Stolen Hearts

by Elise Noble

  “You know I’m eating, right?”

  He just grinned and waved one of the autopsy photos in my face. “Horrifying what a fish can do, isn’t it?” His smile faded. “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “There were marks scored on her vertebrae too. L1 and L2.”

  Top of the lumbar spine. “Teeth marks?”

  “Possibly, although they don’t look like it.” He passed me another picture, this time out of need rather than a desire to put me off my breakfast. “What do you think?”

  I thought it was a miracle the Dahab Police Department had invested in a decent photocopier. The close-up showed two shallow lines slashing across both vertebrae. But while barracudas had strong jaws and teeth that could shear through bone, there was something wrong with the picture.

  “It’s not a fish. These two lines together? They’re not parallel. They converge at the bottom. If it was a barracuda, the lines would be equidistant all the way down.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So they’re more likely to be knife marks, meaning the two deaths probably are connected.”

  “Again, agreed.”

  “And if the marks came from a knife, whoever used it must’ve gone to some effort to cut into the bone on both Carmela’s back and her front. Maybe he was angry?” Which was worrying—anyone who could exercise that degree of fury had a serious problem. “What does the report say?”

  “The ME drew no conclusions. Interestingly, he doesn’t say she drowned either, which means al-Busari came up with that on his own. And the ME did send samples for a toxicology test, which means Khaled’s got more work to do.” Black huffed. “We need those results. Hope that doesn’t waste another day—we got lucky this afternoon.”

  “Lucky?”

  “A drone flew past at exactly the right moment. Al-Busari ran out of the station after it and didn’t even bother to lock his desk. Khaled tells me the man’s had a problem with drones ever since one distracted him into crashing his car.”

  “Luck? That wasn’t luck. That was minutes of careful planning and a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bribe.”

  “You did that?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. I’m not just a pretty face, Chuck.”

  Black took my left hand and brought it to his lips. Kissed my wedding rings.

  “No, Mrs. Black. You’re everything.”

  CHAPTER 23 - EMMY

  TURNED OUT GETTING the toxicology report wasn’t as tricky as we thought. The ME had noted the name of the lab on the autopsy report, and while Khaled was in al-Busari’s office, Black had got him to stick one of Mack’s special USB drives into the captain’s computer. Now that Mack had access to the captain’s email, all Khaled had to do was call the lab and issue a kick up the backside on the captain’s behalf. An administrator assured us the report would be sent over later that day.

  Meanwhile, Black papered one wall of the living room and started writing. He always said he thought better with a pen in his hand, no matter how many fancy programs were available to organise his notes, and left to his own devices, he’d soon create a network of messy lines and scrawled ideas.

  That left me to carry on where I’d left off this morning—with the hunt for Javier Martinez and Marten B. In between rabbit duties, I’d searched online, checking freediving forums and Dahab noticeboards for our two mystery men, but the only Javier Martinez I’d found was based in the Maldives and denied ever having been to Dahab. Now I needed to head into town. A quick freshen-up—life was too short to waste messing around with my hair, and I’d mastered the art of the three-minute shower years ago—and I was ready to go.

  “Laters, Chuck.”

  He pulled me in for a searing kiss, and I nearly didn’t make it out the door. His shorts rode low on his hips, and I wanted to stay and run my tongue down that deep V of muscle, not visit every freediving centre in town in search of a man who might once have bought organic vegetables.

  But Black read my mind and opened the door for me.

  “Break a leg, Diamond. And if you come back with any more pets, I’ll break your damn neck too.”

  “Okay, okay. No more pets.”

  Right at that moment, I only wanted to find the animal who’d murdered two young women and castrate him.

  “Hey!” Zena ran up to me as I headed for the car. “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going into town. You’re going to keep out of Black’s way and feed the rabbit.”

  “But—”

  If I’d just been going shopping, I’d have let her tag along, but having to keep an eye on a teenager while I asked questions and concentrated on people’s body language would only slow me down.

  “You should spend some time with your family. Why don’t you ask Bob if there’s anything you can help with?”

  “That’s so boring.”

  “Not everything in life is fun. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  I started from the north end of town, near Assalah, calling at each freediving centre on the list I’d put together—eleven of them in total. I stuck reasonably close to the truth with my story—that I was a private investigator hired by a grieving family to investigate Gosia Kaminski’s disappearance, and we thought she may have visited a freediver named Javier Martinez on the last day she was seen. And, by the way, did they happen to have heard of Marten B, spelled the Scandinavian way?

  All I got from the first ten centres were shakes of the head and shrugs of the shoulders. Nobody seemed particularly evasive, just clueless. What if I couldn’t find the guy? Should I start trying the scuba centres? Because there were three times the number of those.

  And as I trekked down the side streets around the lighthouse, I began to notice an increase in activity. People out in their yards moving patio furniture, restaurant staff stacking chairs and tables and carrying cushions inside.

  “What’s happening?” I asked a waiter carrying an electric fan.

  “It’s going to rain tonight.” He seemed kind of nervous, breathless, barely pausing as he hurried past.

