Quicksand Read online

  In a seamless motion, Nora pulled the cuffs off her belt. “Where’d you run track?” she demanded, once they had clicked into place.

  “Bitch!” Rita shrieked, struggling, trying to kick Nora off of her.

  Nora shook her head and rolled away, then rose, pulling out her weapon again. She called Ben who didn’t pick up, and wouldn’t have heard her anyway under the stream of expletives tumbling out of Rita.

  Nora took a few steps back and waited for Rita to tire herself out. She asked her again. “Where did you run track? You’re really fast.”

  “Are you fucking stupid?” Rita shouted. “You think I’m your little girlfriend or somethin’? I don’t have to say shit to you, Bitch!”

  Chest still heaving, Nora walked it off, waiting for Ben and Eric. “We could talk about Dewayne Fulton then.”

  Although she was panting, Rita’s gaze was molten lava as she struggled up off the dewy grass and stood facing Nora.

  “Okay,” Nora pressed. “Then how about Kylie Baker?”

  Rita made to spit at her, and Nora pointed the Glock at her in alarm, putting on her fiercest face. Rita’s eyes darted between Nora’s face and the tip of her gun. Finally she sputtered, “I’m not sayin’ shit without my lawyer.”

  “Oh, fine, whatever.” Nora’s phone lit up soon enough, and Ben let her know they had taken Tyreek into custody. It was less than a minute before Eric Burton drove his Jeep over the soft expanse of field next to the basketball courts, and the two of them guided a still cursing Rita Ross into the backseat, installing her next to Tyreek. Agent Lin rode with Eric to escort them back to Center City, with Agent Jacobs following in his own car.

  Nora and Ben remained standing on the now-dusky field, Nora still panting.

  “You okay?” he asked, regarding her closely.

  Several long coils of hair had escaped her chignon, and she pushed them away from her face as she asked him, “Is it bad that I thought that was kinda fun?”

  “Completely twisted,” he said, as they started for his car.

  “Really?” she frowned.

  “Of course not. It has to be fun. Why else would you stay?”

  “Health insurance?” she ventured.

  He laughed. “Well, okay. That too.” They walked in silence for a bit. “You did great though,” he added after a while.

  She grinned. “Well, thanks, Ben. You too. I have no idea what you did, but I’m sure it was fabulous.”

  He held open the door of the Ford for her. “Yes, I’m planning on billing double for tonight’s services.” She started to sit, but Ben caught her arm.

  She looked up, startled at his touch, and found his eyes bright.

  “Nora,” he said, his voice warm.

  Her breath caught.

  “Give me a chance, Nora.”

  “I—”

  He leaned toward her, his lips almost brushing hers, but she pushed her hand firmly against his chest and stepped back, pressing herself against the icy frame of the car.

  “I can’t,” she said, her eyebrows furrowing in a sad frown, as she shook her head, her breath coming in quick, hazy puffs in the crisp air. “I can’t, Ben.” Without looking at him again, she settled into the passenger seat and drew the seat belt across her.

  His shoulders sagged as he pushed her door closed and circled to the driver’s side. They drove in silence. It was only moments after departing the grim, hollow-eyed houses of Strawberry Mansion that they found themselves at Boathouse Row, the exclusive rowing clubs housed in wide, stately houses along the Schuylkill riverbank. Ben turned the car onto Kelly Drive and they passed the museum as they pulled onto the parkway.

  “Look, Nora.” He glanced at her, then focused on the street. His face was suddenly serious. “I’m trying to understand. I know you like me. Even if you don’t want to admit it.”

  She looked up at him and inhaled, her stomach writhing. She hated the words that came out of her mouth. “Ben, I … I think we’re done. Okay? We work together. We’re friends. But I can’t have you keep on pressuring me.”

  “Is it something I said? The terrorist thing?”

