“It’s still good publicity for the institute and might result in some generous grants from the powers that be.”
“Why do I have the feeling there’s more to this?” Quinn asked with a smile. She could see the sheepish look on Gabe’s face as he met her gaze. He was getting to the good part.
“I want you to take on this project, Quinn. You are the best forensic archeologist I’ve ever worked with, and you can use your gift to learn about the victims,” he added softly.
Quinn’s eyes flew to Gabe’s face in alarm. They never discussed her “gift.” She’d told him about it a long time ago, in a bout of alcohol-infused self-pity in a pub in Ireland, and now she couldn’t take the revelation back. Gabe had respected her confidence and never brought it up again, allowing her to forget that there was one other person out there in the world who knew of her uncanny ability to see into the past. She’d never told anyone else, not even Luke, frightened of the implications the knowledge might have on her life and her work. It was her ability to see into the past that had influenced Quinn’s choice of career—that, and a desperate need to tell the stories of people who could no longer speak for themselves. But she could hardly use the information she’d gleaned as scientific research. Every bit of information had to be documented and supported by fact, so Quinn kept a lot of what she saw to herself, using her secret knowledge as a road map to finding out more about the people whose possessions she came across and dressing the information up as scientific discovery.
Quinn had been able to learn quite a lot about a twenty-two-year-old man called Atticus, a dark-eyed, handsome youth who came to Judea from a province of Rome in search of glory. He died far from home and left behind a child born to a Jewess who’d been married off in haste to hide the disgrace of having lain with a Roman soldier. The sword that belonged to Atticus had been rescued from the clutches of history, but not his story; it would die with Quinn since there was no one she could share it with without betraying her ability—no one except Gabe.
Gabe came to her because he was fully aware of the limitations of this particular assignment. In all probability, historians might never be able to put a name or a face to the two skeletons in the chest, and his only hope of making this project appealing to the BBC was to truly dig deep and find out who the victims were. He was using her most treasured secret against her, knowing that she was likely the only one who could find out the truth about the two people locked in an eternal embrace in that dark chest.
“Why are you doing this to me, Gabe?” she asked warily, her voice devoid of any hint of accusation. She knew why. Gabe would give anything to possess her gift, if only for his own academic ends. He genuinely loved history, and to see into the past as it had really been rather than as it had been imagined was something that, as a historian, would send him into raptures.
“Quinn, your ability is nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve been given an amazing gift, one that’s invaluable in your chosen profession. You can not only use physical evidence to find out more about your subjects but actually see into their lives, hear their thoughts. Why are you so reluctant to use it?”
“Because publicly admitting to it would make me look like a quack and destroy my credibility as a scientist. Can you just imagine me discussing my visions on BBC? People would go from calling me a historian to calling me a psychic, a label I don’t really care for.”
“But you are psychic, and you are the real deal.”
Quinn shook her head. She’d fought her ability ever since she was a child, resentful of the responsibility it placed squarely on her skinny shoulders. She didn’t want to see people who were long dead going about their business, nor did she want to hear their thoughts or feel their joy and pain. She just wanted to be a normal kid, if such a thing were even possible. Her life could never be normal anyway, given the way it had begun.
“I’ll think about it,” she replied with a grudging half-smile.
“All right, do. I’ll be going now. I’ll wait for your call. If I don’t hear from you by Sunday night, I’ll give the project to someone else—like Monica Fielding, for instance.”
“Like hell you will,” Quinn retorted, suddenly furious. Gabe knew offering this find to Monica would shake her out of her complacency. Quinn supposed that every person eventually came across someone who got under their skin for reasons they couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t just professional rivalry that pitted the two women against each other, it was a personal one as well. Monica genuinely disliked Quinn and made no secret of it, actually going as far as to question Quinn’s credibility in television interviews and periodicals. She had some sort of personal score to settle with Quinn and wouldn’t be satisfied until Quinn became a laughingstock and a pariah in the scientific community.
“I’ll do it,” Quinn blurted out without thinking. “I’ll take it on.”
“I thought you might.” Gabe’s victorious smile said it all. “I’ll give BBC a call and tell them you’re on board.”
Chapter 3
December 1664
London, England
Elise de Lesseps smoothed down
