“No problem, lady.”
He pulled away from the curb and moved into the stream of traffic. “So where you from, lady?”
“Wisconsin.”
“I don’t know this place.”
“It’s next to Illinois,” she explained, her watchful eye on the traffic.
He shook his head.
“Near Chicago.”
“Chicago!” he said with the enthusiasm of recognition. “Al Capone. Bang, bang.”
“Well, old Scarface has been gone for a while, but I think bang, bang still applies.”
Even as Jensen spoke the words, the muffler fired a shot into the air.
“Why you here?” he asked. “Vacation?”
Jensen looked at her dusty, dry, beige surroundings. “Vacation? Here? I don’t think so.”
“So why you come?”
“I’m looking for my brother.”
“He here on vacation?”
“You have a thing about people vacationing here, don’t you? No. He was here working for a magazine and he disappeared.”
“Oh, that’s very bad. So you come look for him.”
“Exactly.”
“You know, woman alone not good here.”
He abruptly cut in front of someone on the highway. Jensen closed her eyes.
“I had to come alone,” she said. “But I know someone here. I’m sure he’ll help me.”
“Maybe Yusef can help.”
“I don’t think so, but thanks for offering.”
“I know people.”
“I’m sure you do, Yusef.”
“I help you anyway.”
Jensen left it alone. He’d no doubt forget about her as soon as he dropped her off if she didn’t make an issue of it, she thought as she gazed out the window.
The four-lane highway seemed newly built. It was in wonderful condition. On either side was desert, but homes and businesses sat not far off the road, all of them swathed in great black cloths.
“What does the black mean?” she asked Yusef.
“Our great sheik and his oldest son were killed in plane crash one month ago. We are a country in mourning.”
“I’m so sorry. Who will be sheik now?”
“The younger son is.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“We don’t know yet. Some think he’s spent too much time in America. He’s fond of Western ways.” Yusef glanced at her in his rearview mirror. “My apologies, but Americans aren’t very well thought of here, and we are more tolerant than most countries because our beloved Queen was American.”
“Was?”
“She died many years ago.”
“Is the younger son king now?”
“Yes. He became such the moment his father and brother died. But we have had no formal celebration yet.”
“Of course.” Jensen looked at the back of the collar of his shirt. “You don’t seem to mind Westerners too much.”
“Oh,” he said with a big smile. “I love America. Someday I go there. I will be a cowboy. Do you have cowboys in Chicago?”
“Not real ones.”
“Where are the real ones?”
Jensen thought for a moment. “Texas, I suppose. Montana. Maybe Wyoming.”
“Then that’s where I am going.”
“Won’t you miss your family?”
“My family is all dead except my uncle. I will miss him, but I am a man in my own right now. I must make my own choices.”
Jensen nodded and turned her attention back to her surroundings as they approached the city of Sumara.
From a distance, it looked like an earthen-colored maze with walls surrounding the closely built houses. Every shape was angular with no softening curves. There were no splashes of color.
Once they arrived in the city, the ancient streets grew narrow, some of them barely wide enough for one car. If another came toward them, Yusef would pull as far over as he could and stop while the other car passed.
People swathed in robes crowded the sides of the road. Some of the women carried parcels on their heads, moving with the sultry grace of ballerinas. Many of the women were heavily veiled. Some of the men and male children were in Western dress, like Yusef. Every once in a while she’d spot a woman or two in something similar to what she was wearing, but it occurred to her that they were probably tourists.
It just served to remind Jensen that she was a very long way from home.
“You want to shop,” said Yusef, “there is great market not far. I take you.”
“Thank you.”
“Here comes hotel,” he said proudly. “I tell you I know where it is.”
On a road about twice as wide as the one they’d just left was the Metropole. There wasn’t a sidewalk in front, but a dark green canopy stretched into the street. A uniformed man stepped sharply forward and opened Jensen’s door, but when he tried to take her luggage from Yusef, the boy pulled it away. “No, no. I get for her.”
The man raised an eyebrow, but stepped back.
Yusef carried the luggage through the large, elegant and coolly dim lobby to the front desk. A man in Western dress looked at her inquiringly.
“I have a room reserved under the name of Jensen O’Hara.”
He checked his computer. “Passport and credit card, please.”
Jensen lifted them from a side pocket of her purse and put them on the counter, then turned to Yusef. “How much do I owe you?”
He gave her the amount in dirim and she quickly translated it into twelve dollars.
She pulled money out of her purse. It took her a moment to count the correct amount. Then she tried to add some for a tip.
Yusef took the fare, but shook his head at the extra. “You only pay what you owe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes. I am at your service but I don’t take your money. It is my pleasure.”
The clerk returned her passport and credit card. “Thank you. I have all of the other information you provided in your fax. Just sign here,” he said as he placed a paper in front of her and handed her a pen.
Jensen signed and passed the paper back to him. “Are there any messages for me?”
