Death on Tour Read Online Free PDF Page B

would have been unremarkable in a corner of a Walmart parking lot. Fluorescent lights blazed overhead, illuminating the multicolored rugs that lay in enormous stacks on the floor, like giant limp decks of cards. In one corner, two very young girls tied knots onto the warp threads of a giant loom. Their hands moved with breathtaking speed as they tied the shimmering strands into place. The colors could have come from the Nile itself, pale blues, delicate greens, pearly grays. The owner of the shop, a lean older man with quick smug eyes, explained that they learned this craft after school, and it would bring a very good income to them when they were certified. Watching them critically, he added that they were judged on the uniformity of their knots and the speed at which they worked. Looking at the tense lines of their small shoulders, I wondered how they could bear the combination of stress and tedium.
    As the presentation began winding down, a pack of young Egyptian salesmen began circling like wolves, and by the time we were told to meet back at the bus in half an hour they were already beginning the process of cutting the weak from the herd. A very handsome young man watched Kyla and me with an unsettling intensity, and we purposely lingered beside the loom, hoping he would go away. As a cover, we pretended to be interested as Yvonne de Vance asked some technical questions about the weaving. She was about a hundred years old and her rickety little husband, Charlie, was even older, so I’m not sure why she cared enough to waste some of the few minutes she had left with esoteric questions.
    Charlie de Vance gave a huge chuckle. “Which ones fly? I want to see one of them magic carpets.”
    The owner of the shop threw back his head and let out the hearty guffaw of someone who has heard a very weak joke for the thousandth time. I felt my toes curl with embarrassment, but he seemed quite unfazed.
    “All of our carpets are magical, but you must take them home with you before they will work,” he said with a wink.
    Charlie looked delighted. “Good line, son. What do you say, Yvonne? Want to see what they’ve got?”
    Interrupted in her interrogation of the young girl, Yvonne gave him a sour look that rapidly softened into affection as she noted his eager expression. She took his arm and they tottered willingly into the clutches of an overeager young salesman.
    The owner, a large man in western dress, stopped beside Kyla and me. “I hope you are enjoying your visit to Egypt,” he said.
    “Yes, very much,” I smiled.
    “You are sisters, yes? I noticed the likeness right away. Very beautiful sisters.”
    “Not sisters,” Kyla said shortly. “Cousins.”
    “Ah, cousins,” he beamed. “Very nice indeed.” He moved on.
    Kyla glared after him. “Sisters!” she snorted. “I will never understand it. We don’t look anything alike at all.”
    We did, of course. However, Kyla knew deep in her soul that she was unique, and it was one of her pet peeves to be compared to me. If pressed, she would admit that a stranger might be induced to believe that we shared a distant relative on some obscure branch of the family tree, but only if he were blind or drunk or probably both.
    From long experience, I knew the right thing to say to stave off a full-blown rant. “He was just making conversation, and after all, we’re about the same age and height. Although you are far prettier and more stylish and better in every way than I am. I’m sure it was just a natural mistake, and he should be allowed to live.”
    Kyla turned a cold eye on me, but then grinned. “All right, but it better not happen again.”
    The boyish salesman with the intense eyes was circling ever closer. Kyla took one look at him and darted away, leaving me hesitating alone just one moment too long. He pounced.
    “Do you not like our carpets? They are very special. No one else in the world makes them like we do.” His English was accented, but otherwise almost