  “What? No, Ben, it’s not that. Look, my family is everything to me, and I just don’t want any stress, don’t want any more drama than we’ve had, which is enough for a lifetime—”

  “What? What does that mean, Nora? Talk to me.”

  “I’ll tell you about it someday, I swear. But the interracial dating thing, I’ve seen what happens … If I start up with you, it’ll be like exploding a bomb right in the middle of my life.”

  He stopped at a traffic light and turned to look at her in silence, his gaze somber. “You do know that we are officially the same race. The census says so. The census does not lie, Nora.”

  She let her eyes dwell a little too long in his, then she looked away. “Ben, please. If you like me even a little, just … back off. Please.” The final word was no more than a whisper.

  Ben Calder studied her, then turned away as the traffic began flowing again next to them. He was silent until they had neared the Cairo Café. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, Nora. I get it.” He forced a thin smile. “I did my best, right?” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Ben—”

  “Don’t worry. All business from here on out; I’ll e-mail you a copy of my report on our meeting with Watt.”

  She sighed, feeling hollow, then said, “Thanks for the ride.”

  He didn’t look at her. “See you tomorrow.”

  She opened the passenger door and emerged into the cool air. She stood for a while, watching him drive away.

  * * *

  Her father wore a serious look. The restaurant held only a few customers, and Ragab had been delivering a plate of food to a single diner sitting by the window when Nora had exited Ben’s car. He stood, now, waiting for her as she passed the perpetually empty hostess’s stand.

  Ragab didn’t even greet her, only walked with her, speaking in rapid Arabic. “Who was that?”

  Nora stared at him blankly. “What?”

  “You just got out of a young man’s car. I know your partner, John Wansbrough. This man was not John Wansbrough. John Wansbrough is a father like me.”

  Nora sighed in exasperation, then cast a glance at the few tables. She spoke to him in Arabic, “Are you serious?”

  “Ya Noora, who is this man you were riding with?”

  “A colleague of mine on the task force who was nice enough to bring me home after a long day of work. Is there a problem?”

  “Ya Noora, you know how I feel about that.”

  “Well, you might consider how I feel!” she retorted, surprised at her own tone of voice.

  Ragab stared at her. “Are you raising your voice to me?” He looked both hurt and angry, but Nora couldn’t tell which one prevailed.

  “Baba, I’m tired—I’ve been working all day…”

  “Nora, you’re still my daughter. I expect you to respect my rules. You have a car. If you don’t want to drive it, and you need a ride home, call me, call Ahmad. Men? You don’t ride in the cars of strange men. You know this, Nora. You have known this all your life. It doesn’t look right.”

  “To whom?” she demanded irritably.

  “To me,” he said, giving her his back and heading toward the kitchen. He turned at the swinging door, speaking in a carefully controlled voice for the sake of the customers. “Until you’re married, you need to worry about what I think. After you’re married, let your husband worry about whose car you’re riding in.”

  Nora’s jaw dropped. Furious, she stalked past him through the kitchen and climbed the stairs, slamming the door behind her.

  * * *

  She was being drugged.

  It was not the first time.

  She lay on the bed, her arms spread wide across it, feeling such a heaviness pressing down,

  down,

  down upon her.

  She could not move, could only listen, detached, trying to categorize the sounds that drifted
in through the partially boarded-up window. This one can only be the shouts of children scuffling. This is a honking car horn, and this other a faulty car alarm awaiting deactivation by its absent owner. This is the slam of a door. And this louder one, what is this …

  … oh, yes, this is the sound of her lungs gathering up the air of this dank room and using it to prolong her life. She tried to will the lungs to stillness. Or the air to cease entering.

  When she had first come, when everything was finally explained to her, and she finally understood, the tall one had given her a choice. She could take the pill before meeting with the first man … or not.

  But if she met him and resisted him, they would beat her.

  He had listened to her wailing protests, even patted her coldly on the back. She had wanted to work in America, he told her. This was the work for someone like her.

