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“What did it say?”
He rubbed his brow, inhaling deeply. “It was a digital image from an old newspaper. I’m sending it to you now.”
Bella clicked on the icon, accepting the file. It opened onto her laptop—an image of two men in black-tie attire, champagne glasses in hand. One of the men was Sam Etherington, taken when he was a lot younger. He had his arm around the shoulders of a dark-haired, stocky guy with receding hairline and a small goatee.”
“Who’s the guy with Etherington?” Bella said, peering closer.
“Benjamin Raber. The photo ran on the social page of a Chicago newspaper fifteen years ago.”
She glanced up, met Hurley’s eyes. “Raber? As in Johnson’s boss? The head of Strategic Alliances, the alleged front for STRIKE?”
“Same guy.”
“Did the tipster say anything about this photo?”
He swallowed, and worry wormed deeper into Bella.
“Hurley, what’s going on?”
“All the message said was ‘Blackmail is a powerful tool and Johnson was an instrument.’”
“What does that mean?” Bella asked, looking more closely at the two men in the photo, arm in arm. Friends. Celebrating. “That Etherington was blackmailing Raber? Forcing him to use STRIKE—and Johnson—to carry out assassinations?”
“Maybe it’s vice versa—Raber blackmailing Etherington.”
“Holy Christ,” she whispered. “Hurley, we have got to find whoever sent these tips. We need more information, we need proof. We—”
“Scoob already found her, Bella.”
“Her?” Bella whispered.
“She’s dead.”
Bella’s world spun. “What do you mean...dead?”
“This IM with the photo attached appeared on your Watchdog profile just over forty-eight hours ago. Scoob’s software trap caught it instantly, and his program started tracking back to her IP address even as she tried to burrow out ahead of the trap. But we got an ID.” He swallowed. “Her name was Althea Winston. She was Travis Johnson’s widow.”
Bella put her hand over her mouth.
“Althea was a computer expert, Bella. Her husband could have told her things no one else would have known. Her tipping us off could have been about revenge for her husband’s death, her way of seeking justice for him. But she must’ve been scared they’d come after her. And now, forty-eight hours after she sent that last IM, she’s dead.”
Bella’s heart began to thud against her rib cage. “How did she die?”
“It was all over the news this morning. Althea and her five-year-old daughter were killed in a freak car accident on the way to the kid’s school. Road was icy. They were sideswiped by a gray Dodge Ram 4500, no plates. Impact forced them through the bridge barrier and they went over, through ice, into the river. The truck fled the scene.”
Just like the “accident” that had sent Senator Sam Etherington’s ex-wife and twins over a bridge.
Looking ill, Hurley said, “Scoob figures someone started monitoring Althea’s electronic movements after you posted that photo linking Tariq Al Arif to Alexis Etherington. It must have sent up red flags, and they had to have fingered Johnson’s widow as a possible leak. Then when she contacted your page again with this, they had her red-handed.”
Bella sat back, horrified. She’d found an old newspaper photograph of the senator’s missing ex-wife, Dr. Alexis Etherington, with Dr. Tariq Al Arif at a medical convention in Chicago years ago. She’d posted it online with a story she’d written after Tariq’s family had announced his “death.” In the caption, she’d suggested there might be old links between the Etheringtons and the Al Arifs. Bella had hoped this hoped this might solicit information, and it had. Now this.
“Jesus, Hurley,” Bella whispered. “We killed her. My investigation. This is my fault.”
“Bella, even if her death is linked to this, it’s not your fault—Althea had to have known she was taking a risk by tipping you off in the first place. She had to have known they meant serious business after her husband was killed.”
“Who the hell is they, Hurley! STRIKE? Strategic Alliances? Raber? Sam Etherington’s people? Why on earth would Etherington want to kill an Al Arif prince, anyway? He’s the one promising an oil deal with their kingdom should he get into office. And how does MagMo fit in to all this?”
“We need to figure all that out before they find you.” Hurley’s features were tight. “This is why I’ve been trying to get a hold of you—since Scoob’s trap chased back to Althea Winston’s IP addy, someone’s been trying to use the same digital trail as a route back into our systems.”
Nausea washed through Bella’s stomach. “Did they get in?”
“Not yet. We’ve increased security parameters. But they’re circling like sharks, and they’re going to keep trying to find a way to penetrate our system.” Hurley paused, wiping the gleam from the top of his lip. “It’s best you contact us only when really necessary, Bella. You’ve still got that prepaid cell?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to get one, too. And I’m using a laptop that’s not connected to our servers to be safe. We’ll run these photos you’ve just sent through the biometrics software, then I’m going to shred them, so keep copies on your end. I’m not going to store anything this side, in case these people get in.”
The gravity of Hurley’s words, the news of Althea Winston’s death, settled like ice in Bella’s chest. Finding that tipster had been Bella’s hope of finding proof, someone who might eventually go on record. Now she was dead. Like her husband. Silenced.
“We’re up against a wall now, Hurley,” she said quietly. “We have nothing concrete to link Etherington to the attempts on the lives of the Al Arifs. Or to these recent deaths. Or my attack.”
