“I do not see them as secrets. It is more important to me that Osman is happy. And I see that he is.”
Farren wasn’t sure she could be so forgiving. “It must take a special kind of person to do what your husband does.”
“My husband works in the background. His life is rarely in danger. Elam…well, his life is always in danger.”
Farren looked over at him. He still spoke with Osman. “Why does he do it?”
“Elam? Why does any man put himself in dangerous situations on foreign land? For God and country? Honor? Duty? Yes, I believe all that. But Osman says Elam has a troubled past and that is what drives him.”
Was this what lurked beneath Elam’s hardened shell? Farren tried not to get too caught up in her curiosity. “What kind of troubled past?”
“He was married once.”
Well, lots of people married and lots of people divorced. But she remembered Elam’s reaction when they talked about his wife.
“Veronica left him in a way that scarred Elam,” Meryem said.
Veronica. Somehow a name made her more real. And the knowledge that Elam had truly loved a woman reached past her defenses and stung her.
“What happened?” she asked.
“The day she left him, she was in a terrible car accident and was killed. It happened the same day she told him she wanted a divorce. Elam did not take it well. He loved her and she died before she could get away from him.”
The unexpectedness of the revelation stopped Farren.
What would you do if she came back to you?
She wouldn’t…
She wouldn’t because she was dead.
Elam had just finished talking to Osman and stood. As he approached her, she could only stare at him while apprehension filled her. She’d spent her childhood accepting crumbs of affection. She didn’t want to keep living like that. And if she wanted change, if she wanted a man who loved her more than any other woman, she had to stop turning to men who only had crumbs to offer.
“We need to go,” he said, touching her lower back. She fought the warm tingle his hand gave her as he guided her toward the door.
After leaving Osman’s house, they’d checked Farren out of the Karia Princess and taken a taxi to a car-rental place. Now they were at a hotel near the marina. Elam didn’t want to stay at the Karia Princess, not since someone had seen them there. He rooted through his duffel bag for his cell phone. Farren stood over by the hotel-room door, uncharacteristically quiet. He had a headache from her talking the entire time they’d lined up a rental car and driven here, and now she wasn’t talking. But he did have an idea what was making her so uncomfortable, and it was more than the threat for money.
“I want you in the same room with me,” he said. “In case someone comes after you again.”
She nodded, but wasn’t any more relaxed.
At least she understood. What did she think he was going to do? Climb on top of her when the lights were off? He felt a smile inch up a corner of his mouth.
After finding his phone, he pulled a picture of Ameen out of a zippered compartment of the duffel and then stood. Stuffing the picture in his back pocket, he looked at Farren. She gripped her hands together and eyed him. Her dainty sandals flattered trim ankles and the white halter dress showcased her amazing breasts. How a woman like her got tangled up in a mess like this baffled him. All her soft curves made her a misfit for this situation. Either that or the perfect target.
“Let’s go.” He headed for the door and the parking lot.
On the way, he pressed Cullen’s Roaring Creek, Colorado, number into the cell. With the phone to his ear, he opened the passenger door for Farren. She got in and closed the door.
“Yeah,” Odie answered.
He climbed into the car. “Odie, it’s Elam.” A quick glance confirmed that Farren watched him.
“Hang on, let me conference Cullen in,” Odie said. “He’s been waiting to hear from you.” Less than a minute later, Cullen was on the line.
“What happened?” Cullen demanded.
“I got the package.”
“You didn’t check in at the scheduled time.” Cullen sounded angry.
“Something came up that I wasn’t expecting.” He glanced over at Farren, who sat in the passenger seat running pink-painted fingernails through silky blond hair and was still looking out the window. Her pretty white dress pooled around her thighs and knees. The Sun necklace nestled in her cleavage.
Unexpected to be sure. Ire tightened in his head, making it ache more. At least she wasn’t talking his ears raw.
He told Cullen and Odie everything, including what happened after he’d kissed Farren goodbye in front of the Hotel Karia Princess. Well, almost everything. Elam left out the fact that he had, in fact, kissed her. And, oh, what a kiss.
“Ameen knew the Gage woman?” Odie sounded incredulous.
“Someone sent him.”
“Wait a minute,” Odie said. “Why was he in Bodrum? Was he casing his next target like we thought or did he know the Gage woman was going to be there?”
Elam had always thought Odie had a tough, brilliant mind. What he didn’t get was why it didn’t turn him on the way it used to. “He might not have known she was going to be there, but once she appeared, his plans changed.”
“To kidnapping her?” Odie asked.
“Yes,” Elam answered.
“Did Ameen know you were chasing him?” Cullen asked.
“No, but I lost him in the marina and only caught up to him when he got into a boat and then boarded Farren’s yacht. I didn’t think he saw me, but I wondered why he motored to that yacht. I should have known something was wrong right then.”
“How could you have known he was planning to kidnap Farren?” Cullen said. “You didn’t even know of her existence until you climbed aboard her chartered yacht.”
“This could actually work in our favor,” Odie said. “If Ameen didn’t know you were following him, he probably assumed you were just trying to help Farren when you came after him.”
