Exiled Heart Page 18

  “Anything.” His response came from very near her. “Especially the lamb dishes.” He nudged her. “You like lamb, yes?”

  “You know I do. But remember I’m a cornbread and fried chicken Southern girl.”

  “Shall I order for you?”

  She nodded because the sudden scent of his spicy aftershave choked off her reply.

  He approached the counter. He and the man behind the register, who seemed to be the owner or at least a manager, chatted in Arabic.

  The man scribbled something onto a pad and rang up their order. Once Ziad paid, the man clipped the ticket onto a rotating wheel that went to a kitchen.

  “Have a seat.” Ziad gestured toward some chairs along the wall of where they stood.

  “We aren’t eating here?”

  Ziad shook his head as he handed her a cup. “Not tonight.”

  Claire filled it and settled on the hard wood with Ziad beside her.

  He stretched his arm across the back of her chair.

  What with her straight back, legs pressed together, and purse on her lap, she felt like some sort of a snotty schoolgirl. Why couldn’t she just relax? Lean back? No, too risky at the moment.

  Someone at the pickup counter called his name.

  Ziad nodded toward Claire. “Refill your drink. We are ready.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he held the door for her.

  This time, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “To a special place.”

  His special place turned out to be the Isle of Palms, the very scene of the crime. Claire winced as they pulled to a stop in the parking lot, almost in the same place where she’d parked yesterday. Only a few cars were there since it was evening.

  “Can you carry this?” Ziad proffered the bag of their food.

  “Uh, sure.” What? Why was she the pack horse?

  He pulled two beach chairs, a blanket, and his backpack from the backseat and led her down the path.

  Lord, I shouldn’t be here. Really. I should be at home scarfing down a bowl of cereal before heading to bed. Except suddenly, that idea seemed very lonely.

  Ziad spread the blanket and settled the two chairs along the edge. “Please sit.”

  Oh, no. They sat at the exact same spot where they’d been yesterday morning. What was he trying to do? Torture her? Her knees went weak, and she sank onto a chair.

  “Ziad—”

  “Claire.” He eased onto his knees in front of her.

  She couldn’t look at him. If she did, she might start crying.

  Not in front of him.

  Not this time.

  “Claire, please. Look at me.”

  She took the risk.

  The sadness in his dark gaze shook her to the core. His lips had pressed together and turned down a little, almost lengthening his face. He took a deep breath. “I owe you an apology for yesterday. The second you left, I knew I did. I lashed out at you when I had no reason to do so.”

  Emma’s words once more echoed in her ears. “Some things are best left for him to tell when he’s ready.”

  She clenched her jaw to avoid asking why he’d thought his harsh words had been necessary.

  “I did not stop when I could have. Please forgive me.”

  Could she? Claire swallowed hard. She turned her head and stared at the pier in the distance. Tears filled her eyes.

  Gentle fingers touched her hair, brushed her cheek.

  No, don’t. I want to stay angry at you. Don’t do that. She swallowed hard and returned her gaze to him.

  Ziad dropped his hand. He remained kneeling in front of her. “I care about you, and I realize how foolish I was.”

  “You hurt me.”

  The barest of sighs escaped him. “I know. And that is why I need your forgiveness.”

  Oh, it’d be so easy to take the low road—at least until she remembered the way she’d treated him a few weeks ago. Maybe she should call it even. “I—I do.”

  “Truly?”

  Her shoulders relaxed as her burden of angst slid from them. “I do.”

  “Then we are still friends?” From behind his back, he produced a yellow rose.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Oh, Ziad. How did you smuggle that out here?”

  “I have my ways.” Another mysterious smile followed. “Shall we eat?”

  The evening improved from there. They munched on their meal in comfortable silence. When he invited her for a sunset walk, she readily agreed. The golden rays reflected off his dark hair and glistened against skin left bare by his T-shirt. She wanted to record this suddenly special evening in her mind. Why had she left her purse and phone in the 4Runner?

