Chapter 5
H eather woke from a nap on the couch and stared around her in a half-bleary, half-panicked state.
A hand landed softly on her shoulder, pressing her back down again. “Relax. You’re safe.” The man’s voice was calm, strong, but firm.
She blinked up at him and slowly recognized Royce. She groaned and collapsed back down again. Her mind raced to check that all was well in her world. The warmth of her tarot cards was a welcome reassurance. “You know that first moment when you wake up, and you’re not sure if you’re still awake or asleep?”
“I know,” he murmured, smiling at her. “It’s all good.”
“Maybe,” she conceded, “but, even in sleep, I can’t seem to escape him.”
“That’s likely to continue for quite a while.”
“Yeah.” She shifted upright, scrubbed at her face, and looked around. “It might be time for a meal and some coffee though.”
“Good. I asked Rick to take a detour to pick up food before he arrives.”
“Good. He was due in, wasn’t he?” she asked, frowning at him. “How long was I asleep? What happened to him?”
“Not long. He had a couple errands to run first.”
She didn’t say anything to that but wondered if they were errands she needed to know about. Should she mention her tarot cards to these men? No, not yet—if ever. She’d seen Faheed’s horrific response and didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize her position here. “I don’t suppose you have any intel on what’s going on at the hotel, do you? We need to know the situation and soon, in order to see what’s happening and what our next move will be.”
“That’s right, and I do have some intel. The hotel manager has absolutely no word of anything amiss so far.”
She stared at him blankly. “Meaning that Faheed didn’t raise an alarm?”
Royce nodded. “Nobody came to the front desk and asked if you were there. Nobody asked anything. So, it seems as if they are keeping your absence quiet for now.”
She frowned and stared down at her stockinged feet. “If he were to acknowledge that I was missing, it would be an acknowledgment of a loss or failure, and that would cause them to lose face. So, it makes sense that he would choose to keep it quiet,” she explained, with sudden understanding. “On the other hand, do I dare ask about the security guard?”
“He’s in the hospital and under guard by the Finnish police. They’ve been briefed on his role, and they’re trying to keep his presence at the hospital a secret because they don’t want him talking to anybody.”
“That would be good because otherwise it would let others know that I escaped, wouldn’t it?”
“The hospital just knows that the guard disappeared.”
She winced at that. “So the local police might very well think that the guard took a bribe from me and then helped me to get out of there. That’ll leave him in terrible danger.”
Royce shrugged. “I get that, but let’s not forget that he was taking money to keep you a prisoner.”
She couldn’t argue with that because it was true, and he’d shown absolutely no interest in helping her get away from her imprisonment. “It’s sad to think about really,” she murmured. “People could do so many things in life to become successful. Instead they turn into being assholes.”
When an odd knock came on the door, she bolted off the couch and ran into the far corner.
“That’s my partner.” Royce held up a hand reassuringly to her.
She just nodded, crossed her arms over her chest, and remained there, watching as Royce walked to the front door, tossed back the bolt, and unlocked it. When he pulled it open, she studied the newcomer curiously.
He stopped when he saw her, and a big grin crossed his face. “Hey,” Rick greeted her. “Are we happy to see you.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she nodded and smiled. “Not as happy as I’ve been to see you two,” she murmured. “Although it’ll take a while to believe that I’m safe.”
“Oh, you definitely need to keep your awareness up for a bit,” Rick stated. “While your position has improved, you’re not out of danger yet. And, if you have any tools or abilities to help us keep you safe, let us know, okay?”
She froze. Her heart slammed against her chest. “Abilities? Tools? Do you think if I had a way to escape before that I wouldn’t have?”
“Of course. Just keep in mind that we’re not safe yet.”
“ Great ,” she muttered, giving him a droll look, trying to hide the uneasiness inside her. Surely he didn’t know about her cards? No one did. Well, Hannah had, but even she didn’t realize how connected and useful they were for Heather. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me that we are safe and that it’s all fine now?”
“No. That would be a complete disservice to you,” Rick replied, his tone now serious. “This is a very dangerous step in the process. In this situation, if you relax and assume everything is fine, you could take one wrong step, and he’s got you again.” When her face paled, he nodded. “So don’t relax. Don’t think this is all over with,” he warned. “We’ll do our best to get you home and well away from this nightmare, but you are far from out of the woods yet. So, we’ve got a lot to get through before you’re back in England.”
She looked over at Royce. “Your friend’s not very reassuring.”
