With the realization that her options for escape were rapidly decreasing, she squirmed. Something cold and sharp grazed her throat, and she stopped. It wasn’t a gun, but it could still inflict a fatal wound to the side of her neck if she made a wrong move.
Amir gave the rope around her wrists a final tug and then leaned in so close she could feel his breath against her cold, damp skin.
“Want to hear a secret?” he whispered.
Leila closed her eyes and shook her head but stopped when the blade cut into her skin.
“I was there.”
She forced her eyes open. “Where?” she whispered, too scared to move.
“At the accident. When your father died.”
Leila’s breath caught in her throat. He was there? With Weston. The one face Xander couldn’t recognize from his foggy memories.
Amir came to stand before her, keeping his knife firmly against her throat. “You see, I knew Weston didn’t have the guts to get the papyrus back. He would have let them go. He was weak. Scared.”
Leila’s eyes welled up with tears as his words sunk in. He had gotten away with it for eight years. He had managed to put the blame on Xander. Why was he telling her now?
“So I took control of the situation. I used the crowbar from Weston’s car. I showed them both what happens to people who mess with my family.”
“Why?” she choked.
“He got what was coming to him,” Amir snarled. “In addition to the wrongs he had done against my father, he organized a break-in and was in possession of my father’s property.”
“How does that make it right? What thing is worth more than someone’s life?”
“When someone steals from you and threatens your family, you’d do everything you could to protect them. Or are you not that kind of person?” He tilted his head, mocking her with a look of feigned concern.
“Threaten you? Your father is a crook!” Leila spat. “If he cared about his family, he would have chosen a more respectable occupation.”
“Your father ruined him,” Amir snarled, his scar twisting across his face as he glared at her. “He stole his wife, his reputation. So I ruined your father. And now I’ll ruin you, starting with your face.”
He lowered the knife, then placed his hand on her throat. Leila twisted her head away from him as he brought his knife back up and placed the sharp tip above her brow.
“How about a nice, bloody gash across your right eye?” he said, applying pressure to the point. “Then, I’ll even add one on the left to match. You won’t be needing your sight much longer anyway, okhti aleaziza.”
The tip broke her skin, the pain intensifying into a burning sting, tempting her to cry out for mercy, to beg him to end it all now. His grisly, twisted face was the last thing she saw before she clenched her eyes shut, cringing as hot liquid trickled down her nose.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Xander reached the top of the concrete staircase and headed for the single steel door on the landing. Without bothering to knock, he burst through. He stopped in the center of the dark room, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the bluish glow illuminating from the wall of monitors before him.
The two security officers observing the cameras swiveled around.
“Oi, what’s going on down there?” one officer asked with a frown, his voice laced with disappointment. He brushed crumbs off his protruding stomach. “Jones and I were about to take Code Ninety-nine.”
“You can have your tea and biscuits later, Higgins,” Xander said, rolling his eyes. While he understood they all had expected an uneventful evening, this was not the time to be thinking about a tea break. “We need to find out where Sterling’s got to.” Xander seized a chair and rolled it across the room. He came to a stop in front of the wall of monitors.
“Already got stood up?” The lanky officer Mustafa snickered as he rolled over to join them.
Xander glared at him then turned back to Higgins. “Could you start at the Tut exhibit?”
“You want to see a replay?” Higgins grinned.
“Stop when I tell you.” Xander made a mental note never to make-out in a high-security area ever again.
Higgins hit a few keys and the video footage appeared on the large central monitor. With a few clicks of the mouse, he began to scroll back in time.
Xander pointed at the screen when they reached a frame where Leila lingered alone in the hall. “There, there! Hit play,” he said and leaned forward.
Leila paced in front of the face mask for a few moments, staring at her notes. Her lips moved as if she were reciting the words. After a satisfied nod, she straightened her shoulders then walked back toward the main hall. Nothing out of the ordinary so far.
“Right, next room,” Xander urged.
The screen went black then flickered to the view of the foyer. There Leila stopped as Karl joined her. Xander frowned as they talked, taking note of how Karl twisted his hands, flailed his arms, and bounced in place. Karl usually was nervous or complaining about one thing or another, but here he seemed downright panicked.
To Xander’s surprise, they walked over to the nearby lift and went inside. The doors slid shut, blocking them from view.
Xander furrowed his brow. Karl hadn’t shown himself during Soliman’s speech, either. “What are those two up to?”
Without needing to be asked, Higgins switched to the view from inside the lift. Leila swiped her key card and hit a button. All seemed normal within the small, square cabin as she stood with her arms crossed and Karl scratched at his head. They arrived at their floor and exited.
“Can we find out what level the lift went to?” Xander asked.
“The basement,” Mustafa piped up through a mouthful of crisps as he rolled back to his desk. “She used her key card in the lift to gain access to the labs.”
Higgins began to flip through all the different basement video footage, yet each room and hallway was empty.
