Maria Hudgins - Lacy Glass 01 - Scorpion House Read Online Free PDF

small! No room for my animals.”
    Susan reached forward across the back of Joel’s seat and grabbed his shoulder. “It’s absolutely necessary to protect the tombs. You have no idea how much damage has already been done! Tombs of the nobles are all over these hills in front of us,” she yelled over the roar of motors and the clatter of horses’ hooves. “Some haven’t even been discovered yet. Those houses are dug back into the ridge. All you see from here is the front façade. Some of them cut right into tombs!”
    Selim turned to Lacy as he pulled into the intersection, heedless of horns and oncoming traffic. “Our houses have been there, like you see now, for hundreds of years. My grandfather was born in house I live in now We do not destroy the tombs. We protect them!”
    “Protect them? Hah!” Susan shouted. “You protect them by selling off everything in them, right down to the paint on the walls!”
    “We do not sell the paint on the walls!” Selim’s jaw muscles tightened.
    “Your sewage and waste water is undermining the whole area.”
    “We guard the tombs with our lives.”
    “Right! And you charge admission, too.”
    Joel, in the front seat, turned to Susan and shot her a look that said, “Shut up.” Lacy also thought this was becoming quite uncomfortable for all of them. Graham and Shelley glanced at each other.
    Susan sat back and shoved the briefcase on her lap into the back of Joel’s seat. “The sooner they get those people out of there, the better.”

CHAPTER SIX
    A wood sign at the foot of the drive said: WHIZ BANG.
    And at the top of the drive, a long, low, sand-color building with two domes on top and an arched breezeway along the front. It reminded Lacy of the sand castle she sculpted last summer using a frappacino lid as a mold.
    They had seen the Jeep coming. Three people waved from the breezeway. A grey-haired man, pot-bellied and bulbous nosed, a middle-aged woman with frizzy hair, and a short, elderly woman. The elderly woman wore the standard Egyptian garb, a long loose tunic. She apparently wasn’t a Muslim woman, Lacy decided, because her head wasn’t covered, her hair chopped off even with the bottom of her ears in a Sphinx-like do.
    “Welcome to Whiz Bang!” The middle-aged woman approached the Jeep and opened Joel’s door for him. She flashed them a crooked smile. “I’m Roxanne Breen.” She had a British accent.
    Susan stood on the back seat, jumped over the side and hugged her, then did the same for Roxanne’s two companions. “Roxanne Breen, Horace Lanier, and Bay, our wonderful cook,” she said. Lacy wondered if Susan had simply neglected to tell them Bay’s last name or if she didn’t remember it. She suspected that Susan didn’t consider hired help to be worthy of last names. She’d done the same thing back at the airport in introducing Selim.
    Joel Friedman stepped out and slowly straightened his legs and his back. He and the pot-bellied Dr. Lanier stood for several seconds staring at each other, nodding, their faces intent. At length, Lanier said, “You old son-of-a-gun!” He spread his arms and the two men embraced, thumping one another on the back.
    Friedman turned to his travel mates and said, “This is Graham Clark.”
    “I know Graham,” Lanier said. “Remember? I hired him.”
    “I forgot. And Lacy Glass.”
    “Lacy.”
    “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Lacy said as she shook Lanier’s hand.
    “And Graham’s wife, Shelley.”
    Introductions complete, Roxanne Breen said, “Bay has been so looking forward to your coming, since she’s American as well. From Chicago originally, aren’t you?” She nodded toward Bay. “She’s planned a special all-American dinner for us tonight, so I do hope you haven’t eaten yet.”
    They all assured her they hadn’t. Deep twilight had fallen and Lacy’s watch, now set to local time, said six o’clock. Her body clock said “mid-morning after a sleepless night.”
    Dr. Lanier led the group