Heather Graham (30 page)

He stood after he handed the phone to her and walked naked like a great sleek cat to stare out the window.

She knew he would hear every word she said. Was he trusting her? she wondered.

“Hello,” she said nervously.

“Alex! I can’t believe I’ve gotten through to you! I’m going to talk fast, honey. I know D’Alesio must be holding you virtually a prisoner, and I know just as well that you can’t be in love with him. It has something to do with your dad, Alex, I know. But listen to me—I can help you find Jim ten times better than him, honey. We’ll find Jim and work on us, sweetheart, our marriage. I love you, honey. And I know you love me. Just give me the word, Alex, and I’ll come pick you up—with the authorities, so we won’t have any problems. Alex … are you there?”

Yes, she was there. She was holding the receiver so tightly it was amazing the plastic didn’t crack in her hand. Such a short time ago his words would have meant everything in the world. But now they meant nothing. Because Dan was right. She would be a fool ever to trust Wayne again. And more than that, she was fooling herself cruelly if she believed she could use anyone to make her forget Dan.

“Alex? Alex, damnit, answer me. I need you, Alex.”

She smiled slightly. There was already a peevish quality to Wayne’s voice. He
needed
her, not the way a man should need a woman but because she was a convenience to him at this time.

She glanced at the window to see that Dan was staring at her, arms crossed over his broad, dark-haired chest. His eyes were a challenge, but she wasn’t cowering to that challenge. She simply told the truth.

“Wayne, I’m sorry. I have nothing to say to you. I’m working with Dan and Ali. I appreciate you caring about Jim, but we have everything in hand. I—I don’t want to see you at all in Egypt.”

“You can’t mean that!” Wayne exploded. “Alex, I’m an Egyptologist too. If you’re going after that tomb, you need me, not a wise-ass reporter. You have no right to do this, Alex. I deserve to be in on that tomb with you. And I’m warning you, Jim has already disappeared. Something could happen to you, Alex. I want to see you. I—” He paused for a moment, as if realizing the tone of his statements. “I love you, Alex.”

“I’m sorry, Wayne,” she said again with real regret, “but I don’t love you anymore.”

“I don’t believe that!” Wayne said, his voice grating harshly. “That damn D’Alesio has done something—”

Dan suddenly strode back from the window and snatched the receiver from her hands. He spoke immediately into the mouthpiece. “You heard her, Randall. She doesn’t love you anymore. Now leave her alone.”

He placed the receiver down hard on the phone and glared at Alex. “Glad to see you can stick to a deal,” he said dryly. He turned away from her and headed for the bathroom. “Call room service for breakfast. Then get your things together—only what you’ll need in Luxor. Ali said he wanted to be out of here by ten. You can have the shower in five minutes.”

Alex watched as his swift, agile stride took him away from her. She heard the slam of the bathroom door and bit down hard on her lip to keep from crying.

I might have been a fool to have loved Wayne, she thought miserably, but I’m an absolute idiot to be so in love with that arrogant SOB. But I am. And he thinks he threatened me into keeping up my part of the deal. Wrong, Mr. D’Alesio. But I’m probably much better off with you believing that. I don’t think I could handle it if you knew the truth.

As he promised, he was out of the bathroom, freshly shaved and showered, in five minutes. She took a little longer.

They ate a private breakfast in tense silence. One hour later they were airborne in Ali’s private jet, headed for Lower Egypt.

Alex gazed impatiently out of their suite window in Luxor. Across the Nile was the Valley of the Kings.

It was exciting to have come this far. Long ago, before the modern Egyptians had built on this land, the ancient Theban pharaohs had lived and ruled here. There were beautiful temples to be seen on this side of the bank, more carefully cared for by the Egyptian government every year. The temple at Luxor was indeed fantastic; just north lay Karnak, with its multitude of awesome sanctuaries, pylons and temples. All were wonderful; you could close your eyes and feel the splendor and mystery of the pharaohs and a civilization over three thousand years old.

