When a dear friend disappears without warning, archaeologist Grace Madison exposes his deadly deception–only to realize that it endangers everything she cherishes. While cataloging looted antiquities in Brussels, Grace learns that her son’s bride has been attacked in Switzerland. Her day careens from bad to catastrophic when daughter Maggie, a hydrologist, disappears in France.

Coincidence is a luxury that Grace cannot afford. Particularly when near-fatal history–saturated in espionage–is repeating itself.

Family members convene in Paris, where they discover the key to the danger consuming them. Embedded like a taproot in the Ancient Near East, the cuneiform clay tablet is their only lifeline. But before they can save themselves, they must first find and rescue their elderly friend–if he’ll let them.

On an epic journey following two brothers, crossing three continents, and spanning four thousand years, the Madison family risks it all to save it all. They rediscover and reinvest in love. Offer and receive redemption. And summon the courage to face truth: about themselves, each other, and the difference in right and wrong.

Because sometimes, doing what’s right is all that’s left.

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

Day One

Chapter 1

Brussels

Grace Madison, PhD.

Four A.M.

The ringing phone interrupted my first good night’s sleep in two weeks. My heart raced, and the Sixth Commandment echoed through my groggy brain.

I am archaeologist Grace Madison, and I do not typically kill people.

“The shot shattered the window inches from her head.” My son was on the other end of the line, referring to Becca, his bride. “I’m checking in with everybody. Dad was plowing snow off the road to the ranch house. You’re obviously fine in Belgium. Where’s Maggie? I can’t find her.”

“Your sister’s in Paris, Jeff. Preparing for a conference in the south.”

“You sure about that, Mom? She’s proven to be a missing target before.”

“I’ll confirm and get back to you. Give me an hour.”

The line went dead. Swatting at the light switch above the nightstand, I knocked over the water carafe, then left a caring tirade in Maggie’s voice mail. After speed-dialing my husband, Mark, in Colorado, I yanked open heavy brocade draperies and nearly pulled a gilt bracket out of the wall.

I released the wadded fabric as I gazed eastward, at a clementine line gripping the horizon.

###

Five A.M.

“I can’t find your sister. Your dad is working his way to Paris. Can you meet us there?” I was lucid now, paying attention.

FedPol, the Swiss national police force, would want to question Jeff and Becca, and try to prevent them from leaving the country. He was a war correspondent for the BBC, and she was retooling her career after her cover as an MI6 agent had been blown last year. They might have the contacts to flee the bed-and-breakfast high in the Swiss Alps, where I hoped things had been perfect until the glass exploded.

“Honeymoon, Mom.”

“What’s left of it, dear.” I prodded him, picturing his coppery unibrow spiking above his glasses frame as he fumed. He loved and respected his sister, but would perceive her disappearance during his belated honeymoon as her epic failure. “I checked with her security team. Last they heard, she was swinging through Paris before heading to the water conference in Marseilles.” When he didn’t respond, I continued. “Jeff.” My tone conveyed the Mom Look of Death, but he didn’t give up.

“Why was she in Paris? Coax another proposal from Cliff?”

I tried to be patient. “Cliff doesn’t require coaxing. She won’t accept his offer anyway. Can you leave Switzerland?”

Quiet conversation preceded a rustling thud.

Becca’s clear voice meant she snatched the phone. “Dr. M., we’ll be there later today. Is that soon enough? You’re at—your normal location?”

I admired her caution, still delighted my son had the sense to marry this formidable young woman. “Yes. Looking forward to seeing you, Becca. Thank you.”

Chapter 2

Swiss Alps

Fat snow squirted through the broken window, swirling past billowing draperies. Its wetness strengthened the piney scent of the forest surrounding the chalet. The sniper had hidden in the trees, and the hole in the floor indicated a perch at least halfway up the mountainside.

Becca’s dark features contrasted with the snow and heavy lace dominating the Alpine décor—something Jeff was studying when the glass disintegrated. He hugged her, nesting his beard into her black hair.

“The good news is that I don’t think Mossad is involved,” she said into his chest.

“How do you know?”

“A chopper would be landing in the courtyard. Those cliffs look ripe for an avalanche. Flapping rotors might not be a good call.” She nodded toward the mountains as she smiled up at him. “Or do you think they just haven’t surfaced?”

“The shot and Maggie’s disappearance make me nervous. She’s probably not having a spa day.” He did not want to think about Mossad, or specifically, Retired Commander Abraham ben-Dove Cyril. “I always expect Mossad.”

They turned sideways, squeezing into the temporary room. Police were on the roof and in the courtyard, not bothering to hide. One call to the Wedding Cake on the Thames, as Londoners called MI6 offices, freed the couple. During the conversation, she did not mention that the bullet barely missed her.

