Page 89 of Red Line

“We’re in a riad around the corner from Elena’s hotel.”

“Her hotel is in the Medina? That’s a surprise.” Red twisted in her seat to better face him. “At the ball, Joel said it was a five-star. Mmm, maybe he didn’t say five-star, but it was implied.”

“It is.” Nomad reached onto his dashboard to grab the parking ticket and headed toward the booth to pay. “Once you get inside, the hotel is luxurious. I had breakfast there this morning to check it out. I considered signing up for a spa day.” He sent her a grin.

“So now you know why I became a spy.” She adjusted his button-down shirt and flicked her hair out of the way.

Something about her wearing his shirt made him feel possessive of her. Like he’d planted a flag for other men to see. She chose me. Which wasn’t true at all. But the flash told Nomad where he was with his thoughts about Red, and he needed to watch that he kept those ideas internal.

Lives were on the line. His heart and libido be damned.

“All the spa treatments I get when following people around,” Red lifted her hand to cover a fake yawn. “It’s almost to the point of losing my appetite for pampering. So, the hotel—you were saying something about getting back there?”

“It’s buried in the labyrinth of alleys in the Medina. I can see how someone might like to experience the Medina's color and bustle and then be able to wend back away from the crowds to luxury.”

“Hmm,” Red wrinkled her nose. “The way you say that tells me ours—"

“Is not quite as luxurious, no.” He offered a wry smile. “It’s a riad, so the typical set up of rooms surrounding an open courtyard. Our riad has an orange tree in the middle with ripened fruit. Orange and green against cobalt blue tiles.”

“Picturesque”

“Also loud. We’re going to have to be extraordinarily careful in maintaining our cover. Those tile floors and walls are great for dealing with the heat and cleaning up the dirt and sand, but the hard surfaces coupled with the old doors that don’t quite sit into their jambs correctly—”

“The sounds travel. Yes, I remember that from my previous stays in Morocco. Okay, so does that mean we should stage some tiff to sell our cover? Maybe I can be angry at you that you left your socks on while you were seducing me.”

Nomad’s eyes glittered. “An infraction I couldn’t imagine.” Scooters roared up and dodged around their car to speed off into the distance. “Elena is meeting with Joel and Kamal at the garden tomorrow.”

“You have the time?” Red asked.

“Fifteen hundred.”

“Right after nap.”

“Ha.” Nomad adjusted his rearview mirror. “Now, as to what I’ve found out. There’s a married couple that Elena met up with for breakfast this morning.”

“That’s right, breakfast. Did they spot you?”

“I was drinking my Turkish coffee behind a column with a large palm.”

“Nice. And the couple—”

“Is pretending to be Parisian tourists. But their French is Lebanese.”

Red closed her eyes as an elderly woman stepped off the curb and walked out into the six lanes of traffic that were going forty miles an hour. It was a Moroccan skill crossing the street, and every time it felt death-defying. “You recorded their conversation?” she asked, blinking her eyes open again.

“I did. The two women will visit the Mouassine Hammam before Elena meets Kamal.”

“Interesting.” Red looked at her lap as she focused on that information. “Her hair’s going to be wet.”

“Why is that interesting?”

“Kamal wanted to make a video of the exchange. Joel told Elena about that at the ball. And she put her foot down, no video.”

“That’s a shame because I spent quite a bit of time today in the Secret Garden making sure every square inch is covered with audio-video equipment so no one and nothing would be lost. What has that got to do with wet hair?”

“Joel wanted her to be beautiful. If she put on a headscarf and he forced her to remove it, she’d have dripping wet hair. It wouldn’t look nice for the video. That particular hammam is right outside the garden entrance, which may be a minute’s walk away.”

Nomad thought that listening to a spy go through their thought process would be a valuable opportunity for him to learn. “There’s a hammam at the spa in her hotel. Why would staging at the Mouassine make sense?”

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