Page 42 of Kiss Her Goodbye (Frankie Elkin #4)

A LIAH IS SURROUNDED BY A sea of graph paper when I return. At a glance, I can tell she has duplicated the five-by-five grids provided by Zahra, each sheet bearing a raft of scribbles in the margin.

“Do you know what magic squares are?” she asks upon my entrance.

“Not a clue.”

“Your handsome friend is correct; they are puzzles where the sum of the digits across rows, down columns, and through diagonals are the same. From that regard, these are magic squares—the numbers always add up to sixty. There’s no way such repetition can be by chance.”

“What does that mean? Is the number sixty significant?”

“Maybe, but here’s the problem, your friend is also correct—a true magic square doesn’t have any repeated numbers, and these ones do. Which, apparently, classifies them as trivial. But given everything that’s going on, they don’t feel so trivial to me.”

I peer over her shoulder, studying the laborious process she’s been going through adding up every single combination of numbers. She’s right; there’s no way this kind of perfectly synchronized addition can be by chance. But what does it mean?

I pick up a piece of graph paper, study the copied puzzle for a bit. If it’s a code, by whom and for whom? And what does this five-by-five grid of numbers signify?

“Do we know how Zahra learned to draw this?” I ask.

“She says her mother learned them from her mother, a gift passed from generation to generation.”

“Hand-me-down math puzzles?” The concept alone hurts my head.

“Two halves of one whole,” Aliah repeats.

“Do you know what that means?”

“Not at all.”

I take a seat. Study the assorted pages. “Was the grandmother a math professor?”

“Maryam was a fashion designer.”

“That tracks,” I mutter, given that nothing about this case makes sense. “But Sabera knows math, yes? She worked as an assistant for Isaad at the university?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning, she’d understand these grids were wrong, er, trivial, as you say; they aren’t constructed properly.”

“I would assume she’d realize such a thing.”

I frown. “You said the repeating digits shouldn’t be there. What happens when you cull them out?”

“You are asking if the repeated numbers are significant on their own?”

“Sure.”

Aliah shrugs. “I’ve analyzed them many times. As the saying goes, I got nothing.”

I study the grids. All look Greek to me.

For lack of anything smarter to do, I pull out my phone and Google magic squares.

I learn that they date back to ancient China, have gained occult status, and can appear as symbols in works of art.

As a matter of principle, they are constructed with non-repeated positive integers.

There are, however, examples of famous “trivial” squares, including the four-by-four Sagrada Familia magic square whose rows and columns add up to the number thirty-three, the age of Jesus at the time of the Passion, but get there by repeating the numbers fourteen and ten. So famously trivial.

Basically, the more I read, the less I understand.

I’m also still struggling with the concept of the grids being a hand-me-down from Zahra’s grandmother. Because Sabera’s encryption skills weren’t challenging enough? Except, of course, her mother was also an MI6 agent. Meaning maybe Sabera learned encoding from her?

Seriously, what were family dinnertime conversations like in that house?

I return to two halves of one whole. A key of some kind?

Maybe we should halve the numbers inside the magic squares, except that results in messy fractions.

Next, I try dividing out the total. If the magic sum is currently sixty, what happens if I make it thirty, and reconstruct the grids accordingly?

What I get from my awkward computations is that it’s very difficult to create a magic square.

Certainly, the only way I can get each row, column, and diagonal to total thirty is to repeat numbers again.

I’d like to think it’s because that’s the only way it can be done, but it could also mean I’m not clever enough.

One thing I’ve learned in my years as an investigator: play to your strengths. The odds of me cracking this code and/or using it to locate Sabera are not high. Then again, the crime scene specialist from Sabera’s townhouse hideaway, Jay Chen… He clearly enjoyed puzzles.

I give Detective Marc a call.

“What?” he growls.

I fill him in on Zahra’s carefully replicated math puzzles. I do not mention our own attempt at a coded message inviting Sabera to a meeting; I’m not totally stupid.

“Fuck,” he states.

“We’re thinking the grids are magic squares. Which may or may not have something to do with two halves of one whole.”

“Fuck.”

“I was wondering if your crime scene expert, Jay Chen, might give them a look?”

Silence. Then: “Fine, send me a photo.”

“Has he had any luck discovering more messages from the wall art?”

“He’s running photos of the scripted mess through an encryption software.”

“An encryption software? Huh, I wonder if I can find that as an app.”

More silence.

“Any more breakthroughs from Isaad’s cell phone, Sabera’s cell phone? You had a term for it… wait, I remember! Any new evidence?”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Generally I don’t have to try.” I change my tone to dead serious. “I am attempting to keep a little girl safe. Whatever happened to her parents, we both know she could be next.”

