Relentless (Lodestone)

by Cherry Adair

  Thorne twisted and inspected. “Not hollow.”

  “Husani, what do the glyphs say?”

  “A poem for long life and prosperity.”

  “Of little value?”

  “Of no value at all, I’m sorry to say, little bird. It makes no sense to me, either, but my father informs me that the professor was very specific that he hold this, and the box, until he returned and to give them to no one else.”

  She held it out to Thorne. “Can you get anything from this?”

  “Bought somewhere close by. I don’t see any significance.”

  Isis blew out a breath and handed it back to her friend. “Would you mind if I leave it here with you? I have no way to carry it safely, and I don’t want to lose it. Obviously it has some sentimental value for my father. I’ll take it back to Seattle. Maybe seeing it will jog his memory.” She paused. “What box?”

  He handed her a small boxy reed basket about the size of her palm, crisscrossed with a length of grubby ribbon. An equally dirty white business-sized card was tied on top. Thorne reached over to pinch the paper between his fingers, acknowledged the stream of GPS numbers suddenly running through his head, and flipped over the card so both he and Isis could see the tyet, the hieroglyph knot hastily sketched on one side. He turned the card. The other side was blank.

  Isis carefully untied the thin ribbon, stuffing it in her camera bag absently so she could lift the lid. The bright light in her eyes dulled. Inside was a ratty silk tassel, the kind that could be found on millions of Turkish rugs worldwide.

  “Damn it, Daddy,” she muttered under her breath, her disappointment evident from the slump of her shoulders. “Couldn’t you just write me a note like a freaking normal person?”

  “DYLAN CAME TO SEE me this morning as well,” Husani told Isis with a frown on his smooth features as he handed her a small cup of mint tea she didn’t want, then poured another for Thorne. “What’s going on, Isis?” he asked after handing Thorne a cup. “Does your presence, and that of your old friend, have anything to do with my father’s attack?”

  Dylan? Her heart fluttered. “What did he want?” A small alarm dinged. The attack after their arrival in Cairo, Beniti’s attack, and now Dylan had visited Husani?

  Thorne cocked a dark brow in her direction. He had very expressive eyebrows. “And he is?”

  “My father’s assistant.”

  “Little bird’s fiancé,” Husani said at the same time.

  “Dylan was never my fiancé,” Isis quickly denied. “We dated. He wanted more; I wanted less.” Zero chemistry, nothing like what she and Thorne created together. “What did he want, Husani?” she repeated.

  “To speak with Father.”

  Her nape tingled with apprehension. It was plausible. Dylan, being an Egyptologist, and having worked for her father for years, knew Beniti al-Atrash. They came to her father’s old friend when they wanted honest workers to go on a dig, or needed supplies whose prices hadn’t been jacked up to the skies.

  Why wouldn’t Dylan visit him if he was in Egypt? But why would her father’s assistant pick this time of year to excavate when the heat index was killer and most of the locals who could afford it left the city?

  She adjusted the strap between her breasts, the weight of the camera comforting against her side as they talked. “What did he want?” She opened the bag and shifted things to accommodate the small box. It was a tight fit to close the bag. “Did you tell Dylan that Beniti is in the hospital?”

  Husani shrugged. “No. When he found out that Father was not here, he said that Professor Magee sent him.”

  Isis curled her lip. “He did not.”

  Implacable, unflappable, Husani added, “He claimed your father sent him to retrieve the object he left behind on his last trip.”

  Her arm brushed Thorne’s as she touched her camera bag. “The stick and the box?” His innate strength lent her courage. “Did he ask for them specifically?”

  “No, which raised my suspicion. When I inquired as to what the item might be, he prevaricated, then admitted he didn’t know what had been left. I informed him I had no knowledge of such an article, and he departed.” Husani shrugged as if he had no control over the whims of fate. “He was not pleased.”

  Dylan “not pleased” was as petulant and whiney as a hormonal teenager. Isis shot a look at Thorne. “Dylan’s fishing. He wasn’t here that last time with my father, so he shouldn’t even know about this.”

  “I figured. This adds another new player, doesn’t it?” Thorne took his phone from the front pocket of his jeans. “What’s this Dylan’s last name?”

  “Brengard.” Isis’s fingers tightened around the lid of her camera case. “You don’t think he was the one who sent those men last night, do you? That doesn’t sound like something Dylan would do. He’s…” Weak. A follower. “A pacifist. Well, maybe not that, but he doesn’t seem the kind to condone violence.” He’d taken her rebuff with a shrug.

  Isis knew unequivocally that if and when Thorne decided not to be as patient as he was pretending to be, he’d take and not ask. She just wanted to make sure to let him catch her when he was ready.

