Passage to Queen Mesentia Page 3

  Dearest Ben,

  If you are reading this letter, the worst has happened. Our apologies. In fear of this very thing, we have taken great lengths to secure your property. For the safety of all, we cannot tell you where. Only that my words are always as true as the direction of my heart.

  Best Regards,

  Isabel

  “Well?” Wade asked impatiently. “What did it say?” Wade glanced from Ben to Lilly with curiosity. “Is someone going to tell me?”

  “It’s not for me—” Lilly started, but then Ben handed the letter to Wade.

  After Wade read it, he said, “Leave it up to your parents to be so helpful. What the hell does this mean?”

  Lilly shrugged her shoulders. “Ben?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” Lilly said. “That’s all I found.”

  Wade said, “If you ask me, it sounds like her folks hid it before they even got home. So it is nowhere near here. I suggest you search for your thing… far, far away from here.”

  “Lillian.” Ben stood up, holding her eyes captive with his. “I still need your help. I need you to help me understand what your mother was trying to tell me. I need to locate the Pyramidion Statuette, immediately.”

  She nodded her head. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Wade cleared his throat before he squeezed himself in between Lilly and Ben and spoke directly to Ben. “Look here, pal, I think you’ve already imposed too much on Lilly’s hospitality. This has been really hard on her, going through her folks’ things like that. I’m sure the cops would be more than happy to help you, seeing as you seem to know so much about her parents’ murder.”

  “Wade,” Lilly protested, trying to move him by his arm.

  He shrugged her off. “Why do you know so much? Maybe we should call the cops right now.”

  “That would be a grave mistake,” Ben said.

  “What? Are you threatening me?” He turned to Lilly. “This guy is actually threatening me.”

  “No, Wade, it’s you,” Lilly said, losing her patience. “You’re out of line.”

  “What? How can you say that?”

  “I must be going.” Ben stepped around Wade. “I will contact you tomorrow evening.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday,” she said. “I’ll be free all day.”

  “I have a previous engagement until the evening,” Ben said, holding out his hand. She took it, thinking it was for a handshake. However, he grabbed her hand and brought it up to his lips.

  “Oh, come on,” Wade said.

  Ben stared into Lilly’s eyes as he slowly and tenderly pressed his lips against her hand, sending little shivers through her body.

  “It’s like I’m not even here,” Wade said.

  “Tomorrow evening,” Ben said after he finally released her. She nodded, feeling awkward, and Ben walked toward the front door.

  Wade yelled, “Bye.”

  After Ben had shut the door behind him, Lilly sat down on the couch.

  Wade paced and talked. “We don’t know anything about that guy. You’re way too trusting.”

  “No, you’re overreacting, and it’s embarrassing.”

  “Oh, I see what this is about.”

  Lilly shot Wade a look. “What?”

  “I’m not blind.” He stopped in front of her and put his hands in his pockets, but stared at the wall. “I see the way you look at him. What? Do you like this clown or something?”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous,” she said but wondered if it were true. Ben did have a presence that made her lose herself. Why had she called him tonight and not waited until morning? Had she called him because she wanted to see him again? She didn’t even know him. Only what he had told her. She felt a wave of regret ride up her neck to heat her face. What was I thinking—inviting a stranger over in the middle of the night?

  “Well, then.” Wade began to fidget and then walk again. “Tell him to take a hike. You already did what he asked. I’m telling you, there’s something not quite right about him.”

  No, that can’t be it. I’m not helping him because I’m attracted to him; I’m doing this because my parents trusted him. “Whatever this statuette is,” she said with newfound conviction, “my parents might have given their lives for it. The note. The note proves that everything Ben said is true.” She knew she was confirming her motivations more to herself than to Wade.

  “Maybe, but you didn’t find anything. There’s nothing here. You did all you can do. Let it go.”

  “I can’t. You don’t understand. It’s weird, but I feel like this is something I have to do.”

  Wade nodded thoughtfully. “Okay then. Fine. Let me help. How can I help?”

  “I’m sorry, Wade, you have a way of making things worse. I have a lot of things to think about and you storming around like a, a cowboy, isn’t helping. I don’t need… I don’t want your help or protection. Please give me some room. He’s gone, there’s no danger. Please do me a favor and leave without a fight.”

  Wade huffed at this and blinked his eyes several times. “Fine,” he said through his teeth. “Fine. If that’s what you want. I’m out of here.” He stomped his boots all the way down the hall, slamming the front door behind him.

  Lilly ran her fingers through her hair grabbing the ends and pulling down, letting the pain be her main focus, if only for a second. She didn’t like hurting Wade, but he acted like a stubborn child. He gave her no choice but to be forceful and direct. She couldn’t handle his jealous ramblings at the moment. She needed quiet. She needed to be able to think everything through.

  Lilly stood and walked to the front door. Picking up her purse from the entryway table, she retrieved her keys. She went to turn out the light when part of the letter repeated in her head. Only that my words are always as true as the direction of my heart. “My words? Why does that part say ‘my’ and in the rest of the letter she uses ‘we’?”

  Instead of opening the front door, Lilly locked it.

