Layover in Dubai

Sharaf assumed a grave expression and gingerly placed his cell phone on the counter.

“I keep my promises, and you are welcome to telephone whoever you wish. But there is something I need to show you first. Here.”

He pulled a folded paper from his jacket.

“Your arrest report. I obtained it this afternoon, despite Lieutenant Assad’s best efforts to hide it. Read it carefully, please.”

Most of it was a rehash of what he already knew—the images from the security camera, the erroneous police spin on why Nanette had nudged him at the door, and so on.

“I told you. It’s a misunderstanding.”

“Please. All the way to the end. There at the bottom. See?”

There was a box containing information about the filer of the complaint. Inside it was a crisp signature with bold loops and slashing verticals, handwriting that was the very model of brisk efficiency. Nanette Weaver, his would-be savior, had filed the charge.

“She did this?”

“First thing that morning. Before you were even awake.”

“Why?”

“The charitable interpretation would be that she wanted you to be moved out of harm’s way under police protection. Considering all that has happened since, I’m not inclined toward charity, are you?”

“No.”

Sam shook his head. He felt lost, confused, and then angry.

“It doesn’t make sense. Yesterday she couldn’t wait to get me out of the country. And now—”

“Now she wishes to not only keep you here, but also to make sure you are unseen and unheard, and unavailable to answer any more questions from people like me.”

“But I don’t know anything. Or nothing more than what I’ve already told her.”

“She obviously thinks you do. Or maybe she is convinced you have wronged her in some way. Have you?”

“Not enough to deserve this.”

“But something, yes?”

Sam shrugged. They had reached uncomfortable territory, items that so far he had hidden from the police.

“Maybe.”

“You’d better tell me.”

So he did—the whole story of how he had been roped in to keeping tabs on Charlie Hatcher, only to become so charmed that he let his guard down and Charlie was killed.

“I was sure she was going to fire me. Instead she was completely sympathetic. Or seemed to be. She even, well, don’t take this wrong because of the arrest report, but I’d swear that for a while she was sort of coming on to me. I was drunk, yes. But I’m not stupid, and as soon as she shut things down I left right away. You have to believe me.”

“I believe you. She was setting you up. That little trick of hers in the doorway—dropping her key card, then nudging your chest. A very clever performance for the security camera.”

“You’re right. It must have been. But why? That’s what I still can’t figure.”

“I suspect that she and Lieutenant Assad have worked together before. He used to be with the customs police, and was in charge of cracking down on the transshipment of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, which I know is of great interest to Pfluger Klaxon. Beyond that? Perhaps you said something that raised an alarm. Something that seemed meaningless to you, but was significant to her.”

Sam shook his head.

“I was doing whatever I could to help find out who killed Charlie. I even—”

He realized he was about to incriminate himself.

“You even what?”

Sam hesitated.

“Please, Mr. Keller. In case you haven’t noticed, I am all you have left.”

He took the plunge.

“When I first called her from the York, right after Charlie was killed, she told me to take his BlackBerry.”

“Before the police arrived?”

“Yes.”

“Did you?”

“It wasn’t there. It turned up later when they searched his room. But he did have a datebook. So I took it.”

“Did you give it to Lieutenant Assad?”