16

No sign of Tucker as we approached the hospital.

Muhamed wouldn't leave me alone on the sidewalk. "It's best not to leave a young woman unaccompanied."

I checked my watch, trying not to notice that I was thirsty, tired, and now getting rained on, while car engines roared in my ears. "It's not even 6 p.m."

"It happens in broad daylight." Muhamed hesitated. "I'm afraid that foreign women can be at higher risk."

"Higher risk?"

He looked pained. "There have been complaints of harassment against women. We don't see this on my tours, of course. We keep you very safe."

Now my fatigue mingled with a bit of fear. I'd never been alone in Egypt. My post-bomb adrenaline had ebbed, and my knees sagged. Time to sleep. Stat.

Muhamed walked me into the lobby. Then he bowed slightly and said something in Arabic, which he explained meant goodbye, but also "go in peace 'very much.'"

Although the hospital air smelled slightly like stale sweat and body spray, the doors sealing behind me also minimized the noise and pollution. Mixed blessing.

I yawned and texted Tucker. You ready? I'm done.

Almost, he wrote back.

So I wouldn't fall asleep in front of the security guards, I perched on a wooden bench beside my back pack and made notes on my phone.

Becker: mining. Treasure. Mongoose. Lord Carnarvon. Osiris. My fault. I shouldn't have done it. Kruger millions?

Why did Gizelda Becker give away PB's cobra pouch?

Why did Sarquet Industries pay for our trip?

A body. The body of a god.

All of this could be important, or none of it.

I tried not to resent Tucker. Medicine is a harsh mistress. And Ryan never complained when he waited for me.

Googling "god body" pointed me to a conspiracy theory, so I added the key word "Egypt." This led to Egyptian mythology. I clicked on Osiris. His name kept coming up. Why?

"Hope!" Tucker hustled to my side twenty minutes later, laughing at my screen. "You checking out green dudes now? I better buy some body paint."

I touched his arm, but avoided kissing him, so as not to offend any pious onlookers. The springy curls of hair on his arm cheered me up a tad. "Hey. Are you telling me you don't recognize this guy, so I know more about Egyptian history than you? Score."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Never! I present to you Osiris, Egypt's Lord of the Underworld. Judge of the Dead. His name means 'powerful.'"

"Okay, I'll give you two points for that and take away one for tardiness."

"Sorry. Charting, then Dr. Sharif—"

"Dr. Mostafa Sharif? You finally got to meet the chief of the ER? What's he like?"

Tucker shrugged. "He seemed like a nice guy. He wanted to meet you, actually."

I flinched and dropped my phone in my pocket. Laziness is a cardinal sin in medicine. "You tell him my shift was over?"

"Yeah, I said you'd already stayed late, but had an appointment, and you'd be in first thing tomorrow." He frowned. "I was a little surprised he showed up. Friday's the holy day in Islam."

I groaned. Tucker and I had been scheduled for the same shift hours, but acute care means more complicated cases, so he'd stayed late to chart, which meant he'd met the chief of ER. Everything conspired to make me look like a giant sloth bag.

"Don't stress. You'll knock 'em dead tomorrow. What'd you find about my man O?"

It took me a second to realize Tucker was making a joke about Osiris, not orgasms, although the way his brown eyes twinkled, it was yet another double entendre.

I drew him away from a man pushing a cleaning cart. "I guess it all started with the sun god, or gods, who created the world. Side bar: Muhamed told me that there used to be a huge Atum-Ra worship site northeast of Cairo."

"Yeah. Heliopolis, right? They found a giant statue, but they're fighting a losing battle against looters." Tucker smiled and nodded at the cleaner, who nodded back.

"How did you know that?"

"I know everything." Tucker dabbed, an iconic dance move which is so over that Kevin groans if he catches it on YouTube.

The cleaner dabbed back, left arm bent, right arm toward the sky.

Okay, maybe it's not over in Egypt. We both grinned and waved at the cleaner while I said, "I don't know why Osiris gets top billing in this story, because a lot of the plot comes down to his wife."

Tucker winked at me. "Yep, behind every great man lies an Isis. And I don't mean the terrorist group."

"Shh!" Pretty sure ISIS wasn't a joke here. "I mean the five thousand-year-old goddess Isis."

"Who saved her brother-husband's life."

I grimaced. "Yeah, they really did marry their siblings. Kept the wealth and power concentrated in the royal family."

Tucker held out his arms. I nestled against him as he patted my head and said, "Don't worry. We're not related."

"Praise be." A mother in a head scarf glanced at us and pulled her three children closer to her, so I disengaged from Tucker and towed him toward the door, even though I knew I'd have to yell over the traffic.

Sure enough, the doors opened to a wave of humidity, rain, and noise, as I asked, "Did you know that Osiris and Isis had three siblings?"

Tucker shook his head. "Two, right?"

"No, actually. The five kids were Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the elder. Anyway, King Osiris and Queen Isis led Egyptian civilization to new levels of art and agriculture. And then wham!"

Tucker's forehead pleated, partly in response to the jackhammering in a nearby apartment. "Remind me."

"Well, there are different versions. To them, written words had the power of creation, so they didn’t write down the really terrible stuff."

Tucker sniffed the air. We'd turned left instead of right, and food carts dotted the main road.

Barbecued meat smelled mighty tempting, even as a neo-vegetarian. I distracted myself with the story. "In one version, Nephthys dressed up like Isis and seduced Osiris. He thought he was sleeping with his wife, but he was—"

Tucker raised his eyebrows. "Banging his other sister?"

"Who was also his sister-in-law. Nephthys had married Set. Now, Set had always been jealous, but when he ran into his brother-king and Nephthys's flower fell out of Osiris’s hair—"

"Boom," Tucker said.

"Right. Revenge time. Set threw a party and displayed a magnificent, custom-made wooden chest. Everyone took turns lying inside it. The chest fit Osiris perfectly. Then Set locked King Osiris in it and threw it in the Nile."

"Hold up. You can’t just lock the king in a box and toss him in the closest river."

"Apparently, you can. King Osiris drowned in that coffin chest."

"Whoa." Tucker ran a hand through his bangs, which had started to flop despite his usual gel.

A cheerful woman bicycled past us, pushing what appeared to be a small library attached to the front of her bike.

Tucker lowered his voice so the cyclist couldn't hear. "People keep talking about Osiris."

"Yes. Phillip Becker kept bringing him up."

Tucker bent to whisper in my ear. "And now you're telling me that Osiris was a victim of murder."