Sheik's Rescue

by Ryshia Kennie

  “The van hasn’t been moved yet,” Zafir said after he ended the call.

  “You’re kidding me. I didn’t give it a thought...just assumed.” She clenched her fist. Mistake.

  “I just spoke to Destiny,” he said, referring to another of their office staff. “She says the app is still active and the rental claims they’ve been overwhelmed and understaffed.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Jade said with a laugh.

  “I’m going back. See if I can find anything we might have missed.” Zafir offered one of his rare smiles and revealed a second dimple that she hadn’t known existed. “I should have gone back yesterday.”

  “It was dark by the time we set up here,” she reminded him.

  “True, but that’s never stopped...”

  “A Nassar agent,” she interrupted him with a smile. “Nothing you can do about it now. But speaking of yesterday, Stanley said something last night. He said there was something odd about the steering right from the outset. I thought nothing of it with the weather conditions as they were. I thought...”

  “Inexperienced winter-condition driver,” Zafir finished.

  “Exactly.”

  There was silence as they both contemplated what that might mean.

  “Did Stanley end up in the ditch because of poor driving or...”

  “You’re saying that someone knew that I would rent it, that I was picking him up.” She frowned. “So did they want to hurt me or Stanley?”

  “Maybe neither. Maybe it’s a crazy theory.” His fingers trailed over his chin, and for a moment he ran a thumb and forefinger on either side before dropping his hand. “Why did they rent you something like that, a vehicle that I would almost say was too old to be rented out?” His eyes met hers, probing, seeking answers. “Were there other vehicles available?”

  “Of course there were but none of them were appropriate. I wanted something that could hold all his luggage and...” She paused. “I wanted an SUV.” She considered the possibilities. “Actually, there was an SUV on the lot. They said it was rented. I never thought about it. I was running late.” She pulled her hair back and away from her face. “You’re suggesting that there was something wrong with the van? That they wanted me to take it knowing it would break down?”

  “Possibly?” Zafir rubbed a hand along the dark shadow on his chin. “I’m no mechanic. But I’m thinking more along the line of other clues. Something we might have missed. We didn’t go over the van that closely. Destiny is checking into who rented that last SUV.”

  “We didn’t think there was...”

  “Tampering? It’s probably a long shot but something we shouldn’t discount.”

  “I didn’t think of that... I should have thought of some of this right at the time of rental.”

  “There was no need to think about it at the time,” Zafir said. “It was a simple case then. If I remember right, I told you to take a good book.”

  “You did,” she said with a slight smile, grateful for his attempt at humor.

  “I’ve got a text and a name,” he said as he looked at his phone. “The SUV was rented to a group of college students. They took it up to the resort.”

  “No threat.”

  “Exactly,” he agreed.

  “Look, I’ll go back. You stay here with Stan. You’re better with him,” he said before she could protest. “Shock him a little. Push him like we haven’t done yet.”

  “You mean tell him about Morocco? Is that wise?”

  “Yes. But don’t tell him about the will. See what he knows, what he might volunteer himself.”

  “When he hears, he may want to go back, or worse, run again.”

  “He might,” Zafir replied. “But I doubt if he’ll get by you twice.”

  Jade could feel color rise in her cheeks at the compliment. But another thought had her more concerned. “I don’t know if I can stop him if he decides he’s going back.”

  “Let’s do everything in our power to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  * * *

  UNLIKE HIS COUSIN STANLEY, Mohammed would never be a prince and it was all because of his parents, but he blamed his mother most. The stupid hag had birthed him and left him and the latter was the only good thing she’d ever done. He’d been screwed from the beginning. The royal lineage came down through the paternal side and was how Stanley became part of the in crowd and why he, Mohammed, did not. As a result, he despised his entire family. He was only the cousin of a minor prince, nothing more, and that had reflected negatively on him his entire life, or at least that was how he felt. Taking Stanley out would be easy; he’d anticipated he’d have it wrapped up in a matter of days.

  But Stanley had surprised him. He hadn’t expected him to have protection—someone who would shoot back. It wouldn’t happen again. Trust Stanley to get a woman to defend him. He would take her out as easily as he’d take Stanley out. She’d only won the first round because of the element of surprise.

  Stanley.

  The name sent an unpleasant shiver that snaked through him like a bitter tonic. He’d had no use for him as a child, and he doubted he’d become any more impressive since. He hadn’t seen him in a long time, and it was only when he’d been approached about this job that he had realized there was even a problem. He couldn’t say no. The reward was too high. But it was strange. The whole thing had made him uneasy, brought back childhood memories that he’d thought were long forgotten. He’d never liked Stanley. He’d liked Stanley’s crazy brother much better even though he had frightened him. Despite that, he felt no regret about saying yes to taking out Whining Stanley. There’d been better names for him, taunts that had him in tears.

  It had all been so easy.

  In the beginning.

  Now it had all fallen apart.

