In Sana’s mind any benefit of Shawn’s halfhearted apology melted away like a snowball in the tropics. Instead of taking responsibility for his behavior, he blamed it on her. In other words, the reason he’d hurt her feelings was her fault, not his.

“Let’s get this over with,” Sana said. At this point, the last thing she wanted to do was get into an argument. What she really wanted to do was get back to the hotel and go to bed.

“Now you’re talking.”

Each picked up a bucket and passed through the glazed Scavi inner office door. The corridor beyond was illuminated only by a series of low-intensity night-lights along the marble baseboards.

When they arrived at the flight of steps that descended to the necropolis entry, Shawn paused to look down the corridor toward the basilica’s crypt. He saw no one.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

They descended the stairs. At the bottom, Shawn opened the grate with the appropriate key, let Sana pass, then stepped in himself before locking the metal barrier behind him.

With only scant illumination descending from the night-lights in the corridor above, the couple immediately took out their respective construction helmets and switched on the headlamps.

“Not bad,” Sana commented, using the headlamp to look down the narrow stone passageway to the solid, humidity-proof door to the necropolis. Just a moment earlier, she’d experienced a touch of claustrophobia. The headlamp changed everything.

“Here, take this in one hand and the bucket in the other,” Shawn said, after switching on one of the flashlights.

“I don’t think I need it with the headlamp.”

“Take it,” Shawn insisted.

Shawn squeezed past Sana and quickly descended to the solid door. With every step he felt his excitement grow. He couldn’t help feeling optimistic. He was convinced that the ossuary would be where Saturninus said he’d put it almost two millennia ago.

After unlocking the solid door, he once again moved aside so Sana could precede him. Then, after relocking it, he pushed past his wife to descend quickly to the level of the Roman-era cemetery. He was ready to turn west but sensed Sana wasn’t behind him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked as he looked behind to see her descending slowly, her headlamp and flashlight moving erratically in rapid arcs.

“I don’t like this,” Sana said.

“What don’t you like?” Shawn demanded, and under his breath he murmured, “What the hell now?” They were just beginning, and he was already finding his wife a progressively frustrating handicap. For a moment he thought about having her wait in the car, but then he remembered he needed her. What he was planning was defnitely a two-person job.

“My lights don’t seem to reach the ceiling. It gives me a strange feeling.”