But across the Nile was the Valley of the Kings, the cliffs rising to the sky, housing the vast area of hewn tomb after tomb, a place where the fertility of the Nile had no middle growth; there was life and greenery, and then there was desert. And the city of the dead. The Valley of Kings and the Valley of the Queens. There were so many tombs that the cliffs were almost like gigantic anthills, with underground passages leading to more underground passages.

Alex suddenly bit hard on her knuckles, wondering with marked irritation why she didn’t seem to be able to unravel the puzzle facing her. And then she was swamped with depression. The Valley of the Kings had been so thoroughly searched. So many tombs had been found—those of Amenophis I, II and III, and the Thutmoses, Ramses III, Ay and Horemheb, Tutankhamen and even Hatshepshut, in the Valley of the Kings. Common graves had been found, tombs of noblemen had been found. It seemed impossible that Anelokep’s tomb hadn’t been discovered if it existed.

What was it that she was missing? she asked herself for the thousandth time. She didn’t believe that mountains of sand could be covering the entrance to the tomb; her father had believed one could almost walk right into it without bothering to dig! It had to be more like the picture puzzles in which you stared at a landscape and were supposed to find the shapes of twelve fish hidden within the lines of the trees.

The door suddenly opened and slammed. It was Dan, returning from his trip with Ali to the authorities.

“We have permission to set up in the Valley,” he told her stiffly.

“Wonderful,” Alex replied, her tone as distant. “Are we going to make our camp this afternoon?”

“No.” Dan shook his head. As she opened her mouth to ask why, he interrupted before she could speak. “You forget, Doctor, that we don’t know where we’re going yet. We need to stall for as much time as possible. And you can spend what’s left of the afternoon and evening studying your notes to see what else you can come up with.”

Alex turned back to stare out the window. “I don’t think I can stand studying those notes anymore,” she muttered.

“You have to,” Dan said quietly. “It’s the only chance we have.”

She winced, remembering that it was Jim, not a royal tomb, that they were really looking for. She did have to look at the notes; she had to solve the puzzle. Because she had to find Jim.

“All right,” she said glumly. “I’ll start again.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him turn toward the bedroom. As if he felt her looking at him, he answered her unspoken question. “I’m going to take a nap—for one, so that I don’t disturb you. And also because I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

You think you didn’t! Alex thought miserably. But she said nothing as he entered the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

For several moments she stayed where she was, staring out at the city, watching the still water of the Nile. Its surface was mirror smooth; there were no breezes to ripple the water.

How have we made such a mess of things? she wondered. She thought of how easy, how rapturous, how intimately comfortable it had been to live with Dan. What had gone wrong? How had everything become so stiff and distant? Was it merely because she had admitted to herself that she was in love with a man who was a loner, who wanted no shackles around his neck … no permanent involvement.

The fight had been over Wayne. But even after that fight, they had made love, and it had been both sweet and torrid. Which only went to prove, she thought sadly, that all problems certainly couldn’t be solved in bed. Except that she would gladly sleep with him again, because it was all that she had to hang on to.

But last night he hadn’t held her after they made love; they hadn’t curled together into the long hours of the night. He had risen, he had left her, he had returned to issue his decree, and then he had lain stiffly on his own side of the bed. And the foot between them had become miles by this morning.

Tears started to well in her eyes, and she issued an impatient oath. If they could only find Jim; if she could at least have her father. …

“If I’m going to find Jim,” she whispered aloud to herself, “I’m going to have to study until I find out what he knew.”

Thus determined, she drew out her work and laid her notes before her on the old English desk. Soon her brow was knit in concentration.

For some reason she kept reading over the references to Hatshepshut, the queen who had claimed herself pharaoh and had herself buried in the Valley of the Kings. Alex puzzled over two other references to past queens—one of the Nefertitis (there had been several) and a second “great wife,” Shenkah, of a little-known pharaoh.

Alex began to wonder if she was reading and interpreting the hieroglyphics correctly. The reference to Anelokep taken from one of the Karnak temple walls seemed very strange. It alluded to “the God Pharaoh”—the pharaoh when dead, reigning “between” Nefertiti and Shenkah. It didn’t make any sense.

She realized she was chewing the paint off her pencil and distastefully placed her pencil on her notes and stretched. Glancing at her watch, she realized she had been studying for several hours. She stood and yawned and walked back to the window to stare longingly out at the Nile.