“No, he isn’t. Rick is all about making sure the job gets done and gets done properly,” Royce explained. “So don’t take it as a scare tactic. Instead just understand he’s trying to ensure that we don’t let down our guard and lose the ground we’ve gained.”
She nodded and didn’t say a whole lot more. Yet it made her think more about the process. “So, is this a good time to possibly check in with my company to let them know that I’m here and that I’m safe?”
Royce shared a look with his partner.
Rick pondered that and asked, “Is there any chance anybody in your company would have double-crossed you?”
“I would love to say there’s absolutely no chance,” she responded, “but I’m not an idiot. They are employees, and every employee has a price tag. So, in this case, I don’t know exactly how to answer that.”
Rick grimaced. “And that’s the concern. It is quite possible that, once the word spreads, somebody there will let these guys here know that you’re alive and somewhere here in town, and we’ll be up against a much harder battle to get you home.”
She let out her breath in a slow release, as she thought about it. “I really don’t want to think that somebody in my own company would betray me,” she murmured. “Yet is it possible? Absolutely, though honestly, it’s really one of those unthinkable things.”
Royce nodded. “That’s understandable, and Rick could tell you one hell of a story about betrayal at work. We’re not trying to make you suspicious of everybody you’ve hired. We just want to ensure that we don’t have any setbacks.”
“Got it.” She turned to Rick. “Did you bring food, by any chance?”
“I did bring food.” Rick held up multiple bags. “Food, plus I also brought you a change of clothes.”
She bolted toward him. “Seriously?”
He nodded and laughed. “We’ve been in this position a time or two,” he shared. “So, it’s nothing fancy, and I didn’t know about sizes. I had to depend on Royce for that.”
She flushed. “At this moment, I couldn’t care less if you brought potato sacks. If it is clothing that Faheed didn’t buy and wouldn’t recognize me in, I’m all for it.”
“Unless you’re some fashion icon who makes an entrance, it’s all good. He won’t likely recognize you in these.”
She laughed when she opened the one bag that he’d identified as clothing. “No, this is perfect.”
“Just leggings and a T-shirt. Not the quality you’re probably used to, and there are no underclothes. Sorry.”
“That’s fine,” she replied, with a wave of her hand. “I can wash them and hang them up. Besides, one change of clothes will go a long way, but it certainly won’t take care of things forever.”
“No, but hopefully we’ll get you back home again before it becomes too big of an issue.”
“That sounds good to me,” she said, with a bright smile. Wrinkling up her nose, she sniffed the air and asked, “So, what did you bring for food?”
“Hungry?” Rick asked in a teasing voice.
“Absolutely.” She looked over at Royce to see him smiling at her. “I know. I know. I said I wasn’t hungry earlier, but then I had a nap and a chance to reassess. Things are looking brighter now than they did a few minutes ago.”
“You mean, an hour ago when you fell asleep.”
“Yes,” she conceded. “All kinds of things can change in an hour.”
“Absolutely they can, especially if sleep is involved,” he murmured. “So, let’s eat.”
She sat down at the table and listened as the men discussed their options. She didn’t interrupt. She just worked her way through the food. While in captivity, she hadn’t eaten that much, as the reality of being held prisoner became more and more concerning the longer it went on. Now, with a taste of freedom, a chance to get away from that controlling nightmare, with some backup at her side, her outlook had changed considerably.
Royce looked over at her. “How much do you think he wants you?” She stopped, chopsticks in the air, and stared at him. He shrugged. “I guess the real question is, do you think he’ll come after you down the road for any reason?”
She frowned at that. “If he’s after me, I expect he wants the company. If it is established that he can’t get it no matter what and that my father’s will can’t be broken, then I suspect he won’t want anything to do with me. I don’t know that for sure though. Of course I’m not of the opinion that he’s holding some torch for me,” she pointed out. “So, beyond his interest in the company and the assault to his ego, I doubt very much that he’ll care. I don’t even know if he cares now.”
She shrugged. “I’ve never really understood what was truly on his mind. I don’t know whether he’ll pose a danger when I get back home or not. I hope not. Yet I could never have imagined he would confine me either. However, if you put him away for murdering his wives, then it’s not an issue.” Neither of the men made any comment, just kept eating. “So, is there any update or new information about getting me out of here?” she asked, searching their faces.
“Some,” Rick said in a noncommittal tone. “We’ve told the British government you are free, but, of course, they want something in return.”
She winced. “Royce mentioned that before, but what could I possibly give them?”
