Sands of Time (Out of Time #6) (25 page)

Henri shrugged, lost. “She tells me to dig in the sand and I do, and there is a tomb. She tells me I will find a scarab with Akhenaten’s cartouche in a place it should not be, and yet it is. How does she know these things that no one can know?” He leaned back against the rock. “Perhaps she can speak with the dead after all.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“This isn’t exactly inconspicuous,” Jack said as he looked around the plush leather interior of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. The shiny mustard and black paint job didn’t really blend in with the landscape either.

“In this neighborhood,” Diana said. “No one will notice.”

She was probably right. Hopefully right. They’d parked the car on a nice tree-lined street in a small, wealthy suburb of Luxor that ambassadors, foreign nobility and business magnates called home.

Jack had promised Simon and Elizabeth that he’d find out everything he could about Katherine Vale. He’d only hesitated a moment before asking Diana for help. He might be good at what he did, or used to do, but not speaking the language was a crippling handicap. And, he thought, as he admired the way her keen eyes kept a lookout without looking like she was, this sort of work was a heck of a lot more fun with a partner. Having a pretty one didn’t hurt either.

She turned and smiled. “We’re supposed to be looking out there,” she said with a nod toward an elaborate house across the street.

Jack grinned. “View’s better in here.”

Diana shook her head and picked up the binoculars from her lap. A delivery truck pulled into the semi-circular driveway.

“Another?” Jack asked as he squinted to see the logo on the truck, not that he could read it.

“Maybe she’s having a party,” Diana said, peering through the glasses. “Truck’s blocking the door.”

She slipped the binoculars back into the leather case on the seat between them.

Jack tried to see anything useful, but she was right. He shifted back into his leather seat and ran his hands over the large steering wheel. “How’d you get this thing again?”

“I told you,” she said, “Lord Haversham owed me a favor.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. He wanted to ask the logical question, but knew he wouldn’t get a straight answer. It was odd, having the tables turned. He was usually the one keeping secrets. Not that he didn’t still have a few of his own.

He’d told Diana that Vale had been trouble for the Crosses before and that they had reason to believe she was up to something, something dangerous, and he needed her help finding out what it was. She’d stared at him for a long moment, her beautiful brown eyes taking measure of his honesty, and then she nodded and said, “Where do we start?”

It had been as simple as that. Just, “Where do we start?”

They’d started poking around the Winter Palace. It hadn’t taken long for them to learn that Vale had arrived in Luxor two months ago. Since then, she’d come and gone, traveling to Cairo and Alexandria. For the most part, she’d kept to herself, except for appearances at the Winter Palace.

She’d rented a house in Luxor that was owned by some Italian baron. She’d taken it for the season, although why the Baron wasn’t in residence as usual no one knew.

Jack glanced over at the house as the delivery truck pulled away. He hoped the baron wasn’t chained up in the basement or something. From what Simon and Elizabeth had told him about Vale, and the chill he’d felt when he’d met her, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“How long do we sit here?” Diana asked. “Surely, there’s something we can
do
.”

Jack had to smile. Diana was a woman of action, impatient by nature, not that he blamed her. Sitting, waiting, watching—was boring as hell. But they were also some of the most important aspects of gathering intelligence. It wasn’t all excitement and intrigue. In fact, very little of it was. Most of his time as an agent had been spent just waiting and not always in such plush accommodations.

“We’ll give it a few more hours,” he said.

She sighed. “All right,” she said. “But then I think we should go nose around those delivery services and see if your man in Cairo has learned anything.”

“Agreed.”

Once they’d realized that Vale had traveled to Cairo several times, Jack knew they had to follow that lead. Since he couldn’t go himself, he called the only man in Cairo he trusted—Hassan. The clerks at Shepheard’s had thought he was mad when he’d explained who he wanted to speak to, they weren’t accustomed to taking calls for a dragoman out on the streets, but they’d managed it. Before long they’d called back, and put Hassan on the line. Hopefully, he’d have better luck finding out about what Vale was up to.

“Get down,” Diana whispered in a harsh voice as she scooched down in her seat.