  He gave her an indecipherable look as he punched in a number on his phone. “If there’s enough incentive people will do anyth—” He stopped abruptly at the sound of a skirmish outside, whipping his gun from under his shirt at the small of his back and subtly stepping in front of her.

  Heart in her throat, Isis peered around his arm, hearing running footsteps approaching, accompanied by shouts of anger.

  Hell, not again—

  SEVEN

  Thorne and Husani both leveled their weapons toward the swinging curtain at the entrance to the inner sanctum as the driver pushed his way through the carpets hanging from the ceiling.

  “Company,” he said quietly and succinctly, his eyes intense and focused. He too carried a very large black gun.

  Who the hell was Connor Thorne?

  “Back door?” Thorne demanded, addressing Husani.

  “I know the way,” Isis told him, forcing the basket down so she could latch the camera bag. “Are you coming, Husani?”

  “I will greet the visitors,” he said grimly, tucking his gun into the back of his loose pants. “Go, little bird!”

  “Thank you! This way.” Isis pushed between hanging layers of fine kilim rugs. The stall backed up into Beniti’s small shop, which faced the alley in the next block. Thorne stayed on her heels and the driver brought up the rear.

  “Get the lead out,” Thorne told her briskly as they moved from blankets, textiles, and plastic sphinxes to more expensive faux artifacts.

  “We can go through here, and then through the next shop, and then out a side d—” Her words were cut off by the sound of a gunshot. She spun around, slamming into Thorne’s hard chest. Isis braced a hand over the steady beat of his heart. “Husani!”

  He grabbed her upper arm. “Let’s go.” Twisting her around, he propelled her between crowded display cases, intricately inlaid tables where she’d played as a child, had haggled behind the counter as she got older, and stolen her first kiss as a teen. “Move!”

  They emerged through a narrow side alley crowded with tourists. The noise was jarring. How would they know who was after them in the crush of humanity? In the teeming mass of people someone could come right up and shoot them, knife them—whatever them—without being observed until it was too late.

  Sweat beaded her brow, and her heart raced erratically with the adrenaline surging through her. She stayed close to Thorne, slipping her hand into his, grateful when his strong fingers tightened around hers as they pushed through the shoppers and tourists.

  As they walked, Isis scanned the faces of the people surging around them like waves around a rock. Suddenly, instead of a million bits of color and potential photographic vignettes, she saw a thousand different threats. Everyone was suspect. Everyone looked potentially dangerous. One-handed she adjusted her camera around her neck, making sure it was
safe if she had to run again, glad that this time she wore tennis shoes instead of strappy sandals.

  “Back to the car?” She raised her voice to be heard over the noise of people haggling, shouting over loud music, normal conversation at higher than normal volume. This circus atmosphere, the colors and smells, the sounds of Egypt—all the things she loved now presented a threat. Thorne’s fingers tightened over hers, and he gave a little tug. “Turn left.”

  Isis pointed right. “But the car’s that way.” Or not. She had her father’s crappy sense of direction. She’d played in the labyrinth of the souk for years, but getting lost then had been an adventure that always led to pleasant discoveries and surprises—and a safe return to Beniti al-Atrash’s shop, escorted by other shopkeepers who knew her and her father.

  “We have another vehicle parked on the other side. Yes,” he said to the driver, clearly in answer to something she hadn’t heard. The guy melted into the crowds surging around them. Thorne kept her moving, although it wasn’t a simple task to navigate the onslaught of shoppers and laughing, playing children filling the narrow streets.

  Only someone intimately familiar with the souk could navigate the congested labyrinth with his certainty. If he’d studied a map of the area as he claimed, he must have a photographic memory, because his steps never faltered, and they were never obstructed by a dead end.

  He walked quickly down what looked like a blind alley, but pushed through T-shirts hanging in wild disarray from the ceiling of a small stall. They emerged into one of the narrow car-lined side streets running alongside the bazaar. The vehicle, a filthy Jeep with tinted windows, was parked nose out. He activated the door lock from half a block away and popped the door, almost shoving her inside before rounding the front and getting in himself.

  The car started with a deep throaty roar and they were off. He didn’t drive crazily, although doing so probably wouldn’t attract any more notice than did the rest of the drivers on the congested roads. He eased into traffic with aggressive confidence while she dug in her bag for a wad of tissue. Sweat ran down her temples and collected between her breasts.

  “Want a tissue?” She glanced over at him. He hadn’t even broken a sweat, and there was no sign of the gun. Unfazed and completely alert. She caught her breath. “I have some sanitizing towelettes as well if you—”

  “Tell me about this fiancé.”

