Found what? I texted back. When the answer didn’t come immediately, I dashed downstairs, meeting Ingram on his way up. “Would you like to have supper prepared here, Miss Martin?”
“Yes, sure. Ingram, how often do couriers come to the riad?”
“As often as necessary, miss. Are you expecting something?”
“A parcel from Venice but it’s already almost 5:00 p.m. How late will they deliver?”
“That depends on the sender, miss. I’ve known them to come very late at night.”
“But what if you’re not here and the riad is locked up for the evening?”
“Then the courier will ring the bell. Maybe he delivers it tomorrow.” He spread his hands.
“That won’t do. I need it tonight. It could be very important.”
“I will leave a sign on the door if it is after 7:00 and say to ring bell. Excuse me, I will go tell the kitchen to prepare supper now. Maybe a chicken tagine, miss?”
“Sure, sure—anything is fine.” I was too stirred up to worry about mere food. Moments later I was knocking on Peaches’s door. For a moment, I inhaled the rose fragrance wafting up from the tinkling fountain and tried to just breathe. Empty bowls sat nearby but the cat had disappeared.
The door opened and there stood Peaches enveloped in a white bathrobe with her face smeared in cream and a cat in her arms. “Meet Fadwa, the house cat. I’m giving this argan stuff a try. Apparently it’s made from the undigested nut droppings of tree-climbing goats. Can’t beat that for a selling point, hey? What’s up?”
I stepped inside a room much like mine only wider and, if possible, even more luxurious, the Moroccan version of the presidential suite. “Nicolina texted me to say that she’s couriering me something from Venice. It’s supposed to arrive tonight.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Let me wash this stuff off. Here, you take Fadwa. Keep talking. I can hear you from the bathroom.”
“It’s good that she found something, yes, but what if the courier’s intercepted?” I leaned against the bathroom door stroking the cat. “I mean, that guy tailed us this morning, which must mean they’re watching the riad. Supposing the courier comes to deliver the parcel and the thugs jump him and steal whatever it is?”
“Wow, you’re, like, one step ahead of me and halfway down the road.” She stepped out of the bathroom wiping her face. “So, like, we’ll have to watch for him, won’t we? Give me a sec to change and we’ll get to work.”
Peaches didn’t do secs, she did ages.
Fadwa took off and I spent the time studying the paperbacks Peaches had left scattered on her bedspread—three of them, each with a bare-chested man on the cover. From there I went on to answering Max’s latest weather-related text, assuring him that the sky was still clear—how often would that change in Morocco?—and that a high had blown in just today. If he were to suspect even half of what had happened, he’d hop a plane in a shot, which would only complicate things. As far as my texts to him were concerned, the weather would remain grand. Finally, I pulled out Evan’s sheets and strained my eyes looking for descriptions of an X-ray app.
“Apparently it’s activated by pressing on an eye icon,” I told Peaches when she finally emerged from the bathroom.
“Cool.”
Minutes later, I watched as she strolled around the little courtyard, studying the foundations intently in her black bodysuit with a loose silk overblouse, no doubt in courtesy to Muslim modesty. “This part of the riad’s original,” she remarked just seconds before the five o’clock call to prayer sounded.
“How do you know?” I said after the call had finished.
“There’s no indication that the foundations have been significantly disturbed in centuries, see? Before I came, I dug up this article on traditional riad construction and they all had a big central courtyard where the pool is now and often smaller ones of washing or housing animals like this. Also, take a look at those timbers up there.”
Craning my neck, I gazed overhead. “Old.”
“Very. These desert climates can preserve wood for centuries. Looks like parts have been repaired like that strut over there but basically she’s the same.”
“Ladies, supper will be served at 7:00 by the pool.”
We turned to find Ingram standing there smiling. So far the man seemed oblivious to any undercurrents between his guests, probably just delighted that we were getting along so swimmingly.
“We’ll be ready,” I told him. He nodded and backed out.
