Charles Praeger.
Kate stared at the name glowing up from her phone as she sat in the darkened parking lot just off the Little Rock airstrip, waiting for her Durango's engine to warm.
Joe had come through. But then, she'd known he would.
She'd been so certain she hadn't even turned on her phone to check that the man hadn't left a pithy "Screw you" in place of the classified intel she'd flown all that way to obtain today—not until after she'd departed the outer doors of Leavenworth. It wasn't worth the risk. Having Joe type that name inside a lawyer-safe interview room was one thing; flashing it for the security cameras as she departed the Barracks was another.
So she'd bided her time.
It seemed her judgment could be trusted after all. It was Joe's basic moral code that couldn't. Something else to think about.
Later.
Kate switched off her phone as the air bleeding from the vents on the Durango's dash began to warm. Leaning forward, she cranked the heater up several notches and sat back to consider the name she'd been given—and her options.
While she seriously doubted the man she was after had been baptized Charles Praeger following his birth, that alias would open doors.
But which to try first?
It was just past 5:30 p.m. The early December sun had set half an hour ago.
She might still be just north of Little Rock proper, but the local US Marshals office located southeast of the capitol had closed a half hour before that.
Search engines would be useless too.
She could always call the main switchboard at Langley and leave a message...and most likely be ignored.
Her gut circled back to a Marshals offensive. Unfortunately, her opening salvo would have to wait until the office reopened in the morning.
Kate leaned forward once more, this time to clip her phone to the holder attached to the Durango's dash. Using the phone's voice control feature, she had Siri access her missed calls log and begin relaying the information within as she shifted the SUV into gear and headed out of the airstrip's parking lot to cross the darkened base. By the time she'd cleared security at the main gate, she'd reached her final voicemail.
Dr. Manning had received the message she'd left for him on the way to Dr. Basque's office earlier in the day and had recorded a voicemail of his own.
"Hello, Kate. I wanted to let you know I reached out to several colleagues about these disturbing murders in Braxton and Mazelle. While my colleagues and I agree that you may be seeking a killer obsessed with Islam, no former or current patients come to mind. I wish I could be more helpful. Sorry." Manning had followed up the investigatory dead end with a gentle query as to how she was faring personally before he'd ended the message.
Kate was tempted to return the shrink's call and let him know that not only had she taken his advice to heart during her meeting with Joe, but she'd managed a bit of a breakthrough. That, despite the pending Diamond Award at the capitol, as well as the dog and pony show that was scheduled to follow at the governor's mansion next month, she was all but certain she wouldn't be quitting her job any time soon.
But she needed to do some serious thinking first. Possibly even fill out a few more of those sheets and see what other potentially life and career-altering conclusions she ended up jarring loose.
Plus, Manning's voice had sounded tired and frazzled. Their heart to heart could wait until Saturday. Unless her case blew up, she'd be seeing the shrink then, anyway.
Besides, she needed to call Lou. The man was most likely staying late to push through on the deputy hunt to round out their dwindling department. But if not, he'd be heading home to Della for dinner soon. She needed to fill the sheriff in regarding her recent jaunt—and find out when the cadaver search was scheduled to commence.
Hell, if it was even scheduled yet.
Kate merged her Durango onto I-40 North and settled in for the drive to Braxton. She was about to have Siri initiate her call to the station when her phone rang.
It wasn't Lou.
"Hey, Seth—what's up?"
"Hey, stranger. You still out of state?"
"No. My flight landed at Little Rock Airbase about twenty minutes ago. I'm on my way back to Braxton." Her headlights picked up several deer in the distance off to the right, causing her to ease off the SUV's gas. "I won't be stopping by the station though. I've got a working dinner with Detective Moradi at my place."
"Yeah, the sheriff mentioned we might not see you for a bit, also that you might not be able to access the electronic case files. That's why I'm callin'. A couple more reports came in, including the one on the biological fluids from that bed in Aisha Kharoti's apartment. And I've got a message to pass on from Dr. Tonga."
Kate returned to speed as the Durango cleared the foraging animals. "Hit me. And start with the ME's info first."
