Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [42]
Lydia smiled. “She is much better this morning.” She looked toward the doorway and made a little gesture. “Here she is now.”
We all turned. An exceptionally thin girl entered the dining room through the wide glass doors and was walking toward our table. Her clothes looked far too large for her, as though she had lost a great deal of weight in a very short time. Her long straight hair hung loose around her face and the way she tipped her head had it swinging forward like curtains to hide her cheeks. Ben hopped up and pulled out a chair for her, while Lydia made quick introductions, and then leaped up to fill a plate for her. I smiled and said hello automatically, but I was shocked. Was this really the same vibrant young woman I’d noticed with Ben and Lydia at the airport?
As the others made small talk about our upcoming excursion, I covertly studied the niece. She was very close in age and coloring to the girl I’d seen that first day, but gone was the curling dark hair, the strong line of the jaw, the slightly crooked nose. Gone also was that subtle air of energy and enthusiasm that had been so obvious and attractive even across the crowded baggage claim. If I hadn’t noticed her so particularly because of her resemblance to one of my students, I might have attributed her changed appearance to her illness. But this couldn’t be the same girl. Could it? I did not know what to make of it. Why would Ben and Lydia be passing off an impostor as their niece?
Maybe the woman I’d seen in the Cairo airport had not been with Ben and Lydia at all. She could have been a fellow passenger with whom they’d struck up a conversation. But in that case, where had the niece been? Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Ben watching me, a little line of anxiety between his eyebrows. He looked away the instant I turned toward him. Was it because I had mentioned that I’d seen the niece at the airport?
I rose and returned to the buffet for another slice of bacon that I didn’t really want, just so I could get a good look at her on the way back without seeming too rude. The baggy clothing looked at least two sizes too big. She couldn’t have lost that much weight in only two days. Was it possible the clothes weren’t hers at all? I noted the way Ben hovered, arm protectively draped over the back of her chair, the way Lydia buttered toast for her and urged her to eat it. Standard treatment for an invalid, or something more? But what would be the point? Why arrive in Egypt with one girl and in less than two days trade her in for another? Friendly, funny Ben and Lydia were hardly likely candidates for sex slave traders. The best thing I could do would be to concentrate on enjoying my dream vacation and minding my own business.
* * *
The group met just outside the lobby after breakfast, where a team of white-jacketed bellhops were busy hauling our luggage from our rooms. To my surprise, the tour director, Mohammad, was waiting by the growing pile of bags. He had not come with us on the airplane, so what was he doing here? The houndstooth jacket was missing, and he looked larger than ever in a polo shirt and black pants. Not quite as tall as DJ, who towered over everyone else, Mohammad was even broader through the shoulders and chest, and without the jacket, I could see that his stomach overhung his belt like that of a small-town Texas sheriff. Gone, too, was the relaxed, helpful attitude of a professional tour guide from the airport. Now, well, he wasn’t quite tapping his foot, but he might as well have been. I wondered again about the phone call I’d overheard in the gardens of the Mena House. Could it have been Mohammad?
Anni rounded the corner from the hotel lobby and performed a perfect double take. Her eyebrows almost vanished under the folds of her red headscarf. Brushing off Charlie, who was trying to get directions to the town center,