DR. MAURA ISLES could not decide whether to stay or to flee.

She lingered in the shadows of the Pilgrim Hospital parking lot, well beyond the glare of the klieg lights, beyond the circle of TV cameras. She had no wish to be spotted, and most local reporters would recognize the striking woman whose pale face and bluntly cut black hair had earned her the nickname “Queen of the Dead”. As yet no one had noticed Maura’s arrival, and not a single camera was turned in her direction. Instead, the dozen reporters were fully focused on a white van that had just pulled up at the hospital’s lobby entrance to unload its famous passenger. The van’s rear doors swung open and a lightning storm of camera flashes lit up the night as the celebrity patient was gently lifted out of the van and placed onto a hospital gurney. This patient was a media star whose newfound fame far outshone any mere medical examiner’s. Tonight Maura was merely part of the awestruck audience, drawn here for the same reason the reporters had converged like frenzied groupies outside the hospital on a warm Sunday night.

All were eager to catch a glimpse of Madam X.

Maura had faced reporters many times before, but the rabid hunger of this mob alarmed her. She knew that if some new prey wandered into their field of vision, their attention could shift in an instant, and tonight she was already feeling emotionally bruised and vulnerable. She considered escaping the scrum by turning around and climbing back into her car. But all that awaited her at home was a silent house and perhaps a few too many glasses of wine to keep her company on a night when Daniel Brophy could not. Lately there were far too many such nights, but that was the bargain she had struck by falling in love with him. The heart makes its choices without weighing the consequences. It doesn’t look ahead to the lonely nights that follow.

The gurney carrying Madam X rolled into the hospital and the wolf pack of reporters chased after it. Through the glass lobby doors, Maura saw bright lights and excited faces, while outside in the parking lot, she stood alone.

She followed the entourage into the building.

The gurney rolled through the lobby, past hospital visitors who stared in astonishment, past excited hospital staff waiting with their camera phones to snap photos. The parade moved on, turning down the hallway and toward Diagnostic Imaging. But at an inner doorway, only the gurney was allowed through. A hospital official in suit and tie stepped forward and blocked the reporters from going any farther.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to stop you right here,” he said. “I know you all want to watch this, but the room’s very small.” He raised his hands to silence the disappointed grumbles. “My name is Phil Lord. I’m the public relations officer for Pilgrim Hospital and we’re thrilled to be part of this study, since a patient like Madam X comes along only every, well, two thousand years.” He smiled at the expected laughter. “The CT scan won’t take long, so if you’re willing to wait, one of the archaeologists will come out immediately afterwards to announce the results.” He turned to a pale man of about forty who’d retreated into a corner, as though hoping he would not be noticed. “Dr. Robinson, before we start, would you like to say a few words?”

Addressing this crowd was clearly the last thing the bespectacled man wanted to do, but he gamely took a breath and stepped forward, nudging his drooping glasses back up the bridge of his beakish nose. This archaeologist bore no resemblance at all to Indiana Jones. With his receding hairline and studious squint, he looked more like an accountant caught in the unwelcome glare of the cameras. “I’m Dr. Nicholas Robinson,” he said. I’m curator at –“

“Could you speak up, Doctor?” one of the reporters called out.

“Oh, sorry.” Dr. Robinson cleared his throat. “I’m curator at the Crispin Museum here in Boston. We are immensely grateful that Pilgrim Hospital has so generously offered to perform this CT scan of Madam X. It’s an extraordinary opportunity to catch an intimate glimpse into the past, and judging by the size of this crowd, you’re all as excited as we are. My colleague Dr. Josephine Pulcillo, who is an Egyptologist, will come out to speak to you after the scan is completed. She’ll announce the results and answer any questions then.”

“When will Madam X go on display for the public?” a reporter called out.

“Within the week, I expect,” said Robinson. “The new exhibit’s already been built and –“

“Any clues to her identity?”

“Why hasn’t she been on display before?”

“Could she be royal?”