Detective Marc sighs heavily. I don’t think he’s a bad guy. He’s just a product of a system with limited thinking.

“Isaad Ahmadi’s phone had half a dozen incoming calls from a burner phone,” he supplies. “All lasting less than thirty seconds, none leaving messages.”

“You can’t trace the burner?”

“Nope.”

“What about triangulating the signal or whatever that is?”

“It’s possible a few of those calls bounced off a tower near the warehouse district. Including the same evening as someone went whack-a-mole with the two male vics.”

“So someone calling from the vicinity of the first crime scene,” I muse. “Maybe the bad guys making contact with Isaad? Or Sabera having dispatched bad guys, calling Isaad for a ride out of there?”

“Whoever did the calling, it got Isaad there, and we all know how that ended.” Slight pause.

“For the record, the ME confirmed Isaad Ahmadi had blood on his clothes that matched the two Afghans discovered bludgeoned to death. She then tested the blood on their hands and clothing and got a match to Isaad. So definitely the three had some kind of altercation. How that ended with all of them dead, in two different locations, twenty-four hours apart, however, remains unclear.”

“They lured Isaad to the warehouse. He got into a struggle with them, allowing Sabera time to flee. And then…”

And then I have the same problem Detective Marc has. Then someone should’ve won the fight. Isaad kills the men with a hammer, he and Sabera get away. Or the two men overwhelm Isaad, taking him prisoner to interrogate and torture for the next twenty-four hours.

Except the two men die the evening of Sabera’s escape; Isaad isn’t killed until the following day. Which is a particularly disturbing scenario.

Because Detective Marc is cooperating, I fill him in on my other breakthrough for the day.

“Sabera was hospitalized for seventy-two hours on a psych hold. Had some kind of nervous breakdown-slash-PTSD episode. Looking at her meds list, which includes Haldol… is she of sound mind is definitely worth questioning.”

“Haldol as in the antipsychotic most often used for treating schizophrenia?”

“That’s the one.”

“Great.”

“On the bright side, something bad is definitely happening. Sabera is definitely missing, Isaad was definitely murdered, some strange men definitely tried to grab Zahra. This isn’t all in Sabera’s head.”

“On the bright side?”

“Trust me, I regretted the words the moment I said them. Current theory… we’re in the middle of unfinished business.

Most likely it involves Jamil, who may be Zahra’s father and Sabera’s first love and is supposedly dead, except you and I know that’s not the same as actually dead.

Then again, there’s a big difference between international custody disputes and riddles involving hair locks and abducted human keys. Your thoughts?”

Detective Marc has a unique way to make sounds that aren’t actually intelligible, and yet communicate just fine.

“New mathematical puzzles,” I prompt him, returning to the beginning. “Maybe if Chen studied them…”

In response, I get: “What was the name of Sabera’s psych doc?”

“Dr. Cindy Porway. Checking out her LinkedIn page, she looks really nice, like the kind of woman who would save stray dogs and give up her seat on a bus for the elderly. Maybe she’ll take pity on us.”

“I’ll pay her a visit. Given the circumstances, she might talk.”

“Ask her about Jamil.”

“Sabera’s first love and possible father of her child?”

“You do listen!”

A bunch of growly sounds again. So this is what Roberta grew up with. Interesting.

“I doubt Dr. Porway will confirm or deny anything,” Detective Marc grits out, “but being a crack detective, I happen to have the ability to read facial expressions while cuing off of physical responses. I got this.”

Detective Marc mutters a few words I don’t have to catch in order to feel his love. He clicks off. I return to staring at numbered grids. By the time Aliah announces she’s done for the day and we might as well return to the compound, I’m grateful.

I DON’T SEE the threat. Not even a hint of menace.

Aliah tidies up the kitchen, closes out the register. Her cook has already headed out. We exit onto the sidewalk; then she pauses to lock the glass door.

A squeal of tires directly behind us.

I’m just turning to see when the first blow knocks me on the side of my head. I fall to my knees. A second strike sends me face down onto the blistering pavement. I try to raise myself up but can’t find my feet. My body is present. My mind refuses to function. I can only watch and see.

Two black-clad men. One grabbing Aliah from behind. The other yanking a dark hood over her face.

She kicks. Screams in her mother tongue. Breaks free long enough to attempt to flee.

“Fffuuu… Grab her!”

The second man snags her wrist. She smacks him across the face. Then the first man seizes both her arms again, looping a zip tie around them.

Back vehicle door opens. The men toss Aliah in, then clamber after her as the white SUV rockets away.

I feel blood trickling from my temple.

I feel the sidewalk searing my cheek.

I feel…

Nothing at all as the world spins away.