Read Online The Merchant of Secrets by Caroline Lowther - Free Book Online

in
shades of pale blue and green.
     
    “This is pretty feminine for a guy,” I said. 
     
    ‘No,” she replied “he sleeps in the bedroom across the
hall, he works late at night and doesn’t want to keep me awake so he sleeps
over there.” She pointed to the other bedroom painted in brown. My adrenaline
shifted gears and I sensed that the investigation just got new life. The room
was immaculate except for a small collection of pictures of Sara on the
dresser. The closet had 4 suits 4 pairs of shoes, and a modest collection of
shirts and ties. The bathroom was empty except for some shaving cream and a
razor. No hair products, skin creams or other things that a man so interested
in his own appearance would have had spread out over the counter top and in the
shower.
     
    “Sara, it looks like he barely lives here,” I said.
     
    “Oh I’ve tried to get him to buy some new clothes but he
just prefers to wear the same clothes over and over again.” I looked at her,
she looked back at me, and we both knew that we had stumbled upon something.
     
    “What kind of business is he conducting late at night?” I
asked as I was hurrying down the stairs to my car.
     
    “I don’t know, I can’t understand what he’s saying, he’s
not speaking in English.”
    “Is he using your landline, or his own phone? Where’s his
computer by the way?”
    “He uses his own phone,” she replied “and doesn’t use a
laptop here, just his smartphone with a key pad.”
    “Do you have any of his papers? Bank
statements? Correspondence? Anything
like that? “
    “No, he keeps everything in a locked briefcase that he
takes with him,” she replied. 
    “Where is he now?”
    “At the club. He went there to
meet someone, and then he’s going to get the oil changed on the car.”  
     
    At my request she wrote down his email address and the
license plate number from the car on a piece of paper. Sara was getting very
worried but she knew she could rely on me, the bonds
of childhood last forever.   
     
     I drove to the club in Washington D.C. and pulled
my vehicle behind a bush to stay out of view from the widows. I set my phone at
the camera setting to be ready when Qureshi came into
view. A homeless man approached my vehicle and I lowered the window to give him
a $50 bill.  It made him happy and he left. It didn’t take long for Qureshi to emerge from the back entrance of the club.
 He slid his gym bag in the back seat of his luxury car before stepping in
and closing the door.  He pulled out of the parking lot nearly running
over the same homeless man who now cautiously approached his car.  It was
difficult to decipher where he was going ;  Sara had said that he was going to a garage to get the oil changed but instead of
taking the American Legion bridge in the direction of her house he took the Key
bridge to Arlington, Virginia, turning onto George Washington Parkway in the
direction of  McLean, and finally coming to a stop at a car dealership.
     
    I pulled in to a coffee shop conveniently located across
the street from the dealership and went inside to get a cup of coffee. Oil
changes take a while so I figured there was plenty of time.  I returned to
my car and started shifting around in the driver’s seat to get comfortable for
the wait, when suddenly, Qureshi’s car  slipped
discretely out of the rear entrance of the dealership. The next step of the
investigation was certainly in that building so I picked up the phone and
called Sara.
     
    “How often does he get his oil changed?”
    Sara replied “I don’t know, but he takes very good care
of his car”.
    “What do you mean?”
    ‘Well, he goes to get it fixed a lot,” she said.
    “How often?” I asked.
    “About every two weeks.”
    That was it. Qureshi’s connection to whatever he was doing, worked at the dealership.
     
    The next Saturday Qureshi emerged from the club just as he had done the week before, but with a different
gym bag. It didn’t make