“I assume this is your friend Nathan.”
Drake raised Jada’s Coke glass in a toast. “Hey.”
The woman turned back to Jada and Sully and lowered her voice. “Please, let’s work together on this. Tyr is here in Egypt as well. His men have been following me. I’m afraid they’ll kill me like they did Luka. I came here in the first place because I thought the only way I would be safe is if I could figure out what he was trying to keep secret and make it public. If it’s out there, if it’s not a secret anymore, there’d be no point in killing to keep it quiet.”
Sully tilted his head, studying her, stroking his mustache. “You’re not working with Henriksen on this?”
Olivia paled, looking stunned. “Luka was my husband.”
“Oh, please,” Jada snorted. “You treated him like a dog who messed on your rug.”
“That’s awful,” Olivia said, her lip trembling again. She shook her head. “I know you never liked me, Jada, but you weren’t in our home. You didn’t see our relationship the way it was, only the way it inconvenienced you.”
“Really?” Jada said, her voice low. One of the waiters had started to approach but thought better of it and retreated. “That’s the story you’re sticking to? The loving and misunderstood wife?”
“Jada,” Sully said warily.
“No, Uncle Vic,” Jada snapped, raising her voice just a little, trying to control herself. “Don’t tell me you’re buying any of this crap. How did she find us, huh? That’s what I want to know. We’re in a restaurant in a random hotel in Fayoum City. How the hell did she know where to even start looking for us?”
Olivia stared at her. “I’m staying in the same hotel. It’s where Luka stayed. I was out most of the day, but when I got back, the desk clerk mentioned there was another guest named Hzujak, and what a strange coincidence. You asked for directions to get here, which is how he knew where you were going.”
“You couldn’t have waited for us to get back to the hotel?” Sully asked.
“I couldn’t know when you’d be back,” Olivia argued. “And I told you, I think I’m being followed. Now, are you going to invite me to sit so we can talk about this, or should we all just stand here looking more and more conspicuous.”
Drake watched Jada’s face, then glanced at Sully. He saw the hesitation there, and he understood it, but Olivia’s explanations seemed at least halfway believable, and he didn’t like the attention they were drawing.
“She should sit down,” Drake said, looking at Sully. “We’ve got too many eyes on us right now.”
Jada swung around to stare at him. “You can’t be serious.”
Drake returned her gaze. “We can’t do this here, Jada. Or do the words ‘international incident’ mean nothing to you? We don’t have an exit strategy. So please, sit down.”
Jada turned and stared at her stepmother. Olivia’s expression was almost pitiful, even more so in a woman who seemed so practiced at projecting an air of aloof sophistication.
“Not a chance in hell,” Jada said. She glared at Drake and then turned to Sully. “You want to make nice with her, have a blast. But don’t be surprised if you’re the next one who turns up dead.”
She turned on her heel and made a beeline for the exit. Sully and Olivia called after her, but Jada didn’t look back. When Sully started to follow, Drake stood up quickly and grabbed his shoulder.
“No. You stay with her,” he said, indicating Olivia. “I’ll get Jada back. Whether she likes it or not, there’s a conversation that needs to happen here.”
Drake took off after Jada, all too aware of the eyes on him. Most of the people were watching his quarry, however. An attractive young American woman with magenta streaks in her hair would have gotten a lot of attention even if she hadn’t been storming off like a spoiled teenager.
That’s not fair, Drake thought, catching himself. If their positions were reversed and he truly believed Olivia had had a hand in killing Sully, he wouldn’t stand there and listen to her spin lies, either. But Jada had hated Olivia even while her father was alive, so Drake had to make her see that she might not be viewing things objectively. He had to make her see that if there was a chance she was wrong, they’d be leaving an innocent woman alone in the path of a killer.
As he emerged from the restaurant into the