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His eyes, blue as the reflected sky, gleamed of the unknown. They fell away . . . down, down, down, seemingly forever. His hand reached out. Terror flamed in his eyes. His eyes!

A scream choked in her throat. She sat up, breathing heavily, her sheets soaking wet, her heart beating like a war drum, as she woke from her recurring nightmare. So many nights she woke to those eyes, her father’s eyes, staring at her through night’s darkness. She wept.

Angie’s father left her and her mom to fend for themselves when she was only a small child. It hadn’t been easy. Her mother had never quite gotten over the accident. Everything in her mom’s life had been planned to evoke a feeling of his still being there, still in their lives. Nothing in their home had changed over the years, not the furniture, not the artwork, everything still in its proper place.

Angie wasn’t that different. Her father was a well respected archaeologist, and Angie followed right in his footsteps. Deep down inside she felt like she owed it to him to continue his legacy. But her failure at Hoi Oidak put a halt to that. She had failed him, she was guilt ridden, and the nightmares grew in strength.

After a nightmare such as that, she wouldn’t easily get back to sleep. She rummaged around in her purse and pulled out an old weathered photograph. Happiness played in her parents’ eyes. The photo was taken at a dig in Jerusalem at the Tower of David; she standing with her hand on his shoulder, he seated, reaching up to lightly clasp her finger tips. They weren’t much older than Angie was now.

A distant memory flashed before her, her father smiling brightly, laughing loudly. She could still recall herself in the backyard, five years old, digging with her pail and shovel, her father, squatting down, asking, “What are you doing, honey?” She looked up from her work and answered, “Digging for bones.” She touched the photo, sighing.

Putting the photo away she got up and quietly made her way to Dr. Lausen’s living room. Reilly was fast asleep on the couch, a pool of drool on his pillow. Angie, against every fiber of her being, found it cute and looked at him affectionately.

A good book, she felt, might help her fall back to sleep, or at least keep her entertained. Picking up her Sue Grafton novel she had picked up at the airport, she opened to the third chapter. Realizing she was just too depressed to read she put it back on the end table. The memory of Digger was only a heartbeat away and pictures of him flooded back into her consciousness.

If he were here, he would know what to say to cheer her up.

But, like her father, he wasn’t here. And he would never be here again. He was only a memory, fading with every hour, a ghost in her awareness. She missed him deeply. The memory of the CityZen shot into her mind like a bullet from the killer’s gun. Gasping out loud, she pictured Digger’s head falling to the side. Tears poured from her and she muffled her sobs with her hands.

One bad memory leaped to another and she found herself back at Hoi Oidak, fingers pointing at her, friends turning their backs. She cried harder, this time for herself. Then she saw Digger in her mind’s eye cursing out reporters, telling off PhDs, and tearing into anyone that looked at Angie cross-eyed. She found herself smiling through the tears. He really was like family, her truest friend. And now he was gone and she had lost her touchstone to the past.

Then she remembered Reilly turning his back on her when she needed him most. She had given so much to him. She would have given up everything and moved down to Tennessee with him. She would have gladly worked as a waitress, forgoing her own career, if it meant they could have been together. She loved him and wanted nothing more than to make him happy—to be a family. And he turned his back on her. Anguish overwhelmed her and she kicked the sleeping Reilly hard.

“Ow! What the hell?” Reilly shouted, almost falling off the couch.

“Oh, sorry,” she said dryly, “I had a cramp.”

She got up and went off to the bathroom to take a shower before going for a morning jog. It was the only relief she could hope for from the onslaught of such dreadful memories. Running always helped to clear her head. There was just enough time for a quick run before they left for Israel.

Once showered and dressed, Angie made her way down Ferry Landing Road, headed for Old Mt. Vernon Road, on a short one mile run.

She ran track and field in high school and college and simply loved it. At Columbia, she ran the 400m but was nearly always dead last. Her teammates didn’t seem to care, they were just glad that she gave it her all. Besides, none of them were of Olympic caliber; they ran for the love of the sport.

Willows wept sadly upon the ground as she ran. Images of her college friends flipped through her head like photos in an album, stopping on Digger. She had to sit on a curb for awhile to hold back her tears. The harsh reality of losing her best friend tore at her and she realized she may never get over his death.

