Mummy Dearest: The XOXO Files, Book 1 (11 page)

“Just so you know, the mummy did that.” Fraser was firm on that point, no doubt thinking of his insurance premiums.

“I know,” Babe—Jill—said. “He called and told me when he got home. He said he gave you a good run for your money anyway.”

“Literally,” I said.

Fraser put in, “Yeah, he pretty much ran us all over the damned town. Is everybody in Walsh in on the joke?”

“Not everybody, no.” Jill struggled to hide a smile. “My cousin Jack runs the Blue Moon.”

Fraser muttered to me, “I
knew
that guy went inside that joint.”

Win some, lose some. I nodded acknowledgment. I should have let him chase the mummy out the back. Fraser might have caught him and saved us a few hair-raising moments at the museum last night.

“Where did he come up with that costume?” I asked.

“Oh, Ted used to run the theater next door. He’s got access to lots of costumes. He could have shown up as Marie Antoinette if I’d needed it.”

I was trying to think of what circumstances would have required Marie Antoinette making an appearance when Fraser said, “Let me see if we’ve got this straight. You hired some guy named Ted to follow us around and pretend to be a mummy?”

“Ted Alwyn. We go way back.”

“
Why
?” Fraser and I demanded at the same time. We exchanged quick looks.

Jill blushed, but said steadily, “Oh come on, you know why. Promotion. Advertising. Marketing. That’s what it’s all about now days.”

“But you already had our interest. He was writing his article. We were already filming the segment,” Fraser said.

“I know. That was the start. But I needed more. I knew that. Once we caught the attention of the media, we had to find a way to hang on to it.”

I protested, “But you’re a museum.”

“A dime museum.”

“But you’re still a museum. Why would you try to promote yourself like a…like a circus?”

“Ouch,” murmured Fraser.

“I just don’t understand this.”

“I know. I’m starting to recognize that fretful expression.”

Jill was already turning away. “Maybe some of my tactics weren’t strictly orthodox, but the princess is real. You want to see the mummy’s provenance? Here.”

We followed her past the mummy case, shoes crunching bits of sand. We left the exhibition room and went down the hall to her office. She went straight to one of the wooden file cabinets, opened a bottom drawer and began going through folders.

She rifled through the files, muttering to herself, then she jumped up and went to her desk. “It’s right here. I had the folder out earlier in the week.” She dragged open a drawer and began scooping odds and ends out. Loose pens, rubber bands, Cheez-Its, Wite-Out, coffee coasters, and something that sparkled and glittered as it rolled to a stop on a pink legal pad.

A ring. A heavy gold signet ring with an oblong carnelian intaglio of a Ptolemaic queen. I reached for it automatically. “Wait a minute…”

“Where did I put it?” Jill stopped searching and removed her wig. Her own hair was a dark, sleek bob. She ran an absent hand through it and scratched her scalp. “I got the sarcophagus on eBay a couple of years ago. It looks great, doesn’t it?”

“For a stage prop,” Fraser said.

“I had a feeling the professor here was liable to see through it. But the mummy
is
genuine.”

I only half heard her. “Where did you
get
this?” I held the ring up to the light in order to better examine the band.

“Hmm?”

“Where did you find this ring?”

She glanced at me distractedly. “It was in the back of my grandfather’s desk. I found it a couple of years ago.”

Fraser was still brooding aloud. “So all this…this chicanery was just an effort to try to save your museum?”

Jill nodded. “
Chicanery
feels kind of harsh, but yes. The museum and Walsh itself. I had to do something, so I started an internet campaign about a year and a half ago. I planted mentions of the mummy’s curse everywhere I could think of. And see? Eventually it paid off.”

I was still staring at the ring. “So, how long have you had the mummy?”

“Oh, Mery’s been here since the beginning. Old Wallace brought her back from Egypt in 1903. She was the very first exhibit, and she was originally the most popular. I figured since Egyptian things are so hot now days, I’d make her the focus of the museum again. I dusted her off and brought her out of the storeroom.”

