Page 54 of Kiss Her Goodbye

“And she ends up walking away while the men are pulverized by a hammer?”Detective Marc already sounds skeptical.

Roberta doesn’t back down.“Fine.The two men were the kidnappers and someone killed them to rescue her.”Her tone states,Top that.

Her detective brother has no problem: “Then where’s her savior?She’s the only one caught on camera.”

Daryl re-enters the fray.“Bigger question, how’d she get from there to here?Warehouse district is a solid twenty miles from this resort.No way she walked it.”

“Maybe she called Uber?”Roberta suggests.

“Or her husband.”I glance at Detective Marc.“Do you have her phone?”

He shakes his head.

“Can you track it, get records of texts, voice mail messages, recent calls?”

“We’re not idiots, thank you.Up until this point, however, we haven’t had cause to subpoena records.Technically speaking, she’s still not considered missing.”

“But now that she’s a possible witness, suspect—”

“Person of interest.”

“In a double homicide.That must give you probable cause.”

“I have more avenues of investigation open to me now than I did before,” Marc agrees dryly.

I hesitate.“If Sabera was going to reach out to anyone, you would think it would be Isaad… Maybe the courier was a hint or alarm of some kind.A way for Sabera to send her husband a secret message.Certainly, based on the walls of this place alone, she’s way into coded messages.”

Detective Marc doesn’t say anything, as there’s nothing to say.Sabera was attacked along with the men in the warehouse.Sabera attacked the men in the warehouse.Sabera is covered in her own blood.Sabera is covered in someone else’s blood.Sabera is in desperate need of medical attention.Sabera is a danger to herself and others.

Sabera is married/not married.A great mother/a distant mother.A devout Muslim/a closet drinker.

We have theories and more theories.What we need are answers.

“According to my conversation with Aliah this morning,” I ponder out loud, “Isaad still hasn’t reappeared.Is it possible he was the one staying here?He’s a mathematician, right?Maybe all these notations…” But the moment I say it, I waver.The handwriting doesn’t feel right.I’m no expert in these things, but there’s a kind of looping flair to the script that seems distinctly feminine.I can tell from the others’ expressions they think the same.

“Okay, so he’s not the one who wrote the message, but what if he’s the intended recipient?I mean, everything going on in there”—I wave my hand in the general direction of the townhouse—“certainly looks like some kind of riddle, and math geeks are good with codes.What if something terrible did happen to Sabera, something involving a hammer…”

Detective Marc rolls his eyes at my broad conjecture.I refuse to back down.

“She makes her way here, where she can tend her wounds, then leaves a message for her husband, telling him what happened in a way only he’d understand.”

“Why all the secrecy?”Detective Marc asks bluntly.“If she already contacted him to pick her up, then he knows at least some of what happened.And if she’s that grievously injured, he should be taking her to the hospital, not a stolen townhouse.”

I scowl.Solid questions once again.

Daryl and Roberta give me disappointed expressions, as if I’ve somehow let them down.

My last-minute salvo: “Okay, try this on.Sabera was targeted, for some reason we have yet to determine.She gets away.Arrives here, by some means we have yet to determine—”

I can already feel Detective Marc’s eye roll.

“Where she leaves a coded message for Isaad, warning him of the danger.Because she’s not the only one at risk.Whatever happened involves him as well.Which would explain”—my voice picks up—“why he’s now disappeared.”

I feel pretty good about myself, right up until Detective Marc goes with the sarcastic hand clap.“Brilliant story.Except, oh yes, where the fuck is your evidence?”

I glare at him, then it occurs to me.“Cameras!Place this swanky must have one helluva security system.Access the tapes, fill in the timeline.”

“Great idea.Why didn’t I think of it first?Oh, wait, I did.Another pesky detail, the security system hasn’t been working for the past few weeks.Some kind of electrical fritz, or so they believe.”