“You’ve been sent by the Winterses?” Hauck said, unable to conceal his surprise.
It didn’t seem to bother her. “Mrs. Winter. This is Tolliver Lang. My brother. And manager.”
“Your manager?” Hauck said, meeting Nabila’s surprised gaze.
They’d both noticed the different last names.
Was this woman married? He’d noticed no rings.
Nabila jumped into the conversational gap. “I’m Inspector Honsi of the Alexandria police. I worked on Stephanie Winters’s case. And this is Ty Hauck. He’s from the Talon Company in the States. The Winters family asked Mr. Hauck to join us while you are here.”
“Ms. Winters’s father asked me to come along,” Hauck added. “I’ve just flown in myself earlier today, from Tel Aviv. You came in from the States?”
“The longest flight we’ve ever been on,” Tolliver said, stretching. His southern accent seemed more marked than his sister’s. “A whole lot longer than from Los Angeles to Atlanta. That was our previous record.”
“You’re a lawyer?” Harper asked Hauck.
“Ex-policeman. But I have no official capacity in Egypt. I’m only here to make sure it’s easy for you to do your job.”
“We don’t need help,” she said evenly. “We’re quite good at what we do.”
“I’m sure you are. I meant help with the local bureaucracy,” he explained.
He gave a slight wink to Nabila. This young woman was beyond cocky.
“I know it’s been a long trip,” Nabila said. “I’ll take you to the hotel. We put you at the Four Seasons at the Winterses’ request. I’m pretty sure you’ll find it comfortable. You’re staying there as well, Ty?”
“I am.”
“Good. I’m sure you’ll all want to shower and relax a few hours.”
“Definitely a shower,” Harper said, after a glance at her brother. “But we slept on the plane. I’d like to get started.” She pulled her knapsack over her shoulder as if to say, Let’s go.
Nabila looked at her with surprise. “Right away?”
They started to walk to the exit.
“Yes, we have to be in Charlotte on Friday,” Tolliver said, falling in beside his sister.
Hauck said, “You have another case there?”
Harper nodded. “It’s not an urgent one, like this. It’s pretty certain the man was killed in an accident somewhere along his route home. He’s missing, and so is his car. Plus he’d been drinking. But his family wants the body.”
She spoke quite calmly, and he began to wonder what it would take to rattle her.
“You can converse with the dead?” he asked, after they climbed into a white, unmarked Ford sedan.
Tolliver and Harper sat in back. Hauck in front next to Nabila, who drove.
“Not converse,” Harper said, gazing out the window at the Egyptian landscape. “Their bones call to me, so I can locate them. Then I see how they died.”
“And what is it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“How they communicate with you,” he asked.
“They want to be found. I feel the hum. Kind of like the wind blowing through a wind harp, if you know what I mean. It can be overwhelming.” She looked bleak, and much older, for a long moment. “This place is distracting. There are so many dead crowded here. Layers and layers and layers.” She fell silent and closed her eyes. After a moment, she began to move in tiny ways, her head tilting, hand twitching.
Creepy as hell.
He didn’t know if she was a fraud or, just remotely possible, the real thing. But she was good at selling herself. He glanced over at Nabila, but she was concentrating on the road, keeping her face neutral.
“Harper’s solved many important cases,” Tolliver said matter-of-factly. “Just last week we were in Knoxville, Tennessee, working with the police there.”
“You found a body?”
“We didn’t find one there. It was a bad case. A kid. But we had a strong case in Atlanta before that. Harper found a woman who’d been missing for ten years.”
“And how did your sister get this power?” he asked, unable to keep the hint of skepticism from his voice.
Harper’s eyes flew open.
They looked a fainter shade of gray than they had earlier.
“Lightning,” she said.
“Really?” He couldn’t hide the incredulity in his voice.
“I was struck by lightning as a teenager. I lived. Most people don’t. Tolliver started my heart again.” She took her brother’s hand. “Since then I’ve had this power. It was hard to deal with.” She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “I can see you don’t believe me, Mr. Hauck. Many of the police are skeptical. At least, at first.”
“I’m no longer a policeman,” he said. “But I’ll be interested to see you at work.”
Which was the truth.
“Don’t be so Western, Ty,” Nabila chided him.
He figured she was trying to lighten the atmosphere.
“In Alexandria, we are all in a partnership with the dead. As I said, our city is built on prior civilizations. The dead are alive to us here. In America, when you dig, you strike oil or water. Here, we find two-thousand-year-old ruins. Even the person who founded this city, Alexander the Great—the legend is buried here somewhere. Though no one knows where.”
“I thought he died in Asia? Babylon?” he said. “And no one knows for sure what killed him, right?”
“Alexander died in Babylon. Maybe he was murdered, poisoned. Maybe he had blood poisoning. Or an illness. His bones were on the way to Macedon when they were hijacked. Perhaps the hijacker was his leading general, Ptolemy, who stayed and founded the five-hundred-year Greek dynasty here. Of all the places Alexander conquered, he loved Alexandria the best. He wasn’t the last Greek to rule Egypt. You know of Cleopatra? She was Greek. The last of the Greeks, as it turned out.”
“Maybe Ms. Connelly will find Alexander’s bones while she’s here.”
He turned back to her with a smile.
“Maybe I will,” Harper said, staring at an open truck with an ox in the cargo bay. “If there are any bones left.”
“Do we get to see any pyramids?” Tolliver asked, eyes wide, scanning out the window. But it was only a highway, with the same rushing traffic you would find anywhere in the world, the scenery relentlessly modern.
“No, there are no pyramids here. Those are farther west. Along the Nile. Out of Cairo.” Nabila sounded as though she’d said the same thing many times, and it never made her happy.
He could understand her viewpoint.
Pyramids equaled tourist dollars.
Tolliver appeared disappointed and glanced at his sister, as if that was the reason they had taken this gig.
She patted his shoulder.
They were sure a bit touchy for brother and sister.
THE FOUR SEASONS ALEXANDRIA WAS as striking as any four Seasons, and it was situated right on the harbor. Considering that Harper and Tolliver dressed inexpensively and in general gave such an air of having been brought up rough, Hauck expected the two to be more impressed with the gleaming lobby.
But if they were, they covered it up well.
An hour later the four met again in front of the concierge desk. Hauck could tell that Harper had had a shower. Her hair looked much calmer, her face fresher. Even Tolliver looked more relaxed. This time, Nabila drove them through the souk sector of the city, down a crowded market street. The brother and sister got a taste of the foreign there with the limbs of livestock hanging from hooks in the open air, stalls of fruits, melons, and dates.
“We have also a specialized market area called the Attarine, where you can find many antiques,” Nabila told the newcomers.
The two looked at her blankly, so she got to business.