Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [50]
“Where did you learn your French?” asked Alan casually.
“Her mother is French,” said Kyla, when I did not reply immediately. “She’s completely fluent, lucky thing. Italian, too. She practically grew up in Italy. Her father was in the diplomatic corps.”
“And you also?” asked Alan.
“Not a word,” she answered with a grin. “I took Spanish in high school, for all the good that’s done me. I’ve already forgotten most of it.”
Alan was shaking his head as if puzzled. “You really aren’t sisters, are you?”
“What have we been saying? Of course we’re not sisters. If we were sisters, we’d hardly be going around saying we’re cousins, now would we? Our fathers are brothers. And we don’t even look alike,” she added for good measure.
“And how about you?” I asked quietly. I held his eye for a moment. “A financial analyst from Dallas? You sure know your Arabic. And your pulse points.”
He flushed a little. Kyla looked from me to him and back again. “What are you talking about?”
“I know a little Arabic,” he admitted. “I took some college courses, thinking it would help me land a job. It might have sounded like I know the language, but I really know very little, and I’ve been assured my accent is atrocious.”
“What were you saying, then?” I asked, not quite believing him.
He hesitated. “Just asking if anyone had seen someone leaving the shop,” he said. But too late and too little. He really was a terrible liar. But if he was hiding something, I could not imagine what it was.
“And did they?” asked Kyla.
“No,” he answered shortly. “No one saw anything.”
Exactly like the events at the pyramids when Millie had been killed. A dead body on the ground, but no witnesses, even though the place was crowded. No outcry, no screams, not even much blood, never mind what the French woman said. Just a silent death. Only this time, instead of one of a tour group of foreigners, the victim was an Egyptian native. A simple shopkeeper, here in the sunny marketplace of Abu Simbel. None of it made any sense.
“We should ask Flora and Fiona,” I said, suddenly remembering. “They were in that shop about ten or fifteen minutes earlier.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw them coming out. You might have seen them, Kyla. They were coming out while you were stopping at the postcard shop.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t see them, but it doesn’t matter anyway. They could have stepped on the dead guy and not have noticed.”
Mohammad appeared, moving fast. “Everyone, let us meet at once back at the bus! Tell the others. We don’t want to get stopped here and miss our flight.”
Anni hurried up behind him. “Mohammad is right. Here, Alan. You take Hello Kitty and start for the parking lot.” And she thrust the pink umbrella into Alan’s hands and hurried away to gather the rest of the group. For a moment, I thought he would protest, but he seemed to think better of it.
We sprang into action. The commotion had drawn everyone together into the center of the market. It was a simple matter to wave Hello Kitty frantically at our fellow passengers and then dash back to the buses. Alan led the way quickly, the feeling of urgency affecting the group. Perhaps we would not have reacted so rapidly had the memory of waiting for hours at the pyramids not been relatively fresh in our memories. Even Flora and Fiona fell into line and for once weren’t the last on the bus. It was Jane’s reaction that shocked me. I thought she was going to faint. In fact, if Ben hadn’t put his arm around her, I think she would have melted to the ground. Terror poured from her like water from a fire hose. Ben and Lydia half dragged, half carried her to the bus.
Anni urged the driver to start the engine and we were halfway down the hill and on our way to the airport before we saw the first police car. We tensed up as they drove past, but then gave a collective sigh when they didn’t turn around and come after us. We couldn’t have been more relieved had we been guilty of the crime ourselves.
“Thank goodness we got out of there,” said Nimmi.
“And thank goodness it had nothing to do with