Chapter Fifteen

      “Emir!” Kate’s voice called from behind him.

      He turned from his conversation with one of the older men to see her hurrying toward him, her face pale, her hair escaping the ponytail, as usual.

      A couple of small girls shadowed her footsteps, imitating her walk and her voice as they giggled. She looked back at them and then at Emir with a pained expression. He’d never seen her look so uncomfortable, so out of place.

      She took his arm, her eyes pleading. “Let’s go,” she whispered.

      He nodded at her. They were done here.

      But there was something in her voice that said there was more.

      “What’s going on Kate?” he asked as they approached the Jeep parked just outside the oasis. He looked around. They were alone.

      “Kate?”

      She turned and, just like that, he felt like he was drowning in the rich blue of her eyes. They glistened with excitement, tears—he wasn’t sure what. He held himself back from doing what he ached to do—take her in his arms. They might be alone but there still could be eyes that watched them and he wanted to get moving, they both did, even though it was clear something was troubling her.

      He had the Jeep in gear and the village was far behind them before he asked, “What is it?”

      “You may know one of the men who took Tara,” she said.

      The husky tone in her voice would have been alluring at another time. Again, the thought leaped at him out of nowhere, broadsiding him, enraging him with its lack of control.

      “At least, that’s what the woman I spoke to implied. But more than that, he knew your parents,” she went on before he could say anything. “Maybe he worked for you. I don’t know.”

      Shock ran through Emir and left him momentarily speechless.

      “That’s impossible,” he growled. It implied betrayal of the worst kind. His head pounded and dread settled through him as if deep in his core he realized that, despite all their precautions, just like Tara’s abduction, what she said was very possible.

      “Is it?”

      “That’s crazy. We screened all our employees. They’re all loyal, trustworthy, even friends.” He couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t. In that moment he only wanted to fight the implication with everything in him.

      “I know you ran a check through all the past and current employees. But, Emir, it’s possible. What I find interesting is that it hasn’t happened sooner. People envy wealth like yours—even those who call themselves friend.”

      “Who are you talking about?”

      “While you were with the men, a woman took me aside. She told me about a man who had visited the village six years ago. He’d stopped for water and her husband had offered him a smoke and food. Her husband knew the man’s family—they had once been from that tribe. She could only say that he was middle-aged, Arabic, and attractive in a tired kind of way. He said at the time, that the House of Al-Nassar was cursed. She wasn’t privy to everything he said but she saw money change hands for their silence. What she remembers most is how he spoke with an almost rabid hatred of the House of Al-Nassar and kept repeating how someday he would bring it down. She remembers the name Raja.”

      “My mother’s name!” The Jeep lurched and swerved.

      She looked at him with concern in her eyes before continuing. “At the time she forgot about it, as much of what she’d heard made no sense. She’d thought it the crazy ranting of a nut. She’d left it up to the men to handle and, since her husband passed, she’d long forgotten about it until today. Your surname reminded her. In fact—”

      The satellite phone rang, interrupting her and startling them both.

      “Yeah?” Emir answered. He gripped the phone like he might never let it go. “What do you have, Zaf?” he asked as he stopped the Jeep.

      “I’ve gone through all the past employees back five years,” Zafir said.

      “Not you, too.” But Emir knew it was necessary. He’d known this situation had always been possible. But even the possibility had never stopped him from caring for the people he hired. Many of them had worked for his family for years. His employees were friends and sometimes even family. He couldn’t imagine now—or more aptly didn’t want to consider—that anyone he cared about would threaten him or anyone he loved.

      “No matches,” Zafir went on, unaware of his thoughts. “Not that we expected there would be.”

      Emir’s knuckles were white.

      Kate’s hand settled on his wrist as if, again, that would somehow calm him. Oddly, it did, but the feel of her skin on his did other things, too, things that had no place there or with the shock of what she’d implied, still so fresh. He shook her hand off, concentrating on his phone call. But a glance at her face made him wish he hadn’t done so, so thoughtlessly.

      “I don’t know, Zaf. And, as far as our current employees? There’s no one working for us with a grudge. No one in need of money—at least, not to that extent. They’re loyal to a fault. I don’t know where else to take this.”

      Emir could feel Kate’s eyes still on him.

      “Just a moment.”

      “Nothing turned up. He went back five years,” he said to Kate. Unfortunately, with the satellite phone there was no ability to put it on speaker, so he had to juggle two conversations and relay between Zafir and Kate.

      “Can he take it back another five? We need to talk...can you call him back?” she asked.

      “You know there’s no guarantee of a signal,” he reminded her.

      She nodded. “All right.” Her lips thinned as if it pained her to say the next words. “When was your parents’ accident?”

      Emir frowned. It was a subject that was too painful to talk about and, after the police report had been filed, the incident had been filed in his own mind, as well. “Over six years ago.” His gut clenched. He didn’t like where this was going, didn’t know if he wanted to hear it, but he had no choice. Tara’s life depended on him.

      “But when, exactly, and who was with them?”

      “Why, Kate?”

      “It wasn’t the only time that man was there, at the village. He was there the year of the accident and he was there recently. And this time she heard his first name.”

      “Damn it, Kate, who was he?”

      “Ed.”

      The barren reaches of desert stretched in front of them and it was only