“Their goal is to put away Faheed, so evidence, proof of some sort, is what they’ll be after, likely with some enthusiasm. It’s not that they want to hold it over your head in exchange for getting you out of here, yet—”
“Got it. They do want to hold it over my head. But how do I give them what they want? I certainly can’t go back in there.”
“No, but do you have any information that could help them?”
“I don’t know how,” she said, bewildered. “I was a prisoner. They do know what that means, right?”
“Of course, but you weren’t always a prisoner, and I suspect that’s probably what they’re pinning their hopes on.”
“No, I wasn’t,” she agreed, then considered that for a moment. “I could come and go during those five years of their marriage, although that seems like such a long time ago now with…”
Royce nodded. “That freedom changed once your sister passed away.”
Even the reminder that her sister was gone caught her by surprise, and the tears flooded her eyes. Her cards warmed in her pocket in sympathy. She brushed away the tears impatiently and nodded.
“Could her death have been accidental, or did somebody else in Faheed’s life do it?”
“I don’t need to think about that,” she stated, shaking her head. “That’s your deal.”
He smiled at her. “It is and it isn’t,” he began in a calm tone. “We came to get you, yet MI6 hopes to stop Faheed, and we want to ensure that no other young women end up like you or worse, like his first four wives.”
She winced at that. “God, I can’t believe he’s had four wives who died on him. Hannah told me that his first wife died, but she never mentioned any subsequent wife who had died. I didn’t question it either. I guess we both thought Faheed divorced thereafter.”
“Four dead wives makes it very suspicious, don’t you think?” Rick asked, looking over at her.
“But Hannah believed she was his second wife. I’d heard there were more, but Hannah didn’t want to hear those rumors, so I didn’t delve any further into it.”
At that, the two men looked at each other. “I wonder if that’s what set it off.”
“Set what off?” she asked, frustrated that they seemed to understand so much more than she did.
“His behavior. Maybe the first one was an accident, and maybe he loved her, and she died in a tragic but legitimate accident. Yet he ended up in a significantly improved financial position at the end of the day. So, that may have been enough to compel him to marry a second time, but with more of an eye toward potential fiscal benefits. When taking that one out down the road worked out so well, it became a hard pattern to stop.”
“That’s a disgusting way to look at life though,” she muttered, aghast. “All those young women deserved to have beautiful, fulfilling lives and not have Faheed take them out because he was greedy and wanted what they would leave behind.”
“Yet it happens time and time again,” Rick noted.
She frowned and went back to her Chinese food. When she hit the end of it, she pushed the carton out of the way. “Whew, I’m done. That was excellent, thank you.”
“ Done -done or done for now?”
She stared at him, then back at the food and shrugged. “Good point. I don’t know. I haven’t been eating that much recently. Honestly, I haven’t had much of an appetite since my sister’s death, and it’s gotten progressively less as I began to realize my situation. However, I’ve tried to keep eating to maintain my energy. Even now, if we have to run, I want to be ready.”
“That’s a good way to look at food anyway,” Rick agreed. “Hopefully you won’t have to run, but there’s always the possibility that we may have to and quickly,” he pointed out in a cautious tone. “I’ll leave this food here for a bit. So, if you want to tank up a little bit more, you can. We’ll stick it in the fridge when it cools, the kitchen does have a microwave.”
She yawned just then, and Royce nodded. “That’s a good sign too.”
She stared at him. “How can it be a good sign?”
“Sleep is something you need every bit as much as food. The adrenaline from earlier is wearing down now that we’ve got you here, but you’re still in a state of shock. It may not have registered yet, but it will hit you. Plus, you’re frustrated, and sleep would help take off some of the edge to that as well.”
“Or else I’ll wake up from nightmares,” she muttered, as she slowly stood up, walked over to the kitchen, and poured herself a glass of water. She drank the water, leaned against the counter, and stared out the window. “I keep thinking about what I could share with the British government, but I don’t know what I could possibly offer them.” Then she turned to looked at the men. “Tell me honestly. Will I not get out of here if I can’t give them that kind of help?”
Surprised, Royce stood up and joined her. “No, that’s not the way it works.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because it feels that way all of a sudden.”
“We certainly won’t let that happen. That’s not the way we function. The British government may want to do something different, but that’s their problem,” he said, with a smile. “If you had some information, anything, some history, documents, something that pertains to Faheed, MI6 would be very interested. So think back. Did you overhear how Faheed got the best out of all these deals? Maybe he named somebody, like an associate of his? Keep in mind that every one of these wives died by a different method of death,” he pointed out, deep in thought. “So any detail you can share could be helpful, from the time before you were a prisoner.”
