Mystery Stories by Elizabeth Peters

Author:Elizabeth Peters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2018-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

Author’s note: Amenhotep Sa Hapu was a real person who lived during the fourteenth century B.C. Later generations worshiped him as a sage and scholar; he seems like a logical candidate for the role of ancient Egyptian detective.

THE RUNAWAY

The younger girl was fifteen. She told people she was sixteen when they asked, but usually they didn’t even bother. They just looked at her narrow shoulders and flat chest and skinny legs, and shook their heads. Mary knew they probably thought she was about twelve or thirteen. Nobody would hire a kid that age, and she couldn’t show any proof she was older. The problem was that she wasn’t old enough.

Some of the men would have hired Angie. She was almost seventeen and she was pretty. “Angie is the pretty one,” their mother always said. Angie’s best feature was her hair, long and smooth and shiny as yellow silk. Flat and skinny were words nobody would apply to Angie. The cloth of her tight jeans was straining at every seam. That was where the men looked—at the seat of Angie’s jeans and the lush curves that pushed out the front of her shirt. Angie couldn’t understand why Mary wouldn’t let her take jobs from the men who looked at her that way.

Though she was the younger of the two, Mary had always been the one who looked after Angie, instead of the other way around. Angie was … sensitive. Angie didn’t understand some things. And when she was scared or unhappy, she stuck out her lip and made whimpering noises, like a homesick puppy.

She was whimpering now. Mary didn’t blame her. She was scared, too, but she couldn’t let Angie see that she was. One of them had to be tough.

It was so dark! Nights in town were never like this. There were always streetlights, lighted windows, cars passing by. They hadn’t seen a car for a long time, not since they’d turned off the highway onto the narrow country road. The last house had been at least a mile back.

To make matters worse, there was a storm coming on. Heavy clouds obscured moon and stars. So far the rain had held off, but lightning and thunder were getting closer, louder. The wind made queer rustling noises in the bushes along the road. There were other noises that couldn’t have been made by the wind, but Mary didn’t mention them. Angie was upset enough already. She couldn’t go much farther; she was scared to death of lightning. They had to find shelter soon.

As Mary looked anxiously around her, she tripped and fell. Gravel stung her palms, and something sharp, a stone or a piece of broken glass, ripped into her knee. She bit her lip and managed not to cry out.

Angie was the one who yelled. “Mary, what’s the matter? Get up, get up, I can’t—”

“I tripped, that’s all.” Mary staggered to her feet and reached for Angie’s hand. “Shut up, Angie. Someone will hear you.”

“I don’t care if they do. I don’t like this.

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