Saffron Nights (18 page)

W
hen Jackson awoke the next morning, the first thing he did was check his phone. No messages. Where was Maeve? Had she forgotten to call him—or was she in trouble? He threw his robe on and walked across the corridor to knock on her door—no answer.

He needed to get dressed and find out from the hotel if she was indeed in her room—or if she had been there and left. When he turned to go back inside his room, a hotel messenger was there.

“Jackson Dodds?”

“Yes,” he said tying his robe even tighter.

“A package arrived for you. Please sign here for it,” he said.

Jackson signed and took the package from the man.

Finally. It was here. Or at least his package was here; he had no idea about Maeve’s. They’d decided to split it. He was getting the spices—she the cosmetic powder.

He ripped open the envelope and was pleased to find he was right. He sat the canister on his nightstand, pulled out the plastic Baggie and left it there next to his phone. He would leave a “do not disturb” sign on his door so the maids wouldn’t enter his room.

Where was Maeve?

He found the jeans he had on last night and slipped into them. No time for a shower or a shave, he thought, as he glanced at his two-day stubble. Damn. He at least needed to brush his teeth and wash his face.

He picked up his cell and noticed its red light flashing. He had calls. The editor. Someone from the agency. And Sanj. They would all have to wait. He picked up his smallest camera. You just never knew.

After ascertaining from the desk clerk that Maeve had not been in all night, Jackson realized that his head was throbbing. He sat down at the restaurant in the hotel lobby and ordered some coffee and eggs. He hoped the coffee would take the edge off his headache.

Okay, think, he told himself.
Don’t get distracted by the way the sun is streaming in through the window, or the way it’s playing off the red silk shirt the woman next to you is wearing, or, no indeed, the way she is looking at you with a smoky sultriness.
He turned his face. He hadn’t done that to a beautiful woman in a while.

Okay, what they always said to do in murder mysteries was to retrace the steps of the person missing—and the last person to see Maeve was Fatima.

The server brought him a hot steaming cup of coffee. It was like elixir. The smell. The warmth. The taste. The caffeine. He scrolled through his contact list. Did he have Fatima’s number? Yes!

“Ms. Shehab’s office,” the voice said over the phone.

“Yes, this is Jackson Dodds, the photographer who met with her yesterday?”

“Ms. Shehab is not available right now. Can I have her call you back?”

“Um, well, it’s kind of an emergency,” he said.

“One moment, Mr. Dodds,” she said and placed him on hold.

He took a bite of his eggs—so good—and a bite of his buttered toast. Hmm. More coffee. His eyes wandered back to the stream of light coming through the window. Then he looked out into the lobby—maybe Maeve met someone last night and she would be coming back through the lobby any minute. He didn’t like the thought of her with another man. But it was better than any of the countless alternatives. Why did he leave her to come back alone last night?

“Mr. Dodds?”

“Yes.”

“I’m patching you through. Please hold.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“Jackson! Good morning! What is the problem?” Fatima said, forcing him to get right to the point.

“Maeve didn’t come back to the hotel last night.”

“Are you certain?” she said after a minute.

“Yes. The hotel would not let me in her room, but they checked. She’s not there and nobody saw her come in last night.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. The last time I saw her she was walking east from the restaurant toward your hotel,” she said. “Could she have passed out somewhere? She was quite drunk, but insisted she walk. I offered a car . . .” her voice trailed off.

But Jackson was tracing in his mind which street was east. “East? Isn’t that sort of the red-light district?”

“I told her how to steer clear of it. But maybe she didn’t.”

“I’m on my way to the restaurant to retrace her footsteps.”

“Good idea. I can’t get away for another hour. But maybe by then you will have found her,” she said.

The coffee suddenly soured in Jackson’s stomach and he needed to find the bathroom quickly.

M
aeve was in a smoky room—her back was aching; she tried to reach around to her back and couldn’t move her arms. What the hell? Her eyes needed to open so she could see what was going on—but they wouldn’t, they were just too heavy. She realized she was lying on the floor and the smoky scent that filled her was hashish. Pungent hashish. Her hands were tied together. She ran her fingers along the braided ropes. She felt the sting of their burn against her tender wrists. What had happened to her?

She heard murmurs—a soft voice, female.

“I don’t know what we can do with her,” the voice said.

