The Repentant Demon Trilogy Book 1: The Demon Calumnius by Samantha Johns Page A

unearthing tiny bones, which had not yet been determined as animal or human.
    Joyce was using her proximity to the new man on the scene to introduce him to her voluminous charms, bending down so that he could see her breasts beneath the loose opening of her tunic.  He smiled politely, amused by her obvious attempts to seduce him.  He had seen all of that so many times before, it really had no appeal.  And just beyond her, he watched Abigail bending with her rump in the air to push away loose debris from another chunk in the deepening hole where she worked.  Joyce saw him looking at her and felt anger, though her face was smiling.
    “Abigail, I'm not sure if I heard this correctly,” said Joyce in a snide remark, “but are you by any chance the Abigail Fitzgerald that was married to Ashton Petty?”
    After a few seconds of awkward silence, Abigail rose to her feet and walked closer to Joyce's section.  Doug had stopped working as well and was standing there with a puzzled look on his face, waiting to hear Abigail's response.
    “Whatever you may have heard along the academic grapevine, let me assure you that none of it is true,” she answered in the closest thing to an angry tone that Doug had ever seen in her.
    “You weren't married to him?” asked Joyce, unabashedly determined.
    “Yes, I was married to him,” said Abigail, not trying to control her emotion at the question.  “But all the gossip surrounding that whole situation was completely untrue.  That's the kindest word for it—actually.  I did nothing wrong, and neither did he.”
    “Well, excuse me for saying so,” said Joyce, “but his wife and children have a side to the story, too.  That must be the one I heard, having acquaintances among so many of Professor Petty's colleagues.”
    “Really, like which colleagues might those be?” challenged Abigail.  “I knew his closest friends.  He had many rivals and malcontents that followed him around like leaches to feed one way or another off of his success.  Could your friends possibly be included in that crowd, perhaps?”
    “I can see this is a touchy area,” said Joyce sarcastically, “Perhaps I should never have brought it up, but if you intend to travel in these circles, you might expect to run into people who know of the scandal surrounding his death.  It seems to me that at least your close companions should have been made aware of the details so they won't be taken by surprise when the subject arises.”
    Abigail had no more to say on the subject.  She went back to her work excavating the pottery shards.  When she cast a glance in Doug's direction, she saw that he seemed somehow more distant.  He wouldn't look at her—as he had seemed to be always doing before the ugly conversation had started.  She needed to talk to him, and wondered when a good time for that would come about.  The excavation site was not confidential enough.  It was impossible to talk while riding a camel, and with a whole household of people where they were staying, it would be difficult to find a private moment. 
    Abigail felt now that she should have explained everything in the beginning.  But this wasn't something she discussed on a first date.  Then things seemed to have moved so fast with them.  He might be more upset that she hadn't told him this significant part of her past than he would at the actual details. 
    As the day crept into late afternoon, the group started cleaning up their areas to close up the campsite for the night.  Whatever they found would remain at the site overnight until the Iraqi Chief of Antiquities arrived in the morning.  They locked up their findings in a large metal toolbox, like the kind used on construction sites to keep thieves away from the expensive power tools.  Like back home, thieves were known to somehow get at them. 
    The eight-member troop who comprised the official entourage left in the minibus for the hotel.  The translator, Amir al Rashid, returned to