The sonar footage had showed underground aquifers that led to the sea. That was NOT where she wanted to go. Pushing against the flow of the water, she decided to explore the walls of the room she was in. Because it was a room. It was larger than the tunnel and the ceiling was taller. As she made her way around, feeling the edges, she figured out she was in another circular room. That meant it was likely there was at least one other doorway to another tunnel, but she wasn’t sure that was the way to go. As she moved, something bumped into her and she screamed, but then quickly realized the water was bobbing with metal objects. Some type of debris from the earthquake? She continued feeling her way around the circular walls.
Her fingers touched smooth stone and then she felt something different. A dip. Keeping her head above water, she reached down. It felt like another opening. Dipping down to reach her hand, she had to lean her head back in the water until only her nose was in the air. When she came up again her head was facing straight up and she nearly jumped with what she saw.
Above her and to the right was a small circle that was gray, lighter than the surrounding darkness.
Was that how the men had got into the tunnel system?
Quickly she made her way in that direction, groping the wall with her good hand as she pulled herself over there. When she was at the base of it, to her surprise instead of feeling wall, she felt something different. A step. Her feet reached down. Another step! She nearly screamed in victory. Stairs. She stood, raising herself out of the water as she scaled the stairs. Thank God!
For a second her legs were weak, but another rush of adrenaline surged through her pushing her, and soon the small circle of gray became brighter.
Her shoulder throbbed in pain and her injured arm hung useless at her side. She wanted to collapse onto the ground and weep with relief to be out of the water, but she kept pushing, her s body shivering uncontrollably and feeling extraordinarily heavy because of her sodden clothing and boots that squeaked as she walked, water sloshing out of them. She blinked trying to focus on the circle of gray that was becoming larger. She wanted to swipe at the foul-smelling water dripping down her forehead into her eyes but kept her good arm holding onto the wall for balance.
Then the circle was not gray but white and large enough for her to step through. The stairs under her feet had ended and she stepped into a light-filled room. She blinked and then heard voices and more lights, but couldn’t focus in the sudden brightness.
But one voice stood out:
“Oh, my God. It’s Dallas!”
Twenty
Wrapped in a blanket, Dallas sat in the front seat of someone’s car with the heater blasting on her, but it didn’t stop her teeth from chattering.
Colton spoke in a low voice to someone in the backseat. “I think we need to get her to the hospital to get checked out for shock.”
“Nonsense,” Dallas said. “I’m not going anywhere.” But her words came out a stutter as her teeth chattered.
The entire parking lot was filled with lights. Police squad cars dotted the area along with several official looking government vehicles with seals on the door.
Dallas had stumbled on the second entrance to the tunnels at just about the same time as her crew and Colton had found it. They’d been frantically searching Sam’s footage of the temple for the other entrance and found it shortly before Dallas emerged into the first level of the chamber.
“So, the camera still worked?”
“Yep. Just not the audio apparently.”
“Wow.”
Colton nodded.
“And it didn’t help when you were in the dark. We couldn’t see shit. Didn’t know if you were alive or dead and the stupid camera was just filming your body being swept away.”
“Sweet.”
“Not so much,” Colton said. He reached for her hand and then leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I really would feel better if you were checked out.”
“How’s this? When we go back to the hotel you can check me out?” She tried to say it in a serious voice, but started laughing. It was unexpected. To her, as well, as Colton. He looked at her with concern, his eyebrows knitting together as her laughter continued wildly and then turned into tears.
“Okay.” She said once the tears stopped. “I’m good now. Just had to get that out.”
But by then, Colton had flagged a paramedic or someone who took Dallas in the back of a van and checked her.
When it was over, she was back in the passenger seat. “See, I’m fine. Just damn cold.”
“I guess so.” Colton sounded unconvinced.
“Colton,” Dallas said, reaching for his hand. “I really, really want to go over there and see what’s going on? Pretty please?”
Colton laughed. “I’ve got nothing to do with it. I’m not the one keeping you in this car. You think I want to be here?”
A horrified look spread across his face as he realized what he’d said.
“I mean, I want to be with you. And if that means sitting in the car, that’s where I want to be, but I’d rather both of us were over there seeing what they are doing.”
“What are they doing?” Dallas asked.
“From what I was told, the water is starting to drain. It’s going back out to the sea. The earthquake ruptured three major aquifers, flooding the tunnels and tomb and making everything collapse upon itself. They are planning on sending divers down to see if they can recover anything.”
“Anything as in bodies?”
“I’m afraid so,” Colton said. “We showed them the footage from your camera right before the water rushed in and it appears that the tomb caved in on itself. It would be next to impossible to survive and in fact they said they have really no hope of recovering anything from that tomb—treasure, statues, or—”
“Cleopatra.” Her voice was low and filled with disappointment.
“Her coffin was most likely destroyed.”