  For a Brit, rain was an everyday occurrence. I’d grown up under a grey sky, splashing through puddles on my way to school in London’s East End. The English weather had been a metaphor for my life at that time. Cold, miserable, and all-around depressing. But here in Dahab, it only rained once or twice a year, and when I say rained, I mean rained. I’d never been there for a storm, but I’d seen the videos, and even weeks later, the aftermath had still been evident—damaged roads, a fine layer of sand everywhere, rubbish spread over the bottom of the bay. On one dive, Black and I had come back with a carpet.

  I crossed the bridge in the middle of the high street, a local landmark built purely for the run-off water to flow underneath. Behind the bridge lay a clear expanse of tarmac that looked as though it should’ve been a parking lot, but cars were banned, the entrance guarded by a pair of Khaled’s colleagues. From there, it was a clear run across the desert to the mountains, where rain would torrent down the old wadis in a few hours if the weather forecast was right, searching for the quickest path to the sea.

  I needed to get back to the hotel. The local restaurants weren’t the only businesses that had to prepare for an impending deluge.

  The Into the Blue dive centre appeared on my right-hand side, hidden down a narrow alley between a spice shop and an art gallery. Might as well tick off the last centre on my list before I headed back to the Black Diamond to help carry things. The rabbit would have to sleep inside again tonight. Black would be thrilled.

  Inside Into the Blue, a young blonde girl was struggling to drag a couch under an overhanging roof on the edge of a small courtyard.

  “Here, let me help.”

  I grabbed one end, and together we hauled the couch undercover. The girl almost tripped over when one flip-flop got hooked under a tree root, but she managed to right herself before she ended up flattened by what was a hideous piece of furniture. Didn’t orange velvet go out of fashion in the seventies?

&n
bsp; “Thanks so much.” Her accent was British, her breath coming in short pants. “My boss asked me to move all this stuff, but…” She trailed off as she looked around at a collection of sunloungers and wooden tables, a rack full of souvenir merchandise, and a small bookshelf.

  “I’ll lend you a hand. It won’t take long.”

  “Really?”

  Helping a fellow Brit in need? It was practically my civic duty. “Sure. Grab the other end of this table.”

  It only took ten minutes to get everything stowed away undercover, and my new friend collapsed into one of the relocated chairs.

  “Phew. Thought I’d never get that done. The boss said last time it rained here, the water came up to people’s ankles in the high street. Uh, why are you here? Are you looking for diving lessons? Sorry I didn’t ask before.”

  “Actually, I was hoping you could help me.”

  “Help you? With what?”

  I gave her a brief summary of the hunt for Gosia. “So I’m looking for two missing people who are possible witnesses. I don’t suppose you know either of them?”

  “Sorry. I’ve only been working here for two months, and before that, I was in Hurghada. But there’s a group of Spaniards arriving tomorrow afternoon for a holiday. Perhaps they’d know Javier?”

  “Any chance you could ask them?”

  “Sure, no problem. Can you leave your number? I’ll ask around too, just in case anyone else has heard of him or Marten.”

  “You’re a star. Good luck with the storm.”

  “You too. I’m hoping the weather forecast’s wrong, but it feels kinda gloomy.”

  Yes, it did. When I got back to the hotel, the staff were scurrying around carrying everything from gazebos to massage tables to a freaking electric stove. Black walked past with a chair in each hand, and Zena ran behind him with the cushions.

  He raised one dark eyebrow, and I shook my head. He did the same in return. No major breakthroughs for either of us, but we had a storm coming through and dealing with that took precedence for now.

  “Grandpa says it’s gonna be real windy,” Zena told me.

  That I could believe—the breeze was already whipping up into something ominous as black clouds scudded overhead.

  “Sure looks like it.”

  “Do you think Crash’s house’ll be okay?”

  “It’s built like a fort, but she can stay inside tonight just in case. Have you put all of your own stuff somewhere safe?”

  “Yes,” she said, but she looked away. Really? Sometimes, her fibbing skills let her down.

  “Okay, what have you left out?”

  “Nothing important.”

  Hmm. “I think you should give your bridesmaid dress to me for safekeeping, don’t you?”

  She let out a noise that was half growl, half screech. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”

  “I was a teenager once too.”

  “Were you? Because I think you skipped that for extra time training with Aunt Lydia.”

  “Who?”

  “From A Handmaid’s Tale? The TV show?”

  “Didn’t see that one.” I rarely found time to watch much TV, and apart from Disney movies, which Bradley insisted on having on in the background every damn day, my viewing habits tended towards sci-fi movies. Or sometimes action thrillers, but I spent most of the time picking apart the plots. “Just give me the bloody dress, Zena.”

  The first drops of rain fell at dusk as Black and I retreated to the villa with a hasty dinner of rice, chicken, and vegetables prepared by the hotel chef. Drizzle quickly turned into a torrent, and I kept an eye on the ceiling for leaks as we ate.

  “Looks like you got a lot done,” I said, studying the living room wall in between mouthfuls. Photos and notes surrounded a large-scale laminated map of Dahab pinned in the centre, and that had been annotated too. There were two lists of names. One I recognised as being from Selmi, and another was titled Khaled’s suggestions, divided into two sections. Eight fishermen and seven doctors. Only two men were on both lists, and both had the word alibi written next to them in green.

