“I don’t understand. Why are you doing all this for me?”
“Apparently, the provost and the board of regents believe your discoveries in Egypt have brought quite a bit of esteem to our small anthropology department. And frankly, I agree. We are expanding the archeology section as a result.”
It was true. Dallas and Colton had been featured in two national magazines for their work and findings at Taposiris Magna.
“But I didn’t find Cleopatra.”
“Nobody has found Cleopatra,” she said. “But also, nobody in history as ever come so close.”
The president winked.
Wow. It was hard for Dallas to view the trip as successful right then, but she was flattered. It was just hard to get over the crushing sense of disappointment that filled her every time she thought about the dig site.
Tenure would be a lifeline—something to cling to. Something solid. And it would keep her near Colton.
A half hour later, Dallas walked out as a newly tenured professor with the promise she had extracted from the president that she could always take a leave if another adventure came up.
That afternoon Colton ran into her office whopping.
“Congratulations!”
“You heard!” Dallas said.
“Oh, yeah. I have a bottle of champagne chilling in my office. We are going to celebrate.”
Dallas couldn’t help but laugh at his enthusiasm.
A few weeks later, Colton walked into Dallas’s office and saw Dallas sitting at her desk with her head in her hands.
“Dallas? You okay? What’s going on?”
Dallas lifted her head.
No, she wasn’t okay. She hadn’t slept for weeks.
Despite landing her dream job, she couldn’t stop thinking about Cleopatra’s tomb and the people who had died looking for it.
Late at night she would toss and turn thinking about it.
Her failure. It seemed so wrong she had been rewarded with this job for failing?
Her guilt and disappointment sometimes overwhelmed her. She’d been such a fool to think that finding the tomb had been her destiny. She felt like a fool.
Especially on the days like today when Colton rushed into her office with a huge grin.
She gave him a wan smile. “I just feel like such a failure,” she blurted out and then instantly regretted the admission.
“What?”
“I was so damn sure the tomb was there and then … poof, if it was it’s gone now, washed out to sea.”
Colton shook his head. “Are you kidding? You’re incredible. Your discoveries and contributions in archeology have only just begun. You realize that, right?”
She stared at him in amazement. What had she ever done to deserve this faith and loyalty?
“Don’t you like your job?”
Her faced flushed. “No, I mean yes, I love my job. It’s a dream come true. I love it. I promise.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I love having you back here.”
“Here? As in back at the university or as in the office next door to yours?” She said hoping to lighten the mood.
“Both!”
They both grinned like idiots at one another.
“I don’t know,” Dallas said. She kicked the door closed, looped her arms around his neck, and leaned in until their mouths were only millimeters apart. “Is it still as fun now that it’s not illicit.”
“Oh yeah.”
Later, at her desk in front of the class, she turned a page of the textbook and saw a picture of David Caldwell. She was shocked. He’d been in her textbook the entire time? In an instant, she was back in the tunnels of the temple, certain she was about to be killed.
“Ms. Jones? Ms. Jones?”
When she finally realized, the student was calling her name, she snapped back. She was sweating, her face was burning hot, and her heart was racing.
The student gave her a frightened look. She needed to get it together.
“Yes. I’m so sorry. I’ll be right back.”
She headed to the bathroom. Inside, she splashed cold water on her face and examined her reflection. “Get it together, Jones.”
She spent a few minutes giving herself a pep talk before she returned to the class and the students who had grown impatient waiting and was sitting back down.
“I’m sorry. What was your question?”
After the students packed up their things and left her to the empty classroom, Dallas caught herself daydreaming again—remembering what it had been like to see the door to Cleopatra’s tomb open. The exhilaration that had filled her, even though at the same time she’d been certain of her own death and thought it would be worth it to die if she at least could see Cleopatra’s mummified body.
Crazy. She shook away the dark thoughts and gathered up her things. As she did, she noticed something odd.
It was a piece of parchment. It hadn’t been on her desk earlier.
She looked around the empty class. Had someone put it there when she was in the bathroom. She picked it up. It had an asp on it. She turned it over. It said, “Death Shall Come on Swift Wings.”
It was the curse found outside King Tut’s tomb warning anyone who disturbed his body: "Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King.”
Several people connected to the opening of Tut’s tomb had died strangely. One man who was there with Howard Carter opening the tomb died from a mosquito bite in the exact spot where they later found a similar mark on King Tut’s body.
Shortly after coming into contact with Tut’s mummy and tomb, five other men died mysterious deaths.
Dallas felt a wave of dread run across her scalp at the same time her fingertips began to burn. She jerked the pads of her fingers away the parchment they had been holding and screamed for someone to call 911.
Police swarmed her office. It was the same detective who had responded to investigate her burglary call the year before.
“Ms. Jones, you seem to attract trouble wherever you go,” he said.
“Ha. Believe me I’m not trying.”
He cocked his head. She knew he didn’t believe her.
Sure enough they tested the envelope and it came back positive
