried not to think it…”

Someone jostled Sydney from behind, trying to move through the aisle, and she turned to see a teenage boy with an accordion, who filled the space with his presence as he pumped a lively off-key rendition of the Venetian Boat Song-a little too lively for that hour of the morning. Behind him was a young girl with long dark braids, who moved shyly forward, her calloused hand outstretched, and a sweet, professional smile playing about her pretty face as she begged for coins. Sydney judged her to be about the same age as her own sister, Angie, just eleven, and her heart went out to the girl, her instinct to dig into her purse. Before she could, Francesca said something in Italian, rather rudely, judging from the tone of her voice.

To Sydney, the girl said, “You are American? I tell your fortune, yes?”

Francesca looked about to protest, but Sydney waved her back, dug into her bag, and pulled out a few euros, handing them to the girl. “What’s my fortune?”

“It smiles on you, nice lady.”

To which Francesca said, “Va via!” She waved her hand impatiently, and the boy and the girl moved on, but not before the girl turned around, looked back at Francesca, then Sydney, her dark eyes sharp, unyielding, the smile from her young face gone.

When they were out of earshot, Francesca said, “Professional beggars. Bad idea to encourage them.”

After a silence, Sydney asked, “What is the Vatican’s involvement in this affair? Father Dumas? If he was working with Alessandra, he must have known about this map.”

“I’m quite sure he does,” Francesca said. “This map is said not to exist, yet the most powerful church in the world has been searching for it for the past two centuries, perhaps even longer, since it appears that someone had to have been a guardian before di Sangro was appointed. That they would imprison di Sangro because he is a Freemason? I have always found that suspect, especially considering their interrogation of the Jesuit priest who hid the first key. They were interested then, and they’re interested now. Whether or not it is for the same reason that your government wants it, I don’t know. And if you have any suppositions about my callousness, put yourself in my shoes. When I find what I’m looking for, then I find out why Alessandra was killed.”

“I am in your shoes,” Sydney said. “In a fashion.”

“How so?”

“Let’s just say I insinuated myself in this investigation to find answers as to why my friend was killed. I might be employed by the government, but my loyalties belong to Tasha, because in a way, it’s my fault she’s dead. I was the one who recommended her services to Griffin in order to discover Alessandra’s identity after she was killed.”

“Her identity?”

“She was missing her face and her fingerprints at the time.”

Francesca paled. “Missing them…?”

“Her face was carved off, or a piece of it in the shape of a pyramid was removed, and her fingerprints removed as well. My friend was a forensic anthropologist. I was the forensic artist who was supposed to work with her.”

Francesca stared mutely out the window for several long seconds. Finally she said, “Was your anthropologist friend killed the same way?”

“No. A hit-and-run, no doubt intended to deflect our attention from the two cases, so we wouldn’t think they were connected.”

“A hit-and-run…? I-I didn’t think any of this would lead to…” She took a breath. “I can’t believe this…” Looking shaken, she closed her eyes, crossed her arms tightly about her, as though the thought of so much death was too much to bear.