Page 7 of Secrets in a Sandstorm

Then I remember the look he was giving me, and I’m right back to where I started, remembering the way he walked around the hotel room in a pair of shorts, looking like he belonged in the kind of fitness magazine I didn’t read for the articles as a teen.

Have I missed those looks before, writing them offbecause he was younger? Three years as a teenager is a lot. But now we’re both in our twenties, things are different…

“Come on, let’s have a look.” Max gives me a nudge, and I creep closer. Just because it’s not moving now doesn’t mean it’s not going to start moving.

I keep scanning the floor, searching for trouble, and then ahead to where the glint remains unmoving. The sand is smooth and free of tracks…or at least anything I recognize as tracks. Though given the way the storm outside brushes over my skin as a breeze, I’m not sure how long tracks could last here, anyway.

My boot hits something, jolting whatever it is and causing the sand to slide away.

“Fuck!” I step back, almost crashing into Max. The dark, hollow eyes of a skull stare back at me. Its mouth hangs open as if laughing at my shock.

Max’s hand rests on my lower back from where he stopped me from stumbling into him. “I hope they didn’t die here while waiting out a sandstorm.”

I scan the skeleton and its green clothing. It’s a military uniform. “Want to find out?”

“I’m not sure we have time. I’ve got plans for the rest of the day…” He smacks my shoulder. “Of course I want to find out. We’ve got nothing else to do.”

I can think of a few things we can do besides disturbing the dead, but poking around the bones will cause less trouble than poking around withmybone. I walk around the skeleton, careful not to step where his legs must be from the way he’s lying, and dust some more sand off his clothes. According to the faded name badge, he was E Connell.

I glance up at Max. “Connell. He was military.”

“Allied soldier?”

“His name doesn’t sound German, and we’re still in Egypt.” The Italians held Libya and were reinforced by the Germans. That is, of course, if he isn’t wearing a stolen uniform.

Max nods. “Jay would love this. He knew all the details.”

Jay loved military history. For him, this trip was about going to see where his great-grandfather served. For me, it was a chance to hoon through the desert with my best mate. For Max…I’m not sure, aside from the fact he agreed to do this with me to fulfill his brother’s dream. I’m glad he’s here.

“We should find out a bit more so we can report his body. His family must have wondered what happened.” He’ll be one of the many names at the memorial. Men who died, or who were assumed dead, and whose bodies were never recovered.

Max snorts. “His family is long dead.”

“Hey, his great grandkids will have been told about him, and telling them, returning his body, matters.” It matters to me because I’d want someone to do the same if I died overseas. My family never learned what happened to my great-grandfather. We assume he was one of the many killed in Europe, with no remains found. But for all we know, he hooked up with a French woman and started a new life, leaving my great-grandmother to raise the twins he gave her before he shipped out. That a family member created that specific rumor means there was either a bit of truth…or they were being malicious because they didn’t like the way she got herself a boyfriend after the war ended. Over eighty years later, when everyone who was an adult at the time is dead, it’s hard to uncover the truth. Either way, my great-grandfather was dead to the family he left behind.

I put the torch in my mouth and search his pockets.

Max crouches next to me and sweeps the sand away from the golden thing that caught his attention in the first place. It’s on the wrist of another skeleton. “How many more bodies are here?”

My gaze darts to him, then back across the sand to where I left the glow stick. Did we stomp over a graveyard? I shudder at the idea of the Axis soldiers dumping bodies into the cave to hide them. “Hopefully, only these two. Does yours have a name?”

“C Brown. He’s wearing a satchel.”

“That’s where the good stuff will be.” I move around to his other side to help him.

Max flips open the satchel. “Whoa. Are we sure they’re soldiers?” He pulls out a six-inch-tall gold cat statue and holds it up to the light. “Or were they tomb robbers?”

CHAPTER FIVE

1942

MAX

The words fall from my lips, and a wave of vertigo hits me so hard, I land on my ass. I blink, my bones rattling and my skin hot from the sun. I’m no longer in the cave. I’m in a moving vehicle bouncing and skidding over the sand, shaking me like a snow globe, and I’m fucking driving.

What the hell?

I try to slam on the brakes, and that’s when I realize I can’t control my body. Because it’s not my body. The tanned hands with chipped nails do not belong to me, yet I am in this body.

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