“One moment,” he said as he crossed to the other side of the counter to check his computer. “Nothing.”
“Are you sure? An envelope perhaps?”
“There is nothing.”
“If there is any word from a Michael Hassan, please get it to me immediately.”
“Of course.”
Jensen sighed. Michael should have gotten her messages by now. “Is the American Embassy far from here?”
“Not at all,” said the clerk, pointing in the direction of the front doors. “Turn left as you leave the hotel. Straight down this road perhaps a thousand meters is the embassy.”
“Thank you.”
He handed her a room key and started to ring for someone to take her luggage, but Yusef was ahead of him, pushing aside all comers. “No, no. I take.”
“I’ve given you room 344,” said the clerk, “just as you requested in your fax.”
“Thank you,” Jensen said. Then she smiled at the boy. “Yusef, believe me when I say that I appreciate all you’ve done, but you don’t have to carry my luggage. I’m sure your uncle would prefer that you spend your time driving his taxi.”
Yusef shook his head and smiled at her. “No, no. I take. You come, lady.”
As she followed him to the elevator, a man bumped into her, knocking her purse to the ground and spilling the contents all over the colorful carpeting.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, bending down with her to help pick everything up.
“It’s all right.”
He handed her a fistful of things, looking into her eyes with his own velvet brown ones and touching her hand as he did so in a gesture that was strangely intimate coming, as it did, from a complete stranger.
Jensen looked at him curiously. Or was he? There was something vaguely familiar about him. “Pardon my
asking, but have we met somewhere before?”
“That should be my line.”
Jensen’s cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean...”
He took her hand in his and helped her to her feet. “I know what you meant,” he said, still holding her hand. “Are you sure you’re all right? That was quite a collision.”
“Yes, thank you.”
He released her hand, inclined his head and walked away.
Jensen stared after him. He was dressed in a Western suit, but she guessed that he usually wore robes.
“Come on, lady,” said Yusef, blocking the elevator door from closing with his narrow body.
“I’m coming. Do you know who that man is?” she asked as she stepped inside.
Yusef shrugged his shoulders as he pressed the button for her floor. “Never saw him before. Why?”
“Because I think I know him.”
The doors closed and they traveled to the third floor. Taking her key, he walked quickly ahead of her so that he could have the door open when she arrived.
“Where you want Yusef to put this?” he asked as he followed her inside.
“Oh,” she said as she looked around, “on the extra bed, I suppose. Thank you, Yusef.”
“Is your Michael Hassan a Sumaruan?”
“Yes.”
“Where does he live? Tell me and I take you there.”
“I don’t have an address. Just a telephone number. He went to university in America and was my brother’s roommate and best friend. They’ve kept in touch with each other over the years. That’s why I think he might be able to help me.”
“You want Yusef find him for you?”
“Thank you, but no. I spoke to his houseman on the phone to tell him I was coming. He said he’d get in touch with me. I’m sure he’ll be calling soon.” Jensen had hoped Michael would meet her at the airport. She’d given the houseman her schedule.
“I find him anyway and make sure he call you.”
Jensen smiled at him. She couldn’t help herself. “Yusef, you’re a very charming young man.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Thank you for everything. Perhaps we’ll see each other again before I leave the country.”
“You want anything, you ask for Yusef. Everybody know me. Everybody can find me.”
Jensen looked at him curiously. “Why are you so concerned about me?”
“You nice lady. I like you, so I help.”
“I appreciate that.”
“So you ask for me if you need anything?”
“I will.”
“Good.” He flashed that wonderful grin and left, closing the door behind him.
Left alone, Jensen walked to the window and looked outside at the bustling foot traffic and backed-up automobiles.
“Oh, Henry,” she whispered, “where are you?”
Chapter Two
Turning back into the room, Jensen looked around, the expression in her green eyes as lost as she felt.
This was the last place she knew for certain Henry had been and it was where her investigation had to begin. One moment he had been here, sleeping in that bed—or at least one of the beds—looking at the view from that window, walking on this floor, and the next he had disappeared into thin air.
She still didn’t know whether or not he’d been kidnapped. What had that final call she’d received in Wisconsin meant? She’d waited desperately for a call back, but none had come. No one had asked for money. Only that she come here in person.
Well, she was here. The question was, what was her next move? Would that caller contact her here? Should she strike out on her own to see what she could find?
She knew very little, despite all of her investigating before she’d come. Only that Henry had checked out of the hotel, apparently voluntarily, gotten into a long, dark limousine with someone he appeared to be on friendly terms with and vanished.
Jensen had called everyone she could think of to help her find him, but no one, not even the editor of the magazine he wrote for in New York, seemed concerned that this thirty-two-year-old man was missing.
She supposed she couldn’t blame the editor. According to her, Henry was doing things like this all of the time.
Jensen tried to quell her rising panic. Henry was her only family. She adored him. He was always coming and going from her home in Wisconsin. He didn’t really have a home of his own. Just a small, two-room apartment in New York that he visited a few times a year to pick up different clothes. Jensen had flown there just a day ago and searched it thoroughly without finding a single clue.