"Well, Tonga took another look at Aisha's thighs as requested. While the left is badly burned, he says he can extrapolate the traces of the number thirty-nine cut into the deep muscle. But the right thigh's simply too charred to make out anythin' more than a single knife wound. Also, I've been researchin' variations of thirty-nine and thirty-nine, nine on my end."
"And?"
"I made a couple of notes on a few items I came across and uploaded them to the case file, but I wouldn't put money down on a single one of them. Sorry."
She caught the frustration in the deputy's sigh, along with the grip of his growing depression, and understood both. Like her, Seth tended to immerse himself in the evidence when he was working an investigation. In this case, that meant autopsy photos. Which meant the man had spent the afternoon staring at close-ups of charred flesh—Aisha's and Tahira's.
Just what Seth didn't need right now, given his own nightmares.
When this was over, she was going to have to corner the man and get him to open up to her—whether he quit the force or not. Until then, "You okay?"
A rough chuckle filled the line. "You know me, Kato."
Yeah. She did. Which was why she was doubly worried. Despite their profession, her favorite bubba tended to meander through life overflowing with smiles, rainbows and hope. All of which had been seriously singed around the edges lately.
Just like that chuckle.
She let the sound slide. For now. "Yeah, I do. You mentioned the fluids report?"
"I did—and we do have something positive there. So much so, the sheriff's now champing to set that cadaver dog you ordered loose on Miller's trees."
Kate mentally crossed her fingers as she caught sight of her approaching exit. "We got the dog?"
"Yep. Be here around ten in the morning."
Yes. "That fluids report. The blood that was smeared onto Aisha's sheets—it was menstrual, wasn't it?"
This chuckle was a bit lighter and definitely surprised. "How'd you guess?"
Why else was Lou now anxious to set the dog loose? Because if the blood on those sheets wasn't from rough sex, chances were good that Aisha had voluntarily let her husband back into the marriage bed. If that was the case, where was he?
And where was Tahira Larijani's husband?
Surely one of the sergeants would've turned up by now?
"Kato?"
"I'm here." Just annoyed. At a fellow driver.
Kate frowned as a silver Ram extended cab sped up, clearly intent on cutting her off before her exit. Late for dinner or not, the driver must've caught a glimpse of the dormant police cherry attached to the roof of her SUV, because he quickly and wisely backed off, letting her take the lead onto the interstate off ramp.
Smart man. She was inside her jurisdiction now.
But she was bucking up against the clock herself.
One of the messages she'd listened to as she'd left the airbase had been from Arash, letting her know that he was on time to make their dinner meeting—in just under twenty minutes now. While she appreciated the additional information Arash had offered, namely that he'd made a command decision and picked up food for both of them again in exchange for fresh coffee, she hadn't had a chance to clear off her kitchen table. It was still littered with their current casework and those PTSD worksheets from that morning.
And there was her pending hot and soapy, if quick, shower. The one she desperately needed so she could wash off the dried sweat from that mild panic attack she'd had that afternoon at Leavenworth—hell, so she could wash Joe off her—along with the autopsy she and Arash had been forced to start their morning with.
In light of it all, "I need a favor, Seth. Actually, two of them."
"Sure thing."
Kate turned onto the county road that led to her private drive. "Dr. Basque said something to me earlier this afternoon that's bugging me. She claimed Tahira Larijani never called her office. Heck, the doc all but dared me to verify it."
"You want me to?"
"No, there's no need. Detective Moradi got a text after the autopsy. One of his guys already checked. Basque is right; no calls." But there'd been something threaded within the belligerence of that statement the doc had made. Certainty. How could Basque be so sure a potential patient had never used her office number...unless she'd spoken to Tahira via another one? "We're looking for a different number, Seth. I've got photos of two license plates. Both from older silver sedans. I'll shoot them to you as soon as I get a chance. One should belong to Basque. Just hang on to that one. But track down the name and any phone numbers that are attached to the second plate. Run those phone numbers against the Larijani dumps. Go back a while. At year, at least."
"Will do. And the second favor?"
"Can you call the sheriff for me and tell him I got what I needed this afternoon? Also tell him I'll be heading back to Little Rock first thing in the morning to follow up on it. I'll let him know how it goes."
She hated to be so vague. But although she'd called Lou before she'd boarded the C-21A in Little Rock to let her boss know where she was headed, as well as who she planned to see and why, she knew Lou wouldn't have passed on the details to Seth.
