Touch of Darkness Read Online Free Page B

everything."
    She responded to his command voice by straightening her shoulders and looking into his eyes. "About a week after you left, we were clearing debris in section F21 on the ramp."
    He glanced down the hill toward the site. A year ago and twenty feet from the mound, they'd found a stone ramp sloping down toward the grave. Since then they'd focused their attention there, sifting through the dirt, working their way toward what Rurik believed was the entrance to the tomb. They'd followed the wide path of flat stones down into the cool, dark shadows of the earth. Twelve feet below ground level, the path ended at the corner formed by the two vertical walls that sealed the grave.
    Ashley continued. "A storm came up. We set up a tarp, but the water kept dripping down our necks and the wind ripped off the corner of the tarp."
    "So you quit work for the day."
    "Yeah." She sniffed, dabbed her red nose on her sleeve.
    She'd been crying. Why had she been crying?
    "It was a bitch of a night. Rain pouring down, and windhowling—the people in the pub said the b anshees had been loosed and the world was coming to an end." She shivered as if the threat was real.
    He felt no skepticism. How could he? Perhaps banshees were real—he was the last man who could discount the old legends.
    "When we came back the next day, the sun was out. The light was bright and crisp. We could see for miles." She looked at the tomb as if she was remembering. "The tarp was gone. Some of the stones on the rock wall lay crumbled on the ground—and right as we walked up, the sun entered the tomb for the first time since the day it had been sealed—and the beams struck gold."
    "So I heard. On every news channel in every airport."
    Ashley rubbed a spot on her forehead, "1 told him he should call you and then put the lid on it—"
    "You told Hardwick?"
    "Yes. And he didn't tell anyone, but the word got out with the villagers and from there, I swear, the rumor flew off the island without anyone saying a word." She scuffed her toe in the rough grass, holding back some . . . thing.
    "But?"
    "But once the reporters showed up, Hardwick couldn't take the pressure. He caved. He gave tours, he talked about the progress of the dig—he gave you all the credit. Really, he did." She touched Rurik's sleeve, so distressed he nodded acknowledgment. "He loved the limelight. We all did—it was cool to pull our heads out of the dirt and have reporters treat us like everything we said was important. But we didn't do anything wrong."
    Rurik's gaze swept the crowd, noting the reporters now surging toward them. "Talking to the press may have been cool for you, but it didn't help the site." He started forward, ignoring the reporters, the tourists, the visitors who shouted his name.
    Ashley hung on to his sleeve, letting him cleave a path through the crowd. "Hardwick said we didn't have a choice."
    "Hardwick is an idiot."
    Ashley's voice went up two octaves. "Don't say things like that about him!"
    "He's supposed to be in control here. So why the hell not?" Rurik pushed through to the edge of the ramp. He took in the scene at the tomb wall—and knew the answer before Ashley answered.
    One wall had been broken. The rock had crumbled on the ground. Inside, a window of gold beckoned ... and the hilt of an ancient steel blade jutted from that window.
    The point protruded from the back of Hardwick's skull.
    And Tasya Hunnicutt, the woman whose careless courage rilled him with fury and unease, struggled to lift the body free.

Chapter 3

     
    Tasya Hunnicutt's eyes watered as she strained to lift Kirk Hardwick's limp body off the blade. She wasn't crying, exactly, but to arrive at the scene in time to see Hardwick reaching into the tomb to retrieve the first piece of gold, and trigger a thousand-year-old booby trap—that scene would play and replay in her nightmares. And in her line of work, she had viewed enough atrocities to people her nightmares; she hadn't expected one at an