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snapped. “Where’s the damned mummy?”
    Cassie’s eyes widened. “Why don’t we search the courtyard? He could be lying in the shrubbery, slowly bleeding to death.”
    Several people made a move to do just that.
    Her urging aroused Harrison’s suspicions. Why was she so interested in having the guests search the courtyard?
    Had Adam planted a surprise? Was Cassie in on his publicity stunt?
    “I found a purse,” Osiris said, pulling a leather handbag from the bushes. He stood on tiptoe and peered down over the back of the hedge. “But I don’t see any dead mummies lying around anywhere.”
    “That’s mine.” Cassie snatched the purse from him. “Thank you.”
    “Where’s the blood?” Phyllis demanded, clearly growing tired of the charade. “Do you see any blood?”
    “He wasn’t bleeding much. The knife blade must have stanched the flow.”
    “A likely story.” Phyllis narrowed her eyes. “What do you take me for? An idiot?”
    “It’s true. I came out here to meet him and . . .”
    “You came outside to meet a man you didn’t even know, when you were the hostess of the party and I explicitly told you to locate Dr. Grayfield?”
    “I thought the mummy
was
Dr. Grayfield.”
    Now that was total bullshit.
    Harrison stroked his jaw with a forefinger and thumb. He knew full well Adam couldn’t have been in the mummy costume, because he’d been tearing through the exhibit hall in his Indiana Jones hat not fifteen minutes earlier. There hadn’t been nearly enough time for him to park his motorcycle, swaddle himself in linen, run to the courtyard, get stabbed in the back, and then disappear again.
    “Now why on earth would a man of Dr. Grayfield’s distinguished stature slink around the courtyard in a mummy outfit?” Phyllis questioned.
    Cassie’s face flushed. “We’ve sort of been flirting with each other over the phone for the past few weeks while we made plans for the exhibit.”
    It figured. Harrison snorted silently. Adam was probably pulling some kind of stunt to impress Cassie. She was the kind of woman men did foolish things over.
    “I’ve had it with your impetuousness,” Phyllis snarled. “You know what I think?”
    Cassie shook her head. Gone was her normally ebullient smile, and Harrison couldn’t figure out why that would cause his stomach to knot. Impatiently, he shoved aside the unpleasant sensation.
    The crowd shifted, glancing from Phyllis to Cassie and back again, waiting to see what was going to happen next.
    “I think you made the whole thing up because you’re a drama queen who can’t stand it when you’re not the center of attention.”
    “No.” Cassie’s bottom lip quivered.
    “And I never believed that line of malarkey you fed the FBI last year when you took off with that art thief. I think you were in on the deal all along, and when it looked like you were about to get caught and hauled off to prison, you pretended you were on the good guys’ side.”
    Harrison couldn’t tolerate watching anyone get raked over the coals, but neither did he like confrontation. Normally, he just walked away from a fracas. But with every passing moment, he was becoming more and more certain that Adam was involved in some kind of publicity exploit gone awry.
    One question remained. Was Cassie part of Adam’s scheme or not?
    She looked pretty innocent with her wide, susceptible eyes and her silly Cleopatra wig knocked askew. Had Adam set up this mess and then disappeared on her? Or was Cassie a consummate actress who knew exactly what she was doing to elicit sympathy?
    Either way, Adam had flown the coop, leaving only the baggage claim ticket in way of explanation. He’d put Harrison in something of a bind.
    If the reunification ceremony didn’t come off as scheduled, the Egyptian government would get testy. And if the Egyptian government got testy, the university backing his excavations would end up looking bad. And if the university ended up looking bad, he could kiss his