Not even if her fellow deputy had planned to stick around.
Fortunately, her cryptic comment hadn't bothered Seth. "Will do. I see him headed down the hall now. I'll go catch him. Talk to you soon."
"Thanks."
Seth severed the call as Kate turned into her gravel drive.
She could already hear the faint yet growing strains of Ruger's heartwarming excitement over her return as she took the left side of the Y of the drive to swing around the front of her house. The motion detectors kicked in, lighting up the exterior of the modest, split log ranch just in time for her to see Ruger barrel up the side and come to a pea-gravel-spitting stop as he planted his rump at the very edge of the drive.
The German Shepherd's entire body quivered impatiently as he waited for the garage door to lift so she could nudge the Durango inside and kill the engine.
The moment she stepped out of the SUV, ninety-plus pounds of frantically licking canine launched into her, bathing her face so thoroughly she could probably get away without showering—even as Ruger growled and whined out his annoyance and frustration over being abandoned for so long.
He continued to chuff at her as they awkwardly waltzed their way into the minimally lit kitchen. "I know, buddy; I know. I'm late. And I couldn't stop by for lunch again. I'm so sorry."
A final round of happy slobber forgave her.
As did the extra, guilt-induced slice of cheddar from the oversized tub that she retrieved from the refrigerator. She topped off Ruger's water and measured out his evening kibble, leaving him to enjoy his dinner as she headed down the hall for her shower.
Ten minutes later, the ends of her damp hair clung annoyingly to her neck and shoulders, but she was dressed in her favorite faded jeans and a long-sleeved Braxton PD tee. Her wrist was wrapped in a fresh elastic bandage with Max's dive watch secured around it. She wished she didn't still need the instant and profound quelling of nerves that came with tucking her Glock into her waistband at the small of her back as she headed up the hall, but capable of "sound judgment" or not, she did.
Maybe she always would.
Either way, she could only hope Arash wouldn't be offended.
Ruger had finished his kibble. He bounded deeper into the kitchen as she entered from the opposite side and sat down smack in front of the refrigerator, glancing from the stainless-steel door to her several times in a pointed attempt to guilt her into a third slice of cheese.
"Sorry, buddy. You've had enough."
His sharp snort disagreed. But he gave up, curling up at the corner of the area rug at her feet with a resigned huff as she combined several piles of papers that Arash had made that morning into a larger one to free up more of the table.
She reached the ABC sheet that Arash had accidentally read and stopped, then drew out a chair and sat. Snagging the pencil near the middle of the table, she stared at the stuck point Manning had filled out in that center block at the end of their session the previous Saturday: My judgment can't be trusted.
She shifted the pencil decisively to the left, to the box underneath Something happens, and wrote Joe murdered a soldier and covered up other killings while I knew him. She shifted the pencil again, this time down to that pointed question waiting beneath the trio of boxes: Are my thoughts above realistic or helpful?
She took a deep breath and filled in the blank lines with the truth. No. I wasn't the only one who couldn't see Joe for who he really was. Or even Grant and Burke.
One more breath—though, surprisingly, this one was normal—and she'd reached the final question on the sheet: What can I tell myself on such occasions in the future?
Even good cops can miss things. Focus on the successes—and work harder on the rest.
She laid the pencil down, knowing Manning would be pleased with this particular sheet. Even better, she was. She'd finally accepted that there was nothing she or anyone else could have done to prevent Max's murder—except Joe.
Manning was right. It was past time to lay the blame where it truly belonged.
Moments later, her cuckoo chirped out the time.
6:30?
Crap. Kate stood and headed into the kitchen. Arash was due to arrive with dinner in hand any moment now, and she hadn't started the coffee.
Scratch that. The detective was already here.
Either that or Ruger had caught the scent of his vixen fox again, because he'd jumped up to his paws and shot across the kitchen behind her. A split second later, the flap on the inner dog door was swinging wildly.
She left the Shepherd to greet their guest and quickly added coffee grounds and water to the machine before setting it to perk. By the time she reached the front door and opened it, Arash was headed up the flagstone path, wearing the same dark gray suit he'd been wearing that morning and carrying a topless brown cardboard box with several smaller, white takeout containers inside. Ruger was dancing around his heels with joy.
