36 CONNOR
I was so frustrated I punched a piece of wood and it split in half.
“Where are you, you damn bitch?!” I roared, venting my frustration.
“Hello, Detective Connor,” the female voice echoed through the space. “I think you might be a little irritated with me. But don’t hate me. We’re just catching up on family matters.”
My eyes scanned the warehouse, searching for the source of the sound, and I spotted speakers scattered around. And a camera.
“Don’t worry... soon my little sister will be back in your arms.” Isis’s voice betrayed her instability, swinging between sweetness and cruelty.
“If you’re fast enough to reach her before the rope chokes her completely...
Oh, if I were you, I wouldn’t waste time trying to find me.
I’m good with prusik knots. The more she struggles, the faster it’ll happen. ”
“I’m going to get you, Isis!” I shouted at the camera. “Even if it’s the last thing I do on this damn earth.”
Even though I knew I was playing her game, I couldn’t risk calling her bluff. So I ran, checking every corner, throwing caution to the wind.
If she’d tied Sam up, she would’ve needed something sturdy to support the weight, or it wouldn’t hold long enough. As I ran through the complex, I found Ahmed.
“Did you hear that?” Ahmed asked.
“Yes.” We kept searching.
“There.” Ahmed pointed to an iron structure—large enough to hold someone.
My heart, already pounding in my chest, lurched when I spotted the limp body hanging with a rope around its neck and a cloth bag over its head.
The coral dress she’d been wearing when I last saw her was completely covered in blood. Ahmed froze. My chest burned, and I felt my blood boiling.
“Help me get her down!” I shouted to Ahmed, running to the structure to free her. I climbed up to where the rope was tied while Ahmed held her legs, trying to take the weight off the rope.
I cut the rope with my pocketknife, releasing the girl so Ahmed could catch her.
“Sam.” Ahmed unwound the rope from her neck. “Stay with me, Sam!”
When I got back to the ground, Ahmed finished removing the rope and pulled off the bag. I could barely look. There was so much blood on her clothes. Wounds all over her body. I was consumed by thoughts of everything she’d gone through while I’d been chasing my own tail.
“It’s not her!” Ahmed shouted. “It’s not her.” He rested his head on her chest and began murmuring in his native language.
And I fell to my knees.
It wasn’t her. It wasn’t my Sam.
“Hey, Connor,” Ahmed called while I tried to recover from the anguish of thinking I’d lost her. “You need to see this.”
Ahmed led me to the other side of the complex, where the workers used to stay.
“I was about to go in when I heard the girl on the loudspeakers,” he explained, opening the door. The scene looked like something out of an American serial killer movie. A sensationalized version of the truth.
The walls were covered with surveillance photographs.
My face and Sam’s scattered everywhere. In some photos, Sam’s face had been defaced.
Her eyes torn out. Photos of me arriving at the airport.
My flight information circled. Photos of me and Sam at the lake.
At the museum. At the apartment window, from an angle that could only have been shot from Omar’s other apartment.
The collection also included photos of Sam when she was younger. In dance class. At her high school graduation. As a teenager, at the beach. These older photos had probably been taken with analog cameras. Developed by hand.
Ammit’s bloodied mask lay on the table.
“This girl is crazy,” Ahmed said behind me.
On the table were other papers, a box of matches, and a note written in blood.
“In the gaze, the beginning and the end.
Time stole me, but revenge gave me back.
Call me by what I am, and you’ll find me before the last match burns out.”
“She’s Ammit’s saddest victim. Condemned by him while he was still alive,” I said, looking at the photo of her with her father, slashed with something sharp.
Ahmed caught up with me as I reached the car. “She had no ID. They’re taking her to the station.”
I didn’t respond. I opened the door and got in the car.
Ahmed leaned against the window.
“I wish I could go with you.”
“That girl needs you to make sure she gets a proper burial. This is your case,” I said, looking at him. “And Ammit is mine.”
“Promise me you’ll bring her back.”
“Even if it costs me my life,” I said. “Promise me you’ll be there for her.”
“Even if it costs me everything,” Ahmed said with a nod.
With a nod, we sealed our agreement. Then I started the car.
“Wait… You can’t go unarmed.” He pulled the gun from his waist and handed it to me. A gesture that, for us cops, went far beyond the lines dividing Ahmed’s territory from mine. “Do you know where they’re going?”
“Where it all began,” I said before accelerating. “And where it all comes to an end.”