He took the small wad of coarse hair from her. It was more than likely camel—the texture, length and color was right—but what did that mean in a country where camels were common? “There are camels in Marrakech. Camels everywhere—this is Morocco,” he said as if it was a fact that needed pointing out.

He wasn’t making fun of her or, for that matter, even contradicting her. The blood seemed to roar in his ears. He wasn’t thinking straight, hadn’t been since Tara disappeared. He had to get it together and, in an odd way, despite their initial meeting, he was counting on Kate. His eyes met hers and he could see something troubling in their depths. He knew she was considering what he had said and more.

“True,” Kate said. “But he’s not the type to own one.” She lifted a hand and turned it palm-up. She ran a thumb along the tips of his fingers. “Too soft. There’s no evidence he worked with his hands, other than with firearms.” She laid the arm across the decedent’s chest and straightened as she pointed to his boots. “Knock-off Ralph Lauren boots.” She grimaced. “Not something a camel owner would have, but maybe someone who had been near one recently. Sand on his boots.” She turned the sole of the boot sideways. “Not much, but I think he came from somewhere out there. Look, the leather is scraped, like he was walking on rough terrain, not city sidewalks.” Her arm swept in the direction of the mighty Sahara Desert. “What brought him here?”

She glanced in the direction of the airport. “We need to get out of here before the police show up.”

“You’re right.” He gave the scene a final once-over. These men weren’t professionals and he’d bet neither were those who held Tara. The burning question was whether the two of them were connected and, if so, why had they targeted him? It seemed improbable. Why kill him and jeopardize a ransom? He glanced at Dell, who had been quietly listening to what they had to say.

In the distance the sirens from approaching emergency vehicles began to wail. They all headed back to the Hummer.

“Trouble. Let’s get moving,” Dell said as he motioned for them to get in.

Emir opened the rear passenger door and Kate slipped inside.

“None of this makes sense,” Emir said as he sat beside Kate.

“Or it makes complete sense,” she said softly.

They were silent for the next few minutes as the Hummer sped away, leaving the mayhem behind for the authorities.

Emir’s attention was now on Marrakech’s sprawling yet oddly elegant skyline as the vehicle turned from the rural landscape and headed back to the heart of the city.

* * *

THE SILENCE WAS thick over the next few minutes as the miles dropped behind them and distance separated them from the recent mayhem. While Kate appreciated the opportunity to mull over her theory without questions, she suspected that Emir, too, had theories with no solid answers and, like her, was mulling them over, trying to piece it all together, to make sense of it.

She looked at him, at the seemingly unfeeling line of his lips and yet she knew, from the little he’d said, that he had to be worried sick. He cared for his sister, and he’d do anything to get her back. That he’d give his life—that he’d said and she was here to make sure that didn’t happen.

Everything was still, quiet between them.

She noticed little things. His hands were thick, sun-bronzed, yet he had long fingers. His hands were like those of an artist mixed with those of a laborer. But none of what was in his hands matched the aristocratic planes of his face or... Her heart pounded just a beat faster—and her mind wrestled with distance, with control. This was not about lust or even like but about life and death. She was here to do a job.

“We need to do this silently and quietly. That means as few people involved or in the know as possible.” She glanced at Dell. In the heat of battle Dell been a good addition. But finding Tara was a different matter. They had to be subtle and more people created noise, figuratively speaking, and could alert the kidnappers. Besides, she knew nothing of Dell. She didn’t know if she could trust him, even though Emir did, or if she wanted to.

“Dell’s ex-military,” Emir said as he watched her attention turn to Dell. “We served together. He’s going to help while he can. Don’t question that or anything else I decide,” he said, practically ordering her not to question him.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t like it, but she’d see how it played out for now.

“I’ll show you what we think is ground zero,” he said as if that were the reward not for her success in the field but for her silence.

She looked at the tense way Emir gripped his handgun and the tight line of his jaw and saw pain, a strong man who was fighting not to break. He needed help and not just someone who wielded a gun, not just muscle—he needed someone who could think clearly, unaffected by the emotion he refused to admit. Emir, whether he knew it or not, needed her.