Oh, Lord. "What did you bring?"
The man grinned. "A small bribe."
Meat. She'd stake the badge she'd decided to keep on it. Based on the amount of drool dripping from Ruger's tongue, Arash had brought red meat too.
Ruger's favorite food group, and one he hadn't partaken of in days.
Pending case review complete with charred photos or not, she couldn't deny the hopeful hound any more than Arash evidently could.
She held the door open and waved the duo up onto the porch. "Come in."
This grin was just for her. "Thanks."
Kate laughed, though not at Arash. At her dog.
His behavior at breakfast might've been surreal, but apparently, it hadn't been a fluke. Not to Ruger. As far as the Shepherd was concerned, he and Arash were already lifelong friends. She could tell by the way the dog led the detective and that cardboard box of admittedly delicious smells all the way up to the kitchen counter, then plopped down onto his rump beside it. Ruger wasn't gazing at the box, though—but at Arash.
She shook her head at her crazy mutt and turned to retrieve two plates from the upper cupboard to her left. As she turned back, she found Arash staring as well.
At her.
And the man was still smiling.
"What?" Had her hair dried weird?
"You seem...lighter. Happy."
She took a page from her sessions with Manning and took stock of what was actually going on inside her at that precise moment—then nodded. Because she was. "Yeah. I guess I am."
"Productive day?"
In more ways than one. "You could say that."
"And does your productivity and mood have something to do with that cryptic text you sent saying you'd be out of touch this afternoon and to cross my fingers?"
She passed the plates over the counter and into Arash's waiting hand. "Yup."
He arranged the plates where he'd set out their breakfast, then took a moment to remove his suit jacket and shoulder holster while she filled two glasses with ice water and set them on the counter near his side. But instead of hanging his jacket and Glock from the back of her dad's chair, Arash hung them from her old childhood spot before returning to retrieve the glasses, napkins and cutlery she'd added.
"So, you ready to tell me where you took off to today?"
"Fort Leavenworth."
His brow hiked.
She nodded. "It was time to take my head out of the sand."
"You saw Cordoba."
She retrieved two mugs, filled both with coffee and passed them over with surprisingly rock steady hands. "I had to. I got a call from another former fellow CID agent at Campbell, but she had more questions about Dr. Lily Basque than answers. Turns out Basque doesn't exist off paper—and even that fantasy falls apart on closer examination. So I called in a favor with an MP colonel I've worked with who just happens to be the current commandant of the USDB."
That earned her a whistle. "Did Cordoba cough up the name of the guy who gave the doc her new life?"
"Yeah. You want it?"
That dark stare captured hers and held it for several thick moments. The hesitation that elbowed in to linger amid the murky depths was prudent.
Possession of the alias she'd already deleted from her phone could easily create more problems than it solved. Especially for the man standing on the other side of her kitchen counter. She might be buffered to some extent by her current career status and her solid relationship with Lou, but Arash wasn't. Not that the detective's boss over at the Mazelle PD wouldn't back him up if need be, because the man would.
It was the rest.
Unlike her, Arash still had one spit-shined boot planted firmly inside the US Army. She'd abandoned the service completely upon her return to the States; Arash hadn't. He'd transferred into the Reserves. Major Moradi still donned his camouflage one weekend a month, along with an additional two weeks during the year. Major Moradi was also still beholden to his country. Uncle Sam could decide to plug him back into active duty at any time and send him anywhere for even longer.
And there was his branch.
Military Intelligence was rather big on the dissemination of classified information and somewhat particular about how that dissemination occurred.
Security clearances were one thing—even a top secret one—but the need to know was quite another. And the two conditions did not always meet.
Arash shook his head. "You hang on to that name. Work it. No need to share it further, unless you decide you need backup."
"Will do. I'm heading into the US Marshals office first thing in the morning. It should get me in the door, at least." From there? She'd find out soon enough, wouldn't she? "I'll let you know how it goes."
Though they both knew they needed this name to pay off.
They had no other leads.
If she could get Praeger to contact her, she just might be able to get the man to contact Lily Basque as well—and force the doc to share, with Praeger at least, what Basque knew about the murders she and Arash were trying to solve...before there was a third.