That left us almost two hours to search, beginning with the lounge, which came up solid with no false walls. Next, we moved to the library where Peaches paced out the perimeters with my X-ray app in hand while I tapped on the walls behind the books.
“I’m seeing nothing suspicious, either. How sensitive is dis thing, anyway?” Peaches asked.
“I have no idea.” I unfolded Evan’s cheat sheet to study the instructions again. “He says it will detect metal in stone and concrete within a distance of three feet.”
“So, not all that ground-penetrating.” Peaches was running my phone up and down every wall in a kind of grid pattern. “Dis man must be some kind of wonder.”
“You’re lapsing into dialect again.”
She straightened, shook back her cornrows, and grinned. “Yeah, I am. Tell me about this Evan.”
“There’s nothing to say. He’s been Rupert’s bodyguard and right-hand man for as long as I’ve known him—ex-MI6. Ridiculously talented.”
“Single?”
“I guess.”
“Good-looking.”
“I suppose.”
“And a genius, too, you said.” Then Peaches slapped her thigh and roared with laughter, waving the phone in the air with her other hand. “Nothing to say about him, right? Woman, you crack me up!”
“Why?” Truly, I didn’t get it. I was just stating facts.
“Well, what’s going on here? Did we miss a party?”
We turned, stunned to find June and Joe standing in the doorway, the library looking as though it had been hit by an investigation squad. Whole shelves of books sat on the chairs while I stood in the center of the room holding the cheat sheet.
Peaches flipped a wave at them from the fireplace. “Hi ya. I’m Peaches Williams. You must be the Merediths.”
“Yes, June and Joe.” June stepped forward, looking around.
“What have you girls been up to in here?” Joe asked.
“Waiting to grow into women, I guess,” Peaches quipped.
“Checking the structure,” I said quickly. “Peaches is an engineer and we got to talking about authentic riad construction and decided to check it out.” I hated feeling defensive but crud.
“Seriously?” June was gazing at Peaches with undisguised suspicion. “You’re an engineer? Where do you work?”
“London. Where do you work?” Peaches pocketed the phone and strode toward her, still smiling but wearing an undeniable look of challenge.
June backed up, applying a grin brighter than her lipstick. “I’m retired. Sorry if I sounded confrontational. You just startled us, that’s all. We were just coming in for a rest before going to dinner tonight. Maybe you’d both like to join us? We’re going to a restaurant right off the Djamaa el Fna. Be our guests, why don’t you?”
“We can’t,” I said, entering the fray. “We’ve already arranged for supper here at the riad. Some other time, perhaps.”
Peaches swung around and began replacing the books, Joe helping. “Yeah, some other time.”
After the Merediths had taken off for the evening and we’d devoured the chicken tagine with warm flatbread served with an orange almond salad, we began investigating the rest of the lower rooms. The staff were cleaning up after supper in the kitchen, which left us more freedom to work.
“I don’t think we can find anything this way,” I said, frustrated after we had run the X-ray app over the lounge and nearly the whole parameter of the lower floor. “Maybe it isn’t hid
den behind the walls, after all?”
“Where else would it be?” Peaches said, looking up from where she crouched on the floor. “It has to be somewhere near the foundations or in the floor itself. No place else makes sense.”
“We need that envelope Nicolina sent. Where’s that courier?”
“Did Her Majesty say anything more on what’s coming?”
“No, except to say it was an envelope and very important.”
I stepped out into the pool courtyard, now lit in candlelight and filigreed lanterns, and strode to the door as I had at least five times over the past couple of hours. Now that dark had fallen, it was less likely that a courier could reach the riad safely. Cracking open the door, I peered outside. Quiet, the overhead motion lights briefly flicking on to illuminate the narrow alley. Damn.
When I returned to the courtyard moments later, Ingram was waiting for me dressed in his jacket. “Miss, will you be needing anything else?”
“Just that courier.”