“She is beautiful,” a thick-accented male voice said. “She’d fetch a pretty price.”

Maeve stiffened. She had been kidnapped. Why did she not remember it? What was the last thing she remembered?

Fatima and Jackson at the restaurant.

Walking down the street at night. Alone. Foolish.

“Don’t be stupid,” the woman hissed. “Do you know who this is?”

“Some cookbook author . . . ,” he said, obviously unimpressed.

“She’s more than that. She was Paul’s partner. We can’t let anything happen to her. Out of respect for him.”

Maeve began to sweat profusely—but she tried not to move, as it became clear to her why her eyes wouldn’t open. She was blindfolded. Gagged. Tied up and lying on the floor.

The man breathed in deeply. What was he doing? Then he blew out. He was smoking hash. This sent shocks of fear through Maeve. Not only had she been kidnapped, but her captors were getting stoned. Great.

“Well, what do you expect me to do?” he said. “You asked for her. Here she is. Now what?”

“I just had to get her out of the way,” she told him in her decidedly British accent.

“For what?”

“She has something I want,” she said. “But other people want it, too. It could get ugly.”

Maeve strained to hear, but was overtaken by a sudden wave of weariness. The woman’s voice blurred and Maeve lost her battle to try to stay awake.

A cool compress was placed on her head. The scent of lilac woke her. Or was she still sleeping? She opened her eyes—at least she was no longer blindfolded. She struggled to focus.

“Quite a night we had,” a man said and kissed her forehead. “You’ve gotten quite sick. Sometimes this happens. An infection. I’m so sorry.”
Did she know this person?

“I’m sorry—do I—”

“You don’t remember getting your nipples pierced?”

“Ah, yes,” she managed to say. She must be in the back of the shop.

Lying on a cot, surrounded by silky blankets, she wondered who moved her from the other place she had been. Surely, that wasn’t a dream. No.

The man smiled, concerned. “How do you feel?”

“Confused,” she said. “Thirsty.”

“I’ll get you some water. Be right back.”

She tried to sit up—but waves of dizziness forced her back to the pillow. Infected? Her nipples? Sure, they were a little sore—but infected? And to make her so sick? Her arms were sore—she held them up and saw the tracks. She’d obviously been drugged. Her wrists were red and rope burned. Did they think they could pull this off? Someone had gotten in too deep. Now they were trying to backtrack. Okay. I’ll let them, she thought, let’s see how far I can take my apparent ignorance.

The dark-skinned man came back into the room with a tray holding a water pitcher and a glass. “Can you sit up?” He sat the tray down.

He helped her sit and she leaned against him. “Dizzy,” she said. “I’m okay, now.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him pour the water. “Thank you.” She said.

She placed he water to her lips, relishing the cool glass and the thirst-quenching liquid. It went down very fast. “Oh,” she said. “So good.”

He smiled. “More.”

“Not quite yet. My stomach feels sick.” Maeve sat back. “I need my purse. I need to call my partner. He must be worried.”

“Purse?” he said. “I don’t know where it would be. Maybe it’s in the front room. Where did you leave it?”

“I paid you from it,” she said, trying not to sound suspicious. “It was on my lap.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure we will find it. I’ll go and look myself in a few minutes. Can I bring you something to eat?”

“No thanks. Just my purse. I need my phone,” she said.

He watched, smiling, as Maeve swooned. Had she been drugged—again?

J
ackson put off returning any calls, though he did listen to Sanj’s message. Maeve’s blood tests came back—she wasn’t allergic to durian at all. She had been drugged. Why hadn’t they thought of that? Sanj was furiously questioning his servants. They couldn’t get rid of Jackson—so they were trying to get rid of her. And now, perhaps, they had. Jackson swallowed hard as bile crept into his throat.

Several sponsors had called wondering why specific product blog posts had not gone up on the Internet as planned. What could he say?
Maeve Flannery has been missing for more than twenty-four hours and I’m not sure who to inform, who to ask for help?

“Give it two days and then you must inform the embassy,” Fatima told him earlier that day.

They walked each of the streets she could have walked down that would have still led her back to the hotel. Surely she wasn’t so drunk that she’d have taken off in another direction.

“No,” Fatima said, when he expressed his concern. “I saw her go this way. In fact, I’m almost positive she went down this street.”