She sat back down again, relief washing through her. “I have some photos, and I have some stuff from the years when I could visit with my sister. A couple times I saw things that were a little irregular. At one point I was highly suspicious of him, but Faheed always treated my sister so well that I didn’t ever want to rock the boat.”
“Highly suspicious in what way?” Royce asked.
“His business dealings. It seemed as if he was constantly getting paid, but I don’t know who paid him or what it was for. I know he paid his brother in a big way, with fat envelopes of what seemed to be cash.”
“Do you know what it was for, or for sure that it was intended for him to keep?”
“I heard parts of conversations, with comments of a job well done. So, I always assumed that it was a bonus for something Saheed had done and that Faheed used cash so it was nontaxable.”
“And that’s possible too, depending on what the jobs were.”
She frowned, considering that. “I didn’t hear all the details.… I don’t have my laptop, but, if I did, that would help.”
“Did you keep information on your laptop?”
Then she started to laugh. “No, I keep everything on the cloud, so any laptop would help. I’ve always been fairly safety conscious because of my own company as much as anything, but, of course, my version of safety consciousness versus yours is likely to be very, very different.”
“Not necessarily,” Rick countered, as he got up, then walked over to one of the bags he’d brought in. When he brought out a laptop and handed it to her, she was surprised but recovered quickly and opened it up and brought up her emails. “One of the things that I always used to do was email everything to myself. Everything was backed up daily to a secret email address.”
“But Faheed would have that now, right?” Rick asked.
She shook her head. “Once I was his captive, he threatened me to not use my phone or my laptop. So no. Unless he checked my backup settings…”
“Just as a backup?” Royce asked.
“You never know when you can’t get back into your email again because that can certainly happen nowadays with hackers freezing you out of your accounts and demanding a ransom. Plus, I don’t always have internet service out in the warehouses. So I would do a lot of stuff on my phone, which was backed up as well, just to ensure I had copies of everything.”
She signed into her secret email address and went back several months, frowning as she tried to remember what had piqued her attention earlier.
“Do you think you have something?” Royce asked.
She shrugged. “I didn’t quite understand a couple things, but give me a minute.” She quickly went through her emails with photographs. “I think this is the one that concerned me at the time.” She brought it up and twisted the laptop around so they could take a look at the picture.
Royce frowned.
Seeing the odd look on his face, she asked him, “Do you know who that is?”
“Yeah, he’s a known contract killer,” he stated, frowning at her. “Do you have a date on that?”
“These pictures were taken from my phone, so the backup date should be the same day. I do have my phone with me, but I haven’t had a chance to sort all the photos. So that’ll take a little more time.” She grabbed her phone and pulled up her special folder for that.
“Stop,” Rick called out. “If Faheed was monitoring your phone usage, don’t do anything on your phone. Wait until Sophia has a look at your settings.”
“Sophia?”
“She works with us at Terk’s place. Send me that photo that you brought up, and I’ll contact the British government.” Rick walked a few steps into the living room and started talking on his phone.
She looked over at Royce. “Is that helpful?”
“It’s hard to say whether MI6 can do anything with it, but it certainly cements the idea that Faheed had a contract killer in his employ.”
“So did he shoot to kill any of his wives?”
Royce nodded. “If not for killing his wives, would Faheed have killed any business associates or competition?”
Heather snorted. “I don’t know what his business dealings were even about. I just know he’s some diplomat, but I have no idea what that means.”
Royce chuckled. “All too often nobody knows what it means. It’s a job title with no actual duties. They get to go around the world and try to make people happy,” he said, with a smile. “Keep international relationships open and flowing properly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in this case.”
She nodded, then forwarded the requested photo to Royce. “I have a couple other photos similar to that one. Again the backup date would have been within a day or two of the actual photo being taken.”
“Good enough. I’m surprised you saw him.”
“He came to the house one day, and I was outside, walking around. Faheed met him outside and was angry, then went back into the house and came back out with an envelope and gave it to him. I was sitting in one of those arbors with vines growing all over it that he had created for my sister, and I saw the whole transaction.… I got it on video and just lifted out the photos.” When he stared at her, she just shrugged. “I’m always looking for shifty business practices to protect my own business from. So, if it was shifty, I wanted to know about it.” She gave half a laugh. “Not that it ever did me any good. I didn’t do anything with it because I didn’t know what to do and still don’t.”