“I’ll let the front desk know we’re checking out early,” he said. “Then arrange train tickets. We’ll have a couple of connections. Let’s pack. Given that this is Switzerland, I’m sure we’re safe now that the police are in place . . . ”

“ . . . and the shooter is long gone, having skied or snowmobiled into freedom.”

Jeff nodded at an agent, rigid as the wall she abutted, and reached beyond Becca to close the door. They would be in Paris by mid-afternoon.

“FedPol and the police will follow the tracks, but no one will strike here again. You and I both know that was a warning. No sniper would miss your silhouette in the window.”

“Which is why I feel perfectly safe going to Paris. And your sister might be in trouble.”

“You think?”

Chapter 3

Brussels — Paris

Grace

The bullet train blasted through coastal scud strangling Belgium and soaking western France, heading toward Paris. I tried not to hyperventilate and thought about the little I had learned from Cliff, my former teaching assistant at seminary. He now was acting director at the Kinneret archaeological site above the Sea of Galilee in Israel. I spent each summer digging and researching there. My winters were spent teaching, and at our family ranch in Colorado. Occasional forays led to major antiquities fairs like BRAFA in Brussels, where I exposed looted antiquities for a division of UNESCO.

Cliff waited in Paris to propose again to my daughter, as was his habit. I had called him shortly after I hung up with my son.

I tried to appear calm so I wouldn’t frighten other passengers, but suspected my face was as distorted as the wrinkled, hard-cider apples piled in pyramids throughout the countryside in early February. I rubbed my forehead to smooth worried creases as the train slid into the Gare du Nord before noon.

After he lobbed my scarred suitcase into the trunk, I instructed the taxi driver to take me straightaway to where Cliff said my daughter was last heading on the Left Bank. Cracking a window, I dodged second-hand lung cancer from his nicotine-infused clothing.

I hoped Maggie had left a clue. She would leave a trail if she could. There would be no question we would attempt to find her. Her position as president of MBM (Margaret Bennett Madison) Hydrology took her to the world’s most dangerous places. I had benefitted from her intelligence and survival training after shooting her abductor in the Judean desert last year. Even then, we suspected the evil behind her kidnapping wasn’t finished.

Sprinting through puddles, and up the American Church steps, I cinched my thick overcoat to repel an Arctic gale buffeting down the Seine a hundred yards away. I shuddered in the slender narthex, as if tossing off dread. With opposing motions—tugging cloche down to brows and scarf up to earlobes—I created an Elizabethan ruff of brown hair that became curlier as it grayed.

I entered the nave, my wet footsteps slapping softly on the pale limestone. A chilly chancel gust brushed my face, sharing musty sweetness from last Sunday’s roses. Aromatherapy on better days, I thought.

In my gut, I knew she was in trouble. We were close and stayed in touch, and could always locate each other in a few hours.

Her vulnerability made me sob. My maternal instincts locked into overdrive, distracting me from thinking clearly. I forced myself to be logical. When I realized I was failing, I dropped to a pew, exhausted.

Cathedrals triggered my prayer response, as intended by tall, narrow spaces pulling a worshiper’s view heavenward. At that moment, I chose to think first and pray later—never wise—and noted my prideful practicality sometimes complicated my lifelong faith. So I abandoned reliance on God to dissect my environment.

Shoving gloved hands deep into my coat pockets, I searched for anything unusual in the grainy light of a wintry day. Mark often said, “The nut didn’t fall far from the tree” when describing my daughter’s similarities to me, so I needed to think like her. How would she have left a clue?

She would sit roughly here, the pew we always chose, two rows behind Louis Comfort Tiffany’s 1901 stained-glass windows. She was a creature of habit, like me, and those windows added an element of tranquility to our worship.

Pew backs for five rows in front of and behind me appeared normal. Their trays contained faded Bibles and well-thumbed hymnals, with pencils—one broken—upright in bored holes. I shook the books violently, holding them upside down by their covers, to dislodge anything. They were empty. I eased onto my knees, too boney and old for a frigid encounter, and looked for bits of paper. The floor was spotless. I groaned in pain and disappointment.

Then I did what I should have done: prayed. For wisdom. Enlightenment. Cunning. Maggie’s life. As expected, I didn’t hear the booming or still, small voice of Divine revelation. But after ten minutes of selfish pleading, I calmly turned, my unsteady steps leaving hallowed ground behind.

Chapter 4

Switzerland — Paris

Becca split a pain au chocolat, shooting crumb shrapnel across the narrow table onto Jeff’s jeans. She dipped the pastry into a frothy café crème as they sped through Switzerland on their last leg of today’s journey—the three-and-a-half hour train ride from Zurich to Paris via the Lyria SAS.

“What did you discover?” she asked after she swallowed.