  She owed him for the hellacious journey in the stinking cargo box with fifteen other weeping, seasick girls; owed him for the food she ate; and still she hoped to make enough money for her family back home,

  home,

  home …

  She refused to take the pill: the thought of vacating herself was too terrifying. And when the man entered the room and began to shed his clothes, she had been determined to endure him. But when he touched her, and she smelled his sweating skin and the stench of his breath, something snapped within her and her fist sank into his eye with a fleshy, sickening thud and he howled and shrieked in pain, cursing in his own language, clutching his face.

  They poured into the room, her cousin among them, and gave her such a beating that even now she limps from it.

  It was easier, after that, to take the pill. It was a mercy, she decided, and the pain and the shame and the disgust eased and her mind could go away,

  go home,

  and she could walk barefoot along white-hot sand, one hand clutching a long, wobbly fishing pole, and the other a woven basket, as her eyes scanned the sparkling blue-green water for just the right spot, the spot that would offer up enough fish for her and her mother and sisters.

  Enough.

  She had only ever wanted to have … enough.

  And now the heaviness held her still, inhaling, exhaling until his return.

  She had not understood that the mercy could come in powdered form as well, that it could be snuffed up the nose

  like the water for ablutions.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was just past nine in the morning when Wansbrough texted her. “Recd miss pers rept.”

  Nora ran up the back stairwell and arrived sweaty and panting.

  He shook his head. “We do have an elevator.”

  She flopped onto her chair, which skittered slightly on its wheels. “That elevator is why you’re so slow, old man.”

  “Speaking of speed, I read all the reports from last night. Nice going there.”

  Nora grinned. “Dewayne has a power track star on staff. I underestimated him.”

  “You guys talk to them yet?”

  She shook her head. “Both asked for lawyers. And so we wait. But what’s this about a missing persons report?”

  “Looks like your cappuccino strategy worked. Officer Mike Cook sent this over himself this morning. Usually takes two or three days before they connect the dots that way for us willingly.” He handed over the report. The black-and-white copy of the picture was slightly grainy, but it showed a woman in a paisley headscarf, a quiet smile adorning strong features. Nora peered at it thoughtfully, then scanned the paper. This woman’s mother had made the report late last night in what was, according to the report-taker, barely passable English. It was not normal that Hafsa al-Tanukhi, aged twenty-two, slept outside her home. She had not called to check in for over twenty-four hours.

  “What do you think?”

  Nora lifted her gaze slowly from the thin sheet of paper. “Our corpse’s outstanding feature at this point is her hair, and obviously I see no hair here.”

  “But the age matches. Background matches. Timing matches,” Wansbrough said.

  “To a T.”

  “Let’s go?”

  Nora glanced at the address. “Northeast. You drive.”

  He smiled at her, gathering his keys from atop his desk. “I let you drive us once, and you have some kind of fantasy that I might do it again? No, my sister. You just let that pretty Ford keep rotting in the garage downstairs.”

  She fell into step next to him, lingered a moment at the door to the stairwell, then followed him to the elevator bank when he ignored her. “What’s wrong with my driving?”

  “You drive like my crazy grandma,” he said immediately.

  “And how is that?”

  “You turn all the way around in your seat to check for cars before getting in the next lane. You never turn left when you can make it, only when there are no oncoming cars within a mile radius. And you can’t listen to music because it distracts you. These are the characteristics of ninety-year-old women drivers with humps and cataracts.”

  Nora punched the “L” button and glared at him, particularly peeved because everything he had said was accurate.

  The ride into Northeast Philadelphia was long and tedious. They had gotten off the jammed I-95, only to find that the inside streets were a chaos of repair crews and detours. When they arrived at the al-Tanukhi home, though, they took an extra few moments to talk.

  “I don’t want anyone to see that body who doesn’t have to,” she said. “We have to be absolutely certain. Can we ask them for a hair or something for a DNA test?”