  “Where the hell has he gone?” he snarled through gritted teeth. His heart pounded with the thought that he’d lost his prey, that he was gone, swallowed up in the vastness of the United States. He needed to get home. He hated it here. But first he needed to kill Stanley and collect what was owed him.

  Time was running out.

  Already his contractor was placing unrealistic expectations on him. Unless something changed, he had forty-eight hours to get the job done. After that, either he delivered evidence of success, or it was not just Stanley who would be on the run.

  He looked at the rental agency’s locating app. He’d finally been able to hack it and at least now he knew where to start. He could see exactly where the vehicle was. The question remained whether Stanley was with it or not. Anything could have happened, and he wasn’t privy to any of that information. What disturbed him was that the vehicle wasn’t moving. After being attacked, surely the woman would have advised that taking photographs in the wilderness was a bad idea. So if they weren’t taking photographs, what was Stanley doing?

  Thirty minutes later he was standing by the white rental van. The sun was just coming up. He turned his flashlight on. The footprints around the van looked like they belonged to at least three people. That was a surprise. Was Stanley traveling with more than just the woman? And if so, who? But the footprints were a confused muddle in the snow, blurring over one another. They were unclear, and even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be much help. He was no tracker. It didn’t matter; he’d take out whoever was necessary to get to Stanley.

  He opened the van door and saw the tourism magazine. He picked it up and flipped the pages. Two pages turned together, one stuck to the other by some type of sticky residue. He pulled the two pages apart and they opened to an overview of the city of Casper, Wyoming, and beside the page title there was a small black mark made by a pen. It was clearly marked for a reason, as if Stanley had decided that was where he would go next. It made sense. There was an airport there. It would be what he would do if he were Stanley—frigh
tened and alone. Have an escape hatch ready to fly home at a moment’s notice. If he hadn’t gotten away from him already, he’d make darn good and sure that he wouldn’t fly home—not unless he was going there in a body bag. His heart sang at the thought of that. Stanley dead meant that he would have succeeded.

  His whole body seemed to relax now that failure didn’t seem so imminent. Now he had a place. But there were almost sixty thousand people in Casper and no firm evidence that Stanley was there, too. Small by city standards, but a lot of ground to cover to find one man who may or may not be there. That wouldn’t stop him. Especially with this much money on the line. Someone knew something, and they would talk.

  “Bingo,” he said with not even an inflection of a smile. He had to believe that’s where he was. He had no other clues. He dug through his pockets and hauled out a half-smoked cigarette and a pack of matches. He lit the cigarette and tossed the match onto the seat, not caring if it burned or snuffed out. He stepped out and slammed the van door, taking pleasure in imagining that that was the gunshot that left the fatal wound in Stanley’s head.

  “Bang,” he said with a laugh. “You’re dead.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It was past noon when Zafir made a U-turn and pulled in beside the white van that listed in the ditch exactly where they’d left it. Snow still coated the van’s windshield and piled two inches high on the roof. He got out of the Pathfinder and walked over to the ditch. He stopped ten feet behind the van. There he crouched down for a better look at the footprints leading up to the van. There were so many, more than just what the three of them had left behind. But it was hard to tell, because they were inlaid in the snow over and around one another, becoming almost a collage of prints.

  It hadn’t snowed since just before they’d found Stanley yesterday although the weather forecast had threatened more snowfall. He moved closer to the van, bent down and saw what he assumed from the size and depth was a man’s print. He lifted his foot, looked at the sole of his shoe and identified the print as his. Then there was a larger print, a sneaker print, Stan’s; and a woman’s, smaller, lighter—Jade. But there was another set of prints, ones that didn’t match the other three. They were lost at points in the jumble of other prints, but the fourth set never seemed to stray farther than the perimeter of the van. They weren’t clear, but what was clear was that someone else had been here. It could have been the rancher, but there were no footprints leading across the field from where the rancher had shot at them. It was possible that he’d come in by road and pulled over, coming to look at the van. That was likely, but his gut was telling him that that wasn’t what happened.

  There was another option. Actually, he thought as he ran through the possibilities, there were several of them. Whoever was here could be a random stranger. He didn’t think that was the best theory. The odds of someone stopping because of an abandoned vehicle, unless they were law enforcement, was slim. Police would have had the van towed. The fact that it was still here made that unlikely.

  But there was a third option that troubled him more than any of the others. It all led back to that earlier attack on Jade and Stanley. The person who had shot at them had never been identified as male or female, as American or foreign, and they were now missing. They’d assumed that it could be Stanley’s cousin, the Moroccan who had arrived at the Jackson airport and then vanished. But there was no motivation. There were only questions. Why had he arrived and disappeared? Who was Mohammed hiding from? But those questions only led to others.

  Who had followed them here? Had the unsub been able to track the van hours later in the same manner they had—through the rental locating device? The answer was yes—the information was there for anyone who was a capable hacker.

  He looked beyond the van and could see Ski-Doo tracks. He assumed that was the rancher checking out the situation. That also explained another set of boot prints, smaller than the other’s but bigger than Jade’s.

