Reasonable Doubt

by Carsen Taite

  Sarah relented. “Fine, if you don’t call, count on me showing up on your doorstep again. I need to run to the restroom. Get the check and I’ll be right back.” Sarah didn’t wait for Liz to answer before taking a circuitous route and doubling back out the front door. Once she reached the sidewalk, she paused to look around, finally spotting the dark blue hoodie in the crowd. She strode briskly, not wanting to attract attention by running down the street. She quickened her steps and pulled right up alongside, sliding her arm to hook through Ellery’s. Ellery stopped abruptly and looked over at her, a frown on her face.

  “Don’t do anything to draw attention to us,” Sarah said. “I just want to ask you something.”

  “They have phones for that.”

  “I’m thinking you probably don’t trust your phone right now, am I right?”

  “That would be correct. I don’t trust you either, so that puts us at a bit of an impasse.”

  “I figured as much when you didn’t show up last night.” Sarah resisted sharing that she knew where Ellery had actually gone the night before. No sense scaring her off by letting her know her every move was being watched. “Look, I meant what I said about wanting to talk to you with no strings attached. Are you still up for that or is daddy dearest going to object?”

  “Leave my father out of this.” Ellery barked the words. “If you want to talk, start talking.”

  Sarah looked over her shoulder, wondering how much time she had before Liz started getting anxious. “I can’t right now.”

  “Because you’re on a date?”

  “What? Oh, the woman at the restaurant? She’s a colleague.” Sarah peered into Ellery’s eyes and the skeptical look she saw there surprised her so much she didn’t catch her next words in time to keep from blurting them out. “You’re jealous.”

  Ellery’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m in the middle of a crisis and you think I have a thing for the person who put me here?”

  Sarah started to protest. She hadn’t put Ellery in this position at all, and she certainly wasn’t responsible for Ellery’s choices about which clients to represent and what advice to give them, but none of that really mattered. No matter how much she denied it, Ellery was jealous and Sarah liked it. She leaned closer. “You may not like me now, but last week when we met for coffee, if we hadn’t been interrupted, you would have asked me out on a real date. Am I right?”

  She watched as Ellery opened her mouth and then quickly shut if before speaking. Frustration, confusion, aggravation took turns toying with Ellery’s expression, but still she didn’t say anything. Meanwhile, Sarah was laser focused on her lips. They were full and beautiful, and she imagined they were both soft and strong. If she moved forward just a bit more, maybe she could run her tongue along the edges, inviting a slow, delicious, lingering kiss.

  “We can’t do this.”

  Ellery’s breathy words shook her out of her kissing fantasy, but the haze of desire remained, shooting sparks of heat throughout her body. She met Ellery’s eyes, almost black with arousal and realized how close they’d both come to succumbing to want over need. No matter how much they shared the desire, Ellery was right. She had a job to do and getting close to the suspect didn’t mean getting in her pants. She pulled a card from her pocket and handed it to Ellery. “You’re right, but we still need to talk. Call me when you’re ready.”

  Ellery slid the card into her back pocket without giving it a glance and slipped back across the crowded street. Sarah had no idea if she would call, but as she walked back into the restaurant, all she could think about was how once again her job had robbed her of the chance to have a personal life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sunday morning, Ellery trudged outside to retrieve the paper from her front lawn. It was still dark outside, but she hadn’t been asleep for hours. Dogged by thoughts of the things that had gone wrong in the last two days, she’d given up around four a.m. and spent several hours examining the files she’d downloaded from Meg’s computer. She wondered if either Meg or Kyle had figured out they’d had a breach yet. More likely some poor cleaning lady would get in trouble for forgetting to lock the rear door and set the alarm.

  She’d read through the files several times. Sadeem Jafari ran a foundation called the Global Enterprise Alliance. The paperwork for the foundation made it sound a lot like the charity Amir Khan had discussed with her father. She’d Googled both organizations and they appeared to be connected to a lot of the same work. Amir and Sadeem ran in the same circles, but ostensibly those circles were respectable. She found it hard to believe the Amir she knew would have anything to do with the bombing or any of the acts of violence associated with Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

  “Hey, girl, you going to read that paper or just stand there holding it?”

  Ellery looked over at Leo. He was propped up with his own copy of the Dallas Morning News spread out on his lap, drinking from a glass of orange juice that was probably spiked with vodka. “You’re up early.”

  “Can’t get a jump on things if you spend your time sleeping in.”

  “I’m ready for things not to be so jumpy. Hopefully, circumstances have calmed down for a bit. You can be sure the government will take their time combing through all my files before they decide what to do to me.”

  “Pretty odd no one’s claimed responsibility for the bombing, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.” Ellery had given the same fact considerable thought. She knew it was likely the government knew more than they were letting on, but unlike the Boston Marathon bombing where the suspects were arrested within days, several weeks had passed with no definitive statements from any federal agency other than the searches executed on Friday. Did they really not know anything? If so, that meant they were definitely on a fishing expedition with their searches. If you’d agreed to hear what Sarah had had to say, you might have a better idea of what’s going on.

