CHAPTER 42
Six months later…
At four o’clock in the morning, the alarm rang. Leila sighed and whacked the off button, then sat up and slowly blinked. The bedroom was quiet, the only sound in the apartment coming from the spluttering coffee maker in the kitchen, which was set to turn on at the same time as her alarm.
She picked up her phone and switched it on, then stood and padded into the bathroom. After brushing and braiding her hair, she slathered on a layer of sunscreen, then threw on her work clothes and headed for the kitchen where her coffee waited.
Grateful the aroma of coffee overpowered the tangy stench of the frying pan soaking next to the sink, she leaned against the counter, holding the mug with both hands, and took a sip. As the liquid warmed her throat, her gaze wandered around the living room. She should pick up that throw blanket crumpled on the floor. And maybe reorganize her overflowing knitting basket. She should also straighten the frame of the picture of her and Xander that hung on the wall above the couch. Ugh. The floor needed vacuuming and the bookshelf probably needed dusting, too.
Remembering her phone, she picked it up and checked it for messages. No updates from Xander. She released a long sigh. The last she heard was that a judge was reviewing the case. Again.
Her heart twisted. The last six months had been torture as the case against Xander kept looking worse and worse. And all she could do was wait, helpless, for the news that his court date had been scheduled. Aside from giving her statements, there was nothing more she could do.
Chin up, Xander would tell her.
She swallowed against the painful lump in her throat. The clock showed four-forty, so she set her empty mug on the counter, threw on the hoodie—one of Xander’s—that hung by the door, grabbed her keys, and left for work.
• • •
“GPR scans show possible subterranean passages,” Leila said, pointing at the spot on the large sheet spread out on the table in front of her. She stood in the shade of a tent set up in the Saqqara necropolis, a few hundred yards away from the crumbling step pyramid. With her stood Dr. El-Baz from Cairo University, the Minister of Antiquities, and her assistant, a Cairo University student named Omar.
Her voice shook with excitement. They were close to yet another sensational discovery. “That would be in line from the text on Medjay Papyrus 129 and Medjay Papyrus 262.”
Dr. El-Baz nodded. “The texts were quite clear about the tomb being on the south side of the necropolis.”
“Where’re the transcripts?” Omar muttered, flipping through a pile of papers.
“I think I have a digital copy,” the Minister of Antiquities said, poking the screen of his tablet.
For a moment, Leila expected Professor Soliman to speak. His voice would have gone up an octave. He would be bouncing on his feet. But since his confession in the Aegean, no one dared speak his name.
It was amazing she was even here. After she’d been home for a few weeks, she’d gotten back to work. And yet, even as she stood here, she had to push aside the nagging thought that she was an impostor. A fraud. Only here to play a pawn in someone’s deadly game of revenge. And yet, here she stood, in a meeting with a professor from the University of Cairo and the real live Minister of Antiquities. She seemed to be the only one putting herself into question. She wasn’t an impostor. After all, she could do all this blindfolded. Except, what would she want to do that for?
“Ah, yes,” the minister piped up as he found the file he was looking for. “The elusive Nefertiti. We just might have found her at last. Continue with the scans but focus on the southwest side. I want a perfect map before we start excavating. We need to focus on digging out our friend Imhotep safely, anyway.”
After the minister and Dr. El-Baz had left, Leila rolled up the sheet and looked toward the desert, the yellow sand stretching out as far as she could see.
When things had settled down after her return, Dr. El-Baz had gotten a team together and they ventured back to the Sinai Peninsula where they located and dug out The Archive—and what was left of Bastet. While there was nothing they could have done for Bastet, The Archive had been more stable than the rest of the tunneling, miraculously sparing most of the documents inside.
The scrolls were everything Leila had hoped for—detailed descriptions of tomb locations. And there were hundreds of them. After some discussion with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, they decided to start locating the tombs, one by one.
Imhotep was the first on the list. It took a few weeks of deciphering and poking around, but in the end, it was found exactly where Medjay Scroll 120 had described it. The long-lost tomb of the ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep had been found in Saqqara.
Extraordinary treasures by the thousands waited inside, untouched by time. Imhotep himself rested peacefully in his gilded sarcophagus. At last a missing piece of the history of Egypt could be filled.
“You coming?” Omar’s voice cut into her thoughts. She turned to him as he pulled on a pair of ragged leather gloves. “I’m going to run another scan.” He tilted his head toward the machine that looked like a large yellow lawnmower with a screen on the handlebar.
Leila pointed to an area of sand. “You’ll want to start at the orange markers over there.”
Omar nodded and headed toward the spot she’d indicated.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she called after him, then lifted the water bottle and dumped it over her head, sighing in relief as the cool water splashed over her hair. She wiped the water from her eyes and turned around to join Omar, then stopped, her heart in her throat.
A figure in black watched her, perched on top of a crumbling rock wall. With his face covered by a scarf, she couldn’t tell who it was. The lean build hinted at Peteese or Pihor, but she hadn’t heard anything from the Medjay since Faris’s death. They seemed to have vanished into the shadows.
The figure pointed to the left.
She checked to see if Omar was watching, but he was busy shoveling dirt to smooth out the path for the GPR machine. She turned back toward the figure and blinked. He was gone. Frowning, she scanned the area, but all she saw were rocks, sand, and ruins.
Well, that’s a bit creepy. She looked left, toward the dig house, and scrunched her lips to one side. What were the Medjay up to now?
She grabbed the rolled-up maps, told Omar she needed to check on something, and marched toward the building, her heart pounding as she wondered what was waiting for her inside. Were they angry about her using the scrolls to find more tombs? But then, they hadn’t shown any resistance as Leila and the team collected the scrolls from the cave rubble.
A part of her was disappointed they had backed off. They could have made a different arrangement. She did want to save artifacts. The problem was the requirement to break into houses to get them, and she was done doing that. For good. Thankfully, it wasn’t a difficult habit to break.
She stepped into the dig house, the cool air making her skin prickle. It was quiet, with most workers still digging and hauling sand outdoors. She walked down the hall and peered into the lab. Everything looked normal. Why had the Medjay been pointing at the house, then?
Figuring she might as well do some categorizing and cool off a little while she was here, she crossed the lab and dropped the tube behind a monitor. She plopped into the chair and swiveled as she waited for the computer to fire back up. The screen flickered to life.
Her foot nudged something beneath the desk. Frowning, she looked down and stared at the plain brown cardboard box at her feet. Who put that there?
Realization dawned on her. She picked up the box and set it on the desk, then peered inside.
Nestled in a bed of white cotton, a metal cobra head hissed up at her.
“No way,” Leila whispered. She jumped up and found a pair of latex gloves, snapped them over her hands, and picked up the cobra, turning it over to study all sides. Hieroglyphics engraved the back of the snake, ending in a round empty hole. Possibly one of the coolest things she’d ever held. It was easy to imagine, polished and shining, sitting on top of a pharaoh’s staff as he surveyed his court from his golden throne.
A note in the box caught her eye. She picked it up and scanned the hieroglyphics scrawled on the paper.
