The Mystery Tomb by Eva Pohler

Author:Eva Pohler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: native american romance, archaeological mysteries, romantic suspense kindle, psychological thrillers in ebook, archaeological fiction, book club picks, native american mysteries
Publisher: Eva Pohler

Chapter Seventeen: Beloved Bones

Samantha sat at the breakfast nook with her parents eating ice cream. She knew they were upset about something.

“Just tell me,” she finally said. “What’s going on?”

Luther pushed his empty bowl away from him. He had eaten it so fast, Samantha expected him to yell, “Brain freeze,” like he used to when she was little and eating ice cream was a weekly event. He leaned toward her, elbows on the table.

“Your mama wants to tell you who your biological mother is.”

Samantha nearly choked. “You, you know her identity?”

Dorothy nodded without looking at Samantha. “She was a friend of mine in trouble. She wanted to go to school and have a career, and I was desperate for a baby. My first husband had just died, and the baby we were trying to adopt was taken away from me. So when my best friend’s sister turned up pregnant…”

“Your best friend’s sister?” Samantha felt the blood rush from her face. “Do you mean Josie? Josephina Schmidt?”

Dorothy glanced at Samantha, then nodded.

Samantha sat back in her seat, stunned. She played back the few times she had spoken to Josie, looking for some clue, some indication that Josie cared a scrap for her.

“Josie doesn’t know,” her mother said.

“What? How can she not know?”

“Well,” her mother started. “She might have an idea, but Maggie and I tried to hide it from her. I was worried she might later change her mind, and I couldn’t stand to lose another baby.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I helped Josie secretly deliver you in New Braunfels, at my opa and oma’s old house, which my parents hadn’t been able to sell. Josie was scared to death of her mother finding out. I told her I would put you up for adoption. Maggie told her you were a boy. Then, a few months later, when she came back to Fredericksburg and learned I had adopted a baby, she suspected what we had done, but Maggie and I denied it. Ach, I don’t know what Josie thinks.”

“What about my father?”

“Some college boy. I never knew.”

Samantha smelled a strong, bitter scent penetrating the kitchen. “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?” Luther asked.

The smell was followed by the beating of drums and a strange chant of hidden voices: “He-ya, he-ya. Unikwëti hach ki? He-ya, he-ya. Unikwëti hach ki?”

Sam collapsed onto the table.

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