Relentless - By Cherry Adair Page 0,45
stop asking questions?”
“As soon as I get answers. That usually shuts me up for a while.”
“Describe Dylan.” His tone was curt, short, all business.
A spy, for God’s sake. It was hard to wrap her brain around that. “He’s about five eight. Shoulder-length caramel-colored hair, he favors ponytails—says it’s sexy—has light brown eyes—”
“What the hell kind of color is ‘caramel’?” he demanded, easing onto the verge and navigating past the stalled cars, animals, and wandering people by driving off the road and onto the sand.
“A warm brownish blond. I have a picture if you—”
He held out an imperious hand. He didn’t snap his fingers. That was implied. With a sigh Isis got her phone out of her bag,
She scrolled through the images, then placed the phone in his hand.
“I saw this guy twice,” he said. “Yesterday at the airport, and today as we were walking to your friend’s shop.”
“You think he followed us.” It wasn’t a question. If Thorne had seen the car, it had followed them. She was just giving herself time to assimilate all the information.
Thorne’s grip on the wheel turned white-knuckled, as if it were that or throw a punch at someone. His gaze flicked up to the rearview mirror and he frowned. “I don’t think it. Does he know about these cryptic clues of your father’s?”
“I shouldn’t think so. My father was really paranoid someone would beat him to the punch. He trusted Dylan more than he did most people, but much as I love my father, he’s a pretty selfish guy. I don’t think he would’ve told even Dylan about the clues.”
“Why wasn’t the professor’s assistant with him when he discovered the tomb?” Thorne navigated a small herd of goats and a woman standing on the roadside watching the cars inch by. A seven-minute trip had so far taken twenty.
The heat made her back sweat, and her shirt stuck to the hot vinyl seats. The cheap cotton T-shirt was probably staining her sweaty skin Halloween orange by now. She didn’t know how Thorne normally got answers out of people, but she had the distinct feeling he was grilling her. “How do you know he wasn’t?”
The hard, piercing gaze was back, reaching in, stripping her down to her bare bones. The look said he wanted answers and he’d wring them out of her one way or the other. “You said your father was the only one left alive.”
“Dylan had food poisoning bad enough to be hospitalized. My father started the dig without him.”
Thorne veered off the main road, taking them deeper into narrow streets. “When was that?”
“A few days before the dig.” She saw the two enormous stone lions flanking the entrance to the Kasr Al Nile Bridge, which connected downtown Cairo to Gesira Island and the affluent Zamalek district. “Where are we going?” She doubted it was to the Egyptian Opera House or the Cultural Center.
He ignored her question, which nonresponse was getting more and more damned annoying. “Here or stateside?”
“Here.” She needed him, and wanted him, but his shitty attitude about not answering any of her questions had to freaking stop. “Thorne, this is a partnership, remember? I don’t like being dragged from pillar to post without explana—”
He held up a finger, cutting her off as he used the phone again, requesting confirmation of Dylan’s hospital stay. “Hospital?” he asked her.
“I have no idea.” Nor did she care. Dylan wasn’t relevant. “But it was one in Cairo.”
Thorne relayed the information. He put the phone away. Isis glanced beyond the frenetic cars, all of which wanted supremacy of the road. They’d reached the outskirts of the city. “Where are we going?”
“I got a read off that tassel. The basket was bought from the souk, but the silk tassel comes from one of these houses.”
“I hope you can be more specific,” Isis observed dryly. “I can’t imagine my father knowing anyone who might live in this neighborhood. This is pretty high-end. Princes, diplomats, wealthy expats.”
“Sponsors?”
Isis looked at the shady, tree-lined streets, upscale restaurants, and expensive art galleries they passed. “I know the names of some, but not all. He talked about some of them, I met a few at fund-raisers—I don’t recall anyone from this elite neck of the desert.” But then her father occasionally took money under the table for “special projects,” something they’d argued about when she’d first discovered the practice. For a large donation, priceless antiquities found their way into private collections. He’d stopped telling her after she’d challenged him on the illegal practice.