  “Khaled and his team have got through half of Selmi’s list so far. All but one person either confirmed Selmi’s account or claimed they couldn’t remember that far back.”

  “All but one?”

  “According to the manager of the White Cat restaurant, Gosia looked out of sorts that day, and when the woman asked what was wrong, Gosia said she’d had a disagreement with her boyfriend.”

  “Did she say what about?”

  “No. When the witness asked the question, Gosia brushed it off and said everything would be fine, that they both just needed some time to cool down.”

  “And Selmi didn’t mention this?”

  “He didn’t. I think I need to have another talk with him tomorrow, assuming we don’t all drown in the meantime.”

  “You’ll be okay—you’re basically an amphibian.” I should have ordered fries instead of rice. This meal was entirely too healthy. “What’s with the map? Are you plotting her route?”

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t look very direct. What do the different colours mean?”

  Some of the blobs were red, and some were blue. Green lines connected them in a spiderweb.

  “Red times are confirmed with the witness, and the blue ones are taken from Selmi’s list. Right now, there seem to be a few anomalies, although those might shake out when we get the rest of the data in.”

  “Anomalies? You mean the route she took? It’s not very direct.”

  “Exactly.” He traced the green line with a finger. “Here, she travelled from Assalah to Masbat and back again, and later, she went from Dahab City to Assalah and back.”

  Assalah and Masbat were at opposite ends of the high street. Not a huge distance—maybe fifteen minutes on foot—but why waste half an hour when she didn’t need to? And Dahab City was even farther away.

  “Who did she speak to on those visits? The ones she travelled a distance for?”

  “In Masbat, she took an order from a French girl. Khaled described her as dishy, but I think he meant ditzy. Said her house was full of crystals and smelled like hash, and when he mentioned Gosia, the girl burst into tears.”

  “A bit of a space cadet. So it wouldn’t have been inconceivable for her to be wrong?”

  “No. The next visit on the list is unconfirmed but more interesting. The Happy Fish restaurant.”

  “Where Carmela worked?”

  “I’m going to speak to Gunther myself tomorrow morning.”

  A jagged fork of lightning in the distance drew me to the window, and as I pressed my nose to the glass, a rumble of thunder rolled overhead. I loved storms, unless I was on a boat. Storms at sea could get messy.

  When I first started this job, I’d struggled with my emotions. I used to lock too much shit up inside, where it leaked out in my nightmares before one particular incident tipped me over the edge. Back then, I’d been a machine, and I used to walk outside in the rain because the sting of the raindrops was one of the few things that made me feel alive. And also because I figured getting struck by lightning wouldn’t be a bad way to go, all things considered.

  It had taken a full-on breakdown for me to realise that my soul wasn’t dead but sleeping, nearly dying to make me want to live. Now that I had a healthier relationship with both my emotions and my husband, I didn’t need the rain so much, but old habits died hard.

  “Where the hell are you going?” he asked as I pulled the door open. Wind scattered his papers, and he made a grab for the pile.

  “Outside.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Probably. I used to do this a lot when you weren’t around.”

  “What, lose your mind?”

  “No, walk in the rain. Dance, sometimes. It helped to wash away all the dirt that stuck to my insides.” I held out a hand. “Join me?”

  He stared for a moment, then rose to his feet with a grace that belied his size.


  “I must be crazy,” he muttered.

  “You can share my room at the funny farm.”

  The deluge soaked me to the skin almost as soon as I stepped outside the door. The security light came on, illuminating the terrace and the white-and-pink bunny house beside it, which was holding its own against the howling wind. Branches whipped around, casting shadows that jumped and swayed. I grasped Black’s left hand with my right and rested my other hand on his shoulder.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “You can lead.”

  “You really want to dance?”

  “Why not? We’re on vacation.”

  For a moment I thought he’d refuse, but instead, he fumbled in his pocket for his phone. The faint strains of “Por Una Cabeza” were just loud enough to be heard over the storm as he led me in a tango. A nice, dirty tango that may have involved some lips and a bit of tongue too. Black tore off his shirt, then mine. Water dripped down his abs, and when he dipped me backwards, I couldn’t resist running the tip of my tongue over his pecs on the way back up.

  Are you surprised we knew how to dance? Don’t be. When we had to bump off oligarchs and politicians, a few social skills made blending in at their fancy parties easier.

  “This is more fun than I thought,” Black said with a rare grin.

  “I’m all about the good times, Chuck.”

  He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Did I mention that we had a ballroom back home at Riverley Hall? We’d fucked against every wall of it. And the floor-to-ceiling windows, although Bradley got really snippy when I accidentally pulled down a curtain.

  “Speaking of good times… How strong do you think that rabbit cage is?”

  “Uh, I think it’s fairly solid.”

  Just like Black’s cock. Thank goodness the hedge around our terrace had grown nice and tall, or some of the guests would be getting an eyeful.

  “Then let’s— Fuck.”

  The music stopped as Black’s phone rang, and I recognised Mack’s ringtone. He quickly answered on speaker.