“Where they took Tara,” he said.

And it was with those words that she found herself locked into the reality of going back in time with the dark and silently brooding Sheik Emir Al-Nassar.

Emir, she corrected, for she couldn’t think of him as “Sheik.” Sheik didn’t fit the persona of the young and brash man beside her. He was a man she imagined could easily steal a woman’s heart even after annoying her as deeply and maddeningly as he had her. He was also a man in the midst of a tragedy that, she’d instinctively thought from the moment she’d seen his name, would eventually lead her to the hinterlands of the Sahara Desert.

But it was the man, not the desert, that caused her to pause. There was something about Emir, a passion and an intensity that was different from any man she had ever known. And that scared her more than anything else.

Chapter Four

Monday, September 14, 5:00 p.m.

“I need a vehicle registration search,” Emir said as he spoke to his contact. It was standard procedure, a first link to who or what these men had been—dead bodies didn’t talk.

“Stolen vehicle,” he said to Kate after he ended the call.

“Not what either of us hoped for.”

He shrugged. “Did you expect anything else?”

She paused as if pondering the information. “It fits. Definitely not best case, but not a surprise, either. The vehicle makes sense but the attack itself seems like a piece that just doesn’t fit. If the men who attacked us at the airport were originally with the kidnappers, why would they leave the group, come back and try to kill us?” She rubbed her thumb along the inside of her wrist, as if doing so would somehow provide answers. “They won’t get money from a body. It makes no sense.”

Emir looked at her. “I have three brothers.”

She frowned. “They can still negotiate with one of your brothers.” Her eyes met his. “Were they trying to kill you to ensure the others paid?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

As the Hummer slowed, Emir pulled out his phone and punched a series of numbers. The massive bronze gates leading to his home slipped smoothly open and Dell maneuvered the vehicle inside.

Emir slid the passenger window down.

“Heard anything?” A middle-aged man with a Beretta strapped to his waist and an AK-47 over his shoulder asked as he stepped out of the one-room stucco cabin that functioned as a guardhouse. Lines of worry etched his forehead and his lips were compressed in an angry line.

“I’m sorry, no,” Emir said, his eyes on the guard as if some silent communication were passing between the two.

He could feel Kate’s eyes on him and knew that it might seem odd to apologize about his sister’s disappearance to his staff. It certainly wasn’t the norm, but then, nothing about this estate had been the norm since they’d lost both a matriarch and a patriarch on the same day. After that, the rules of running a large estate had changed.

Many of his employees were also friends, especially of Tara. Tara was a favorite among the estate’s staff and he knew they were worried sick about her. She had the ability to touch the heart of everyone she met. Little things mattered to her, like knowing the birthdays of each employee. She could ask each of them about their families, the smallest details of their lives and call their children by name. Considering the number of staff in their employ, Emir had never been sure how she did it.

The guard’s hand moved to the Beretta at his side, touching it almost reverently in an unspoken acknowledgment of solidarity.

“Rashad, this is K. J. Gelinsky. She’ll be working with me to get Tara back.”

Rashad gave a solemn salute and a nod.

“Pleased to meet you,” Kate said.

“Been with the family twenty years,” Emir said as the vehicle moved on.

“He has an alibi?”

Emir tensed. “Rashad is devastated by what happened to Tara.”

“But he was questioned?” she persisted.

“He was at home with his family when it happened. There’re a half dozen men who work with him, all of them with airtight alibis. Zafir questioned everyone, not just security.”

“I’d like to see where she was taken.”

“Of course...” Emir said, and couldn’t help but admire the way she remained focused and calm no matter what was thrown at her. “On the outside, away from the main gate.”

“We need to go back,” she said.

“You’re surprised I didn’t stop there right away?” he asked at the slightly puzzled look on her face.

“No.” She shook her head. “You were testing me.” She looked at him, her eyes sweeping his face. “And, yes, I need to see where Tara was taken.”

Dell’s phone buzzed. A minute later he turned around with a troubled expression. “My mother just texted me. My father doesn’t have long.”

“Dell, I’m sorry...” Emir began.

