Diamond In The Rough (Moonlight Detective Agency Book 2) Read online

  Diamond In The Rough

  Moonlight Detective Agency™ Book Two

  Isobella Crowley

  Ell Leigh Clarke

  Michael Anderle

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 Isobella Crowley, Ell Leigh Clarke & Michael T. Anderle

  Cover by Fantasy Book Design

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  This book is a Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, October 2019

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-487-6

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-488-3

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Author Notes from Isobella Crowley (AKA Ell Leigh Clarke) and Michael Anderle (AKA Yoda)

  Books written by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Books By Michael Anderle

  Connect with Michael Anderle

  The Diamond In The Rough Team

  Thanks to our Beta Readers:

  Diane L. Smith, Suellen Wiseman, Sara Keyes, Jackey Hankard-Brodie

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Dave Hicks

  Micky Cocker

  Peter Manis

  Deb Mader

  Nicole Emens

  Jeff Eaton

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Jackey Hankard-Brodie

  John Ashmore

  Larry Omans

  Dorothy Lloyd

  If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  to Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  to Live the Life We Are

  Called.

  Prologue

  Temple Ruins, South of Dimona, Israel

  Alexander Thomas grinned. He almost shivered with delight, too, but managed to stop himself—professional dignity and all that. Besides, he was the only Australian on the team and had to make his home country look good.

  He and the others stood in rows slightly within the temple’s entrance. The hot and blinding sunlight of the Negev Desert stopped only a few centimeters behind their heels. Being in there, in the shade, somehow made them all feel safe.

  Dr Eitan Feldman, the eminent archaeologist and historian, moved slowly toward a position facing the group and deeper into the gloom. The clacking noises of his cane echoed on the stone and drowned out his soft footsteps.

  Feldman turned and his gaze roved over the faces of his team. “Thank you,” he said in his dry old voice, “for helping me bring this new discovery to light.” He was fluent in English but still spoke with a thick Israeli accent.

  Everyone nodded. Alex made sure to do so but tapped his foot constantly with impatience. The sub-basement was right over there, beyond where the old man now stood. He didn’t want to wait. They had to open it and see what was down there.

  Oblivious to his sentiments, Feldman continued. “To quickly review for those of you who have only now arrived… This temple was discovered five years ago by the local Bedouin. We are certain it was built by the Nabataeans in approximately CE 100. Six months ago, operations here were almost closed when a junior archaeologist discovered the hidden basement.”

  Alex had arrived about three weeks ago, so he already knew all this. Of course, a few of the other junior researchers had only disembarked from the plane in Beersheba within the last forty-eight hours, and no one knew how much briefing they’d had.

  “What is extraordinary,” the old man continued, “is that the crude seal over the sub-basement’s entrance dates to between 1700 and 1820, and the markings are Bedouin good-luck symbols and passages from the Quran. We believe the nomads discovered this site at that time but reacted with superstitious dread to a pagan temple and tried to…” He paused and frowned as he seemed to search for the right words. “Tried to seal it away from the human world.”

  Alex’s eyes flitted to the left. A large, black, blood-sucking tick crawled up the shoulder of the attractive American sheila who stood beside him. He reached out and plucked the insect off.

  The girl looked sharply at him before her gaze fell to the tick that writhed between his thumb and forefinger. “Oh.” She gasped. “Thanks.”

  He smiled. “Think nothing of it, love. We get far worse than this out in the bush back home.” He flicked the bug out into the desert. In fact, he came from a rather nice suburban corner of Melbourne but he wasn’t above trading in Aussie stereotypes when they stood to benefit him.

  Dr Feldman cleared his throat. “Please, no more interruptions,” he stated. “Now, we are ready to open this lower crypt. We must exercise the utmost caution when we explore it. The atmosphere has already been tested after drilling a hole, and it should not be hazardous. However, we do not know what may be within. Look and survey, but touch nothing. The materials may be delicate and require special care. There may even be…traps.”

  He paused, then smiled. “For once, archaeology is like the movies.”

  A few of the team chuckled, mainly the Americans.

  Alex took a deep breath again to calm himself as the two hardware guys moved toward the engraved stone slab covering the sub-basement’s entrance. Both wore hazmat suits and welders’ masks and were armed with laser cutters, which they’d use to cut carefully through the stone. This would reduce the risk of damaging anything, not to mention collapsing the temple on their heads.

