Lee Child - MatchUp

The door opened and a tall girl, no more than twenty, hurried inside, dropping a load of books on the dining table.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I’m Tina Peek.”

She threw herself in a basket chair and looked at them expectantly. After introductions were done—again—Tina said, “I’m sure Stephanie is on a yacht somewhere with one of the millionaires.”

Hauck was taken aback. “One of the millionaires?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Harper sit straight.

Then she rose from her chair and began wandering around the room.

“You know all kinds of rich Egyptians come here to go to the beach,” Tina said. “Are you at the Four Seasons? That’s prime stomping grounds. But Stephanie was a magnet for that kind of guy.” She spread her hands, as if to say, Go figure.

Jerri looked away scowling.

“Can you give us a name?” Nabila asked. “And why do you think Stephanie in particular was a magnet? You didn’t mention that theory when we were here last time.”

“I can’t give you a specific name. But there are sheiks and princes and whatnot vacationing here all the time. Stephanie was blond and cute. Just their type.”

Hauck noted that Tina was neither of those things.

“She had guys after her all the time. But who did she actually take up with? That loser at the bar.”

“Ivo? He says he only hooked up with Stephanie one night,” Hauck said.

Tina gave a snort of laughter. “Really?”

Jerri tossed Tina a surprised look. “It may be true. I don’t know that Stephanie was meeting up with Ivo every night she went out. I think she was doing something else.”

“Why do you think that?” he asked.

In the kitchen area, Harper bent over and picked something up from a tiny space between the stove and the counter.

Jerri and Tina had their backs to her.

“She didn’t dress up,” Jerri said.

Harper wandered back into the conversation. “What did she wear? If she wasn’t dressing up for a date?”

“Washed-out jeans and T-shirts that had gotten stained from the cleaning solvents at the museum,” Jerri said.

Tina laughed again. “You’re imagining that, Jerri,” she said. “Just because she didn’t wear a lot of perfume and a skimpy skirt.”

This was clearly a dart that hit its target.

Jerri flushed and pressed her lips together.

“Can we look at her room?” Harper said.

“You can, but it’s empty. Her family cleared out most of her stuff. Her rental car is still in the parking garage, but they looked through that too. We’ll be glad when we can get a new roommate, but no one is exactly panting to live here now,” Jerri said.

They took a look anyway.

Blank walls and empty shelves. A few cheap art prints and a tchotchke or two that didn’t seem worth carting home.

“What’s that?”

Harper pointed to an odd Egyptian statuette on the dresser. It had the body of a man, but the head of a bird with a pointy, curved beak.

“That’s Anti,” Jerri said. “The Falcon God. I guess he ferried the pharaohs to the afterlife or something. They left it though. Steph was obsessed with it. Anti, Ivo, Razi. She was obsessed with a lot of things.”

Hauck looked at Harper, who shook her head in futility. But she looked as though there was something else on her mind. She seemed to be holding something she had found, and he noticed her slip it into her pocket.

When they were back in the car and on their way to their next destination, the museum, he asked, “What did you think of the two roomies?”

He expected to hear Nabila’s opinion, and she’d opened her mouth to respond, when Harper cut her off.

“One of them was lying.”

“How do you figure?” He was curious about her reasoning.

“Either Jerri was telling the truth and Stephanie was dressed for work, hard work. Or Tina was telling the truth and Stephanie was dressed for a date.”

“It has to be an either/or?” he said.

“Both things can’t be true. Especially since they don’t like each other.” Harper was observant, he’d give her that. Of course, if she was a con woman that would be part of the tricks of her trade. “Where were they the night she went missing?”

Nabila said, “Jerri Sanderson said she was out of town until late the next day, and we partially confirmed that with her employer. She was with him until eight at night, and she was there at nine the next morning. In between, who knows? Tina Peek said she was partying until two in the morning, and Stephanie was not in the apartment when she came home.”

“They don’t like each other, it’s true,” Nabila went on.

And Hauck noticed that something about the interview, or about the two women, had made Nabila thoughtful, as well.

“By the way, Nabila,” he said. “Are either of the girls Jewish? Did they mention connections of Stephanie’s through her synagogue?”

Nabila flushed. “The last synagogue in Alexandria is closed. There is nowhere she could have gone.”

So much for Alexandria’s record of tolerance, Hauck thought, taken aback by the way Nabila had misled him. Had it been simple loyalty to her city that had caused her to paint Alexandria in more flattering colors? Or did the police inspector know something about the case that she hadn’t divulged? For the first time, he looked at Nabila Honsi with a feeling of doubt.

The policewoman concentrated solely on her driving, the crowded streets noisy with cars and pedestrians of all sorts. They were close to the harbor again when Nabila pointed to a white stone building with a green lawn in front.

“That’s the museum,” she said. “I’m going to have to let you out and find a place to park. Obviously, that’s quite difficult here.”

She’d lost the pleasant tone that had made her sound so agreeable, and Hauck realized that quite possibly that had been a façade. This beautiful inspector had layers he hadn’t anticipated.

Like the city they were in.

As they scrambled out of the car and began to walk up the driveway, Hauck saw that Harper was watching after Nabila thoughtfully. Tolliver was looking pale and was sweating.

“What’s wrong?” Harper asked her brother, and Hauck saw she was alarmed, maybe more alarmed than the situation warranted.

“I don’t know if it’s jet lag or the salad I had,” Tolliver said. “I feel crappy.”

“Do you want to get a cab back to the hotel?” Harper said. “Get in bed?”

“I better do that, or I’m going to be embarrassing to have along,” Tolliver said, doing his best to sound jaunty.

Hauck undertook getting the cab, which was awkward since he didn’t speak much of the language. But the driver understood “Four Seasons,” and Hauck helped Tolliver into the backseat, at the last moment realizing the man needed local currency. He stuffed some in his hand.

“Watch out for her,” Tolliver muttered. Then he reached into his pocket and handed Hauck a handful of Werther’s Caramels and peppermints. “If she has a spell, give her one of these right away.”

Hauck pocketed the candy and rejoined Harper, who was looking distraught.

“He doesn’t have any money, he can’t pay,” she said anxiously.

“I took care of that. And I have candy in case you need it?”

She looked relieved. “He always watches out for me. I have something to give you.”

But just then Nabila joined them and he noticed the subject was dropped. They all headed to the office of Dr. Omar Razi.

“I thought it would be bigger,” Harper whispered to Hauck, as they crowded into Dr. Razi’s office.

It wasn’t a large space, but every inch of it was crammed with machinery, and papers and drawings. The walls were lined with open glass shelves crowded with interesting objects. Pots, spearheads, even pieces of bone. He wondered if Harper was vibrating like a tuning fork.