  Sarah. She flashed back to Sarah accosting her on the street the day before, looking every bit as gorgeous in jeans and a T-shirt as she had in her fancy red cocktail dress on Friday night. She’d seen a lot of her this weekend, but none of it under the circumstances she would have preferred. She’d run the whole gamut when it came to Sarah Flores, from thinking she was just another annoying, know-it-all federal agent to being captivated by her charm over coffee. Now Sarah was solidly defined as adversary.

  But, adversary or not, Sarah had information and right now, information was power and Ellery was sorely lacking in that particular commodity. She’d stalked off yesterday morning, fueled, she realized now, by pride, but she’d kept Sarah’s card, just in case. The card was sitting on her kitchen counter, the front a sterile recitation of Sarah’s official contact information, but on the back in perfect cursive, the words “Call me” written above a number. She’d tossed the card on the counter when she got home yesterday and tried to avoid looking at it the rest of the day, but if she was being honest, she’d have to admit its presence, its possibilities, were part of the reason she’d been unable to sleep.

  “I think they know more than they’re letting on,” Leo said. “Probably think if they rattle enough cages, they can distract from the fact they’re hiding the truth.”

  Ellery nodded. Leo’s assessment might not be far from the truth. And caged was a good word for how she was feeling right now. Without access to funds other than the money Karen had fronted her from Friday’s sales and without access to the facts of the case the government was building against her, she was trapped.

  Call me. She’d stared at the card for so long, she could recite the number on the back from memory. Would contacting Sarah be a trap or a way out?

  *

  Sarah knocked on the door again and resumed pacing. She’d waited all night for the call and now that she’d gotten here, she was chomping at the bit, certain she was on the edge of breaking a piece of this case wide open. She’d about decided to bust in, when the door swung wide open and she was standing face to fa
ce with a young blond woman. “Hannah?”

  The girl nodded and motioned for her to come inside. Hannah Dawson was very pretty, but the dark circles and puffy skin around her red eyes signaled she had probably been up most of the night and had spent a lot of it crying. Sarah could only imagine the heart to heart she and her mother had had. Liz had been worrying about her daughter being involved with someone capable of committing horribly violent acts in the name of some crazy jihad for almost a week. That worry had probably burst forth like a volcano erupting when she saw Hannah for the first time since she returned from spring break.

  Sarah wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t called Liz on her actions yesterday. Would she really have confronted Hannah at all or would she have just tried to overlook her daughter’s transgressions? From a clinical perspective, she knew it was hard to see fault in the people you care about.

  You don’t see fault in Ellery.

  But that’s not because I care about her. It’s because my trained eye doesn’t detect any sort of deception when it comes to her.

  You almost kissed her on the street yesterday.

  So what if I did? That wasn’t about caring. It was pure attraction.

  Right.

  Sarah took a deep breath. She needed to shut down the argument in her head, compartmentalize her thoughts about Ellery, and focus on the girl in front of her. With any luck, she would have details that would not only lead them to more information about the bombing suspect, but would clear Ellery. And then what?

  “You must be Agent Flores.”

  “Just call me Sarah. Where’s your mom?”

  Hannah pointed inside and led the way. Sarah followed, using the time to take in more details about the apartment than she’d garnered the day before. The living space was nice with family photos and personal mementos scattered about. It definitely had a more homey feel than her place. Liz was sitting at the kitchen table, reading through what looked like a diary. She looked as Sarah approached. “Thanks for coming. Can I get you anything? Coffee, OJ?”

  “Coffee would be great.” Sarah watched Liz nod to Hannah who responded to the silent order with no sign of teenage rebellion.

  “Sugar and cream?”

  “Just cream, thanks.”

  As Hannah prepared her drink, Liz pushed the journal she was reading across the table to Sarah. “You’re going to want to take a look at this. I’ve flagged the important dates.”

  Sarah opened the journal and read the inside cover. This diary belongs to Hannah Dawson. If that’s not you, then get out. The writing was surrounded by drawings of horse heads, flowers, and butterflies. Not your typical girlfriend of a terrorist kind of stuff. Sarah shot a look at Hannah who met her eyes with a slight grimace. As much as she hated violating Hannah’s privacy, she wasn’t about to get in between mother and daughter. She flipped to the first entry Liz had flagged.

  I don’t get what he sees in me. Lacy says there’s something off about a college guy who wants to date someone in high school. She’s jealous. I can tell. And she should be. Her boyfriend, Jason, is a dick, like most of the guys at our school. Besides, Mom always says girls mature faster than boys, which means me and Michael are really about the same age.

  The entry was dated eight months ago. Sarah thumbed through the journal and noted the last flagged entry was two months after that. She knew without asking that the Michael in the journal was Michael Barstow aka Hashid Kamal. She’d looked up the origin of the name last night. Hashid meant one who rallies people and Kamal meant perfection. Interesting choice.

  She shut the journal and looked up at Liz and Hannah. She wasn’t here to read lines on a page. She wanted to hear what Hannah had to say about her involvement with Hashid and learn what she could from her expressions during the telling. “So he went by Michael when you first met him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you still dating him when he changed his name?”

