by Anne Herries
She went outside into the cool of the night air. Pausing for a moment, she noticed one of the cars used by the crew. The driver was nowhere to be seen, but he had left the engine running and the door open. Chloe hesitated, then threw her bag on to the passenger seat and got in. She slammed the door to and was just driving off when she heard a shout from the house.
She opened the window and shouted that she would return the car when she had finished with it, then drove off into the darkness.
It was a nuisance that she had been seen. If she went to the only inn in the village and asked for a room, Brent might follow her there.
Why not start her journey tonight? A brief glance at the petrol gauge seemed to indicate there was a full tank, which should surely see her through. She had no real idea of how far the fort was, but there was certain to be somewhere she could buy more petrol, wasn’t there? Boys selling cans of petrol had besieged them everywhere they stopped on their journey so she was sure to see someone before long.
There was a bright moon and stars over the desert and she wasn’t afraid to go there alone. She had felt the pull of its mystery the previous night, and wished that she could be out there alone.
She had her map, what else could she need? It was less than a day’s journey, according to the professor, so she could be there within a few hours—and it was much cooler at night. She could complete at least half the journey before the sun came up. Chloe felt much better at once. Yes, it made sense to leave now. She might even be with the professor for breakfast.
She was sure to see someone selling fruit and water as she passed the little outcrops of mud huts used by the shepherd boys she had seen as she was driven to the film location that morning. Everywhere they had been, there was always someone with something to sell.
It was all perfectly easy…and if she got lost she had a compass in her bag. She could join the professor within hours and it would be much safer than staying at the house with that awful Brent Harwood.
Chapter Five
‘What do you mean—you have no idea where she is?’ Pasha stared across the room at the other man, barely able to contain his fury. ‘Or is it that you do not wish her to speak to me? What have you done to her? You’d better start praying it isn’t anything I might not like.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know where she is—and don’t much care. She took one of our cars and just drove off last night.’
‘And you made no attempt to go after her or discover where she had gone?’ Pasha’s hands curled into tight balls at his side as he fought to control himself, a vein throbbing at his temple. He wanted to break the other man’s neck. ‘Have you any idea how dangerous it is for a woman to go off alone out here? This isn’t the city…’
He could see by the expression of indifference on Harwood’s face that he didn’t care what might have happened to Chloe Randall, and the hatred settled into a hard knot inside him. It took all his considerable will power to refrain from attacking him, but he mastered his anger. He would deal with Harwood at a later date.
‘You will regret this,’ he said coldly, ‘if anything has happened to Miss Randall.’
Pasha stepped towards him and the colour was stripped from Harwood’s face. ‘I know you blame me for Lysette’s death,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t responsible—and the child wasn’t mine.’
‘You knew about the child?’ Pasha reached out and grabbed him by the throat, his powerful hands pressing against Harwood’s windpipe so that he choked and gasped for breath. However, he knew exactly the amount of pressure he was exerting, and his victim was in no real danger, though rendered completely impotent by the hold Pasha had on him. ‘You had better tell me what you know!’
‘For God’s sake! You’re choking me…’ Harwood spluttered. ‘Let me go and I’ll tell you what I know.’
Pasha relaxed his grip, then gave him a violent push which sent him stumbling backwards into a sideboard. Harwood choked and heaved, eyeing him nervously as he struggled to recover his breath.
‘Murdering devil,’ he croaked and retreated a few steps as Pasha’s eyes sparked with temper. His expression was sullen, fearful. ‘Yes, I admit I wanted Lysette, and I would have gone to bed with her if she had been willing—but someone else got there first. She was beautiful and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. I don’t know who he was, but I do know he was rich—and he wasn’t American. I think he might have been one of your people.’
‘An Arab?’ Pasha’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re lying. We don’t abuse our women like that. A woman of good family is always treated with respect.’
‘I don’t know about your customs—but Lysette came to me in tears when she discovered she was having a child, wanted me to help her get rid of it. But I warned her it was risky and refused,’ Harwood said. ‘She told me this man had seduced her and promised to marry her…there was some tale about his having done it to bring shame on you.’ Harwood’s eyes darkened with hostility. ‘If you want my opinion, she crashed that car on purpose. She was afraid of what you would say when you found out she’d been dishonoured. If anyone killed her, it was you!’
Pasha’s anger was like a boiling cauldron inside him. It had festered for months, and had erupted without warning. How dare the fool stand there and lie that way? And it was all lies. Harwood had invented the story to cover his own guilt.
‘You are a liar,’ he muttered, controlling his temper with difficulty. ‘Lysette knew I loved her. She knew I would help her.’
‘She was afraid you would disown her. Think about it—what would you have thought in her place?’
Pasha turned away, his own thoughts in turmoil. It was all lies. Had to be lies! Lysette couldn’t have been that afraid of him. One day he would discover the truth, and then Harwood would pay—but for now there were other things that needed his attention.