  She wasn’t that vain, but she was damned if she’d wipe off her last vestiges of makeup if she didn’t have to. She blotted her forehead with a tissue, then opened the camera bag and pulled everything out to get to the small pack of hand wipes in the bottom. She meticulously repacked everything neatly before opening the package. The astringent smell of antiseptic filled the car. “Dylan isn’t, and never was, my fiancé.” She wiped her hands, then the back of her neck, enough to cool her for a few minutes until the air-conditioning kicked in.

  The skin around his eyes warped into a network of fine lines as his eyes narrowed. “That’s not what your friend Husani seemed to think.”

  She adjusted the vent to blow directly on her face. “He wasn’t even a boyfriend. He was my father’s assistant, and we dated off and on, and more because we were the only game in town than anything else.”

  “And yet here he is, right where you happened to be.”

  His tone, underlain with suspicion, made her skin prickle, and an unhappy swish curled through her stomach. Isis tried not to be an alarmist. Just because trigger-happy people had chased them—twice—didn’t mean Dylan was part of some nefarious plot. The men in the underpass the night before had beaten the crap out of Thorne, not her. Her reaction was just a knee-jerk reaction to what was going on.

  “It’s not such a stretch,” she told him, trying to be reasonable instead of reactive. “This is where his work is, after all. He worked for my father for years, but he’s probably working for someone else now.”

  “Let’s find out who.” He lifted his hip to remove his phone from his pocket.

  He didn’t greet whoever answered the phone, merely gave his name, paused, and then said, “Give me a full report on a Dylan Brengard—who he’s working for, and when he arrived in Cairo. Give me dates. Any intel on my old friend?” Pause. “Yes,” his voice was curt. “I am. And I will.” He didn’t say goodbye, just shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  “Who was that?” Isis demanded, resting her bent knee on the seat as she turned her whole body to face him. The time for his prevarication was over. Clearly Connor Thorne was not just some private eye. His connections went deeper than that, and his incredible fighting and defense skills screamed military. She wanted answers, and she damn well wanted them now. “What old friend?”

  He blatantly ignored her question and fired off one of his own in return. “How many years did Dylan work for the professor?”

  “Damn it, Thorne! Answer my questions first.”

  “Your questions aren’t a matter of life and death.”

  “You’re full of crap! You just don’t want to answer me. If you refuse to answer any of my perfectly reasonable—and, I might add, pertinent—questions, then how can I be the judge of that? For all I know you’re the bad guy and you’re doing all this to scare me into…” She had no idea what because she was so mad her mouth was going faster than her brain.

  “. . . leading you to my father’s discovery.” She finished, knowing she was being illogical, and not giving a damn. He was infuriating.

  He tore his eyes away from the road for one moment to glance at her. “You hired me, remember? I have no bloody interest in what two days ago I was pretty damn sure was your father’s pie in the sky. Answer my questions, and when I’m sure we’re safe, I’ll answer some of yours. How long did you date Dylan?”

  “Off and on for two summers. I spent quite a bit of time with my father here because I was commissioned to do a coffee-table book. He was here. I was here. We went to dinner, the movies when we were in town. Normal dating stuff.” She glanced at him. “Now one of mine. Who are you and who do you really work for? Because you have skills you didn’t learn from a mental GPS tracker.”

  He passed four cars at eighty miles per hour before answering. “I work for Lodestone.”

  Then Lodestone was more than just a company that found people and things. “Is that who you just called?”

  He hesitated, eyes locked on the road. “MI5.”

  “MI5? What’s that? A branch of the IRS?” She frowned. And why would he have them on speed dial? No one wanted to talk to them.

  “British Secret Service.”

  “You’re a spy?”

  “No. I’m a Lodestone agent here to help you find a tomb.”

  Isis didn’t know what to believe.

  Traffic came to a sudden crawl. An accident involving three cars and a herd of camels blocked most of the road. While the men and the camel owners argued loudly and gestured with swinging arms and waving hands at one another, all the cars pressed into one narrow channel, bumpers kissing as they wound around the melee. An errant camel swung its back end into the roadway, nearly blocking their progress. Thorne stomped on the brakes, forcing Isis to brace herself against the cracked vinyl dashboard.

  “A spy?! Seriously? So all this running, chasing, shooting, beating people to a pulp is child’s play to you?”

  He cursed under his breath and locked gazes with her for a moment. The intensity stole the air from her lungs.

  “It’s never child’s play, and I’m not here in that capacity.”

  “Well, actually, you are,” she pointed out—reasonably, she thought—“since we’ve done little else besides running and shooting since we got here. Is that how you hurt your leg?”

  “Do you ever 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. Shou
lder-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.”