Night Of No Return

The dazed look hadn’t cleared from her eyes. “Alex.” She took his hand and he felt a second shock, but this one was purely sensual. Understandable, and distinctly pleasant. “Alex Bok?” Her gaze sharpened, and he knew she’d recognized the name. “Any relation to Franklin and Elizabeth Bok?”

He smiled crookedly. “You could say that. They’re my parents.”

She laughed. “Good heavens, you’re an archaeologist! If you knew what all I had imagined…”

He hadn’t released her hand after shaking it. Nora Lowe had narrow palms, with the callouses of a woman who works with her hands. She wore no rings. Her skin was warm…and she smelled of lilacs. “Why, what did you think I was?”

“Oh, all sorts of things—a smuggler, a reporter, a pilgrim. Archaeologist never made the list.” She tilted her head. “I think we have a friend in common. Myrna Lancaster.”

It took him a moment to place the name. “Myrna. Of course. We got to know each other on a dig in the Eastern Desert two years ago.” He’d been on the trail of a particularly bloody assassin, and Myrna had provided welcome relief from the grim hunt. A delightfully energetic young woman, he recalled, and no more interested in permanent entanglements than he had been.

A short, curvy young woman with glasses that wouldn’t stay up on her dot of a nose tugged at Nora’s sleeve to get her attention. “So who is he?”

“The son of the couple who wrote the book on Old Kingdom pottery. Literally.” That came from the man Alex had seen returning to camp with Nora when he arrived. “You must have studied it in one of your classes.” He didn’t sound excited. More like suspicious.

Or jealous?

“He’s also the man I found in the Negev,” Nora said. Then, apparently realizing Alex still held her hand, she flushed and pulled it away.

“The one who was stabbed?” The young woman’s eyes widened behind her glasses in delicious horror. “By bandits? The one you stumbled over when you were visiting your old professor?”

Nora glanced at Alex apologetically. “The story was too good not to share.”

He’d counted on it. “That was inevitable, I suppose.” He reached back inside the truck, taking out an olive-colored duffel bag, and bent to pull an envelope from its side pocket. “This is from Dr. Ibrahim. I gather it introduces me and explains why he sent me.”

She took the letter, but didn’t open it. “Let me introduce you more formally—now that I know your name.” A quick, shy grin lit her face. “This is DeLaney Brown, our resident cheerleader.”

The young woman with the slippery glasses made a face. “Just think of me as part of the cheap labor.”

“Glad to meet you, DeLaney.” He already knew who she was, of course. Jonah had supplied him with backgrounds for the Americans and the single Englishman at the dig. DeLaney Brown was a twenty-three-year-old graduate student at the university where Nora Lowe taught. Her father was a successful surgeon; her mother was deeply involved in charity work. No siblings. She was bright, impulsive, and prone to throw herself at political causes of all sorts, though there were no known ties to any of the Arabic fringe groups. He held out his hand.

DeLaney’s palm was sweaty. She gave his hand a single quick squeeze before pulling her hand back so she could push her glasses up again. “What on earth did you do to make someone stab you, anyway?”

“Good God, DeLaney, you have the manners of a small child sometimes. I’m Lisa.” The third woman present held out a broad, blunt-nailed hand. “More cheap labor.”

Lisa was also a graduate student, Alex knew, but she was more than twenty years older than DeLaney, having returned to college after a messy divorce. She had dark skin, grizzled dark hair cut very short, three earrings in each ear, and an ex-husband with gambling debts. Her handshake was firm.

“Welcome to the dig,” she said. “I can’t place your accent. You American?”

“Yes, but I grew up in this part of the world.”

“That would explain it. You sound almost like Tim.”

“Speaking of whom,” Nora said, “this is Timothy Gaines, my assistant—Dr. Gaines, actually—but we don’t bother much with titles out here. But maybe the two of you have met? Tim is with the British Museum, but he’s currently attached to the Cairo Museum.”

Alex held out his hand again. “I’m not on staff at either museum, so I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Technically, I’m not on staff in Cairo, either, but they do give me office space. Good to have you here, Bok.” At twenty-eight, Timothy Gaines had the bony, stretched-out frame of Abraham Lincoln, a basketball player’s hands, and the suspicious manner of a dog whose territory has been invaded. Gaines didn’t play any childish games with the handshake, though, keeping it brief and businesslike.

“Dr. Ibrahim sends his regards.” Alex hadn’t actually spoken to the museum’s director, but it seemed a safe thing to say.