With a tremendous effort, he banished the red mist of fury from his mind. After Sashimi had told him where Chloe had gone, Pasha had known he must follow her. He could not risk another young woman’s life being ruined by that devil Harwood, but when he’d seen Chloe in that ridiculous costume he had been annoyed with her. He had walked away in disgust, intending to warn the professor of the danger she was running rather than speak to her directly, in case he lost his temper and said things to her he might regret afterwards.
The discovery that the professor had gone off into the desert had made Pasha realise that Chloe was even more vulnerable than he had thought, and he had returned to try and speak with her that morning. Now he discovered that she had taken a car and driven off alone.
Pasha’s mouth settled into a grim line, his eyes dark with an intense emotion he hardly understood himself. Clearly Chloe had found out what kind of a man Harwood was for herself!
What had that devil done to her? Pasha reflected that he ought to have killed him while he had the chance—but he wasn’t a murderer. He might order an execution once a man’s guilt was proven, but that was justice—the justice of his people. Had he still lived in the old way, such things were law—an eye for an eye. It was the justice of men since primeval times. But cold-blooded murder was something else.
Where best to look for Chloe? Pasha was frowning as he got into the car he had borrowed from a cousin and headed off towards the village. There was only one inn. Surely he would find her there?
Chloe squinted down the road ahead of her. Her eyes were tired and she wasn’t sure of what she was seeing. She had been driving for most of the night, following the road through the desert—or what she now realised was merely the edge of the miles and miles of arid country ahead of her. At first she had passed small clusters of mud-bricked houses, which she knew were Berber settlements. She had heard the faint sounds of sheep bells or the grunt of a camel, and known there were people living in those little houses.
But it was hours since she’d seen a building of any kind, and the road had got worse and worse, becoming just a narrow bumpy track. Now, suddenly, it had disappeared completely. There was
just sand out there, flat for almost as far as the eye could see and then rising to what was either a ridge of rock or a sand dune, but too far away for her to be sure.
Would the car wheels get bogged down in that sand? she asked herself, and common sense told her that of course they would. It would be folly to try and go any further into the desert. She simply had no idea which direction to take. Besides, she wasn’t going to get far on foot without either water or supplies. And she hadn’t been able to buy any petrol. She glanced at the gauge and noticed that it still seemed to be half full—surely that couldn’t be right? She gave it a little tap and it shot all the way up to full again and stayed there.
Oh, no! It must be faulty. A sense of panic filled her as she realised she had no idea how much was left in the tank. It was just as well she couldn’t take the car any further into the desert.
How on earth did people travel over terrain like that? Chloe stopped the car and got out to look. She took an experimental few steps forward into the sand and discovered that she sunk into it almost to her ankles. Remembering the tales she’d been told of scorpions and sidewinders, she stepped back hastily on to the road.
What did she do now? She could see a purple smudge on the far horizon that might or might not be the fort or an oasis, but there was no way she could get there alone. Her panic had left her now and only stubbornness had kept her driving for the past hour or so. She knew she had been foolish to attempt to follow the professor alone. She ought to have gone to the inn and waited until Charles Hicks came back—or hired a car to take her back to Marrakesh.
Yes, of course she could do that! Why on earth hadn’t she thought of it the previous night? That’s what she would do, Chloe decided. She would drive back to the village and inquire the best way of getting back to Amelia and the safety of civilisation…
She looked at the car. She wasn’t sure she could turn it around on this narrow track without getting stuck in the sand, which she now realised had been closing in on her for some distance. Looking back, she saw that it would be impossible to turn for quite a while. It had been dark for much of the time she had been driving, and she hadn’t realised how awesome and bare the surrounding terrain really was.
Chloe had left the engine running when she got out, just in case she couldn’t start it when she got back in. It was still turning over nicely as she put the gears into reverse and began to edge her way back over the track.
It was slow going, because she wasn’t as confident in reverse, and she was nervous of running off the road. If she managed to get herself bogged down in the sand, she would have a long way to walk.
Pasha frowned as he left the inn. A few minutes’ conversation with the owner had established that Chloe had not been there. So where was she? Had Harwood lied to him? Was she back at the house?
About to return there and force the truth out of the American, he began to walk back to his car when a child darted out and caught at his sleeve.
‘You look for English lady in car?’
‘Yes—do you know where she is?’ The young lad nodded and Pasha took a handful of coins from his pocket, depositing them into his grubby hand. ‘Tell me!’
‘She went there last night.’ The child pointed towards the desert. ‘She took the road that leads nowhere.’
Pasha cursed inwardly. The foolish girl! What on earth did she imagine she was doing? Did she think the camp the film crew had set up was the way things really were out here? That there was a road she could just drive along all the way…to the fort?
He shook his head in disbelief. Surely she hadn’t tried to find Professor Hicks! The fort was a day’s flight, several days by camel train, which was the only form of transport that could cope with the harsh terrain of the desert. And even then she would need experienced guides…she couldn’t be that foolish!
