Lucy and the Sheikh

by Diana Fraser

  She shook her head at the lies posted on Maia’s Facebook wall. She sent another reply. “Maia, where the hell are you, really?”

  She raked her fingers into her hair with frustration as she stared at the laptop. They’d both sworn to each other that they’d live life to the full. Maia had been dead set against a mundane life of husband and children. It hadn’t worked for their mother, she’d argued, so why risk it? And, Lucy? Lucy had other reasons not to want to tie herself into a relationship: reasons that she never held up to the light to scrutinize, reasons best left forgotten—that way they couldn’t hurt her.

  So, for the last eight years they’d kept to that pact. But now? Lucy didn’t know what the hell Maia was playing at. The tweets and Facebook messages were designed to allay her fears but, instead, only increased them.

  “Damn.” She rubbed away a tear of frustration.

  “Bad news?”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin. Razeen stood directly behind her; somehow the other people in the office had vanished leaving only the two of them.

  “No, I was just—”

  “Let me see, perhaps I can help? Facebook? A personal matter then?” He began to turn away but caught sight of Maia’s photo. “You know this woman?”

  Lucy closed her eyes tight. She couldn’t put it off any longer. Whatever Razeen was about to do, she’d cope. She needed to know. She opened her eyes and twisted round to meet his puzzled gaze. “This woman is my sister.”

  His face froze under the impact of her words before their full significance filtered through the shock and came to rest in his eyes that deepened in hurt and then went cold. “I knew her in Paris.” He stepped back.

  She turned to the computer once more and flicked up the photo of him and Maia. “I know.”

  His expression was so cool it hurt. “From that photograph ‘you know’, or from Maia?”

  “From the photograph.” She fiddled with the computer mouse uncertainly, not wanting to continue but knowing she had to. “You were obviously having fun with her.”

  “Like you think I had ‘fun’ with you?”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “You do, don’t you? You believe I had an affair with Maia and, for some reason I cannot begin to fathom, you’ve come to Sitra, you’ve come to see me, because of it. Isn’t that the truth?”

  His voice was as cold and authoritative as any autocratic ruler about to sit in judgment on a subject, about to condemn a subject.

  “Yes.”

  He sat down and fixed a cold gaze on her. “You cannot assume you know the truth, Lucy, by the existence of a photograph.” His voice was deathly quiet, “Ask me about her and I will tell you.”

  Silence weighed heavily. It was broken only by the whirring of an overhead fan and the distant sound of city traffic. A bead of sweat trickled down her back. The words formed but her throat was dry and scratchy and they didn’t emerge. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “Where is she?”

  He smiled but it was like no smile she’d seen before. “As direct as usual. Unfortunately I can’t answer that to your satisfaction. I don’t know where she is.”

  “Why not?” She jumped up, angry now, no longer able to sit and stare at this stranger who held the key to so much information she needed.

  “As I said, I knew her in Paris. I invited a group of my friends to come to Sitra and she joined us. And, as far as I know, she returned to Paris shortly afterwards.”

  “She came here with your friends. You must know if she left or not.”

  “She came here with me, along with six others. I was busy, I left them to explore. To my knowledge they all left the country by private boat a week later.” He stood up from the chair and strode to the window, his fingers rubbing his head in confusion. “Are you trying to tell me she never made it home? What about those updates posted on Facebook?” He strode over to the computer again. “That one was posted only days ago.”

  “It’s a lie. All the posts for the last few months have been lies. I’ve been to Paris. I’ve checked with the people, been to the places. No one has seen her. The last genuine post is the photo of you and her. Just the two of you, Razeen. It was over four months ago. I’ve not heard from her since.”

  “Then what are the posts you’ve been looking at? Who are they from, if not her?”

  “I don’t know. The police won’t do a thing. They say the posts are proof she’s alive and well. They say not replying to messages isn’t an indication anything’s wrong.” She continued to pace. “They say it’s an indication she doesn’t want to contact me. But…” She took a deep breath in a vain effort to stop herself from breaking down in front of the man who was the prime suspect. He was the only person who could simultaneously give her comfort and yet of whom she was afraid. “But, they’re wrong.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  She bit her lip. “Of course.” She had to be. The thought of Maia not wanting to contact her was too awful to contemplate. She stopped pacing and turned to him. “Razeen, help me, please. I’m scared. I think something terrible might have happened to my sister. Please, tell me where she is…” Her voice faded to a whisper.

  He gazed down at her with a complex expression that still held reserve but which now also held sympathy. “I don’t know where she is now. As I said, I was in Paris with a group of friends. She joined us and we all came to Sitra. That’s the last I saw of her, at the palace. I had one of my assistants arrange travel for them wherever they wished to go. They returned by private boat after a week. I did not check up to see who returned, who stayed. I am not a border official. I had work to do. That, is the truth.”

  “Tell me, I have to know. Did you…did she…”

  “Were we lovers?” His dark eyes searched her face as if he were asking something more than a confirmation of her question. She nodded uncertainly. His lips compressed into a heavy line. “No. She was beautiful and fun but I had other things on my mind at the time. I can’t speak for others in the party.”

