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Digging
Up the Past
(with Christine Wolfe)
Paperback: 268 pages
Publisher: Covenant Communications Inc
ISBN: 1591563011
Published: September 2003
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Even though she was once in
love with Jayce Macdermott, FBI agent Meredith McKay thought she would never
see him again. Now their less-than-happy reunion is taking place in a small
Arizona jailhouse where the archeologist stands accused of murder. While
Meredith can’t believe that Jayce killed a fellow undercover agent, her list
of suspects is as short as the time Jayce may have to live.
Hidden beneath the red clay
desert in the ancient, mystical land of the Hopis is a ceremonial kiva—and
the answers to the investigation. As Meredith and Jayce dig for clues and
edge closer to unearthing the truth, someone is preparing to sacrifice Jayce—quite
literally—to protect a profitable scheme. Can Meredith learn the truth in
time to save the man she loves?
Prologue
The
arc from the headlamp cut through the blackness of the ancient Hopi pithouse and
seemed to suspend bright silver droplets of rain in its beam. The dirt floor,
newly exposed to the elements after thousands of years, had turned to a viscous
mud that sucked at Joseph Kotsyovi’s boots as he made his way slowly through
the excavation site. The dull, metallic sound that had first caught his
attention ceased as he swung the light toward one corner of the rectangular pit.
“Gotcha!”
The
shadowy figure turned, a muddy spade clutched in one hand.
Joseph froze in
disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
A
shove from behind caught him off guard and knocked the helmet from his head.
Before Joseph could regain his balance, the unseen assailant’s fist dealt a
stunning blow to his upper jaw and sent him sprawling into the muck. Struggling
to pull himself up from the pithouse floor, he fumbled for the light and was
kicked viciously in the side for his efforts. His face hit the ground with a
sickening thud and he gasped for breath. A strong pair of hands pinned his arms
behind his back and bound his wrists together with rough twine before rolling
him onto his side to face the wall.
“There’s
no choice left,” a deep, vaguely familiar voice said from the gloom.
“But—
”
“Get
him ready. Now.”
Drifting in and
out of consciousness, Joseph didn’t know how much time passed between when the
first person scrambled out of the pithouse and a large, grotesque form entered
it. Nor could he have said if what he saw next was real or a twisted vision
wrenched from the darkest regions of his subconscious. As he was dragged to his
knees, Joseph Kotsyovi squinted up at his black and blue assassin. His last
thought was that he’d failed in his missions. Failed twice over—and been
very wrong about Jayce Macdermott.
Chapter 1
Dr. Macdermott
stuck his head out the open window of his battered truck to squint up at the
murky predawn sky. It was midsummer in Arizona, and yet the rising sun promised
no more than a feeble glow of illumination beneath the thick, gray blanket of
clouds. The sun could neglect to rise for all Jayce cared. There could be no
work done today at Coyote Springs Ruins in any case. After last night’s
downpour, the excavation grounds more resembled the lost city of Atlantis than a
fourteenth-century Hopi village.
Resigned to a
delay he couldn’t afford, the young archeologist flicked off the truck’s
engine, exited the cab, and cast a final, baleful look up at the sky. If he
didn’t know better he might imagine that malevolent kachinas were out to get
him. After all, the Hopi spiritual agents were said to dwell in the clouds to
bring rain and good or ill fortune. Lately, all the fortune that had come
Jayce’s way had been of the latter variety.
His eyes returned
to earth as he walked toward the barn-sized storage unit that had been thrown
together as the dig’s laboratory, artifact vault, and base of operations. It
was inadequate for their needs, but all he could afford on a budget narrower
than his bootlace. He frowned at the dark building. Despite the lack of funds,
Jayce knew darned well he’d paid for fuel to power the generator. Why
weren’t the lights on? Where was Joseph Kotsyovi?
Someday, he
promised himself as he slogged through the mud toward the building, he’d have
the equipment and crew he needed to do a job right. Now his crews were rotating
groups of volunteer college students and a few Hopi and Winslow locals he paid
minimum wage—begrudgingly, since most of them couldn’t distinguish an
artifact from an artichoke.
