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“Actually,” Tío Ricardo said, “we did have a photographer. Abdullah’s granddaughter, Farida, had been taking pictures for us. But she won’t be with us this season. Having Inez render all of the vibrant colors from within the temples would be an asset…”
I sat back against my chair. Until he said it, the idea hadneveroccurred to me. Until the words were out in the open, I didn’t realize how badly I wanted to do it. This would be the perfect ruse. A way to see everything I could on the island. A way to be useful to Abdullah’s team.
Before my uncle could say another word, I shifted in my chair to address the burly man head on. “Very clever, Mr. Fincastle. That is theexactreason why my uncle ought to invite me to be a member of his team.”
My uncle sat in quiet bemusement, as if he couldn’t quite believe how I’d forced myself into his plans, and Mr. Hayes laughed under his breath. He’d eaten every bite on his plate and was now helping himself to my pastry. As if there weren’t other ones to choose from at the center of the table. Really, his manners were atrocious.
“It will mean practically sleeping in a tent and foregoing the luxuries of the dahabeeyah,” Tío Ricardo warned. “Exploring dusty and dark rooms in sweltering heat.”
A dreamy expression stole over Isadora’s face. Her honey-colored hair was coiled perfectly at the crown of her head, and her dress was the height of European fashion, cinched tight around her narrow waist, a train offabric curled around her chair. She looked like a damsel from a romance novel, just waiting to be saved. Except I couldn’t get the picture of her firing that gun out of my mind.
“Wouldn’t you rather sit and draw from the safety of theElephantine?” Mr. Fincastle asked. “A lady such as yourself isn’t used to the discomfort of rough travel.”
Mr. Hayes snorted.
“I’m up to the task, I assure you.”
“She’s made up her mind,” Tío Ricardo said. “I think she’ll manage to surprise us all. Provided she promises to stay out of trouble.”
“I can do this.” There was no other option. This was the best way to give me freedom on Philae. A way to discover the truth about my uncle, to snoop inside his tent.
I’d do anything to make it work, even help them find Cleopatra’s tomb.
My uncle didn’t reply, and the rest of our party resumed their breakfast. He kept his eyes trained on mine, so very like my mother’s and my hazel ones. He didn’t say another word, but I understood him regardless. I heard the words as if he’d spoken them out loud.
Don’t make me regret it.
Just wait until he discovered what I could do with a charcoal pencil.
CAPÍTULO DIECISÉIS
After breakfast, Mr. Fincastle and Isadora went out for a stroll on the deck, his rifle propped over his shoulder. She stood in his shadow, her arm looped around his elbow, the affection between them obvious. Pain constricted my breath, trapped in between my ribs. Papá and I took long walks around our estate, rambling and without any clear destination. He was an easy man to love, and he didn’t need much to be happy. His books, a strong cup of coffee, his family close by, and Egypt, that was all. I wish I would have asked him more about his parents and what they had been like, and if he had been close to them. I’d never met them, and now I’d lost the chance to learn more about his upbringing.
Every day, I discovered something else their deaths had taken from me.
I blinked the tears away, still staring at the pair. They peered down into the water, no doubt looking for yet another crocodile to shoot. They moved out of view of the window frame, and I turned back to my uncle. Tío Ricardo pulled down a book from one of the saloon shelves, immediately getting lost in its pages.
It struck me then how little time we had spent together. My uncle, a man with so many secrets I doubted I could uncover them all.
But I could start somewhere.
Whit caught my eye, and smiled at me, his expression surprisingly tender. He poured himself another cup of coffee, lifted it in my direction, and then mouthedgood luckbefore rising to leave the saloon. I stared after him in disbelief, his intuition profoundly unsettling. Why couldn’t he act the scoundrelall the time? A brawny rogue who only cared about himself.
It’d be so much easier to forgive.
I shook off the unsettling feeling that I was falling into a pit that I wouldn’t be able to climb back out of, and focused on my uncle, hiding behind the hardcover of his book.
“Tío,” I said, “will you put down your reading for ten minutes?”
“What do you need, Inez?” he asked absently.
I sat in the chair closest to him. “We’ve barely spoken since I arrived, aside from you telling me that I needed to leave the country.”
“Much good it did,” he said with a small smile, putting the book down. He leaned back against his chair, folded his arms across his flat stomach, and studied me, tracking the curve of my cheek, the slope of my jaw. I got the impression that he searched for any sign of his sister.
A sister who believed him to be a criminal.
“I miss my parents,” I said softly. “Being here helps me hold on to them.”