  “You know something; you must know something. Did she seem close to anyone else?”

  He shrugged. “Possibly. She’s very lovely and a number of my friends were interested.”

  “Razeen.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew the bookmark. “I found something at the Lodge this morning.” She held it up.

  “A cheap souvenir?” He looped it around his finger and brought it closer to him.

  “That’s right. A cheap souvenir from my hometown. A cheap souvenir that belonged to Maia, that I paid for her with money saved from my job. It was tacky, it was cheap and it meant the world to Maia. What the hell was it doing in your Lodge?”

  He let it drop from his hands. “In truth, Lucy, I don’t know. But I’ll find out.”

  Lucy watched as Razeen called to his advisers and they came running. She watched as he sent them out to their computers and phones with specific requests, barked out in a language Lucy couldn’t understand and that had lost its softness. She watched as he turned back to face her, his expression stern.

  “Come.” When she didn’t move he took her hand and pulled her outside. “Come!” He said more loudly.

  Lucy still wasn’t sure if she trusted Razeen. Her body screamed she could; her mind turned one way and then another as it examined and re-examined his words, his attitude, his meaning, expressed and unexpressed. But it was as if the past half hour had built a wall between them. All she knew was that he was angry.

  “I want to know—”

  “Leave it to my staff. They’ll find out all there is to know.” He took her hand and pulled her away from the office.

  “But—”

  “We need to talk and not here.”

  She looked around helplessly as people busily keyed information into computers and spoke on phones. Her shoulders slumped. There was nothing she could do now. Rightly or wrongly, she’d handed over control to Razeen.

  Still with her hand in his she followed him o
ut of the office. They walked through lengthy corridors until they came to the gardens outside her suite of rooms. She sat down and he paced up and down in front of her.

  “You lied to me, Lucy. Everything was a pretense, wasn’t it? All of it. Because you thought me capable of seducing your sister, and worse.”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that, I—”

  “Don’t give me that,” he shouted angrily. “You slept with me, you made love to me, all the while knowing you didn’t trust me an inch.” He shook his head. “You’re incredible.”

  “It wasn’t like that. I believed you when you said no one had stayed with you at the Lodge before me. I believed that. It was only then that I allowed myself to relax with you, to allow my feelings, my body, to take over.”

  He stood over her. “I don’t believe you. How can I believe anything you say again? If you came all this way to check me out, why would a few words from me alleviate your fears? You’re lying again.”

  She shook her head, unable to frame the words that would convince him.

  “Trust, Lucy, has been in short supply in my life. Therefore I value it. It’s basic economics: supply and demand.”

  Lucy rose slowly, feeling anger mount with every unjust word. “You can’t demand trust—it’s earned.”

  “No, you’re wrong. It goes deeper than that. It reflects your own insecurities, just as it reflected my father’s.” His mouth twisted with uncharacteristic uncertainty, as if he’d said more than he intended to. “I don’t take responsibility for other people’s distrust any longer.” His cold gaze held hers. “I judge them by it. I judge you by it.”

  She swallowed, suddenly afraid, not for herself physically but for what she might have just lost. He began to walk away. “Razeen,” she reached out for him. “What the hell was I meant to think? You were the only link to Maia.”

  “And you made love to me, Lucy, knowing you distrusted me.” He shook his head. “What kind of woman are you?”

  “Please.” She reached out again, found his arm and gripped it tight, as if the connection was everything.

  He stood still. “What? What is it you want?”

  “I want,” she swallowed hard. There were so many things she wanted, she needed, from Razeen. But none she could speak of because she had to put herself second. While Razeen might not know what happened to Maia, he was the only one who could help her find her. Because she knew, just knew, that Maia was in Sitra somewhere. “I want, I need, your help. I have to find Maia.”

  He looked down at her hand on his arm. “And that’s all you want, is it?” He sighed at her brief nod. “I’ll help you find her. Of course I will. I don’t want people disappearing without trace in my country.” He closed his eyes, momentarily. “Rest assured, Lucy. I will help you. I have people working on it now. Go now. Eat. Rest. If she’s anywhere in Sitra I will find her easily enough. And if she’s in France, or wherever,” he shrugged, “well, that may take a little longer but I’ll get as much information for you as I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  His eyes were hard now, so different to how they’d been earlier.

  “Now,” he pulled his arm away, “do whatever you wish but I must go.”

  He turned and walked out the room without a backward glance. Lucy felt grief fill the pit of her stomach like cold stone: grief for her lost sister and grief for the loss of the spark that had filled Razeen’s eyes when he’d looked at her. Now, all she saw was disappointment and anger.

  Lucy went inside her suite and lay on the bed. Her fingers sought the bookmark and she rubbed its smooth surface between her fingers, desperate for comfort.

  I’m coming, Maia, I’m coming.

  After an afternoon of pacing her rooms, Lucy was sitting on the bed, her head in her hands, there was a knock at the door. She leaped up to answer it and found a weary Razeen standing there, hands thrust in pockets, eyes guarded.

  “Prepare yourself for a journey. I think I may have found her.”

  “Where? Is she all right? Tell me!”

