Chapter 1.
No one would miss Dr. Abigail Spencer.
Stark smiled. The inscription wasn’t far. He could sense it. He would find it. And Abigail Spencer would retrieve the priceless artifacts for him.
He looked at the man’s body. The fool deserved it, double-crossing him by arranging to sell the inscription to Vortex.
The inscription in the man’s possession wasn’t the one he was after. Stark knew what the words ‘Urim and Thummim’ looked like in ancient Greek writing. He had committed them to memory. This stone tablet had no such words. Vortex had tasked him to find the Urim and Thummim, but Stark intended to keep the stones for himself. His hunger grew stronger each day.
When he found the inscription, he would have supreme power.
Once he had his hands on the Urim and the Thummim, nobody and nothing would stand in his way. Not even Vortex, which only wanted to store the stones away with their other stolen, priceless treasures. No. He, Romulus Stark, would have the same power as the high priests of Israel.
Stark couldn’t believe his luck when the stone inscription had turned up in an insignificant college. All would have gone well if this low-life hadn’t gotten in his way.
Slowly, he wiped the blade on the professor’s jacket before returning it to his pocket. With his gloved hand, he opened the door a little before removing his gloves and placing them in a baggie.
Stark shouldered the door open a little. He walked down the corridor, his heels clicking on the tile.
Soon, he would be invincible.
Chapter 2.
“Abigail!”
Abigail spun around with a smile on her face to see Mary Yoder hurrying down the steps of the Amish Bed and Breakfast to her. “I baked you some whoopie pies. You really shouldn’t be going to work on a Saturday.”
Abigail chuckled. “How can an Amish person say such a thing? Everybody knows you Amish are hard workers. Besides, I don’t have a choice.”
The faculty was cutting back staff. She knew Harvey Hamilton would retain his job because of his relationship with Dean Susan Sewell, despite the fact he could only read Latin and not Greek. The news of their clandestine relationship was all over campus. It wasn’t fair, but as Abigail knew, sometimes life isn’t.
She gave Mary an impulsive hug and caught herself when she remembered the Amish don’t like public displays of affection.
Abigail couldn’t afford to lose her job. She was not trained for anything but academia. Job openings for Latin and Greek scholars were scant, with faculties all over the country cutting back on staff. A particularly unpleasant man, Harvey Hamilton often made spiteful remarks to her. She had even caught him in her office one day trying to download one of her unpublished papers. If she hadn’t caught him, she had no doubt he would have published it as his own work. She had complained to the Dean, but that was before she had discovered the Dean’s relationship with Hamilton.
It wasn’t a pleasant work environment, but at least it was work. Abigail wished she had a stable career. She enjoyed living in the little house behind the Amish Bed and Breakfast. She envied them their simple way of life and their strong community.
Her faculty was on the outskirts of the campus, in the oldest building. Decades earlier, a new building had been built on the other side of the campus, but the ancient languages faculty was left to decay.
Abigail groaned aloud when she saw Harvey Hamilton’s car in the parking lot. She killed the engine. While she was fetching her takeout coffee and the plate of whoopie pies, a black car pulled into the other side of the parking lot. Abigail stopped in her tracks. She didn’t recognize the car. With a shake of her head, she continued on to her office.
Just as she reached her office, her phone rang. She put her coffee on the ground and checked the Caller ID. It was the museum curator.
“Abigail, could you come right away? Hurry!”
“Sure,” she said, but he had already hung up. She unlocked the door, put her coffee and purse on her desk, relocked the door behind her, and hurried down to the museum. It was not far—downstairs and around the corner.
Dr. Chris Stanford was waiting for her. He grabbed her elbow and pulled her inside before locking the door. “I think we have trouble!”
Abigail was taken aback. Dr. Stanford was a meek, elderly man who never spoke out of a whisper. He was certainly riled up about something. “What happened, Chris?”
“I had campus security here this morning. They only just left. I was working when I heard someone break in. Whoever it was set off the alarms.”
“You’re kidding! What were they after?”
“The metal tablet,” he said in little more than a whisper.
“The metal tablet?” Abigail repeated. “Who would want to steal an inscription? We have plenty of other ancient texts here. What makes you think they were after that one?”
“There was an article on it last week in the local paper.”
“Yes, I read it. You sent them a press release.”
Stanford nodded. “After the article, I had a call from a man offering to buy the tablet. Of course, I told him it was the property of the university. But Abigail, it was on my private home phone. No one has that number. And here’s the thing—he asked me to name my price.”
Abigail gasped.
“Abigail, you need to take it. Someone wants it. I don’t think it will be safe here.”
She held up both hands, palms outwards. “I can’t take it. I don’t have security at home, and the museum does.”
“You didn’t hear that man. He sounded desperate. If someone has that much money, they’ll be successful on their next attempt to break in here. Take it home with you. They won’t know you have it. Don’t let anyone know you have it.” He spoke in short outbursts, punctuating each sentence with a wheeze. “And there’s something else.”
Abigail waited for him to catch his breath.
“The morning after I told the man I wouldn’t sell it, Harvey Hamilton came to my office. He insisted I give him the tablet. I called the Dean, but she backed him up. I gave him a similar tablet.”
“And he can’t read Greek, so he didn’t know the difference,” Abigail said slowly.
Chris nodded. “Anyway, it was obvious to me that he was going to sell it to the man who called me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Chris sank into the nearest chair. “I didn’t want you involved at the time. Now, you’re the only option.”
Abigail was doubtful. “Well, if you’re sure.” She followed him into a back room. He indicated the small bronze tablet lying on a table surrounded by pottery shards.
“Why would someone pay so much for it?” she asked him.
Chris simply shrugged. He wrapped it in brown paper and tied a piece of string around it. “Don’t let anyone know you have it,” he said again.
Abigail was mystified. Why would anyone want to buy this particular inscription?
She took the tablet and went back to her room.