“I don’t know,” said Robinson, blinking rapidly under the assault of so many questions. “We still need to confirm it’s a female.”

“You found it six months ago, and you still don’t know the sex?”

“These analyses take time.”

“One glance oughta do it,” a reporter said, and the crowd laughed.

“It’s not as simple as you think,” said Robinson, his glasses slipping down his nose again. “At two thousand years old, she’s extremely fragile and she must be handled with great care. I found it nerve-wracking enough just transporting her here tonight, in that van. Our first priority as a museum is preservation. I consider myself her guardian, and it’s my duty to protect her. That’s why we’ve taken our time coordinating this scan with the hospital. We move slowly, and we move with care.”

“What do you hope to learn from this CT scan tonight, Dr. Robinson?”

Robinson’s face suddenly lit up with enthusiasm. “Learn? Why, everything! Her age, her health. The method of her preservation. If we’re fortunate, we may even discover the cause of her death.”

“Is that why the medical examiner’s here?”

The whole group turned like a multi-eyed creature and stared at Maura, who had been standing at the back of the room. She felt the familiar urge to back away as the TV cameras swung her way.

“Dr. Isles,” a reporter called out, “are you here to make a diagnosis?”

“Why is the M.E.’s office involved?” another asked.

That last question needed an immediate answer, before the issue got twisted by the press.

Maura said, firmly: “The medical examiner’s office is not involved. It’s certainly not paying me to be here tonight.”

“But you are here,” said Channel 5’s blonde hunk, whom Maura had never liked.

“At the invitation of the Crispin Museum. Dr. Robinson thought it might be helpful to have a medical examiner’s perspective on this case. So he called me last week to ask if I wanted to observe the scan. Believe me, any pathologist would jump at this chance. I’m as fascinated by Madam X as you are, and I can’t wait to meet her.” She looked pointedly at the curator. “Isn’t it about time to begin, Dr. Robinson?”

She’d just tossed him an escape line, and he grabbed it. “Yes. Yes, it’s time. If you’ll come with me, Dr. Isles.”

She cut through the crowd and followed him into the imaging department. As the door closed behind them, shutting them off from the press, Robinson blew out a long sigh.

“God, I’m terrible at public speaking,” he said. “Thank you for ending that ordeal.”

“I’ve had practice. Way too much of it.”

They shook hands, and he said: “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr. Isles. Mr. Crispin wanted to meet you as well, but he had hip surgery a few months ago and he still can’t stand for long periods of time. He asked me to say hello.”

“When you invited me, you didn’t warn me I’d have to walk through that mob.”

“The press?” Robinson gave a pained look. “They’re a necessary evil.”

“Necessary for whom?”

“Our survival as a museum. Since the article about Madam X, our ticket sales have gone through the roof. And we haven’t even put her on display yet.”

Robinson led her into a warren of hallways. On this Sunday night, the diagnostic imaging department was quiet and the rooms they passed were dark and empty.

“It’s going to get a little crowded in there,” said Robinson. “There’s hardly space for even a small group.”

“Who else is watching?”

“My colleague Josephine Pulcillo; the radiologist Dr. Brier; and a CT tech. Oh, and there’ll be a camera crew.”

“Someone you hired?”

“No. They’re from the Discovery Channel.”

She gave a startled laugh. “Now I’m really impressed.”

“It does mean, though, that we have to watch our language.” He stopped outside the door labeled CT, and said softly: “I think they may be already filming.”

They quietly slipped into the CT viewing room, where the camera crew was, indeed, recording as Dr. Brier explained the technology they were about to use.

“CT is short for computed tomography. Our machine shoots X-rays at the subject from thousands of different angles. The computer then processes that information and generates a three-dimensional image of the internal anatomy. You’ll see it on this monitor. It’ll look like a series of cross-sections, as if we’re actually cutting the body into slices.”

As the taping continued, Maura edged her way to the viewing window. There, peering through the glass, she saw Madam X for the first time.

