“Dress? It’s a jellabiya—the most comfortable clothing I own. When I am not working as an interpreter it’s all I wear.” He turned to Colton. “You must try one on while you are here. The freedom! The comfort! Keeps you cool everywhere. You know what I mean? Best part of living in Egypt. Hands down.”
Dallas sputtered. “What? I’m talking about the driving. The dress—I mean jellabiya—is fine. Kinda cute, actually.””
Abet laughed. “Kamil has come with the highest recommendation. I don’t get into any cars in Egypt with anyone who isn’t proven to be safe.”
“He stopped at a red light. He nearly got us into a head-on accident. And now, he’s driving like a maniac at more than twenty miles over the speed limit.”
Abet raised an eyebrow. “Speed limit?”
“Okay, I made that last part up, but you know what I mean.”
“He stopped at the light because lights don’t mean anything. Did you see the other car run the red light? If we had not stopped your side of the car would be smashed to bits. He passed the car because otherwise we might have been rear-ended by another vehicle who was going even faster than us and the car he passed. And nearly doesn’t count. What do they say in America? Close only counts in horseheads and hand grenades.”
“Horseheads!” Colton burst into laughter. “Horse shoes!”
Abet gave him a skeptical look. “Horse shoes?”
“Horse heads?”
“I admit, it never made sense to me, but what do I know? And horse shoes makes no more sense to me than horse heads,” Abet said.
“Horseshoes is a game,” Dallas said. She laughed and explained.
“Aha. Now I see.”
“So basically, all drivers are insane in Egypt?” Colton said.
“They say if you can live through driving in Egypt you can drive anywhere in the world safely.”
“Good to know,” Dallas said. “But you might have to find me some valium for our next trip. I don’t know if my nerves can take it.”
Every time the driver passed by a car, whether it was literally passing it, or if the other car was waiting to get on the road, there was honking involved.
Each time, it startled Dallas from her thoughts.
“What’s up with the honking.”
“It is communication between the drivers.” Abet said.
“Whatever.” She leaned her head back on Colton’s shoulder and closed her eyes. It was better that way. Otherwise, if she paid attention to the road in front of them, she was going to end up a nervous wreck by the time they got to Taposiris.
Abet was telling Colton how Taposiris Magna was situated on the edge of Lake Mariout. He was growing angry speaking about how the once fresh water lake now was brackish because during Napoleonic times, the British had destroyed a sea wall and flooded the lake with water from the Mediterranean. In doing so the resultant flooding from sea water that destroyed 150 Egyptian villages. Apparently, he had familial ties to one of the villages that was destroyed.
He gave a large sigh. “I supposed it was what forced my ancestors to move to Cairo, which probably led to us being educated and not peasants.”
“But still!” Colton was indignant. Dallas smiled. He’d always had a soft spot for the natives of a land who were trod on by invaders. If you wanted to raise his ire, just bring up how Native Americans were treated by settlers. Dallas loved that passionate side of him.
As the two men’s voices faded into murmurs in the background, Dallas drifted off into her own thoughts, laying out her plan of attack once they reached the temple.
First, she’d find the highest ground on the site and survey it from there. There was a good chance that if Cleopatra was buried there, her tomb was oriented with the way the sun rose and set so Dallas would figure that out first. The ancient Egyptians cared about stuff like that, Dallas thought.
People were buried facing west, toward the setting sun, because they believed that the sun God, Ra, needed to help them reach the afterlife. They believed that the sun god set every night and was reborn every morning at dawn. They viewed sun rays as stairways to heaven.
After surveying from the highest point, she’d make a broad circle around the temple starting at the furthest edge and moving in closer in concentric circles. Dallas wasn’t sure what she hoped to find from this first visit, but she’d know it when she saw it.
Excitement surged through her and she tensed. It must have been obvious because Colton stopped what he was saying and turned to her. “Everything okay?”
“Just excited.”
He smiled and Dallas suddenly wanted to lean over and kiss him again.
What the hell was wrong with her? She was on the brink of possibly the most exciting discovery in her life and instead was thinking about kissing a guy. Lame.
She turned away before he did, staring straight ahead out the front windshield. The landscape was whizzing by. Thank God they seemed to be the only car on the road so she didn’t have to fear for her life. Or at least hadn’t had to for at least twenty minutes.
Soon they pulled off the road and onto a smaller road. The driver stopped at what appeared to be a checkpoint with a small guard shack. Dallas tugged on a hat with ear flaps to guard against the hot sun and was out of the car the second it stopped. The driver and Abet got out of the car and were speaking to two men who had emerged from the shack wearing jellabiyas.
Above them was the temple. Dallas stood in front of their car and stared, shading her eyes to see across the expanse of desert. From where she was she could see several large, free-standing pieces remained of the massive stone walls surrounding the temple. The tops of the walls were crumbling in places.
Colton was soon beside her. He let out a long whistle. “Unbelievable.”
“Right?” Dallas said and turned to smile at him. He grabbed her hand and she squeezed it tightly.
Abet called her name and Dallas and Colton walked over to join the two uniformed men. As she approached, Dallas rummaged in her bag and found the document with the Minister’s signature.
