Page 72 of The Stolen Queen

Charlotte hadn’t expected to confide in Annie. She also hadn’t expected the crazy swells of emotion that arose in her as they drove in the cab from the airport. She was stunned that she’d made it all the way to Egypt, having been convinced for the entire length of the transatlantic plane ride that they might plummet into the ocean any minute, or that the pilot would have to turn around and return to the New York airport due to a technical difficulty. As the sun had swept up from the horizon and painted the buildings of Luxor a soft pink, she’d found herself inhaling sharply, remembering all the times she and Henry had walked these streets. The spice store stood on the same corner; the vegetable market was opening for business, same as it had four decades ago. Probably the same as it had four centuries ago. The city was infused with her past, the way a lover’s scent lingers on a pillow.

She remembered vividly what it had been like to arrive here as a nineteen-year-old. Confused, uncertain of her place in the world. But eager to please. So eager to please. While her skin might be more wrinkled and her stamina not what it was, being back on Egyptiansoil made it impossible for her to deny that she still was that same raw, vulnerable person, and the thought rattled her deeply.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t walked away from Annie after they landed at the Cairo airport. Annie’s desperate act was no different from Charlotte’s. The haunted look in her eyes was perhaps partly from the trauma of being attacked in the basement of the Met—an attack that Charlotte could have avoided if she’d been thinking straight—but also something else, something deeper. They both wanted to escape the web of pain that New York represented.

The shock of being back in the tomb with the two mummies, and the near miss as the ceiling rumbled and the rocks began to fall, made Charlotte once again worry about the sanity of her decisions, as well as the possibility that the curse was still in play. But they’d made it safely out and rescued the canopic box with the cartouche, all thanks to Annie. Even if the box didn’t prove a thing about the mummy on the floor and Charlotte’s photographs turned out to be indecipherable, it was something to add to the story of Hathorkare.

As the sun set over the Valley of the Kings, it had been a relief to tell Annie of her prior time in Luxor, to say the name of the man she’d loved out loud. With each retelling, the painful memories subsided—ever so slightly—and Charlotte was able to cautiously acknowledge the harsh series of events that had shaped her life as a young woman. If only her mother had encouraged her to speak about her experiences in Egypt, maybe she wouldn’t have lived the ensuing years in such terrible fear of losing someone else. It had been awful of her parents to insist she shut away that time of her life, but, looking back now, she understood that they were products of their era and had been frightened and shocked by her brash decisions. They’d done the best they could.

After an unexpectedly solid night’s sleep, bolstered by the lingering effects of jet lag, Charlotte and Annie met up in the hotel restaurantthe next morning for breakfast. Leon wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, which meant the day stretched ahead of them. Charlotte dropped the film off at a nearby camera shop and returned to the lobby, where Annie was waiting, dressed in a white linen blouse and khaki-colored, wide-legged linen pants belted at the waist, looking as though she’d just walked off a film set about Egyptian explorers. Charlotte stopped herself from asking Annie where her pith helmet was.

“Last night I reread what my ancient Egyptian history book says about Hathorkare, and it’s really dismissive,” said Annie in between bites of toast. “Why don’t they know what you do?”

“Because it’s new information. Which unfortunately is no longer in my hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“The night of the theft, someone took my file containing all the research I’d done. They left behind a threatening note, and I’m guessing it’s related to the broad collar’s provenance and the fact that I was asking about it.”

“That’s horrible.” Annie straightened in her chair, her eyes sparking with anger. “Do you think it was taken by the same man we chased?”

“The timing would suggest it. But it doesn’t explain how he got into the locked offices.”

“An inside job.”

“Hopefully the security team will figure that out.”

“Yesterday, you said that Leon was associated with the thieves who stole the Cerulean Queen, is that right?”

“That’s what I’ve been told. Of course, we don’t have any proof that it’s Ma’at that stole it, although the theft is similar to others they have committed.”

“It’s worth digging around, right?”

“I do think the stolen Queen and the reappearance of the broad collar are related. But we have to be careful. I’ve been warned that Ma’at is a dangerous organization, and no one knows exactly who’s involved or how widespread their reach is. In any event, the first step is to talk to Leon, which we can’t do until tomorrow, unfortunately.”

The waiter poured them more coffee. “Well, what should we do today, then?” asked Annie. “My guidebook said that the Temple of Karnak is pretty cool.”

“Funny you say that.”

“Why?”

“The Temple of Karnak is where my Hathorkare theory begins.” Charlotte described the destruction of the images of Hathorkare, and how the precise timing of the vandalization could be calculated by studying the subsequent pharaoh’s renovations at Karnak. “In the file that was stolen, I had photographs from Karnak that backed up my theory.”

“Then we have to go. You can start over.”

Starting over. All those hours, lost. It hurt to think about. “That’s futile. It took me three years to get to this point.”

“So what? Instead of proving it now, you do it three years later.”

“I’ll be sixty-three then.”

“And three years after that you’ll be sixty-six. What does that matter?”

How nice to be young, thought Charlotte, with decades stretching ahead of you. But exploring Karnak was better than sitting around waiting for Leon to return.

They headed out into the bright morning sun. Outside the temple, they walked along the Avenue of the Rams, which was lined with over one thousand statues, a troop of sphinxes, rams, and ram-headed lions.

“When will the mummies and artifacts from the tomb be taken to Cairo?” asked Annie.

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