"So, Detective, how was your day?"
The man shook his head. "Not nearly as productive as yours." He carried the cardboard box to the table and reached inside, dividing up the rice he retrieved between the dinner plates as she swung around the counter to join him. "I revisited several contacts to see if they had anything that meshed with the new theory. I also asked about an Underground Railroad for Muslim women. Two have heard rumors of assistance for the abused, but nothing specific. As for leads on our killer, my last stop did yield a possibility, but it's a long shot. Also, Hashem has to check with a relative on the name."
Next up from the cardboard: a thick vegetable stew that Arash poured over the rice. "Basically, Hashem heard of a Christian who attended mosque a year ago. Late twenties, early thirties. According to gossip, the guy was there because of a Sudanese woman. She'd insisted that he convert before they could even date. So he starts learning Arabic, and then about three months in, he makes his shahada—and she immediately announces that she's gotten married...to someone else. But like I said, Hashem can't remember the guy's name." Arash tipped his head toward the plates. "That's where this came from, by the way. Hashem and his wife have a restaurant off Markham."
"It smells delicious." Kate accepted an equally fragrant circle of flatbread from Arash and followed his example, tearing it in two and tucking a piece beside each plate. "So this guy goes to mosque at least twelve times, dives into a very difficult foreign language, then publicly declares that he too believes there's one god—Allah—and that Mohammed's his messenger...and the woman ups and says she's already married another guy? No warning hints, no apologies?"
"Yep."
Yikes. That was harsh. But there would've needed to be a lot more going wrong in their mystery guy's head for him to decide to take out his anger on at least two other women, the way anger had been taken out on Aisha and Tahira.
And there was race to consider. Mostly because Arash had already admitted to his doubts without even meeting the guy, much less hearing his name.
"The convert's black?"
"Yeah. So's the Sudanese woman." The detective shrugged. "Like I said—long shot."
She was forced to agree. Serial killers tended to stick within their race. Not always, of course. And while that didn't mean their suspect was necessarily Persian or Pakistani, especially since they were dealing with other factors here, including a rather distinctive religion and the current geopolitical considerations that unfortunately stemmed from it, both Aisha and Tahira were decidedly light-skinned. Or had been, before the monster who'd taken their lives had set them on fire.
Either way, her gut was leaning toward a Caucasian killer.
From the terse press of his lips, Arash was too.
She stared at the final, oversized waxed bag the man had retrieved from the cardboard. "Please tell me that's dessert."
But she knew it wasn't, because she could smell that it wasn't. Even before Arash shook his head. "This is for the head of the house."
The bribe he'd mentioned.
Only the bone inside that bag wasn't small as Arash had promised out on her front walk. Worse, from the ripe scent oozing from that waxed sack, it had been slowly baked, too, in its own juices. And Ruger knew it was his.
The Shepherd was on his very best behavior too, sitting perfectly, handsomely, motionless beside the detective's shoes—utterly mesmerized by that bag.
But then Ruger's attention shifted to her, as if he could sense her suddenly queasy stomach.
Both man and dog were looking at her now.
Both silently pleading.
"Fine. But give it to him in the kitchen." She could smell each and every one of the generous bits of roasted beef that were clinging to that bone. She didn't need to see them, much less the scorched marrow within. Not for another week, at least.
She waited for Arash to deliver Ruger's prize.
Despite the jacket and shoulder-holstered Glock hanging from the back of her childhood chair, she was actually hoping the detective would claim her father's seat.
Otherwise, she would have to.
Happy, slurring groans emanated from the kitchen as Arash returned to the table, only to hook his hand on the back of her childhood chair and pause. He was clearly, politely, waiting for her to seat herself first—at her father's place.
Damn.
"Did I forget to bring something?"
She faked her first smile since Arash's arrival and swore he knew it. "Nope."
She dragged the chair away from the table before she could chicken out and claimed the forbidden seat. She sat there for several moments, as motionless as Ruger had been mere minutes earlier, but for an entirely different reason. She half expected a bolt of lightning to crack straight down through the roof and split her into two for daring to plant her butt where she had so often been told that it did not belong.
But there was no lightning...or anything else.
"Kate, are you okay?"
She released her breath and smiled again. This time, the curve felt warm and genuine. "I'm fine." And she was.