“The story about her being Princess Merneith. Who came up with that?”

“As far as I know, it’s the truth. That’s always what I heard growing up. Most of the stuff in here is admittedly junk, but it’s real junk. Even the sarcophagus is technically an antique, if you think about it.”

“So there is no curse,” Fraser said. His lower lip bore just the faintest suggestion of a pout. It shouldn’t have been cute, but it was. It absolutely was. I could feel my own mouth twitching as I watched him.

“Er…no.”

He sighed. Heavily.

I said, “If the mummy really belongs to Princess Merneith, and she really is from the Sixth Dynasty, that story about her being disgraced and possibly executed for unholy acts could be true.” I added, at the gleam in Fraser’s eye, “Nobody cut out her tongue and locked her in with flesh-eating beetles, but her name has been erased from sacred texts and removed from monuments. That’s pretty significant.”

He shook his head regretfully. “It’s interesting, but that’s not going to cut it. Not for our viewers. We needed…”

“The
hom-dai
,” I said.

He frowned. “No, but at the least we needed the local legend to be real, not something Dr. Slovani cooked up as a publicity stunt.”

“
Sol
vani,” I corrected.

“Actually, it’s Hiram. Jillian Hiram,” Jill reminded us. She was looking crestfallen. “So you’re not going to do the segment?”

Fraser shook his head. “I can’t see any point to it now. I’m sorry, but this is just made up…bullshit.”

He was absolutely serious, and she was looking like she was about to cry.

“About this ring,” I said.

“Oh take it.” She wiped her eyes. “You can call it a souvenir.”

“Thank you, but uh…”

“I’m sorry,” Fraser said. “But I’ve got a responsibility to my viewers. Anyway, Drew, er, Dr. Lawson can still do his article, right? Your hoax probably makes it even better from his viewpoint.”

She nodded, uncomforted, and wiped her eyes again.

I said, “Yes, I can still do my article. What you need to do is contact Julie Scott at AMORC in San Jose. And put this in a safe somewhere.” I handed her the ring.

Jillian looked from me to the ring. “What’s AMORC? Who’s Julie Scott?”

“Julie Scott is the director of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum which houses the largest exhibition of Ancient Egyptian antiquities in the Western United States. AMORC has the facilities to examine your mummy and to authenticate the ring.”

“You mean this ring is…
real
?” Her voice squeaked on the word
real
.

“It sure looks real to me, and if it
is
the real thing, then whether it belonged to Merneith or not, and whether Merneith is real or not, is immaterial. Your problems are over.”

Jill looked from the ring to me to Fraser and then back at the ring. She slipped it on her finger and promptly burst into tears, reaching to pull me and Fraser into a hug.

“Well,” Fraser said grimly when we walked out to the parking lot a short time later. “What a total fucking waste of time this turned out to be.”

I shot him a sideways look. That didn’t sound too promising.

He continued bitterly, “I can’t wait to try and explain this one to the suits. At least you’ll get your article out of it.”

I nodded noncommittally.

He blew out a long, weary sigh. “When’s your flight?” he asked abruptly.

I looked at my watch. “Eleven.”

“You should be heading out for the airport in that case.”

About two hours ago, in fact. “I should, yeah. I’ve got time to drop you at the hotel if you like.”

“No. I’ll wait for everyone here.”

Goodbye, Drew
. What was I waiting for, a roadmap?

I said, “When are you and your team flying out?”

“I fly back Sunday. Tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting with the network honchos. The rest of the team is driving back Monday.”

I nodded.

Fraser met my eyes and looked away. He was definitely uncomfortable. Probably wondering what I was waiting around for. Which was what I was wondering. It was kind of funny really because I’d been preoccupied with what
I
wanted to have happen after last night. I’d sort of taken it for granted that Fraser was interested in…more. Maybe the easy give-and-take of the night before
had
simply been too much to drink. Maybe all his road trips were like this. Maybe…

“How’s the headache?” he asked suddenly.

“It’s okay.”

