Her next-door neighbor had learned how to ride without training wheels in thirty minutes the summer before.
“Honey,” her father said, leaning over her after she fell and scraped her knee for the umpteenth time. “Anything worth having in life is worth working for.”
Dallas thought about it and said, “Keep trying?”
“Exactly!”
It didn’t happen right then, but two hours later, at least an hour after her mother had called them in to dinner and then thrown up her hands when they didn’t come—that’s when it happened. The magic. She did it. Even when she wanted to quit.
Now, remembering this Dallas smiled.
It wasn’t until she looked up, that she realized she’d been crying.
She dried her tears, stood up and brushed herself off.
“I’m not a quitter.” She mumbled the words to herself. “I’m not giving up. I’m going to come back here every week until they tell me yes. I don’t care if it takes the rest of my life, I’m not going to give up.”
As she replayed the conversation with the minister in her head, one word stuck out and she clung to that one word with everything she had: Usually.
“Those who are approved usually have …”
She smiled. Because that one word was all she needed to keep going.
If Sam were there, she would’ve spouted off a quote from Dumb & Dumber, “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
Back in her hotel room, Dallas dialed Colton, but it went straight to voice mail. She realized it was the middle of the night so she left a quick message.
“Meeting didn’t exactly go as planned, but I was given two weeks at the dig site to find evidence to make my case. I’m so glad you’re coming because I’m going to really need your help, Colton.”
Eight
Dallas dozed off in her train seat as the countryside flashed by out the window. She had slept poorly the night before. The chair in front of the door wouldn’t stop anyone. Not really.
When she arrived at the train station, she’d hovered in the shadows for most of the wait for her train, watching to see if anyone who seemed suspicious paid attention to her. But people mainly ignored her. An older man did a double take but then quickly looked away. She’d worn a headscarf to blend in and her clothes were fairly inconspicuous—loose linen pants and blouse.
Still she felt conspicuous as a woman traveling alone.
Abet was going to meet her in Alexandria the next morning. He had a family obligation today. Colton had texted her a quick reply that they’d talk more in person.
Now, reassured that she was safe on the train, her lack of sleep hit her and Dallas drifted off to sleep.
She woke two hours later when they were nearly to Alexandria.
As she began to gather her things, Dallas froze.
Her cross-body bag that had been stolen was now sitting on the train seat beside her. She jumped up, whirled and looked around. The few people seated nearby quickly looked away.
Excuse me?” she said to a man across the aisle. He shifted uncomfortably but met her eyes. She held up the bag. “Did you see anyone leave this in this seat?”
He shook his head. Dallas wondered if he understood what she asked or was just trying to get rid of her and stop her from talking to him.
She asked a few more people and was met with silence or heads shaking no.
Peering at the door to the other train compartments, she wondered if it would be worth asking other people, but just then there was an announcement that they were pulling into the train station.
It was only after she disembarked and had sat on a bench with a map to get her bearings, that Dallas examined the cross-body bag. It had been cut off her body when the woman had stolen it, but now when she looked at the strap, the leather had been repaired, sewn back together with neat, careful stitches. Looking around first to see if anyone was watching, Dallas unzipped the top of the bag and began withdrawing the contents, placing them on the bench seat beside her.
Her sunglasses. Her lip balm and hand lotion. Her camera. A protein bar. A pack of gum. Everything was there. Even the twenty dollars. Huh.
And then, as Dallas reached inside the deep depths of the bag, her fingers felt something else lodged at the bottom. She pulled out a small, thick piece of round canvas the size of a silver dollar. It was an embroidered patch. A small gasp erupted when Dallas saw the image. She whipped her head around to see if anyone noticed, clutching the patch in her palm with her fingers tightly closed around it. When she that saw nobody who was walking by was paying her any attention, Dallas unfurled her fingers. The patch was embroidered with an image of the head of Isis—her profile with a golden curved rod underneath, symbolizing a snake. The goddess had the traditional cow’s horn and sun disk on her headdress and colorful beaded hair. Her nose was regal and her lips voluptuous.
Dallas stared at the patch and then felt a prickling at the back of her neck. People bustled by her at the busy train station, caught up in their own lives and yet somebody on the train had followed her from Cairo. The woman who took her bag? Whomever it was, it was somebody who apparently knew why Dallas was in Egypt.
Dallas carefully examined the tiny neat stitches where someone had taken the time to fix the ripped spot on the leather strap. It didn’t seem like the same work as the thieves in Minneapolis. Whoever broke into her office and house hadn’t cared about what they damaged. When she cleaned up, she’d found a broken candy dish and a shattered picture frame.
What had the woman hoped to find in the bag? Not the money. The camera?
Dallas flicked the cover for the SD card on the camera. It