“You still have the fact that Tariq is alive, if these photos are a match. That’s a big story in itself. We run that, and we could get more tips. Plus Scoob is still trying to clean up that audio we recorded of Senator Etherington and his aide, Isaiah Gold, near the fountain last summer. That new parabolic mike design picked up everything, the trouble is filtering out the noise of the water.”
“The odds of something coming from that audio are practically nonexistent, even if Scoob does manage to clean it up. They could’ve been discussing baseball for all we know.”
“There’s a reason Sam and Isaiah routinely leave the office and cross the lawn to talk by a noisy fountain. We think it’s to discuss things they don’t want on tape. We took photos of them doing it—if we find something on that audio—”
“It’s a long shot, Hurley. You guys have made a hobby of eavesdropping on politicians with your gimmicks for years, and what have you got so far?”
His mouth flattened, and she instantly felt sorry.
“I’m sorry. It’s just...I’m rattled about Althea’s death.”
“We all are. Go get the sheik, Bella. Get him to talk. Somehow this all ties back to Sam.”
She signed off, shut her laptop and sat staring into space awhile. Outside the snow continued to fall. She’d survived her attack. Althea Winston had not been so lucky. Had it been the same people?
Bella’s assailants had spoken Arabic and she figured they might be part of MagMo. Two of them also had Arabic daggers. But this wouldn’t fit Sam Etherington’s people.
Bella reached into her pocket and took out a small, gold medallion. She’d ripped it from the neck of one of her assailants as she’d tried to fight him off.
The medallion depicted a sun superimposed by a hooked dagger, and it lay warm in her hand, the gold gleaming dully in the light from her lamp. She hadn’t shown it to the police—the cops had been no help when her apartment had been ransacked, and by that point, Bella trusted no one.
It was also when she’d fled the country.
Slipping the medallion onto a chain around her neck, she turned up the oil heater and climbed under the duvet on her small cot. She lay there, feeling alone, vulnerable. Scared. This story was potentially so big it overwhelmed her.
She muttered a curse. She was a journalist. This was everything she’d wanted, surely—an earth-shattering scoop? And when something truly scared you, it generally meant you were heading in the right direction. Wasn’t that the mantra of self-help gurus?
This was going to be her ticket back into the mainstream, her revenge against the Daily for dumping her. She wanted to shove this story in Derek’s face, show him she was worth something. She wanted the whole world to see Bella DiCaprio was not some little orphan cast-off. She was someone to be reckoned with.
A familiar, stubborn anger filled Bella, and determination steeled her. She was not averse to risk. She was going to get this. The trick would be in finding a way to get the sheik to talk to her, to find out how much he knew, and how this might all be connected.
And tomorrow was her chance, when she went to see him in the abbey.
* * *
The following afternoon found Bella pushing her bike through several inches of snow for the last mile to the monastery. The wind off the Atlantic was biting, the sky low and somber. Hurley’s words threaded through her mind.
We need to figure out who they are before they find you...
She rounded a hill of rock and the stone walls of the abbey suddenly loomed in the distance, black and menacing under skiffs of white. It would be full dark within the hour, she thought. A bite of raw fear twisted into her sense of foreboding.
What if her assailants back in D.C. were linked to Tariq’s people—would his family kill to keep his secret? Would they come after her if they knew she was here, on the island, now?
As she reached the iron gates, her fingers felt numb on the handlebars despite the gloves she wore. And another, more sinister thought niggled into her mind—what if Tariq’s reason for suddenly summoning her to his monastery was to silence her?
Her attackers in D.C. had spoken Arabic. And they had carried traditional-looking curved daggers. Sam’s people would not have done so, surely?
She paused and looked up at the row of hostile iron spikes, thinking of the gold medallion in her pocket—the image of a sun, superimposed with a hooked Arabic dagger. The wind was picking up and it had started snowing again, tiny ice crystals pricking into her face. Bella reached up and pressed the intercom in the stone pillar on the right side of the gate. A bell clanged somewhere inside the monastery, resonant, distant, an ancient sound that seemed at odds with the modern security. Her gaze was pulled up to the high-tech motion-sensor cameras watching her. Anxiety wrapped around Bella.
She told herself to relax. It was unlikely Tariq knew who she was at this point. But her alias was superficial—it wouldn’t hold up to any real background investigation. She needed to get to the heart of the reason she was here sooner rather than later.
Bella waited almost a full minute. Snow came down faster now, angled by the wind.
She rang again, and at the sound of the clanging something moved under the blanket in her bike basket. With a sharp start Bella realized she’d almost forgotten the Papillon pup Madame had insisted she take with her if she wanted time off this evening.
“Kiki needs attention and exercise, Amelie,” Madame Dubois had said. “This is why I hired you. If you want to go to the abbey, you will need to take Kiki.”
The Papillon was not the only thing Bella had been obliged to trek up the hill this evening—in the carrier on the back of her bike was a hamper, which Madame had shoved into her hands as she left.
“What’s this?” Bella had asked.