“I will check the main roads on my way home but I am certain it will come tomorrow morning for sure. Do not worry.”
And I was equally sure that it would not come in the morning and that I should damn well worry. If it didn’t arrive that night, it meant someone had intercepted it. “Thank you, Ingram.”
Moments later, Peaches and I were alone in the riad. She bounded into the courtyard with her arm draped in fabric.
“I’m going to make a dash for Shadiz’s and get me that knife. Are you coming?” She was shrugging on her long robe and wrapping a scarf around her head, fastening part of the fabric over her mouth like a veil. “A guy in the souk showed me this. I’ll show you, too. I bought you one on the way here.” Out came a scarf a lovely shade of green shot with iridescence—not my style but gorgeous. “Cactus silk, they called it, if you can believe that. Hold still while I wrap it on your head. There.”
“You look very mysterious,” I said through my veil.
“You, too. That’s the idea. These Muslim women are on to something. Come with me tonight.”
“No way. I’ve got to wait here for that courier. Do you need my gun?” I asked, lowering the mouth covering.
“Keep it. I’ll scare the bejesus out of any of these mini dudes that might try to jump me. Would you jump me dressed like this?”
“A six-foot veiled Wonder Woman? No way.”
“Right on. Be back within the hour.”
I couldn’t talk her out of leaving but watched her stride down the alley with a pit of nails in my gut. “Be careful!” I hissed.
“You be careful!” she called back.
But I wasn’t the one stepping outside the safety of the riad. Back inside, it was just me alone inside the building. I returned to my room, admired my scarfed self in the mirror, and decided to wear it for now. I changed into jeans and my jacket complete with the gun loaded with a fresh round of bullets, pocketed my phone, and returned to the courtyard to wait and work. At least my hand had stopped throbbing, my stomach was full, and I almost felt fortified.
The desert night had chilled so much that unless I stood beside a heating pillar or remained inside one of the rooms, it was freezing. The staff had lit the fireplaces in the library and lounge areas but I continued to stride the perimeters of the central pool, now glittering like a jewel with its candlelit reflected water, using my phone app as a detecting device. Nothing but earth and maybe the occasional lost coin or buried earring revealed itself in ghost outlines under the tiles but maybe I’d missed something. I was distracted. Twice I went to the door to check the alley. Twice I saw nothing.
I was midway along my second round when I heard a cry. My head jerked up and I listened, fear prickling my spine. It came from outside the riad—not a cat sound this time but definitely human. Drawing my gun, I ran to the door and poked my head out. At the end if the alley a motorcycle lay with its back wheel spinning up the dust.
With the safety off and my gun raised, I crept to the end of the alley, peering out from behind the wall at what looked to be a deserted courtyard lit by one streetlamp and a moon far above. No humans in sight but that had to be the courier’s motorcycle with the saddlebag carriers lying there. The locals drove mopeds, not that expensive bit of machinery abandoned in the dust. Then I heard a thump followed by a mew of pain.
I took a step farther into the courtyard. Only then did I see the second motorcycle on its kickstand and a man sprawled facedown in the dirt. Another man stood over him, a knife gleaming in one hand and a large brown envelope in the other—my envelope!
He caught sight of me and sprung forward, the knife raised. I caught a flash of a dark scar across his face and an angry twisted mouth.
“Like hell!” I aimed the gun and fired at his leg, the impact causing him to spin around in a wail of shock and pain, dropping the knife in the process. “Give me that envelope, you murderous bastard!” I said, lunging forward, but he recovered enough to spring at me, giving my face such a wallop that it sent me sprawling onto the ground.
Seconds later, he had retrieved the knife and was hopping on his bike, zooming down the road as I stumbled over to the fallen driver. I didn’t need to feel a pulse to know that sightless stare meant death. Damned if I was going to let that brute get away with that!
17
Nothing infuriates me more than violence inflicted on the innocent—that courier, Maria, me—let alone murdering, thieving bastards in general. And I damn well wanted that envelope back! I was too angry to sit quaking like a leaf inside the riad. When my temper detonates, I’m all in.
