Leo hesitates, jaw flexing in anger, but does as she asks, reaching inside his pocket for his wallet and placing it on the ground. He tries to take off his watch, but has trouble with the catch.
The man waves the knife at him. “Hurry! You take too long!”
“Here,” says Julia. “Let me help.”
She moves forward to assist Leo and is suddenly knocked to the ground. It takes a moment for her to register exactly what’s happening when she sees Leo launch himself at the man.
“Leo, stop!” she cries out.
It’s too late—he’s already upon him, smashing the man in the jaw. The man lashes out with the knife, nearly slicing Leo across the side of face. Undeterred, Leo charges again and there’s a sudden hard thud as both men stumble backward and fall on the ground beside Julia. Scrambling out of the way, she screams at them to stop. They ignore her and continue to wrestle in the dirt, the blade flashing threateningly between them. For a minute, it looks like Leo might have the upper hand, but the man, younger and fitter than Leo, gets the better of him and incapacitates Leo with an armlock across the throat in three simple maneuvers. Eyes bulging, Leo sputters and gasps against the man’s unyielding forearm, his fingers desperately digging into his flesh.
“Stupid American,” says the man, breathing hard.
“Let him go!” cries Julia. “He can’t breathe!”
There’s a commotion to the right. Someone is running across the grass toward them, shouting in Turkish. God, he has an accomplice, Julia thinks, both she and Leo are dead for certain. Then she sees the frame of a woman, long hair bouncing, small dog clutched to her chest. The woman is more of a girl, a teen really, in the late stages of pregnancy.
When the girl reaches them, she is crying. The man’s face softens when he sees her. He utters something gently to her in Turkish, and she replies in kind, pleading for him to stop. Leo makes use of the distraction and lands a punch to the side of the man’s head. The man is momentarily dazed but recovers quickly, angrily throwing Leo to the ground and aiming the blade at his throat.
“Stop! Oh God, please stop!” cries Julia.
Julia hears a police siren and turns her head to see the flash of blue as a police car barrels across the dead grass toward them. The car halts and Detective Muhtar leaps from the driver’s seat, gun drawn.
The man stares wide-eyed into the glare of the headlights, fear alive in his eyes. Sobbing, the girl pleads with him to drop the knife. She softly calls his name, “Suleyman.” Breathing hard, the man looks at her, hesitating. She touches her pregnant belly. “Suleyman.” He swallows, glancing at her belly, blinking back the perspiration dripping into his eyes. They stare at each other for the longest time. “Suleyman,” she says again. Finally he nods and drops the knife to the ground.
31
Julia and Leo sit on the sea wall while Detective Muhtar briefs the patrol officer who’s arrived to take the girl and man called Suleyman into custody. What sea fog there was has lifted and the park has transformed from an eerie gloom into a startling blue thanks to the churn of police lights.
Julia hugs herself to warm her bones against the chill boomeranging off the sea. It’s also the shock, she thinks, the terrible thought of what might have been had Detective Muhtar not turned up when he had. Julia had since learned that Ada had been so worried about them coming here, she’d phoned Detective Muhtar not long after they left. Thank God she had. Two minutes more and Leo could’ve been dead.
Julia glances at him now. He hasn’t said a word since the patrol car arrived. She looks at his neck, still red from the headlock.
“You should get that checked out.”
“It’s nothing,” he says, voice hoarse.
“You nearly lost consciousness.”
He looks at her testily. “I had the son-of-a-bitch.”
She hugs herself tighter and looks at the harbor. “It was a stupid thing to do. We should have just given him what he wanted.”
“A simple thank you would be nice.”
She snorts. “Thank you? You’re joking. You could’ve been seriously injured.”
He grits his teeth. “I was trying to protect you, Julia.”
“Well, I’d rather you didn’t get yourself killed by being macho.”
“Yeah, I get it, Julia,” he mutters. “You don’t need looking after. You’re a perfectly capable and independent woman, blah, blah, blah...”
Julia feels her blood pressure rise. “Stop being a child. And for the record, what just happened wasn’t about me, it was about you. You didn’t want another man getting the better of you, pure and simple. You wanted to conquer, compete, and control.”
He turns to her sharply. “Really, Julia? Really? You think so little of me? That I’m just some caveman who can’t control his emotions?” He pauses. “I was worried that when that lowlife pulled the knife, he might rape you.”
She’s shocked. It was honestly something she hadn’t thought of.
“I know you think I’m just this uneducated, dumb shmuck who works with his hands, but believe it or not I do have a brain.”
She swallows. “I know you do.”
They fall into silence. Curious onlookers are beginning to gather along the grass boundary.
“You’re okay. I’m okay. That’s what’s important,” she says. “And we have a lead. Toni was at a nightclub on Saturday night.”
Leo takes a breath, calmer. “Assuming Suley-what’s-it over there is telling the truth.”
This catches Julia off guard. “What do you mean? He knew about Toni’s tattoo. He must have seen her.”
Leo shrugs. “Maybe there’s a Facebook post somewhere showing Toni with it or...” he says, drifting off.
“Or what?”
He pauses. “He could actually be involved in Toni’s disappearance. Responsible for it, even.”
Julia shudders as she has a flash of the man abducting Toni at knifepoint down some dark alleyway. She looks over to where the patrol officer and
