Curse of the Egyptian Goddess (2 page)

“Ms. Patrix, where were you last night between two and six a.m.?”

With his question, I knew I wasn’t being sued and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Clutching my robe around my throat, I bent over to catch my breath. The room started to spin and I collapsed onto the floor.

Chad was dead. I’d killed him too.

Chapter 2

The two policewomen helped me to my feet but my heart remained broken on the floor. I hadn’t let myself get attached to Chad, I hadn’t even slept with him in hopes that I could save his life but now that he was dead, I missed him like he was my best friend. Honestly, he was one of my only friends. He and David were the only ones I trusted because they were both healthy, strong, and neither one of them believed in curses. I thought he would survive. I thought if I kept him close yet at a distance, he would survive.

But last night he tried to touch my necklace. I thought I’d smacked his hand away before his flesh connected but apparently not. Anyone who’d touched it before died a horrible death within days. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. My eyes blurred as my mind flew back to that painful memory.

My mother was so beautiful ten years ago, even modestly dressed in one of her favorite soft cotton dresses. An Egyptian, born and raised, she fell in love with my father on sight. She used to tell me stories about star-crossed lovers, always adding “like your dad and I” to the sentence. Her face always glowed with happiness and kindness while she waited patiently for him to return from a long day at the dig site. She loved being a wife and a mother too.

She liked to fix my hair and dress us alike. She took me everywhere, and she read a story to me every night at bedtime, even after I’d grown too old. I didn’t mind. I loved falling asleep to the sound of her soft voice.   

My mother noticed my necklace the day after I’d found it. She held it gently in her hand. “Oh, that’s…um…beautiful, sweetie. You didn’t get this from the dig, did you?”

I lied, of course. Even if I had dug it up myself, it was still considered property of the excavation. “We bought them in town. Calvin has one too. His has a cat on it.”

Three days later, I found my mother’s body, eyes bulging with a dark bruise around her neck.

“I’m sorry ma’am. We’re going to need you to come downtown.”

The sound of the detective’s hard voice broke my trance and ended the haunting vision. I turned to look at him but moisture in my eyes made the image appear fogged. 

“Oh, shit.” The woman beside me raised my arm a little and pulled back my sleeve. “You better look at this, detective.”

Finally focusing when the man moved closer to me, I flinched away like he might strike me.

“How did this happen?” he bellowed. “Did you get those bruises when you were fighting with Chad?”

Unable to find the strength to retaliate, I started sobbing stupidly. Physically exhausted from the snake attack and mentally drained from finding out Chad was dead and then remembering my mother’s death, I just had nothing left to say. I was ready to crawl into a cell and let them throw away the key so I couldn’t hurt anyone else.

The second policewoman poked and prodded around my robe, trying to see how far the bruises went up. When she reached for my neck, I reeled in my tears and slapped her hand instinctively. “Don’t touch it!”

“All right, ma’am,” she said, pulling her hands away, “but we need to know the full situation here. Would you mind showing me in the bedroom, away from the detective?”

I nodded, only because I knew she wouldn’t take me to jail if I showed her. I would be taken to the hospital, like I had been every other time someone caught a glimpse of the dark bruising–another reason I kept my distance from most people. The doctors stood around and scratched their heads, wondering how I’d gotten so bruised without having any broken bones. They gave me morphine, observed me, and then sent me home a couple of days later with a huge bill. I didn’t mind the morphine.

The cop followed me when I stumbled into the bedroom, and she even kept a somber face when I opened my robe. Only her voice gave away her shock, “How did this happen?”

“I’d rather not say.”

Her face softened only slightly. “If you don’t, it’s not going to be good for you.”

I shrugged, then cringed when pain shot through my body. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“All right,” she said, casting off any sympathy that had accumulated. “We’re going to take you to the hospital now, but we’re going to need pictures of the bruising. If this goes to court, it may help you or it may ruin you, but my job here is to collect the evidence.”

“This isn’t evidence,” I insisted, pulling my robe closed. “Am I going to be charged?”

She shook her head carelessly. “It’s too soon to say.”

“Fine,” I grumbled, averting my eyes. “Can I get dressed now?”

When she nodded and left the room, I used my precious time to formulate a quick plan of escape. I had to find Calvin. I needed him. I wasn’t prepared to deal with a murder wrap, and he was the only person who would understand my situation. He’d always found a way to get us out of trouble as kids, and I was sure he’d know what to do. But even if he didn’t, I desperately wanted him near me right now.

I grabbed the picture of us and threw it into a backpack with an extra change of clothing. I hadn’t seen Calvin since days after the photo was taken, and I knew he wouldn’t look the same, but the picture comforted me somehow. Just having it along made me feel closer to him and gave me a sense of hope.

After a quick phone call to a private investigator, I returned to the police who had invaded my home. They allowed me to grab my purse out my car before they shoved me into the back of the squad car. At least they didn’t put handcuffs on me, but that was hardly consoling when my neighbors gawked out their windows curiously.

The hospital tests, police photos, and questions I couldn’t answer continued until morning. Luckily, they didn’t have enough evidence to charge me yet, so they didn’t leave a cop outside my door. Mr. Cade, however, handed me a stern warning before he departed for the day: “And don’t leave town, Miss Patrix.”

Anxiety rushed out of me like air from a popped balloon when he finally left, and the sterile room became quiet. Exhausted, I lay my head down on the pillow.

