Buried Secrets by Kristi Belcamino (book recommendations for teens txt) 📕

Isis had told her, Dallas knew that there was even more reason for Cleopatra to keep the location of her tomb a secret.

The fate of the world depended on it.

Dallas eyed that corner as the last sliver of sunlight moved across the temple. A dark cloud drifted overhead, putting the temple I shadow. Dallas peered upward. It would soon pass. And it did. Just in time for the last sliver of sunlight to light up that corner.

It was a sign.

She would start digging at that spot first thing in the morning.

Sixteen

Dallas hardly slept. The corner of the temple seemed perfect for so many reasons.

As she tossed and turned, Dallas couldn’t stop thinking about the temple. It had been abandoned as a dig site years before, but why? In many instances, governments would deliberately shut down a dig site or purposefully leave it unexcavated. Sometimes it was to preserve the sites for future generations. Makes no sense to me, Dallas thought. In other cases, it was to preserve the way of live for nearby residents–in other words, protecting their homes and lives from the disruption a major excavation could cause. But why exactly did excavation stop at Taposiris?

Dallas got out of bed and logged onto her laptop Three hours later, she’d located a possible answer in an obscure online magazine by a conspiracy theory group. According to this group, one of the workers had talked to their magazine staff off the record. He said that the dig had been shuttered because workers had found evidence that the temple was damned.

A stone tablet with hieroglyphs had been found while excavating a corner of the temple.

Damned. What did that mean? Cursed? Maybe, Dallas thought. And what corner?

Dallas quickly flipped through her files, scanning dates of past digs. The first true excavation had begun in 1985 and then abruptly came to a halt in 1986. Yes. That was the last time the temple had been excavated—the year workers found the tablet.

That’s when Dallas realized why the workers at her dig did an elaborate ritual and acted fearful at times. She thought it was because of her, they were wary of her because she’d been in charge of the last dig when a man died. Now she realized they weren’t afraid of her. They were afraid of the curse or believed the temple was damned.

She’d speak to Eban about it first thing in the morning, but for now Dallas was excited. This seemed to be proof that Cleopatra was buried there.

The sky was growing lighter when Dallas crawled in bed, setting her alarm for an hour later. She needed to at least try to get a little sleep before they headed out. It was going to be a big day.

She kept thinking about the curse and about the dig site being damned. A trickle of fear ran down her scalp. It wasn’t a real curse. It was simply a tale constructed to keep grave robbers away during ancient times. It was a way for Cleopatra to keep her tomb safe and sacred and undistributed.

Even though she tried to convince herself of this, Dallas fell into a sleep rife with mummies and zombie-like creatures chasing her through underground passageways.

The next morning when their car arrived at the temple, the guards were not positioned at the gate. A police car was parked closer to the dig site in the parking lot above.

Fear shot through Dallas.

She leaped out of the car when it stopped in the parking lot near the police car.

Abet said something in Arabic to the police officer.

The officer glanced over at Dallas and spoke in a low voice to Abet who translated.

Apparently, the officer had been called out in the middle of the night to keep an eye on the dig site until they arrived his morning. When he finished speaking, he reached for the handle of his car.

“Where’s he going?” Dallas asked, frowning.

There was a flurry of words exchanged before Abet turned back to her. “He said now that you’re here he has to get back to work in the city.”

“But who is going to guard the site?”

Abet shrugged.

“And where are the guards?”

They quit, the police officer said before driving away.

Dallas and Colton stood and watched the police officer drive away.

Soon Sam and Danny arrived.

They rushed over. “What’s going on?” Danny asked.

Dallas explained.

“Let’s go make sure nothing was disturbed,” Colton said.

A quick survey of the area showed it was exactly as they’d left it the night before.

The three huddled in the tent for a few minutes until they heard the sound of a vehicle.

Sam and Danny stayed inside doing computer work while Dallas and Colton stepped out to greet the workers. But when they did, they saw that only one lone white truck had arrived. At that time of morning Dallas expected three beat-up trucks filled with workers. This was not good.

Eban got out of the truck with one other man.

“I’ll go speak to them,” Abet said.

Dallas was impatient, but figured Abet wanted to speak to the men alone for some reason. She watched the small group. The worker, an older man with gray hair, looked over toward Dallas and Colton. Even from afar, Dallas could read the expression on his face. He was afraid.

When Abet came back over, he explained.

The guards had quit. They’d had the courtesy to call the police first. That’s why the squad car ended up out there overnight. The guards said their families had been threatened. They were told to quit or they would be killed. Apparently, every single member of the crew received the same threats last night.

Dallas looked over at the lone worker standing with Eban.

“Why did this guy show up then?”

Abet looked down as he answered. “He is a man of honor. He said he was hired to do a job. But also, I think he is so desperate for money he cannot afford to quit.”

Dallas thought for a second.

“First off, both Eban and he shall get paid three times the wages of