Digger was the one guy that had always been there for her, the one person that stood up for her in Hoi Oidak. A reporter for Scientific American asked him how his colleague could have made such a momentous mistake. Digger read him the riot act. He went too far, as anger pushed him beyond common sense. He said Dr. Lausen was a fool if he didn’t listen to Angie. That she was ten times the archaeologist of any of them, and other such outrageous claims. He soon lost face as Angie’s ship began to sink, drawing him down with her.

She claimed it was all her fault, of course, trying her best to protect the others caught in her wake. But Digger had said awful things about Lausen and soon found himself jobless. As luck would have it, Professor Rothschild had been looking for someone and had previously spoken with Digger about joining his team. Digger asked the professor how he felt about what happened between himself and Dr. Lausen, Rothschild answered with a typical “c’est la vie.”

Soon her thoughts strayed to another important person from her college days, Reilly. He was probably the reason she stuck with running in college. After all she had a busy academic schedule. But she got to run with Jack Reilly five days a week, so she made time. Now Reilly had come back into her life as suddenly as he had left it. It was true that she was the one that shut him out, but the emotions felt the same. He was back and he moved her in those same nearly forgotten, or at least denied, ways.

But she was angry with him. Even though three years had passed since the incident, she just couldn’t let it go. He had abandoned her. He could have stood up for her, but he wasn’t willing to take the risk. When the chips fell on Hoi Oidak, he threw his in with the others. He claimed Angie wasn’t cautious enough and that they had all told her to slow down. He had not. The others had, but not Reilly, at least not to her face. She remembered what he had said to her. “Ang, you know what you’re doing. Go for it.” She did, and it cost her everything.

Yet, it was her fault; there was no use in denying it. How could she blame him for wanting to protect his career? After all, she was the one who told the press the others didn’t agree with her findings—an obvious lie after Digger’s tirade with the reporter. So, Reilly had stuck with the story, keeping himself at arm’s length from her. So what? Could she really blame him? After all, it was her mistake, not his. She was the one that had let them down with her rush to publish. With her overwhelming need for recognition.

Idiot, she thought, mouthing the word. She got up and continued her run, noticing just how out of shape she had let herself become.

And now Jack Reilly was back and it felt as if he had never left, and when she looked into his eyes, all the days between simply washed away like a hard rain in a desert gully. She was back in Tennessee, talking with his mom while they cooked up some wonderful southern meal. Staring out into the backyard, watching the two men, Jack and his dad, smoking cigars and pretending like they didn’t know the woman were watching them. She missed those days more than ever. The life she knew she was meant to live. A life she was ready to live now.

But mostly she missed Reilly. The intense chemistry between them just couldn’t be denied. It burned deep within her.

As she rounded the final corner of her run, and Dr. Lausen’s house came back into view, she made her decision. She would forgive Jack Reilly. She would forgive herself. And she would convince Jack Reilly that he couldn’t live without her.

