Chapter Seven

      Kate looked at her watch. “I feel like we should have something substantial to move on but yet if it were like any other case...” Her voice trailed off.

      “But it’s not,” he said. “Especially the way it’s been going. They’re not following a norm. Two demands for money. You know that’s not normal or, at least, standard behavior.”

      “They’re not rushed. They feel like they have time. That’s a good thing.”

      He didn’t reply as he stood at the window, the same one he’d stood at all those hours ago after he’d first received the news of Tara and while he’d waited for his brothers. He was pulled to the window, and had been throughout the evening, to the lights of Marrakech that seemed to lead him beyond and to the outside of the city. But there was no promise of answers. All he could see was a memory, Tara’s face—smiling, happy. But all that had vanished. Instead she was in jeopardy. He tried to focus on the city, on taking his mind elsewhere and in that way relaxing enough to possibly come up with another angle—an idea that had yet to be considered.

      He turned, looked to the right at the lights of the more modern city center and business hub. Then his gaze moved to where the ancient beginnings of Marrakech lay, taking in the labyrinth of tight streets and passageways, where businesses and residences hid behind ancient walls and where tourism and local shopping blended easily with snake charmers and tattoo artists.

      The art and culture that crowded the narrow streets came from a heritage they all shared, from beginnings somewhere deep in the heart of the wind and sun-carved desert. It was a place of mystery and charm and one that hid the good as easily as it hid the bad.

      His grip tightened on the window ledge. This was doing no good at all. For it was from the country’s heart that Tara had been taken.

      “Emir? What is it?”

      Kate’s voice had that caress, subtle, unintentional, but it reached to the heart of who he was, to places he hadn’t let anyone in, in a very long time.

      He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t bear the sympathy he told himself he knew she was feeling. She didn’t understand—couldn’t—for, no matter how well intentioned, to her, Tara was just a case. She couldn’t be anything else, for Kate didn’t know her. They’d never met. “Nothing. Get some sleep while you can.”

      “I already tried that, didn’t work.”

      He could hear her moving quietly in the darkness. Only the wafting scent of coconut combining oddly with the faint scent of myrrh alerted him that she was near. He didn’t know how it had come to be, that the scents of his homeland seemed such a part of her.

      And then she was beside him. “It’s beautiful even at night.”

      He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

      “She’s not just a case,” she said as the moments of silence turned into minutes. “Not to me. Not like you think.”

      He started. How had she read his mind? She lay a hand over his where it rested on the ledge. She’d done that before, but this time heat seemed to run through his core, connecting them in a way he was unable to analyze, wanting him to turn to her to...he pulled his hand away.

      He was torn. Worry for Tara, fury at her captors and now the conflicted feelings toward Kate. He had to get it together and that meant focusing on something completely different.

      There were hours before they could move into action but, in the meantime, they needed to set safeguards in place. He picked his phone up and turned it over. “It’s our only contact with them—the pigs who have Tara.” He put the phone down. “I don’t like the idea of leaving it...of trusting...”

      “Zafir will be fine,” Kate assured him. “They’ll never know it’s not you. And we’ll be in touch.” She looked at her watch. It was only 7:55 p.m.

      “How do you know he won’t slip? That—”

      “You’re not giving him credit.”

      He shook his head. “Zafir’s good, but this is Tara we’re talking about. Any one of us could break under the pressure. We—”

      “Stop.” Her shoulder brushed against his. “I’d work with any of you in a heartbeat. And in a case like this, the most important one you’ll ever work, no one’s going to mess up.” She looked at him and he knew she could see the doubt in his face. He couldn’t hide it. He’d never doubted any of their abilities before, but it had never mattered so much.

      “Zafir is good,” she repeated. “You know that. And I can vouch for him. I’ve read some of the cases he was involved in.” She smiled. “Despite the talk—he’s good.”

      Emir turned to face her. She’d taken the elastic out of her hair and now her long, straight, blond locks hung loose and soft, framing her face and skimming well past her shoulders.

      “Interesting, your brother.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “The rumor is that he’s always got a romance going. Most recently a model. Gorgeous redhead.” She laughed.

      “Office talk?” He frowned. He abhorred gossip.

      “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I was trying to lighten the mood. Inappropriate, I know...”

      He glanced down and saw that she wove her fingers together—long, delicate fingers. Sensitive fingers, Tara might have said, but Tara had always been an intuitive sort. Is, he reminded himself. They’d find her.

      “Emir, listen.”

      She shifted, her hair gleaming in the gentle, low light of the reading lamps. Again the delicate scent, the combination that was so uniquely her, wafted from her and seemed to overwhelm him, to make him more aware of her than he wanted or needed to be.

      “I’m listening,” he said.

      She looked up at him. “I feel like there’s something eluding us.”

      “So let’s go over it again—what we know,” he said with relief to be doing something.

      She leaned against the desk.

      He leaned back against the window ledge. “I don’t know what we could have missed. She was taken by one, maybe two, men outside the gates, but we know there were others involved.”

      “If two of them died this afternoon, how many are left?” Kate asked as if the attack had been no more traumatic than a trip to the grocery store.

      “What are you suggesting?”

      “That there are no others.” She shrugged. “I know that sounds unrealistic, impossible even, but we have to explore every option.”

      “That isn’t an angle we’ve even considered.”

      “There hasn’t been a demand in hours. Since the attack...” Her words hung in the silence between them, which seemed dark and treacherous now that the disturbing alternative had been presented.

      “I don’t