by Elise Noble
“Motherfucker,” Bob muttered. “I need to find some concrete blocks and fuel the Blue Tang.”
“We should probably talk to him first,” I suggested. “And Lynn. Chris just disappearing could be awkward. What if Lynn thinks he’s dumped her?”
Bob slumped into his desk chair. “Before she met him, after she divorced asshole number two, she went through a massive depression. What if it hits her again? Helping her from here was difficult. Sondra wanted to move back to the US, but this place is our livelihood, and we need to be on hand to manage it. And then there’s Zena…”
“Zena won’t be as upset to see the back of Chris as you think, trust me. But we need to act sooner rather than later. Lynn’s supposed to walk down the aisle in six hours.”
“Will you talk to her? It might be better coming from another woman.”
Why me? “What about Sondra?”
“She’ll be too busy removing Chris’s gonads with nail clippers.”
Somebody knocked on Bob’s office door, and we all swivelled in that direction. The reception manager poked his head in.
“Mrs. Black, there’s an Italian man with a lot of luggage here to see you.”
“Okay, uh…” My head hurt and I needed coffee. “Hide the bags and offer him breakfast, yeah? I’ll talk to him in a minute.”
But what was I supposed to say? I was no good at the touchy-feely stuff. That was Bradley’s domain, and it was times like this that I really missed him. There, I admitted it. I missed him.
“Emmy, how about we talk to Chris and you talk to Lynn?” Black offered. “And then I’ll take you out for lunch. Just the two of us. No teenagers, no dogs, no murderous Germans.”
“Can that lunch be in, say, Greece?”
Because this trip to Dahab was jinxed. Every move we took, something went wrong, and I still had to work out what to say to Lynn.
An hour later, I stood at the edge of the beach, watching as Lynn had words with the florist who’d fastened all the roses to the gazebo. That saccharine voice—it still annoyed the crap out of me.
“They’re supposed to be blush pink to match the sash on my dress. These are more bubblegum.”
The guy took a pace back as she turned to face him, hands on her hips. “I am sorry.”
“How are we gonna fix this? The wedding starts in five hours.” She glanced at her watch. “Four and three-quarters.”
I stepped forward. “Actually, I’ve got a bit of good news about that.”
“What news?”
I explained as succinctly as I could, and Lynn’s focused expression turned to devastation. She dropped the clipboard she was holding, and her eyes glistened with the telltale sign of tears.
“Here, I brought tissues.”
“Are you sure? What if there’s been a misunderstanding?”
“There’s no misunderstanding.”
Black had called me five minutes ago. He’d taken the lead in questioning Chris, and the snivelling little rat had admitted everything before Black hit him where it hurt—in the wallet. They’d let him live on the understanding that he’d pay every cent he owed in alimony, with the same amount going to Lynn in compensation. He’d also pack up her and Zena’s things from his house and store them until she was ready to have them sent to a destination of her choosing. Considering who he was dealing with, I’d say he got off lightly.
Lynn chewed her bottom lip, biting it hard enough to draw blood. “I think I found a picture of her once. The wife and the daughter. Chris told me she was a colleague.” Lynn laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “I guess deep down, I always thought he was too good to be true, but I just wanted a nice life for me and Zena. Oh, heck—what’s Zena gonna say?”
“I think that sometimes, teenagers are more understanding than we give them credit for.”
Zena was gonna have a fucking party.
I half expected Lynn to crumple onto the sand, but instead, she straightened. Perhaps she took after Bob in some ways after all.
“I’m gonna kill him.”
Yup, she definitely took after her father.
“We’re already taking care of it.”
“No, I’m gonna pull his brain out through his freaking nose.”
Whether he had a brain or not was debatable, but we’d seen enough blood this week already. Lynn turned to run off, and when I grabbed her around the waist to hold her back, she started slapping at me with both hands. Ouch! I hooked her legs out from underneath her and we both ended up on the ground, which was definitely not how I’d planned this conversation going.
