“Before I start, I need to apologize.”
She frowned. “For what?”
“For lying to everyone.” He watched her steadily. “I’m not Neal Coleman.”
Chapter Eleven
Leila choked on her tea. What? He couldn’t be serious. He was pulling her leg. He had to be. She managed to swallow down her tea, set her cup down, and even started to smile, but he glanced down at his hands and went on.
“The real Neal Coleman is actually a history professor at a university in Sao Paulo. I’ve never been on a dig before. And I’m a horrible actor. It’s hard to pretend to know what I’m doing here. Which you caught on to pretty quick.”
Her smile vanished. This was getting stranger by the minute. “Then I’m very confused now.”
Neal produced his wallet, flipped it open, and handed it to her. The three large, blue letters were unmistakable. FBI. She glanced down at his name and biometric picture then up at the shiny gold badge above the ID card.
“Mark Coleman?” Leila read. Her eyes flicked back up at him for an explanation.
“For the sake of consistency, it’s still Neal. He’s my brother, who inherited my father’s love of all things old and truly is an archaeologist.”
“Okay. Neal.” Leila closed her eyes and put her fingertips to her forehead, trying to comprehend this information. Why was he even telling her this? “And what is an FBI agent doing in Egypt, pretending to be his brother?” She couldn’t stop herself from raising her voice. How dare he use someone else’s field school certificate when hundreds on the waiting list would kill to be here right now?
“Good question. First, I’m an FBI International Operative stationed in London,” Neal began matter-of-factly. “Conducting an investigation is considerably more difficult from a distance. I could rely on local Egyptian police for help, but only if they are so inclined. We don’t even have an office in Egypt, which is why I decided to take some PTO and come down to continue the investigation myself. It was Soliman who wanted me to stay undercover, so we came up with the idea for me to pose as my brother. He didn’t want my presence to bring any negative attention to his excavation. Understandably.”
Leila wet her lips, clueless as to what this could be about. “So, why do you want to talk to me?”
Silently, he returned his wallet to his pocket then took a manila folder off the stack of files on the table.
Her heart pounded as he flipped through the folder. She couldn’t be in trouble. She’d never cheated on her taxes nor murdered someone. She didn’t know anyone who would have done such, either. At least, she didn’t think she did.
“My station received an anonymous tip a few weeks ago,” he went on without glancing up. “The tip suggested the death of an American citizen that occurred a few years ago—and was ruled an accident—was actually no accident at all.”
He paused then stared her in the eye. “Tell me about your dad.”
“My dad?” The blood rushed from her face. If Neal was investigating an accident, it couldn’t possibly be her father’s. There wasn’t anything suspicious about that.
“He’s been dead for eight years.” She attempted to sound casual, but her voice threatened to shake with every word. What if she said something wrong? He could use it against her.
“He was an archaeologist, correct?”
“Yes.”
“How did your father die?” Neal asked. He leaned forward, placing his folded arms on the table.
She hesitated, searching for the right words. What could she say? It was an accident. She wasn’t even there when it happened.
“He was being driven home,” she started, her vision blurred as tears filled the corners. “Because his rental car had broken down.”
Neal’s features softened with understanding. She must have said the right thing.
“Why do you want to know?”
“There’s no easy way to tell you this.” He took in a deep sigh. “But I’ll get to the point. After in-depth reexamination of the reports, the pictures of his injuries, and the autopsy… I’ve come to a different conclusion. It wasn’t an accident. Your father was murdered.”
Leila stared at Neal, her mouth gaping in disbelief. “What? But how? Why?” she stammered, trying not to sound angry or raise her voice or, worse, burst into tears.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Neal said, speaking slowly as if to soften the blow. “And I’ll need your help to get to the bottom of this. So far I’ve only been able to read the police reports. But what they state about the scene of the accident doesn’t add up one hundred percent.
“Harrison had obviously hit a deer with his car. Its blood was on the windshield and its carcass was found dead nearby. But there were markings on the vehicle, and on your father, forensics couldn’t quite clarify. Although suspicious to some extent, there was no other immediate evidence to explain it was something other than an unfortunate accident where Harrison lost control of the car and drove off the road into the gorge.”
“But why did they put all that evidence aside?”
“Well, there wasn’t any apparent motive. Harrison suffered a severe head injury, which resulted in a case of retrograde amnesia. He remembers nothing from that day.”
How convenient. “What did the anonymous tip say, then?”
“The tip didn’t offer any other information other than it had been a murder, so I did some research and I may have found something after all.”
“What?”
“A motive.”
Leila’s skin prickled. She rubbed her arms, though it did nothing to rid her of the chill.
Neal’s gaze remained fixed on the papers before him. “There was one thing missing that your father had in his possession the night of the accident. An ancient Egyptian papyrus. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this?”
Leila shook her head. First Soliman and now Neal? She’d never heard of the papyrus before, and within a few days, two people had asked her about its whereabouts. Leila clenched her teeth. Soliman had prepared her for this. He knew exactly why Neal was here, and it had nothing to do with standing in for the sponsor.
When she didn’t answer, Neal continued, “The police were informed of its disappearance after the accident by the British Museum. For years they worked to trace it down. It seems the police simply didn’t put two and two together at the time.”