Dell had offered to drive him as a favor between friends. Even with his father in hospital and the family gathered for those last moments, Dell had insisted on at least taking him to the airport. He suspected that Dell had sensed something off—and, as usual, that instinct, which had saved them a number of times on previous assignments, had been right.

“Don’t be,” Dell said as he opened the door and got out.

Emir got out of the backseat. Dell was obviously anxious to go as he handed the vehicle’s keys to him. He looked over to see Kate slip out the other side and grab the small canvas travel bag that Emir remembered tossing into the backset at the airport, which seemed like a million years ago. He turned his attention back to Dell. It was a difficult situation and he wished that he could change things for his old friend.

Instead, he could only take the keys Dell handed him.

“Dad’s had seventy good years. Meantime, you need to find Tara. If you need me, you know...”

“I know, man. No worries,” Emir replied. Dell had been there with him not only today but after his parents’ deaths, and while he and his brothers raised a sister who at the time had been a young teen.

Emir watched as Dell turned with a nod and headed toward a battered-looking Jeep at the edge of the long drive that led to the entrance of the property. He could feel Kate’s presence beside him but he didn’t look at her. He needed a minute to let his emotions settle. There’d been too much tragedy in too short a period of time.

The sky was cloudy and the temperature was in the high sixties, much lower than average. Somehow the air seemed even cooler. He looked over as Kate shivered.

“You all right?” Emir asked as he looked at her with more concern for her comfort than he knew he’d shown since she arrived.

“It’s been a long day,” she admitted. “I’m tired and just a little chilled,” she said as she pulled a lightweight jacket out of her bag, the soft smell of coconut wafting around her.

If she’d been a man he wouldn’t have worried about her comfort. Another reason why she shouldn’t be here.

The masonry wall that surrounded the compound stretched out in front of them. They’d retraced their way on foot to the entrance of the compound, stopping seventy-five feet outside of it to a spot where Emir had been told his sister had been taken. Behind them, it was dusty and flat, a field that stretched into nothingness. Behind that, a public road ran about three hundred feet perpendicular to where they were. It was close enough that, had there been any traffic, the noise would have been disturbing. Ahead of them, rows of palm trees announced the entrance to the Al-Nassar compound.

“They took her with little fight,” Kate said minutes later.

“How do you know that?” he asked. It wasn’t something anyone else had seen. In fact, with one man dead and another in the hospital, it seemed rather a ludicrous pronouncement. A movement behind him had him turning around. On the public road, a thin, sun-bronzed man in T-shirt and faded jeans peddled past on a bike that pulled a small cart. Around them Marrakech spread out on both sides, the city seeming to glow as a result of the rich red clay that defined many if its buildings, whether the towers of a mosque or the walls of the city.

“Do you have the kidnappers’ original message?” she asked.

“I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

“Trust me,” she said, holding out her hand.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, punched in a code and handed it to her.

She took the phone, listened and then hit Replay immediately after it ended.

“What do you think?”

“The voice isn’t distinctive. It’s male, but beyond that there’s nothing. Midrange. No accent of any sort. Odd.”

“Exactly what I thought,” he said.

“Too bad we couldn’t listen to the second. Compare.”

“They were different. I’m sure of it,” he said. Unfortunately there’d been no time to record that message.

She handed the phone to him.

“They used a knife,” she said. She didn’t wait for him to answer for they both knew that had been in the report. “Interesting choice of weapon. Silent, but it also takes surprise or strength, ideally both, to be effective. At least to do it quietly with little struggle.”

“It was dark, past midnight. She was almost home and her security was taken by surprise.”

“Will he make it?” she asked, referring to the man who was now in the hospital.

“I went to see him. He’s critical.” His fist clenched. “Ahmed was a good man—is,” he amended. “He tried to help, to stop them. That’s what I assume from how it all ended. He wouldn’t have done otherwise.” The thought of one of his employees so close to death was gut-wrenching. There wasn’t anything about this case that wasn’t. He cleared his throat. “And then he tried to help me, give me information...but he’s in such rough shape.”