“But we do,” Royce stated, with a smile.
She nodded and quickly forwarded the video and the other material that she had to both Rick and Royce. “I think that’s all of it. Now check your phones.” She looked up at him and asked, “You got coffee?”
“I’ll put on coffee. Now put away your phone. Work off either Rick’s laptop or mine, if you need to.”
“Yeah, I probably should,” she muttered. “Thankfully I had my laptop backed up because I left it back at the hotel. Faheed has it now. Regardless I had my phone and my laptop backed up but also buried in files that Faheed wouldn’t ever look at. Since I’ve been captive, he monitored my phone and my laptop all the time, so I didn’t dare try to do anything after Hannah’s death. Sorting those photos I secreted away would be a worthy project for me to do today.”
“Then eventually, after you get Sophia’s all clear, you can transfer them all to your computer.”
“I’ll start deleting the ones that I don’t need right away,” she muttered, getting comfy on the couch.
Hearing Rick’s voice in the background, she flicked through the photos, keeping a few beautiful ones of her sister. A couple brought tears to her eyes as she realized that such a gentle soul was no more. Giving her head a shake, she sorted and deleted the ones that she didn’t want to keep. Anything to do with Faheed, she emailed to the men. By the time Royce sat down beside her, with a cup of coffee, she had gone through about one hundred photos already.
She looked up at him and sighed. “I didn’t realize how many photos I’d collected. I’m surprised my phone even works with such a backlog on it.”
“Another good reason to remove them, after Sophia…” he said, with a smile.
“I know. I know,” she muttered and kept at it. Later she lifted her head and announced to the room in general, “I think that’s it. You should have all of my Faheed-related photos.”
“Good,” Rick replied. “You’ve sent me some fascinating images.”
In a croaky voice, she replied, “Just something about Faheed always struck me as wrong, and I never liked him. Still, he treated my sister so well and acted as if he accepted and liked me, which always made me feel guilty. It drove me nuts for the longest time, and slowly I finally accepted him. Then, after her death, I became his prisoner and wondered if it had been just a slow, silent grooming on his part.”
“It could have been, but your instincts were sound at the beginning, so you took photos. You did what you could, and you held it together,” Royce stated, admiration in his eyes. “That’s more than a lot of people would do.”
“Yet, if he had anything to do with my sister’s death…” she began, now staring at him.
“We don’t know that yet,” he reminded her. “So, let’s not jump the gun.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Easily said, not quite so easily done.”
“None of this is easy, but you’re doing great.”
She laughed. “I don’t suppose you were a cheerleader in school, were you?”
Royce burst out laughing. “Nope, I sure wasn’t. I was too busy playing football and baseball and all the other sports that let me get out there and be competitive.”
She assessed him for a moment and finally nodded. “Yeah, you seem to have a competitive edge to you.”
He snorted at that. “Most people in my industry have a certain level of competitive tendencies. It keeps us fit and healthy. Plus, it keeps us alive.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she muttered, staring at him. Then she nodded. “You’re quite right. That would definitely have something to do with it, would it not?”
“It would certainly be harder without that edge,” he added, with a smile. “You’ve got to really want to stay alive in these industries, which is beginning to change a bit as a lot of the guys have partners nowadays. It used to be unheard of, but now the ones who do really well have partners at home and tend to focus on good planning and recon, working smarter, then fighting like hell because they have so much to come home to.
“The ones who are more impulsive, taking more chances at the last second, tend to be single and do things that you think about afterward and say, Oh God, that was just nuts . They don’t have those same instincts to step back and to think about this because they don’t have kids or even a wife at home, which keeps them grounded. So, when opportunities arise, they jump out there and are absolutely kamikaze about it,” he noted, with a hard flint in his tone.
“Sometimes they go too far, but, in the process, you see absolutely incredible feats of physical endurance and heroism. Yet sometimes it puts everyone at risk, which is the trade-off,” Royce explained. “So, generally speaking, if you want people protective of your country, who will work at being safe and yet diligent, keeping themselves and those around them alive, married men have the edge, hands down.”
“I didn’t even consider that,” she noted, staring at him. “Of course it’s not exactly anything that I would normally consider anyway, since it’s not my reality.”
“Yet,” Rick said, with a half laugh, “the two of you are getting along very well.”
“Sure we are. He saved me, even if I just met him today.”
“That was yesterday,” Royce corrected, with a bright smile.
