Leila bit her lip, not wanting to know what the hard way would be. From what she had seen so far, it wasn’t pretty. But as she thought of the golden halls and sealed doors beneath the Saqqara sands, she knew she couldn’t let Amir get anywhere near the tomb.
“Neferkheri’s tomb isn’t for sale.”
Amir’s upper lip twitched as if he were trying not to grimace. “Leila,” he said with a voice of reasoning. “You don’t have any other choice. I’ll find out where the tomb is. I will ruin your name.”
Knowing he was serious, she fixed her gaze on her lap. There had to be a way out of this; she just didn’t know how.
“No university or museum or organization will ever hire you,” he went on. “In fact, you’d probably go to prison. The smartest thing for you to do would be to cooperate. We could even work together. You would have a job with us. You would have an amazing new home. After all, you’re family.”
Her heart stopped and her head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you? I’m your brother.” His eyes glinted with mischievousness. “Okhti aleaziza.”
Dear sister? She knew enough Arabic to understand that. Scowling, she shook her head. This guy was full of it. “You are such a liar. And a creep.” None of it was true. It couldn’t be.
She jumped out of her chair, knocking it to the floor with a crash. With no particular destination in mind, just escape, she bolted for the door. She managed to make it partway out when Amir appeared at her side and grasped her wrist. He wrenched her back into the room and swung her around in a semi-circle, sending her tumbling to the floor.
“You want the hard way?” he screamed, spittle flying through the air. The toe of his leather shoe swung into her stomach. Leila cried out as fire burst through her abdomen. She curled into a ball, her hands covering her stomach, gasping for air.
Before he could kick her again, someone cried out, “Stop this!”
Despite the pain, Leila raised her head. That voice.
“How could you?” the woman said, holding onto Amir’s arm. Tears welled up in her eyes as her gaze anchored on Leila.
The room started to spin. Even though she hadn’t seen her mother in twenty years, the woman standing there looked exactly like the photographs. The same dark hair. The same olive skin. The same delicate nose. Only now there were wrinkles around her eyes and lips that hadn’t been there before.
But it couldn’t be. She was dead.
Was she hallucinating from the pain or—
“Leila,” Amir said with a honeyed voice, his eyes gleaming with triumph. “I believe you’re already acquainted with my step-mother?”
Chapter Twenty
Leila had no idea how long she spent curled up on the bed. The food that had been brought to her sat untouched on the dresser. She had no idea if she slept or not. The sun went down and the light gave way to darkness. The same way the darkness gradually withdrew to the soft light of dawn.
Alive. Her mother was alive.
The mattress springs creaked as she sat up and caressed her forehead until the dizziness went away. She drew her knees up to her chin and hugged her legs.
She didn’t die. She left us. She left me.
What had possessed her mother to choose this family? Her dad never went anywhere without her photograph. He never saw other women. He mourned her for the rest of his life. And she was here. The entire time. Instead of raising her daughter, she spent twenty years with that sorry excuse for a human. Was Amir the product of her upbringing? Maybe she had been better off without her.
Then there was the question of how. Leila could remember the confusion on the boat, people screaming, pointing at the roiling water. Her mother had fallen in. People had seen her fall. She was gone.
Leila could remember sitting at the police station in Cairo afterward, hugging the ragged stuffed bunny she had once carried everywhere. She mostly went forgotten while her father talked with investigators.
She remembered staying with her Aunt Nur and Uncle Hani for what had probably been weeks. When her father came back for her, she cried at the sight of his solemn, weary face, defeated by the fruitless searching.
A gentle rapping of knuckles on wood brought Leila back to the present. The door creaked open and her mother padded into the room and stopped, one hand gripping her upper arm. Avoiding Leila’s gaze, her eyes flitted around the room.
“I would have come to you sooner,” her mother, Aisha, said softly, then walked to the bed. Kneeling, she held up a pale, shaking hand to take Leila’s. “But I didn’t know you were here. He should have never brought you.”
Leila slid her hand away. “Why did you leave us?”
Aisha lowered her head and folded her hands in her lap. “Like you, I didn’t ask to come here.”
Leila’s eyes dropped to the chain attached to her ankle then swept upward to meet her mother’s.
“That was installed after my third attempt to run away.”
Her stomach churned. Her mother had tried to leave, yet somehow there was no comfort in that thought.
“You’ve probably figured it out now. My death was faked,” Aisha whispered with glistening eyes. “Witnesses were paid to lie about what happened.”
“But why?”
“Faris, Amir’s father, is not someone who takes no for an answer.” A soft sigh escaped her lips. “Before I met your father, my parents arranged a marriage between me and Faris. I used all kinds of excuses to delay. I wanted to travel, to study, to work. Faris said he would wait for me. But after I met your father, I ran.”
Leila remained silent and hugged her legs tighter, letting this new side of the story sink in. She recalled the photograph with the unnamed man between her dad and Soliman. That must have been this Faris. Although his mouth had smiled, his eyes had not.
Her mother took a deep breath and continued. “No matter what we did, Faris kept finding ways to contact me. Phone calls, letters… somehow he always found me. Even when we were living in the US. Landon was never worried about it, so I just tried my best to ignore the issue.
“Then, when you were four, we planned to return to Egypt for an excavation. And I wanted my family to meet you.” She paused and smiled warmly, the same smile Leila recognized from the framed photograph her dad had always kept near, though this time her eyes seeped sadness. “I insisted on staying on the houseboat, thinking it would be harder for Faris to find us that way. I should have known better.”
“So you didn’t actually fall into the river,” Leila said, unsure of what to think of all this. It could very well be true. Amir was clearly capable of horrible things. The apple wouldn’t have fallen far from the tree.