  He went over to the van and opened the driver’s side door.

  His phone rang. He looked at the number and frowned. It was Jake. What was the sheriff of Jackson calling him for?

  “Yeah, Jake,” he answered.

  “Zafir. Look, I know that you’re mid-case but I thought you might want to know this. Don’t know if it has any connection, but we had a car theft late yesterday afternoon. A silver compact,” he said, and then went on to give make and year details. “May be your guy, may not, but suffice it to say he was heading in your direction. At least that’s what the witness had to say.”

  “You don’t get many thefts...”

  “Exactly,” Jake cut him off. “My reason for calling you. A shooting and a car theft in that short a time frame. I’d say there’s a good chance that they’re connected. But unfortunately, the car theft is out of my jurisdiction now.”

  “Unfortunately,” Zafir said with a hint of irony in his voice. He thought of the Jackson sheriff’s lethargy and willingness to not get too worked up about most of the minor crimes that happened within city boundaries. The sheriff’s response could have been easily predicted. “Any chance I could...”

  “Speak to the witness,” Jake finished. “Not a chance. He’s already heading home to L.A.”

  Zafir clenched his fist. He’d expected as much of Jake but still... “Did he get a good description?”

  “Nothing much we can go on,” Jake said. “Thirties, male and tanned with dark hair. Foreign, too, I believe he said.”

  Moroccan, possibly, Zafir thought considering the way that things were going.

  “This changes things,” he muttered to himself as he pocketed his phone. His theory about what may or may not have happened at the rental agency was beginning to fall apart. Unless there was more than one unsub, but there was no evidence supporting that theory.

  He looked once again into the van. He leaned far in and saw the brochure still lying on the front seat, but this time it was turned to information on Casper, Wyoming. The pages hadn’t been turned there before. Jade had closed the magazine when they’d left. He’d watched her do it.

  “Damn,” he muttered through clenched teeth. Beside the brochure there was something else, a match. He picked it up. The end was charred. He spun it thoughtfully around between his fingers. Stan didn’t smoke.

  Someone else had been here. He looked long and hard into the distance. He could see the little shanty. There was nothing else. No sign of the rancher, no sign of movement of any kind. He pulled out his binoculars. He rolled his finger along the adjustment knob, focusing on the little building. There was nothing except a lone deer grazing nearby.

  He had suspicions and needed answers. He glanced to his left and beyond the shanty. He’d seen a glimpse of it earlier, a rough country road that more than likely led to the rancher’s home.

  He strode back to the Pathfinder and put it into gear.

  It was time to get those answers.

  * * *

  ZAFIR HAD BEEN gone over three hours, and it felt like six. There was little to watch on television. Earlier there had been no news coverage of what had happened in Jackson and now, all these hours later, it was old news. There was nothing to read and no one to talk to. She hated these kinds of lulls. She shut off the television after only a few minutes, not interested in hearing any of it.

  She doubted that Zafir would find anything. What they had discussed earlier were possibilities, no more. She also knew that he would be in communication only if there was an emergent need. Communications could be intercepted. While there was no identified danger of that, they didn’t plan to risk it. Chances were that she would not know anything until he returned sometime later this afternoon or early this evening.

  They were still waiting for another safe house. Right now, the only thing that she knew for certain was that the new safe house wouldn’t be in either Casper or Jackson, but it would be in
Wyoming.

  Her phone buzzed, and she took the call from their Marrakech office. When she disconnected, she was more confused than ever. There was a record of Stanley’s brother’s time at an institution and a notation that he had died. The death had supposedly occurred in a psychiatric hospital in Marrakech twenty-five years ago. He’d committed suicide, according to one of their senior employees. The administrator stated that all they had was the chart information in a hospital file. But there was no copy of a signed record of death. It was all incredibly puzzling. It might mean nothing at all, but it could mean everything.

  She turned as she heard Stanley come out of the bedroom. He’d lain down for a nap a few hours after Zafir left. She imagined that the trauma and jet lag combined were doing him in. Few people were prepared for that kind of adrenaline rush. She imagined it would tire most people, but then neither she nor Zafir was “most people.” They lived for that rush.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “Please,” he replied. “Sugar. One heaping.”

  She poured him a cup from the pot she’d made only a few minutes ago. She put in the heaping teaspoon of sugar, dropping a spoon into the unstirred mix.

  She carried the coffee over to where he was sitting on the couch. He took it in both hands with a smile and a nod.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” she began.

  Stanley’s full lips thinned and his dark eyes looked troubled, frightened even as if he were already anticipating the worst. Cynically, she thought he should be afraid because since the attack in Jackson, they’d allowed him to coast. Admittedly he’d suffered traumas the likes of which most civilians were never asked to go through. Still, they’d given him time. They’d given him an evening to think, a night to sleep and recoup. It was more than time to push Stanley.

  “My uncle’s okay?” he asked when she’d finished the short version of the explosion on his uncle’s estate.