  John thought for a moment. “It’s a good idea, not bad. If they’ll agree.”

  “If it is her, though, they’re gonna want to take possession of the body immediately. Muslims bury their dead right away. No chemicals.”

  John sighed. “We can’t do that, and she’s already been pumped full of preservatives if I know Watt. So far her body is the only evidence we have.”

  “I know,” Nora answered miserably. She stared for a while at the small, squat home. The door was decorated with a wreath of plastic autumn leaves. “We’ll have to stall, then.”

  It was almost ten thirty when they walked up the path and Wansbrough pushed the doorbell.

  It was not long before a man with a full salt-and-pepper beard pulled the door open. John and Nora showed him their badges. The man was of medium build, dressed in a button-down shirt that was starched and pressed but untucked; khaki pants; and Adidas flip-flops. He regarded the badges with a fierce frown, then ushered them in, muttering a perfunctory welcome.

  “Why did the FBI come and not the police?” he asked suspiciously.

  “We can explain that to you, sir,” John answered, his voice implying that they would need to sit down for such an explanation.

  They stood in expectant silence for a moment in the ceramic-tiled foyer, next to a crowded shoe rack. Then Nora looked pointedly at John.

  “Shall we remove our shoes?” he asked, and she could tell from the way he said it that he had no desire to do so.

  Their host clearly appreciated the question, though, and his frown eased slightly. “Yes, please,” he said. His English was heavily accented, and Nora knew with certainty he was Arab. She guessed Iraqi. She slipped out of her laceless Puma Osu Nms, and watched bemusedly as John unlaced and removed his shoes, then adjusted the tip of his right sock to hide the hole over his big toe.

  They entered an immaculate, if airless, sitting room. Nora was very still, taking everything in. Imitation Louis XV furniture, heavy glass coffee table, and handmade doilies … There were no pictures on the walls, only gold-embroidered Qur’anic verses in elaborate frames. A vase full of fake flowers sat on the mantel of a fireplace that was eerily clean.

  “I am Omar al-Tanukhi. Hafsa is my daughter.” He sat stiffly on the dainty couch as John and Nora took their places in the regal chairs on either side.

  Wansbrough checked his notebook, then said, “The person who made the police report was Hafsa’s mot
her, a Sanaa Faraj. Is she present?”

  She was. She had been waiting and listening, apparently, and she walked in as soon as her name was spoken. “I am Sanaa Faraj,” she said, carefully, as though she had plotted out the sounds before shaping the words. She wore a long abaya and a pale peach satin headscarf. She was plump, though not obese. Around her neck was a long gold chain, dangling with charms that bore the phrases, “What God Wills,” and “Thank God,” and the shape of a hand encrusted with slivers of cubic zirconium. Nora had at least fifty of these charms in her jewelry box, gifts from her grandmothers.

  Omar al-Tanukhi looked irritated at his wife’s sudden entrance, but also looked as though he had surrendered to her tsunamic emotional state. Sanaa Faraj’s eyelids were red and swollen, and she looked dangerously close to breaking down as she offered them something to drink.

  Both Nora and John declined. As the woman took her seat next to her husband on the gold-edged Louis Seize, Omar al-Tanukhi repeated his question. “My wife called the police. Why is the FBI here? Is it because we are Muslims?”

  Nora proffered her badge. “I am a police officer, Mr. al-Tanukhi,” she clarified. “We are part of a joint task force between the police, FBI, and local sheriff’s offices designed to keep Philadelphia’s streets safe.”

  Nora heard the father mutter in Arabic, “Look what they’ve sent us, a woman and a nigger.”

  Nora leaned forward, eyes narrowed, and said in very precise Arabic, “My partner is the best investigator in the FBI. I expect you will treat him with the respect he deserves, as he is the best chance you have for finding your daughter.”

  Omar al-Tanukhi stared at her for a charged moment, then lowered his gaze.