The Reincarnationist

Chapter 55

Denver, Colorado-Wednesday morning, 8:24 a.m.

The call came a few minutes after they landed at the airport. The flight attendant had just announced that they could turn on their cell phones while they taxied in to a gate. Gabriella pulled hers open, said a frantic hello, and then listened, rapt, not moving, her eyes focused on the seat back in front of her.

For a few seconds she didn’t say anything, and then, “Please, tell me, how is Quinn? Why can’t I talk to her? Where are they? Yes, yes, I’m trying…I’m on the plane still-”

Whatever the man on the other end of the phone said, it frightened her and she looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to her. “No. I won’t. No. I understand.” Her voice was lower, painfully controlled.

“But why can’t I talk to Quinn?” she whispered.

Pause.

“What if I can’t? Friday is only…What if it takes longer?”

Her voice was laced with fear, her eyes were closed and her fingers gripped the small silver cell phone so tightly it looked as if they might snap.

“Wait…Hello? Hello? Please, don’t-”

The line must have gone dead.

Panicking, she shut the phone, then opened it, located the incoming call and hit Send.

While she waited, Josh wasn’t sure she breathed. Beads of sweat popped out on her forehead and her eyes filled up, but her expression remained one of fury and force.

“I can’t get him back.”

“Damn it, Gabriella, let’s go to the police.”

“No. No.” She was wildly hitting the redial button.

“It’s not too late. They know how to-”

She interrupted. “Don’t you understand? I can’t take that chance. You know who these men are. You know the professor is dead. That Tony is dead. Christ, you were almost killed. I can’t take the chance that-” Her voice broke, and for a few minutes she stared out of her window, quietly sobbing.

“Did you talk to Quinn?” he asked when she was calm again.

“No, but he played me a recording of her and Bettina. He said they’re both fine. ‘Safe and sound’ was what he said. But he’s only giving me until Friday to get the translations. Only three days to figure out a mystery that’s more than three thousand years old.”

Josh had a fleeting image, like an old, scratchy mezzotint, of Sabina handing her baby to her sister, but it flickered and disappeared like a candle snuffed out. He looked at Gabriella, watching grief overwhelm her again, knowing there was nothing he could do. He wanted to comfort her-at least offer some solace-but the door had just opened and they needed to go; they had a second plane to catch.

They were in Denver to catch a plane to Salt Lake City, to drive to San Rafael Swell to meet with Larry Rollins, an archeologist both she and Alice knew, who, it turned out, had recently made significant breakthroughs in Indus. They’d tried to contact him only to find out he was on location, unreachable by cell phone or wireless technology. If they wanted to talk to him to enlist his help, they had no choice but to go to him.

“If Rollins can’t help…What am I going to do if he can’t help? I think I’m going crazy, Josh. I don’t know how to hold on.”

He wondered how many times in the past twelve hours he’d tried but failed to find a way to give her succor. He just wasn’t well versed in issues of faith and didn’t know what to offer up. In the midst of the world’s brutality, he had seen grace in the tiny dot of an airplane coming to bring supplies to a bombed-out village, glimpsed hope in the eyes of a soldier when he made it back to camp after a mission, witnessed mercy in the way a nurse bent over a wounded man and for a moment made him forget the hell of his pain. But faith? Prayer? The world Josh had lived in for the past dozen years had not wanted for either, but he had never been sure what good they had done. Gabriella was the one who went to churches and temples, who lit candles, kneeled in pews, who prayed to every religion’s god, and still she was suffering. What could he say?

“You know how to believe, you know how to pray. You need to believe and pray that Rollins will help.”