Chapter Two

      “An intruder?” From behind the desk in his study at Cadair Racing, Harrison stared at Alex Lindley—lawyer and senior vice president of Cadair International.

      “An American,” said Lindley, dropping down into the diamond-tuft leather chair, next to the potted palm trees and the bay window that looked out across Harrison’s lighted lawn. “The police have arrested her.”

      “And she was hiding in my horse trailer?” The pieces of Alex’s story weren’t coming together in any sort of coherent order inside Harrison’s head.

      The only thing certain was that he had trouble.

      The United Nations International Economic Summit was only four days away, and Harrison was hosting the secretary-general’s reception here at Cadair. Surprises couldn’t happen at this stage of the game.

      “Nuri thought she was stealing a horse,” said Alex. “But she insisted she was a reporter.”

      “What? Was she interviewing Ilithyia?”

      Alex choked out a laugh. “Didn’t seem likely. That’s why Nuri called the police.”

      Good move on Nuri’s part. Reporters knocked on the front door. They didn’t sneak onto the estate in the back of a horse trailer. Unless they were from a tabloid. And since Harrison wasn’t a movie star, and there was nothing remotely salacious going on at Cadair Racing, this could hardly be an exposé.

      Then Harrison’s brain hit on a worst-case scenario.

      “Son of a bitch,” he all but shouted.

      “She can’t be,” said Alex, correctly interpreting the outburst.

      “Sure she can,” said Harrison.

      There was no reason in the world the woman couldn’t be attached to a foreign spy agency or blackops organization.

      “A covert operative in a horse trailer?”

      “It got her past security.”

      “She’s an American,” Alex pointed out. “The CIA doesn’t have anything against the UN.”

      “Yeah? Well, they’ve got something against the Syrians and the Iranians.”

      “That’s a stretch.”

      “Maybe. But that’s bizarre behavior for a horse thief, and she’s certainly not here to do a feature on my love life for the National Inquisitor.”

      The grandfather clock ticked three times before Alex spoke. “You want me to head down to the lockup and sleuth around?”

      Harrison pushed back on his chair and came to his feet. “No. I’ll get her. If she is an assassin, it’s my neck on the line.”

      “We could leave her locked up until the reception’s over. She can’t hurt anyone from jail.”

      “That only works if she’s acting alone.”

      Alex went silent as Harrison stood up, pressing a hidden button to reveal a wall safe.

      “Jobar’s on duty,” Alex warned.

      “It figures,” Harrison grumbled. He spun the dial back and forth then clunked the lever. He pulled out three stacks of bills.

      Jobar was usually expensive. If the woman was CIA, Harrison hoped the American government would consider reimbursing his bribe.

      Julia had to get out of jail.

      She had to get out of this cell, and then she had to pee.

      Okay. Not necessarily in that order.

      The need had been growing steadily worse for the past two hours, but neither of the hijab-clad women spoke English, Spanish or French, and her sign-language repertoire didn’t extend to urination.

      There was a drain in the middle of the sloping stone floor. Crude. But it was looking better and better all the time.

      She could be discreet.

      She was alone in the cell. And it wasn’t as if she still had her underwear. And the voluminous gray dress they’d forced on her was essentially a tent with sleeves. It was drab and scratchy, with a musky smell that made her gag. But it would certainly hide her activities.

      Of course, the drain might not be the toilet. In which case, she might be committing some horrible faux pas. She might even be breaking another law. They’d already added immodest dress to her charges of break-in and attempted theft.

      And they hadn’t let her make a phone call. In fact, they’d confiscated her cell phone along with every other one of her possessions. She’d repeated the words American and embassy until she was nearly hoarse. She could only hope someone had called them.

      If not…

      She glanced around at the stained cement walls and the iron-barred door, shivering despite the close air. Voices shouted down the narrow hallway, and metal clanked in the distance. A centipede wriggled out from under the bare mattress laid across the floor.

      Julia shuddered, swallowing a shriek.

      Why had she thought she could be a real reporter? Why had she ever left Seattle? She should have taken that promotion to night-shift supervisor at Econo Foods instead of the scholarship to Cal State and the road that brought her to this.

      She had to keep it together, she told herself firmly. Melanie and Robbie must be looking for her. They’d have talked to the authorities by now. Eventually, hopefully within the next few hours, they’d find her and contact the embassy. Surely getting trapped in a horse trailer wasn’t a heinous crime even in Dubai.

      Oh, God. She had to pee.

      She gritted her teeth, lowering herself onto one corner of the mattress then bending over to keep her muscles tight.

      Footfalls sounded in the corridor. An Arabic voice again. But this time a man’s.

      “Ms.