Destroyed.
She shook her head. An unbearable sense of grief swooped down on her.
It was unfathomable.
Twenty-One
The school president, a woman with dark black eyes and platinum hair wearing a Chanel suit, stood from behind her desk as Dallas walked in.
“Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me, Ms. Jones.”
“Of course,” Dallas said.
“Yesterday at the board of regents meeting a decision was made that was a little unorthodox,” the president began.
Dallas frowned.
“We’ve decided to reinstate you in your job and grant you tenure without the formal process and time requirements.”
Dallas shook her head in disbelief. “Seriously?”
The woman smiled. “As a heart attack.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, quite sure.”
“But there is something else,” Dallas said, thinking now was the time to come clean. “I mean, I need to make it clear I’m in a relationship with Colton McCloud.”
“We are aware of that relationship. You’re going to technically be under me. So, he is a colleague and not a direct supervisor.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you doing all this for me?”
“Apparently, the provost and the board of regents believe your discoveries in Egypt have brought quite a bit of esteem to our small anthropology department. And frankly, I agree. We are expanding the archeology section as a result.”
It was true. Dallas and Colton had been featured in two national magazines for their work and findings at Taposiris Magna.
“But I didn’t find Cleopatra.”
“Nobody has found Cleopatra,” she said. “But also, nobody in history as ever come so close.”
The president winked.
Wow. It was hard for Dallas to view the trip as successful right then, but she was flattered. It was just hard to get over the crushing sense of disappointment that filled her every time she thought about the dig site.
Tenure would be a lifeli
ne—something to cling to. Something solid. And it would keep her near Colton.
A half hour later, Dallas walked out as a newly tenured professor with the promise she had extracted from the president that she could always take a leave if another adventure came up.
That afternoon Colton ran into her office whopping.
“Congratulations!”
“You heard!” Dallas said.
“Oh, yeah. I have a bottle of champagne chilling in my office. We are going to celebrate.”
Dallas couldn’t help but laugh at his enthusiasm.
A few weeks later, Colton walked into Dallas’s office and saw Dallas sitting at her desk with her head in her hands.
“Dallas? You okay? What’s going on?”
Dallas lifted her head.
No, she wasn’t okay. She hadn’t slept for weeks.
Despite landing her dream job, she couldn’t stop thinking about Cleopatra’s tomb and the people who had died looking for it.
Late at night she would toss and turn thinking about it.
Her failure. It seemed so wrong she had been rewarded with this job for failing?
Her guilt and disappointment sometimes overwhelmed her. She’d been such a fool to think that finding the tomb had been her destiny. She felt like a fool.
Especially on the days like today when Colton rushed into her office with a huge grin.
She gave him a wan smile. “I just feel like such a failure,” she blurted out and then instantly regretted the admission.
“What?”
“I was so damn sure the tomb was there and then … poof, if it was it’s gone now, washed out to sea.”
Colton shook his head. “Are you kidding? You’re incredible. Your discoveries and contributions in archeology have only just begun. You realize that, right?”
She stared at him in amazement. What had she ever done to deserve this faith and loyalty?
“Don’t you like your job?”
Her faced flushed. “No, I mean yes, I love my job. It’s a dream come true. I love it. I promise.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I love having you back here.”
“Here? As in back at the university or as in the office next door to yours?” She said hoping to lighten the mood.
“Both!”
They both grinned like idiots at one another.
“I don’t know,” Dallas said. She kicked the door closed, looped her arms around his neck, and leaned in until their mouths were only millimeters apart. “Is it still as fun now that it’s not illicit.”
“Oh yeah.”
Later, at her desk in front of the class, she turned a page of the textbook and saw a picture of David Caldwell. She was shocked. He’d been in her textbook the entire time? In an instant, she was back in the tunnels of the temple, certain she was about to be killed.
“Ms. Jones? Ms. Jones?”
When she finally realized, the student was calling her name, she snapped back. She was sweating, her face was burning hot, and her heart was racing.
The student gave her a frightened look. She needed to get it together.
“Yes. I’m so sorry. I’ll be right back.”
She headed to the bathroom. Inside, she splashed cold water on her face and examined her reflection. “Get it together, Jones.”
She spent a few minutes giving herself a pep talk before she returned to the class and the students who had grown impatient waiting and was sitting back down.
“I’m sorry. What was your question?”
After the students packed up their things and left her to the empty classroom, Dallas caught herself daydreaming again—remembering what it had been like to see the door to Cleopatra’s tomb open. The exhilaration that had filled her, even though at the same time she’d been certain of her own death and thought it would be worth it to die if she at least could see Cleopatra’s mummified body.
Crazy. She shook away the dark thoughts and gathered up her things. As she did, she noticed something odd.
It was a piece of parchment. It hadn’t been on her desk earlier.