The desert heat had pelted our skin all day long and the cool night breeze felt invigorating. Our fathers were working the same dig, so Calvin and I had spent an entire month together. Inside the dig behind the small pyramid, we were hidden from the evening guards who protected the excavation. He lay on his stomach and I lounged on my back, looking up at the starry night sky.

“Calvin,” I said sweetly, batting my eyelashes. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Your boyfriend,” he shot out, avoiding my eyes.

I giggled, feeling warm inside. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“’Cause you make me feel weird.”

“Weird?” Disappointed, I sat straight up to confront him, but he moved away from me like he was chasing a bug. “Where are you going?”

“You have to see this.”

I followed him and his little glowing red bug over to the edge of the pyramid and watched in awe as the bug started spinning in place. It rose off the ground for a second and then dove deep into the sand.

Calvin smacked the sand away with both hands, trying to see how far down the bug had burrowed. He seemed intent on finding the little bugger again so I helped, clawing and wrenching gobs of sand out of the way. When my hand hit something smooth, I pulled up a small box. Calvin ignored my findings and kept digging downward.

“Ow,” he finally said. “I hit a rock. Where did that thing go?”

I brushed the sand off his rock and turned on my flashlight. “That’s not a rock. It’s a tablet. Look, it has hieroglyphics on it.”

He nodded and then sat back, resting his head on his fisted hands with a defeated sigh.

I sat back too, frowning at his sadness. “It was probably poisonous anyway.”

He shrugged. “What did you find?”

“Oh, a box,” I said, handing him the flashlight. I set the embellished silver container between us and opened it. Inside, two gold necklaces gleamed from a velvety blue background; one had a snake on it and the other had a cat.

Calvin’s eyes lit up mischievously. “There’s two, one for each of us.”

“Do you think we can keep them?” I asked, my eyes widening with delight.

“We don’t have to tell,” he said easily. “It could be our secret.”

I smiled shyly at him. “Then we will always have a secret, and we’ll always be friends, right?”

He nodded as he looked at me, and his eyes darted to my mouth. Then he leaned over and put his lips on mine. My stomach swirled with warmth and excitement. It felt nothing like when my mom kissed me goodnight. I never wanted the kiss to end, but when it felt like I couldn’t breathe, I turned my head and hugged him. He looked happy too when we turned our attention back to the box.

“You pick first,” he said.

We’d been to a zoo a month before, and the large snakes had been the coolest to watch so I picked that one and left the cat necklace for Calvin. He picked his up and we put them on at the same time.

When the cold metal touched my chest, a surge of electricity ran through me, and my body stiffened. Calvin’s body did the same but when he looked up at me, he smiled.

“We’re friends forever now. And when we’re older, you’ll be my girlfriend?”

I nodded anxiously and hugged him again before we walked back to our tents, hand in hand.

Sober smiles were rare for me, but a genuine grin spread across my face when I awoke. Looking down at my necklace, I ran my fingers across the golden snake. The python’s large body was wrapped around what looked like a tablet transcribed with hieroglyphics. I no longer thought snakes were cool, but I wouldn’t wish my curse onto Calvin. He’d always been so sweet to me.

When the private detective called me back, I opened my phone with my fingers crossed. He told me Calvin’s last known U.S. whereabouts: Madison, Wisconsin.

“He was here?” I asked, my eyes flaring.

“Was. He spent a week in a motel and then got on a plane heading to Cairo, Egypt. The landlord from his last residence didn’t know why.”

My heart slumped with disappointment. “What about his mother and father?”

“Dead, I’m afraid. Can you afford to have me follow him?”

“No, that’s all right. Thank you,” I said, closing the phone.

I felt sick that Calvin’s parents had met the same end as mine, but it only made me more desperate to find him.  He was alone in the world just like me and probably needed me too. I missed our friendship and the bond we shared.

After calling a cab, I dressed, and snuck out. I left a note for the detective even though I doubted leaving town could be any worse than a murder charge.

“Calvin will fix everything,” I assured myself repeatedly.

Determined to find him, I bought my ticket to Cairo and ignored the images of crashing and burning that ran through my mind. I watched out the gate window for a sign of hope, but the flash of lightning that illuminated the dangerous aircraft only reinforced my discontent. The apprehension made me tremble. To remedy that, I spent an hour in the airport bar and eventually Jack helped me step onto the plane on time. I laughed off the constant turbulence with another drink.

Chapter 3

The morning after we’d dug up the necklaces, the camp roared with excitement about the empty box and the tablet they’d found behind the pyramid. Calvin looked angry though, so I approached him carefully. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re leaving,” he said, leading me out into the desert away from camp. “My dad got called away on an important assignment.”

My heart fell heavily and a lump formed in my throat. “But…”

“I know,” he grumbled crossly.

When I hugged him, moisture filled my eyes. “I don’t want you to go. What if I never see you again?”

“Meet me,” he whispered. “When you turn eighteen, meet me at the Statue of Liberty. We’ll run away together and we’ll never be apart again.”

“Promise?” I asked, pulling back to stare into his sad eyes.

“I promise,” he vowed before he put his lips on mine for the second time.

The jolt from the landing gear hitting the runway hurled me from my sleep, and eventually I opened my tear-filled eyes. Restless people scuffled about, grabbing bags and rising to leave, but I remained seated, thinking about the day before my eighteenth birthday.