There was a long pause while Mr. Burton and my uncle stared at each other in silence.
“Do you know what I think?” he asked softly. “I think you know how much money you can make by hoarding all of the treasures yourself. You want what Lourdes stole as much as I do.”
“First,” Tío Ricardo said, somehow still managing to sound disgusted while wheezing, “they aren’t treasures, they are objects with historical significance to Egyptians—”
Mr. Burton sliced the air with his hand. “I don’t give a damn. Believe me when I tell you that you’d much rather deal with me than with my associate. He won’t take your refusal as kindly as I have done.”
I blinked at the revelation. “There’s someone else?”
“Everyone works for someone, my dear,” Mr. Burton said. “Ricardo. The location.”
“Release them first.”
Mr. Burton had a manic gleam glowing in his eyes. He waved the gun, first at Elvira and then at Whit. “Are you really going to let them die?”
My mind was still unable to connect how this man was the same foppish, kind gentleman who had delivered our mail, who had asked me to dinner. They couldn’t be the same, and yet they were. Mr. Burton beckoned the burly man with his index finger, and Elvira was dragged forward, squirming.
Mr. Burton said, “I will shoot her.”
“Boss said not to harm the girl,” the burly man said uneasily.
Elvira flinched as Mr. Burton caressed her cheek. “So he did. But that was before he knew we had the spare.”
I gasped as if I’d been kicked in the stomach.
“Thomas,” Tío Ricardo said coaxingly. “I’ll tell you once—”
Mr. Burton lifted his weapon to Elvira’s temple. She yelled, the sound low and muffled, full of horror. Time seemed to stall as her head swung in my direction, her eyes wide with terror meeting mine. My heart wrenched in my chest. In an instant, memories assailed me. One after another.
Elvira on her sixteenth birthday, standing in the middle of my mother’s garden, for once still and patient as I painted her writing in her journal.
A blink, and I was nine years old at the dinner table, and she was sneakily eating the boiled carrots off my plate because she knew I hated them, and I’d get in trouble for not finishing every last bite.
Another blink, and Elvira was sitting close to my side the night I’d read my uncle’s letter for the first time. She’d hugged me while I cried myself to sleep.
I blinked again, and I was back in the desert, and the horrifying sight assaulted my vision once more. The barrel of the gun pressed close to her temple.
My uncle and I spoke at once.
“Wait, no,” I said. “Por favor, no—”
“Stop! I’ll tell you—”
Whit lunged forward.
Mr. Burton fired. The sound carried to every corner of my body, filled me with so much despair, I screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
Blood and bone splattered across my face. Elvira slumped to the ground in a pool of red. Tears stabbed my eyes as I rushed to her side, my vision blurred and tinted red. Anger inflamed my blood. Her beautiful face was unrecognizable. Destroyed in a second. Her life snuffed out from one moment to the next.
I gripped my hair, unable to keep quiet. Unable to stop screaming. Grief distracted me. I didn’t realize the danger I was in until I caught the scent of Mr. Burton’s expensive cologne. He knelt beside me, his gun cocked and ready, aimed for my heart.
The bullet would shatter it. I’d never survive.
Whit turned his anguished face toward me. Despair carved deep lines across his brow. I moved my hand, my fingers hovering above my pocket.
“Ricardo,” Mr. Burton murmured, his attention on my uncle. “She’s next. The location? And you better not lie.”
Slowly, I pulled out my uncle’s necktie. Whit tracked my movement. I met his gaze and he subtly dipped his chin.
“Por favor,” Ricardo said, his voice hoarse. “I can only make a guess.”
“Fine,” Mr. Burton said. “Let’s have your guess, then.”
“I think she could be in Amarna,” my uncle said.
“Why?” Mr. Burton asked, his voice cold.
“She might be after a hidden tomb,” he said. When Mr. Burton didn’t lower his gun, my uncle added quickly, “Nefertiti.”
“Nefertiti,” Mr. Burton repeated. “Was she the one—”
I wrung out the necktie at Mr. Burton’s face, scalding water covering his brow and cheeks and eyes. He fell back, screaming, covering his face with his hands. Boiling water dropped to the ground, sizzling on the hot sand. I whipped the fabric again and more water flung in his direction, drenching his dark pants and shirt. Behind me, the sounds of fighting reached my ears: fists smacking flesh and bone, grunts and muffled cursing. I turned around in time to see Whit throw a punch at one of the men.
The burly man approached Whit, his gun raised—
“Watch out!” I cried.
Whit dropped as the shot zipped past his head. His hand reached for the rifle and he flipped onto his back and fired at the burly man’s stomach. The man dropped hard and heavy to the sand. I swayed on my feet, the scent of metal thick in the air. Sweat dripped down my back. I tried not to look at Elvira’s still form, her gold dress bunched around her thighs.
“You bitch,” came a gargled voice.
Mr. Burton yanked me backward, pressed me close to his damp chest. He clapped a hand hard across my mouth. His skin was blotchy and red, angry blisters forming up and down his arm. Whit jumped to his feet, lifting the rifle at eye level, and peered through the peep sight. In a blur of motion, he slid the gun forward and back, and fired.
The sound deafened me for one long terrifying moment. A burst of wind brushed against the side of my face.
Mr. Burton flew backward.
I turned to find him on the ground, spread-eagle, a single gaping hole between his brows.
“I warned you,” Whit said coldly. Then he raced forward and pulled me into a tight embrace. “Are you all right?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. My words came out hushed. “I’m not hurt.”
But I wasn’t all right.
Capítulo Treinta Y Seis
I stood in the balcony of my parents’ suite, the moonlight casting the city of a thousand minarets in a sliver glow. I had cried myself to sleep. I had a nightmare and cried again. I woke up, and knew there were hours yet until the dawn.
Grief refused me sleep.
The night had turned cold. Winter had settled over the land, and a chill skimmed down my spine and I shivered. I turned away, closed the doors behind me with shaking hands. The bedroom seemed too far away for another step, and so I sank onto the couch. The trinket box rested on the wooden coffee table. Absently, I leaned forward and cradled it in the palm of my hands.
A memory crashed into me. The worst one yet.
Cleopatra’s quarters turned upside down by Roman soldiers. The ingredients for her spells destroyed and burned. Bottles of tonics emptied and dumped out the window. Her power stripped away as she faced the emperor, her maids crying in horror.
Her emotions flooded me. Rage. Despair. Sorrow to have lost everything.