“Well, then.” Joy tipped her head to one side. “If every archaeologist who stumbled across a pile of bones simply up and left them there, we’d have huge gaps in our understanding of the past. Hell, we wouldn’t even know what dinosaurs were.”
“That reminds me of that joke fromJurassic Park,” Mia said, turning to face them. “What do you call a blind dinosaur?”
Joy grinned.
“Go on, then.”
“A Do-You-Think-He-Saurus.”
“Bloody brilliant,” Joy crowed.
“What is so funny?” Andreas asked, coming toward them. Skye wasn’t sure if he’d understand the joke, but after having furrowed his brow for a moment or two, he smiled.
“Very good,” he appraised. “Very clever.”
“What did the police say?” Skye asked.
“That they will come to remove the bones later today or perhaps tomorrow. Do you have some cover or something?”
“I’ve got an old sheet of tarp over at mine,” Joy said.
“Do you think we should tell the police about the saber, too?” Mia asked. “Dusty hasn’t done anything with it yet, as far as I know.”
Skye glanced at Andreas, who shrugged.
“It’s probably a good idea to show them,” she said. “Then they can decide if they want to take it away for testing.”
“Good idea.” Mia bounced upright. “I’ll go and get it now. You coming, Joy?”
Skye and Andreas remained where they were, watching the others walk away. The sun, having been upstaged by the storm, was now reclaiming the sky, beating down with the fierce urgency of a drum. Moisture hung heavy in the air, disturbed only by a nervous wind, while the ground beneath them seemed to crackle as it rapidly dried in the heat.
Skye shielded her eyes with a hand.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “about the letters we found. Do you think it’s possible there’s anything in them that would give us some clue about this grave? Have you managed to read any more of them or…”
Andreas rubbed the back of his neck, offering her a sheepish smile.
“Not all of them,” he admitted. “However, I have translated one more for you. I did it today while I was trapped at home during the storm.”
He slid a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and took out two folded sheets of lined paper.
Skye felt a lift in her chest, light and sudden.
“This one is different,” Andreas said.
Was she imagining it, or was there a note of warning in his tone?
“Different how?”
“You will see,” he said, pushing the pages toward her.
Skye’s gaze flickered once more to the open grave. Here it was again: death. Not a memory but a marker on the path ahead. If she wanted the truth about the past, she had to follow it. The letter trembled slightly in her grip, the first step into what waited ahead.
Twenty-five
March 29, 1941
Dearest Kat,
