was not her indoor voice. “My son is missing!” Her fists clenched, driving her recently home-manicured nails into the palms of her hands. A sharp pain ran up her arms. The pain grounded her, temporarily dispelled the blinding panic.
Her hands shook and her head pounded. She wouldn’t give up. Coming to Marrakech had been a decision made in desperation. For it was here in the land of the sheiks, where she searched for the lifeline that would protect her heart. One man, who she held responsible for almost destroying her life, was now the only man who could save her son.
But now it didn’t matter if she found Sheik Talib Al-Nassar. Only one thing mattered—finding Everett. He was her heart and without her son, there was nothing.
Even for a car fanatic, one who had experienced the ultimate of vehicles, the BMW Z4 was a dream to drive. The car’s custom paint job hinted at shades of an early morning sky. Its pearl-blue base and finishing coats were multi-layered and hand applied. The result gleamed in the sunlight. The butter-soft, smoke-gray leather steering wheel was almost erotic beneath his palm. While he’d owned and driven many luxury sports cars, this one was sweeter than any vehicle he’d had before. Just a slight touch of his hand on the wheel had the car responding. Even within the confines of the city, the vehicle was amazing. The engine purred like a satiated mountain cat. He could hardly wait to get it onto the open road and test its limits.
Talib Al-Nassar had the seat back as far as it would go, his left leg was stretched out and the warm fall air whispered across his cheek like a lover’s caress. Poor analogy, he thought, reminded of his last lover. The BMW definitely scored higher points than she had. Ironically, she’d been rather like the rest, holding his attention for not much longer than it had taken to bed her. He supposed he deserved the playboy label his older brothers had given him. But the truth was that the women in his life wanted no more from the relationship than he was able to give them. It was only his brother Faisal who seemed to truly get it, but then Faisal, like him, was living what they called “the life.” There was no woman to hold him to account, no children, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. At twenty-nine, he just couldn’t imagine being responsible for another human. It was unthinkable. And a woman... The thought dropped as he took a corner with ease and couldn’t wait to get the speed up and test what this baby was capable of. He couldn’t imagine a woman, no matter how beautiful or how arousing, ever matching the thrill that this BMW would give him. Only an hour ago he’d picked up the new car. He’d been looking forward to this for days. In fact, he had a road trip planned into the Atlas Mountains. He would visit an old friend and test the car’s slick handling on the tight curves and bends of the mountain roads. But today he needed to stop by the hotel his friend Ian had just purchased. Ian had called wanting advice on getting the security in his hotel beefed up after a recent breach. It was only a favor between friends. It wasn’t the usual kind of situation he dealt with as one of the executives of Nassar Security. The business was headed by his brother Emir and co-run by he and his brothers. It provided security and protection through branches in both Jackson, Wyoming, and here in Marrakech.
He doubted that this consultation would take any time at all as he was already familiar with the hotel’s security. In fact, he anticipated that he might be able to convince Ian to go for a short test drive prior to tomorrow’s excursion.
As the vehicle easily took the corner, its engine purring, he frowned.
“Bugger.” He’d picked up the phrase on a recent trip to Australia and it had since become part of his vocabulary. His hands tightened on the wheel, the thrill of the car and the promise of speed and luxury it promised forgotten. Instead he was shocked first by the smell of smoke and then, as he turned another corner, by clouds of smoke filling the air.
“What’s going on?” he muttered. For it looked like the hotel might be on fire, yet he couldn’t see flames. What was clear was that smoke was billowing out of the door as fast as people were emerging. The fire alarm was shrilling down the street, cutting through the sounds of shouts and screams. In the distance, the sirens of the approaching emergency vehicles could be heard. He frowned as he gripped the wheel and assessed what he could of the situation from where he was. His phone was in his pocket but he hadn’t received a call from Ian. That was understandable; whatever was going on, Ian would have his hands full.
Talib turned the vehicle smoothly into a parking space at the end of the block, leaving room for the emergency vehicles. He grabbed a bag from behind the seat that contained a few items that he’d often found indispensable. He pulled out one item that he hadn’t thought he would need on a day where the upper-most thing on his mind was the joy of a new vehicle. The explosive detection device was more than likely overkill, but one never knew.
Talib leaped out. A few men in hotel uniforms were directing the crowd, keeping them on the sidewalk, out of the way of the imminent approach of emergency crews. Up ahead he saw one hotel employee moving among the crowd, laying a hand here, offering a word there. Another was passing out water bottles. He looked over and saw an older woman leaning against a vehicle as another staff member held her shoulder, obviously trying to calm her. Ian’s staff were well trained. His friend had followed the advice that Talib had given all those months ago, when Ian had first mentioned that he was planning to get into the hotel business.
Things were chaotic but seemed under control. No one seemed to be in imminent danger—at least here, outside the hotel. It had taken him seconds to make that assessment as he strode the short distance to the hotel entrance. Now within yards of the front door, he was faced with a milling crowd that was not quite as organized or controlled as those he had just passed. He guessed that they’d just emerged from the building and were still shocked, unsure of what they’d escaped from, or what they had yet to face.
“Get away from the entrance!” he commanded, pointing to a green space just across the street. Half a dozen people followed his instruction, the rest continued to mill where they were.
He directed more stragglers across the street. In one case, he took a woman’s elbow and escorted her to the curb, where she finally managed to cross the street under her own steam. He’d had a lot of experience with this as he and his brothers had built Nassar Security into the powerhouse company that it was. He’d learned over the years that people often responded like herded animals in an emergency. They lost their individual ability to think.
His phone beeped.
“Yeah,” he answered, knowing it was Ian. They spoke for less than a minute. In that time, Ian told him what he knew, that they believed there’d been an explosion and that it might be linked to a suspicious-looking man seen in the early morning hours by the hotel parking lot. That information had been revealed on the security footage Ian had just remotely accessed.
“When this is over...”
“We’ll get you beefed up,” Talib assured him. “I’m going in now.”
His friend had confirmed that the explosion had been confined to one area of the lobby. Ian had been at an outside meeting, but was now en route. From what Ian had said, he estimated that his own arrival was five minutes after the explosion and now, from the sounds of the rapidly approaching sirens, minutes before emergency crews.
Talib considered the information he’d just received. Combined with what he knew of the security and the time line, he believed that there was only one perp responsible for planting the device. It wasn’t easy to plant an explosive device undetected in a public area of a hotel. The time that had passed since the explosion backed up his preliminary theory that there was only one explosive device.
Explosives were used for any number