He nodded, as though that confirmed something. “Well…take care, Drew.” He turned to go back inside the building.

“Fraser?”

He turned back, eyebrows lifting.

I couldn’t think of what to say. I wanted to ask for a phone number, but if he wanted to hear from me he’d have offered it, right? It wasn’t like he was shy. The truth was, it was unlikely that I was feeling the way I was, let alone that he’d feel the same.

As the moment stretched and grew awkward, he said, “You’re going to miss your garden party if you don’t get moving.”

“Too late for that. I think my cucumber sandwiches have been revoked.”

He gave a little laugh, although his eyes were intent. He walked back toward me. “Are you going to tell Noah about last night?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt him.”

Fraser’s expression closed.

I said, “It doesn’t matter because last night is not the reason I’m leaving him.”

“You’re…leaving him?”

“I told you I’d broken it off with him.”

He chewed his lip as he gave me “Well, yeah, but I figured that was the heat of the moment. You even said he didn’t believe you.”

“No, he didn’t, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.”

“What will you do?”

“For starters I’m going to quit going to the opera and to flower shows.”

He smiled but his eyes stayed solemn. “Is it going to be a problem for you professionally? Not the opera. You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. I don’t know. I hope not. Noah said I wasn’t being offered tenure because of our relationship, and I’ve never known him to lie.” I shrugged. “I’ll have to find someplace to live, and I’m going to have to find a way to admit to my family they were right all along. The shock is liable to kill my parents.”

He gave another one of those smothered laughs. I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to have perked up considerably in the last couple of seconds. Even his hair looked springier.

I said, “I haven’t figured it all out, but I’m looking forward to exploring my options.”

Fraser came closer still, crowding right into my personal space in that way of his. Funnily enough, it no longer bothered me. He gazed into my eyes, his own intent. “Would you like some help with that? In addition to all my other talents, I’m a pretty good listener.”

“I noticed that.” I could feel my own mouth curving into a smile to match his. “I noticed those other talents too.”

“Did you?”

I nodded.

“You’re probably going to miss your plane if we stand here talking.”

“The thought had occurred to me. There will be other planes.”

Fraser brightened still further. “Well, if you’re okay with that, let me buy you a cup of coffee. I have a proposition for you.”

“What kind of proposition?”

He looked briefly self-conscious. “Not that kind. Well, not
only
that kind.” He leaned in closer.

“You can proposition me, but I think it’s my turn to buy. How about breakfast?”

“It’s the most important meal of the day,” he said, his mouth a kiss away from my own.

“I think it just might be today.” I closed the distance between us.

About the Author

A distinct voice in GLBT fiction, multi-award winning author Josh Lanyon has written numerous novels, novellas and short stories. He is the author of the critically praised Adrien English mystery series as well as the new Holmes and Moriarity series. Josh is an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist.

To learn more about Josh, please visit
www.joshlanyon.com
or join his mailing list at
groups.yahoo.com/group/JoshLanyon
.

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Come Unto These Yellow Sands

© 2011 Josh Lanyon

Lover of fine poetry and lousy choose-your-own-adventure novels, Professor Sebastian Swift was once the bad-boy darling of the literati. The only lines he does these days are Browning, Frost and Cummings. Even his relationship with the hot, handsome Wolfe Neck Police Chief Max Prescott is healthy.

When one of his most talented students comes to him bruised and begging for help, Swift hands over the keys to his Orson Island cabin—only to find out that the boy’s father is dead and the police are suspicious. In an instant, the stable life Swift has built for himself hangs on finding the boy and convincing him to give himself up before Max figures out Swift’s involvement in the case.

Max enjoys splitting an infinitive or two with his favorite nutty professor, but he’s not much for sonnets or Shakespeare. He likes being lied to even less. Yet his instincts—and his heart—tell him his lover is being played. Max can forgive lies and deception, but a dangerous enemy may not stop until Swift is heading up his own dead poet’s society.

Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that Josh Lanyon’s smart, sexy, sophisticated stories may prove hazardous to your heart.