The Curse by Harold Robbins

I was suddenly calm. “What else did he tell you? That he’s going to arrest me?”
    â€œHe said he was going to view the tape before he does anything, but because there’s a foreign connection, he’s coming to ask you to hand over your passport.”
    â€œWhat? Is he crazy? I’m not giving him my passport. Let him get a court order.”
    â€œIt’s standard procedure. If he arrested you, a judge wouldn’t set bail unless you surrendered your passport because you do work that takes you out of the country.”
    Good God. Being arrested. Stuck in jail. I’d be homeless for sure when I got out if that bastard did that.
    â€œThis is insane. I didn’t do anything. Some crazy woman tries to stab me with a letter opener and then jumps in front of a train. I didn’t even know her name, never saw her before.”
    I hid my face in my hands.
    â€œI don’t know even know who I am at the moment. I should have stayed in bed this morning.”
    He squeezed my arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you. The forensics tech may not even know who you are on the tape. I’ll take a look at it. In the meantime, don’t talk to Gerdy without a lawyer present.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œI don’t like the sound of that, Maddy.… Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
    â€œWould I do something stupid?”
    â€œDo chickens have lips?”

19
    I didn’t do anything stupid until after I let him know I wasn’t in the mood for any sex that night and went home just long enough to pack a carry-on and give Morty a hug and extra food and water.
    I was on board a red-eye to London and the plane was starting to taxi on the runway before I called Mike and told him I left my apartment door unlocked and needed him to feed Morty until I got back.
    â€œYou have to take care of my pussy,” I reminded him, deliberately loud enough so the guy next to me who was already trying to get friendly would hear that I had a man in my life.
    When he asked me where I’d skipped off to, I told him the truth only because it would be so easy for the police to find out.
    â€œLondon.”
    I cut off his questions. “That’s where I’ve been paid to go, where the woman flew in from, and where I’ll find the answers.”
    â€œDetective Gerdy will consider it an admission of guilt.”
    â€œLook at the security tape. If I gave that woman a shove, I’ll put the rope around my neck myself.”
    I hung up and turned off the phone to end his rebuttals and recriminations.
    I smiled sweetly at the flight attendant who had told me twice to turn off my phone.
    â€œSorry. My baby’s sick.”
    A little lie was better than getting caught offending a flight attendant nowadays because their job had gone from being nice to people to tyrants who order the captain to slam on the brakes and call airport security whenever a passenger looked cross-eyed at one of them.
    Britain is a civilized country, I reminded myself again as the plane lifted off.
    I shouldn’t have a problem unless someone checks and finds out that the last time I was there I left in a hurry with a burning art gallery and dead bodies behind me.
    Â 
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    CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS
    After visiting Howard Carter and the tomb of King Tut, anthropologist Henry Field wrote that Sir Bruce Ingham, a friend of Carter’s, had been given a mummified hand to use as a paperweight.
    A scarab on a bracelet attached to the hand said, “Cursed be who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water, and pestilence.”
    Not long after receiving the scarab bracelet, Ingham’s house burned down and then flooded after it was rebuilt.

20
    Salisbury Plain, England
    Fuad Hassan squeezed his cell phone tightly and whispered to himself, “Fatima, where are you?”
    He snapped the phone closed and stuck it in his pocket when he got her voice mail recording again.
    Fuad had