  As they returned to her house in comfortable silence, she didn’t want their time together to end. “Would you like to come upstairs for a bit?”

  “Of course.” This time, he opened the door for her.

  Claire turned toward the steps just as Mrs. Chitworth’s elderly Mercedes pulled into the driveway of her house.

  Oh, no. Could she get Ziad inside? Not a chance since he rummaged for something in the backseat of the SUV.

  “Claire, dear! Hello.”

  Claire froze at those words.

  Mrs. Chitworth hustled toward them as quickly as her legs could carry her.

  Claire forced a smile to her face. “Hi, Mrs. Chitworth.”

  “Who is your friend?” That knowing look meant one thing. Her neighbor remembered Ziad without his shirt on.

  Southern manners won out. “This is Ziad al-Kazim. Ziad, this is Mrs. Chitworth.”

  Almost daintily, he took Mrs. Chitworth’s hand before handing her the rose. “For you, for being such a good neighbor to Claire.”

  “Oh, how sweet! It’s a pleasure to meet you. Well, I won’t keep you children for long. Take care!” She shuffled toward her house.

  Claire groaned and smacked her head with her hand. “Oh, dear.”

  “What?” A slow, sexy smile crossed his face.

  She blushed. “Uh, nothing.”

  “You are not angry for me giving the rose to her?”

  Zing! That electricity hit her heart. “No, no. That was sweet.”

  He touched her on the arm. “I need to say my sunset prayers. May I have a bowl of water and a towel I can use?”

  “Of course.” Claire got a glass mixing bowl and led the way upstairs. She showed him one of the guest rooms. “For more privacy.”

  He smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  “And a towel.” She did him one better and retrieved a hand towel as well as a bath towel from under the sink.

  He’d already kicked off his sandals.

  For a brief, insane moment, she wanted to step into his arms. Uh, uh. Couldn’t happen. “I’ll, um, well, I’ll be downstairs.”

  Claire wound up lying on a bench on the dock and stared at an evening sky quickly going from deep blue and purple to black. One by one, the stars revealed themselves. Her innards still jangled from being so near to Ziad. Softly, her voice barely audible over the bugs and frogs in the marsh, she murmured, “Lord, I’m confused. No, I’m not. At least in some ways. I get to thinking he’s like me until things like prayer times come up. That’s what worries me. He’s not a believer. I shouldn’t be dating him.”

  Of course, no audible answer. Still, God had heard her.

  She scrubbed her hands across her face. She could almost feel his gentle touch from earlier that evening.

  It hit her.

  She was attracted to him. Big time.

  Her more liberated friends would have told her it was okay. No, not okay. As Sonja would have said, they weren’t equally yoked.

  “Lord, I’m nuts. Truly nuts!”

  She took a deep breath, then released it. Gradually, she dozed to the lullaby of the bugs and frogs.

  Gentle fingers brushed some hair out of her face. Total blackness with Ziad in shadow. He smoothed a lock of hair from her cheek. “You were sound asleep.”

  “I was?”

  “
You were snoring.”

  “What?” She sat up and crossed her arms. “I don’t snore.”

  He shrugged. “I hear what I hear, my Lady Claire.” He sat down beside her and swung his feet onto the wooden table built into the deck. “Why did you come out here?”

  Not wanting to reveal the mental debate she’d had with herself, she shrugged. “It’s too pretty a night to be inside.”

  “With the exception of mosquitoes.” He slapped at one on his arm.

  “True.” She stretched her legs and stared up at the sky as she recited the Mother Goose rhyme about starlight.

  “What?”

  “You never heard that before?”

  “No.”

  “What?” She playfully nudged him in the shoulder. “No Mother Goose for you?”

  “Mother Goose? You are truly mystifying me.”

  She smiled. “I guess not. It’s a nursery rhyme Mama taught us when we went stargazing.”

  “I see. Do you have more of these nursery rhymes?”

  “Not off the top of my head. But I do remember Dr. Seuss.”

  “Doctor who?”

