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board the plane in Amsterdam, for the harsh way Agent Shur had questioned her, implying that she was involved in Mr. Rosen’s death. And she wept because it should be Mark’s arms surrounding her, comforting her. Not this stranger’s.
    Gradually her tears subsided. Ari continued to hold her tightly, waiting until she was ready to let go. She hoped he understood how grateful she was. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
    “Will you be all right?” he asked when they finally separated. Abby nodded. He stood and crossed to the door. “I’ll be next door if you need anything.” He closed the door gently behind him.
    Abby lay down on the bed and shut her eyes. Forgetting Mr. Rosen’s death wasn’t going to be as easy as she had hoped. How much should she tell her children about the experience? All of it? None of it? Abby tried to concentrate on what to say to Emily and Greg, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Ari Bazak and his puzzling behavior. Were all Israeli men like him—cold and uncommunicative one moment, warm and comforting the next? She recalled the sensation of his arms enveloping her—not as a lover but as a friend—and remembered how good it had felt to cling to him, to feel the solid, protecting bulk of the man.
    Suddenly Abby remembered something else, and her eyes flew open in surprise. In a shoulder harness beneath his khaki work shirt, Dr. Aaron Bazak had been wearing a gun.
    ----
    Abby tossed on the bed for more than an hour, trying to fall asleep, but she was too overwrought to relax. Against her will, images of Benjamin Rosen played in her mind like a student’s poorly edited slide presentation: his warm smile and kind eyes, his dazed horror as the lifeblood pumped from him, his inert gaze as she held the dead weight of his body in her arms. Abby thought she had exhausted all of her tears in Ari’s arms, but she found herself weeping again.
    She had just finished splashing cold water on her face when someone knocked on her door. She opened it to greet a short redheaded man in his early sixties wearing plaid Bermuda shorts.
    “Mrs. MacLeod? I’m Ted Voss from Western Seminary.” As soon as he spoke, Abby recognized his high-pitched cartoon voice from their telephone conversations. She had joked about it with her daughter, along with his tendency to emphasize random words.
    “Dr. Voss, I’m so glad to finally meet you. Won’t you come in?” She swung the door wide in welcome, but he gazed around the hallway absently as if he hadn’t heard her. He was perspiring heavily in spite of the hotel’s air conditioning. Sweat trickled down his flushed, freckled skin and glistened in his thinning red hair. When he finally extended his hand in greeting, his clammy palm stuck to Abby’s.
    “My group just got in a little while ago,” he said, “and they told me at the front desk that you were already here, although I was sure you’d be arriving later. . . . Well, never mind, I thought I’d stop by and say hello. Did you have a good flight?”
    Abby stared. “Didn’t Dr. Bazak tell you what happened?”
    “Who?”
    “Dr. Ari Bazak—from the Institute?”
    “Sorry, never heard of him.”
    “He’s Dr. Rahov’s associate for this season’s dig.”
    Dr. Voss scowled, his flushed cheeks turning a darker shade of red. “I was under the impression that I was Dr. Rahov’s associate. Hannah didn’t mention anything about a new man the last time we talked.”
    “I’m sorry. I’m probably making a hash of things. Dr. Bazak told me that he just joined the expedition a few days ago. He was kind enough to pick me up at the airport. There was a mix-up with my flight and they lost my luggage and . . .” She drew a deep breath, then exhaled. “And the man I sat beside on the plane was shot.” She gestured to her bloodstained dress and realized that she was still wearing Ari’s shirt.
    “Shot! On the airplane?”
    “No, in the airport lounge. He was helping me make a phone call when . .