“It’s, ah, pretty shabby,” he managed to say.

“But during the night it’s well-lit, and that may be what was important to her.”

Jackson walked up and down the street, lined with several bars, eateries, a magazine stand, a closed tattoo and piercing parlor, though he was sure he’d seen movement inside the place. He and Fatima left flyers with her picture everywhere. Nobody recognized her—a white-skinned, auburn-haired woman would have attracted a bit of attention on this street. So Jackson was suspicious nobody claimed to have seen her. What could have happened to her?

He started to sweat profusely as he considered the possibilities.

“Jackson, are you okay?” Fatima said, grabbing his arm and steadying him. He must have really swayed—and he imagined it was in his mind. “You look pale, my friend. You really care about her.”

“Of course, I do. She’s my partner,” he said.

“No. I think it’s more than that,” she mumbled. “In any case, there’s not much more we can do until tomorrow when it’s daytime. I’ll cancel my appointments and meet you at the hotel for breakfast. I don’t understand why you don’t want to alert the—”

“Just trust me on this,” he said, still sifting through Fatima’s pronouncement.

Good God. Was he in love with this woman? The thought scared the shit out of him.

Maeve. Smart. Nerdy. Hot-tempered. Beautiful. Great in the sack. All of it came together to form one big emotional ball in the center of him, where it churned and sparked. “I have to find her. “ He blinked away tears.

Jackson watched how people reacted to Fatima. She recked of wealth and power. Jeweled. Dressed to the hilt. People almost bowed to her when she walked into one of the bars. Yet, nobody could help her. So Jackson decided to come back on his own tonight. A man alone might find out more than if he were with a wealthy businesswoman. He was glad he’d not shaved. Scruffy was just what the night called for.

 

Just as he suspected, there was more activity on this street after midnight—which is when Maeve had to be walking along its cobbled sidewalks. Bongos blared out of one establishment as someone opened the door to enter. Jackson kept walking. The smell of hashish permeated the next few places he passed. A group of women took a “professional” interest in him, catcalling.

“Sex?”

“Will do what you want, Mister.”

He started to walk by—he was in no mood for sex, even if it was with a hot young dark-skinned woman. But, wait a minute. If he could pay one for sex, he could surely pay one for information. Or all of them.

He turned around and walked back to the women, all smiling at him. Most of them were dirty-looking, had bad teeth, and wore cheap makeup. These were not Madison Avenue call girls. Six of them.

“How much?” he said to one of the older women—who he estimated to be about twenty-five.

“Depends,” she said. “What do you want?”

“I want all of you,” he said and they laughed.

“All at once?” she clarified.

“Yes, and I have an odd request,” he said.

Her brows knitted. “How odd?”

The women formed a tight circle around him now. The scent of patchouli hardly masked their body odor.

“Where’s the room?” He said. “We’ll get to that. I won’t hurt you. We just need privacy.”

She considered him. “You look like you can afford us,” she said.

“I can.”

“Follow me.”

She led him into the alley, with the other women following close behind, and up some teetering stairs. The women giggled at his lack of dexterity as he climbed, losing footing now and then.

When the woman opened the door, it took a moment for Jackson’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. She lit a lamp, then another. The other women helped her light more lamps. One of the lights was in the window. A signal, no doubt.

“Now, sir, we are yours,” the lead woman said and started to disrobe.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want sex. I want information.”

She stepped back, startled. Someone spoke harshly in Arabic.

“I have this photo. I’m looking for a friend,” he said hoping to quell the woman’s panic. “I’m not the police. I’m a photographer. Here in Morocco with my partner. This is her.”

She took the photos as the others gathered around.

“She was last seen here, last night,” he said.

“Why are you seeking her?” One woman spoke up. “Perhaps she has found a lover?”

“No,” he said. “She’s in trouble. There are some bad people . . .” How to explain the whole complicated story? “She’s in trouble. I can feel it.”

One woman’s eyes lit with an expression of recognition—another one said something sharply to her.

“None of us have seen her,” the woman said. “We are sorry.”

Jackson shrugged. “It was worth a try,” he said, handing out fresh dirhams to each of them. “Thanks so much.”

As he walked away he felt their eyes on him and he knew they were lying. He ducked behind another stairway after the women left the building and watched as one of the women approached a tattoo shop.