The Last Word (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

to his bedchamber more than any of the other girls, but he never touched her. Instead, she sang to him, told him the palace gossip, or was defeated by him in games of senet.
    The concubines knew the king was besotted with his beautiful wife, yet it was also his duty to sire as many heirs as possible to strengthen his legacy and the greatness of Egypt. Kamila had watched with ill-disguised envy while the bellies of other girls swelled with the king’s child and had tasted a bitterness she’d never known before when confronted with these fortunate concubines. They’d languish in the women’s quarters of the palace wearing smug, contented smiles, knowing their futures were secured.
    “Your thoughts are as distant as Ra’s chariot,” the king said, drawing Kamila’s attention to his desert-tanned face, his dark eyes, and strong jaw. “Will you sing for me?”
    Kamila nodded and did her best to conceal her disappointment, for the request meant that the king was ready to retire for the evening and that , once again, she’d return to her own sleeping pallet without having known his touch.
    Deciding to take matters into her own hands, Kamila opened her mouth and began to sing a love song. As she sang, she swayed her body enticingly, her honey-colored eyes never leaving the king’s face. She loosened her shift , and by the end of the song, she was again kneeling before her king, only this time, her clothes were a pool of linen at her feet.
    The king’s eyes revealed his desire as they traveled down the smooth skin of her elegant neck to her supple breasts, flat belly, and finally, to the soft curve of her hips. Then, at long last, he reached out and pulled her down onto the bed.
    Olivia’s cell phone rang. Startled out of her narrative, she cursed. She’d been fully prepared to write a sex scene between Kamila and Ramses and had been thinking about how to proceed for days. In fact, ever since Rawlings had touched her at The Bayside Crab House, she’d been focused on little else.
    As she frowned at the numbers identifying the caller, Dixie appeared to refresh her coffee. Instead of skating away when she was done, she set the coffeepot down and waited to see if Olivia would answer her phone.
    “I’ll go outside,” Olivia said and stood up. “I don’t want to be rude.”
    “Oh, sit on down, Emily Post,” Dixie commanded. “If that’s your brother I wanna know if their new baby’s made his way into the world.”
    Olivia gently rolled her friend backward. “It’s Harris,” she said while simultaneously answering the phone and stepping out the front door into the May sunshine. “This had better be good,” she growled before Harris had the chance to speak. “I was working on my chapter and was completely in the groove.”
    “Sorry, but I didn’t know who else to call.” Harris sounded excited, but not alarmed. “Remember I told you that Nick Plumley was coming over today and that the floor guys would be here, too?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, right after Nick left—he stayed a long time and even helped me paint—the guys took out some of the rotten treads on the staircase. Apparently the wood was so deteriorated that it was only a matter of time before I put my whole foot through the steps.”
    Shifting impatiently, Olivia frowned. “Can we skip the Bob Vila details, please?”
    “I’m trying to give you a bit of backstory here, okay? Build up the dramatic tension,” Harris stated good-naturedly. “Anyway, about fifteen minutes ago, one of the workmen removed a tread near the landing and guess what?”
    Olivia didn’t enjoy guessing games. “He got a splinter?”
    “He found a secret compartment carved in the step. The preexisting hollow space had been enlarged, and inside, there was a metal thermos. An old one, from the forties or fifties. You could tell just by looking at it that it had some serious age to it.”
    Harris had managed to capture Olivia’s attention. Kamila and Ramses were forgotten in the face of such interesting news. “Was there anything inside the thermos?”
    “Yep. I unscrewed the top half thinking I’d discover some sixty-year-old petri dish of mold and gunk, but I found an unbelievably well-preserved painting instead! A beautiful landscape of a snowy forest was rolled up and tucked into that metal thermos. There are some words on the back too, but they’re pretty faint and I need to look at them more closely.” Harris’s words were tumbling out. “That’s why