Page 170 of Blood Game

She nodded, staring out the window again. She remembered something Anne Morgan said—that if he had the courage to make the decision to go into those dangerous places, she needed to have the courage to accept it.

“How long do you have before you leave?”

“Three days.”

“So soon?” She tried to keep the emotion from her voice, but even then, time was slipping away.

“They've already processed me through. I leave out of Taunton at the end of the week.”

She didn't ask where he was going. She didn't need to. Back where it all happened, back where he had lost some of the men on his team. Things that were unfinished...things that mattered. She took a deep breath, trying to hold everything in—three days, airport farewells, then go on with her life, work, Cate's last book.

“There's Skype,” he added. “When we're not out in the field, and text messages.”

Skype and text messages, and thousands of miles away from anywhere safe. She nodded, trying to be brave, trying not to think about the what-ifs.

He smiled. “Danny's back for a while. He's a bit rough around the edges. But you'll like him. He'll keep you in touch. And then we'll go out when I get back, a drink, supper.”

When...if he came back.

“A date?” She fought to keep her voice steady, calm.

“Well, the nuns at St. Anselm’s would probably approve of a proper date.”

If they only knew, Kris thought. Then again, they probably wouldn't be too surprised.

He pulled her against him, his hand in her hair.

“I'll be back,” he whispered. “I promise.” His lips brushed hers. Then he was gone.

She made her way to the executive bathroom. She turned the faucets on full and hit the auto hand-dryer, the noise drowning out her sobs until there was nothing left, and all she could do was hold on.

'Please, God...'

CHAPTER

FIFTY

INVERESK, SCOTLAND

It was in all the media. In spite of the on-going war in the Middle East, in spite of the upheaval in the wake of Brexit, and scandals that had rocked the American political system.

The search had brought them there—archeologists with infrared equipment capable of seeing deep underground, representatives from the National Trust, historians from the University of Edinburgh, the BBC with their cameras, Diana Jodion from the Bayeaux Museum, and the parish priest of Inveresk,

Weeks and months of work, painstaking research, and Diana's analysis of the tapestry along with stories handed down through Vilette Moreau's family, the reconstruction of the Montfort-Raveneau family history, had brought them to the small parish church, with its crumbling stone walls and the stone fence that surrounded the burial grounds that dated back hundreds of years.

The tapestry was like an archive of the lives of two people—Isabel Raveneau, raised in privilege and affluence, a beautiful young woman, if the images in the tapestry were an accurate likeness, and James, adopted into the Montfort family, a young man of uncertain birth, indebted to Simon de Montfort,educated at the Universitee de Notre Dame, given a military commission; then that ill-fated campaign to Teba in Spain, the last Crusade to the Holy Land, where he was taken prisoner, the dangerous journey to free him, and the last months at the Abbey Mont St. Michel when he lay dying, then the last voyage Isa made—James of Montfort, a true son of Scotland, taking him home.

According to Vilette and stories that had been handed down through her family, his true family refused to allow him to be buried in the family plot. Instead, depending on what they found, he was buried in the kirkyard of that small crumbling church.

It was all there in over a dozen beautiful, stunning panels, painfully hand-stitched by Isa Raveneau at the abbey after James' death, an archive of love and death, and faith, a secret woven into that last panel. That secret, hinted at in the kneeling figure of a young woman, kept safe by another young woman centuries later during one of the most horrific conflicts of modern history.

And Vilette's claim that Isa had given birth to James' child after his death? There was no absolute proof of it after seven centuries. Except for the pendant with that same image—the thistle and trinity knot.

It had brought them all here, Kris thought, as she stepped off the flight in Edinburgh, coming full circle to that first trip after she had received that text message from Cate, almost a year ago. Her last message.

“We need to talk...”

And the story.