Читать книгу Desire In The Desert: Sheikh's Rule - Ryshia Kennie - Страница 23

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 that that kept his outrage contained. He didn’t look in the rearview mirror, either, for behind them was the place that had moved them to a truth he feared might change everything he thought he knew. He took a breath and then glanced at her.

“What’s going on?” he heard Zafir ask. “K.J. was asking about the accident?”

“Hang on, Zaf,” he said into the phone.

“Get Zafir to check who was on staff the year of your parents’ accident and also if there was anyone with them, or who they had contact with that day.” She frowned. “I know some of that will be impossible to recollect, but if there was someone with them...”

“Ed,” Emir said with no hesitation. “Their bodyguard. Simohamed Khain. We called him Ed,” he said. “And the driver, of course. Ed was the only survivor,” he said gravely.

Kate could see that his mind was there, in that moment on that fateful day when he’d learned his parents’ fate and when everything had changed for him and his siblings.

“Run a check on Ed,” she said.

He nodded grimly, his jaw tense and his dark eyes narrowed. “Zaf, did you hear?” Emir asked his brother.

“I’m missing most of this and I think it’s a waste of time, Em.”

“Yeah, well, she’s right. We can’t afford to toss anything out at this point. Call as soon as you know something,” Emir said before he clicked off.

He swung around to face Kate. “What are you suggesting?”

“It’s not what I was suggesting,” she said. “It was what I was told.”

“You think the accident that killed my parents was not accidental at all—is that what you’re implying?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

His jaw tightened. “It’s one thing to have Zaf do a search, but to think a man who was like a brother to my father...on the basis of a name similarity.”

“Wait. There’s more.” She turned away, likely gathering her thoughts before facing him, pain obvious in her eyes.

He didn’t want her sympathy and he didn’t want to hear what she had to say, either, for he knew that whatever it was might be a betrayal from which his family would never recover. He prayed he was wrong.

“So you think—”

“Wait.” She held up her hand. “The woman in El Dewar said that the last time he visited, a few months ago, there was something new, a burn down the entire left side of his face.” She looked at him with eyes full of compassion that almost did him in. “That’s not all. She was wearing a bracelet that looked very much like the one you said Tara had inherited from your mother.”

It was like he’d been sucker punched.

“I’m sorry, Emir.”

He didn’t want her apology. He didn’t want to look at the sympathy in her eyes. He wanted to take her into his arms and make her stop talking, make her stop causing him to face possibilities that threatened everything he believed.

“There were two,” he murmured. “I thought the second was destroyed in the accident. In fact, until now, I’d forgotten about it.” He looked away. When he turned back to face her, he was more determined than ever to make the men who had taken Tara pay. “The woman you spoke to...”

She nodded. “Had what I think is the second bracelet. When I noticed the similarity, I asked her where she got it. She said their visitor had dropped it, and by the time she found it, he was gone. I’m almost positive it’s a match.” She stopped, concern on her face.

Emir’s right hand was clenched in a fist. “Ed’s face on the left side was burned pretty badly. He said he struggled to open Mother’s door—to get her out.”

“My informant was pretty sure it was a burn scar. She said she’d seen plenty in the village from the cooking pots and such.”

“The woman heard him talking to himself as he was preparing to leave. She said that she would always remember the words, for they were spoken with hatred. She said he was muttering that he would make the sheikka pay.”

“Make her pay? What had Tara done to him?”

“Was it Tara he was referring to?”

Shock rolled through him at what she might be implying. It made no sense. “Who else would he mean?”

She shrugged. “You said he tried to get your mother free from the vehicle. Why not your father? Why didn’t he mention him? Attempt to save him?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not sure. I...”

“Kate...” He could hear his heart beat in anticipation of what she might say next. He wanted to put his hand over her mouth and not allow her to say the words he sensed would change everything he thought he knew.

“Did Ed act strangely around your mother? I mean, before the accident?”

“I...no, he was close to my father. My mother and he were formal with each other any time I saw them. An employee and a friend, he never crossed that line...”