The men gave her the once over and then one of them reached for the paper. He read it, his lips moving and then handed it to the other man who looked at it for a brief second before nodding.
They said something to Abet who turned to her.
“They said it’s closed for the day.”
Dallas threw back her shoulders, jutted out her chin and met the men’s eyes as she spoke.
“Tell them the minister said I could be here any time I want and if they have a problem with it I can call him now.” She reached for her cell phone.
After Abet relayed the information, one of the men frowned. The other glared at Dallas and spit on the ground but then moved aside, muttering something.
Abet turned to go back to the car. “Let’s go. They said we can drive up to that clearing and park there.”
“I’ll walk,” Dallas said.
She held her breath as she strode past the two men with guns but they didn’t move or say anything. Soon Colton and Abet drove by in the car. She looked up in time to see Colton give a smile and little wave.
By the time she got to the clearing, Colton had popped the trunk of the car and withdrawn some equipment he’d brought. Mainly cameras and other survey equipment. A shipment of other excavating materials was expected the next day.
“I’m going to take some measurements of the area,” Colton said.
Dallas scanned the walls of the temple and then headed toward a tall opening in the wall. Inside, the desert floor was the same as outside, sand dotted with small circles of brush. But up against one said were massive stone blocks that seemed to scale up to the top of the wall in that area. The ruins.
Her heart beating wildly in her chest, Dallas reached out and touched a nearby stone. Cleopatra had been here. And might be somewhere in this temple. It was awe-inspiring.
Colton was suddenly beside her. “Wow.” He was snapping off some photos with a special camera.
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sp; “I know,” she said. But then she quickly brushed off her fangirl thoughts and began to think like an archeologist. As she surveyed the area, it didn’t take long for her to spot her first surveillance spot. It was a small ridge at the eastern edge of the dig site.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said. She grabbed a bottle of water and her camera and took off.
The sun had begun to set by the time Dallas felt like she’d gotten a feel for the layout of the temple and some possible ideas about where she would start digging once the permit was granted.
It wasn’t a matter of “if” it was “when.”
Colton met her at the car. He handed her a pita with some sort of meat and grain.
“Abet brought these.”
Dallas didn’t answer as she hungrily devoured the meal watching Colton. He had dirt on his face and sweat dripping down his temples. And he looked great. A cool breeze swept in from the sea making Colton lean back his head and close his eyes. “Heaven.”
She pulled her hat off and shook out her hair to catch the breeze. “You aren’t kidding.”
The air had been still and stagnant all afternoon. The cool breeze seemed to revive them. Dallas took a big slug of her water bottle and offered it to Colton. He grabbed it and chugged and then handed it back. “Sorry.”
“No worries. There’s more in the trunk.”
They made their way over to the car. The driver had a cloth pulled over his face and was softly snoring. Abet was curled up in the back seat, also asleep.
Colton and Dallas leaned against the back of the car.
“What do you think?” Colton asked.
“I think that we start to dig and I know the first spot. Most people would tend to think royalty would want to be buried smack dab in the middle of the temple, right? And that’s exactly why Cleopatra would not be buried there.”
“Right. Wait. What?” Colton furrowed his brow.
“If you know the history of this temple, it was built around 270 BCE by Cleopatra’s ancestor, for Pharaoh Ptolemy II as a temple to Osiris. That’s what Taposiris means: A place of Osiris,” she said.
Colton was watching her mouth as she spoke, which was oddly disconcerting.
But she continued. “So, there is a good chance there is already a tomb in the middle of the temple for the pharaoh. Cleopatra would know this. She wouldn’t want to usurp that spot. In fact, she would want to be buried in a spot that showed she was above an earthly king.
“Because she considered herself the incarnation of the god Isis, she would want to be placed in a burial tomb that indicated she was above the earthly royalty. And one way to do that—or at least to symbolize that—would to be buried in a tomb that was due northwest of the pharaoh’s tomb. While it isn’t physically ‘above’ the pharaoh’s tomb, it is symbolically ‘above’ and closer to the setting sun where the sun god, Ra, would come to guide her. Does that make sense?” Dallas could feel her nose wrinkle as she asked the question. Even though she knew it was true, she was also hearing her theory said out loud for the first time.
“Yes!” Colton’s voice rang with excitement. “Everything, every move had to symbolize something and you’re right, she would consider herself above an earthly pharaoh. This makes sense.”
“We just need to find something that places Cleopatra here during her lifetime. Anything. Any sign of her to prove to the minister we should be granted a permit to excavate on a long-term basis.”
“You said you have limited capacity to dig on this trip?” Colton asked.
“Two weeks. Abet is going to hire a crew to accompany us back here tomorrow. He said it wouldn’t be worth paying them for the first day of surveying.”
Colton nodded. “I think my surveying is done. Should we call it a day?”
Dallas was about to say ‘No way,’ when she noticed the dark circles under Colton’s eyes. He’d basically flown fourteen hours from the states, immediately got on a train, arrived here and then spent the afternoon surveying in the hot sun.
“Oh my God. You must be exhausted.”