“Tactful bloke, aren’t you? I can just imagine what he really said. Ibrahim tends to forget I’m around, and when he does remember, he doesn’t like me above half.”

Nora gave Tim a puzzled glance, as if she sensed his hostility but didn’t understand it, and then went on to introduce the last two members of her crew. Alex knew less about Gamal and Ahmed than he knew about the westerners. He needed to learn more, fast. He was hoping one of these people was connected to the terrorist group that called themselves El Hawy. It would make finding the boss a lot simpler. Not easier, necessarily, but simpler. The Egyptians were the likeliest plants.

Ahmed was in his twenties, a quiet young man with a formal manner. Educated, judging by his accent, which made Alex wonder what he was doing here, rather than in one of the cities. Gamal was older and more talkative, with a wide, gap-toothed grin.

And then, of course, there was Nora Lowe, the woman who had saved his life. He’d been too out of it to retain a clear image of her face, but her voice—that had stayed with him. Her voice, her scent, the feel of her hair, her warmth. Most of all, he remembered the warmth of her. He’d been so very cold, when she’d found him.

Alex tried to look at her objectively, as she laughed at something DeLaney said. He knew quite a bit about Nora Lowe. He hadn’t been able to fit the dry facts in the report to his memory of soft hands, warmth, and clouds of dark hair. He was having trouble now, fitting either facts or memory to reality.

According to the report, Dr. Lowe was thirty, unmarried and brilliant. Also determined. She came from poverty, yet had put herself through college and graduate school with the help of scholarships, loans and grants. Her mother was dead, her father unknown; she had two sisters, both older than her. One of her sisters had been married twice, the first time while still in high school. The other sister had earned her GED from a jail cell, where she’d served time for passing hot checks.

The woman standing in front of him had a quick smile and a sexy mouth, wide and fluid. Her nose was slightly crooked, and her face was too narrow for real beauty. The clouds of midnight-dark hair that he remembered were pulled back today in a braid that hung halfway down her back.

Her pale-blue eyes, fringed in black, were nothing short of stunning.

“I imagine you’re tired,” she was saying. “The drive from Feiron Oasis isn’t that long, but the last stretch is pretty rough, and Mahmoud’s insistence on driving at night means you haven’t had much sleep. What would you rather have first—breakfast, a nap or a look at the dig?”

You. “All of the above, except for the nap. I don’t need much sleep. But first, maybe you could show me where to put my things until I can get my tent up?”

“Sure.” That mobile mouth turned up in a smile. “I’m glad you brought your own tent. We’re a bit crowded.”

“I’ll be glad to show him around,” DeLaney said eagerly.

“Nope. You need to help unload. Okay, everyone—” Nora waved her hands in a shooing motion “—make like good little worker ants. The faster we get the supplies unloaded and stored, the faster we can get some real work done. Alex, I’ll show you where to set up.”

With a measure of good-natured grumbling, the others headed for the back of the truck. Except for Tim. “So, are you really here on Ibrahim’s behalf,” he asked, “or did your parents send you?”

“Tim!” Nora sounded half-amused, half-appalled. “What’s with you this morning? Have you been eating your own cooking or something?”

“Am I being rude? Sorry. I haven’t had my coffee yet.” He spoke to Nora, but he watched Alex.

“For heaven’s sake, then, grab a cup. You can drink it while you help unload.”

“All right, all right. I can take a hint.” The younger man tossed her a salute and moved off to join the rest.

Nora’s clear blue eyes looked puzzled when they met his. “I am sorry about that. It isn’t like Tim to take pot shots at someone else’s professional background. He’s usually so laid-back it’s hard to be sure he’s awake.”

“I’m used to it. With my parents being who they are, I’ve had opportunities that others haven’t.” Not all of those opportunities were part of his public record, of course.

“But it isn’t up to him to question your credentials, is it? This is my dig.” Her faint emphasis on the possessive pronoun suggested she thought there might be some doubt in his mind about that.

“Of course.” Alex had no intention of challenging her authority. “Dr. Ibrahim didn’t send me here to look over your shoulder. I’m here to work, not just to watch.”

She nodded thoughtfully, as if she were considering taking him at his word but hadn’t made up her mind. “We can go into all that later, maybe over breakfast. Right now, why don’t we take care of your things?”

Alex noticed the way Tim kept track of them when Nora showed him where to put up his tent. Definitely jealous, he decided. Was there something going on between Nora and her long, tall assistant?