Desert Hearts. Sandra Marton

tried to talk to him. Not once. Not twice. Many, many times. He’d spoken of responsibility. Of duty. Of honor.

      Rami’s reply had always been the same, and always delivered with a grin.

      “Not me,” he’d say. “I’m just the spare, not the heir.”

      After a while they hadn’t seen much of each other. And now—

      Now Rami was dead.

      Dead, Karim thought.

      His belly knotted.

      His brother’s body had been flown home from Moscow and laid to rest with all the panoply befitting a prince.

      Their father had stood stiffly at his grave.

      “How did he die?” he’d asked Karim.

      And Karim, seeing how fragile the older man had become, had lied.

      “An automobile accident,” he’d told him.

      It was almost true.

      All he’d left out was that Rami had evidently met with his cocaine dealer, something had gone wrong, the man had slit his throat and a dying Rami had wandered into the path of an oncoming car.

      And why go over it again? The death was old news. Soon “tying up loose ends” would be old news, too.

      One last stop. A handful of things to sort out—

      A dull rumble vibrated through the plane. The landing gear was being deployed. As if on signal, the flight attendant materialized at the front of the cabin.

      Karim waved her off. He wasn’t in the mood for her misplaced look of compassion. All he wanted was to put this mess behind him.

      Moments later, they landed.

      He rose to his feet and reached for his attaché case. Inside it was what he thought of as the final folder. It held letters from three hotels, expressing sympathy on Rami’s death and reminders that he had run up considerable bills in their casinos and shops.

      There was also a small envelope that contained a key and a slip of paper with an address scrawled on it in Rami’s hand.

      Had he considered putting down some kind of roots here?

      Not that it mattered, Karim thought grimly. It was too late for roots or anything else that might have resembled a normal life.

      He’d get an early start tomorrow, pay his brother’s bills, then locate the place that went with the key, pay whatever was due—because surely the rent was in arrears despite the lack of a dunning letter.

      And then all this would be behind him.

      His chief of staff had arranged for a rental car and for a suite at one of the city’s big hotels.

      The car had a GPS; Karim selected the name of the hotel from a long list and drove toward the city.

      It was close to one in the morning, but when he reached the Las Vegas Strip it blazed with light. Shops were open; people were everywhere. There was a frenzy to the place, a kind of circus atmosphere of gaiety Karim didn’t quite buy into.

      At the hotel, a valet took his car. Karim handed the kid a twenty-dollar bill, said he was fine with carrying his own things, and headed into the lobby.

      The metallic sounds of slot machines assaulted his ears.

      He made his way to the reception desk through a crowd of shrieking and laughing revelers. The clerk who greeted him was pleasant and efficient, and soon Karim was in an elevator, on his way to the tenth floor along with two women and a man. The man stood with an arm around each of the women; one had her hand on his chest, the other had her tongue in his ear.

      The elevator doors whisked open. Karim stepped out.

      The sooner he finished his business here, the better.

      His suite, at least, was big and surprisingly attractive.

      Within minutes he’d stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower. He let the hot water beat down on his neck and shoulders, hoping that would drive away some of the weariness.

      It didn’t.

      Okay. What he needed was sleep.

      But sleep didn’t come. No surprise. After two weeks of coming into cities he knew would hold yet additional ugly truths about his brother, sleep had become more and more elusive.

      After a while, he gave up.

      He had to do something. Take a walk. A drive. Check out the hotels where Rami had run up enormous bills—this place, he had made certain, was not one of them. Maybe he’d drive by the flat his brother had leased. He could even stop, go inside, take a quick look around.

      Not that he expected to find anything worth keeping, but if there was something personal, a memento that said something good about Rami’s wasted life, their father might want it.

      Karim put on jeans, a black T-shirt, sneakers and a soft black leather bomber jacket. Deserts were cold at night, even ones that arrowed into the heart of a city whose glow could be seen for miles.

      He opened his attaché case, grabbed the key and noted the scribbled address. A tag that read “4B” hung from the key itself. An apartment number, obviously.

      The valet brought him his car. Karim handed him another twenty. Then he entered the address into the GPS and followed its directions.

      Fifteen minutes later, he reached his destination.

      It was a nondescript building in a part of the city that was as different from the Las Vegas he’d so far seen as night from day.

      The area was bleak and shabby, as was the building itself …

      Karim frowned. He’d connected to global positioning satellites often enough to know that when they worked they were great and when they didn’t you could end up in the middle of nowhere.

      Yes, but this was the correct address.

      Had Rami run out of the ability to talk himself into the best hotels at some point during his time here?

      There was only one way to find out.

      Karim got out of the car, locked it, and headed toward the building.

      The outside door was unlocked. The vestibule stank. The stairs creaked; he stepped in something sticky and tried not to think about what it might be.

      One flight. Two. Three, and there it was, straight ahead. Apartment 4B, even though the “4” hung drunkenly to the side and the “B” was upside down.

      Karim hesitated.

      Did he really want to do this tonight? Was he up to what was surely going to be a dirty hovel? He remembered the time he’d flown out to the coast to visit Rami when he was in school. Dirty dishes in the sink and all over the counters. Spoiled food in the refrigerator. Clothes spilling out of the hamper.

      “Goddammit,” he said, under his breath.

      The truth was, he didn’t give a crap about the apartment being dirty. What mattered was that it would be filled with Rami’s things. The hotel rooms had not been; the hotels had all removed his brother’s clothes, his toiletries, and put them in storage.

      This would be different.

      And he was a coward.

      “A damned coward,” he said, and he stepped purposefully forward, stabbed the key into the lock, turned it—

      The door swung open.

      The first thing he noticed was the smell—not of dirt but of something pleasant. Sugar? Cookies?

      Milk?

      The second thing was that he wasn’t alone. There was someone standing maybe ten feet away …

      Not someone.

      A woman. She stood