“Get off me!”
“Not until you calm down.”
“I’m perfectly freaking calm!” she shrieked.
“What’s going on?” Zena called from the path that ran alongside the beach. “Why are you wrestling with Mom?”
“Good news about the dress. I think the wedding’s off, so you don’t have to wear it.”
“Off? Off?” Lynn growled. “His freaking testicles are gonna be off.”
“Your mom’s a bit upset.”
Zena’s laughter didn’t help matters. In fact, Lynn didn’t stop struggling until a shadow fell over us and an Italian voice asked, “Did I hear you say the wedding’s off?”
We both looked up. The speaker was tall, in his early forties at a guess, and dressed in an Italian suit that looked made to measure. A silver fox.
“Are you the stylist?” I asked.
He nodded and held out a hand. “Leonardo.”
Lynn reached up and let him help her to her feet. “Yes, the wedding’s off. He cheated on me!”
Technically, I’m not sure whether that was correct, but the sentiment was there.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “You’ll still get paid.”
“Then I should do something to earn my money.” He smiled at Lynn, her hand still held in his. “Let me take you to breakfast.”
“Uh, okay.”
Zena and I stared after them, open-mouthed, as they walked away. A little way up the path, Leonardo dropped Lynn’s hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders instead, and she leaned into him, giggling. Well, that escalated quickly. Sometimes the heart just fucking knew, right?
“Did Mom seriously ditch Chris for an Italian stallion?”
“Sure looks that way. Let’s hope he likes animals, eh?”
EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS LATER…
I shivered as I rushed through the door of Little Riverley, my Virginia home. Mid-January, and a cold front was passing over the eastern United States, bringing snow, sleet, and fender benders. I’d just flown in from the Caribbean, and I couldn’t say I was glad to be back.
Bradley greeted me in the hallway, wearing the fluffiest boots I’d ever seen.
“What happened to your hair?” he asked.
“It’s called wind. How many polar bears died to make those boots?”
“None! It’s faux fur. Ishmael created them for me.”
His friend Ishmael was a fashion designer, most famous for making a dress out of orange peel and hiring gymnasts to walk down the runway on their hands.
“They could audition for Sesame Street. How have things been?”
“Did you see the TV? That crazy German guy you caught in Egypt escaped from prison in Cairo. They caught him heading for Port Said on a bicycle.” Bradley shuddered. “A bicycle. So sweaty.”
Good grief. Couldn’t he at least have taken a taxi? I was almost disappointed they’d dragged his sorry ass back to jail because if he’d still been loose, I could’ve tracked him down for a little chat. Ah well. Maybe next time.
Miracle of miracles, Captain al-Busari had kept his word, and, still more concerned with his image than police work, he’d promoted both Khaled and Gamal to lieutenant. Now they headed up Dahab’s fledgling investigations unit, although other than the Krause/Fleischmann case, they’d mostly been dealing with petty crime.
The easy schedule had given them plenty of time to devote to Gunther befo
re his trial. At first, he hadn’t been keen to talk, but after Black taught interrogations 101 over Skype, the details had begun to trickle out.
Like the names of the victims.
Our last afternoon in Dahab hadn’t been spent having a leisurely lunch. Instead, we’d helped to secure and process the murder scene in Assalah. DNA from fourteen people had been found there. With Gunther’s assistance plus a bit of help from Dan’s forensic anthropologist friend, they’d all been identified, although the only victims Gunther had shown any remorse over were Gosia and Carmela. He swore he hadn’t wanted to kill them, but they had the right blood types, and Stefan had insisted. Little bro-in-law had Gunther by the balls, apparently, because he’d bailed him out when the restaurant got into debt. Happy Fish belonged to Stefan, not Gunther, and Stefan liked to throw his weight around.
