The Lost Years

82

He was upstairs, with the lift raised back up, again flush with the ceiling of the lower level, before they were able to stop him. How long would it take before they found the switch to bring the lift down again? Not long, he thought. I know it won’t be long.

That detective was sharp enough to make me think that I was safe.

But I’m not safe. I’m doomed. It is the end. I fell for their trap.

Furious, Greg flung aside the bag of sandwiches. He had only a dim light on in his private empire. He flipped on the overhead lights and looked around. Beautiful. Magnificent. Spectacular. Art. Antiquity. All worthy of the finest museums in the world. And he had gathered it here himself.

When he was nineteen, the lonely nerd, he had accomplished with a computer what Antonio Stradivari had accomplished with a violin. He had masterminded programming through unimaginable flights of fantasy. By the time he was twenty-five, he had quietly become a multimillionaire.

Six years ago, on a whim, I went on that dig and discovered the world that I belonged in, he thought. I listened and learned from Jonathan and Charles and Albert, and in the end I surpassed all of them with my expertise. I began to manipulate and divert shipments of priceless antiques without a single trace of where they had gone.

It was glorious when I touched that sacred parchment. When I told Jonathan about the extraordinary computer program that I had developed to authenticate antiquities, he let me examine it. The parchment is authentic. It’s been handled by many people over the centuries, but there is a single DNA sample on it that is extraordinary. This unique DNA carries chromosomes with only the traits of a mother, who has to be the Virgin Mary. He had no human father.

This letter was written by the Christ. He wrote it to a friend, and two thousand years later I had to kill a man whom I loved as a friend because I had to have it.

Greg walked into the room that was full of his treasures. For once he did not pause and savor their beauty but looked first at Lillian. She was lying near the sofa, with its golden brocade and intricate carvings, where he always chose to sit.

Since Wednesday morning, when he had first brought her here and then decided to wait before he killed her, he had enjoyed his brief visits, sitting on this sofa with her feet on his lap and talking to her. He had relished explaining to her the history of one after another of his treasures. “I bought this artifact from a dealer in Cairo recently,” he’d said about one artifact. “Their museum was looted during a civilian uprising.”

Now he stood over Lillian. Her wide brown eyes were frantic with fear. “The police are surrounding me!” he shouted. “They’re downstairs. They’ll find a way to get up here.”

“You’re so greedy, Lily. If you had only given the parchment back to Mariah, you would have a clear conscience. But you didn’t do that.”

“Please… don’t… no… no…”

As Greg slid a silken cord around Lillian’s neck, he was sobbing. “I offered Mariah the love I never thought I would be capable of feeling for any human being. I worshipped the ground she walked on. And what did I get in return? She couldn’t wait the other night to finish dinner and get rid of me. Now I’m going to get rid of her and rid of you.”