Always Emily

She loved these people. She loved their honesty, loyalty and boundless integrity. Why couldn’t everyone in the world be like them?

She fell into Penny’s enveloping embrace. “I will miss you so much.” Her sinuses ached. Why wasn’t life easier? Why couldn’t she carry her friends with her in her pockets, wherever she went, and take them out when she needed them? “I’ll write often.”

“You’ll visit us in England when we’re at home.” From Penny, it came out as order rather than an invitation.

“Yes,” Emily promised. “I will.”

After copious hugs and kisses with both Penny and Les, and a too-brief goodbye, Emily was on her way to her new life.

Fifty minutes later, she stood at the airport in a lineup that moved with glacial slowness toward security.

At last second in line, she put her violin case onto the conveyor belt that would carry it through the X-ray machine.

Sweat poured from her face and a pair of Japanese Kodo drummers hammered her temples in unrelenting waves. This had nothing to do with the heat of the desert. She was sick. Some kind of flu. Rotten timing.

Suck it up, kid. Nothing would hold her back from getting on that plane.

Unsnapping the buckles on her knapsack, she reached inside for her cosmetic bag, where she kept cotton hankies. Her hand touched something unexpected, something she hadn’t packed, and she froze.

Whatever the object was, she hadn’t put it there. She peeked inside, keeping her actions unobtrusive. In her palm, she held a tiny ancient prayer book. She’d seen it before. On their dig. It was supposed to be under lock and key at the National Museum of Sudan, where every artifact they unearthed eventually found a home. So what was it doing in her bag?

She dropped it back into the knapsack, but a tiny gasp betrayed her. Despite how insignificant that intake of breath, it drew the guard’s attention. He approached.

Damn, damn, damn.

Her mouth dried up like the Sahara. Too late to turn and leave. If she took her bag and violin from the belt, he would know something was up and would detain her. One way or another, her bag would be searched today.

The penalty for smuggling artifacts out of the country was jail time. No questions asked. No leniency. No compassion. Too much had been stolen from these civilizations over the centuries. They’d been robbed blind.

If she denied ownership, they would think she was lying. If she tried to tell them she’d been set up, they would think she was lying.

There was no good outcome here. She was the most screwed piece of metaphorical toast on the face of the planet, and she knew whom to blame.

Jean-Marc. Her open apartment door. He’d retrieved the relic from his apartment down the hall and then had slipped back into her place long enough to stash it in her things so she would be caught with it as she left the country. Vindictive piece of decrepit crap.

I will ruin you. Yes, he had.

Rage filled her, and not just because of what he was doing to her, but because this precious article shouldn’t have been in his possession. Why was it, damn him?

The day she let Jean-Marc win was the day she rolled over and died. She had to get out of this airport and get the relic back where it belonged, with the people of the Sudan.

Think. Think!

What could she do?

Sweat dripping from her forehead burned her eyes. She grasped the hankie in her hand and ran it over her face. The man in front of her in the lineup hadn’t bathed recently, and the smell made her ill.

“Is something wrong, miss?” the guard asked, tone solicitous but eyes hard. “Are you nervous about your flight?”

She shook her head. “Sick.”

His brow furrowed. “If you are sick, you cannot fly.”

“Have to. Need to get home.” She wasn’t thinking clearly. The fever was messing with her brain. She had to get out of the airport, not onto a plane.

Her violin case and bag crept along the belt closer to the X-ray machine. They would question the prayer book. It wasn’t shaped like a paperback novel. It was flat and small—and oh so ancient and precious. She reached to take it back. The guard stopped her.

They would find the relic and send her to the closest prison, where she would rot for years. Nothing and no one would be able to help her. The thought turned her stomach.

And wasn’t that fortunate? She was desperate enough to try anything.

She glanced at the guard’s immaculate uniform and her reflection in the glossy surface of his spit-shined brown shoes. Vanity, you just might be my saving grace.

This past winter, she’d had a cold that had left her with a cough that wouldn’t quit. One day, it had been so bad she’d coughed so hard, she had ended up losing her breakfast.

The bag slid closer to the machine. The belt stopped abruptly. They questioned the man in front of her about an item in his carry-on luggage.

She took advantage of the lull and started to cough, covering her mouth with the hankie. She coughed harder, contracting her muscles to get them to obey.

Given the heat of the day, the unnatural fever and the sour scent of the man in front of her, it didn’t take much to get her stomach to cooperate.

Her breakfast rose into her mouth and—oops—her hankie slipped away from her lips. She vomited on the floor, leaning forward enough that she also hit the guard’s shoes.

“Hey!” he yelled and swore in Arabic.

Another guard joined them. “What’s wrong here?”

“She’s sick,” the first guard spat. “Disgusting.”

Good. Maybe they would let her turn around and walk out of here. She could get the relic back to where it belonged.

Her mouth tasted like hell. “Maybe I should return to my apartment and take a later flight.” She held her breath, willing the man to agree. He ignored her as though she were a gnat.

“Clean this up,” the second guard called to a janitor. Pointing at her, he said, “You come with us.”

Oh crap, oh crap. He took her past security to the offices. Scrap that thought. They were headed to a private interrogation room. She was in deep trouble.

The first guard had retrieved her knapsack and her violin case from the belt and carried them into the room. He dropped them onto the table and she reacted before she could think, yelling, “Hey, be careful. That violin is old.”

He paid no heed while the second guard took his time checking her passport and documents. “Why did you think you would be able to fly while you are so ill? Did you not consider the other passengers? They would not want to get sick.”

She wouldn’t lose her cool. There had to be a way out of this. “I didn’t feel this ill when I left my apartment. It came on suddenly.”

A firm knock sounded on the door.

“Come,” one of the men said.

A man Emily recognized stepped into the room—tall, handsome Dr. Damiri. Everyone on the dig used his services when they were ill. “Doctor! What are you doing here?”