“Right,” Cullen said. “He’d have no other reason to think one American man, dressed like a tourist, would be after him. And neither would whoever he was working for. It’s a great cover. You rescue a beautiful woman and hook up with her.”
“You want me to play the part of her boyfriend?” It wouldn’t take much effort.
He sensed Farren stir beside him.
“Okay, let’s go over what Ameen’s boss knows,” Odie said. “He sends Ameen after Farren, but the attempt fails. Someone is sent to watch the marina when Ameen doesn’t show up wherever he planned to take Farren. You and Farren show up, and the guy follows you to the Hotel Karia Princess, where he sees you say goodbye to your new sweetheart.”
“Sounds good so far,” Elam said.
“Did you make it look good?”
“Make what look good?”
“The goodbye. Was it obvious you were hot for her?”
Elam didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Odie was far too good at reading between the lines.
“You kissed her, didn’t you?”
“That hardly matters.”
“It matters a great deal. It’ll dictate how we play this from here on out.”
“Odie’s right,” Cullen interjected. “Just tell us if you think it looked convincing. I don’t need to hear the details…unlike Odie, who gets off on that sort of thing.”
“Hey, I only seek the truth.”
Elam looked at Farren, who’d stopped feigning she wasn’t listening and now focused on his conversation. Her big amber eyes were as innocent as they were intelligent. He wanted to do more than kiss her.
“Yeah, it was pretty convincing.”
Odie laughed. “Perfect.”
“What’s the mother’s name?” Cullen asked. “Odie, I want you to find everything you can on her and the husband.”
“No problem.”
Elam moved the phone away from his mouth and asked Farren, “What was
your mother’s name?”
“Carolyn Fenning.”
“Carolyn Fenning,” Elam said into the phone.
“I’ll get everything I can find on the daughter, too,” Odie said.
“Just Carolyn and her husband, Jared,” Elam disagreed, focusing on the road. “Don’t waste time digging for anything on Farren.”
Odie whistled into the phone. “Getting a little protective, are we?”
“Farren isn’t working with Ameen’s friends,” Elam said. “She’s on our side.”
“Is she beautiful?” Odie asked.
“Odie, quit with the meddling,” Cullen put in.
“I bet she is,” Odie said anyway. “What did you say her full name was? Farren. Farren Gage.”
Elam heard her typing the name on her keyboard. And everybody knew Odie had all the links she needed to get information on people.
“There she goes,” Cullen quipped. “My sympathies, pal. I’ve been where you are before. She’s merciless…”
“Thanks,” Elam said dryly.
“That’s not what I’m looking for,” Odie mumbled, still clicking, ignoring both him and Cullen. “Oh, here we go. Oh, yeah. Lookie what we have here. Long blond hair. Brown eyes. Hmm. Never had you figured for one of those. She’s a knockout, though. A little prissy for you, but very pretty.”
Elam looked over at Farren, fresh as a sunny spring day, watching him.
“What’s she do?” Odie asked. Elam heard her clicking away on her computer. “Oh, never mind. An electrical engineer, huh? Hmm, she doesn’t look like one. I’d have pegged her for an underwear model or something.”
Elam let out an involuntary laugh. He had to agree. He could see Farren as an underwear model, too. In fact, he’d like her to model some just for him.
“Jealous?” he said into the phone.
“You’re not my type.”
“All right, enough tormenting Elam,” Cullen said. “Elam, I’m sending you a team. Tell Osman we’ll need the airstrip in his friend’s village.”
“Will do. But I need one more thing.”
“Shoot,” Cullen said.
“A Delphie Sinclair is going to need some protection until this is all over.” He explained who she was and gave them the sister’s name after Farren told him what it was.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. Tell the team they’re going to pose as my crew. We’re going to Marmaris.”
“What’s in Marmaris?”
“A yacht festival.”
“Check back when you get there,” Cullen said.
“Will do.” He disconnected the call.
“Was that your boss?” Farren asked.
He didn’t answer as he pulled up in front of Asil’s apartment building. There were missing shingles on the roof and the building’s pale yellow paint was chipping. Unkempt gardens more closely resembled weeds. A cracked and uneven sidewalk led to each weathered blue door.
Elam got out of the rental car and met Farren on the other side. He took her hand as they walked toward the building, not liking the neighborhood, or how dark it was getting. At the apartment door, he knocked.
No one answered.
He knocked again. Still, no answer. He glanced at Farren before trying the door handle. She looked around her, as though worried someone would catch them.
He gave her a reassuring smile.
“I’m not any good at this,” she admitted. “This mystery-solving stuff, I mean. I read a few mystery novels now and then, but that’s the extent of my exposure. I think the closest I’ve come to a dangerous situation was the time I blew a stop sign when I was sixteen. A van hit my left front fender. I bumped my head and—”
“It’s okay,” he cut her off before she kept going. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“What if something’s happened to him?” She gestured toward the door with her eyes and head.
