Page 26 of Zero Hour

She whirled around, sloshing wine onto the counter. Amir stood in the doorway, his eyes dark and unreadable. “You’re not messing with my head, are you?”

Her throat went dry. “No, of course not. Why would you think that?”

“Something Riad said. He doesn’t believe you’re being honest with me. He thinks you’re pretending to help me.”

Panic coiled in her gut. There was doubt in his dark eyes now. The beginning of something dangerous.

She forced herself to soften, to look concerned. “Amir, I promise you, I’m not messing with you.” Her voice was gentle, soothing—the same one she used with patients. “You have undiagnosed PTSD. You’ve had it for years. It’s been getting worse because you’ve had no support, no treatment. I’m trying my best to help you in the short time you’ve given me. Like you wanted. That was our agreement.”

A long beat. Eventually, he gave a slow, deliberate nod.

Forcing herself to relax, Jasmine picked up a vase of flowers and walked into the living room. To her disappointment, he followed.

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

She placed the vase down carefully. “Of course not.”

“Look at me, Jasmine.”

She turned, the pulse in her throat pounding.

“Tell me to my face you wouldn’t lie to me.”

She forced her gaze to meet his. “I’m not lying, Amir. I promise.”

God help her. These days, all she did was lie—to her son, to the hospital, to Amir. Thankfully, she had one hell of a poker face. That’s what came from training herself not to react to patients. She had to remain neutral.

He stepped closer and grabbed her arm. Not hard, but definitely firm.

“I hope you’re telling the truth.” His voice dropped. “For your son’s sake.”

A tremor ran through her. There it was. The real threat.

Jasmine ripped her arm free.

“You’ve made that perfectly clear, Amir.” Her voice was steady, but her stomach churned. “And I already told you I’ll stay here as long as you want me to. But you leave my son out of it.”

His eyes flickered, but he didn’t erupt. “Just make sure you uphold your side of the deal. And from now on, you only go out when I say so. I’m changing the alarm code.”

Jasmine forced a shrug. “Fine.”

Then she walked back into the kitchen. Not too fast. Not too slow. But it was all she could do to stop herself from collapsing.

CHAPTER 11

“Are you seeing this?” Anna poked her head into Pat’s office.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

For the last few minutes, he’d been glued to his laptop, watching the standoff between Al-Jabiri and Jasmine in the living room, trying to make out what they were saying. Before that, he’d caught a glimpse of Buzzard leaving the house.

“What we need is a lipreader,” he grumbled.

“I’ll see if I can find one,” she offered.

He glanced up, “It might be worth sending them that clip, and seeing what they find.”

“Copy that.” She left the room.

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