The wheels of Angie’s 727 touched down on the western most runway at Dulles International. She would take her find, left at the top of Bandelier, directly to Dr. Lausen. She didn’t miss driving the Capital Beltway from her days working in D.C.; it’s the worst traffic in Virginia. The Mt. Vernon Parkway is a far more picturesque, scenic drive. It meanders along the beautiful Potomac River, flowing with its natural curves. Angie made her way into one of the many sprawling neighborhoods of Mt. Vernon. She found the house she was looking for, a place she hadn’t laid eyes on in many years, and pulled into the driveway.
The house—and the hefty mortgage that came with it—belonged to Dr. Christopher Lausen, Professor of Mythology at Georgetown University, Angie’s former mentor during his tenure at Columbia as Professor of Archaeology, a multi-talented man with a diverse interest. Angie rang the bell; half hoping he wouldn’t be home after all that went down in Hoi Oidak.
The door opened, “Angie!” Dr. Lausen’s eyes brightened as he saw her standing on his front steps. He grabbed her, hugging her hard.
“I came directly here,” she said.
“Yes, yes, come in, come in.” He ushered her into the foyer. “Reilly’s already here.”
Angie froze in her tracks. She was overtaken with emotions. Emotions she successfully buried for the past two years.
“Hey, Ang.”
It was him, Jack Reilly. He moved toward her with the same confidence and natural swagger that attracted her to him in the first place. Dark brown hair rested across golden brown eyes only to be flung back with an easy toss of his head. He hugged her, and she melted into his hug, a comfortable and familiar feeling. The days she spent in his arms came rushing back into her head like the bursting of a dam. Three years she wished had gone on forever. Three years that ended with her once promising career. Her mind flashed back to that awful day, the day of his betrayal. She pushed him away, but he held her at arm’s length.
“Let go of me,” she managed to whisper, not sure how much she meant it.
“I heard about Digger.” The tears welled up in his eyes and Angie let go as well. How could she still hate him after all this time? After what had happened to their friend, Digger? She remembered how close Reilly and he were, and she simply broke down and sobbed. He held her tightly, letting the emotions drain away as spring’s thaw in a mountain stream. She felt whole again.
Pushing him away a final time she rubbed her nose and sniffled, starting for the kitchen. “He left a flash drive.”
“Angie, you know Madison.” Dr. Lausen bent his head toward the mousy girl in the black jeans and t-shirt leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Madie!” Angie ran to her and hugged her like she was a long lost child. And, in some sense, she was. Madison Rothschild, eighteen year old daughter of one of Angie’s mentors, murdered by a white haired hired gun. They had known each other since Madison was a kid. The professor would bring her on digs hoping to peak her curiosity for his beloved profession. Angie filled the void of the sister Madison never had and the mother she never knew.
Angie pushed the bangs of Madison’s black hair that had fallen from her loose French twist out of her face. “I’m so sorry, Madie.”
Tears flooded Madison’s eyes until the levy broke and they rolled down her cheeks like tumultuous rivers. Her body shook and convulsed violently with every sob. “I still can’t believe it.”
Angie held her until the shaking ceased. Quieting her with gentle shushes.
Red, swollen eyes turned up to Angie. “I can’t believe he’s gone. What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know. But you know that I’m here for you. I promise, anything you need, Madie, I’m here for you.”
Madison pulled away from Angie. It had been several years since Angie last saw her; she was no longer a child and had become far more independent.
“Ang?”
“Yeah?”
“You lost your father didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Angie swallowed hard. “But it was a long time ago. I was only a kid.”
Between sobs Madison asked, “Do you miss him?”
“Terribly.”
Although it would seem the wrong thing to say to a grieving daughter, it had a positive effect. Madison wiped at her nose and dried her tears, smiling at Angie in a way that expressed their kinship. Reilly set up his laptop in Lausen’s dining room and Angie sat down beside him. Madison and Dr. Lausen peered in over their shoulders. After a few moments Reilly had the flash drive loaded onto the desktop.
“Looks like photos.” Digger was a bit of a photography nut, a self-proclaimed artist. Reilly double-clicked the first one and it opened into his photo viewer. It was a picture of Digger. He quickly clicked the next button only to be shown a photo of Professor Rothschild. He clicked again before it seared its way into Madison’s fragile psyche. A photo of a young woman none of them knew came next. He clicked again and again, the rest of the photos were a mix of odd subjects, a large cross within a church, a stained glass window, a sconce lamp on the side of a building, a white portico, an orange locker key, a car’s windshield, two hands shaking, several photos of a tomb.
