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Arturo nodded He led the way through the side door to the café froh the pleasant, airy, and spacious whiteThere were a few people seated in the chairs in the center of the lobby, and they all looked up fro as they walked through

Out back, to the right of the area where Stephanie’s cottage stood, there was a staggered row of such dwellings, but le-story bungalows

They went through the pine-tree-bordered paths and reached one of the two-storied buildings Arturo knocked fir

"I think we need to open it and go in," Stephanie said

"Yes… yes"

Arturo looked very unhappy

He rued in his pockets for his passkeys, then opened the door He stuck his head in and called out, "Gema! Gema, are you there?"

There was no answer

Stephanie stepped past him The place was similar to her own, just s room

"I’ll look upstairs," Suzette murmured

Stephanie wandered on into the little kitchenette area She turned, aware that Clay Barton was standing in the htly bowed He stood so strangely, as if he were listening, or…

As if he saw hi to feel or envision what ht have taken place in the roo him

"What is it?" she asked

"Pardon?" he said politely

Stephanie opened her mouth to speak, but words never left her lips

Fro scream

Chapter 3

"Eh! Americano!"

Grant Peterson looked up He’d been painstakingly brushing away the dirt atop a centuries-old skeleton

The brush was alarten watercolor brush The task required tremendous patience The area in which he worked had been roped off by the real archeologists, the felloho knehat they were doing

It was a woman’s skeleton Some of the scholars were convinced that they had found the reendary countess But Carlo Ponti, head of the excavations at the site, so recently unearthed by a minor earthquake, was not convinced

"So far, with the bits and pieces of fabric left… I don’t think that these are the remains of such a woman," Carlo said "I believe ill discover that we have found a peasant I do think that these reht, and that the stories told beyond the history books will be verified The ground shifted, as it reportedly did centuries ago To those poor people, it brought death To us, it brings a treasure of knowledge"

Carlo walked toward him now, a jacket casually thrown over his shoulder " A it quits for the day The road is nice and clear We’ll go into the town and have a real cooked esturing to the dirt that covered him

"So, shower quickly We’ll be on our way in"

"It’s all right Go in without round where Grant worked "Go--alone? With my German comrade Heinrich and the Swiss, Jacques? No, no, no They are too serious They know nothing but the earth and history I want to hear o see the new club I want to see the young ladies ill be working at the new club The tere stuck out here with the rocks in the road, eh?"

Grant shook his head "You’re a lascivious old fart, Carlo," he told the renowned archeologist Carlo grinned Actually, he was in his early fifties, and had a bearded, rustic kind of easy charm He loved his work, but his every eared in only one direction He loved archeology because he loved history because he loved people, and what o look at live woists arrive toone before they take their photos, yes? Take a shower, and let’s go

Dusk is co fro, even forout of the town He didn’t know for certain, but he was pretty sure that la bella direttrice of the new teatro aned on here as an aht wind up in the same place, but when he had arrived and heard about the resort, the club, and the theatre, he had learned almost immediately that it ned by an Italian-Aia, and once he knew that, it was an educated assuht Steph in on the project