The Book That Kills.

- 15 -

Shams froze in the doorway as he saw Dawud, his mouth forming a surprised 'o' as he recognized the detective from the night before. One hand still gripped the door knob, the other held the key. He snapped out of his stupor a few moments later, his cheeks immediately turning deep red.

"Sorry," he sputtered, clearly flustered. "I didn't think anyone was home. I should have knocked."

"What are you doing here," Dawud asked suspiciously, "and how do you have a key?"

Shams gulped and nervously looked around. Not seeing anyone else, he slowly closed the front door and backed up against it, seeming intimidated by the questioning. He hated that he had been caught in a compromising situation; it made him seem like he was doing something wrong, like breaking into someone's apartment.

"Hasan left in a hurry this morning and forgot his assignment in my apartment," Shams explained. "He called me from class and asked if I could email him the soft copy from his laptop so he could print it from college. I offered to drop off the hard copy for him but the assignment's due at eleven and," he glanced at his watch, "there are only fifteen minutes left; if I don't hurry, the professor won't accept it."

"Explain the key."

"Hasan left it in my apartment along with his assignment. Like I said, he was in a hurry." There was a silence that made Shams uncomfortable, so he elaborated: "I thought no one was home; if I knew, I wouldn't have barged in like this. I feel terrible for not knocking. I wasn't trying to break in or anything, honest."

Shams waited for Dawud to reply. He didn't move, just in case the detective didn't believe him and pulled out a gun or something.

"You can call Hasan and ask him yourself," Shams offered. He reached into his pocket, took out his phone, and extended it towards the detective with shaking hands. "I'm telling you the truth, I promise."

Dawud hesitated momentarily before taking the phone from him and checking his call history; the most recent call was from Hasan, Omair's roommate, ten minutes ago. He dialled the number and put it on speaker. Shams shifted side to side as the phone started to ring, afraid his friend would get in trouble because of him. On the second ring, Hasan picked up.

"Dude, what's taking you so long?!" he yelled into the phone. "This professor already hates me and he'll have my head on a stick if I don't submit this on time! Have you found my laptop yet or not?"

"Hasan, it's Detective Dawud."

There was a brief pause. "Where's Shams? What have you done to him?"

"Shams is right here; he happened to come in searching for your laptop while I was here and, as a matter of fact," Dawud gave the 'go ahead' to Shams, who immediately lunged towards the couch where Hasan's laptop was lounging and switched it on, "he has already found it."

Dawud tilted the phone towards Shams who was working quickly to locate the specific assignment on Hasan's laptop but having a hard time doing so. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he said, "I don't know which file you want me to send, Hasan! You have, like, fifteen different documents open!"

"The file name," he replied. "Read me the file names!"

"Well, they're not much help. There's 'asdhcie' and 'xjdjdknf' and--they all seem to be keyboard smashes. You're not very organized, are you?"

"Shut up, I don't have time."

"What was the assignment about? Maybe I can--"

There was a frustrated sigh. Hasan wasn't entirely sure what the assignment was about; he had left it incomplete until this morning and then typed whatever he could just to meet the assigned word limit. He had just printed it out without even proofreading it!