It made her nervous, watching him play with her camera. It was a good camera but not the most expensive on the market. However the pictures were important and the memory disk was full. She’d planned on putting in a new disk today, after she left the market.
“Tell me what you’re looking for,” she said now, careful to keep her voice calm, “and I’ll show you.”
He ignored her. Instead he opened the cover and then slid open the memory card slot. She watched as he tapped the small blue memory card, popping it out. Tally dug her nails into her hands. The card was tiny, looked like nothing, and yet it was everything to her. Her work, her life, her future.
“That’s more or less the film,” she said. “It’s a digital camera which means it uses a memory card instead of 35 millimeter film.”
He held the blue card up, twisting it one way and then the other.
Her heart was in her throat. It was as if he held her whole life in his hands. “I know it’s very small, but it holds hundreds of photos.”
“Are there hundreds of photos here?”
Reluctantly she nodded.
“Do you have other cards?” he asked.
Tally chewed on the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want to tell him that she had months of work on the memory cards, hundreds and hundreds of photos she hadn’t managed to download to her editors in New York or save to CD-ROM yet. Everything she’d done since April was on the memory cards in the camera bag and her hotel room. “Yes.”
“Where are they?”
Oh God. He wasn’t going to take them from her, was he? He wasn’t going to destroy her work? “Why?”
He shrugged. “They’re just pictures. You don’t need them. It’s not why you’re here. You’re a tourist. You’re here for the experience, not photographs.”
She exhaled so hard and sharp it hurt. Her eyes burned. She fought to remain calm. “But the photos are important. They help me remember where I’ve been and what I’ve seen.”
“You seem anxious,” he said, slipping the memory card back into the camera and clicking the card-slot door closed.
She was anxious. She was trembling. “Can I please have my camera back?”
“Maybe. When I’m finished. But you’ll get it back without the memory card.”
“The camera won’t work without it.”
“You can always buy new ones.”
“But I’ll lose everything I’ve done.”
“They sell postcards in town. Buy those on your way home.” He turned to leave but she rushed toward him.
“Please,” she cried, stopping herself from touching him, knowing instinctively that that would be bad. She was already in trouble. She couldn’t risk offending him more than she already had. “Please don’t erase my photos. I’ll show them to you. I’ll explain the camera to you—”
“I haven’t time,” he interrupted turning to walk away. “Dinner will be brought to you soon. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” Tally’s heart raced, fueled by fear and fury. It was a maddening combination and her hands shook from the adrenaline of it. “You’re going to leave me here until tomorrow? And then what happens? Will you give me my camera back then, and the film?”
“Dinner will be brought soon,” he repeated tonelessly.
But Tally wouldn’t simply be dismissed. She didn’t understand what any of this was about. She’d paid her guides good money and yet when the shots rang out in the medina this morning, the men had just left her. They ran. Well, both ran. One was shot. She shivered in remembrance. “What is it that you want with me?”
“We’ll talk after I’ve gone through your pictures.”
“You won’t delete anything, will you?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“What I find.” His dark head nodded. “Good night.”
Tally threw herself on her low bed, buried her face in the pillow and howled with rage. He could not do this! He could not!
She couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. What he did was wrong, and unjust.
In his tent, Tair slouched low in his chair, closed his eyes, doing his best to shut out the American woman ranting in the tent not far from his.
She needed to accept her fate more gracefully. Surrender with dignity. He was almost tempted to tell her so, too, but she might perceive it as some hard won victory and he wouldn’t get her the satisfaction.
First she’d yield.
Then he’d show mercy.
Not the other way around.
Besides, his father had kidnapped his wife—Tair’s own mother—and his father was a good man. Decent. Fair. Well, fair enough.
Eventually the American woman would realize that Tair was just as decent, if not fair.
Tally ended up crying herself to sleep. She didn’t remember falling asleep, just weeping and punching her pillow. But now it was morning and opening her eyes, she stretched.
Her eyes still burned from the tears and it took a moment for her to focus. Tiredly her gaze settled on the small chest at the side of the bed. Oh God. She was still here. The tent. The encampment. Tair’s world.
It wasn’t just a bad dream. It was a bad reality.
Groaning Tally stretched an arm down, reached for the pillow that had fallen from her bed and bunched it under her cheek.
Okay. Last night she’d fallen apart. Today was strategy. Today she’d get her camera and film back. It was hers, after all, not his.
Already dressed in her thin cotton khaki slacks and white shirt, Tally left her tent in search of answers. Like who the hell was in charge of Ouaha.
Stalking out of her tent, she felt the intense desert sun pour over her, blinding her, scorching her almost immediately from head to toe. It was hot. A blistering heat, a heat unlike anything she’d ever known, either, and she’d been in some hot places before. The Brazilian jungle. The Outback in January. Marfa, Texas in July.
“Lady!” An elderly Berber man rushed toward her. He was thin, slight and stooped but he moved quickly. “Lady!” he repeated urgently, gesturing to the tent flap.
Tally felt the corner of her mouth lift in a faint, dry smile. She was supposed to go back inside the tent, sit and wait like a good little girl, wasn’t she?
The corner of her mouth lifted in an even drier smile. Too bad she wasn’t a good little girl anymore.
The old Berber turned and ran, and Tally suspected he’d gone in search of Tair. Good. She wanted to see him.
But as Tally passed one tent, she spotted on a chest outside another tent a leather case that looked suspiciously like her camera bag. Tally glanced around, no one was near by, everyone busy with tasks elsewhere and took several steps closer.
It was her camera bag and it was partially unzipped. She could see her camera tucked inside.
Tally sucked in a breath. The camera was so damn close. She had to get it back. At the very least, she had to get the memory card out before the bandit destroyed any photos.
Crouching down next to the chest, Tally pulled her camera from the bag, opened the card slot, popped the memory card out, closed the slot, dropped the camera back into the bag and stood up to return to her tent.
But suddenly