The devil damn me. If I weren’t so tired, so worried about the pair of them, I would have stayed silent. But there would be no putting Ricardo off. “Because I went looking for it first.”
“Why?” His voice was frigid. Not even the sun at noon would be able to melt the icy edges.
I rowed harder, hating his disappointment, his censure. “Besides the obvious?”
Ricardo eyed me shrewdly. “That’s why you wouldn’t go home when the first letter from your parents came?”
I hesitated. “One of the reasons.”
“If the alchemical sheet isn’t here, then where is it?” Ricardo mused.
That was the question that had been plaguing me every waking hour.
And I would doanythingto know the answer.
CAPÍTULO SEIS
I tossed the smelliest of my uncle’s socks over my shoulder and moved farther under his bed. My full skirt made the movement less than graceful, and I tugged hard at the material. I found abandoned ties and sand-coated boots, but nothing else of significance. I hissed out a breath and clumsily slid out before standing, brushing the sleeves of my jacket to rid them of the worst of the dust balls. I had already gone through all of his books and looked through the desk in his suite. I’d found nothing that would tell me more about my mother.
Hands on my hips, I glanced around his bedroom with narrowed eyes. Surely there was something here that my uncle didn’t want me to know. When Whit explained that he didn’t trust my uncle to share everything he knew or remembered about my mother’s double life, I understood what he wouldn’t say to my face. He had been nonchalant, but I could read him better now.
Because ofme, Tío Ricardo now didn’t trusthim.
Our marriage was a betrayal and one my uncle wouldn’t forgive so easily, if ever. He wouldn’t confide or plan or scheme with Whit anymore. My uncle had lost an ally, someone who would do what was demanded of him, no questions asked. Their relationship broke, and Whit would pay for it with my uncle’s cold and aloof behavior.
What I didn’t know was how exactly Whit felt about it.
If I asked, he’d probably tell me some variation of the truth, but my instincts told me that he’d want to spare my feelings. I wished that he wouldn’t, but that was a conversation for later.
I sat on the bed, fingers curling around the sheets until they brushed up against a sharp corner. Frowning, I looked down, realizing that my hand had found a pillowcase.
A pillowcase filled with something other than feathers.
“Hello, secret something,” I breathed, dumping the contents onto the bed.
But there was only one thing hidden inside. A journal, its cover decorated with painted peonies. It belonged to my mother, and I had read it before when theElephantinehad been struck by a sandstorm. Now I knew Mamá had filled every page with lies about my uncle. He was violent and abusive, up to his arms in criminal activities, and intent on stealing precious artifacts.
None of it was true. Why, then, did my uncle insist on hiding my mother’s journal?
And even more curious, why would he keep it at all?
After I moved all my belongings from my parents’ suite—gracias a Dios I had already packed most of it—into Whit’s much smaller room, I turned to the next item on my list.
More packing.
I had put off sorting through all of my parents’ things long enough, and now that I didn’t have their room, I could no longer put it off. All their clothes went back into their trunks, along with a myriad of other things, and I called up one of the hotel attendants to carry them into Whit’s room, which was quickly becoming crowded with stacks of books and several purchases my parents had acquired. They had bought rugs and lanterns, alabaster statues of the pyramids and cats, and several jars of essential oils. There was barely any room to walk between the narrow bed and nightstand and the old wooden dresser. Whit’s once-tidy room now looked like an attic where things went to be forgotten. He’dhatethe clutter.
What we needed was a bigger room, and I would have gone straight to the bank to withdraw money, but I couldn’t without Whit—my husband now had total control over my inheritance as permitted by law.
I scowled as I sorted through the mess, dividing everything into twopiles: one meant for Argentina and the other for donation. It ought to have come as no surprise to anyone that one pile was larger than the other. I just couldn’t bring myself to part with Papá’s books, or his collection of Shakespeare’s plays, or his suits. Maybe Whit could wear them? No, that wouldn’t work. Whit stood six inches taller than my father.
I’d have to give it all away.
By the third day, I was so emotionally drained by the task that I became more ruthless with where everything would end up. I was giving away every last thing of my mother’s, and I didn’t feel any grief over it. Elvira would applaud my decision with a witty quip about Mamá’s poor taste. She’d be making me laugh or annoying me by trying on my mother’s dresses. She never thought of herself as particularly funny, but she’d made me chuckle easily. It was her outlook, a way to see the quirks of the world. Grief settled over me, blanketing everything I saw and touched with a sense of gloom that I couldn’t shake. Elvira ought to be here in the room with me.
I sat down on the plush bed and pulled my mother’s journal into my lap, staring down at it morosely. I’d found nothing useful since Whit had left, and I hated not having any sense of where my mother could have gone. The only thing I felt certain of was that she wouldn’t have left Egypt—not with the artifacts she stole. It was too risky for her to move such quantities without drawing notice.
Although… Mamá clearly had many connections in Cairo. Someone could be assisting her—herandthe trunks filled with Cleopatra’s belongings.