He gave a sheepish smile.
“Let’s wake them,” Dallas said, reaching for the door handle. “We can get a good night’s sleep and be back out here bright and early.”
When they returned to the city, Colton was asleep in the seat beside her. She nudged him gently and said in a whisper. “Come on, Colton. We’re here.”
He frowned and opened his eyes. “Huh?”
“We’re back in Alexandria.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I need to find a hotel room.”
“Not tonight,” Dallas said, reaching for his hand. “You’re going to stay in my room tonight.”
She led him upstairs and he basically fell into the bottom bunk. Dallas yanked off his boots and then covered him up to the chin. He was already snoring again. She smiled.
After getting ready for bed, she crawled into the top bunk. She couldn’t stop smiling. Colton was in the bunk below her and he was so damn cute when he was sleeping. But more than that, now that she’d seen the temple, she knew they were on the verge of finding something at the site. Something big. She just knew it.
She couldn’t be wrong. She couldn’t afford to be wrong.
She fell asleep to thoughts of mummified bodies walking in underground passageways at Taposiris Magna.
Ten
When Dallas woke, Colton was standing there grinning from ear-to-ear thrusting a large cup of coffee toward her. Because of the bunk beds, his face was at her eye level.
“So, that’s what you look like with your hair down.”
Scowling, she reached for a hair binder and yanked her hair up into a tight ponytail.
He laughed.
“Is that coffee for me?” she said with a smile and reached for the mug. She took a big gulp before coming up for air. He was staring at her and she realized her camisole strap had slipped, revealing some flesh. Nothing untoward, but enough to make them both blush.
He turned away as she yanked it up.
“How long have you been awake?” Dallas said, trying to figure out how to climb out of the top bunk with a full cup of coffee.
“Here let me hold that,” Colton said, reaching for the mug as she crawled out.
“Thanks. I see you found the café across the street.”
“Yep. And I’m sorry I already ate,” Colton said, gesturing toward his bed where there was a big white bag. “But I saved you some. I picked out the healthiest thing I could. Looked like bark and seaweed so I figured you’d eat it.”
Dallas laughed. “Good job.”
She rummaged in the bag and withdrew a hard, dark roll with seeds and green flecks. She took a big bite. “Yum. You sure know how treat a girl, Colton McCloud.”
“I barely remember coming to bed.”
“You were pretty out of it.”
“Thanks for letting me sleep here,” he said. “I’ll find a place today.”
Dallas had a mouthful of her roll and had to swallow and gulp some coffee to wash it down before she could answer.
“You could stay here.”
He lifted his shoulders as if he were going to shrug, but before he could protest, Dallas spoke. “It would actually be doing me a favor. I’d really feel safer,” she said. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet. I’ve had some weird things happen—besides the break in back home—and I wouldn’t mind having you in the room, if that bed isn’t too uncomfortable.” Or awkward.
“Uh, well, I guess … um.”
Dallas hid her smile. She’d never seen Colton tongue-tied before.
Then a terrible thought struck her: Maybe he could read her mind. That she wanted to rip his clothes off right then. But maybe what was even more real was that she wanted him around. As her boss. As her friend. As her … whatever he was, she wanted him around. She hadn’t realized just how big a part of her life he was until the past few days without him.
Then his eyes grew wide as he registered what she’d said.
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“Wait? What kind of weird things?”
She told him about getting robbed outside the museum, the strange return of her bag, and how she was convinced someone knew she was in Egypt and why she was there.
Colton’s brow furrowed as she spoke and when she was done, he exhaled loudly and said, “Wow. Okay. I think it’s smart for me to stay here. But do you want the bottom bunk?”
“Heck no. Bottom bunk is for the punk.”
“What?” he said. They both burst into laughter.
“Just something stupid my friends and I would say during sleepovers.”
Dallas grabbed her clothes and toiletries and headed for the bathroom before he could see her blush. She was lying. She had no friends who said that. No sleepovers. It was something she’d seen in a pre-teen movie once. It was something she wished had been said to her by friends. She shook off that feeling of being a lonely, chubby girl and stepped into the shower. She was a bad ass. She was a strong, powerful, intelligent woman. She had nothing to prove.
But in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but think what all those girls who ignored her in school would think of her now. What would they think when they saw her face on magazine covers lauding her as the woman who discovered Cleopatra’s tomb?
Within thirty minutes, they were both downstairs in front of the hotel with wet hair waiting for Abet and their driver.
An hour later, they were helping their new crew of ten local men unpack gear at the dig site.
Dallas was already sweating and it was only eight in the morning. She wished she could wear her signature shorts instead of loose khakis and a loose long-sleeve blouse, but she knew the sun in Egypt was brutal. Plus, she knew the shorts would garner unnecessary attention from the crew whom she already caught staring at her a few times. Oh well. She’d show them she wasn’t some prissy woman from the States. She’d work alongside them just as hard and just as long.
Even though it seemed counterintuitive, the more covered up she was, the cooler she’d remain. Why the men wore man dresses, she thought and then giggled imagining Colton in one. He’d look hot. He’d look hot in anything.
Buried Secrets Page 8