  As the men worked, he looked around. The temple’s interior was less impressive than he’d hoped. Still, its sheer age filled him with excitement. The façade, although not large, was incredible and in the same almost Romanesque style as the more famous ruins of Petra to the east in Jordan.

  Behind him lay the Negev Desert. Although hot and desolate, it had a kind of austere beauty. Even his one brief excursion into the Outback could not match its status as a true wasteland. Undulating brown waves of denuded rock and forgotten dust stretched to the horizon, where the sapphire-hued sky turned bruise-purple with dusk’s approach.

  Alex had come all this way for opportunity. Most archaeologists spent their careers hunting pottery fragments. He, on the other hand—not long out of grad school—was already involved in the kind of find that made headlines around the world. He’d always wanted to go to t
he so-called Holy Land. People paid more attention when a discovery could be tied in with the Abrahamic religions. He’d even begun to learn Hebrew to be safe.

  This was his big break.

  And yet, he hadn’t done much since he’d arrived. Feldman would get most of the credit, of course. Alex had even fobbed off the worst of the menial labor onto the other junior crew. But with the sub-basement about to be opened, anything was possible.

  Hissing air escaped the vault as the workers’ laser saws drew black lines across the stone. It sounded almost like an enraged animal. The sheila to the left jumped in place and Alex almost mirrored her.

  It wasn’t only the sound that had unsettled him. There was also the smell. The odor was old beyond the human conception of time and unclean beyond human tolerance.

  He snorted when the tension dissipated. “They could have tidied up before they sealed the place instead of simply leaving the mess for us to deal with.”

  One or two people snickered but most had focused on the doorway.

  The workmen carefully removed the slab and set it against the adjacent wall. Beyond, they could see only the beginning of a ramp leading down into total darkness.

  Everyone hesitated and the temple’s gallery was silent.

  Alex stepped forward. “I volunteer to go first,” he proclaimed and raised a hand.

  Dr Feldman nodded. “I would, but I cannot walk fast. Someone else will have to help me, and I will be in the back. Take care, Dr Thomas.”

  He allowed one of the hazmat-suited workmen to accompany him at the front and the two men walked side by side into the gloom. Their flashlights carved visible order out of the dark nothingness. The other members of the team followed with slow, trudging steps.

  The passage was rudely cut into the sandstone and unadorned. Unsurprisingly, the temperature dropped rapidly as they descended. The ramp finally leveled off and his light beam probed ahead into some larger space beyond an opening. His heart thumped against his ribcage.

  They emerged into the cavern and he gasped.

  “My God…” He forgot to close his jaw.

  The chamber around them was completely covered with hieroglyphics, ancient and primitive. The young archaeologist’s first thought was that they could only be Egyptian, but this was a long way from the Nile. Could it be, he wondered, some offshoot or forebears of the Sumerians? Or perhaps some other, even older people yet unknown to modern science and who predated both cultures?

  Behind him, the team shuffled in and similar gasps filled the heavy, musty air.

  “Remember!” Feldman’s voice rose warningly. “Touch nothing.”

  They fanned out to explore the perimeter of the sunken vault while the second hardware guy began to set a lamp up attached to a long extension cord.

  “Incredible.” The old man virtually breathed the words. “These hieroglyphics appear to be very early Egyptian.”

  Alex smirked. It wasn’t only him, then. The old expert had confirmed his suspicions. But that only further reminded him that this was Feldman’s grand discovery, first and foremost.

  So far.

  The lamp blazed to life. Its illumination was soft and indirect since some materials could be damaged by too much direct light. Still, they could see far better now.

  The sub-basement was about the same size as the temple gallery above it—not large but certainly big enough to accommodate the entire team. The ceiling was lower and everything was covered with pale brown dust. There were no signs of insects, spiders, scorpions, or bats—or any other thing that lived, for that matter.

  The American girl whom Alex had rescued from the tick sidled up. “Do you think the Nabataeans built the temple on top of this place? Like, they found a really old Egyptian tomb and kind of appropriated it as their cellar?”

  Inwardly, he cursed. Everyone else seemed to reach conclusions as rapidly as he did. His chance to suddenly prove himself a genius was slipping away.

  “Aye, probably,” he replied. “If it was the Egyptians—”

  He broke off when something caught his eye over in the far corner. Ignoring the sheila, for now, he sauntered toward it and squinted to see better while his entire body seemed to prickle with anticipation.

  Something lay on the floor. At first, it had merely looked like a fragment of rock, but as he drew closer, he realized it was much more. He recognized it as a pressure latch—a button of sorts, which could be triggered by stepping on it.