  Lilly hadn’t planned on staying in that house a moment longer; she hadn’t planned on going through anymore of their things. But now that she had thought about her mother’s journals, she couldn’t unthink them. Only that my words… Her mother had kept extensive diaries, all hand-written, for as long as Lilly could remember. Her mother stored her older journals in the attic, but Lilly figured if there was a clue, she would have written it in one of the more accessible ones. She struggled but managed to carry all twenty notebooks out of her parents’ room and into her childhood bedroom in one trip.

  Except for the pink on the walls, Lilly’s former bedroom remained bare. When she had moved in with Wade, the things she didn’t move with her, she either boxed up to store or had given them to charity.

  Lilly set the notebooks on the floor and then walked to the window, remembering how many times she had stood in that very spot and watched her parents leave. Not that they left her for very long with a sitter. If they traveled across the globe, they always took her with them, but they had weekly speaking engagements and parties that little girls weren’t allowed to attend.

  When Lilly noticed the truck in the driveway, it gave her a little start. But then she realized it was stubborn Wade. However, the thought of him being out there watching over her, did make her feel a little bit better.

  Finally pulling herself away from the window, she sighed at the task of reading her mother’s words. She sat down on the carpeted floor with the stack of primary-colored, spiraled notebooks in front of her. They were stuffed with so many pieces of paper and pictures that they were puffed up three times their original size. She grabbed one off of the floor and petted the outside, noting the date spanned a three-month time period. As she glanced through the rest of them, she realized her mother had labeled them all in this fashion.

  She took a few minutes to put them in chronological order and then opened the first notebook, dated April 2000-July 2000. The picture on the very first page nudged her sadness
. Her mother waved goodbye, and the notation, written in her mother’s handwriting, said, “I’ll miss you my sweet Lilly.” Her mom had practically begged her to come to Egypt with them and to start the university there. Since Grant was planning on accompanying them, they would have been one big happy family. Instead, Lilly had decided to stay at Texas A&M and to move in with Wade. It had been a huge decision. A decision her mom tried desperately to talk her out of.

  After a few pages, she saw a picture of her parents’ apartment in Cairo. It was very modest compared to their home in the States. To the right of that, a photo of her father with his stereotypical archaeologist straw hat. He posed next to a huge boulder and underneath her mother had written, “My Rock.” Lilly smiled. She thought it was incredibly romantic how her parents were still so much in love after thirty years of marriage. In fact, when she was little, she had thought the story of how they had met was just another fairy tale. There was Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Isabel. She gazed at the wall where her white canopy bed with pink ruffles had been. “Tell me, Mommy! Tell me the story of Isabel and the prince. Tell me how they fell in love and he rescued her from the evil king.” Sometimes, after the story, her mom would say, “One day, you’ll marry your brave prince.” If her mom forgot to say those words, Lilly had thought them.

  Over the years, Lilly came to realize that the “Evil King” of that story was really her grandfather, who she had never met. Her mom never went into details about her horrible childhood. All Lilly knew was that her mom had been dirt poor and her dad had been mean as dirt. Lilly also knew, from day one, that her mom didn’t want that kind of life for her. “No daughter of mine is going to go through what I went through…”

  After the little memory detour, Lilly got back on track and turned page after page, without shedding a tear. She read journal entries about the first dig and remembered why she never bothered to read her mother’s journals before. It didn’t take long for it to change from a personal family album into a history lesson. She flipped through most of the pages and ended up at the back of the book, without a clue.

  She stood up and stretched, eyeing all of the notebooks on the floor and then eyeing the window. She took the step needed to see outside; Wade still waited in his truck. Why was he still out there? She growled and whined at the thoughts she had mingling in her head: Might as well put him to use if he is going to be out there all night anyway. He had offered to help. And she did feel bad about how short she had been with him. Maybe this way he would at least stop stalking her and she would get through the notebooks a lot faster.

  Chapter 5

  “So what exactly are we looking for?” Wade asked as soon as they had walked into the bedroom. Lilly had scared him half to death earlier. “Boo,” she’d said, standing there by his truck window the precise moment he’d shut his eyes. “Sorry to scare you. I would’ve called but since you don’t believe in cell phones…” But then she’d smiled and actually apologized for being so bitchy earlier and said if he was still offering, she could use some help going through a stack of her mom’s journals. However, in the same breath, she’d told him that it didn’t “mean” anything. He didn’t know why she thought he was such child. He was mature and could be helpful without thinking they were getting back together and without thinking about them in bed together… Well, maybe he wouldn’t go that far.

  “I don’t know. Here.” She handed him a stuffed notebook. “You work in descending order, and I’ll work in ascending. Hopefully, we’ll find something before we meet in the middle.” She abruptly started fumbling through the rest of the notebooks. “I mean, before we get to the last one.”

  Wade clicked the side of his cheek, recognizing and not believing her embarrassment over something so ridiculous. He wanted to shout, “I get it!” But he held his tongue because this was actually a crack in the stone wall she had put up. It was a very tiny crack, but at least she hadn’t called someone else over to help her. So he took it.

