Page 170 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

She starts to get up, but I take her hand and pull her back down beside me.

“You did the right thing. If you’re in trouble—if Oumar’s in trouble—I have resources. I can help you.”

“I don’t know.” She’s sitting on the edge of the pew, still ready to bolt.

“I need you to listen to me,” I say. “I know you’re scared and don’t know who to trust. But let me help you. Please. You can’t do this on your own. Tell me what happened.”

I might be as leery to trust her as she is to trust me, but if there is any chance that Oumar’s in danger, I can’t just walk away. She fumbles for her phone, then holds up a grainy video and pushes play. There is no sound, but even with the bad picture, I recognize Oumar instantly. He’s tied to a chair, his face bruised.

“They’re demanding five million dollars,” Mariam says. “And they told me not to go to the authorities.”

“Who would think you have that kind of money?” I ask, trying to process the information she’s giving me.

She looks up at me for the first time. “My family owns a company, the Baako Group. On paper the business looks good, but there’s no way my father can come up with a large amount of money. Not by their deadline.”

“You’ve already asked him?”

She nods.

“So whoever took Oumar knows his connection to you and your family.”

My mind is racing now as I work to put the little I know together. While it’s true that what Oumar was doing was risky, who would kidnap him for a ransom demand?

“What did Oumar tell you about me?” I ask.

“Not much. Just that you’re a business acquaintance—a consultant—who helped him in the past with security. That you have connections and if I ever needed help I should contact you. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“How long has he been missing?” I ask.

“Two days.”

Two days?

I shake my head. “Why didn’t you contact me sooner?”

“I thought if I could come up with the money I could fix all of this, but now. . .now you’re my last resort. You can help me. . .can’t you?”

I look around again, searching for anything that feels out of place. Anyone who might have followed her here. I’m still unable to dismiss the nagging feeling that this could still somehow be a setup. Except the fear in her eyes is real, and my mind can’t erase the video she just showed me.

“Do you see the man twenty feet to your left?”

I shift my gaze at Graham’s question coming through my earpiece.

A man in a black jacket is standing there, scanning the area, clearly not here as a tourist or worshipper.

I turn to Mariam. “Don’t be obvious, but do you recognize the man wearing black to our left?”

She clenches her hands together then glances up. “No.”

“He’s armed,” Graham says through my earpiece. “Get her out of here. Now.”

CHAPTER

FOUR

“We need to leave,”I say, reaching for Mariam’s arm. “Stay close to me.”

I guide her toward the aisle, as if we’d just spent the last few minutes praying. As if there isn’t an armed man twenty feet away from us.