And the plot thickens...

CHAPTER 3

Waking

When Rick awoke Evy was gone, and he had a crimp in his neck from sleeping in a chair. He'd have to rent a room, and he needed clothes, and food. He still had a few hundred dollars from the Americans, and the little money he'd had when they'd started out for Hamunaptra, which wasn't much. He'd had some when he'd entered Cairo Prison, but God knew he'd never see that again. His wallet had been in his jacket, and he was not exactly keen on diving to the bottom of the Nile to retrieve it. A guy in Marrakech owed him some money, but he was not about to travel all the way across the continent to collect it. What would he do?

He'd find a way. He had to.

The first thing Evy thought when Daniel Miller walked into the library was that she didn't like him. At that point she didn't even know his name, but there was just something in the way he walked that made her wary of him.

"Evelyn Carnahan, meet our new curator, Dr. Daniel Miller. He's on the Benbridge board," Mr. Behr said. "Miss Carnahan is our librarian. We were very lucky that we were able to get Dr. Miller on such sort notice, Evelyn, so I trust there won't be any more little...accidents on your part, hmm?" Come to think of it, she didn't like Mr. Behr so much either.

"Of course," she smiled through her teeth. "Pleased to meet you, Dr. Miller."

"Charmed," he replied, grasping her hand and bringing it up to kiss it. "Your father was a great treasure in our field. His loss saddened us all."

She pulled her hand away before it met his lips. "Thank you for your condolences, Mr. Miller, but my parents passed away over three years ago."

"Ah yes, your mother was quite the treasure, too. Like mother, like daughter, hmm?" He smiled his greasy smile and she recoiled even more. Now she knew she didn't like him!

"Well, Dr. Miller, we should be getting along," said Mr. Behr. "I trust you'll want to go through your predecessor's papers before you settle into the office?"
"Of course." He was still staring at her! She didn't mind when Rick looked at her, but this man was absolutely nauseating. He radiated oily charm and genteel mannerisms, but Evy had a feeling his true nature ran much darker.

As they left the library Evy had another, even more unsettling thought--Dr. Bey's papers! He couldn't possibly have anything on Hamunaptra or the Medjai...no, he wouldn't have been that foolish.

Rick entered Jonathan's room through the partially open door and almost tripped over the saddle bags. They were empty. That was strange. Rick remembered them as being fairly heavy. He wouldn't have thought Jonathan would have unpacked them already. Rick found him passed out in the bathtub, one hand clutching a bottle of scotch, and in the other hand, a golden scepter topped by a little star. Rick could have sworn he'd seen it somewhere before.

Rick turned on the showerhead and Jonathan leapt up, spraying water and scotch everywhere. He sputtered a bunch of unintelligible curses and then just stood there, staring at Rick, a slightly sheepish expression on his face. "What?" he said, taking another swig from the bottle.

Rick snatched it out of his hands and turned off the water. "Jonathan, you should know better. Getting drunk is not the way to solve all your problems."

"Obviously you haven't known me for very long, then," Jonathan replied. "Besides, I don't have problems! I'm rich!"

"Uh-huh. You're also hung-over. Get out of there."

"Well, yes, but really! My head's still a bit foggy, but I remember loads and loads of gold! It was here, I had it, I..." Jonathan looked around his room helplessly. "I could have sworn there was gold."

"Yep."

"Really!" Jonathan protested. "I-look!" He waved the scepter in Rick's face. "Look at this! I'm telling the truth!"

"You probably won it in some card game! Or stole it," he said with a dark look.

"I wouldn't put that past myself, but I'm pretty sure I haven't left this room since we got back from..." Jonathan's face fell. "...from Hamunaptra," he finished softly. His hand immediately went to his shoulder.

"You need to go to the doctor and get that looked at," Rick said, more gently.

"Yeah, and what about yourself? You were pretty beat up, too. How's your hand?"

"It's fine. You need to get some sleep."

"You come here just to tell me that?"

"Just checking up on you. Evy would kill you if she found you like this."

"She's used to it."

"I don't doubt it."

"You know..." Jonathan started. "Never mind."

"What?"

"It's just...I don't know. I was just going to say that...I'm happy for you two. And I'd say I'll kill you if you ever hurt her but I know you'd mop the floor with me."

"I'd kill myself."

"I know."

Evy had hidden in the library all morning for fear of running across Dr. Miller. Not that she didn't have plenty to do there. The workers had succeeded in getting about half of the shelves upright, but everything was still scattered all over the floor, and she didn't even know how to begin to clean it all up. She'd started somewhere in the vicinity of the D's, but they were all mixed in with H's and L's and M's. After about four hours of sorting through the heaps, she pulled out a book named Thuthmoses and burst into tears.

"What's wrong?"

The tears dried up immediately. "Rick!" she cried. "What are you doing here?" He had cleaned up nicely. He looked even more handsome than when she'd seen him at Giza Port. From the looks of it he'd borrowed Jonathan's jacket, and his arms were a bit long for it, but he was dreamy all the same.

"I was just wondering if you'd like to go to lunch." She took his hand and pulled him into the tiny corner office she sometimes used so they could talk in private.

"Oh, dear..." she sighed. "As you can see I've got a bit of a mess to clean up..."

"Did the mob do this?" he asked, perfectly innocently.

"Um, yes, I believe so. I can't imagine how they got in there, we usually keep it locked, and I'm surprised nobody got crushed..."

Rick flashed that wonderful smile again. "If you had just stopped at 'yes' I might have believed you."

"Am I that transparent?"

"You're not a very good liar."

It was a very unfortunate coincidence that just as he leaned down to kiss her Dr. Daniel Miller entered the office.

***

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