The Last Riddle

Elena adjusted the brim of her hat, watching the Cairo hotel lobby through the mirror behind the bar. The fedora had been his—part of the costume she'd adopted when this was all just a game, back when she thought playing spy would fix what was broken between them.

Three weeks ago, she'd discovered Marcus's messages. Not to another woman, but to someone calling themselves Sphinx—coordinating drops, discussing "the pyramid," arranging wire transfers. Elena had done what any rational person would do: she'd hired a private investigator, learned the tradecraft, and followed him to Egypt.

Now she sat in the same hotel where he was meeting his contact, her own hair cropped short and dyed dark, watching for a man she no longer recognized.

"You're new here." The voice came from beside her—middle-aged, European accent. A man in an impeccable suit, nursing a whiskey. "The Sphinx always notices fresh faces."

Elena's heart hammered. She turned slowly. "I'm waiting for someone."

"Are you now." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Your someone wouldn't happen to be Marcus Webb, would he? British, nervous, thinks he's found the back door into the Cairo antiquities market?"

She kept her face neutral. "Who's asking?"

"The person who's going to save his life." The man slid a folded document across the bar. "Marcus isn't a spy, Elena. He's a thief who tried to steal from the wrong people. We've been tracking him for months."

How did he know her name?

"He's meeting me tonight to hand it over—a golden Sphinx statuette from the 1922 dig at Giza. Worth millions on the black market. He thought it would solve everything. The debt, your mother's medical bills, the IVF treatments you couldn't afford." He gestured toward her hat. "He told me about you. About the hair you started losing from stress. That's why he did this."

Elena thought of the vitamins she'd found hidden in his sock drawer. The way he'd held her when she cried over another negative pregnancy test, pretending not to notice the clumps of hair in her brush.

"Where is he?" she whispered.

"Upstairs. Room 417. And there are two men with knives who got there first." The man checked his watch. "You have three minutes to decide whether you're the wife who saves her husband or the stranger who walks away."

Elena stood up, straightening her hat. The pyramid of Giza rose through the window, ancient and indifferent. She'd spent years building walls around herself, protecting her heart from disappointment. But Marcus had dismantled them, stone by stone, without her ever noticing.

She walked toward the elevator, not knowing if she was enough to save him—only knowing she had to try.