“Never?”

“No.” He shook his head. “But I remember Mother saying she didn’t like him. She asked Father to fire him. That was just before the accident. Damn. She said he was taking liberties and by that I thought she meant treating Father as a friend...”

“When instead could it have been that Ed was making advances on her? Could he have been in love, lust, whatever, with your mother—and she knew or possibly only suspected?”

Kate’s blue eyes were troubled and yet full of passion. He couldn’t help but touch her cheek and press his lips to hers, in a desperate attempt to alleviate some of his pain. She sank into his kiss, her tongue meeting his, her breast soft, her nipple hard against his palm. He wanted her as much as he wanted all the pain of this new discovery to go away.

He let her go.

She gave him a slow seductive smile and then swung right back into business. “I don’t think we can afford to discount this. If we know who Tara’s kidnappers are, what motivates them, going in...”

“We have a better chance against them,” he finished. “If this is true, what has he been doing all these years? He hasn’t been in our employ since the accident.” Emir frowned. “We paid him out a compensation package.” His fist clenched. “How could he have hidden it...?” But he knew how criminals such as this might act. He just couldn’t imagine that someone he had known and trusted...

“Biding his time,” Kate replied. “And, I suspect, slowly losing his mind.”

Emir raked his fingers through his hair. “Then you’re saying that Tara’s dealing with a madman?”

“Possibly,” she said quietly.

And both of them knew they’d just hit worst-case scenario.

* * *

DESPITE THE FACT that it was still daylight, Tara was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. But she was too afraid to sleep. It was the only reason she could think that he had been able to come up to her, to surprise her without her realizing he was there.

His thick, dark hair was curly and too long, but it framed a face that might have been handsome, had he not been either so thin or so twisted. The intent in his eyes took away from any potential beauty in his face. His mouth curved in a self-satisfied smile that sent a chill down her spine and had her shifting away from him.

“It’s been a long time,” he said softly.

Tara blinked, as if that would clear her vision, as if that might change the reality of the man before her. “Why? Why have you done this?”

“Why? You dare to ask that as if you didn’t know—you, with your life of privilege. I will be glad to end it when it comes to that.”

“But what about the money?”

“What about the money, my foolish little princess, looking down at all of us, thumbing your nose at...”

“You taught me the rules of American football. You—” She broke off, unable to say any more. When he was so near, she tensed to the point she forgot to breath. She took a breath. He seemed to realize in this moment that she was not her mother. It was as though his reality shifted from one moment to the next.

“You were easier to deceive than your brothers, but you all came around.”

She stared into a face that was barely familiar, into eyes that were filled with hate, and at a man that it was now clear she had never known. She willed herself to not shrink back, to not show weakness, for in her gut she knew he wanted that as much as he wanted the money.

He reached for her as she twisted away, but it was impossible to escape. The rope that held her only allowed her to move so far.

His knuckle ran down the side of her face. “You never wanted me, did you, despite everything? It was always him.” He looked at her as he dropped back on his heels and stood. “I can keep you forever. He will never find you and I will bleed him dry.” He ran a thumb along the ridge of her collarbone. His touch was chilling despite the fact that two layers of cotton fabric lay between him and her.

“My brothers...”

He looked at her with angry, confused eyes.

“You call your sons, brothers?”

Tara’s sleep-deprived brain didn’t have an immediate comeback. She fought not to shrink back as the horror returned and her brain made sense of what he had said. Again, he thought that she was her mother. He’d slipped back into his mad delusion where she became her mother. A chill ran down her spine and she forced herself to look at him.

“He’ll never agree,” she said, not giving names, meaning her brothers and especially Emir, and leaving it open to his interpretation.

“Then you, my dear, must die. Not now,” he said as she looked at him with all the panic she was feeling. “I, of course, will shed tears. But there’s really no other way.”

She shivered as the chill of the day and the thought of the inevitable night combined with thoughts of her potential destiny, and all of it settled harsh and heavy in her heart.