Ironically, it was Stefan’s pushiness that led to his downfall. Why? Because of the scarab amulets. Gosia had told Gunther the history of her little trinket, about the Weighing of the Heart and the journey to the afterlife. So when Carmela died at his brother-in-law’s hand, Gunther had tucked one of Magdalena’s holiday souvenirs into Carmela’s bra in the hope that it would protect her too.
It didn’t, of course, but it had helped to hint at the link between the two girls, the link that nudged us to connect the dots and gather the evidence to bring their killers to justice. Our investigation had caused the trio to panic, to advance their schedule to fulfil orders—fucking orders—and that led to mistakes. Who knew how long they’d have carried on otherwise, quietly bumping off a tourist here and there while they pocketed thousands in blood money?
But now the families of the dead could get closure, although we were still missing six bodies. Duncan’s remains had been found—Black had called in a favour and gotten the oxidation ponds drained under the guise of maintenance—but some of the earlier bodies were still to be located. The bones Patch had dug up were the trio’s first victim, apparently, but they soon realised there wouldn’t be enough room in the yard for everyone.
In his interview, Gunther had cursed his brother-in-law for leaving the shed door open on the day of their attempted escape. They’d used the small building to store fuel for the boat, and Stefan had gotten careless while he was packing to leave. Good for us, not so good for them. According to Gunther, Stefan and Magdalena had disposed of the other remains in the mountains, but he didn’t know exactly where. The search was ongoing.
Speaking of Stefan and Magdalena, the Jordanian police were investigating them too. Back when they lived near Amman, there’d been several unsolved disappearances, and I knew from personal experience that parts of the Jordanian desert were desolate enough to lose a body. Magdalena’s bloated remains had washed up on the Egyptian coast a week after Black snuffed her out, and taking a leaf from al-Busari’s book, the police in Taba had deemed her death an accident. When Stefan’s remains didn’t follow, nobody looked too hard.
As for the Saudi Arabian doctor who’d purchased the stolen organs, he’d gone unpunished so far. Governments of the “donors” were pursuing him through diplomatic channels, but at the moment, the Saudi King wasn’t playing ball. I’d heard a rumour that the Israelis, upset at the death of a young Jewish artist who’d been one of the Fleischmanns’ early victims, were considering taking matters into their own hands.
I’d keep my fingers crossed.
“Guess Gunther didn’t want to get into another car chase,” I told Bradley.
“I hope he got road rash from the asphalt when they took him down. That horrible man caused far too much pain. But did you see the email from Louise? She sent a picture of Katie’s first day at preschool.”
Before we left Dahab, I’d offered Duncan’s widow the use of our jet and Bradley’s services to facilitate her move home to Scotland. We couldn’t bring her husband back, but we’d been able to make her life just a tiny bit easier.
“I’ve literally just walked in the door.”
“I thought you might’ve checked your messages on the plane.”
“I was flying the plane.”
“What happened to multitasking?”
“Do me a favour and make coffee, would you? I’ve been awake for eighteen hours and I’ve got to join a conference call before I can go to bed.”
“Colombian, Kenyan, Guatemalan, Ethiopian, Costa Rican, or Jamaican?”
“Whichever one’s quickest.”
“Cappuccino, espresso, flat white, long black, macchiato, mochaccino, or latte?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“Quadruple espresso, coming right up.”
In the living room, I collapsed onto the sofa and closed my eyes. It’d been a long week. Black was in San Francisco, but he was flying back this evening, and we’d have a few days together before the next crisis hit.
In the meantime, I was left with Bradley and Miles, who’d come to stay in Virginia for a week. Archaeologists got vacations, it seemed. I was clearly in the wrong line of work. Miles wasn’t particularly happy with us at the moment since we’d given Gosia’s heart scarab to Selmi rather than handing it over to a museum, but as Black had pointed out, the amulet’s job was to facilitate safe passage to the netherworld, and it wasn’t going to do that stuck in a glass case.