  He examined the device, thankful that no one else had come to peer over his shoulder yet. The latch was too obvious to be a booby trap and it was surrounded by hieroglyphs on the floor—instructions, possibly, or perhaps the usual litany of curses directed at potential grave robbers.

  Alex glanced up. Two subtle vertical lines ran through the stone wall in the rear corner—a doorway, obviously.

  He put his hands in his pockets and hovered his foot over the latch. If something bad happens, I can always claim I didn’t see it and stepped on it by accident. And if it leads us to the real discovery, I can claim I was the one who found it and worked out how to open it.

  With a slow smile, he stepped on the button.

  The tomb shook. Stone shrieked and growled. His team cried out in alarm while some of them wobbled precariously, and Dr Feldman almost toppled before one of the hardware guys caught him.

  “Shit,” Alex muttered through clenched teeth as he struggled to keep his balance.

  The door swung inwards slowly to reveal a black space beyond. A slight gold-tinted vapor escaped into the free air.

  “What did you do?” someone snapped.

  The two hazmat-suited guys rushed forward and motioned for everyone to fall back, but for a moment, it seemed the entire team stood frozen in half-terrified fascination.

  Alex sensed immediately that he would have to go with the “This Was an Accident” storyline. They still had no idea what was in there but somehow, it didn’t seem good.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t see it. I was studying the markings on the ceiling, and—”

  No one paid him any attention, at this point, and he didn’t manage to finish his story, anyway.

  Something streaked out of the void behind the newly opened door. He fell to one side, operating almost entirely on instinctive reflex, and a brown blur hurtled past him, through the sub-basement, and into the team members, who huddled in the middle of the space.

  The American sheila screamed in pain and fear and for a second or less, the creature from the crypt hunched over her, enveloped her, and a few drops of her blood spattered the dusty floor. They appeared almost purplish in the odd glow of the lamp.

  “What the hell?” someone yelled. “What—”

  Like a scorpion on two legs, the being dashed forward again and this time, left both the hazmat-suited hardware men sprawled on the floor. They groaned and bled from deep gashes in their stomachs.

  “Oh, my God!” Screams echoed around the crypt and chaos erupted as everyone tried to stumble up through the passage. Alex hung back and simply stared as whatever had been unleashed rushed after them. It was faster than they were and within moments, thuds followed as their bodies fell, one by one.

  He waited and counted. Some would make it to the temple antechamber and the creature would be distracted while it finished them off. That would be his chance to escape.

  The sounds moved up and away, into the higher chamber. By now, he was virtually hyperventilating while he stared at the corpse of Eitan Feldman. His hero lay sprawled against the far wall, his face and neck split open as if by a machete.

  Now. He breathed deep and forced himself to focus. High on adrenaline, he fled.

  His race up the ramp seemed to take forever. When at last he burst into the antechamber, the beast—what else could he call it?—was in the process of butchering the last two humans, both cornered and helpless.

  Alex ignored the blood and the twitching bodies and urged himself toward the rectangle of reddish light and the freedom it re
presented.

  He staggered out, gasping, into what little remained of the Negev’s daylight. One of their trucks was only about fifty meters away. He could make it. He—

  Instinct penetrated. He heard and sensed the abomination from the hidden tomb fill the doorway and realized a little hysterically that it actually displaced air by its presence. It intended to pounce on his back—any second now—and that would be the end of Alexander Thomas.

  The archaeologist threw himself to the side, not sure if the creature had launched itself yet, and rolled and stumbled alternately toward the deeply-shadowed recess beneath a low cliff. Some stupid and primitive urge compelled him to seek safety in darkness.

  He had no way of knowing, at the time, that it was the worst thing he could have done.

  For an instant, there was silence. His back heaved against the sandy rock behind him and his heart thumped like a fist against his ribs. When he dragged in a breath, he could smell the ancient dust all around.

  In the next moment, it stood in front of him.

  He clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from crying out. The gesture was entirely pointless but somehow, that was his first reaction. His eyes bulged and he simply stared while his vision assimilated the sight.

  The creature was a woman. Or had originally been a woman.

  She was relatively tall—about the height of an average-sized man—and lean, although with a noticeably curvy figure. Straight black hair had been cut above her shoulders and was held away from her face by a golden circlet around her brow. Her skin was odd, though. It should have been a deep chestnut-brown, but it looked as though the color had somehow been drained from beneath it—as though a translucent brown veil lay over a corpse gone ashen with pallor.