  “I don’t know the details. Just a lead. Get your things.”

  Lucy had already prepared her bag and within minutes she was following Razeen down to the garages. They were soon roaring across the desert in a four-wheel drive, followed by another vehicle containing his bodyguards.

  Lucy glanced repeatedly at Razeen, willing him to speak. But his lips were clamped together in an expression of grim determination. She followed his gaze out to the flat desert—more a stony plain than the sand dunes she’d imagined—and the distant mountains that were a startling orange in the afternoon sun. There was nothing but emptiness for miles upon miles. Wherever they were going she could see it was going to be a long journey. She just prayed that Maia was all right, that Razeen was silent because of his anger with her, not because anything bad had happened to Maia.

  The four-wheel drive revved and roared over the bumpy surface and she clung to the door handle. The air conditioning was on low and it was warm and dry in the vehicle. She drank from her water bottle but it did nothing to ease her discomfort. She couldn’t bear the tension any longer.

  “Razeen, you may be disappointed in me, you may hate me, but you have to tell me. What do you know?” Her voice was cracked with emotion.

  He didn’t answer immediately, merely focused on the dirt road ahead.

  She took a deep breath. “Please. Give me something. Tell me she’d not dead.”

  He glanced at her, but the expression in his eyes wasn’t reassuring. “She’s not dead.”

  Lucy fell back against the seat with relief. “Thank God.”

  “I have accounted for all of my party except for one of the domestic staff at the Lodge with whom Maia was friendly. The man is a Bedouin from the place we are going to. I’m hoping he may be able to tell us where she is.”

  Panic filled her. “Why? Does he have a criminal record? What kind of man is he?”

  “I would hardly employ someone at the Lodge if he had a criminal record.” Razeen shrugged. “By all accounts he is hard worker, an intelligent man, who returned to his home around the same time my party of friends left.”

  “And you’re sure they left without her?”

  “Positive. I checked with them all. My friends all confirm she arrived here with them, that she stayed at the Lodge with them, but she didn’t leave with them.”

  “You contacted them! Why didn’t you tell me? What did they say?”

  “It appears she took a liking to the waiter, Mohammed, who I haven’t been able to contact.”

  Lucy let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Waiter? Oh no, that’s not possible. She likes the high life.”

  “I doubt very much that Mohammed would have been able to take her away unless she’d been willing. There’s no indication from my friends that she wasn’t willing.”

  She groaned. “She couldn’t have been willing. Why the hell would she leave the life she’d been living—that held everything she’d always wanted—and disappear into the desert with some, some gypsy servant, waiter, whatever?”

  “They are not gypsies,” he said patiently. “They are an ancient people with honorable ways. Just because you do not know of them, do not suppose they are without value.”

  “I’m sorry,” she rubbed her eyes. “I’m just so scared. How much further?”

  “We are going to the mountains directly ahead, at the end of this road.”

  “I can’t see how you can make out a road here. It all looks the same.”

  “Just as well you’re not driving then.”

  He shifted his glance—as stony and arid as the landscape surrounding them—back to the road ahead. Lucy turned away feeling sick to her stomach, not only with apprehension over Maia but with how her intimacy with Razeen had turned into suspicion and distrust.

  Hours past and Lucy watched a group of buzzards circling high overhead. Life was hard in the desert. She couldn’t imagine her glamorous sister here. Razeen wa
s wrong. He had to be.

  “We’ll stop for the night shortly.”

  “No, please. We must get to Maia tonight. Can’t we keep going?”

  “It’s too far. We started out too late. We’ll pitch our tents in the next oasis tonight and leave at first light. Then, tomorrow we will reach our destination. If she’s there, we’ll find her.”

  “But if she’s not?”

  “Then I’ll continue to make enquiries until I know where she is—inside and outside of Sitra.”

  “Thank you.” Razeen might be angry with her, he might be barely civil but she knew his sense of honor wouldn’t allow him to give up on her search for Maia. Inside she grieved for what might have been but she was just thankful he was helping her.

  “Tell me about her, anything that could help,” Razeen continued.

  “Maia had—has—everything she ever wanted: a great career as a model, wealth, fun. She loved life and loved living it to the full.”

  “Perhaps having everything she ever wanted wasn’t enough.”

  “You don’t know her like I do. You don’t know what our life was like.”

  “Then tell me.”

  She was silent for a few moments. “It was hard for me but it was harder for Maia. Mum died when Maia was sixteen. Dad came back and wanted us to go and live with him but she wouldn’t go. She told him to get out like he’d done when we were young. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him. She left school, got a job and paid the bills and looked after me.” Lucy swallowed and took a deep breath. She’d told few people about her past but now she had no choice. “It wasn’t always easy for her. I had a mind of my own, my own issues, my own problems. But she always cared for me. Did what she could. And then, stuff happened, I left school and we made a pact: to never compromise, to lead a different life to the one our mother led. Maia was wonderful to me, always. She is…”

  Lucy couldn’t go on. The tears threatened and the last thing she wanted was to breakdown in front of Razeen. She stared out the window until her eyes burned, trying to hide her emotion from Razeen but his hand covered her own fisted hand and squeezed it.