“You know what a bright and greedy young man my little brother is, Lucia.” Richard doesn’t look at her as he speaks. “Well, he figured out how to get back at me for keeping him on a tight financial leash and how to supplement his income at the same time.”
She knows what he is going to say. She had glimpsed the truth that night in another dark bar.
“He also had the pleasure of unmanning me and getting back at you for getting half my money in one neat blow. He resented that I made sure you were taken care of in case I didn’t live. I didn’t want you tied up in legal battles with my relatives because we were never legally married.”
“You should have been,” Ian comments without opening his eyes.
“I suspect Julian approached Mark the morning after he slept with you. He might have prevented it from happening in the first place, for my sake, but he didn’t. And maybe watching you with Mark that night in the dining room is what gave him his idea. I don’t know. In any case, you were right. Mark was coached almost from the very beginning on how to treat you, but not by me. Julian groomed him to be your perfect romantic hero and, as long as I didn’t find out, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. He’d still have my allowance if you left me for Mark, who’d pay him and keep on paying him for not telling anyone the truth about how he landed his rich wife. And even if I found out and cut him off he’d still have access to your money through Mark.”
Still leaning against the column, Ian looks as pale as if he just crossed a vast stretch of desert at night and suffered a bad case of moonburn. “It was something Mark said this morning. He said, ‘she’s rich anyway’.”
“How could Mark have known that, Lucia?” Richard asks her. “You didn’t even know it yourself until just before we boarded the Sistrum. I thought maybe you’d managed to get in touch with Mark after that.”
“No.” She concentrates on the meaningless hieroglyphs to the right of Ian’s head. “This morning was the first time I saw him or talked to him since we left Cairo.”
“You could have mentioned it to Ian and he could have told Mark.”
“But she didn’t and I didn’t.”
“Which means,” Richard concludes, “that Mark found out from Julian that you were wealthy in your own right now. And why would my little brother give a guy who had punched him in the face such a valuable piece of information? That whole show in the tomb was designed to keep me from suspecting they were working together and to put you in Mark’s debt for saving you from a fate worse than death. Julian wasn’t supposed to threaten you, Lucia. He wasn’t following my script.”
“Yet you can’t prove they’ve been working together from the beginning,” she protests, finding the uncertainty worse than anything. “Maybe they just recently decided to gang up on you.”
“Maybe,” Richard says harshly. “But I doubt it.”
“He used me.” Ian’s eyes open. “He lied to me to get to you.” He straightens up. “And I don’t appreciate that one bit.”
“What do you want to do about this, Lucia?” Richard meets her eyes. “You’re the one who’s been fucked from every angle here.”
Ian protests, “I didn’t mean…”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
“I have to know for sure,” she says. “If we just walk over and confront them they’ll deny everything and I’ll never know for sure.”
Richard says, “I’ll do anything you say.”
* * * * *
“Mark!”
He turns away from the bar. “Lucia, my God, what happened to you?”
Her long black dress torn on one side all the way up from her ankle to the top of her thigh, her hair windblown and her cheeks flushed. She clings to his shirt and gasps when she sees Julian. “What is he doing here?”
“It’s a long story. First tell me what happened to you.”
She whispers miserably, “I killed him!”
“What?”
“What?” Julian echoes.
“I killed him!” she breathes, looking around the bar to make sure no one heard her.
Mark reaches back and carefully sets his beer down on the bar. “Killed him?”
“Killed who?” Julian demands.
“Richard!” she whispers. “I killed Richard! I had to! I had to defend myself!”
Julian sounds more astonished than anything, “You killed my brother?”
“In self-defense! You have to believe me!”
“We can’t talk here.” Mark says carefully. “Let’s go up to the room.”
* * * * *
“I don’t believe this! I don’t fucking believe this!” Julian’s hair is literally standing on end from his creative use of gel. “She killed my brother! The bitch,” he strides toward her, “killed my brother!”
Mark comes between them. “Put a lid on it,” he says coldly. “The last thing we need to do right now is panic.”
“But she killed my brother!”
Mark shoves him down into a chair. “Last I heard you couldn’t stand your brother.”
Sitting across from Julian on the edge of the bed, she lifts her face out of her hands to relish the sight of him crying.
“That’s not true!” He wails like a lost little boy. “I hated him but I loved him too!”
“Shut up,” Mark says in disgust. “I’m trying to think.”
She winces, seeing the reflection of her own feelings in Julian’s expression as he looks up at Mark’s face then down the length of his perfect body. Her initial stab of disgust bleeding into sympathy, she leaps to her feet. “What am I going to do?’
Mark turns toward her. “You need to tell us exactly what happened, Lucia.”
“I told you. Ian gave me his gun for protection and when I told Richard I was leaving him he…he got so angry I…”
Mark catches her as she falls and lifts her up into his arms.
“She fainted?” There is a jealous sneer in Julian’s voice.
Mark lays her across one of the double beds.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Julian suddenly sounds like himself again. “It means she’s going to jail and that I’m rich. All his money goes to me now and so does hers.”
“Doesn’t she have any relatives?”
“I don’t think so, but even if she does it doesn’t matter. She killed her husband. Her relatives aren’t entitled to a dime if they put her away.” He concludes reverently, “I’ll get it all.”
“She’s not going to jail,” Mark says firmly.
“What do you mean? She killed someone. Of course she’s going to jail.”
“She killed her husband in self-defense. I’ll testify on her behalf, they’ll acquit her and we’ll get married.”
“Are you fucking crazy? She would have made you sign a prenuptial agreement for sure. It’s much better this way.”
“No.” The mattress dips to one side as Mark sits down beside her on the bed. “She loves me.”
“I love you too, Mark.”
“Maybe, yet legally I’ll never be entitled to a cent of your money. Wake up, sweetheart,” he shakes her gently by the shoulders, “I need you to tell me what happened so I can help you.”
She pushes him away and sits up. “Richard!” she cries.
The door leading out into the hall bursts open beneath a violent kick.
Richard walks into the room. “I just can’t seem to stay dead,” he says.
She runs to him and attempts to melt into his ribs as he slips an arm around her.
Ian follows him into the room. “Thanks for the story, Mark.” He contentedly lights a cigarette. “I think I’ve got it straight now.”
The End
References
“The Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt-A Guide to the Sacred Places of Ancient Egypt” by John Anthony West, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1985.
“The Holographic Universe” by Michael Talbot, HarperPerennial edition (a division of HarperCollins Publishers) 1992.
About th
e Author
Maria Isabel Pita is a best-selling author of BDSM, paranormal, contemporary and historical fiction. She studied Cultural Anthropology, World History & English Literature in college and has since traveled to five continents. Maria’s great passion is writing but she is also a passionate foodie, hence her new blog http://ancientomnivore.com. Maria lives with the man of her dreams and her dog, Arthur, on two magical acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
Maria welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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