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s midnight, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
She blinked and looked around. “No wonder I’m tired,” she muttered. She got up unsteadily, and Royce was there to hold her arm and to keep her on her feet. She smiled. “You’ve been keeping track of me all day. Maybe it’s time for you to go to bed.”
“I will,” he said. “We were just waiting for you to crash.”
She frowned at that. “You could have told me so, and I could have gone to bed a while ago.”
“We also needed those pictures. So, with your photos sorted and deleted, maybe you should check your emails? On one of our laptops, of course.” He studied her inquisitively.
She frowned at that. “I’m too tired right now.” Even with Royce’s assistance, she staggered toward the nearest bedroom.
He stopped at the bedroom door and asked her, “Will you be okay?”
She looked up at him and nodded. “I’m just exhausted.”
“Shower tonight or in the morning?” he asked.
She yawned. “As much as I want one tonight, it’ll be tomorrow. I’ve got to get some sleep before I drop,” she murmured. Then she crashed on the bed and waved him off. “Go, get some rest. It all will just hit me like a ton of bricks.… I’m done.”
As soon as he shut the door, she sighed, got up to strip off her clothing and to pull back the blankets. With the last of her energy, she headed to the bathroom. Smiling when she saw a new toothbrush and toothpaste still in the original packaging, she quickly filled a sink with soapy water, washed her underclothes and hung them up to dry, then brushed her teeth, washed her face, and, nude as the day was long, slipped in between the sheets. Closing her eyes, she was sound asleep in minutes.
*
Royce walked out to the living room to rejoin Rick. “She’ll be out like a light in a matter of minutes. She’s exhausted.”
“She’s held up surprisingly well, considering,” Rick noted, with something akin to admiration in his tone. “I’m still going through these photos. I don’t recognize everybody, but Jonas has gotten back to me on a couple of them that they are fascinated by. They had been trying to make connections between Faheed and a few of the Russian oligarchs as well. And plenty of good photos of them are here, so they’re quite happy with this information. Of course, now that they have all that, they’re dying to know if she has any other information.”
“Of course they are.” Royce sighed. “That doesn’t mean she does though. Although it’s interesting how her hand hovers over her pocket. It’s instinctive and constant. It’s almost a weather vane, telling her about the circumstances surrounding her.”
“It seems to work for her. The fact that she even had all these photos is amazing and very helpful.”
“We need her to sleep and sleep well. Then we can brace her on it tomorrow,” Royce said in a considering tone.
At that, Rick got up and asked, “How are you doing for sleep?”
“Not too bad,” Royce replied. “You want me to take the first watch?”
He nodded. “Sure, if you can. I’ll see you in four.” And, with that, he quickly disappeared into the second bedroom, leaving Royce alone.
He sat down at his laptop and started going through the photos she had sent. He noted an interesting pattern to them. Almost always, Faheed was in a deep conversation with somebody, almost always on the front steps of the house, or houses, as if he didn’t allow any of that business into his private world. Which would make a lot of sense.
Also several photographs of the brother, Saheed, showed a similar habit. Royce briefly contemplated whether it would be worth a trip to Iran, the diplomat and his brother’s home base, to see if Royce and Rick could gather more personal intel. That wouldn’t be an easy job, and it wouldn’t be sanctioned by the UK government, which meant, if they ran into trouble, they would be on their own.
As he flicked through all the pictures she had sent, one of them struck him as being even odder than the rest. It was the brother, Saheed, and the contract killer, standing out on the front steps, as if mimicking Faheed’s actions. Royce had to wonder how the two brothers’ wills were set out and if Saheed would inherit anything from Faheed on the off chance that he passed away first. Or would it all go to Faheed’s adult children?
Despite four marriages to young child-bearing women, the only children came from the first marriage, none thereafter. Based on what Hannah had shared with Heather, Faheed had been so angry with Hannah for even thinking of getting pregnant, another aspect to contemplate. And more questions to ask Heather in the morning. To that end, Royce sat down and started a list of things to go over with Heather when she woke up.
The hours passed very quickly, and, before he realized it, Rick staggered into the kitchen and put on coffee.
“You ready to get your four?” Rick asked him.
“Yeah, I’ve started a list of questions for her,” he shared, leaving the list on the countertop. “I suggest we go over some of the salient points when she wakes up.”
“Got it,” Rick said. “Go get some sleep, and I’ll check in across the world.”
“Sounds good.”
With that, Royce quickly headed to the same bedroom that Rick had come out of, stretched out on the bed, and crashed.