I shivered. Part of it was Tucker's proximity, his breath and his voice in my ear.
And part of it was his question. Was it possible that Mr. Becker had been deliberately killed, like Osiris?
IEDs are planted to kill, maim, and incite fear. But what if this had been a targeted attack?
Three kids in a passing car goggled at us.
Leave me alone. I cleared my throat and stepped away from Tucker. I'm not comfortable trapped in an urban zoo.
I flew out of Canada to escape the "detective doctor" label, but in Cairo, a grandpa recognized me from Instagram, and everyone treated us like free TV when we walked down the street.
I'd ask Kevin to scale back on social media. He thinks we should exploit my fame. They're selling newspapers and toothpaste ads off your story. Why shouldn't you get some?
I'd agreed, partly because our parents had invested so much in my education that I wanted to pay it back, even through minimal ad revenue. Right now, with student debt threatening to sink my battleship, all I had to offer was "cool story, bro." But infamy made me anxious and irritable, especially so far from home.
If I didn't sleep soon, I'd explode.
"You okay, Hope?" Tucker's brow creased.
I shrugged. You never show weakness in medicine. "Long day. Let's go back to the hotel. We should research Mr. Becker more. Figure out if someone wanted him dead, especially if he had 'treasure.'"
"Agreed. Let's grab some eats, and you keep telling me the Osiris and Isis story."
"You think street food is okay?" I raised my eyebrows at the first food "cart," a small wooden table on the sidewalk. The table supported a portable stove where two pots bubbled with unappetizing contents.
The cart man nodded at me, a short woman beckoned us, and a taller woman pointed to the purple Arabic sign tacked to the side of their silver car.
"Hello, yes, very safe. Come eat!" called the man.
I shook my head. Let's go.
"Cool. What do you have?" said Tucker, ignoring me tugging on his arm.
"Delicious lentils with tomatoes and toasted bread! We also have belila, Egyptian wheat berries. Or you could try hummus, tea, or qaraa assaly, which is Egyptian pumpkin pie."
Well. That sounded pretty good, with one exception. "No wheat berries," I muttered. My parents used to force oatmeal and cream of wheat on me, inducing a lifelong horror of gloopy grains.
"We're very careful about hygiene," said the shorter woman, smiling. "I work in the insurance industry, my husband is an engineer, and our friend works at a bank."
"And you run a food truck too?" said Tucker.
"It's necessary to send our children to school," said the bank friend, whose head scarf matched her fancy pink nails.
I'd hidden my money in the thigh pouch with the ankh, which made it awkward to access cash on the street, but Tucker insisted on buying it all, even the wheat berries.
"Could you please try them now? If you don't like them, we can adjust the recipe," said the man.
"If you do like them, we are on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat," said the cheery insurance woman. "Could we take a picture of you?"
I winced and said, "It's been a long day," but Tucker chirped, "Sure!"
I kept my head down while I sampled everything. Even the wheat berries. Verdict: less horrendous than my parents' oatmeal. Wheat berries literally tasted like wheat, maybe with a hint of pine nuts. I liked the toppings of pomegranate seeds and what turned out to be dried cherries in a coconut-milk sauce.
"You are students!" said the insurance woman. "You should eat this every day. This is the hot cereal for all Egyptians, as well as our 'sohoor' during Ramadan, eating this before dawn to sustain us throughout our day of fasting."
Awesome. Maybe it would sustain me back to the hotel.
The lentils didn't taste like much, so I mixed in some hummus, which upped the yum factor. Plus, no one ever complains about pumpkin pie. This one was almost like a custard, which was great, except I can't stand raisins.
"Please leave us good reviews. Our children's future depends on it. We want to buy a proper food cart, and licensing is so expensive!" said the insurance mom.
When we finally tore ourselves away, their card in hand, loaded down with leftovers, a bearded, bespectacled, twenty-something man at a neighboring bicycle cart food stand called, "Please! I make the best koshary!"
"World famous homemade burgers! Hot dogs! Hawawshi!"
"Chinese food! Sweet and sour chicken. Rice. Linguini!"
"Nutella tangine! Cake pops! Brownies!"
"I want to go home. We have enough," I said. I love food, but I needed to drink water somewhere cool and quiet.
"Just a minute." Tucker hailed the koshary guy, who seemed to be named Ali. Ali's koshary looked like more lentils in a tomato sauce, although both Ali and Tucker swore that the fried onions made it special.
"We'll take it home and eat it for breakfast," said Tucker, raising his voice to tell the other food carts, "Don't worry. We'll be back! We'll be eating every day!"
If you don't get sick, I thought. No guarantees. My family prides itself on a cast iron stomach. My dad once advised me not to throw away old, stinky noodles, unless they still smelled rotten after I heated them up. It worked for me, but Tucker has a more vulnerable GI tract.
I zoned out until Tucker said, "Thirty percent unemployment for people our age. Can you imagine, Hope?"
I shook my head, eyelids drooping. My shoulders ached from my back pack. My arms felt weighed down by the food 'cause I'm a wimp. I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and swallowed the little saliva I had left.
Ali glanced at me with sympathetic brown eyes. "Are you okay?"
Tucker pocketed his change for the koshary. "Wow. I had no idea Nasser made university education so accessible, but then you had no jobs after."
I fantasized about Ryan Wu, who not only carried my back pack without being asked, but never socialized away my precious hours of free time. We did church stuff for God, not because Ryan loved hanging out over cookies and lemonade.
I could almost taste the cold bottle of drinkable water I'd left in the hotel fridge.
I am going to kill you, Tucker.
Tucker continued, oblivious, "Well, EMR's a growing field, right? We just got electronic records at our hospital in Montreal."
"SARKET," I snorted to myself. What a gong show. Working with that system on a graveyard shift marked one of the worst nights of my life. And for me, that's saying something.
Ali brightened. "Yes, SARKET. I worked on it myself as a student, in development, five years ago. Was it not a successful implementation?"
I gaped at him. Even Tucker shut up.
Finally, I said to Ali, "You helped develop SARKET, the electronic medical system at St. Joseph's Hospital in Montreal, Canada?"
Ali blinked. "I believe so. Our company planned an international expansion, including Canada. Was your software made by Sarquet Industries?"