Ryshia Kennie - Desire In The Desert - Sheikh's Rule

“Did I say I was worried?” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Let’s get moving.”

But before either of them could act on those words, her phone dinged, signaling a text message. She looked at it with a frown then back up at him. “It’s a blocked text—no identification.” She held up her index finger, warning him to silence. “This is odd.”

Outside, a siren broke the quiet; the distant sound knifing in through an open window. The flashing lights seemed to pulse through the night, as if forewarning them of something even more threatening than what they already faced.

Seconds seemed to tick away and the silence within the room wrapped around them in a thick, almost choking veil.

Her eyes met his and she pushed a button on the phone.

“It’s a video.”

She looked up, saw the perspiration dotting his forehead and wondered if the pressure of it all was finally getting to him. She dismissed the thought. He was strong, too strong. There were other words for men such as him... Just his nearness could take a woman’s breath away. She’d bet that he’d never had a woman turn him down. She remembered how, earlier, he had been outlined in his office by the city lights as he’d stood by the window, how his well-muscled form had been clearly defined by his T-shirt.

She was always in control and now, at a completely inappropriate time, her mind was running amuck thinking of...

She frowned and clutched the phone tighter. “It might be nothing—”

“Or it might be from them,” he said, cutting her off.

And they both knew what he meant. Tara’s kidnappers.

Her finger lifted from the phone as if that were a deal-breaker. “Maybe I should watch it without you.”

“No, start it. We need to see it and see it now.”

They didn’t know what was on the video. It could be anything or anyone. But in this situation, with everything that had happened, the possibility that it wasn’t a ransom demand in some form, that Tara wasn’t involved, was slight.

“Start it,” he said thickly as he leaned over her shoulder.

They watched the video begin with no prelude but, rather immediately, a woman’s face dominated the screen.

“Tara,” he said, an edge to his voice.

Her hands were tied and she was kneeling, looking right at them or, more aptly, at the camera or at whoever was filming her.

“Please, Emir,” Tara said, her voice pleading. But the words didn’t seem as panicked as they seemed forced. It was as if she wasn’t saying them voluntarily but instead was being coached. She hesitated and stumbled over what she was saying, sounding reluctant.

Kate swallowed. It was tough to watch. There was a flashlight on her face and Tara blinked frequently, squinting against the light. Her dark hair was long and loose, curling wildly around her dusty face. Her faded jeans were torn, not as a fashion statement, Kate suspected, but more a result of her ordeal. Her flowered, peasant-style cotton blouse had chalk-colored streaks running through it. There were numerous thin, red scratches on her hands and across one cheek, but she met the camera with fire in her eyes despite the tears on her cheeks.

“Tara,” Emir murmured. “Hang in there. I’m coming.”

In the video, Tara turned slightly, as if she might have heard him.

She sat on her heels on what looked like a burgundy blanket, but it was faded with age and dusty with sand. It was hard to tell if the blanket might have some sort of ethnic origin, a clue to who she was with or where she was, but that clue was lost as the camera never went near enough to give them a clear visual.

Kate tried to remain objective as she watched an animated, if you could call it that, Tara. This was the first time she’d seen her in anything other than a still photo. She made a mental note of her mannerisms and listened to what she said as she looked for signs of coaching and for some hint of who was with her. She was fairly sure that she had a better chance of seeing any of that than Emir, who was too close to be objective.

Kate looked at Emir, who confirmed everything she had thought, as anger seemed to emanate from him in the tightness in his lips and the intense way he looked at her. She knew that any objectivity he had maintained had been lost in the moment. It wasn’t surprising. Anyone in his situation would have reacted the same, although in her mind he was holding on better than most. Still, objectivity and her skill in these situations, was why she was here. But now she feared that the deeper they got into this, the closer they got to finding Tara, the more difficult it would be for Emir to keep a check on his emotion. She didn’t blame him, it was natural, but she also knew it wasn’t going to help the investigation one bit.

“They want it in American dollars.” There was no emotion in Tara’s voice.

The video blurred and garbled and then became clear again.

“Someone will tell you when and where,” Tara said, her words a monotone, as if she were reading a script.

There was a sound behind her, a scuffling, and then the video blanked out and came back on. This time Tara was gone and the muffled voice of a man was saying, “Be prepared, you’ll have little time.”

The video clicked off.

“What kind of joke is this?” Emir stormed. “They prop her up, ask for money yet again, and don’t give a drop zone, an amount, even a time—nothing?”

Kate looked at him, at the fire in his dark eyes and the pain that overrode everything, and couldn’t begin to imagine how it might feel. Even if she’d had siblings, she doubted she could imagine such a nightmare. She wished she could fix it, that it wouldn’t carry on any longer. That somehow she could end it.

“So they want what they asked for earlier or it’s another amount. Whatever it is, will that be enough? Will they let her go?” Emir’s voice was raised and tense.

Kate didn’t say anything. This was about Emir regaining control. He didn’t need or want anything from her right now.

Silence flooded the room.

“Get in touch with Zafir. Now,” she said after a minute had passed.

She listened to the one-sided conversation as Emir laid out what had happened and what Zafir needed to do.

He put the phone down and ran splayed fingers through his hair before he looked at her. “He’s already on the way.”

“Let’s watch that video again. Can you? Is it too much...?”

“Start it,” he rasped.

They watched it through two more times before she turned it off and set the phone down.

“She was in the open. There wasn’t any shelter.” His words were like grim drumbeats of doom.

“Emir,” she warned as she shook her head, “don’t go there. None of that is relevant, not now. She’s not comfortable but she’s not injured and she’s not—” She bit off the last words.

“Dead.” He filled the word in for her. “And she’s not going to be, either.” He looked at his watch. “Where the hell is Zafir? It’s been...”

“Two minutes,” she noted. “Look, let’s review that video one more time. There was something I wanted to mention but I thought it was a nervous tic, considering what was going on. Where she was, what—”

“Tell me,” he broke in.

She looked at him, saw the pain in his eyes that he was struggling to contain and her heart almost broke. He was a strong man but even strong men had their limits.

“I think she’s trying to tell us something.”

She picked up the phone and pushed Play. The video no sooner began to run before she hit Pause. “Did you see that slight tapping of her finger on her left hand?”

He frowned. He leaned closer. “Son of a desert stray,” he muttered.

He hit Rewind again and again.

“This is difficult,” she said, thinking how hard it was to watch his sister being held captive like that—to see she wasn’t alone but surrounded by her captors. That much was evident based on the fact they could see the boots of two men obviously milling nearby. They were boots that, this time, gave them no clue. They were clean, generic, with no sign of sand or dirt—no evidence of any kind.