In the rarefied world of museums, Egyptian mummies were the undisputed rock stars. Their display cases were where you’d usually find the schoolchildren gathered, faces up to the glass, every one of them fascinated by a rare glimpse of death. Seldom did modern eyes encounter a human corpse on display, unless it wore the acceptable countenance of a mummy. The public loved mummies, and Maura was no exception. She stared, transfixed, even though what she actually saw was nothing more than a human-shaped bundle resting in an open crate, its flesh concealed beneath ancient strips of linen. Mounted over the face was a cartonnage mask with the painted face of a woman with haunting dark eyes.

But then another woman in the CT room caught Maura’s attention. Wearing cotton gloves, the young woman leaned into the crate, removing layers of Ethafoam packing from around the mummy. Ringlets of black hair fell around her face. She straightened and shoved her hair back, revealing eyes as dark and striking as those painted on the mask. Her Mediterranean features could well have appeared on any Egyptian temple painting, but her clothes were thoroughly modern: skinny blue jeans and a Live Aid T-shirt.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” murmured Dr. Robinson. He’d moved beside Maura, and for a moment she wondered if he was referring to Madam X or to the young woman. “She appears to be in excellent condition. I just hope the body inside is as well preserved as those wrappings.”

“How old do you think she is? Do you have an estimate?”

“We sent off a swatch of the outer wrapping for Carbon-14 analysis. It just about killed our budget to do it, but Josephine insisted. The results came back as second century B.C.”

“That’s the Ptolemaic period, isn’t it?”

He responded with a pleased smile. “You know your Egyptian dynasties.”

“I was an Anthropology major in college, but I’m afraid I don’t remember much beyond that and the Yanomamo tribe.”

“Still, I’m impressed.”

She stared at the wrapped body, marveling that what lay in that crate was over two thousand years old. What a journey it had taken, across an ocean, across millennia, all to end up lying on a CT table in a Boston hospital, gawked at by the curious. “Are you going to leave her in the crate for the scan?” she asked.

“We want to handle her as little as possible. The crate won’t get in the way. We’ll still get a good look at what lies under that linen.”

“So you haven’t taken even a little peek?”

“You mean have I unwrapped part of her?” His mild eyes widened in horror. “God, no. Archaeologists would have done that a hundred years ago, maybe, and that’s exactly how they ended up damaging so many specimens. There are probably layers of resin under those outer wrappings, so you can’t just peel it all away. You might have to chip through it. It’s not only destructive, it’s disrespectful. I’d never do that.” He looked through the window at the dark-haired young woman. “And Josephine would kill me if I did.”

“That’s your colleague?”

“Yes. Dr. Pulcillo.”

“She looks like she’s about sixteen.”

“Doesn’t she? But she’s smart as a whip. She’s the one who arranged this scan. And when the hospital attorneys tried to put a stop to it, Josephine managed to push it through anyway.”

“Why would the attorneys object?”

“Seriously? Because this patient couldn’t give the hospital her informed consent.”

Maura laughed in disbelief. “They wanted informed consent from a mummy?”

“When you’re a lawyer, every i must be dotted. Even when the patient’s been dead for a few thousand years.”

Dr. Pulcillo had removed all the packing materials, and she joined them in the viewing room and shut the connecting door. The mummy now lay exposed in its crate, awaiting the first barrage of X-rays.

“Dr. Robinson?” said the CT tech, fingers poised over the computer keyboard. “We need to provide the required patient information before we can start the scan. What shall I use as the birthdate?”

The curator frowned. “Oh, gosh. Do you really need a birthdate?”

“I can’t start the scan until I fill in these blanks. I tried the year zero, and the computer wouldn’t take it.”

“Why don’t we use yesterday’s date? Make it one day old.”

“Okay. Now the program insists on knowing the sex. Male, female, or other?”

Robinson blinked. “There’s a category for other?”

The tech grinned. “I’ve never had the chance to check that particular box.”