  “Boy, you’ve got a lot to learn.” She recited Green Eggs and Ham from memory, then Fox in Socks. By that point, they were both laughing. Then they settled into comfortable silence.

  The breeze puffed, carrying with it the potential of the evening in the form of spicy aftershave. Before she realized what she was doing, Claire leaned ever so slightly into him.

  He slid away a couple of inches.

  She swallowed hard. Maybe she’d misread his signals. He’d probably stayed just to be nice to her. Suddenly feeling like the rejected kid from junior high, she folded her arms across her chest and stared at the harbor. Maybe later, she’d get over her disappointment.

  You’re not equally yoked, remember? Friends is as far as it should go.

  Yeah, right. She chalked the evening up to a net loss.

  23

  Tuesday afternoon, Ziad checked his in-box on the desk used by District Five’s reserve officers. Two interoffice envelopes rested in it. The first held his letter officially transferring him to his new posting. The second contained a glossy eight-by-ten with a sticky note from Detective Rothschild attached to it.

  Ziad studied the note. He stared at the photo. A frame from the video surveillance when the detective had interviewed the Egyptian sailor. A sick feeling started in his stomach.

  It showed the tail of the Arabic character for Brother on the man’s left hand.

  Exactly like what he’d seen on his three suspects.

  Why did a sailor in Charleston have the same tattoo in the same location as the three suspects in Jeddah? He drummed his fingers on the desk. Not good. Not good at all because it meant Prince Yasin’s reach extended far beyond Saudi Arabia. He considered the article he’d read on Saturday, plus Ben’s new job on the Zap task force.

  Maybe his friend could help. He picked up his cell phone and dialed.

  “Ben Evans.”

  “Ben, it’s Ziad.”

  “Hey! How’s it going?”

  Ziad endured the small talk before asking, “Do you have a few minutes to meet me this afternoon?”

  “What’s up? You and Claire patched things up, right?”

  “We did.” Not that they’d had any time together since then. “It is about what happened Saturday night. Claire told you, yes?”

  “Yeah. Faith’s lucky she wasn’t alone.”

  Ziad outlined what he’d found.

  Suddenly, Ben was all business. “We do need to meet. Say, four o’clock at the Starbucks on King Street?”

  Ziad did a quick calculation in his head. He had to be at the Quick Fill by six to work until ten, but he could do that. “Yes. I will be there.”

  Ziad spent the rest of his shift drafting reports before he changed into his Quick Fill golf shirt and a pair of khakis and headed downtown.

  Ben was on time.

  Once at a table on the second floor where they couldn’t be overheard, Ziad slid the photograph to him.

  Brow furrowing and hand rubbing his chin, Ben studied it. He shook his head. “This is nuts.”

  “Nuts?”

  “Incredible. Like Prince Yasin’s establishing a distribution network here in Charleston. What else do you have?”

  “His name. Yousif Ali. He sails with the Lady Beatrice.”

  “Bad stuff. Bad, bad stuff. But this is a great lead.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing.”

  That stung. Really, it did. But then again, Ziad was now a mere reserve officer and a convenience store clerk, not a member of the elite FBI.

  Ben focused on him. “I don’t want to bark up the wrong tree.”

  “What?”

  “Get this wrong. But then again…” He cleared his throat and straightened. “I’ll pass this on to the task force, okay?”

  What else could he do? Frustration balled in Ziad’s stomach.

  “I’ll keep you posted.” Ben checked his watch. “Look. I hate to say it, but I need to go. I’m picking Em up since my Forester’s in the shop for an oil change.”

  He rose and took both the photo and the note with Yousif Ali’s stats with him.

  Ziad remained where he was. Outside, the sky began darkening as the clouds he’d noticed on the way in blotted out the sunlight. He toyed with his phone. Once more, his questions during that final interrogation filled his mind. So did the suspects’ tattoos in the exact same position as the one he’d seen on Yousif Ali.

  What could he do? He thought about the jump drive sitting in a small safe he’d bought. It held everything about the case. He could translate it, provide it to Ben and his comrades.