Jayce paused with
his hand on the lock to look back over the site and felt his frustration drain
away. Barely visible in the coming dawn, the outlines of pithouses in various
stages of excavation thrilled him. When he first walked this land, the Spirit
had told him that unearthing the kiva, the ceremonial center of the
village, would be the find of his lifetime. He’d believed the prompting. He
still believed it, as a matter of fact, even if he was the only one who did.
Not
the only one, Jayce reminded himself. Nobody believed in the importance of
Coyote Springs more fervently than Joseph Kotsyovi. Although the university had
assigned him as Jayce’s assistant, the full-blooded Hopi seemed to feel—and
act—as if he owned the place. At least he had until today. Today Joseph was
most conspicuous by his absence.
Jayce fit the key
into the lock, thinking that the door should already be open, the generator that
powered the alarm system should be on, and Joseph should be waiting. At the very
least, Joseph should have called in before he shut everything down and left
guard duty.
Where is that
guy? Jayce wondered again, trying
without success to quell his growing irritation toward his assistant. He picked
up a two-way radio from the bench inside the door and pressed the call button.
When there was no answer, he punched the button again, harder. Then he
pulled a pair of binoculars off a hook on the wall and headed back outside.
The wind was
rising with the sun. Jayce’s thick, rust-colored hair whipped against his
forehead to remind him that it had been some time since he’d visited a
barber—or anybody else in modern civilization.
He removed his
glasses and raised the binoculars to his eyes, noting, as he often had before,
that this high plain between the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona and
Albuquerque, New Mexico, formed a natural, if rather bizarre, wind tunnel. The
mystery was why they called the nearest town Winslow when there was
nothing slow about the gales that whipped around it.
Something
about Pithouse 5 at the farthest end of the dig caught his attention. Joseph’s
Jeep wasn’t parked there. Nor, Jayce saw now, was it parked at the base, or
anywhere on site. Returning his gaze to PH5, he saw deep tire tracks and
surmised that Joseph had been there most recently.
What was
interesting enough to get him out there in the rain? Jayce wondered. He
lowered the binoculars and tried the radio once more on his way back to his
truck. Predictably, there was no reply.
Minutes later,
Jayce pulled up alongside the pithouse. He could see by the deer grass that had
been crushed into the red clay soil that somebody had walked here recently; more
than one somebody by the looks of it.
Fist-sized stones
marked a trail to one of the most recently excavated of the ruins. Jayce
followed it about a hundred feet before coming to the two-foot-high walls of
what was left of an ancient someone’s home.
The
first thing he noticed was that part of the wall had been knocked over. The
looters must have hit them again. Jayce shook his head. Wasn’t it enough for
them to steal priceless relics? Did they have to go out of their way to destroy
what they didn’t take? And where had Joseph been during all of this?
Jayce took
another step forward, looked down into the pit, and started in surprise. His
assistant was slumped peacefully against the far wall, surrounded by churned-up
mud and a few broken pot shards. Though he wanted to, Jayce couldn’t blame
Joseph for falling asleep. He knew from painful experience how long and dark the
nights could seem on guard duty.
He lowered
himself nimbly into the pit near where Joseph lay and grasped the young man’s
shoulder to wake him. Joseph’s limp body listed sideways and then slipped down
the rough wall to land face up and unnaturally still. The Hopi’s sightless
eyes seemed to look beyond Jayce’s suddenly white face to seek their answers
from the gray skies above.
Too shocked to
cry out, Jayce stumbled backward. He was unaware of the jolt when he hit the
opposite wall, and heedless of the mud, rocks and earth-dwelling insects that
rained down upon his head. He heard only the hammering of his heart. He saw only
the blood-caked shirt and ugly, gaping wound cut raggedly across Joseph’s
thick throat. He thought nothing at all. For minutes on end Jayce Macdermott was
aware of nothing but wave after wave of numbing horror.
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