Emir’s voice was tight even to his own ears and he could still feel the pain of seeing someone he’d known for years struggling to live and yet still wanting to help. “Ahmed would do anything for Tara.” He took a breath as if controlled breathing would somehow change how he felt. “It will kill her to find out what has happened to him.” He stopped for a moment, trying to regain control of his emotions.

“He said something?” She looked at him with eyes alight at this new piece of information. “That wasn’t in the report. You spoke to him after,” she said, confirming what was already clear. “What did he say?”

He knew that she was anxious for a clue that would get this investigation on the road. They both were.

“He said ‘desert’ and then, the irony of it all is that the next words weren’t clear, but it sounded like a name—Davar. I don’t know what Ahmed was trying to tell me. He coded almost immediately after.” He clenched his fists, his gaze somewhere over her shoulder, his mind back to that hospital room. “They were working on him when I left.”

If what he’d heard and what he now suspected was right, the desert was where they needed to go. But the Sahara was a big place—it was like saying they were going to Europe.

“Emir.”

Her voice was like a caress and he took a step away. His jaw tightened and he fought not to send her home then and there.

“I’ve never heard of it as a place. I imagine you ran a check of local surnames?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Maybe I heard wrong. He was half mouthing—could barely speak.” He shook his head.

“It will be sunset soon. We can’t be heading out, not in the dark and with no idea where we’re going.”

“Agreed.” But she didn’t move. Instead she stood there, considering. “Was it a name—place name, I mean? And if so could it have been something close—not exactly what you heard?”

“I don’t know. There hasn’t been much time to examine the possibilities.”

“You had to pick me up and then there was the small shoot-out,” she said.

“Exactly,” he said with a slight smile. “Thanks.”

“For what?” She frowned.

“For at least an attempt at humor. Oddly, it helps.” There was more that helped, but he feared it also distracted—her lithe figure for one...and most of all her sharp intelligence and quick wit. He was still going to tear a strip off Adam, but he felt slightly more confident than he had an hour ago.

“Can I see her quarters?”

“There was nothing—”

She cut him off. “Trust me.”

* * *

“THIS WAY,” he said.

Kate noticed that he didn’t temper his pace. At six-one, he was only three inches taller than her, yet his legs covered distances quickly.

She strode beside him, thankful for long legs that sometimes made finding jeans a challenge. This time, they were a gift that allowed her to keep up as they headed toward the sprawling mansion that was a mix of old and new. The size and opulence was like nothing she’d seen in the working-class neighborhood of Detroit where, except for the stint in the Middle East, she’d grown up, or like Jackson, Wyoming, where she now lived. Her gaze swept the area, focusing on security details, potential breaches, rather than the opulence of the building and the grounds.

“There are sensors on the wall that monitor activity inside and out.”

His arm swept the five-acre square where as far as she could see, a cream-colored masonry fence surrounded the complex’s grounds.

“The cameras are on twenty-four-seven.”

If Kate hadn’t spent years immersed in Moroccan culture and, as a result, been aware of what “rich” in Morocco meant, she would have been pie-eyed with disbelief. This wasn’t the wealth of royalty, and by no means a palace, but it was more than 90 percent of the population of Morocco would ever see.

She could understand why the security was as intense as it was and why Tara had been taken. The estate’s opulence combined with their business, Nassar Security, added to riches that could be hugely tempting to anyone with a criminal bent. She knew the history of the company, knew that the twins had begun it and then, with the inclusion of their brothers, built a business that had taken on more high-profile cases than any other security company of its kind in either the western United States or Northern Africa.

“Interesting—about the security I mean.” Her gaze met his. “And yet they took her at a place near where the cameras didn’t reach.”

His jaw clenched. “I’d planned to add security cameras there, too. But somehow it felt like overkill. Now, it’s a glaring error.”

“Cameras wouldn’t have stopped—”

“No,” he interrupted. “But alarms and—”

“You couldn’t have known,” she interjected as she tried to reassure him.

But the anger that emanated from him made it clear he didn’t want reassurance.

“One of Tara’s security is dead and the other, the only witness, is fighting for his life,” Emir said. “It was an unforgivable lack of judgment on my part. I should have...” His voice dropped off as if he couldn’t, or didn’t, want to finish.

