Taking the Veil
By J.A. Jance and Eric Van Lustbader
4/5
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About this ebook
In this short story from the thrilling anthology MatchUp, bestselling authors J.A. Jance and Eric Van Lustbader—along with their popular series characters Ali Reynolds and Bravo Shaw—team up for the first time ever.
J.A. Jance
J.A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ali Reynolds series, the J.P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, and the Walker Family series. Born in South Dakota and raised in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington. Visit her online at JAJance.com.
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Taking the Veil - J.A. Jance
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Taking the Veil, by J.A. Jance and Eric Van Lustbader, Simon & SchusterJ.A. JANCE AND ERIC VAN LUSTBADER
OF ALL THE TEAMS, THIS one may have had the most difficulty. Eric’s character, Braverman Bravo
Shaw is an accomplished medieval scholar and cryptanalyst, a solid East Coast kind of guy. Judith’s character is all western, born one afternoon while she was watching the news in Tucson. Her favorite female newscaster was not on that day. She later learned that the new thirtysomething news director had decided that, at age fifty-three, the woman had to go. That’s when ex-newscaster, Ali Reynolds, was born.
Like their characters, both writers live and breathe from different sides of the country. Further complicating things was the fact that collaboration was foreign to both of them. Neither had much worked with someone else on a story.
They’re both loners.
Their styles are quite different.
Eventually, though, they realized that those differences were actually strengths. Eric wrote a first draft, then Judith took it from there. In the end, despite all the hurdles, these two were the first, among the eleven teams, to finish their story, five months ahead of the deadline.
Not bad for a couple of loners.
You’re going to enjoy learning about—
Taking the Veil.
TAKING THE VEIL
BLACK HILLS, ARIZONA
1601
FRA IGNACIO WAS TIRED—EXHAUSTED, REALLY. He and his five fellow Jesuits had been on the run for the better part of a year. They had started in the Holy Land, where they had been sent on a secret mission by Pope Clement VIII to bring back to Rome the fabled Sudarium—the Veil of Saint Veronica—the cloth used to wipe the blood and sweat from the brow of Jesus on his way to the Crucifixion, imprinting his face on the fabric. He had been told that it had been unearthed in the Sinai by tomb raiders who had no idea of its significance to the Holy See, to the church itself.
Clement VIII had bought the holy relic from a merchant in the Levant. Fra Ignacio and his group had been dispatched from Rome to fetch it since the Holy Father trusted no one other than his beloved Jesuits to ensure that this Veronica, as it was sometimes called, was the genuine article as, over the years, any number of fakes had been foisted upon the Vatican.
He made contact with the merchant and the judicious biblical scholar, who had authenticated the Veronica for Clement VIII. He never saw the veil itself, for it was already housed in a quiverlike cylinder made of zinc, clad in three layers of copper, with a watertight seal at one end. Twelve days after