But of course she could, he realised. She imagined it was all just the way these ridiculous films portrayed it. She probably thought she could just stop a passing Sheikh and ask for directions. It would have been amusing if it were not so very terrifying. Pasha was shocked to discover that he cared very much what happened to Chloe out there in the desert.
He had to find her, and there was only one way to be sure of having even a fifty/fifty chance of success. It was a good thing that his cousin, Mohammed Ibn Ali, happened to be around…
Chloe had been able to turn the car and was driving the right way again when the engine suddenly died on her. She stared at the dashboard in dismay, wondering what on earth had gone wrong, and then groaned as she saw that the petrol gauge was registering empty.
‘Oh, damn you!’ She thumped the wheel in frustration. ‘Don’t do this to me.’
Now what was she going to do? She knew she was still a long way from the village. She hadn’t even reached the first of the Berber huts yet or she might have been able to get help there.
‘I’ll walk, that’s what I’ll do,’ Chloe said the words aloud because the stillness was beginning to get to her. She had been aware of a growing thirst for a while now, and it was beginning to get a lot warmer. ‘It can’t be much further now.’
She didn’t need to walk as far as the village, she thought. Once she could find someone—a shepherd boy or a man with camels—she would be able to ask for help. She got out of the car, slamming the door but resisting the temptation to kick it in frustration. It was her own fault. She hadn’t even considered how she would be able to buy more petrol in the desert.
‘I am an idiot,’ she told herself. ‘A first-class idiot!’
Of course she hadn’t been thinking about anything except how to get away from Brent Harwood, and that had been the reaction of a naïve girl. For goodness sake! All she need have done was lock her door! Instead, she had fled into the night on a wild goose chase.
‘And where did that get you, Chloe Randall? In a mess, that’s where.’
It was comforting to listen to the sound of her own voice. She started walking down the road, but realised after a few steps that she wasn’t going to get far in the stupid high heels she was wearing. She took them off, carrying them for a while and then throwing them into the sand in disgust.
‘Stupid things,’ she muttered, but she knew it was Chloe Randall who was stupid. She hadn’t even brought a supply of water with her. ‘Damn! Damn him! Damn…’
It made her feel better to swear, but it didn’t make the walking any easier. Her feet felt hot now that she had no shoes, and the drifts of sand scattered here and there on the road got between her toes. The sun was burning down on her, and she didn’t have a hat—or anything to cover her arms.
‘Fool…fool…fool!’ she cursed herself, licking her dry lips. She had never realised it was possible to feel this thirsty. And she was beginning to feel odd. ‘Keep going, Chloe!’ she muttered aloud. ‘It’s only another two or three hours…’
She concentrated on the road ahead, but the wind was beginning to blow the sand about and she had to put up a hand to shield her eyes. The road was disappearing as sand swirled across it… For a moment Chloe panicked. Supposing she lost her way? But, no, she could still see the road further on. It was just the wind playing tricks on her.
All she had to do was to keep on walking straight ahead…
Half the morning had gone before Pasha was ready to go and look for Chloe. He had been tempted to drive straight out into the desert after her, but knew that that would only result in a loss of precious time.
He glanced at his cousin Mohammed as he climbed into the passenger seat of the light aircraft Pasha had flown down from Marrakesh the previous day.
‘There’s no need for you to come,’ he began, but the other man held up his hand.
‘My place is with you, cousin. This girl is important to you—therefore all my resources are yours while you search for her. My men are on the ground, and we shall make a search by air ourselves. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.’
Pasha nodded, knowing that his cousin spoke the truth. Although they were
cousins, they had never been as close or as friendly as Pasha was with Ahmad. He did not know why, but perhaps it was because Mohammed clung to the old ways and did not approve of Pasha choosing to live in the Western world.
However, Mohammed had met all of his requests with an apparent eagerness to be of assistance, and Pasha was glad of his help. If Chloe had been sensible, she would have turned back when she realised the road just disappeared into the desert, and with luck they might find her very quickly.
He had tried to discover how much petrol was in the tank of the car Chloe had taken, and his calculations told him that she might not have enough to make it back to the village. What would she do then? Had she got the sense to wait in the car for help to arrive—or would she imagine that no one would search for her?
Since there would probably not have been a search until Professor Hicks returned from his expedition, had Pasha not been there, Chloe would most likely have chosen to leave the car and walk. He had no idea what she had been wearing, but he would bet on her not having had a sun hat with her—which meant she wouldn’t be able to walk far. So they ought to find her somewhere on that road…unless she had become disorientated and begun to go round and round in circles, as travellers lost in the desert sometimes did.
Pasha concentrated his mind on the dangers of dehydration and sunstroke, not daring to think about the other perils that could befall a young woman alone in the desert…
Chloe’s head was aching and she couldn’t see very well. She wasn’t sure whether it was the wind blowing the sand about or whether her eyes were playing her up—but she couldn’t seem to see the road any more. Everything was becoming a blur and she was feeling terrible.
‘Keep going,’ she muttered aloud, licking her lips. Her mouth was so dry…so dry and all she wanted was a drink of water. ‘Where is that damned road?’