Arash was still considering her curiously, so she quickly forked up a bite of her dinner. "What is this?"
"Vegetarian khoresh bademjan. It's an eggplant stew. It's one of Hashem's specialties."
"It smells wonderful." She took an experimental bite. "Tastes even better."
Arash let go of whatever he'd been about to say regarding her odd behavior and smiled back. "I'll tell him you said so."
The man proceeded to dig in, as well.
Between forkfuls of the rice and stew, and the backdrop of steady gnawing from deep inside the kitchen, Arash briefed her on the remainder of his day.
He was right; though he'd made quite a few colorful stops, there wasn't much information to share. At least not anything that advanced their case.
She swallowed her last mouthful of that addictive flatbread and sat back. "Did you get a chance to access the Braxton case file?"
"Yeah. I saw the fluids report and the supplemental memo about the numbers on Aisha from Dr. Tonga. What about the cadaver dog?"
"It'll be here at ten a.m.; I might still be in Little Rock though." As much as she wanted to oversee at least the setup of the grid search, she prayed so.
Because that would mean the Praeger alias had gotten her through the door and a Marshal had agreed to run interference regarding the rest.
Arash held out the remainder of his flatbread. "I can head this way and check on the search, if you'd like."
Kate waved off the extra carbs, delicious though they would be. She took the man up on his spoken offer, instead. "Sounds good. I'll text you a GPS pin for Miller's trees. They can be difficult to find." Especially to those who didn't hail from Braxton.
She pushed her half-empty plate aside. As amazing as the stew had tasted, she hadn't eaten much lately. Her stomach must've shrunk, because less than halfway into her plate, she'd become stuffed.
"Thanks for dinner." She could hear her greedy mutt still gnawing deliriously away in the kitchen. "Ruger's, too."
Arash nodded, pushing his slightly more than half-empty plate to the side as well. "Yeah, my appetite's been off this week too." Clearly caffeine didn't apply, though, because he glanced at his empty mug, then hers. "Would you like more coffee?"
"I'll get it." She retrieved both mugs and stood, giving the Shepherd and his ripe, culinary contraband wide berth as she entered the kitchen.
She refilled the mugs and walked to the table to slot both into place. But instead of taking her seat, she headed for the opposite end and retrieved the worksheet she'd filled out shortly before the detective's arrival.
Arash had seen what was written in the center box, and he hadn't ratted her out to Lou or anyone else in her department, or his. He'd also assured her that he trusted her to work Praeger's name and the CIA/WITSEC angle alone.
He deserved to see what she'd finally scrawled onto the rest of the page.
She set the worksheet down beside him and retrieved the remnants of their dinners, leaving the man to skim her innermost thoughts and fears as she retreated to the kitchen to deposit the food in the trash and the plates in the sink.
The worksheet was waiting for her at her spot when she returned.
"Thank you, Kate. And for what it's worth—" That dark stare drifted down toward the final line she'd written: Even good cops can miss things. Focus on the successes—and work harder on the rest. "—I agree."
She returned his nod, slid the worksheet down the table and sat.
Arash leaned back to loosen his ice-blue tie as she sipped at her coffee. He unbuttoned his sleeves as well, and rolled them up several inches, leaving her with a clear view of that tattoo on his inner, right wrist as he reached for his own mug.
He took a sip, then set the mug down. But his hand remained where it was, atop the table and turned slightly. They were both staring at the Arabic lettering now.
كافر
Infidel.
She was curious as hell about the story behind that word, especially after the bombshell of a hint that he'd dropped at the Larijani crime scene, but she refused to push it. How could she, given everything she preferred to not share?
Arash finally sighed. He looked straight at her and smiled softly. Sadly. "Her name was Azizah. It means esteemed, cherished...but she was not. I knew that long before they killed her, of course. Because Azizah raised me. Our mother died shortly after she, my father, my sister and I came to the States. I was two. And even though Azizah was only seven, the job of caring for me fell to her. She did it well, and I adored her. So much so, I supported her when she wanted to go to college. I even assured my father that in the States, she would make a better—wealthier—marriage with a degree. For that reason alone, my father agreed."
The detective's smile faded, and he fell silent.