He didn’t answer because he was afraid something already had. Letting go of her hand, he turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked. Taking one more look around, he pulled his gun out of his holster and pushed open the door. The apartment was dark. He led Farren into the living room. There was a sagging couch on a faded and torn area rug and a small TV on a square stand in the corner.
He stopped at the threshold of a hall and thought twice before bringing her with him. “Wait here.” He guided her so she leaned against the wall, out of view of any windows. Then he made his way down the hall, pointing his gun in the bathroom and first bedroom. When he came to the second bedroom, he lowered his weapon.
Asil lay on the bed, blood staining the sheet that partially covered him. He’d been shot in the chest. It looked like he hadn’t died right away because he’d reached for the table beside the bed, and in his hand was a crumpled piece of paper. It also looked like he hadn’t been killed all that long ago. Last night probably.
Elam pulled the paper out of his dead fingers. Opening it, he read a blurb about the yacht festival. He looked down at the body.
“I sure wish you could talk,” he muttered. What was so important about this damn yacht festival?
A choked sound behind him made him look toward the door. Farren stood there with her hand over her mouth and eyes round with horror.
Elam folded the paper and shoved it in his back pocket where he’d also put a photograph of Ameen. “I told you to wait.”
Going to her, he put his arm around her waist and led her back down the hall.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” She covered her mouth with one hand and her stomach with the other.
She wasn’t cut out for this. He took her back into the living room and sat her on the couch, waiting to make sure she didn’t throw up.
“I need to look around,” he said. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, taking a deep, steady breath.
He left her there and began to search the house. When nothing turned up, he returned to Farren. Her face still looked a little pale but she seemed more together now.
He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
She took his hand and he led her outside. He opened the car door and she got in. After going around to the driver’s side, he got in and sat behind the wheel.
“I should have just transferred the money like that man on the phone wanted,” she said. “Then maybe that man inside wouldn’t have been killed.”
“It isn’t your fault Asil was killed. He knew something Ameen’s leader didn’t want him to know. Asil didn’t know about the money. If he had, Osman would have known and he would have told me. Things would have been different.”
She still looked torn up about what happened and it gave his heart a twist.
“Asil knew what Ameen and his friends were planning in Marmaris. That’s why he was killed,” he said.
Her lower lip trembled and she put it in the clamp of her white, straight teeth. If she cried, he was going to have to pull over.
“But if I hadn’t come to Bodrum, he wouldn’t have been killed.”
“You forget I came here to kill Ameen. They would have gone after Asil anyway. They wouldn’t have wanted me talking to him.”
“Do you think they knew he was talking to Osman?” she asked.
“No. I think he stumbled onto something and then couldn’t get the information on Marmaris to Osman in time.” The way he’d clutched the brochure suggested as much.
She didn’t ask any more questions, so he called Osman to let him know what happened. He parked at the Marina Vista Hotel.
When Farren started walking toward the hotel entrance, he put his arm around her and guided her the other way, toward the marina.
“Where are we going now?” she asked, sounding weary.
She wasn’t used to people chasing her and seeing dead bodies. He understood that. But she was going to have to toughen up.
“To the yacht charter office Ameen went to.”
“But Ameen is dead.”
“His friends aren’t.” He took her hand
, led her across a busy street, and they entered the marina.
After making their way through a parking area and past the Coast Guard building, Elam opened the door to the Williams Yacht Charter Company.
Inside, the woman behind the counter looked up and smiled. Elam greeted her in English, hoping she’d understand him. She answered in kind.
He pulled out the photograph from his back pocket and showed it to her. Her smile vanished.
“Do you recognize this man?” Elam asked.
The woman nodded. “He was rude man. Yes, I recognize. His name Ameen. Why are you looking for him? Is he in trouble with law?”
“Something like that. Did he charter a yacht?”
“Yes. It is still scheduled to depart.” She typed on the computer keyboard. “Tomorrow. I give them Sea Minstrel. You here to arrest him, no?”
“Did he give you names of anyone sailing with him?” He didn’t answer her question.
“We require on all charters. One moment.” She went to find the paperwork on the charter. When she returned, she turned the page she found so Elam could read it. Farren leaned close and read the names.
They were all Arabic.
“Do you have a piece of paper?” Elam asked.
“I copy for you.” She made the copy and handed it to him with a satisfied smile.
“Thank you.” He folded the paper and tucked it away with the photograph. “Now, I’d like to charter a yacht myself. What have you got available for the same dates our friend Ameen booked?”
The woman’s smile expanded. “We have many nice yachts. I show you and give you good deal.”
“I need a shower,” Farren complained as they walked toward the marina entrance on their way back to the hotel near the marina. She was bone tired. Didn’t this guy ever rest? Would this day ever end? It was hard for her to believe it had been only this morning that Osman had rescued them.
“After we eat,” Elam said.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten since this morning.
“Can’t I shower first? And change? I feel grimy.” Had it only been this morning that she’d last showered? It seemed like days ago.
“You look great. Let’s eat first.” He put his hand on her lower back and steered her to the right before reaching the marina entrance.
Heiress Under Fire Page 6