I shared Black’s view—the beetle was hardly Tutankhamun’s mask, and if it brought Selmi some comfort to keep it close, then he should have it.
Everybody deserved peace.
Where was that picture from Louise? I was glad she was putting her life back together, that Katie seemed to be coping after the tragedy. And I appreciated the updates. So many times, all I saw was the bad in the world, and I craved happiness like anybody else.
And there was the picture. A snapshot of a tiny girl wearing an oversized backpack and grinning as she waved to the camera, her hair done up in neat plaits fastened by sparkly bows. Louise gave her enough love for two people.
I didn’t recall much about my own first day at nursery school, just my mum shoving me off the bus and through the gates with no lunch and no idea where to go. I’d been terrified. Yes, those memories were better off forgotten, and I shoved them to the back of my mind.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, and Bradley hurried in with my coffee.
“Here you go. I brought you a cookie too.”
“Lifesaver.”
“Ooh, you found the picture. Did you get the message from Aurelie too?”
“Not yet. Is she still in France?”
“No, Australia. Akeem loves her.”
Aurelie had stayed in our villa in Dahab while the dust settled, helping Zena and Bob to make improvements to the town’s animal shelter. Black and I figured we might as well put Stefan’s cash to good use. Half would help Patch’s buddies, and we’d find a way to funnel the rest to the victims’ families. An anonymous benefactor had already donated twenty thousand pounds to an online fundraiser set up by Louise’s friends.
But Aurelie had begun getting itchy feet, her desire to see the world battling against the fear instilled by the kidnapping. Katie might have bounced back, but Aurelie still had a way to go.
It was Bradley who’d come up with the perfect solution—a way to improve Black Diamond’s well-being offering and help Aurelie to fulfil her dreams at the same time—and now she travelled between our hotels teaching yoga and meditation. The clients loved her, the staff took care of her, and I liked to think that little by little, her life was getting brighter.
“Akeem knows she’s still fragile, right?”
“I explained everything, and he’s taking her sightseeing in Brisbane at the weekend.”
“Good, that’s—”
Wait, what was this? A wedding invitation?
Together with their families, Leonardo and Lynn invite you to celebrate their marriage.
12th May at two o’clock.
The Black Diamond Hotel, Dahab.
Reception to follow.
Bloody hell, it was happening all
over again.
“Did you see this?” I asked Bradley.
“See what?”
“Lynn’s getting married to that Italian bloke. Maybe it’ll be fourth time lucky, eh?”
“A wedding? OMG! We’ll need outfits and flowers and gifts…”
“Bradley, please stop. Please.”
Lynn’s invite was swiftly followed by an email from Zena.
Sender: Zena T
Subject: Did you see?
Mom’s getting married again!
She wanted me to wear another ugly dress, but Leonardo convinced her it’s important for me to express my personality through my clothing, so I’m wearing shorts instead.
Crash and Nibbles and Patch have to stay behind in Piacenza with the pet-sitter, but Leon says I can adopt another dog from Dahab and bring it back with me. Isn’t that awesome?
Are you coming?
Z
Were we going? Good question. Black had promised we’d take a proper vacation soon, but I wasn’t sure he’d be thrilled by the prospect of another Dahabian adventure. On the other hand, there was sun and sand, and perhaps we’d get to make more than one dive if we didn’t find any dead bodies? Maybe it would be fun…
WHAT'S NEXT?
My next book will be Copper, the seventh book in the Blackwood Elements series, releasing in the autumn of 2019.
When Tai Beaulieu impulsively hands in her notice by text message one dreary January morning and sets off in search of adventure, the last place she expects to end up is Africa.
But soon she’s in Egypt, home to ancient tombs and spectacular temples. Plus friendly locals, a rather nice English businessman and, an American tourist who doesn't know when to butt out.
Along with roommate Tegan and archaeologist Miles, Tai sets out to explore everything the city of Luxor has to offer. But soon, she’s keeping a terrible secret, and she’s not the only one.