Kate waited, even as that dark gaze eased away from hers to drift down again and settle on the small black inking.
Arash kept his focus on that single Arabic word as he pushed out another sigh. "She fell in love with a classmate her freshman year. But Reza was not rich...and my father found out. Why?" A short, stunted laugh escaped, but it held zero humor. "Because Reza was a good guy; responsible. He came to our father and asked to marry Azizah. For that my sister was branded a whore." Another sigh escaped, and this one was dark. Tortured. As were those eyes when Arash finally lifted them. "And she was murdered. They attacked her while I was sleeping. I woke to Azizah screaming. I ran into the garage and found my uncle beating her. I tried to stop him, but my father—"
Arash broke off. He swallowed hard and opened his mouth, but this time, nothing came out.
Those tormented eyes found hers as he stood. He carefully tugged his shirt from his trousers and began to unbutton it. Slowly—almost as though he wasn't quite sure he would be able to share what lay beneath.
By the time he'd parted the fabric, Kate wished to hell he hadn't.
Nearly a dozen white, knotted scars greeted her, cutting in and around the darker skin and generous muscles of the man's entire chest and abdomen. All appeared to be the result of long-healed, if horrific, knife wounds. Several of which surpassed the dimensions of the largest scar that tore across her own face.
The detective's breathing took on a stunted, almost cautious rhythm as he turned to lower the shirt from the muscles of his upper shoulders and back, murmuring, "This was the first." Though gentle and hoarse, his words filled the kitchen...and her.
Kate dragged in her breath much more deeply than Arash had and cursed.
She couldn't help it. There might be just the one, bright-white scar here. But like the others, she knew it had not been forged in combat. Not in the traditional sense.
Hell, not executed by any rule of fair play at all.
No, Arash's own father had come up from behind his back and tried to stab him in the heart.
The shirt slipped up, covering those tense shoulders as he turned around and began to slowly re-button the edges.
Ruger's continued gnawing added a surreal backdrop as Arash finished, then slowly tucked the tails of his shirt back into his trousers.
"I lost my gallbladder that day. A good chunk of my liver. Nearly a foot of intestine." He shrugged. "Fortunately, all ileum. But it was enough that I still had to get a waiver to join the Army."
Kate nodded. Because, really? What else could she do? What could she say?
Because that wasn't all Arash had lost that day.
He'd lost his innocence. Trust in the man who'd given him life.
His sister.
To her surprise, Arash glanced at the sheet of paper she'd left near the center of the table. "There's a reason why I recognize those worksheets. And why whatever's written on them doesn't scare, much less repulse me."
She nodded as she finally connected the dots between this man's pain—and her own. The phone calls he'd made. His offer to talk...or to not talk.
Arash hadn't reached out to her, wasn't continuing to reach out to her because of what she, a fellow vet and cop, had survived as a POW or even during the Garbage Man investigation. Arash had simply recognized another tortured soul twisting alone in the dark and had sought to ease her burden, and his, through friendship.
They were partners for the moment, yes.
But like it or not, they shared a deeper, permanent connection as well. One forged between two broken people who worked to survive each day with the sight of a loved one's murder seared into their minds—unable to escape the soul-piercing reality that someone else they'd once cherished had caused that horror and that death.
Was that why Ruger had taken to this man so quickly and so completely? Did the Shepherd recognize yet another kindred spirit?
Either way, she really should have phoned Arash back. "You saw someone too, didn't you? Filled out your own worksheets?"
He nodded. "My aunt is a therapist. She's married to an older uncle I hadn't known I had—because he'd left Islam. He'd emigrated before his brothers and settled up in Fayetteville. I was pretty messed up by the time I came to live with them, and my aunt knew it was only going to get worse. Of course, she couldn't treat me, so she insisted I see someone. I was furious with her at first."
"And then?"
"Grateful. Very much so. Cognitive processing therapy was still fairly new then, but my aunt had read of Dr. Resick's work. She was encouraged by the results, so she encouraged me." He reached out and cupped his palm to her cheek.
The shredded one.
Weirdly, she didn't flinch. Nor did he.
"Stick with it, Kate. It does work—and you are worth it."
She managed a smile. "That's what my shrink says."