“I’m not sure yet.” He had been glued to his e-tablet since they left the hotel, and his cappuccino cup contained nothing more than stains. He was crabby, suffering caffeine withdrawal in a coffee-scented railcar. “Except I need to stay in touch with my sister better, and Mom was right. Maggie’s scheduled to present the keynote speech at a conference late this week.”

“Topic?”

“King Solomon’s Treasure: Then and Now.”

“What does that mean? She’s a hydrologist.”

“Beats me. I think the wise king’s water would be long gone after three thousand years, wouldn’t you?”

“Unless it’s part of an old aquifer. Then even she can’t tell which is his water and which is . . . ” She paused. “You don’t believe . . . ”

“I never know what to think about Maggie. But she has a nasty habit of uncovering things that almost get us killed.”

“And my work is supposed to be dangerous.”

Jeff smiled grimly at the thought of his bride’s career as an MI6 agent, and nodded as he picked up a newspaper. Ignoring pastries and unflavored yogurt littering the space between them, he began scanning The Financial Times, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, and La Figaro, retrieved from a tubular rack screwed to the carriage front.

“So I add German to your languages?” Her comment preceded a delicate slurp, onyx eyes unblinking over the rim of the white cup.

“Once you become fluent in one, related languages are easy.” He set Neue Zurcher Zeitung on the table before contorting to thrust a plug into an outlet. “The first can be tough. Particularly if it’s dead.”

When her head jerked, he clarified. “Dead language.”

She smiled. “Which language is related to Ugaritic? That’s been extinct for a few thousand years.” When his brows bobbled, questioning, she continued. “Dr. M. told me.”

His midnight translation in Herodium last year revealed to his family unusual aspects of his life. “All of the northwest Semitic languages,” he said.

Jeff did not like talking about himself, and struggled to morph from committed loner to intimate partner. Maggie and he were raised with the Bible verse, “From those to whom much is given, much is expected.” His linguistic skills, a gift from God cultivated by hard work, had triggered recruitment by agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. He eventually chose to broadcast war, rather than make it.

Leaning across the table, propped on an elbow, he spoke quietly. “Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician. Grammatically, Ugaritic is similar to Arabic and Akkadian. I don’t mean to be short, Becca, but my languages don’t seem important right now.”

He gently wiped her chin, and she finished the job before dropping the soiled napkin into her lap. He stood, reaching into his bag on the overhead shelf and canvassing the aisle to see an attendant pushing the trolley their direction. Jeff ordered two espressos.

They had walked through the cars twice. Becca’s training, and his experiences on rickety transports in war-torn countries, made them cautious. Reserved seats are suggestions at best on European trains, and they had assessed passengers before settling on this location. He moved around the table to sit next to her, taking his steaming cup with him, and typed into the tablet before sliding it across her abdomen.

People either love her or hate her, depending on if they’re trying to get enough water to live, or enough to control the world.

She erased before handing the tablet to him. “I figured. How bad?”

He typed again, sitting as close as possible on a public train while respecting that his mother raised a gentleman.

In Israel, they left a trail Girl Scouts could follow through the woods on a moonless night. These people are much more sophisticated.

After erasing, he tucked her hand in his coat pocket and stroked her index—trigger—finger, calloused by target practice.

She leaned against him. “Do you want me to involve London? We’re off-grid now, and can stay that way for the next two weeks since I’m on personal leave.”

“I’d rather talk to Mom and Dad first.”

“Let’s ask the driver to drop us across the Tuileries. We can walk through the garden.”

“I’d like that. Mom’s car—you know she ordered one—can take the luggage to the hotel. A driver will be holding a sign with our names in the arrival hall.” He whispered in her ear like a man in love. “The Tuileries are more consistent with my honeymoon plans than a kidnapping intervention.”

“And the gardens are adjacent to her hotel. I would have found them one of the hardest things to give up if I were Marie Antoinette fleeing the Louvre. The flowers must have been breathtaking when it was her palace.”

“All the women in my life love gardens,” he said. “Kind of contrasts with your ability to get yourselves shot at. Kidnapped . . . ”

“Married.” She poked his ribs, then snuggled into him.

Brown hills and plowed fields rolled outside the broad window. As they crossed into Alsace-Lorraine in northeastern France, he kissed her lightly, continuing a border-crossing tradition of celebratory kisses. Despite a sturdy heating system designed to conquer winter in the Alps, the carriage was cold. The coffee cart passed again, its attendant doubtlessly recognizing Jeff’s habit. Jeff noted the tight, thin-lipped smile of the Swiss, and shook his head.

Scattered farms and hamlets, tree lines resembling inverted push brooms, and scruffy Alsatian cows punctuated land cultivated by the same families for generations.

“You think he’s a spy?” she asked jokingly, nodding at the server’s back.

“Isn’t everyone?” was Jeff’s serious reply.

Continued….

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The Brothers’ Keepers