  He sat with his legs out in front of him and his back against the wall and opened the notebook dated January 2005 - March 2005. The last notebook Mrs. Steward had worked in. For a busy woman, he didn’t see how she found the time for such detail.

  He read a few passages on the front page about how they planned their trip home. It had pictures of them saying their goodbyes and visiting places for the last time, and so on. He skimmed through until he’d reached the month of February. There, something actually caught his attention. “Hey, Lilly,” he said. “Listen to this. ‘There was a strange man outside of the apartments today. He didn’t see me but was clearly observing our window. He lingered for at least ten minutes before walking away. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, seeing as the street is often busy mid-afternoon, but something about him—something about the way he tried to be discreet—gives me cause to be alarmed.’

  “Here it says,” he continued, “‘The same man came back. Ben had warned us to be on the lookout. Perhaps that is why I’m so off-nerved. Phillip keeps saying that I’m overly paranoid. I’m glad we’ll be leaving soon.’”

  “Do you think he followed them all the way from Egypt?”

  “I don’t know. It could be.”

  “Maybe this is the person who killed them?” Lilly bit her thumb nervously.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Don’t get all upset.”

  “I can’t help it. Well, does it say anything about the statuette or Ben?”

  “Nothing yet. I’ll keep reading. I’ll let you know.”

  Wade carefully read through the notebook but didn’t see anything else. After closing it, he checked his watch, 2 a.m., before glancing over to Lilly. She sat crossed legged on the floor, her skirt slightly up and revealing her sexy thighs, one of the many things he missed terribly. And even though he wanted to crawl over to her and make her remember some very memorable moments, he couldn’t help but sympathize with what she must have been going through. “Lilly, why don’t we call it a night? We can finish this tomorrow.”

  She absentmindedly tucked her long, dark hair behind her ears and looked up at him, her brown eyes blood shot and determined. “You go on. Thanks for helping.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. Both of us.”

  “I have to get through these. I know you have work tomorrow, and I’m sure you want a cigarette.”

  “I quit,” he whispered.

  Lilly stared at him blankly and then lowered her eyes to read again.

  He recognized the lost opportunity to ask her if she blamed him for her parents’ murder. But he couldn’t do it: it didn’t seem like right time. Instead, he picked up his next notebook, dated October 2004 - December 2004. It told of the excitement of the find, the tomb of Queen Mesentia. It was as boring as the lecture had been. He skimmed through for about fifteen minutes and then grabbed another one.

  In the next journal, dated July 2004 - September 2004, Mrs. Steward wrote about the beginning of their dig at Saqqara. After reading through from beginning to end, he found nothing remotely odd. He glanced up at Lilly. “What date are you on?”

  She looked at the front of her book. “July of 01.”

  He exhaled loudly and picked up the next one. His interest finally piqued, and he read to Lilly, “April 5, 2004, we met a remarkable man today. He said his name was Ben but wouldn’t give us a last name. He told us the most fascinating story about Mesentia.” He turned the page.

  “Well?” Lilly asked after a few seconds.

  “It’s been torn out.”

  “Let me see that.” She took the notebook from him and began turning pages. “I don’t understand. Where’s the notebook dated after this one?”

  “It’s right here, but there’s nothing. I already went through it.”

  “You must have missed something,” she said.

  He handed over the notebook dated, July 2004 - September 2004. “It doesn’t mention Ben anywhere. She doesn’t talk about him again until this one here.” He picked up the notebook dated, Januar
y 2005 - March 2005. “That’s the only two places. So there’s no mention for like eight months. Just we met him, and then he warned us.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  She flipped through the notebook, stopping a couple of times to read. And then she said, “Why would Mom guide me to her notebooks if she had destroyed whatever it was she wanted to tell us.”

  “Maybe the bad guys took it.”

  She said, “Why would they take the time to rip out one page of the notebook? Wouldn’t they take the whole thing?”

  “Maybe it’s not what we’re looking for.”

  Lilly put her hand over her mouth as she yawned.

  “Don’t you think that maybe we should—?”

  “I’m going to finish this tonight.”

  He nodded slightly and picked up the next notebook.

  The sun rose as Wade made his way back from a coffee run. Lilly had refused to accept anything from the house kitchen because of Constance. She didn’t even want to walk in there. Wade had a feeling that after awhile, Lilly would most likely sell the house.

  Wade drove and sipped his coffee, counting and recalling the dates of the notebooks. Lilly was on the last notebook, and they hadn’t found anything helpful. He started to think that the whole message in a journal idea was off. Maybe they had missed something. They were both extremely tired and most of the content was so boring, it was possible that he’d read over something important. As he pulled into the driveway, a realization popped into his head; he knew what they’d missed.

  By the time he hit the stairs, a lidded paper cup in each hand, he was running, scarcely noticing the tiny splashes of hot coffee on his hands. He sprinted down the hall, finally landing at Lilly’s bedroom door with a huge smile on his face. “I got it!” he shouted. “There’s a friggin notebook missing!”

  She stared up at him, notebook in hand. “No… I counted them and put them in order myself. They’re all here.”

  “With all that respect stuff, when did your mom die?”