head. She planted the heavy cane vertically beside her. “Thorne wouldn’t let me bring a gun in here, even though I sort of promised not to shoot you in the balls before I asked questions.”
“You crazy bitch!”
Anger vibrated from her head to her toes, and she curled her fingers into tight fists at her side. “Why did you betray my father? No, not why. Why was because of the fame and money. Maybe how is a better question. You worked for my father for more than five years. Built up a trust. He thought of you as the son he never had.”
Dylan made a rude noise that bumped her anger up another notch. “Thorne said leave enough to interrogate. Perhaps you don’t need your teeth all that badly.”
“The professor is a doddering old fool. He found Cleo’s fucking tomb a year ago, Isis! Forgot, and came back! We’d already packed and shipped half the artifacts for sale, and placed the rest in a warehouse near Abusir so everything could be unpacked and artfully displayed when I found Cleo’s tomb in a couple of weeks. We couldn’t take the risk he’d suddenly remembered. Yermalof took out the team, moved everyone. Stupid fuck was supposed to die with the others.”
Dylan hadn’t just wanted her father’s fame and fortune. He’d wanted her father dead. “Sorry he inconvenienced you. You’ll be discredited, of course. Humiliated. Your bank accounts seized—”
Dylan laughed. “Humiliated? Maybe. But I have more money than they’ll ever find, and all I’ll get here is a slap on the wrist, and I’ll give my promise to be a good boy in the future. Whatever way they cut it, I’ll be credited with discovery of that tomb, and Professor Magee will still be a laughingstock.”
“But you’re tied up here,” Isis reminded him, her fingers tightening on the walking stick. His eyes flickered whitely to her hand, and back to her face. “Anyone know where you are right now, Dylan?” She summoned the coldly cruel delivery of some long-forgotten movie bad guy.
“They can’t hold me here forever. Legally, they can’t do this.”
She laughed, because he was ridiculous lying there, arms behind his back, feet bound together, talking about his legal rights. “Do you know who all these men are?” Channeling the icky tones of a movie villain was very satisfying. Especially since, even in the poor lighting, she saw the sweat begin to trickle down his temples and shine slickly on his upper lip.
She waved her free hand around the warehouse. “British and Israeli intelligence operatives. And you know why they’re called intelligence? Because they’re not stupid enough to hand you over to the Egyptian authorities. You’ll be tried and convicted…” She waited several ominous seconds before finishing. “. . . elsewhere.”
“That’s illegal!”
Isis shrugged. “Or questioned and killed here,” she added sweetly. “I’m told they’re so good, they leave hardly a mark on your body—I have no idea how they do that. Special spy skills, I guess.” She let her voice trail off admiringly, and heard a snort nearby as one of the men muffled his opinion of her interrogation techniques. Isis got to her feet. Dylan flinched as the movement brought her dangerously close to his private parts. “Goodbye, Dylan. You were a weak coward when I met you, and you’re a sniveling creep now. The world will be better off without you.” Turning to go, she said to the guy closest to her, “He’s all yours now.”
“Isis! Wait! Isis!”
“DID YOU ENJOY THAT?” Thorne asked, exiting to find Isis leaning against the building, hands on her knees.
She straightened when she heard him. “I did while I was talking to him. Now I feel a little sick.”
“He’s feeling a lot sicker in anticipation of what’s to come, I imagine.” Thorne wrapped his arms around her, and she put her head on his chest, sliding her arms tightly around his waist.
Her shaky laugh was muffled against his shirt. “You know what’s funny? I was channeling some movie villain when I was talking to Dylan, and feeling quite proud of myself. I only just realized who I was channeling. Cruella de Vil.”
He bit back a smile as he stroked her back and buried his face in her fragrant hair. “They’re taking all of them to another location.”
“Are we going, too?”
His hands tightened around her at the “too.” “I’m going to take a later flight and meet them there.” He’d take her to her gate and kiss her goodbye. Make promises both knew would never be kept.