  “For a while. He’d been acting strangely. I know he went by the name Hashid in some circles, but he didn’t ask me to call him that until just before we broke up.”

  “Who broke up with whom?”

  “It was kind of mutual. He got arrested. He was charged with a felony. He said it was just some prank, but I explained to him that my mom was a cop and if she found out, she’d kill us both.”

  “What was his response?” Sarah watched while Hannah darted an anxious glance at her mom. Sarah could tell she had something else to say, something she didn’t want to say in front of her mother. Well, the time for secrets had passed. “It’s important that you tell me everything. Even things you think might not be important.”

  “He said my mother had no power over me because she’s a woman. And then he said that if I was going to be with him, I would need to obey him.”

  Sarah held back a laugh at the absurdity of a twentysomething boy trying to subjugate a teenage girl. The look on Hannah’s face told her that Michael/Hashid’s request had shaken her up. “And what happened next?”

  “We had a fight. I told him that was bullshit and he told me there were plenty of young blond girls who would do whatever he said because…because…”

  “Because what?”

  “Well that’s when it got kind of crazy. He said other girls would do what he wanted because he was headed for glory.”

  “Glory? He used the word glory?”

  Hannah nodded. “He’d started talking weird, you know, like about the afterlife and stuff.”

  Sarah looked at Liz who appeared to be growing increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. “Okay.” She decided to take a different tact. “Do you know what he was arrested for?”

  “He broke into a building with his brother and some of his friends. That’s pretty much all I know about it.”

  Trusting that people usually knew more than they thought they did, Sarah pressed for more. “How about the friends—do you know who they are?”

  “Some guy named Akbar, they go to college together, and Akbar’s cousin, Naveed Khan. He goes to my school.”

  Sarah instantly recognized the name of Amir Khan’s son. She could tell by Liz’s expression she did too, but she did her best to mask her response. “Uh huh. How well do you know Naveed?”

  “Not well. He’s a senior. He’s really popular and I think he’s going to Princeton next year. That’s about it. Michael never really introduced me to his friends, and Naveed and I don’t really run in the same crowd.”

  Something she’d said earlier about Michael kept bothering Sarah. “Did any of these other guys act like their girlfriends were supposed to obey them?”

  Hannah cocked her head. “Brian had a girlfriend, but I never met her. I don’t know about Naveed. If he was seeing someone, she probably went to another school. Akbar was going with this girl, but she didn’t act like the type who obeyed anyone. I only met her once, but she was kind of a bitch.” Hannah shot a look at her mom who sighed. Sarah was glad she didn’t have to stick around for the aftermath of this conversation.

  She spent the next hour asking Hannah everything she could think of about her relationship with Michael Barstow until she was satisfied that if Michael had been involved in the bombing, Hannah didn’t know a thing about it. If it turned out Michael was involved, Hannah would face much more aggressive questioning from other agents, but Sarah was satisfied she’d learned all she could.

  When she signaled she was ready to leave, Liz walked her out of the apartment. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think you have a very normal teenage daughter who was smart enough to stop seeing a kid who got in trouble with the law and tried to boss her around. Not sure you could hope for better than that.”

  “I suppose. But now what?”

  Liz was smart enough to know it wouldn’t end here, not since she’d stirred the pot by alerting Mason and subsequently HSI to the records they’d found. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s best if Hannah stays with you for a few days. Until we get thing
s sorted out.”

  “She’s supposed to go to her father’s, but I think I have some leverage here.”

  “I’ll call you later. Let me know if she thinks of anything else.”

  Half an hour later, Sarah was back at her apartment, agitated and alone. She was convinced Hannah had been dating a terrorist wannabe if not the real thing, and the prospect made her glad she didn’t have kids of her own. Oh sure, they were cute when they were tiny, sucking their thumbs and crawling around on the floor, but teenagers were a force to be reckoned with. If anything, it was even harder as a single parent.

  At the rate she was going, single was all she ever would be. The entire purpose of moving to Dallas and taking this job had been to get the rest of her life on track. She had a plan. Meet a gorgeous, smart woman. Date for a respectable amount of time. Get married and move in together, not necessarily in that order. Children were a definite maybe.

  So far, she’d met the gorgeous smart woman, but unfortunately, Ellery Durant was also a suspect in a case, and although she knew deep in her soul that Ellery couldn’t be responsible for what happened the night of the bombing, she knew that by accepting Trip’s request to investigate her, she had killed any chance she had for something romantic with Ellery.

  She walked into the kitchen to make a drink. Just because she had to work on the weekend, didn’t mean she didn’t get thirsty. A stiff vodka tonic would make the computer work she was about to do a little more palatable.

  She’d just squeezed a lime into the glass when her phone rang. She picked it up off the counter and stared at the screen. Ellery’s home number blinked with each ring. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and answered. “Flores.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Truth?”

  “Of course.”

  “Making a stiff drink.”

  “Sounds professional.”

  “It’s Sunday. What should I be doing?”