It was the farmhouse she knew he considered home—because she was there and because he had plenty of room and silence in which to roam and think and write.
What angered her most at the moment was Michael Hassan. She had called and called the man—this man who was supposedly her brother’s best friend. He had called back only once while Jensen had been in New York and left a message with Mrs. Sherman asking her to tell Jensen to stay put in Wisconsin; that he’d check into things in his country, find Henry and have him give her a call so she could stop worrying.
And that was it.
He hadn’t called again.
Did he really expect her to do nothing? To sit and wait for him to decide, when it was convenient for him, to call her back about the fate of her brother?
Not a chance.
Not that she had really given him time to contact her. Jensen had flown out of New York a mere two days after that call and now she was here.
But he knew when she’d be arriving and not only hadn’t he bothered to pick her up at the airport, but he hadn’t even left a message for her at the front desk.
Some friend he was turning out to be;
Everyone, without exception, seemed to think she was worrying about nothing. What no one seemed to understand, though, was that if Henry had suddenly decided to follow a hot lead on a story, he would have called her. He knew she was expecting him; he knew how she worried about him; he would never have left her hanging like this. Granted, he wasn’t the most reliable person in the world, but in his consideration of her, Henry was unwavering.
Almost unwavering.
There was the occasional waver. But just occasional.
This time, though, Henry hadn’t called. To Jensen, that meant only one thing: he couldn’t.
Her eyes filled with warm, unwanted tears. If anything had happened to him...
She dashed the backs of her hands across her eyes and instantly pulled herself together.
Michael Hassan was simply going to have to help her find Henry. That was all there was to it. And if she had to track him down and back him into a corner to get him to help, that’s exactly what she’d do. Michael Hassan didn’t know who he was messing with. When it came to her Henry, Jensen didn’t understand the word no.
Jensen took a deep breath.
Michael Hassan. Humph.
But that man aside, there were things Jensen had to do. Like check the room.
She knelt on the floor and looked under first one bed and then the other hoping to find anything at all.
She looked behind the mirror on the dresser and ran her fingers along the back of it, looking for any kind of anomaly.
She not only opened every drawer, but pulled each one completely out and checked not only the bottoms, but the interior of the dresser itself, as well as beneath and behind it.
Crawling on her hands and knees, she went over every inch of the closet.
The same with the heavy drapes that blocked the burning rays of the sun. Every pleat, every seam, every hook was tirelessly examined.
Nothing.
Not that Jensen had seriously expected to find anything, but she had hoped.
The hotel had faxed her the list of Henry’s telephone calls. There had been several to his magazine, one to her, two to Michael and several local calls, three to the same number. That was it.
Jensen looked at her watch. It was getting late and she wanted to get
to the embassy before it closed for the day.
Pocketing her key, she left her room, stopping at the front desk to speak to the man who’d checked her in. “I’m going to the embassy now. In the apparently unlikely event that Mr. Michael Hassan comes while I’m out, please ask him to wait for me. It’s imperative that I speak with him as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Miss O’Hara.”
As soon as she walked out of the air-conditioned hotel, the heat hit her with such force that it literally sucked the air from her lungs. She stopped walking for a moment. How could people live in this climate?
As soon as she had the thought, she pushed it away. They did live in it, and she was going to have to get used to it because she didn’t know how long she was going to be here.
Moving through the crowds of people on the street and standing out the way only a woman in a sundress could among a population of robed and veiled citizens, Jensen walked, so wrapped up in her thoughts that she was oblivious to the stares.
And completely unaware of the ebony-skinned man wearing indigo blue robes and headdress, following right behind her.
When Jensen walked through the wrought-iron embassy gates, the man took a position to one side, standing so erectly he appeared to be at attention.
She still didn’t notice him particularly as she showed her passport to the guards at the front entrance. One of them opened the door for her and let her pass inside.
She crossed an intricately laid marble floor to the receptionist, her shoes clicking on the hard surface and echoing through the room.
“May I help you?”
“Yes. I’m Jensen O’Hara. I have an appointment to see Mr. Clayton Turner.”
“I’m sorry, Miss O’Hara, but Mr. Turner has left for the weekend.”
“Oh, no,” said Jensen, sure that there had been some kind of misunderstanding. “That’s impossible. He knew I was coming. We spoke on the telephone two days ago. He assured me he’d be here this afternoon when I arrived.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. O’Hara. These things happen. He had some personal business to attend to.”
Jensen agitatedly rubbed her forehead. “Is there someone else I can speak with? My brother is missing and...”
“Yes, I know,” said the receptionist. “We’re all concerned. Mr. Turner has full charge of the matter and he’s been diligently looking into it. If you’ll leave me a number where you can be reached, he’ll call you on Monday morning to fill you in on any progress.”
The Sheik's Mistress Page 2