“I was just startled from sleep, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Olive’s digital clock told her it was after nine in the morning. “It’s okay. I needed to get up anyway.” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stretched her back.
“So...”
“We’re all good.”
A breathy sigh of relief came through the line. “Thank you.”
Olive stayed silent.
“Xavier will be there tomorrow night. There will be a gala. I’ll text you the address and where to meet him.”
“Okay.” The last thing she wanted to do was attend a god-damned party, but she wanted this nightmare to end as soon as possible, and the sooner she could hand off the heart scarab, the sooner she could walk away and get back to her dig.
Chapter Two
Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, Olive ventured out into the city to grab a bite to eat and to feel the sun on her face. The dig had kept her underground for weeks and she was starting to feel like a vampire. The project was at a point where her students could take over so that she could have a break for a few days. Dark sunglasses protected her eyes from the glare as she strolled along the cobblestone sidewalk outside the hotel. A small café about a block away boasted ethnic staples and she ordered a shawerma with shredded beef. Pita bread was particularly good in Alexandria and Cairo. She’d spent the past six months bouncing between the two cities, either digging or lecturing at the universities. While she dined, students would be back at the tomb of Amenken cataloguing the contents. The one item they wouldn’t be listing was the relic that currently resided beneath her shirt. No one would question it. Some mummies had the scarab and some didn’t. It depended on the dynasty and their station in life. Her theft would alter the historical value of the re-telling of Amenken’s tale.
Leaving the heart scarab in the room had seemed a bad idea, so she’d tucked it into her bra. Ideas of justification swam in her mind. Was her father’s freedom worth sullying the history of someone long gone and jeopardizing her career and reputation? She worried at the inside of her bottom lip. No one would know what she’d done aside from her father and Xavier Wells. Neither of them seemed to be bothered by the violation she’d been forced to perpetrate.
After sitting at an outdoor table with her sandwich and herbal tea, she patted her chest. The heat of the sun on her back felt good. Maybe she’d walk to the market after her meal. A lovely collection of outdoor shops was situated a few blocks away, but she’d been too busy to check them out yet.
A young couple sat across from her, and she glanced up to catch them staring at her. The woman smiled and looked away quickly. Bouncy black curls brushed her companion’s cheek as she turned to speak to him in Arabic. Olive wasn’t fluent in the native tongue but she understood some.
There was no way the couple could know what she’d done, but she still felt as if they were judging her with their dark-eyed glares. She silently cursed her father.
Olive was learning that maybe, just maybe, her father was a con man, that his life was a lie. Casper had always been a bit of an unstable character and now Olive was standing directly in his shade. The thought almost made her lose her appetite but she’d already devoured more than half the sandwich. She carried what was left to the trash bin and took the sweet tea to go.
As she walked back to the hotel, she considered what she had to wear to a gala put on by an eccentric multimillionaire. A cool breeze lifted her hair from her neck and tangled the strands around the straw in her drink. The weather was warm and there’d been no wind before but she felt a significant chill in her spine.
The scent of flowers hung heavy in the air as a shaven-headed man passed her. He was dressed in dark pants and an ivory tunic, and when he turned to glance at her over his shoulder, he wore the kohl liner from her dream. With a wink and a slight smirk, he disappeared around the corner just a few feet in front of her.
Strange. She rushed to the corner to spy him once more but he was gone, disappeared into thin air. Olive searched the sidewalk across the street but he had simply vanished. A burning sensation in her chest caused her to check her cleavage. The heart scarab was heating up, and she touched it. The obsidian wasn’t hot enough to scald her skin, but it was definitely warmer than her body temperature.