Finding Nouf by Zoë Ferraris Page B

searching had worn him down, and that, followed by the blow of Nouf's death, had created a tight knot in his gut—anger at the family for being so secretive and at himself for not having found her. A strong part of him wished he could go back to the desert tonight and spend a few days relaxing with no one to bother him. But he would keep his word to Othman and wait for the private investigator to call.
    They were standing in front of a wide wooden door that led into the stables.
    "How is the camel they found in the desert?" Nayir asked. "I heard she was having some problems."
    Amad hesitated. Nayir could tell that he'd raised an awkward subject. "No problems," the keeper said. "She's fine. Who told you that?"
    "My mistake." Nayir reached into his pocket for a miswak. Amad squinted, watching his movements. It was a wonder the old man didn't wear glasses.
    "It's terrible what happened to the girl," Nayir said.
    "Yes. I'm sorry for their loss."
    Nayir was struck by the man's sudden reserve. He put the miswak in his mouth and took another look at the courtyard. "The Shrawi girl who disappeared—she spent a lot of time with the camels," he said.
    Amad eyed him—suspiciously, he thought. "She liked animals. She was down here a lot, with her escort usually. Or she came with her brother. All the girls come down to visit the camels, but that one especially." Amad peered vaguely at the gate.
    "But it's strange, isn't it?" Nayir said. "I can't imagine how she managed to get a camel into, what, a pickup truck? That seems a big job for a young girl like that."
    "Well, don't go looking too carefully now." Amad spat on the ground and looked up at the house. "Ask me, this is one of those things better left in the dark."
    "Why do you say that?"
    "I've learned one thing here: when you enter the house of the blind, you put out your eyes. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to unload the last of the feed."
    Nayir watched Amad enter the stable with one hand touching the wall and the other groping nervously. "Got to fix that light," he muttered as the darkness swallowed him.
    Feeling oddly exposed, Nayir looked back at the garden gate, but Othman was still gone. From behind he heard a scratching noise and turned to see a woman striding out of the stables. She had a sturdy build, was about as wide as Nayir, and her movements had a confidence that he recognized in people who spent time in the desert. She was, he felt certain, the keeper's daughter.
    When she saw him, she raised a hand to her face, which was unveiled. A black crest of hair fell over her cheek. Nayir couldn't help noticing the enormous bruise above her left eye before she skittered through a doorway in the stone wall to his right and disappeared.
    Perhaps someone had overpowered her to steal the camel, but who would knock out the daughter when the father would have been so much easier to handle, being elderly and half blind as he was? It might have been a matter of necessity. Maybe the daughter stumbled on Nouf—or her kidnapper. He wondered anxiously if Othman knew anything about it, and if so, why he hadn't men
tioned it. Nayir wished there were a way he could talk to the girl.
    The camel, however, wasn't taboo. Glancing one last time at the garden gate, Nayir crept behind the stable door and waited for Amad to leave. Propped against the building were half a dozen long planks and a clutch of lead pipes. The planks were lighter than they looked; it would have been easy for Nouf, or someone else, to use them as a ramp for getting a camel into the back of a truck. Nayir picked up a pipe. It was heavy enough to knock someone out. He studied each one, but none of them had traces of blood. It also looked as if none had been cleaned recently. They were covered with thousands of tiny, soft splinters from the cedar chips that were strewn on the ground, just like the chip Miss Hijazi had found in Nouf's head wound.
    He heard Amad grumbling within. Moments later the keeper came out, calling his