can’t argue with any of that,” he said in his distinctly low voice. “It kills me to think of her frightened or in pain.” He ran a hand through his dark hair that, despite the short cut, curled wildly and only succeeded in giving his sun-bronzed, chiseled good looks a rakish edge.
This was a difficult case, fraught with emotion and involving the man who was effectively her boss. And yet it was hard to think of him like that when, from the first moment she’d seen him, there had been a connection, an unseen emotion that seemed to pulse between them. She shoved the ridiculous thought from her mind. For now, he was her assigned partner and client rolled into one—nothing else.
“So far the name Tara’s injured guard gave you—Davar—doesn’t exist. Not as a surname and a given name would be impossible to track. Even in the state he’s in, Ahmed would have known that. No, he was giving us something we could find,” Kate said. “I know we did an initial check, but I’ve gone beyond that search and been through everything. I’ve had the records of anyone who had a vaccination, a driver’s license or even stepped foot in Morocco scoured. Nothing.”
She ran one hand through her hair, bunching it in her hand and pulling the long, silken mass back and away from her face.
“Are you sure that was exactly right? He was mouthing the word, you said. Could you have misunderstood?”
“It’s possible, but it’s all I can get for now and, if it’s not exact, it’s close. He’s in and out of consciousness,” Emir said as a nerve caused his jaw to twitch. Time was wasting and there was nothing they could do but wait and speculate.
“So we use what we have. Both time and evidence,” Kate said as she perched on the edge of the massive rosewood desk that had been his father’s. They’d left Tara’s apartment and entered his office an hour ago.
He knew she was going over the possibilities of that one word, the name the injured guard had provided—Davar. Yet his attention went to her long legs that hung over his desk and the creamy satin of her neck as she leaned her head back against the filing cabinet that butted up to the desk. She had beautiful skin and, for a second, he imagined what it would be like to caress it.
And, as if she read his mind, Kate looked at him with determined eyes and lips that were soft, kissable. His thoughts were out of line, inappropriate and unproductive. But he couldn’t seem to dodge them for, despite his outrage that Adam had sent a woman, he’d been drawn to her since the first moment he’d met her.
“We’ll get her, Emir. We’ll get Tara out and home safe. I promise.” There was grit in her words. It was as though her saying them somehow made them true. He only wished it was going to be that easy.
He strode over to the window. The city sprawled out in front of him. It was the place where he’d been born and where he’d grown up—the city he’d thought to escape in his young adult years and the city that now seemed to promise the secret to saving his family.
The second call had been long enough to be tracked by their office team to within a twenty-five-mile radius of Marrakech. They’d received that information almost immediately after the call had ended. It wasn’t enough. They were still looking for a needle in a haystack.
Kate was now pacing the room, a pensive look on her face. He knew they both felt the passage of time and the frustration of their current inertia, but there was no getting around it. Kidnap victims had died because of ill-prepared rescue attempts. He was determined that Tara would not be one of them. Behind them the office clock ticked, the dull beat of time a passing reminder of everything they could not do.
She looked at him, her eyes seeming to reach out to console, but he couldn’t help noticing instead the long wisp of blond hair that had again escaped the elastic band and curled down her face, caressing her chin, bringing his attention to the soft, seductive rise of her breasts—
What was he doing? He needed to remain focused. His sister’s life was at stake and he was letting a beautiful woman distract him. Again, he was reminded why a woman should not be there, why he should have held firm, why...
“No woman will voluntarily go with a man she doesn’t know. Especially at night, in the dark,” Kate said softly, interrupting his thoughts as he found she was apt to do. This time it had been a good thing.
Kate pressed her forefinger to her lips. “To take someone that quickly and easily, I believe there are only two scenarios that might work.”
“She knew her captor,” he said grimly.
“Exactly. Or she was tricked. A stray animal, a child needing help—another woman.”
“I don’t think anyone we knew would have done this,” he said.
“You mean you don’t want to believe that someone you know would do this.”
She’d called him out again. He met her eyes, saw rock-solid determination, and knew she had his back.
“No matter, Emir. We have to consider all possibilities.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. She was everything Adam had said she would be, except she wasn’t a man. He was beginning to wonder if that mattered.
“I still think she knew them, was at least familiar with them,” Kate persisted in a voice meant to get a man’s attention and a mind that challenged him to keep up.
He pushed the distracting thoughts back and focused on what she had said. It was interesting she’d said “they” instead of “he.” It was another possibility for which he had no answers. He turned to the window, squinting as the setting sun shone across the square, bounced off a distant, copper-topped bell tower and created a glare that was almost impossible to see against. Dusk was fast approaching and soon the call to prayer would taunt them, remind them of passing time. Normally patience was what he was good at, yet patience was what he found impossible to implement in the one case that mattered more than any other.
“Her guards were easily disposed of,” Emir said.
“She might not have seen the violence. They might have been attacked without her even knowing. Then the perpetrator comes up to her, lures her, and she’s not suspicious because she knows who it is.”
The fact that Tara might have known the perpetrator, that someone he had given his trust to, could have betrayed him in the worst way possible almost took him out at the knees, even though the possibility was something Kate had alluded to earlier and one he’d considered himself. Now, for the first time, he was able to entertain an idea that had the potential to make this case, if that were possible, even more gut-wrenching.
“Emir?”
Kate’s voice was calm yet husky in a completely feminine way. She’d taken him out, literally flipping him onto his back, but it was her voice he knew could be his undoing. Now it was all he needed to bring him from his thoughts and into her presence.
“When was the last time you spoke to Tara?”
“Yesterday afternoon. It was a quick call. She told me that she planned to meet some friends—she mentioned the local nightclub. That was it.” He shook his head, his eyes not meeting hers. He didn’t need that distraction,