Only I wasn’t some hotshot bike rider. I knew enough to get around on open roads but driving down a winding medina congested by stalls and people while following a moving target? Not in my skill set. I didn’t even know where the headlight was at first. And the medina was alive with foot traffic, at least as busy in the evening as during the daylight hours with clusters of pedestrians clogging every path. Luckily, this pursuit wasn’t about speed so much as keeping that bastard in sight. Which wasn’t easy. I’d pulled up my mouth veil so at least the wild woman driving through the streets was somewhat incognito.
My bullet must have done plenty of damage because he seemed slower than I expected and unnecessarily reckless. Blood splattered the dirt as I wound through the paths, a trickle I could follow Gretel-style in some conditions. Pedestrians congesting the lanes meant I could never get close. Once, I saw him wobble into a stall of dates far ahead, sending mounds of dried fruit into the path and people screaming in all directions. I was blocked by a donkey hauling barrels and could only scream for the people ahead to be careful, that the man was dangerous. Whether they heard or not, I have no idea, but soon he was back on the bike, yelling at the stall owner and shooting a quick vicious glance over his shoulder before zipping off.
When I lost sight of him again, I panicked. Straddling the bike in a crossroads, I peered up the shadowy paths one by one, struggling to see a moving bike among the surge of evening shoppers. The stall lights illuminated only the faces of bystanders directly facing the shops. Everything else seemed like a heaving mass of shapes. To add to my distress, my jaw began to ache and my hand throb and I realized he’d hit me hard enough to cut my cheek.
For a moment, I struggled with uncertainty, a few seconds of dark night of the soul. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this badass stuff? Maybe I should just crawl back to the riad and call the cops? Who the hell did I think I was?
Then I heard a man shouting in Arabic with a group of elderly women in hijabs waving their hands in one of the lanes ahead. The women screamed, one of them swinging her shopping bag around as I zoomed up the lane in that direction. Forget uncertainty: I was going to get that bastard.
By the time I maneuvered through the shoppers, he was already well ahead and the press of buildings had opened into a huge square alive with flames, lights, and crowds—the Djamaa el Fna square, the original night circus in all its glory. Never in a million years did I expect to find myself hu
rling on a motorcycle in that crowded arena of wonders, glimpses of fire eaters and snake charmers whizzing past as I maneuvered around stalls and performers. He was trying to shake me by weaving in and out of the wagons and it was all I could do to stay upright in this raucous milling space. And people were shouting at me. “Slow down, lady!”—the only call I understood. Slow down? I was trying to speed up!
If it weren’t for the women on the blankets, I would have lost him completely. I was just maneuvering between a snake charmer and a stall of candied oranges when I saw him far across the square being pulled from his bike by three women. I was too busy keeping one eye on the cobra rising from the basket on my right side to see exactly what was going on at first. It looked like the women, all in veils and hijabs, were trying to help him. No, wait, maybe not because the killer began shouting and trying to push them away—brute.
By the time I’d zoomed closer, I could see them pointing at his bloody leg and saw him kicking at the collection of little pots on their blankets. Henna artists! The struggle reached a pitch by the time I was within yards of them but by then the churlish idiot had seen me and was pushing the women away so fiercely that one stumbled back on her blanket. The others, now enraged, began screaming and pounding him with their fists. Yeah, you give it to him, sisters.
I eased closer, moving the bike with my feet. If I could only get them to hold him down while I grabbed the envelope… But suddenly he flung them off and pulled out that still-bloodied knife. The women backed up, circling around him as he climbed back on his bike, the knife still glinting in his hand, and his fierce gaze fixed on me.
By now we’d drawn a crowd.
I pulled down the mouth veil and yelled: “That man’s a killer! He just murdered a man and he tried to kill me! Stop him, somebody!”
The Carpet Cipher Page 21