Demir splays his hands, palm upward. “Nothing at all. Just a spare room for storage.”
“Storage?”
“Yes.”
Detective Muhtar strokes his chin. “You are being evasive, I think, Mr. Cevik.”
“I am not,” says Demir, unconvincingly.
Detective Muhtar stares at him. “Then why not let us take a look?”
Flustered, Demir says, “Because there is nothing to see.”
Detective Muhtar holds out his hand. “Give me the key, Mr. Cevik.”
“I will not,” says Demir.
“I have the key,” says Ela.
Demir looks at her, panicked. “Ela.”
“Father, we must show them the girl is not in there.”
“Ela, do not interfere.”
“We must, Father.”
Before Demir can object, Ela unlocks the door and shoves it open. Julia pushes past her, halting when she sees the dimly lit space crowded with boxes and objects covered with drop-cloths. Four large humidifiers hum softly in each corner of the room. Detective Muhtar enters behind her and throws off a sheet revealing an enormous bronze bell oxidized with a green patina. Next to that is a marble bust of Alexander the Great. He digs through a box and pulls out swords, ancients coins, fossils, bronze figurines.
“What is all this stuff?” says Leo, looking around.
“The heritage belonging to the Turkish people,” says Detective Muhtar in disgust.
Leo crouches to look at a water jug made of stone. “Oh, I read about this. Thieves going into the unsecured sites, stealing artifacts, then smuggling them offshore to sell on the black market to collectors.”
Bewildered, Julia looks around the cramped space. “A smuggling operation?” She shakes her head. “No. Toni has got to be here. I heard her.”
Detective Muhtar pivots to face the doorway. Ela is there but Demir Cevik is gone.
“Where is the son-of-a-bitch?” he growls.
Ela looks at him in dismay and says nothing. Scowling, Detective Muhtar mutters something and tells the others to stay put while he goes searching for Demir. He departs, his footsteps thumping angrily down the hall.
“I heard her, Leo,” says Julia, moving deeper into the room.
“You can’t have.”
Julia pushes aside boxes, searching through the maze.
Leo catches her by the arm. “Julia, she isn’t here.”
She stares at him. “I heard her, Leo. I know I did.” But her voice sounds hollow, even to her.
“No, Julia. You made a mistake.”
She glances back at the room. Nothing but dust and lifeless objects. Her heart sinks.
“I thought she was in here,” says Julia.
“Your mind playing tricks. That’s all.”
Julia bites her lip to stop from crying. “Are we ever going to find her, Leo?”
She searches his face for the answer. But he just stands there and looks at her like he doesn’t know what to say.
45
Julia stares out the car window into the dull black night. The scene that had played out hours earlier at the village had left an unwelcome residue and she’s struggling to shake it. For a brief moment, she had genuinely thought Toni had been in that room. She realizes now that was just a fantasy, her mind playing tricks, substituting wishing for reality. She glances at Leo, who’s fast asleep, head resting against his rolled-up jacket against the window. He’d done his best to stay awake and offer her comfort, but Julia needed answers, not hugs.
None of it makes sense. Toni going to the nightclub. Toni getting into the Lamborghini with an unidentified male. Toni’s penny necklace in Asen Cevik’s possession. Demir Cevik certainly wasn’t talking. In fact, he’d flashed Julia such a hateful look when he was cuffed and driven away in the back of the police car, Julia thought that even if he did know something it was unlikely he would ever share it with her.
As they stood watching the police car drive off, Leo had asked Detective Muhtar what would happen now that Cevik had been arrested.
“That depends on whether he has friends in high places,” the detective said, dryly.
“You think the smuggling thing is bigger than just him?”
“Oh, undoubtedly. Cevik is just a cog in the wheel, as you people like to say in the west.”
None of that mattered to Julia. Her primary concern was finding Toni and they had failed in that regard, although something in her gut told her Ela knew more than she was letting on. Julia had caught sight of the young nurse weeping in the kitchen window after her father had gone. Julia asked Detective Muhtar if she could speak to Ela alone, but he’d shaken his head and glanced up at the darkening sky and said there wasn’t time because they needed to make it through the mountain pass before nightfall.
So here they were, driving through the night, back to Istanbul, empty-handed and heavy-hearted.
They’d stopped only once, just after midnight, when Julia had made the suggestion. At first Detective Muhtar had balked at the idea because he wanted to carry on uninterrupted. But Julia had insisted, and in the end, he’d reluctantly pulled into a half-empty truck stop that served, it turned out, five nondescript minced-meat dishes in barely warm bain-maries, coffee in an old-school percolator, and orange cordial dispensed from a large plastic urn. Julia and Leo had sat wordlessly under the harsh fluorescent lights pushing lamb mince and overcooked rice round their tin trays while Detective Muhtar stood outside smoking and staring into the starless night. They hit the road not long after.
She looks at Detective Muhtar now. He still seems alert despite driving for hours.
His eyes meet hers in the rearview. “Okay?”
Julia nods and returns to the window and Detective Muhtar drives on.
They reach the hotel just after 4 a.m. Julia crawls into bed and sleeps.
*
The sun wakes her. Still groggy, she lifts a hand to shield her eyes from the glare and sees Leo’s silhouette hunched over his laptop.
She licks dry