Jack did as she ordered and carefully peered over the edge of the window. “What is it?”

Diana had the binoculars up to her eyes and had them trained on a carriage that had just passed by. She frowned and handed them to Jack.

He focused them on the back of the carriage. As it turned and stopped at Vale’s front door, he realized why she was upset. “Ahmed?”

“It could just be museum business,” she said hopefully.

“Yeah.” Jack hoped she was right. If the kid were mixed up with Vale and whatever she was really up to, it was bad news.

Ahmed climbed out of the carriage, knocked and then disappeared inside the house.

“How long have you known him?” Jack asked.

“Two years, but not very well. I met him through Christina.” Her brow wrinkled in worry. “He seemed like a fine enough young man, but recently…?”

“Recently…?” Jack let the question linger.

Diana weighed her answer before speaking. “He’s developed some…political affiliations—”

“The desert bandits?”

Diana started, surprised. “Yes.” She stared at Jack for a moment, but swallowed her questions and turned her attention back to the house. “I’ve known the Whitesides for many years, and I’d hate for Arthur to think I’ve betrayed his trust.”

“By helping his daughter have an affair with a revolutionary?”

Diana frowned, but didn’t argue. “It was all just pamphlets and meetings before last month. Harmless. And a just cause, I think.”

“I’m sure that’ll ease Whiteside’s mind,” Jack said with a sardonic smile.

“They were in love,” Diana said a little fiercely and then sighed. “It was sweet and innocent.”

“I’m not sure anything involving a 21 year old boy is ever all that innocent,” Jack said.

“You’re a cynic.”

“No,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve
been
a 21 year old boy.”

Diana watched the front of the house. “Well, they’ve broken up now, so it’s all in the past.”

Jack laughed. “You’ve never been in love, have you?”

Diana paused, shifted her eyes to him and then back to the house. “No,” she said a little sadly. “I’ve been too busy.”

Jack instinctively wanted to comfort her, but knew it would be unwelcome and unwise to try. “You’ve known the Whitesides for a long time?”

Diana smiled. “Yes. Arthur and I had business together.”

“He hired you?”

Diana laughed at the memory. “Not exactly. He caught me breaking into his house.”

Jack chuckled. “Why would you—don’t tell me Whiteside stole an artifact.”

“He didn’t know it was stolen, of course. Came downstairs in his nightshirt, elephant gun in hand and told me to raise my hands or meet my maker.”

Jack flashed on a scene from the Marx Brother’s
Animal Crackers
and wished Diana could have seen it. He was fairly certain, she would adore it.

She laughed again at the memory. “I explained why I was there. He was completely unaware that his recently acquired Athenian vase was recently stolen from a collection in Berne.”

“And he believed you?”

“Well, it took a little convincing, but yes,” she said. “And we’ve been fast friends ever since.”

They watched the front door of Vale’s house in silence for a few moments. “I wouldn’t have let anything happen to Christina, you know,” she said.

Jack kept his eyes on the house. “I know.”

After a few minutes had passed, Ahmed and Vale came out the front door. They lingered talking on the front landing for a moment before shaking hands. Ahmed climbed back into his carriage.

Jack and Diana slouched down in their seats again until he was well past.

“What are you up to?” Diana said to herself as she watched Vale wait for her car to be brought around front.

Jack and Diana hid again as her chauffeur drove right past them. Once the other car was far enough down the road, Diana opened her door.

Jack grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”

“Finding out what she’s got in there.”

“You’re just going to go up and ring the bell?”

Diana shook her head and looked at him with a kind of pity. “I’m going to break in.”

“Unless you’ve forgotten, there’s still at least one of her men in there, probably more,” Jack reminded her. “And I doubt you two will become fast friends.”

“Then I’ll just have to avoid meeting them, won’t I?” She didn’t wait for another round and slipped out of the car.

She was halfway across the street before Jack caught up with her. They crept around to the back of the house and crouched in the bushes trying to find an easy way in.

“There,” Diana said.

“Where?”

“The French doors.”

“On the second floor?” Jack asked.