Eventually her eyes turned rebelliously to the bedroom door. The man who had cost her a decent night’s sleep was in there comfortably napping, while she racked her brain! Damn him! She glanced out the window, then back to the street. Maybe what she needed was some breathing space. Perhaps she couldn’t think because her emotions were too involved. She was growing more and more worried about Jim, and she had discovered she was truly no longer in love with the ex-husband who had suddenly decided he wanted her back, while also discovering that she was desperately in love with the devil with whom she had made a blood pact.

Alex gnawed on her knuckle for a second, thinking he would be furious to wake and not find her in the room. She paled a little as she thought of the flaming temper he was capable of.

Then she smiled grimly. The hell with him. She was not his prisoner. She wanted to go downstairs and breathe the air of the Nile. She was certain Ali had plenty of men around. She would be safe. And if Dan didn’t like it, so much the better. He would learn that she didn’t simply follow his decrees.

With the decision made, she felt better. Grabbing her shoulder bag, she silently let herself out of the suite.

There was a row of shops near the hotel. After standing in front of the hotel and enjoying the air and the native hubbub of donkey-drawn carts and street hawkers, Alex turned her steps nonchalantly for the shops. Most of the antiquities displayed in the stores were fakes, but every once in a while it was possible to find something not only authentic but rare. A little browsing would be entertaining. But halfway down the street she froze in her tracks.

There was a man standing outside the first storefront, studying the display. He was differently dressed from the first time she had seen him—he was in a slightly rumpled European suit—but she would recognize his fat-jowled face and dark, beady eyes anywhere. Haman. Omar Khi Haman. And he wasn’t alone, she saw with rising panic. Zaid was with him, and another of the goon squad, both men looking equally out of place and lethal in awkward business suits.

Alex hesitated only a second in her frozen state before spinning on her heels and starting back for the hotel at a brisk walk, looking studiously over her shoulder. She didn’t believe Haman had seen her, but after her experiences with him, she couldn’t control the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Her walk turned to a run, and she glanced over her shoulder to see if he was in pursuit.

The street had suddenly become crowded. She couldn’t see anyone chasing her, but neither could she see Haman or his men standing in front of the shop any longer. She scanned the crowd quickly, and her heart seemed to stop. Zaid had seen her. And Haman. They were pushing through the crowd. Haman was puffing and moving slowly. Zaid was fast gaining ground on her.

Half tripping in her nervous haste, Alex looked back again as she reached the door to the hotel lobby.

The door flew open without her pulling it. A hand suddenly descended on her arm, and she attempted to scream. Only a gasp came out. But as she stared stupidly at the hand on her arm, wondering how on earth Haman could have gotten in front of her, she realized it wasn’t he or his goons after all. The flesh on the hand was pale.

She looked up slowly—into Wayne’s face. Wayne’s handsome face. Wayne’s flashing green eyes. Wayne, only Wayne. …

Strange, but she really didn’t feel a thing. It had been over a year since he had touched her, and she could honestly look at the face that should have been on a magazine cover without feeling a single thing. His touch meant nothing. Only one man in the world could make her blood sing with a look from devilish dark eyes, with a husky laugh, with the lightest of touches.

“Wayne,” she said distantly. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled, and she vaguely thought that he knew he had an endearing all-American smile. “I’ve come for you, Alex. I know that D’Alesio was forcing you to say those things on the phone this morning.”

For a second she felt her jaw drop. He was so sure of himself, smug, confident. He couldn’t believe she had fallen out of love with him. It was probably unthinkable to Wayne that any woman would ever fall out of love with him.

“Wayne,” she said patiently, “no one forced me to say what I did. I’m with Dan because I want to be. I don’t want to see you now, or ever again.”

His smile faltered, then regained its brilliance. “Alex, I can’t believe that. D’Alesio has some kind of hold over you, but we’ll break that hold. You’re coming with me, and then we’ll find Jim.”

“Wayne.” His grip upon her was tightening painfully, and she impatiently tried to break it. “Wayne, I’m not hypnotized, I’m not under anyone’s hold—”