She looked around the empty class. Had someone put it there when she was in the bathroom. She picked it up. It had an asp on it. She turned it over. It said, “Death Shall Come on Swift Wings.”
It was the curse found outside King Tut’s tomb warning anyone who disturbed his body: "Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King.”
Several people connected to the opening of Tut’s tomb had died strangely. One man who was there with Howard Carter opening the tomb died from a mosquito bite in the exact spot where they later found a similar mark on King Tut’s body.
Shortly after coming into contact with Tut’s mummy and tomb, five other men died mysterious deaths.
Dallas felt a wave of dread run across her scalp at the same time her fingertips began to burn. She jerked the pads of her fingers away the parchment they had been holding and screamed for someone to call 911.
Police swarmed her office. It was the same detective who had responded to investigate her burglary call the year before.
“Ms. Jones, you seem to attract trouble wherever you go,” he said.
“Ha. Believe me I’m not trying.”
He cocked his head. She knew he didn’t believe her.
Sure enough they tested the envelope and it came back positive for cyanide.
“How did you know?” Detective Dunnigan asked her later in his office.
“The King Tut warning.”
“Did anyone he cursed die of poisoning?”
“No.”
“So, how did you know?”
Dallas fingered her ankh on its necklace. “I’m not sure, detective. I’m really not sure.”
“Well, you’re one lucky lady.”
She laughed. She’d never considered herself lucky, but who knows, maybe she was.
Dunnigan had taken her to the station in his car so she called Colton for a ride back to her office. She wanted to tell him what had happened. But also, just wanted to see him outside of the school on a weekday. Plus, she had to admit she was a little shaken up from the cyanide. Who had put it on her desk, and why?
Thinking of Colton made her grin. They had spent weekends together since their return from Egypt but sometimes with their teaching schedules and other university obligations it was tough to find time to see each other during the week.
They’d talked about maybe grabbing dinner tonight, but she hadn’t heard from him.
He picked up right away.
“I’m at the police station, can you come get me?”
“Good God, what happened? I’d heard the police were at the school. It had to do with you? And I was sitting in my office grading papers the whole time? Damn noise canceling headphones!”
“I’ll fill you in when you get here.”
As soon as she crawled into the passenger seat of Colton’s car, she told him what happened.
“Train may be dead. But the Daughters of Isis told me that there are dozens of people involved in this organization. Train wasn’t the head guy. He was just a pawn,” she said. “Obviously, there’s still someone out there who thinks I know something.”
She gave a weary sigh.
“I just wish I knew what I was supposed to know. Or what they think I know. Because I don’t know jack.”
“Right?” Colton said and shook his head. “I don’t get it. You’re not pursuing anything so what’s the point?”
She bit her lip, thinking. “I guess they want to make sure I’m not.”
“Did they?” He asked and opened the car door.
“Did they what?”
“Did they make sure you’re not pursuing anything?”
Now she shrugged.
“Dallas Jones?”
She sighed. “Honestly, Colton. I don’t know. For now, I’m settling in at the university. Later? I don’t know.”
“Fair enough.”
“Hey,” she said, craning her neck to look aroun
d. “We passed the exit.”
“I was thinking of surprising you by taking you to see the giant snowman in St. Paul.”
Dallas frowned and cocked her head.
“What giant snowman?” she said and then looked around. “Wait. There’s not even snow on the ground.”
Colton laughed. “You’ll see.”
“Um, okay, but only if you buy me hot chocolate. This Arizona girl is cold.”
“Deal.”
They rode for the first few miles in silence and then a Christmas song came on the radio.
“Are you kidding?” Dallas said. “It’s not even Halloween.”
Colton didn’t answer. She looked over at him. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. His gaze was straight ahead. And the muscle in his jaw throbbed.
“Colton?” She reached over and touched his arm. “Something wrong?”
“No,” he grunted.
When he looked over, she saw his cheeks were red.
“What’s going on?”
“My mother wants to know if you can make it to Christmas dinner? I told her you probably already have plans. I know you’re not really into that sort of thing.”
“I’m not?” Dallas said and raised an eyebrow.
Colton looked over with wide eyes. “What?”
“Do you want me to go? I mean your sort of making excuses for me not to.”
“Oh,” he said in a rush. “I do want you to go. I just don’t want you to feel pressured. I mean, you know.”
Dallas reached down between them to the console and picked up Colton’s phone. She dialed and then held it up to his ear.
“Tell her I’d be delighted to come to Christmas. Oh, and ask her what I can bring. I make a mean green bean casserole.”
“You do?”
“Hell yeah.”
“You never cease to amaze me.”
When he hung up with his mother, Dallas leaned over and kissed his cheek.
She leaned forward to turn on the radio, fiddling until she found a station that played 1980s alternative music. She rolled down the window and the wind whipped the stray strands of hair that had escaped from her ponytail.
Buried Secrets Page 18
