Tío Ricardo would be furious no matter how I did it.
Worry pricked at me. What would he do when he found out? I’d focused so much on getting on board that I neglected to imagine what came after. I had heard his bitter anger when he talked about Papá standing in the way of what he wanted. And here I was, disobeying him.
Without anyone I could trust to help me.
“Do you want to help me serve dinner in the saloon?” Kareem asked, wrenching me from my thoughts.
My instinct was to refuse but curiosity yanked hard on my mind. Everyone would be in the dining room, eating and talking at their leisure. Perhaps I’d catch another glimpse of the mysterious girl who had come aboard. There might also be an opportunity to listen to their discussion, which could fill in some of the gaps in my uncle’s activities. Presumably, my parents had participated in his excavations, and I might learn something of what they were up to in the days leading up to their disappearance.
Kareem looked at me, waiting for my answer. All day, he’d helped me remain unseen and unnoticed by the rest of the crew. Though he never said, I wondered if he had done it because of my parents.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
*
Kareem walked ahead of me into the empty saloon, carrying two dishes filled with kushari, a lentil-and pasta-based dish with tomato sauce and rice. In my hands I carried a large pitcher of mint limeade, which I’d already sampled and could confirm was refreshing and delicious. We dropped off the dishes in the center of the table, and I followed Kareem to stand at a discreet distance from the table, where the other servers waited. I kept my head down as another crew member filled the team’s glasses.
The party entered, chattering quietly, and sat down at a round table in the lush saloon, all of them men except for the young woman I had seen earlier. There were four of them, only two I knew. My uncle pored over a letter curled in his palm while Mr. Hayes engaged in a tense argument with the brawny gentleman who had accompanied the young woman. Kareem motioned for me to stand behind a particularly tall attendant alongside the wall. I was neatly hidden, and incredibly thankful none of the crew knew who I was. I stared at the tips of my leather boots barely peeking from underneath the long tunic.
“Well, don’t keep us waiting,” Mr. Hayes said. “What does the letter say?”
“From your foreman?” the brawny man asked in an English accent. He dwarfed everyone else at the table, long limbed and big boned. His posture belied a fondness for sharp lines and rules. His movements were exact and precise as he served himself. The girl’s slight frame seemed like a fragile dandelion compared to his stature. One strong wind might uproot her.
And yet her pale gaze seemed to miss nothing. Flickering from the table to the windows lining the curved wall, to her dining companions. She was a fidgety thing.
“No, it’s from Abdullah,” Tío Ricardo said. “They’ve managed to discover another entryway leading out from the antechamber. It’s heavily blocked by debris, however.” He frowned at the message. “Which likely means wherever this entrance leads has already been discovered and looted of anything notable. We can only hope that any reliefs were left undamaged.”
“Doubtful,” said the larger man. “Thieves have learned how much money they can earn from the carved reliefs. Especially poor Egyptians.”
“I’m not paying you for your opinions,” Tío Ricardo said, his voice sharp edged.
The man shrugged, his utensils scraping loudly against his plate. The motion made a horrific screech and Mr. Hayes winced as he filled his cup with whiskey from his ever-present flask. I wanted to fill his plate with bread to soak up the liquor sloshing around inside his body.
“That chamber might yield yet another entryway that is as yet undiscovered,” Tío Ricardo said. “But I did tell you, Whit, that we ought to have left days earlier. We might even now be uncovering ground.”
“It wasn’t possible,” Mr. Hayes said mildly. “And you arranged the dinner with Sir Evelyn and Maspero yourself. You can’t afford not to line up a license for next season, Ricardo. Think what Abdullah will say if you fail.”
My uncle sobered.
“Just to clarify,” the brawny British man said. “You didn’t have an argument with Maspero and Sir Evelyn? Because my contract was for the rest of this season and the next.”
I looked sharply at the man, whose rigid movements hadn’t eased with the progression of the dinner. He glanced pointedly at one of the saloon walls where a long line of rifles were kept. I could almost picture the heavy weight of the weapon in that man’s hands. A cold shiver danced down my spine. Mr. Hayes eyed the man with a carefully neutral expression. His behavior was remarkably different than what I’d seen up until now. He didn’t acknowledge the girl sitting next to him in the slightest. Not even to ask for her salt. He simply leaned forward and reached across her as if she weren’t sitting there.
“Of course he did,” Mr. Hayes muttered, sprinkling the salt over his plate. “Ricardo can’t help it.”
“That conversation was well worth it and you know it,” Tío Ricardo said. “There’s only so much nonsense I can stomach.”
“How, sir?” asked the brawny gentleman. “Not that one, Isadora, it’s much too spicy for you.”
The girl glanced up, her mouth set in an intractable line. She applied a liberal amount of the red spice over her food. She ate the first bite calmly while the man sighed loudly. I hid my smile. Perhaps there was more to her than I originally thought.
“I’m afraid her mother gives her too much free reign,” the brawny man said, as if his daughter sat not two feet away from him. Isadora’s light eyes tightened but then her expression smoothed out into one of bland neutrality. I sympathized with her immediately.
My uncle turned his attention back to the brawny man. “To answer your question, I confirmed that neither Monsieur Maspero nor Sir Evelyn know what the hell we’re doing here.”
“God help us all if they ever do,” Mr. Hayes said.
“Which is why you’ve hired me,” the large man said.
Mr. Hayes scrutinized the British man. Suspicion was etched into every line of Mr. Hayes’s body, from his tense shoulders to the fingers that gripped his fork and knife.
My gaze flickered to my uncle.
He looked just as uneasy as Mr. Hayes, but instead of vocalizing any concern, he said, “I hope we never have to use your services, Mr. Fincastle.”
“Here, here,” Mr. Hayes said dryly.
“A shame I had to hire you at all,” my uncle commented.
“Do you mean because of your lost patrons?”
“Yes, their deaths were a tremendous blow.”
“Well, not all is lost,” Mr. Fincastle said. “You’ve certainly become a wealthy man.” He flicked his fork around, gesturing to the dahabeeyah.
“That was a vile observation,” my uncle said.