LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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