“What? Known? Are you psychic?”

“No, I don’t believe...” He stopped and turned to look at her, his brow furrowed. “You were being facetious.”

“The man who lived. He was knifed in the chest. I’d guess that he was defending her.”

Emir shook his head. “He shouldn’t have been there. Ahmed was estate security. He volunteered to go with Tara that night. It wasn’t his usual job but one of our regulars called in sick.”

“That wasn’t in the file,” she said.

“Like I said, some of the details weren’t available, at least not then. I wanted an agent on the first flight here. I couldn’t wait to fill in the blanks.”

Nor could he wait to ensure the sex of the agent, either, she thought dryly, admonishing herself.

To be fair, after the opposition at the airport, he now seemed to have accepted her for what she could do and had at least stopped talking about sending her back because of her sex. It appeared that she was the only one who had yet to get over that faux pas, but in her mind it had been a big error. Enough, she told herself. She needed to focus on the key elements of the case.

“The security seems airtight. Explains why they didn’t take her here,” Kate said as they walked through the massive entrance that led to the Al-Nassar family home.

She glanced at Emir as he ran a hand down the dark stubble that covered his chin and jaw. He was an extremely good-looking man, but then, she’d known that. Now he looked agonized, worry lines creasing his forehead. She wanted to say something to comfort him but there was nothing that would help until his sister was home—safe. No matter what he thought, it hadn’t been his error. It had been Tara’s. His sister had made an error by ditching her security and that could cost her her life.

Still over a quarter of a mile away, she took in the scope of the house, more aptly a mansion, and its surrounding grounds and thought there was some irony in its sweeping size when only half the family lived here at any given time. She knew the majority of the family spent a great deal of time overseas. On most days she imagined that Emir was vastly outnumbered, not by family, but by the staff necessary to maintain such an estate.

“Emir?”

He looked at her as if he had been somewhere else. And she imagined he was fighting his own fear—fear for his sister’s well-being and for her very life. He was too close emotionally and that was why he needed her. Her ability to move ahead without emotional attachment to the victim, his sister, whom she’d never met, was critical.

“And yet none of this security kept Tara safe,” Emir said and both of them could hear the irony in his voice.

“You couldn’t protect her night and day.” She touched the back of his arm, the heat of his skin seeming oddly intimate. He tensed and she dropped her hand. “She’s a grown woman.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Rashad approaching.

“I’ll run you up to the main house,” Rashad said as he walked with them the remaining few feet to the guardhouse. He opened the door to the Hummer that Dell had so recently left, for Kate. His dark eyes were full of questions and yet he asked nothing.

Within minutes they were driving around a circular drive that had been hidden behind massive palm trees. They skirted a white-marble fountain that was devoid of water.

“Maintenance issues?” she asked Emir. “Your estate is immaculate and yet the fountain isn’t working?”

“The plumber was called but I put the repair on hold.”

She turned. “Anyone else who’s been here recently? Aside from staff, I mean.”

“No one, except the plumber two days ago,” he said.

“Was Tara around when the plumber was here?”

“Yes, I believe she was. I don’t remember her coming out of her quarters, though,” Emir said. “The plumber had done work for me on numerous occasions. We’ve contracted him for years—in fact, I believe he worked for my father, too. Anyway, he didn’t stay long. I decided against the repair. I hadn’t planned to be here for this long.”

“By here, you mean Marrakech?”

“Morocco, actually,” he said. “If all this hadn’t happened, I might have met you in Wyoming. I’d planned to go there. A recent case involving the Wyoming secretary of state’s brother piqued my interest.”

“Faisal will have his hands full. It’s high-profile,” Kate said. “So, plumbing is minor considering everything that’s come down in the last week.”

“You could say that.” He shrugged as if it were all of no consequence while the tension around his eyes and mouth made him look almost feral, like a man who would protect anyone or anything whose heart belonged to him. She had to force her thoughts back to what he was saying.

“I promised Tara that when she was home for summer vacation, I’d have the fountain up and working. She finds it soothing.”

“Was anything else happening that day or any day after?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

The Hummer stopped in front of the mansion with its huge columns and sprawling white-tiled front entrance.

