gun hand was free.
“He wants to buy an area rug for his kitchen.”
Isis laughed and squeezed his arm against the soft swell of her breast. Honest to God, the woman was a menace.
“Now you owe me eighteen answers,” she told him cheerfully. “You can’t avoid paying up forever, you know.”
Avoidance was his middle name. Thorne merely gave her a dour look, which she answered with a smile. God, she had a pretty smile. And God help him, he liked the taste of it, too. The woman was tying him in knots with apparently little effort.
He faced forward and concentrated on not limping. He was man enough to know he needed to buy another cane.
The only sign of what had transpired the night before was a large stain on the cement, which could be anything from chocolate ice cream to someone’s spilled brains. He guided Isis around the dried blood and hastened their steps. “Tell me about Beniti al-Atrash.”
“My father’s known him for more than thirty years,” she told him, willing to be distracted from her interrogation at least for a little while. “He has a stall and also a small shop, which back against one another: one high-end, the other touristy trash. He sells carpets and small antiquities.” She sent him a sideways laughing glance. “Some genuine, most imitation knockoffs pretending to be genuine. He’s been at the same intersection for as long as I can remember. His son Husani and I had a thing one summer many years ago.” Her smile was sweetly wistful. “He’s married now with two sons.”
“A thing?”
“Oh, a hot romance. He was an older man—fifteen to my thirteen. It was a magical time. Husani taught me the fine art of kissing.”
Thorne didn’t want to hear about a “magical time,” even if she’d been a kid. The kissing part he appreciated. “Remind me to thank him if I see him.”
“He works for his father, so you’ll probably meet him. God, I love this place.” She spread her arms, inhaling deeply. “I smell citrus, and hundreds of spices, and leather. Do you like the smell of leather?”
“Only if it’s used in bondage.” He shot her a glance and smiled when her cheeks flushed. “No? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.” Inhaling, he picked up a noseful of body odor, piss, and strong Egyptian cigarettes. She lifted the camera from around her neck and paused to take a series of shots of a cat sprawled on a blanket in a fruit stall. Totally unhygienic.
He wanted to take her to meet her friend, see if they could find a clue to Cleopatra’s damned tomb, then take her to the airport. He’d assure her he’d stay behind to look. Look for the Russian. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and her father didn’t know what he’d had for breakfast that morning, so he wouldn’t be affected by her not finding the tomb one way or another.
She passed to cast him a curious look. “What’s the matter?”
“We don’t have time to take pictures.”
“Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.” She made some minute adjustment to the expensive camera.
Thorne kept his eyes moving, looking at faces in the milling crowd, watching body language, when he’d much rather be watching her. “We’ll wait. Make it snappy.”
She grinned, the camera to her face. “Punny.” Looking through the viewfinder, she twisted the lens. “God—the sun’s wrapping his whiskers perfectly…” Holding her breath, she squeezed off a series of shots, then moved a few feet to the left. “Just look at the colors.” She deftly manipulated the camera to get what she wanted. “The oranges and the ginger cat are beautiful. Look how relaxed he is exposing his fat belly to the sun and how his coat and the fruit bring out the rich purple of the blanket.”
He looked at it again. Cat. Oranges. Blanket. He still didn’t get it. “You’re an artist.” Thorne watched her frame the next shot. How odd, he thought, watching the harsh sunlight tangle in her dark hair and bathe her pale skin with warmth. Listening to her, one could assume she worked with her father and had no other life. They’d spent every moment of the past several days in each other’s company, they’d kissed, and yet he had no idea that her photography was a job as well as a passion. He realized he had no idea what she did when she wasn’t hunting clues to a nonexistent tomb and taking photographs of products for ad campaigns.
“I