  No, he couldn’t. Ben didn’t know he had it. His friend would most likely make a request to SANG staff. Perhaps they would send the file. If not…

  Suddenly, his need for a smoke roared to the surface. He wouldn’t, not when he’d finally made it through withdrawal.

  With a sigh, he rose and headed into the oppressive humidity.

  Like it or not, the past had paid him a visit. And if he were lucky, it wouldn’t ensnare either his present or future.

  #####

  Two weeks later, Ziad sat at the same Starbucks, a steaming cup of Arabian coffee before him. Where was Ben? In a voice mail, his friend had requested another meeting. He glanced around him. A mother and a little boy sat at one table where they shared a snack and a cold drink. At another table near the windows, a college kid with earbuds in his ears worked on something on his laptop.

  Footsteps sounded on the old wood of the steps.

  Ziad tensed, and his reawakened detective’s mind searched for a way out in case he needed it.

  “Ziad, my friend.” Ben said in Arabic. They exchanged a Guy Hug.

  Ziad resumed his seat and continued in English, “Do not beat around the tree, Ben.”

  “What?” His friend grinned. “You mean beat around the bush?”

  Ziad rolled his eyes. “That.” In Arabic, he continued, “What did you find?”

  “Lots. First off, in the two weeks since you and I talked about this, two teen-aged boys showed up DOA from Zap in Potter’s ED.”

  Ziad froze. That made eleven dead.

  “Detective Rothschild is on the task force, and he passed along what Charleston PD knows about the incident you witnessed, which unfortunately, is not a lot. The cops caught the vic’s buddies, who said they just got scared when he started convulsing and ran off. Your sailor, Yousif Ali, was only a witness to an overdose. I ran his name through our databases. Nothing exceptionally criminal turned up. ICE says he comes to Charleston about every six to ten weeks depending on when the Lady Beatrice is in port. He has been with that ship ever since he started with the Merchant Marines. That is what I can share. It is all in here for your perusal.” Ben placed a manila envelope on the table.

  “Nothing else?” Ziad’s hopes plummeted. For the first time since his release fro
m prison, he’d trusted his instincts, and it had led to nothing. In English, he asked, “I was barking up the wrong bush?”

  “Tree, Ziad. Tree.” Ben leaned forward and in Arabic continued, “I did not say that. I talked to my bosses. They said to see if I could get the Saudi file on the case. I called Sami. No luck because he sent me to General al-Talil.”

  Ziad winced. He knew the response without even asking.

  “No dice,” Ben said in English, before adding in Arabic, “As a matter of fact, General al-Talil was not thrilled that I called. He finally said he would check with his commanding officer. It came down from the top he was not under any circumstances to give me that file.”

  “To save face.” Ziad shook his head. “We Saudis are famous for that. They don’t want to admit there’s a drug problem in the Kingdom.”

  “That is what I figured.”

  Ziad’s mind flew to the file. He couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. Resting his elbows on the table, he leaned forward. “Perhaps I can help.”

  Ben mirrored him. “How?”

  “Right after we busted our three suspects and interrogated them, something—probably instinct—told me to make a copy of the file. I hid it in the villa. While I sat in jail, I worried they’d found it. But no one said anything, and gradually, I realized it was still safe. Do you remember when we went through the house so I could collect keepsakes?”

  “Yes.”

  “I smuggled it out in my backpack. It’s in my safe at the apartment.”

  “Well, I’ll be!” Ben exclaimed in English

  “What does that mean?” Ziad asked in the same language. He glanced at the young mother. Her gaze, which had focused on them, dropped to the table.

  “You know? I don’t know.” Ben chuckled. He finished his drink and set it on the table. In Arabic, he asked, “What are you proposing?”

  “It has everything on it. The MP3 file of the interrogation. The photos. My notes, which I scanned. They’re in Arabic.”

  “And my written Arabic is much worse than my spoken. I see.” Ben began nodding. “You want to translate it.”

  “I can get it to you tomorrow.” Ziad caught the little boy staring at him.