Untangling the Web

Chapter 9

By the time Reyhan starts dozing off on Emir's arm, the three of them had done as much as they could that evening.

"Let's call it a night," Zafer suggests. "There's not much more we can do until we get the information Kemal abi and Suna's doctor promised to send."

Those had been interesting conversations, to say the least. They had first called Kemal to let him know their suspicions about Cemre being the one to set the fire at the mountain cabin. He'd had an investigator looking into the fire, but without much success because there was no place to start. Now that there's a suspect, they can look into traffic cameras to see if her car was spotted anywhere near the cabin around the time of the fire. Although with the cabin being so remote, the best they could expect to get would be footage of her car going that direction and coming back. Once the main highway ended, so would the traffic cam footage. There wouldn't be any video evidence of her being at the cabin.

There was also a mysterious and anonymous call to 911 that day reporting a fire. But the caller - a woman - ended the call without giving any details. The investigators are trying to get a copy of the recording to see if the voice belongs to Cemre. But even if it does, what will that prove? The problem is that short of Cemre confessing to setting the fire, there isn't really a way to prove she did it.

Proof of the fire isn't really what they're waiting on from Kemal, however. The investigators Kemal had worked with over the summer to prove Emir innocent of the fake affair stopped their search once they had the woman's name and confession. This time they're searching deeper to see if Cemre has any connection with the woman. Again, the information may not be solid proof that Cemre hired the woman to set Emir up, but Emir has to admit that all these coincidences are starting to seem suspicious.

After setting Kemal's investigators to their tasks, they next listened to Reyhan's story about the drugs.

"I got suspicious because of Suna's strange attachment to Cemre when I came back home," she had explained. "Suna just wasn't acting right and I began to wonder if she was taking her medication at all. I noticed her pills running low when she should have had plenty. Then the next day, I noticed Cemre with a guy in front of the house. She looked like she was buying something from him. And that day, Suna's pills had mysteriously been replenished."

"You think Cemre was buying drugs from him?" Emir had wondered. "And you didn't say anything then?"

"You hated me," Reyhan had quietly reminded him, a heartbreaking sadness in her voice. "You had already warned me to mind my own business."

Emir had winced when he remembered how he treated her.

She continued to explain how she managed to get one of the pills tested at the pharmacy and learning they weren't at all what Suna should have been taking. How she tried to take the pills to the police, but Cemre dumped them down the drain instead. How the drug test mysteriously came back clean.

That's where Suna's doctor came into this little investigation of theirs. Emir had called him to try to make sense of the test results. What the doctor told him was the most suspicious of all. And it may just be the nail in Cemre's coffin. He had promised to get back to them when he confirmed his suspicions.

Just when they were headed off to bed, the doctor called back, a strange excitement in his voice.

"Emir Bey, I'm sorry to call so late. But you presented me with such a puzzling scenario that I couldn't help but investigate immediately!"

"Go ahead, Doctor. We're listening."

Emir set the phone to speaker mode and sets it in the middle of the table so they all can hear."

"Yes. Okay, then. Let's lay this all out," he starts, getting a professorial tone in his voice. "Over the summer while you, your mother, and your wife were away from the home, a caretaker was responsible for Suna hanim and administered all her medications. Is that correct?"

They didn't want to have Cemre's name floating around too many places. So they just referred to her as the caretaker when speaking with the doctor. When they confirm he's got it all right so far, he continues.

"But upon returning to the home, you, Reyhan hanim, began to suspect the caretaker of giving the wrong medication while the caretaker insisted on giving the right medication. So you all ordered a drug test, the results of which could not verify Reyhan hanim's suspicions. But they also didn't support the caretaker's account, either."

That gets Emir's attention.

"I don't get it. What exactly are you saying?" he asks in confusion.

"What I'm saying," the doctor says, "is that the drug test was clean. None of the medication Reyhan hanim suspected the caretaker was giving showed up. But also absent in the results were the medication the caretaker claimed she was giving. So either your caretaker was lying about giving Suna hanim her medication or ..."

"Or the drug test results were falsified," Emir finishes for him, finally understanding what's happening. He saw with his own eyes how Suna was taking what he thought were her normal pills. He knows for a fact that medication should have shown up on the drug test results.

"That would be my conclusion. Someone changed the results of the drug test," the doctor agreed. "But their mistake was removing all traces of any of the medications in Suna hanim's system. Even the ones that were supposed to be there. To a professional, these results make no sense."

Emir looks around the table at the equally stunned faces staring back at him. What has Cemre been doing? Rather, what else has Cemre been doing? And how has Emir missed all the signs pointing to his so called best friend being so deceitful?

He takes Reyhan's hand and places a kiss on the back. He can't help but wonder what else she has endured because of Cemre. Or how he's ever going to make it up to her.