“Easy does it, girl,” she mumbled to herself. “Easy does it.” Getting stopped by the police would help nobody.
Zahra’s brakes squeaked as she pulled over and parked directly in front of her father’s home. She had no idea how she was going to open up the conversation with him. What could she possibly say to him to convince him of what was happening? It all sounded so fanciful — even for Zahra.
Her eyes never left the red front door as she gathered her belongings from the floor of her backseat. She opened her door and slung the heavy pack over her shoulder. Like the rest of her body, the joint ached. She surmounted the seven steps up to her father’s front door and lifted her fist to knock.
But she didn’t — she couldn’t.
Zahra was nervous, and a bit scared to see him. The answers she sought would surely crumble her world worse than it already had been. The museum was her livelihood, but this…this was her life.
Just as her closed hand descended toward the wooden door, it swung open. Zahra stepped back and nearly fell off the narrow landing at the top of the steps. Her father brought a hand to his chest with his mouth agape. Neither Kane spoke. Both just stood there and recouped themselves.
Zahra opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. So, instead, her dad was the first to talk.
He looked her up and down. “Rough night?”
Zahra checked her watch. “Technically, it was a rough morning.”
She removed her sunglasses to speak but was stopped by her father’s appalled response to the bruising on her face. The sight of his little girl so beat up brought a hand to George’s mouth. He was stunned to see her in a state such as this.
He held out his hand. “Why don’t you come in.”
She gave him a curt nod of thanks and entered. Unlike Zahra’s home, her father’s house was filled wall-to-wall with historical references and artifacts. George Kane lived and breathed everything to do with the subject. He was a real student of it, and as it was, a teacher of it too.
“Look, Dad, I don’t want to make you late.” Zahra stepped back toward the door. “I can come back later, and—”
George raised an open hand. “It’s okay. Something tells me that this can’t wait.”
Zahra looked down at her attire and nervously readjusted her backpack. “Can we sit? I’m a bit tired.”
He grinned. “You look like hell. Did you have a run-in with someone?”
She snickered. “Yeah, you could say that. There were six of them, I think.”
They hung a quick left, entering George’s study. Books lined the walls, and where there weren’t any bookshelves, there were maps of different countries. They sat in matching brown leather chairs. Zahra carefully set her bag down and relaxed, her tense posture melting away into the coolness of the leather.
George kept his mouth shut and waited for his daughter to speak.
She leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees. “Tell me about the Scales of Anubis.”
He chuckled. “Is this why you drove an hour to see me?”
Zahra’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me about Khaliq Ayad.” Her father stammered his words, clearly trying to make something up. “Did you know he kidnapped Baahir and stole Mom’s canopic jar this morning?”
George’s stubbled face went white. “Baahir? Khaliq? He did this to you?”
“No,” Zahra replied, shaking her head, “his sister did. She and her men nearly destroyed the museum. It’s probably all over the news by now.”
“Ifza was there?”
So, he does know about her.
Zahra nodded. Her eyes became wet. “They killed Bernie, Dad.” She refrained from mentioning the men she had personally killed. As far as her father knew, Zahra had never ended another human's life and she wanted to keep it that way.
George looked like he had gotten punched in the stomach. He knew Bernie well. He reached a hand out and gently placed it atop hers and squeezed. Zahra winced.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, softening his grip.
Zahra smiled. “It’s okay. Just one of a hundred things that hurt right now.”
He didn’t add anything. George plucked the remote off the rectangular coffee table and powered on the wall-mounted television. The scene was excruciating to watch. The entrance to the British Museum was a charred, smoking husk of its once beautiful self. Men from what could only be the coroner’s office carried out a large black bag on a stretcher.
Bernie?
“You were there?” George asked, eyes wide.
“Yep. The bomb threw me halfway across the Great Court.”
“Bomb?” George shouted, leaping to his feet. “What the hell is going on in your life these days?”
Zahra stood and met him eye to eye. “I was hoping you could tell me. Dad, I need to know. Ifza said that I didn’t know. What don’t I know?”
He bit his lip, but nodded, and waved her onward. “Come with me. I’m going to need a lot more coffee. This could take a while.”
“What about work?”
He glanced over his shoulder as he stepped out of his office. “I’ll call in and tell them the truth.”
“The truth?”
He turned around, sporting a sly smile. It was the type of smile that Zahra also used quite frequently. “Yeah, the truth. I’ll tell them that I had family drop in unannounced.”
He’s not wrong, Zahra thought, glancing around the main hallway. But she couldn’t focus on the historical pieces her father had on display. Something nagged at her. She knew the answer, but she needed to hear it from him.
She slowed, stopping in front of a picture of her and her parents and Baahir from eons ago. “This is bad, isn’t it?”
George stepped up next to her, his reflection just visible in the glass of the framed picture. He laid a hand on her shoulder, choosing his words carefully. “Zahra… this is precisely what your mother and I were trying to prevent.”
Chapter 34
Zahra
The coffee maker percolated somewhere behind Zahra. She sat at the kitchen island, locked in on the news report. A man around her age stepped into frame and spoke loudly. The commotion behind him was chaotic and noisy.
“Spencer Tenson here at the British Museum, where authorities have confirmed the grim news. Six fatalities — the causes of which have not been released. I’m told there is one man in custody, though no charges have been immediately filed.”
Six dead? Zahra thought, quickly ticking off the men she had encountered. Guy in the Great Court — spear. Another one in the stairs. Third guy — the mountain — also in the Great Court. The person they arrested must have been Ehsan, the man she had stabbed in the shoulder with her knife when she was hiding in Nectanebo II’s sarcophagus. Then, there was Bernie. Who are the other two?
Her face fell into her hands. “Drew and Josh. Shit…” During the raid, Ifza and her men didn’t just kill Bernie. They had silenced the entire Night Guard.
“You okay?” Her father sat beside her, placing a steaming mug of coffee in front of her.
“No, Dad, I am not ‘okay.’” Her hands fell away, and slapped the marble countertop. “Do I look ‘okay?’”
George looked away, eyeing the TV.
Zahra picked up her mug. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded but didn’t look away from the news report. They sat and watched and listened to the information being provided, which to say, wasn’t much. Spencer Tenson tossed out a few theories as to why the museum had been bombed. The most likely scenario Spencer offered, and one Zahra could vouch for, was a terrorist attack.