Instead of answering, Diana dashed across the back lawn. He really wished she’d stop doing that.

Jack grumbled, but followed quickly behind. They sought cover between a mulberry bush and the house. Jack edged along the outside of the house and then peered inside a window.

While he was doing that, Diana had already managed to climb onto the railing of the back porch and clung to the edge of the balcony above, struggling to lift herself up.

Jack pulled out his pen knife and slid it between the window sashes. The lock swiveled easily. Very slowly, he eased the lower window up. “Pssst.”

Diana’s head turned to look at him, she frowned as she hung there and then dropped to the garden. Jack refolded his knife and grinned.

“Show off,” she whispered as she carefully climbed inside.

They had gotten lucky. It was the study and the door to the rest of the house was closed.

Jack hurried to the desk and rifled through the papers there. Hotel bills, rental agreements and the usual sort of thing. It wasn’t until he found a separate folder that his heart started to really race. In it were four envelopes. All of them addressed to Louche, Blomster & Blackwood, the same legal firm as Mason’s letter. Except these had been mailed, the stamps cancelled.

Jack knew what he’d find in them before he looked. Four more codes, just like the one he’d deciphered. That helped explain how she’d been one step ahead of them anyway. Jack put them back just as he’d found them.

“Jack,” Diana whispered. She jerked her head to the side, urging him to join her.

He made sure the desk was as he’d found it and walked over the to the sideboard next to Diana. “Creepy. What are those?”

Resting in a long wooden box were four wax figures.

“They’re Egyptian gods,” she said.

There was a fifth figure, slightly larger than the others, perhaps ten inches, wrapped in raw cotton linen. It was made of black wax and formed into the shape of a man. A short lock of blond hair was pressed into its waxy scalp.

“Now, that’s creepy,” Diana said.

Jack’s skin crawled as he wrapped it back up. No matter how much he’d seen or the Crosses had told him, the supernatural still gave him the willies. He liked to fight things he could see, understand and that stayed dead when he shot them.

He nudged it back into place beneath a copper plate with a long handle that hung on the wall.

“I’ve seen this,” Diana said as she pointed to a large necklace in a glass bookcase next to the sideboard. “I can’t remember where though.”

Artifacts Jack couldn’t identify lined the shelves. The few he could, were an ankh and some sort of scepter, but two of the four scarabs that were embedded on each side were missing. There was also an ornate copper dagger with a long runnel and a matching chalice.

“What do you—”

Jack heard something and put his finger to his lips. Diana fell silent and they both listened. There it was again. Footsteps. Close by. Jack’s heart hammered in his chest.

He held his breath as the footsteps stopped right outside the door. His hand balled into a ready fist as he heard the doorknob begin to turn. Diana’s hand gripped his forearm and her eyes went wide with alarm.

But the door didn’t open. The knob rattled as the person on the other side checked to make sure it was locked. Thank God, it was. Satisfied, the person stopped twisting the knob and the footsteps moved on.

Jack slowly let out his breath and jabbed his thumb toward the window. Diana nodded and they made their escape. That had been foolish, he thought. Reckless. And he’d loved it.

Jack started the car and didn’t waste time driving away. “What the hell was all that?”

Diana shook her head. “Nothing good.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Magic,” Whiteside said.

Elizabeth cringed a little, even though she had a feeling that’s what he was going to say before he said it. She knew in her heart that someone as crazy pants as Vale couldn’t come to a place like Egypt and not get caught up in something nutty.

After Diana and Jack had told Simon and her what they’d discovered, they knew they had to get an expert opinion. They’d found Whiteside and invited him to come to their suite to answer a few curious questions.

He’d come alone, as they’d asked. Elizabeth had argued for Christina’s involvement, but had been overruled by both Simon and Jack, and surprisingly, Diana.

“Let her enjoy things while she can,” she’d said.

In the end, they’d left Christina to the peace and serenity of the Winter Palace’s back veranda and set off to find out what light Whiteside could shed on what the heck Katherine Vale was up to.

“Wax figures,” Whiteside continued, “they were commonly used in ceremonies in ancient times.”