“The way to a man’s heart, Amelie—” Madame said, nodding to the hamper “—is always through his stomach. Take the basket.”
“I’m not looking for a way into anyone’s heart,” Bella had responded irritably. At the same time she reminded herself to play along. If Estelle Dubois believed in her eccentric old mind that Bella was romantically interested in the mysterious stranger from the abbey, it could make coming up here a lot easier.
Bella lifted the edge of the blanket. Kiki poked her nose out into the cold, giving a little body wiggle and whimper. “Hang on,” she whispered to the pup. “You can run around when we get inside.”
As she spoke the iron gates suddenly began to creak open, no one in sight. A frisson of nerves chased over her skin.
She began to wheel her bike through the gates and up to the great stone entrance, her tires making narrow tracks behind her in the slush.
Stone columns flanked a double door of heavy wood that was carved with warring demons and angels and arched to a point. The handles were iron rings.
As Bella approached, the door opened a crack and a slice of pale yellow light spliced the gloom. A butler with dark complexion and hooded eyes appeared, unsmiling.
“I’m Amelie Chenard,” she said, unnerved by the inhospitable set of the man’s features. “Monsieur Du Val is expecting me.”
He gave a barely perceptible tip of his head and stepped back, making room for her to enter. Bella rested her bike against the wall and removed Kiki from the basket. She asked the butler to bring in the hamper from the back of the bike.
With a deadpan expression, he removed the basket and Bella followed him into a massive hall. The ceilings were vaulted, high. A massive iron chandelier hung from a chain above a thick wood table in the center of the hall. Fat candles burned in sconces along the walls. The air inside was cold and had a strange weight to it. Clearly, central heating had not been part of the refurbishment.
“Monsieur is waiting in the library,” the butler said, setting her hamper on the table. “If I can take your coat?” He held out a dark-skinned hand.
“Could you hold this for me?” She offered Kiki to him.
The butler’s eyes flashed up, meeting hers properly for the first time.
“The dog?”
“Please, so I can take off my coat.”
Uneasy, the man took the ball of wriggling fur, holding Kiki at arm’s length as she tried to lick his face. Bella shrugged out of her slicker and removed her hat, holding them out to the butler. He called out for assistance.
Another male servant came hurrying into the hallway, looking surprised as the butler handed him the dog and muttered in French for him to watch it while Mademoiselle Chenard visited with the Monsieur. Bella took note of their accents as they conversed. Both rolled their r’s low in their throats in the way of Arabic.
“Her name is Kiki,” she called out after the man as he turned to leave with the dog. He shot a dark glance over his shoulder. Bella smiled inwardly and said a silent thank-you to Madame Dubois as she followed the butler down a wide and dimly lit stone corridor. The dog was easing her tension.
The air in this part of the abbey smelled slightly musty, like an old church. The butler stopped to open a thick wooden door, showing Bella into a library.
She entered cautiously. The room was massive but warm, with lots of rich wood paneling. Bookshelves lined the walls, floor to ceiling. A cello stood at one end of the room, the smooth wood gleaming from the light of a fire that crackled softly in a big stone hearth. Persian rugs in rich reds and rust browns covered the floors. At the far end of the room another door opened into what looked like a study—Bella could see a desk of polished black wood. On it rested a stubby phone—satellite phone, she guessed—along with a pile of papers.
“Mademoiselle Chenard,” the butler announced before sliding quietly away and closing the door.
Tariq stood up from the chair he’d been seated in next to the fire. The size of the wingback had hidden him from view. He turned slowly to face her.
Bella’s heart stilled as last summer’s headlines flooded through her mind.
Heir to Al Na’Jar Throne Dead. Renowned Surgeon Prince Dies. Prince Assassinated. Palace Mourns...
And here he was.
Already she could see the new headlines.
Sheik Al Arif Found Alive. Palace Lied. MagMo failed to Assassinate Heir. Al Na’Jar Prince Found Recovering in France.
She could also imagine the photographs she’d taken of him on the cliff splashed over news pages, and a disturbing little thought entered her mind. Why break this story on the Watchdog site—why not take it straight to one of the major media outlets? It would be her byline, her photo credits. Then she thought of Hurley, Scoob, Agnes, all the investigative legwork they’d done to help her get to this point. Guilt wormed into her.
“Come in,” he said, his voice rich, resonant. Deep.
Bella swallowed and took a few steps forward, tension tightening in her stomach.
He stepped around the chair, facing her square. He wore black pants—expensively cut, perfectly pressed. His white shirt was open at the neck showing a silk cravat. His hair was a glossy raven in the firelight. The eye patch lent him an air of mystery. In spite of his scars his presence shimmered with intensity, authority, wealth and something charismatically—and darkly—seductive.
Bella’s gaze settled on his mouth, the way his lip turned down on the left. An earlier photograph of him shifted to mind—Tariq smiling as he accepted a polo trophy, his teeth stark white against dusky skin. The photographer had captured a fire that had burned bright in his black eyes that day. Bella wondered if he could still smile, or if that ability, too, had been stolen from him by MagMo terrorists.
She came a little closer, holding out her hand. “I’m Amelie—”