“Well then, let’s use it tonight. There’s a woman’s face on the mask, but you never know. We can’t be sure of the gender until we scan it.”

“Okay,” said Dr. Brier, the radiologist. “We’re ready to go.”

Dr. Robinson nodded. “Let’s do it.”

They gathered around the computer monitor, waiting for the first images to appear. Through the window, they could see the table feed Madam X’s head into the doughnut-shaped opening, where she was bombarded by x-rays from multiple angles. Computerized tomography was not new medical technology, but its use as an archaeological tool was relatively recent. No one in that room had ever before watched a live CT scan of a mummy, and as they all crowded in, Maura was aware of the TV camera trained on their faces, ready to capture their reactions. Standing beside her, Nicholas Robinson rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, radiating enough nervous energy to infect everyone in the room. Maura felt her own pulse quicken as she craned for a better view of the monitor. The first image that appeared drew only impatient sighs.

“It’s just the shell of the crate,” said Dr. Brier.

Maura glanced at Robinson and saw that his lips were pressed together in thin lines. Would Madam X turn out to be nothing more than an empty bundle of rags? Dr. Pulcillo stood beside him, looking just as tense, gripping the back of the radiologist’s chair as she stared over his shoulder, awaiting a glimpse of anything recognizably human, anything to confirm that inside those bandages was a cadaver.

The next image changed everything. It was a startlingly bright disk, and the instant it appeared, the observers all took in a sharply simultaneous breath.

Bone.

Dr. Brier said, “That’s the top of the cranium. Congratulations, you’ve definitely got an occupant in there.”

Robinson and Pulcillo gave each other happy claps on the back. “This is what we were waiting for!” he said.

Pulcillo grinned. “Now we can finish building that exhibit.”

“Mummies!” Robinson threw his head back and laughed. “Everyone loves mummies!”

New slices appeared on the screen, and their attention snapped back to the monitor as more of the cranium appeared, its cavity filled not with brain matter but with ropy strands that looked like a knot of worms.

“Those are linen strips,” Dr. Pulcillo murmured in wonder, as though this was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

“There’s no brain matter,” said the CT tech.

“No, the brain was usually evacuated.”

“Is it true they’d stick a hook up through the nose and yank the brain out that way?” the tech asked.

“Almost true. You can’t really yank out the brain because it’s too soft. They probably used an instrument to whisk it around until it was liquefied. Then they’d tilt the body so the brain would drip out the nose.”

“Oh man, that’s gross,” said the tech. But he was hanging on Pulcillo’s every word.

“They might leave the cranium empty or they might pack it with linen strips, as you see here. And frankincense.”

“What is frankincense, anyway? I’ve always wondered about that.”

“A fragrant resin. It comes from a very special tree in Africa. Valued quite highly in the ancient world.”

“So that’s why one of the three wise men brought it to Bethlehem.”

Dr. Pulcillo nodded. “It would have been a treasured gift.”

“Okay,” Dr. Brier said. “We’ve moved below the level of the orbits. There, you can see the upper jaw, and …” He paused, frowning at an unexpected density.

Robinson murmured, “Oh, my goodness.”

“It’s something metallic,” said Dr. Brier. “It’s in the oral cavity.”

“It could be gold leaf,” said Pulcillo. “In the Greco-Roman era, they’d sometimes place gold-leaf tongues inside the mouth.”

Robinson turned to the TV camera, which was recording every remark. “There appears to be metal inside the mouth. That would correlate with our presumptive date during the Greco-Roman era –“

“Now what is this?” exclaimed Dr. Brier.

Maura’s gaze shot back to the computer screen. A bright starburst had appeared within the mummy’s lower jaw, an image that stunned Maura because it should not be present in a corpse that was two thousand years old. She leaned closer, staring at a detail that would scarcely cause comment were this a body that had arrived fresh on the autopsy table. “I know this is impossible,” Maura said softly. “But you know what that looks like?”

The radiologist nodded. “It appears to be a dental filling.”