He hadn’t touched me since our wedding night—and I was glad of it. Part of me knew what would happen if he crossed that line: I’d have to fight myself tooth and nail to walk away. A battle I wasn’t sure I’d win. And wasn’t that sobering?
“You’re going to have to figure something out,” I said. “Because my following along was one of my conditions, remember? Or are you going to show me, again, that your words are empty?”
Whit locked his jaw.
“I have an idea,” Isadora said. “Why don’t I stay and unpack our bags, Inez? That way you can accompany Mr. Hayes to the address.”
“You’re going to willingly stay behind?” Whit asked slowly. “What are you planning?”
“What nefarious scheme could I be planning in unpacking the trunks?” Isadora demanded. “Do you think I’ll rip holes in your socks?”
“You are not to open my trunk,” Whit said. “It’s locked, anyway.”
A headache bloomed in my temples. It occurred to me that we were perhaps making the situation more complicated than it ought to be. I held out my hand to Whit. “May I have the address, please?” This halted the argument between them.
“Why?” Whit asked.
“I have a plan,” I explained.
“Of course you do,” he said.
He’d said the words with a warm glint in his blue eyes. A compliment I ought not to pay attention to, but it dislodged some of the tension I’d carried from the moment we stepped inside the hotel.
Whit handed me the scrap of paper. “Are you going to enlighten us?”
“If the idea has legs to stand on, then yes,” I said pleasantly. I glanced behind me to the check-in counter and retraced my steps to speak with the concierge. “Excuse me, Karl.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hayes,” he said. “How else can I help to make your stay more comfortable?”
I glanced down at the address. “Well, we are here to see the sights, of course. And a friend recommended I pay a visit to this address. Is there a church close by, or perhaps an obelisk?” I slid the paper to Karl.
He read the scant few lines, frowning. “This area is close to the Place des Counsels—one of the casualties from the bombardment. It is still much destroyed, lots of rubble, buildings blown apart, though some parts are under repair.” He glanced at me apologetically. “I’m afraid there’s not much to see in that area.”
I pressed my lips together, considering. My mother wouldn’t have provided an address that went nowhere. “Surely there must be something?”
“Only the bank,” he said. “A department store and a couple of grocers. That’s the extent of it.”
It was exactly what I had been looking for, but I didn’t let my face show it. Instead, I slumped my shoulders in obvious disappointment and returned to my companions—who were still not speaking to each other.
“The address is a bank,” I said triumphantly. “Near the Place des Counsels. This is where my mother is having money wired to.”
“Except you never actually wired any of the money,” Isadora said. “How will we find her? We can’t watch the bank, day in and day out. We don’t have the money to stay in Alexandria that long.” She threw Whit a pointed look.
He remained stone-faced. I wasn’t going to defend him, though the constant arguing between themstillwasn’t helpful. What I wanted was a solution. The faster we found my mother, the more information we could collect, the better to build a case against her. My uncle and Abdullah could go free, my mother would pay for her crimes, and all of the artifacts would have to be returned to the antiquities department.
And in the middle of all that, I’d somehow force her to tell me the truth about my father.
I knew now how to detect her lies, uncover her half-truths, parse through her false speech. I was becoming an expert in digging up my mother’s secrets. Even now, I heard her voice in my head, asking me for help.
I knew how to sound like her. I knew how to talk like her.
“I think I might have come up with something,” I said slowly.
They turned to look at me expectantly.
I detailed exactly what I wanted to do. Isadora responded with her characteristic hesitation while Whit loudly proclaimed that it was the worst idea he’d ever heard, that I was putting myself at too much risk.
Which was exactly why I knew it was the best option left.
