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He repeated, “Success.”
She sipped her wine as she double clicked today’s date and then scrolled through the day. “There’s my mail person. I don’t think she left it.”
“You can jump to four o’clock. It had to be after that time.”
“I’m getting there.” Hailey pursed her lips. She never did meet a man who wasn’t bossy. Then she sucked in a breath. “There he is. He left the hat just over an hour ago.”
Joe hunched forward, his warm breath tickling her ear. “Damn. Looks like he knew he could be on camera.”
Hailey froze the video and traced her finger around the black-clad figure with the ski mask pulled down over his face. “Not very helpful, is it? He’s even wearing gloves, so the police wouldn’t be able to pick up any fingerprints.”
“I can’t even tell if it’s the same person who was following you on the wharf. He probably would’ve had enough time to beat us here.” Joe blew out a breath and her hair stirred against her cheek. “You’re still thinking about calling the cops? Where I come from, the cops would barely move for a dead body on your porch. A hat? They’d laugh in your face.”
She twisted her head over her shoulder. “Where do you come from?”
“South side of Boston, although it’s been a while since I’ve been back.”
“Rough area?”
“You could say that.” He leveled his finger at the display. “Let’s see what else he does.”
She restarted the video and watched the disguised man—person—drop the hat on the porch, turn, jog down the steps and hit the sidewalk. “Nothing.”
“You don’t have a camera pointing at the street?”
“Not anymore. It broke and I never got around to fixing it. I doubt this guy would be dumb enough to drive up to the front of the house, anyway.”
“You’re probably right.” Joe slammed his bottle on the counter next to her glass. “They’re warning you to keep your mouth shut about Marten and about the abduction in Syria—and you’re gonna do it.”
She hooked her heels on the bar beneath the stool and snapped the laptop closed on the frozen image of Marten’s hat on her porch. “What about Major Denver?”
“We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about it. You reported what you heard from your captors, and you told the truth. That’s all anyone can ask. That’s all I can ask.”
“And Marten?”
“He got mixed up in something he should’ve left alone.”
“Wasn’t he just telling the truth?”
“Was he?” Joe rubbed a hand across the sexy burnished-gold stubble on his jaw. “I don’t believe Marten did tell the truth. Someone got to him, and he lied to promote the Denver narrative. Who knows? Maybe he was paid off. Then he stopped playing the game, and that’s when he got into trouble.”
Hailey traced a finger around the rim of her wineglass. “That sounds like Marten.”
“Does it?”
“Marten was a gambler. Last I heard, he was in debt. I wouldn’t put it past him to lie in exchange for money.”
“What was a guy like that doing aiding refugees?”
“He liked excitement.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what he was doing in Syria, but I had my suspicions that he’d worked as a mercenary for the Kurds before joining us.”
“What about the others? Ayala? The journalist? Your guide, Siddiqi?”
“Ayala’s a nurse from Florida. She’s already back at the camp. Andrew is back in England writing other stories. Naraj is probably back at work. He’s a freelancer for hire. He escorts crazy Westerners around for a price.”
Joe pinched his chin and stared over her head. “Convenient.”
“Ah, no.” She waved her hand in front of his face to break his gaze. “Naraj didn’t betray us.”
“How’d that group of thugs know you’d be on the road at that particular time?”
“We weren’t far from the refugee camp when they took us. They were probably lying in wait for the first opportunity.”
“But your car, the one eventually heading back to the camp. That explosion derailed the peace negotiations between the Syrian government and the rebels—each blaming each other and getting maximum propaganda points out of the carnage.”