The most interesting photos—somewhat grainy from low light, but still clear enough to make out—were of a rolling-stone tomb door and a skeleton in a sitting position. The stone looked large, maybe six feet from edge to edge, flat on the front and back like an enormous wheel. It was rolled to the side revealing the dark of the tomb beyond. The skeleton’s legs and arms were crossed as if in meditation.
“Weird,” mumbled Reilly. “It’s just an ordinary dig. No pottery. No real architectural interest. There’s nothing of significance that I can see, other than the rolling-stone door.”
“Even the door isn’t that unique,” added Dr. Lausen.
Reilly was right, it was an ordinary dig. A small cave with a slab or bed in the back, dug out from the side of the hill. A weathered stone rolled most of the way over the entrance. The photos seemed rather ordinary.
“There has to be something here,” Angie said. “We’re obviously missing something. Digger and the professor were killed for a reason.” She rubbed the side of her face where Tek had kicked her and looked anxiously at Madison.
“Wait,” said Madison, pointing at the stone door, “is that writing?”
Reilly zoomed into an area of the stone door at the entrance.
Dr. Lausen put his reading glasses on and leaned into the computer’s screen. “It’s an Aramaic inscription, Hebrew.”
“Can you read it?” Angie bit her lip as she waited for his reply.
“My Hebrew is a bit rusty but, I think it says ‘Judah’.”
“Judas,” Angie said, lifting her head off her hands excitedly.
“Yes, of course,” said Dr. Lausen. “The professor had a lifelong interest in looking for the burial tomb of Judas. I didn’t know he was actively pursuing it. But then again, I guess he always has been. At least as long as I’ve known . . . knew him.”
Madison grimaced.
Angie pointed at the screen. “But, I thought Judas would have been buried in a mass grave? That is certainly a single tomb, maybe large enough for a family, but that’s about it.”
“Well,” Madison chimed in, “no one knows for sure, Angie. My father certainly didn’t believe in a mass grave. The Gospel according to Matthew says that Judas committed suicide and the thirty pieces of silver were used to buy a field as a burial site. But the Acts of the Apostles claim he bought the field himself and then he simply burst apart . . . I don’t know, something like that.”
Lausen studied her over his glasses. “Quite right, Madison. It would seem an unlikely ending of course, but perhaps more an exaggeration of the circumstances of his demise not of the location.”
Reilly, who hadn’t said much up to this point, added, “The Field of Blood.”
Angie looked fondly at Reilly. She thought back to when they first met, how impressed she was with his in-depth knowledge of seemingly archaic matter. He had a head for details that made him shine in her eyes. She realized she was starting to warm to him; not ready for that yet, she forced down a smile and turned away.
“Yes,” continued Dr. Lausen. “The Field of Blood, Akeldama, but there’s no tomb at Akeldama. So the question is: where were the photos taken?”
“And more importantly,” Reilly said, “where is the ossuary?”
Reilly hit the nail on the head, it was an important question. Where was the ossuary? Jerusalem was filled with tombs just like this one. But the deceased were buried in temporary graves, left until the flesh was gone from them. Then their bones were transferred to an ossuary. Made from wood or limestone they served the purpose of collecting the bones of the dead, mostly to make room for more. Whole families might share a tomb over generations, placing their loved ones bones into many ossuaries. Many believed the ritual of moving the bones to an ossuary was the only way to ensure the individual would be resurrected when the Messiah came to usher the righteous to heaven.
Angie looked down, deep in contemplation. “There’s no ossuary because no one intended to collect his bones!” The others looked at her bewildered. “Don’t you see? An ossuary is a container used to collect the bones of the dead to make room for more; that’s common knowledge. But many believed an ossuary was essential to being resurrected. And Judas wasn’t exactly on the path to heaven.”
“Very good, Angie,” said Dr. Lausen, he smiled proudly at his former student. “I think we can assume this is one forgotten soul. And therefore it is likely, at least it would seem so in the professor’s mind, that these were the bones of Judas. And this tomb, his final resting place. So, at least that puts us in Israel, most likely Jerusalem.”
Madison pulled at her face. “I can get all his old research on Judas, it’s at the house. I mean, if you want me to.”
Angie held her hand, “Do you need me to go with you?”
Madison pulled her hand back. “No, I’m fine. I can do it. I’ll bring it back in the morning.”
They flipped through the photos several more times, but found nothing new in them.
“Go back to that photo of Digger,” said Dr. Lausen. Reilly thumbed back through the files until he came to the first. Angie looked away suppressing her anguish.
“Just as I thought,” he said, “that’s Jerusalem.” The other three turned toward him questioningly. “It’s the David Citadel Hotel, there in the background. I’ve stayed there on occasion.”
Lausen pulled off his glasses and turned to Madison. “Madison, you have a passport, correct?”
Angie’s face brightened at the thought of adventure, traveling the world in an effort to uncover some long hidden treasure. They would go to Jerusalem, and they would find Digger’s bones. And maybe—just maybe—Angie would get her career back.