“But you’re saying that Toni Norris was never in your car when there is very clear evidence she was.”
He exhales. “All right, I admit it. I did see her. I had just left the club and was in my car when she came out. I gave her a lift to her hotel but I never saw her again after that.”
Beren raises an eyebrow. “You expect us to believe that?”
He shrugs. “Believe what you want. I am telling you the truth.”
“Ms. Norris never met you before and she gets into your car, just like that?”
“I recall she was upset and wanted to get away from the club in a hurry.”
“Upset? What about?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. She wanted to be taken to her hotel so that’s what I did.”
“What hotel?”
“I don’t know. Some budget hotel in Karakoy.”
“Where did you go after that?”
“I don’t know. A few more clubs. Home.”
“To your pregnant wife and six children?”
He pauses. “Now you’re getting personal.”
Beren nods. “My apologies, Mr. Saat. There is no reason to involve your family. But Toni Norris has a family, too. She has a sister who loves her dearly, friends, as well. Please, for their sake, tell us what happened.”
He lifts his chin, indignant. “I had nothing to do with this woman’s disappearance.”
“Where is Toni Norris, Mr. Saat?”
He looks squarely at the phone camera. “I’m telling you the truth. I did not hurt this girl and I do not know where she is.”
55
Julia’s first solo surgery was on a four-year-old boy named Jeremy Heller from Kirkland, Seattle. Jeremy had been born with a ventricular septal defect, better known as a hole in the heart. Although a VSD is typically picked up in an infant’s first few days of life, it had remained undetected in Jeremy until two months before his fourth birthday when his mother had noticed he’d become uncharacteristically breathless and lethargic. She’d taken him to the family doctor, who ordered an electrocardiogram, and the VSD diagnosis was finally made. The surgery was simple and involved sewing a patch of surgical material over the hole to close it. Julia had assisted on a prior VSD surgery so knew exactly what needed to be done. All very routine. Until she closed Jeremy up and he had a massive heart attack on the operating table and died twenty-seven seconds later. Jeremy Heller, four, her first and only patient death.
“What are you thinking about?” says Leo.
They are heading back to the hotel for a shower and change of clothes after being holed up in Detective Muhtar’s apartment for nearly two days.
“Jeremy.”
The faces of Jeremy Heller’s grief-stricken parents drop into Julia’s mind. She’d told them his death had been a statistical anomaly.
“Who?”
Jeremy’s mother had called her a murderer.
“A little boy. My first surgery.”
“I remember.”
She glances at him. She’d forgotten he’d been there. “Of course.”
The administration had forced her to see a counselor, part of the hospital’s malpractice procedure. When the counselor had told Julia she had unresolved issues from childhood, Julia had thanked him and told him she’d work on it. For years afterward, she’d dreamt about Jeremy’s taut peachy skin, the soft sweep of his eyelashes, but she’d never cried. Julia remembers that now, not crying even though a little boy had died, even though she had probably been the cause of his death.
“What made you think about that?” says Leo, frowning.
“I’m not sure.”
He stops and takes her by the shoulders. “Everything’s going to be all right, Julia.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It will be,” he says, tightening his grip.
She looks at him. “Did you see the look on that smug bastard’s face, Leo? He’s a goddamn liar. He has Toni somewhere, I know it.”
Leo lowers his hands and puts them in his pockets.
“Are you so sure about that?” he says carefully.
She’s shocked. “Yes. Aren’t you?”
“I’m just saying, there could be a possibility that Saat is telling the truth.”
“But it’s the only plausible explanation. He has a history of violence against women, and the CCTV. Toni was in his car, for God’s sake.”
Leo looks doubtful. “Yeah, but his pattern has been limited to drugging and raping, not kidnapping.”
Julia scoffs. “But that’s what happens, isn’t it? These perpetrators escalate, seek more and more thrills, take greater risks. Or maybe things got out of hand. A wrong dosage. A bad reaction. Toni’s system might not have been able to cope.”
Leo looks away. “Yeah, I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“Feel right?” Julia shakes her head in disbelief. “Try employing a bit of logic here, Leo. Base conclusions on facts.”
“What facts exactly?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she says, her voice rising. “I’m not attacking your intellect, so you can wipe that injured look off your face.”
He looks away. “Whatever, Julia. You’re right. You’re always right.”
Julia tosses her hands in the air. “I can’t deal with you and your fragile little ego at the moment, Leo. There are more important things to think about, like my missing sister.”
She strides across the tired chipped parquet floor. Ada looks up to say hello but Julia pretends not to see. Julia can’t be nice, not now, not with Leo’s words ringing in her ears. She enters the lift and hits her floor. She needs to be alone.
56
Water batters her skull. It’s ruthless and hot and smells like chlorine but it’s better than nothing. Julia reaches for the tiny hotel soap and tears the plastic with her teeth, spitting out a fleck of packaging. Lathering up, she cleans every part of herself, desperate to wash away the dirt from these past few days. She’s just beginning to relax when there’s a knock on the hotel door.
She pushes her face in the water and groans. “Leave me alone, Leo.”
Another knock. God. She just wants some time to herself, some time to think. Is that too much to ask?
Sighing, she steps from the shower, wrapping a towel around herself. He’ll just want to talk, to