"Your shrink's right. So listen; do the assignments. And don't feel as though you have to explain what's on those sheets to anyone but yourself."
She was about to nod when her phone pinged.
Arash's hand fell away from her cheek. He stepped back to give her space as she pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and checked her incoming text.
It was from Regan Chase.
Got a call from Chaplain Shilmani out of Bragg. Sgt. Kharoti called after he struck his wife. Chaplain's been counseling Kharoti via Skype the whole time the sgt was in Yemen. See email for more.
That sealed it.
Kate didn't know if the cadaver dog was going to find those bodies, but the husbands were definitely not headed back to their respective posts.
She turned her phone around.
Arash frowned as he read the text. "Well, shit. They're dead."
"Yep."
The cuckoo in the kitchen chose that moment to chime out 8:00. Arash half frowned at the obnoxious series of chirps as he turned toward the clock—then outright cursed, and more creatively than he had a moment earlier.
He was staring at the clock. Transfixed.
"What's wrong?"
He swung back to her. "They're closed."
"Closed?"
He nodded as he strode to the table, rifling through the larger stack of casework she'd created before his arrival until he'd located a close-up of the thighs of one of the victims. Based on the lighter amount of charring, and the fact that Kate could make out the numbers formed by those stab wounds, Tahira Larijani's thighs.
Arash tapped a finger over the nines in the wounds, and he was shaking his head, sharply. "Not nines. Fours. The tops of the numbers—the fours—are closed."
Kate glanced at the cuckoo.
He was right. The fours on that clock face were closed too. The flourish was common enough in industrial typesetting and design.
And, although not terribly common in handwriting, some men and women did create their scripted fours with points at the tops. "So we're looking at a killer who's carving thirty-fours into women."
But again, Arash shook his head. "Not quite. Especially if we don't read the pairs of numbers from left to right, as in the Western world, but right to left, as one would read something in Arabic—or in the Qur'an. But we also need to take the sequence as written—because it's complete. In other words, four, thirty-four."
Oh, Lord. The detective was onto something. She could see it burning within that intense stare. "So what does 'four, thirty-four' mean in the Qur'an?"
Because it did mean something.
Instead of words, she got another shake of the man's head.
Arash retrieved his smartphone from his pocket and typed the numbers into the Android's waiting search engine, then clicked a link. "I'm not great at reciting the Qur'an. Wasn't as a kid either, much to my father's disgust. But I know the gist. Surah IV, verse thirty-four concerns men and how they should supposedly treat women. Here." He turned the screen, so she could read the words he'd highlighted.
...those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping places and beat them...
She stepped back to signal that she'd finished.
He clicked off the phone and pocketed it. "Kate, that passage serves as the basis many fundamentalists use to defend the practice of isolating, and even beating and murdering female family members. It's what my father and uncle used to rationalize the murder of my sister. And it's what they would have used to rationalize my murder if I hadn't regained consciousness while they left to bury Azizah's body and crawled to our neighbor's house for help."
Honor killings. "Basque knew."
Arash stiffened. "You're sure?"
The way the doc had stared at the same charred close-up that Arash had just shown her—and had been unable to turn away?
"Oh, yeah." The doc definitely knew.
Sure, Basque could've made a general realization about that Qur'anic verse. But when Kate combined the look in Basque's eyes with the palpable fear that had all but radiated off the woman both times she'd been in the doc's presence?
Basque was connected to this. Somehow.
Arash tidied the stack of casework he'd rifled through. "You think the doctor's protecting the identity of the killer? Possibly even involved in the killings?"
"I don't know." Her instincts might be yelling no, but why else was Basque so unwilling to share information about not one, but two murdered women?
Arash's phone rang.
The detective retrieved the Android from his pocket for the second time in two minutes. Before he could answer it, her iPhone rang as well.
His frown matched hers. "It's my boss."
"Mine, too."
Two calls from two department heads at the same time?
Definitely a bad sign.
Kate headed into the living room to give them both space as she brought her phone to her ear. "Hey, boss. What happened?"
But like Arash, she already knew.
Nor did Lou waste any time with niceties. "We got another body. Female. Possibly violated and stabbed. Definitely burned. And, Kato?" She could feel the sheriff's anger...and his growing fear. "The bastard dumped this woman at the airbase you just left."