She glanced back at Emir as she stepped out. She wondered if he felt like he’d been interrogated, for, without meaning to, she knew that was what she had done.

He stepped ahead of her to open the massive wood-and-brass door. In the seconds that it took, her gaze ran the length of his muscular back and she had to pull her eyes away from the lush, seductive curl of his dark hair as it flirted with the edge of his collar.

Get a grip, she told herself as she walked past him and into a vast tile-and-marble area that stretched beyond the colossal entrance doors, eclipsing them in opulence. For a moment her reason for being here was clouded by her feeling of disbelief. Her life, her two-bedroom apartment, compared to this? The juxtaposition of the two realities wasn’t even fathomable. This was a fantasyland, a different world that she’d known of but of which she couldn’t have imagined until now. It was laughable, really, eight hundred square feet that she lived in compared to this. The comparison was as unstoppable as it was fleeting, rather like looking at a magazine rack and seeing one on budget travel lined up beside another that was geared to luxury resorts.

She pushed the thoughts out of her mind and instead considered everything this wealth brought—including the case she was now assigned to. She knew fortune such as this did not come without responsibilities. She also knew there were expectations here and duties Emir had inherited from his father, and even from his grandfather—a responsibility to the people, to give back. She knew Emir took his responsibilities seriously; she’d heard Adam speak of it. It explained why Emir seemed so contained, controlled—older than the thirty-one years she knew him to be.

She looked around, taking in the length and width of the area even from the entrance. The hallway seemed to stretch indefinitely and, rather than the chill one would expect from such a large space, the air was warm.

As they moved down the corridor she couldn’t get over the size. The estate was massive, more imposing than she’d expected, both inside and out. There had been no available pictures, even of the grounds; nothing she could get from the internet. Oddly, even the area outside the gates hadn’t been Google-mapped. She guessed that had been Emir’s doing.

But it was the pictures some yards from the entrance that made her pause; they were the only decor in the hallway that stretched easily a half a city block. She stopped for a minute as she looked at a picture of a man and a woman, middle-aged—the woman looking younger and very much like the photos she’d seen of his sister, Tara.

It was odd that the pictures were here in this luxurious but barren corridor with the only other decor, the oval, brass entranceway doors facing them not ten feet away. “These are your parents?”

“Yes, taken only months before their accident. Of course,” he added, “that was a long time ago.”

Six years wasn’t a long time ago. Was he distancing himself from the trauma of the loss? She supposed it didn’t matter either way. What was important were the facts. She’d read about the traffic accident on a treacherous, isolated mountain road and the resulting fire that had tragically taken both Emir’s parents.

“Tara looks very much like her mother.” Kate stared at the picture as if the answer to saving Tara was somehow in the dark eyes of the beautiful woman who stared back at her.

For a moment she was caught by the woman’s image. Her eyes reflected the same rich ebony as her eldest son. Her smile was the same as Tara’s picture in the file she carried. But whatever answers or secrets those eyes might hold wouldn’t be forthcoming from a picture.

“Kate.”

Her name was a command as he waited for her to catch up. She was reminded of how few people called her that. Allowing Emir to call her by her given name had surprised even her. She’d gone by her initials since she was a child. She couldn’t tell when or why it had begun, but the initials had served her well in the profession she’d chosen as an adult. Now, K.J. just was and it was odd that Emir had become one of the exceptions. At another time she’d have analyzed what that might mean.

She walked beside him, her pace matching his. White columns ran from the tiled floor to a ceiling that soared over twenty feet above them. Their footsteps echoed on the ceramic tile as they turned left and into another corridor as vast as the first. This one brought them to within fifty feet of another massive door not quite as large as the entrance and this time without the brass. Instead these doors were wooden with gold glittering in a heart design over both panels.

“Tara’s apartment,” Emir announced. “This was the women’s area centuries ago,” Emir said as if he’d seen the disbelief in her look and wanted to confirm what she already knew. “Tara thought it laughable to claim for herself this area that, a hundred or so years ago, was a harem.” He shook his head. “She’s always about being contrary.”

Poprzedni 1 234 Kolejny