Chapters 7-9 Summary

In Chapter 7, Othman calls Nayir and asks him to accompany his private investigator into the desert. Nayir agrees but feels slighted that Othman has hired an additional investigator and does not feel that he can fully rely on him. In the desert, Nayir asks his friend Mutlaq, a Bedouin sand reader to read imprints around where the body was found.

What Mutlaq and Nayir discover is that Nouf most likely drowned in a big flood that filled the wadi she was found in. It rained about the same day that Nouf disappeared. They also learned that most likely she was carried down river by the force of the flood and was dropped upriver very close to a campsite that Nayir had taken the men in the family just a few months back. While Nayir and Mutlaq are examining the sand, the...